October Movies - Week 2

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,
 
It’s October!!! You know what that means… Izzy goes a little crazy with decoration for the house so that two humans, three cats & a sh*t ton of rats, ladybugs and box elder bugs can see them because we’re socially distanced (and nobody wants to come visit anyway). We’ve also decided that we’re going to try to watch 31 horror movies in the month… though we’re not restricting ourselves to new horror movies like other people out there. Izzy’s not a fan of gore and… we just watch a bunch of movies already. No time to waste on crap unless it’s something we wanted to watch for a long time… or rewatch. So on that note, here’s how the second week of that has gone thus far…
 
Oct 8 – We Are The Damned (1962)
 
This was part of that Hammer collection that we’re going through & this one starts out as a middle aged American tourist getting jumped by… basically the kids from Clockwork Orange & the leader’s hot young sister. Then after talking to the cops, the tourist runs into her again… and it’s the whole “My brother won’t let me leave or do what I want” and the tourist is then basically trying to convince her to sail away with him. Well, as you might have guessed hijinx ensue… but probably not the hijinx that you expect as they inexplicably end up at a government institution and… I’ll just let you check it out from here. Great performance by Oliver Reed in an early role as the baddie druid brother or whatever & I can honestly say that I had no idea where this movie was going about halfway through.
 
Rating – 8/10 – Check it out if you’re into thrillers… with odd twists
 
Oct 9 – Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
 
One of the retold classics from Hammer but I’ve never seen before… and where you might be expecting something where Dr. Jekyll is the proper British gentleman scientist & Mr. Hyde as the brutish behemoth who resorts to violence on a whim… this movie is actually more Nutty Professor, where the scientist Dr. Jekyll is a bit of an a-hole with an inexplicably gorgeous wife… and Mr. Hyde is basically a super-confident man who shaves & fancies experiencing all that life has to offer. Enter Christopher Lee as Dr. Jekyll’s “friend” who’s also plowing his wife and… hijinx ensue!!!
 
Rating – 9/10 – I really liked this one! There are slow parts… but check it out!
 
Oct 10 – The Old Dark House (1963)
 
Now for this one, we had seen the original Rifftrax version from 1932 that had Boris Karloff in it or something… but this was more of a Hammer comedic take on the tale. Essentially a man breaks down on his way to meet a gambling buddy of his at an old stately manor & finds that his buddy is dead and his buddy’s family is living in the mansion with a weird family tradition brought upon by a twisted trust fund… where they meet at the mansion every night at midnight or they lose their chance to get the inheritance… and the last surviving member wins! Hijinx ensue! Now… if you’re a little confused by the plot description that I’ve given… think something like the movie “Clue” but with a House on Haunted Hill kind of angle. I will admit that this one had some parts that drug a bit for me… mostly because I guess I’m not all about the British humor or something (and I suffer from white people faceblindness after a while).
 
Rating – 7/10 – That being said, I still dug it!
 
Oct 11 – The Gorgon (1964)
 
An inspector is sent to a small European village to investigate some questionable death, including his father & brother. There he’s met by the local asylum doctor (Peter Cushing) who appears to be covering up the deaths… and won’t answer questions about the local legend of a Gorgon, a creature from Greek Mythology that turns people into literal stone if they gaze upon them! Well, his old professor (Christopher Lee) jumps in to help him out, the inspector falls in love with the aslyum doctor’s lovely assistant, the deaths pile up, hijinx ensue! Lee & Cushing are magnificent as always! Everybody’s good really… but the ending gets a little… laughable in spite of it really being an intriguing story (though fairly predictable).
 
Rating – 9/10 – This movie probably would’ve been a 10 from me… but the ending is kind of a letdown. Check it out though!
 
Oct 12 – Cash On Demand (1961)
 
Let’s make it FIVE Hammer movies in a row!!! You may also be questioning whether this one is a horror movie… but it’s part of the Hammer collection so it definitely counts. Basically this movie is about a bank president (Peter Cushing) who’s a bit of a maticulous twat… but then one morning his operations starts getting audited by the bank commission… only when it’s too late does he realize that this inspector (Andre Morrell) is actually a bank robber… and he has the president’s wife & child held hostage. Hijinx ensue & this movie is straight out of the Hitchcock playbook as far as building tension & effective use of score (or lack thereof). The ending does get a little “Wait… what?” but it doesn’t really take away from the rest of the movie.
 
Rating – 10/10 – I really liked this one! If you like a bank heist movie, check it out!
 
Oct 13 – My Inner Demon: A Geraldson Tale (2021)
 
Actor / director / writer / comedian Gerald Varga joined us for PodcArt Fest this last October 9th & he’s an incredible nice guy! We’ll definitely be asking him to join us for an episode of Everything I Learned from Movies! While on PodcArt Fest, he mentioned his latest movie “My Inner Demon: A Geraldson Tale” was currently streaming at the Digital Monthly Online Film Festival (@DMOFF) and it’s essentially a comedic take on a found footage movie about Gerald in the aftermath of his movie “Murder Box” (which you should also check out on Amazon Prime). After not gaining international fame & recognition, he decides that he’s going to make a film about how to make a found footage film with his buddy… but then he also finds out that his alter ego Gerald Gerald Geraldson may be creeping into his psyche… and other hijinx ensues! There are parts of this movie that I absolutely LOVE & I think you’ll be able to pick them out WHEN you watch it, which I absolutely recommend! That being said, I wish that I were able to find what it is about this movie that… just wasn’t clicking right when I was watching it. I’m not sure if it was the pacing or something… but the acting was spot on, framing of the shots & cinematography were great, there was just something missing from making this a banger! I really enjoyed it though!
 
Rating – 8/10 – A great feat in independent filmmaking which you should check out!
 
Oct 14 – Nightmare Sisters (1988)
 
Director David DeCoteau is… interesting. From what I understand, he’s the kind of a man that if you give a few grand & a few rolls of film, he’ll squirt you out a movie that you can put in a DVD box and sell legally. Some of his most recent work includes “A Talking Cat?!?”, “Snow White: A Deadly Summer” and a bunch of schlock that I can’t convince myself into putting in a browser history. So why would I watch this movie? Well… number one, I didn’t know it was one of his. Secondly, it was recommended to me by Eddie (hwoPING) the Axe from the Bloodybits Horror Show… basically telling me that he made the movie “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” and with the leftover film ends from that movie… and four days with the sexy sirens Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens & Michelle Bauer… along with some other rando, he made this movie! Eddie respected it so much that he actually cast the three starlets as Dracula’s Brides in his recasting of a Dracula Reboot (entitled RoboDracula vs. the WhenWolf). So with that in mind… I was intrigued. What was it about this movie that captivated this man so much? Well… when the first credit was David DeCoteau, I immediately regretted this decision… but I continued. When the opening ten minutes was punk frontman Dukey Flyswatter doing his best Apu impersonation as a fortune teller… I pushed through. When the next 30 minutes was the three starlets “uglied up” and using horribly grating voices through a plot that bordered on special needs about sorority girls have the house to themselves & wanting to throw a party with three random nerds… I persevered. Then about 40 minutes into the movie when they’re performing a séance and demons transform them into the sexy bare-breasted sirens that they are… and then there’s a twenty minute scene of them in the bathtub washing one another… I understood. Oh & hijinx ensue…
 
Rating – 8/10 – Only because the 8 looks like titties… seriously, this movie is rough… wait for a future episode on this one.
 
As foretold in the Prophecy,
 
Steve