Alan Birkinshaw enjoys the distinction of directing two Edgar Allan Poe adaptations in South Africa in 1989: Masque of the Red Death and The House of Usher. But only one dared put Frank Stallone’s name atop its poster!

It wasn’t this one.

Set in the present day, Birkinshaw’s House opens with Ryan Usher (Rufus Swart, River of Death) and his fiancée, Molly (Romy Windsor, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare), being invited to the titular, palatial estate by his enigmatic uncle, Roderick Usher (Oliver Reed, Burnt Offerings). Despite never having met the guy, Ryan and Molly go anyway.

Ulterior motive alert: Being the last of his lineage, Ol’ Roderick feels an urgent need to seed, and views Molly as his perfect bride/birthing vessel. Like Olive Garden, Roderick operates from the mindset of “When you’re here, you’re family,” assuming Olive Garden still performs mandatory pelvic floor exams at the table.  

That’s just the start of the craziness under this House’s roof. A visiting physician loses his penis to a gnawing rat. Living in a hidden room, a sooty Donald Pleasence (Nothing Underneath) has an electric drill bolted to his forearm. Going so hammy that Jewish and Muslim populations may be forbidden from viewing, Reed’s Roderick humps Molly in the shower with pained thrusts that suggest he’s struggling to move a divan up a flight of stairs.

The travails of a Harry Alan Towers budget are apparent, with the Usher estate’s interior rather cramped, dressed and blocked like a sitcom set. (Somehow, the place looked more spacious in Masque.) Elsewhere, in the family crypt, stone tombs are clearly Styrofoam. More gaudy than Gothic, this House of Usher falls in on itself in credibility, especially with one of those “JK!” cheat endings. —Sir Roderick Lott 

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Young web journalist Kim (Kim Bo-ra, Ghost Mansion) is in dire need of a scoop that’ll rake in the clicks and likes. She finds it in a subway train accident, when her friend Woo-won (Kim Jae-Hyun), who works security at Korea Metro, tells her about the ghost of a little girl spotted hiding in the rails of Oksu station.

Strangely, the ghost girl isn’t the only spirit hanging around Oksu. Stranger still, they all spout four-digit numbers when asked for their names. The more Kim digs, the more she uncovers, like how everyone who’s died at that platform in the last three decades bears deep scratches on their arms. Then there’s the matter of one of Kim’s sources committing suicide … before the two spoke!

The Ghost Station marks director Jeong Yong-Ki’s return to horror since his 2004 debut, The Doll Master. Unfortunately, it’s your standard Korean fright fare — substandard, even, if you’ve seen more of these things than the average bear. As if “ghost children” didn’t already drive the point home, it doesn’t tread new territory as much as repeat the familiar tropes by rote. Co-screenwriter Takahashi Hiroshi, best-known for the J-horror classic Ringu (aka The Ring) even has the gall to include a well. A well! With trapped kids! Thus creating, to use the movie’s own words, a grudge! And a curse to pass on, which Kim totally girlbosses.  

Shouldn’t some blame land on the unimonikered Horang, on whose webcomic the film is based? No, since his source material is adapted in whole for the prologue. Other than establishing the subway setting, the standalone scene shares nothing with the mélange of jump scares that follows. —Rod Lott

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As Christmas horror anthologies go, Nightmare on 34th Street bears a title so clever, it’s something of a Miracle it hadn’t been co-opted before filmmaker James Crow got to it. Now, the movie itself is less inspired, but it’s watchable. Because it’s British, prep to hear “Santa” pronounced as “Santer.”

As this movie’s jolly old St. Nick, Pierse Stevens (Crow’s House of Salem) tells a boy five bedtime stories, plus gets in a few choice words about the true reason for the season: “The poor fucker was on a cross, died, and all they want is fucking presents!”

The stories involve a home invasion by “three Christmas nutters” who drive a van marked “THE SLAY”; a down-on-his-luck ventriloquist and his homicidal Frosty the Snowman puppet; and your garden-variety store Santa who, after being fired, poisons cookies and causes other general mischief. In arguably the most successful segment, a single mom/MILF (former lad-mag vixen Lucy Pinder) gets a visit from Krampus; in easily the worst, an infirm priest (Spidarlings‘ Jeff Kristian) and his past are key to “The 12 Kills of Christmas.”

Individually and overall, 34th Street houses too many characters, too few fresh ideas, no real jolts and, most regrettably, more padding than the average pillow supporting the heads of nestled children as they dream of sugar plums. However, Crow is able to pack a streak of nastiness under his low-budget tree, as kids are not only put in danger, but participate in it. He also stuffs its stocking with dark laughs; in addition to Santa’s possibly sacrilegious spouting above, an earlier cut features a now-excised babysitter tale in which a girl dismisses a Virgin Mary figurine with “Whatta slag!” —Rod Lott

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