Sleepaway Camp 2 : Unhappy Campers
Sleepaway Camp franchise
I’ve long heard Hellraiser fans lament the fact that in Hellraiser 3, the character of Pinhead kind of got changed from a surreal judge and turned into a flat-out slasher. Moreover, they always talk about how Freddy gets more jokey in the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, and how the whole series starts to get watered down.
I shake my head and tell them “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Sleepaway Camp 2 has very little to do thematically or aesthetically with the original. There’s no mystery or intrigue going on here, this is a straight up slasher film designed to maximize boobs and blood. It’s a perfectly predictable formula and barely feels like it’s got any connection to the previous film at all. Even Felssa Rose is absent from the title role. It was such a different reading of the character, that when she auditioned it didn’t quite work for producers. Just as well, as shed been planning to attend college around that time anyhow.
Counselors from camp Rolling Hills telling scary stories around the fireplace, but one of them comes up says you know I know the story about this one girl from the camp about 60 miles from here… And begins to tell the story of Angela Baker. Good recap in 30 seconds of that film, which sets us up nicely in the mythology and continuity. The story ends with Angela being released, advance of this film.
Of course it’s easy to tell where she’s going to come in, she’s already in sconce at camp Rolling Hills as a counselor, with a habit of “sending bad campers home.” Like any good slasher, we get our first kill within the first five minutes.
Angela’s portrayed as a stuffy, prissy counselor, the sort of one who is obsessed with rules and wants nothing more than to just exist here in the camp. She explaines away her first victem’s disappearance as happy to send her home because she was behaving inappropriate, trying to seduce every boy in the camp!
It’s mostly older campers that we’re seeing here, 18-year-olds who are old enough to provide the requisite nudity and keep the censors from getting too uptight about having too many dead children in the film.
She attracts the attention of one of the other counselors, a bigger guy with a glorious 
golden mullet who is trying to get to know her, but she’s mysteriously distant! Over at the pool, teenagers are on the make, while in the woods, Angela secretly stalks looking for evil doers. She finds a couple of girls getting drunk and stoned, and we definitely know who’s going to get “sent home” next. Pam Springsteen is definitely trying something here, delivering straight faced and campy lines as she torches the bad girl alive. It’s definitely her and take on the character in an attempt to emulate the one-liners you see from other cinematic killers of the era such as Freddy Kruger, but it does come up a little goofy.
That night, Angela is off to a camp counseler meeting, we have to get some camp shenanigans in with a panty raid and the boys generally terrorizing the girls in a fun and flirty way. Angela comes back and is furious, putting on the wicked witch of the west attitude. She insists, she’s just trying to keep everyone safe, because she knows what happens at Camp when things get… out of hand. The girls of course decide to take revenge and raid the boys cabin. It’s actually a fun case of turnabout, but only angers Angela further. Time to send another camper home! This is why you should never flash the boys at summer camp.
The next morning at breakfast, Golden Mullet mentions that there’s some things that have gone missing. Things like 50 feet of rope, an electric drill, and the battery to his car. It’s a great bit of atmosphere, played for laughs but setting up where Angela’s getting the materials for her murders. Outside, one of the other counselors seeks out Angela for advice, because she’s shy and Angela used to be shy… but now you can’t get her to shut up. It’s clunky but a nice backhanded connection to the original film.
Soon enough though, we’re back to camp shenanigans to pad out the time between murders, this time arts and crafts. Of course the boys are painting a hockey mask… 
Although to be fair it’s more like the mask from Bloody Murder than it is Friday the 13th. It comes into play later on that evening, as the boys use that and an homemade Freddy glove to prank the girls at a campfire, but guess who gets a hold of that Freddy glove? Once Angela dispatches the first boy with his own glove, she turns her attentions to our faux Jason. This time she shows up wearing the other boys face as a mask and wielding a chainsaw! It may be the high point of the film, a great homage to the other horror classics of the time and clocking in right about halfway through. It also justifies the image they use for the movie poster… though curiously enough, that’s not actually ammo Springsteen she was unavailable that day so they used an entirely different model named Connie Craig.
Elsewhere, a couple of campers are getting it on, so it’s time for Angela to go back to work! Sadly, the chainsaw is out of gas and Angela looks so annoyed as her prey gets away.
As we roll into the third act, Golden Mullet starts noticing too many people missing, and for her part, Angela is beginning to spiral out of control, killing one girl just because she talks too much, and another to protect her cover. The dormitory is almost empty, just 
Angela and one other girl now, our final girl who figures out Angela’s secret as she remembers the folk tales from the opening of the film.
Angela gets fired because she is “sending too many people home”. Meanwhile, final girl and her boyfriend discover Angela’s secret cache… ashed she’s been storing her victims in… remember this is a slasher, and we’ve got to hit the tropes! Soon enough, our final girl will then get captured, escape, find a knife and fight for her life! But first, here comes Golden Mullet to the rescue, just in time! Just in time for a face full of battery acid that is…
When our final girl falls down a cliff, Angela just assumes she’s dead and it’s back to the camp to kill everybody else. But as night falls, the final girl wakes up in time to make it to the road and try and hitch a ride away from this nightmare. Just her luck, the first car to come along is Angela, making her escape from the cam! Cut to black and an appropriate 1988 rock song.
This is as fun as any 80’s slasher. It’s creative kills with buckets of blood and a general sense of fun to it. Even though it never quite feels like it’s part of the Sleepaway Camp story, they still try their best to connect back to it and remind us that Angela is the same person as that little girl from 1980. Pamela Springsteen does her best to make the rle her own, a wise move knowing that as soon as Sleepaway Camp two wrapped, she be headed right over to Sleepaway Camp three, shot back to back.
Marry Me
Yeah, I know. Some regular readers to this blog will be spitting out their morning coffee in shock. What on Earth am I doing reviewing a Jennifer Lopez movie? Even more importantly, What am I doing liking it!? Well sometimes over the weekend, the wife gets a hold of the TV. What can you do? Welcome as she threw on one of her ubiquitous rom com… a wedding one no less, And rather than head back to the library for a game of pool, I decided to watch it with her.
One of the first things that caught my eye was some of the talent. Owen Wilson can be really good when hes given the right roles. The trick is to let him lean into the earnest average guy thing he does so well, without letting him tip over into the awe shucks so naive it’s stupid persona that he too frequently find himself in. Sarah Silverman was right there on screen with him as well. Like Wilson, she’s hit or miss for me. I enjoy her when she’s playing somebody who’s a genuinely bad person that you still want to be around. As long as it’s not trying to normalize or justify her behavior, the baby voice saying horrible things schtick actually works well. I’m not nearly as familiar with John Bradley, but hes playing a Nick Frost type, so I’m pretty well drawn in. As long as we ignore the fact that it’s directed by the same person who did She Hu
lk, we’ll be fine.
Jennifer Lopez is about to get married to Bastion… a Latino singer, one of those guys straight out of the early 2000s Ricky Martin mold. But just before she goes on for their wedding concert, she discovers he’s been cheating on her and picks a random person out of the audience to marry insted… that would be Owen Wilson, carrying a sign that his lesbian best friend unloaded on him while she swooned. We get a nice fish out of water story for both Lopez and Wilson, the superstar singer, and the simple math teacher. Lopez is basically playing herself, and we get a lot of music through this film. That’s actually a really good thing… playing into her strengths and actually giving me some new appreciation for her 
talent. The chemistry between Lopez and Wilson builds and there’s plenty of fun moments, Definitely enough charm and laughter to keep the guys who are going to see this with their girlfriends engaged.
At the end of the day, it’s well done, fun and a little bit heartwarming with some genuinely good music. I couldn’t be more surprised at how much I liked it. It’s not the sort of thing that I’m going to run out and get A DVD of…. indeed, I can’t really see us ever watching it again. But for a nice date night movie, you could do worse.
The Apocalypse
Apocalypse starts off with campers watching a shooting star. Well, it’s not just a shooting star, it’s not just a little meteor, it’s the end of the world! Teeny fiery meteors falling from the sky, killing people individually with the smaller ones, and smashing houses with the bigger ones, until finally one large enough to destroy a city vaporizers Monterey.
We are introduced to A park ranger and his estranged wife, who’re trying to get to their daughter and her college friends down in LA. But right now they have got bigger worry… Toxic ash and a landslide near their home, And a tornado near their daughters. Even stranger, people are vanishing.
is just a tornado here and there superimposed on the background. A sinkhole… CG cracks in the street. People huddling in the wreckage, but no real spectacular destruction. Even when L.A. gets flooded by title waves… It’s quick and terrible CGI. Oh, and everyone dies at the end when the big one hits.Hack!
Former Wonder Years star (and current Hallmark/Lifetime movie darling) Danica McKellar stars in Hack as a bookworm who just kind of fades in to the background of her local college. It makes her perfect as an envoy for a pair of psychopathic fans who use her to lure a class of film students out of their private island under the guise of an extra credit project. Once there, the film students, who are all pretty much horror stereotypes are slaughtered one by one until we come up to an ending that will leave you shaking your head.
In a lot of ways, hack is a very meta film. However it doesn’t wear it’s heart on its sleeve, and it still manages to take it self seriously enough that you never feel like it’s about to develop into parody… though it skirts the edge and comes danger close a few times.
In the end, Hack is a great celebration of horror tropes and more than a little bit of bloody fun.
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Assistant (Dirty Work)
Assistant is a strange film, unlike anything Louisa Warren has done. What makes it stranger is that it’s her first directorial attempt, and while I can see some of her DNA in it, it’s not the sort of horror or fantastic storytelling I usually associate with her.
It’s a story of a young woman who is trying to break into the fashion industry, and lands a job as a personal shopper for a new author. She quickly finds herself sinking into an S&M world of degradation and depravity. The film Effortlessly glides from the Devil wears Prada into Fifty Shades of Grey, into full on Eyes Wide Shut territory.
This is where things are a little unusual. Warren’s films never seem to have any nudity. There’s been sex in a lot of them, but it’s not generally designed me really titillating. Rather, it’s perfunctory and design to underscore a plot point. This film however, is definitely designed to be a erotic, particularly from a woman’s point of view. We have slow long shots over chiseled abs and statuesque features, with just a hint of 5 o’clock shadow. The truth is, it is central to this plot, even as the domination and sexuality goes more extreme.
Nevertheless, there’s also a feeling like the actual act isn’t dwelt upon. The imagery is, but It’s more about pretty pictures than the actual schtupping. It’s uncomfortable.
The film lacks the budget of a film like Sliver, to make it classy and respectful. Nevertheless, it never quite sinks to the level of porn. But the cheap lingerie and flat lighting does make it feel trashy. On the other hand, that may well be the intent. We spent a lot of time focusing on the eroticism. The film is built around that, but nevertheless, the third act still goes a little crazy. Pushing a crime of passion, and culminating in a climax that was predictable, is more than proficiently pulled off. There’s some intriguing machinations that play out, elevating this to more than just late night Cinemax fare.
I’m glad that I found this last. It goes by the name Dirty Work as well as Assistant, and I had a hard time locating it until it finally popped up on Tubi. The fact that there is a more recent film also called Assistant, didn’t help any. It’s a sort of movie I probably would’ve turned off very early on and never sought out this director again, but finding it at the end of my film reviews, it becomes an interesting juxtaposition of what Warren would do as she progressed as a filmmaker in her career. I can’t say its a recommend, unless you’re genuinely interested in where Louisa Warren came from as a director.
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
The House That Would Not Die
I had my suspicions about The House That Would Not Die from the word go considering it’s a Aaron Spelling production, and I feel a twinge of apprehension as I realize this is a television movie. Still Barbara Stanwyck is a good sign, and she’s playing opposite Kitty Winn as her niece Sarah . This young actress would go on to have parts in not only The Exorcist, but The Omen and The Exorcist 2 as well! It’s enough of a pedegree for me, so I hunker down and prepare to soldier through.
The film opens with us flying us through an old house with all the furniture covered while eerie music plays in the background. Through the window we can see the new owners pull up in a car, but it feels like you’re being watched.
The next door neighbor shows up and everybody seems astonished when they meet him. He seems friendly enough, and yet his obsession with the house is a little strange… Not to mention insisting they join him for dinner next-door that night.
All the neighborhood shows up and insists that they should have a seance in the new house. This, amid strange dreams and the purchase of a weird old painting from the junk shop that jumped off the wall and into the fire, start to ease us away from the whle soap opera feel the film and into some slightly more suspenseful elements. It’s still has all of the burnt soft camera lenses that we’re so used to from CBS TV movies in the 70s, as well 
as the powder blue tones of Paul Lynds television home.
Barbara Stanwyck‘s in for a good bit of abuse in this movie, getting attacked not only by the next-door neighbor, but also her niece as the spirits of the house possess both of them. As the film progresses, Sarah slips deeper and deeper into her possession, speaking in a different voice and acting strangely. The possessions gone far enough that even once they clean the house, Sarah still carries spirits with her, and the family must resort to an exorcism if they are ever to live in peace again. What happens though, if the exorcism fails? Ghosts in the house forever battle against each other through their human agents?
Like most television movies, it’s competent but not scary. It’s very much a product of its time, and have some interesting ideas, but ultimately fails to satisfy me. It seems like a very strange inclusion with the set, totally very different, while thematically some more. If you’re a fan of TV movies, you may enjoy this, otherwise I’d say skip this one.
Dark Haul
Sinister looking monks and a cursed birth… Dark Haul really kicks things off the right way doesn’t it?
The action starts immediately as A daemonic beast burst out of the pregnant woman and attacks everyone present. But it’s not just one creature she’s having birth to… There’s another baby still alive in the womb. Something less demonic… As long as you don’t look at the tail. Those two children are immortal, with the baby girl still retaining some connection to her winged demonic looking brother… Over nearly 3 centuries.
We shift to modern day with a SWAT team after something sinister, and a young woman running through a factory to try and escape it. Apparently the creature is broken free from prison and the team is there to contain it. It’s fast, moving in the shadows and sliding through the building with minimal noise. Of course because this is a sci-fi movie, the creature is a bad CGI creation. It’s best left in the shadows.
The sister it seems, is also prisoner of this group, and has managed to escape in the confusion. Perhaps prisoner is too strong a word. While she’s held by them, she’s acting more as a collaborator, trying to control her brother.
The plan now is to move the whole operation, her and the beast in the priests that and present it to a sacred land in Pennsylvania where they hope to better control them. A cage covered in mystic symbols is loaded into a semi truck and they had off.
A stop for fuel turns disastrous when a series of seeming accidents caused the gas station to explode spectacularly. Everyone gets away safe, but the truck blows the fuel pump which leads to another stop. The chaos is making the beast stronger. As the strength grows, he can make people see things. These hallucinations or what it used to manipulate people, and the order has decided it may be too dangerous to live now. 
It’s computer-generated Skull like face glares, lunging side to side in its mobile prison.It’s created enough confusion for his sister to release him.
Final showdown is in a cabin in the woods, where they’ll either contain him, kill him, or lose it… And condemn the entire human race.
For a syfy movie, this isn’t bad. But make no mistake… This is the first sci-fi movie and contains all the elements you’d expect. A pretty girl, foggy blue lights, and a bad CG monster that only appears briefly, with the bulk of the running time filled by people talking about the monster rather than fighting it. The biggest problem here is that you never know who to root for. They do their best to make the beast and his sister sympathetic, Trying to get you on their side with her tales of woe, slavery and captivity.
On the other hand, the heroes of the piece are absolute jerks, and they go out of their way to make you dislike the leader of the military. There’s no one here to actually root for, and even having watched it, I don’t know who the hero this piece is.this is one of those where if it came on television, you don’t need to automatically turn it off. But if you’re expecting anything more than a generic sci-fi TV film, you’ll be disappointed.
502
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
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Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
I’m changing the numbering of these strips as well, to more accurately reflect where we are in the series – so don’t be freaked out by the big jump in numbers…you haven’t missed 150 comics over the weekend, we’re just redoing the titles to make it easier for me to schedule!
Charismata
Charismata begins with a couple of cops pulling up to a particular bloody murder scene. There’s an occult sigal on the wall, and the British accents are heavier than a ton of bricks. Also, these guys have obviously seen Silence of the Lambs, in a drawing some influence from it.
All they know back at the home office is that the murder bears similarities… In particular one where the same sign was drawn on the wall. It’s a bad case and a bad day for a rookie detective, and I’ll leave it to get worse when victim number three pops up.
It plays out like a typical police procedural, with a couple of side trips to the doctor for a detective… She’s got a weak stomach and no time to renew her prescription. She’s having bad dreams even as they finger their person of interest, and set up a stakeout. It’s a bum steer though, as the next victim pops up, even as they cut their suspect under surveillance.
The dreams keep coming, and get progressively more intense. Or are they just dreams? The lights in her apartment keep blowing, and she’s obsessed with the exonerated suspect, Michael Sweet.
Even after one of the other suspects confesses and kills himself, she still having visions of Sweet, and they’re getting more and more frequent. He’s following her in her dreams in her life in her mirror in her television… And she’s certain he’s still the murderer.
Here’s the thing, this is not a horror movie. This is more of a lifetime television style Law and Order police procedural. It’s got some occult background dressing, and a heaping helping of am I going crazy injected directly into it. But despite some of the blood and paranoia, this belongs far more in the crime drama section of the library rather than the horror section. It’s not bad at all, but you do have to know what you’re getting into, at Lear until the ending, which will weird you out just a little bit and feels tacked on – but it’s too much asking me to wade through 90 minutes of police procedural just to get six minutes of supernatural horror.
Catholics and/or Exorcism
85% of the cast is under 25
Cover misrepresents the movie
Stock DVD cover (Distributor’s similar House style)
Trippy Mind games
Thriller pretending to be horror/ghost story
342
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Louisa Warren
This year we’re focusing on Louisa Warren, a european indie filmmaker who have been especially prolific over the past few years. She burst on the scene in 2018 with three films, and then released a staggering six movies in 2019. Since then, she’s consistently released a couple of films every year, at a pace that’s shockingly impressive for an indy studio.
What I’m really enjoying is the shared universe she is trying to create as she transforms traditional fairy tale creatures into monster franchises, such as her Scarecrow, Tooth Fairy and Leprechaun series. Working with the 
same sets and a repeating troupe of actors, Warrens films quickly become familiar and comfort food. She’s not shy about gore, but goes hard on lore and really plays to her strengths.
It’s going to be a fun year as we explore her significant filmography.
DD, Meow and some anticipation
So I don’t know what amuses me more….the fact that Marvel Meow is in it’s 12th issue, the fact that they’ve introduced a Loki cat, or the fact that Jeff the Landshark is basically crossing over to EVERYTHING now, including this series.
In all honesty, I can see how the inclusion of something like Cat Loki was necessary. Marvel Meow is really a one note gag and you can only stretch this out so far. Having Cat loki there gives us a visible protagonist, especially in issue 8, where he’s causing some mischief with Jeff and Pizza Dog. (Great idea to slip him in there too!)
I’m really enjoying these infinity comics. It’s nice lighthearted schtick in the “Funny animal style. But I can’t help but noticing, there’s a tiny ulterior motive. They are using them to insert a lot of the new and shall we say, less popular characters that Marvel has been pumping out lately. It probably wouldn’t be so noticeable if they were using more Spider-Man and Cap and Black Widow, ect like they were when the series first began. A better mix please!
Also caught up with Daredevil. We’re in full ninja mode now. That should annoy me, but it turns out that Chip Zdarsky really seems to know what he’s doing here, and it’s really captured my interest. Watching Stick, Elektra and DD build the Fist – a rival organization to the Hand has been absolutely fascinating. Watching DD pushed further to the wrong side of the law has been far more compelling than I had imagined it would be.
The interesting thing as well is – remember who’s currently leading the Hand? That’s right. Daredevil’s new mission will put him on a direct collision course with the Punisher.
I dropped the Punisher book a while back because I think the utter vandalization that Jason Aaron is doing to Frank’s origin is utterly despicable, and that he just doesn’t get – OR EVEN LIKE the character. Nice to have the Punisher showing up over here. A conflict between matt and Frank is ALWAYS good stuff.
That’s it for this week – all that’s left is to wait excitedly for The Flash to come back! We’re down to less than a month and Feb 8th can’t come soon enough.
Dance macabre
I’m going to flat out say this – dance macabre may be Graydon Clark’s greatest film. Robert England as the centrepiece here is magnificent obviously, but the Russian setting and the ballet and the atmosphere… It all works so well. It’s a magnificent spectacle overlaid on an inspired mystery. This is not horror. This is not adventure, it’s not even mystery. It’s a thriller. It’s one of those rare moments where Clark has everything working – all the engines are firing on all cylinders and it just comes together beautifully.
The story is about an American Dancer who arrives at the Russian ballet school (with her father twisting her arm all the way) to study ballet. It’s the first time they’ve opened the doors to outsiders in ages…. Possibly ever. All around her though, people begin to die – until the schools closes and she remains the only student, with an obsessed instructor hellbent on getting her an audition. Its brilliant drama, highly atmospheric and engauging the whole way through.
There’s talk that this was originally meant to be a sequel to Englund’s Phantom of the opera. I’m not sure of the truth or baseness of this tale, but I can certainly see where someone might get that idea. It’s not just Phantom that I see influences from though, I get glimpses of Susperia her as well. It all melds together to create a supremely satisfying package. Seriously, Clark has no better films on this.
341
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Intruders
Anna’s brother has died of pancreatic cancer, leaving her their family home. After being his caretaker for so long, she is not quite sure what to do with her life anymore and can’t bring herself to leave the house… Perhaps ever.
However, during her brothers funeral a couple of thieves decide it’s a perfect opportunity to rob the house. Little do they know that Anna is still there. She hides, but they find her and begin to interrogate her. We discover that she hasn’t left the house in 10 years. No where to go. An attempt to drag her outside kicks her agoraphobia into overdrive, and eventually she escapes into the house. This is when they find she’s more than capable of defending herself.
Stabbing is one thing, but trapping the guys in a strange panic room downstairs while she makes tea takes on a whole new level of creepy. There’s more going on here than meets the eye and it goes beyond just a case of the tables have turned.
I don’t really want to go any further because this film has an intresting twist and goes into some uncomfortable places, but it’s worth a watch. It’s smarter than just another horror slasher, even if it’s held back a bit by it’s budget. Intruders is absolutely worth a watch.
340
Posting the best strips from the series, in order from the beginning.
Every Wednesday and Friday
Haunting of Winchester House
If the asylum logo showing up wasn’t bad enough, the film is made by Mark Atkins which feels a little bit too close to Peter Atkins – as if the author himself is perpetuating the Mockbuster feel. In this frame of mind then, it’s no wonder that I find the opening scene of the UPS driver delivering a parcel to feel very much homage to Spider Baby.
The house itself is achieved in an interesting manner, it’s obviously a matte or possibly a CG model. But more often than not however it’s quite convincing. Still, the thought of family (even if they are just care takers or something) is just casually moving in and out of the Winchester mansion seems a little ridiculous.
They arrived to find the house unlocked and surprisingly furnished, not to mention painted bright colors. They were originally meant to be lodging in the caretaker wing But a note left on the kitchen table states that it’s uninhabitable so they get to live in the main house.
We get foreshadowing almost immediately. A photograph from the 19th century of old 
inhabitants, a mysterious little girl stalking the family’s daughter and a doomsayer who shows up at the house asking what the family is doing there. They let him know they’re just passing through, staying for a couple of months while elsewhere, the daughter follows a creepy ghost girl into the cellar. The doors slam behind them giving her a good shock, though no harm done. From the cellar she brings up a chalkboard that was obviously once used by one of the people in the old photograph – a deaf man. It’s enough to spark the further curiosity and the dad decides to go for a walk and explore the mansion further.
Back in the house, the little ghost girl creeps on the daughter while the other ghosts draw closer and closer to the father. The daughters intentions are a natural, almost as if she is asked – before the ghosts take her away altogether, vanishing into the house.
Together, the mother and father find hundreds of newspaper clippings in briefly give us the story of the window Winchester. It’s brief though because we have to move along to the next nightmare. Mother dreams of dead, malformed babies while ghosts haunt the daughter. I’ve got to admit, the fact that they’re going so heavy on the spooky visitations and character affects this early on in the movie is impressive. By the time we’re 20 minutes in we’ve already seen some ghosts and things ramp up to some pretty scary levels before you even hit the 40 minute mark!
We get a non-stop hunting and even a certain degree of hopelessness when the police arrive around half way point. Not only are they unable to hear the family within the house, but they find themselves attacked outside the house and unable to render any aid whatsoever.
There are plenty of greasepaint ghosts here but there’s also a fair amount of grotesque latex cases as well – way more than I would’ve expected from a low-budget asylum flick. The ghosts are everywhere, they provide the house and the filmmaker understands lighting – he knows enough to keep these make-up jobs in the gloom and in the shadows. He understands blocking and finds the most effective angles to have to shoot these ghosts from, arranged to create the maximum tension.
I always say that I try to make it to the third act of a horror movie because that’s when the action really gets moving, but this film is all third act action with a brilliant variety of beans and a constant dire threat to our main characters. Just when you think you’re about to get a lull in the action, they throw a creepy ghost in a rocking chair at you or a shape in the shadows emerging.
They managed to get a phone call out to the neighbor – he is a paranormal investigator and he shows up at the house to explain the rules and help get them through the night and solve the mystery of the house. It’s a weird place for this exposition, we usually get this kind of thing closer to the beginning, not in the last 30 minutes. He explains there is poltergeist activity going on here, probably stemming from a hidden object. There are various ghosts in various stages of death, and those different ghosts are dangerous in different ways.
Now with some direction, the activity begins again, and they begin to search for their lost daughter (actually I didn’t entirely notice that the house had abducted her) and a way to expel the spirits. There’s multiple twists along the way and an ending that I probably should’ve seen coming, but really didn’t.
While the questing aspect at the end isn’t as intense and some of the ending is over the top, the siege section in the second act of this film makes it a genuinely good horror film and one of the best asylum productions I have ever seen. It’s amazing what a skilled filmmaker can do with such a production. I don’t even care that it’s one of their mockbusters (released at a time to capitalize on the release of the film Winchester) this one is a definite high recommend.
Moving to a new house
Bad CGI
Ghost Children (Bonus for white dress)
Ghost watching from a window
something walks by in the background
Copyright free name that sounds like another franchise (Amityville, Ouija, ect)
Mockbuster
Cover misrepresents the movie
Stock DVD cover (Distributor’s similar House style)
Catching up with Jeff and Alligator Loki
I think it has more to do with these being infinity comics rather than off the shelf books from Comic Are Go. But still, I love Alligator Loki and It’s Jeff! And I hadn’t even realized they had come back so I’m WAY behind. That’s a real mistake because I even missed the CROSSOVER! Go find these and read them now. Seriously. 
While You’re at it, pick up Joe Fixit. I was assuming this was goign to just be a reprint, but not so! It’s a throwback to Peter David’s run and features Joe vs. The Kingpin while Spidey just kind of looks on. It’s the best thing to come out this week, possibly all month! I know, there’s another issue of Star Trek out, but really, this one almost feels like a filler issue. What a waste of Q. As for Spider-Man, well, I’m still waiting for it to give me a reason to keep reading beyond sheer momentum.
Beneath
Beneath was a dollar store purchase, lost in a stack of other dollar store purchases. With a stack of much more interesting looking and recognizable films. I had sort of dismissed it as just another film with a cool logo in the stack, but probably nothing special considering the MTV branding on the cover. It’s always nice however, to be pleasantly proven wrong.
Beneath manages to mix ghost story and thriller together brilliantly. I spent most of this film about a young woman looking for her sister, killed in a car crash, wondering if I was watching a ghost story or a stalker story. As she explores an old mansion and digs into the mystery of the young woman’s death and burial, I never quite thought that she was going crazy, but was never entirely certain where the story was going.
Beneath this beautifully filmed and gorgeous in its atmosphere. It manages to give you that sort of creepy atmosphere you’d expect from a Gothic ghost story or an Agatha Christie murder mystery. The plot as well thought out and well acted, and much to my surprise I’ve got nothing but praise for this film. This one’s definitely a movie you want to grab if you still see it littering the shelves of your local Walmart or dollar tree.
Argo City Comics 