All posts by Rod Lott

Kitchen Sink

Freaky Tales (2024)

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WTF

Clearly filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden didn’t work out all their 1980s love on Captain Marvel. The decade’s aesthetic — from green neon to VHS tracking fuzz — is all over Freaky Tales like an infection. No can of Bactine stands a chance against the interlocking foursome of stories set in ’87 Oakland, California. (But bookended by unapologetic Nazis and sports stars’ homes robbed mid-game, the movie could take place in ’25 Anywhere, America.)

A simple siege of a peaceful punk club by skinheads, the first story establishes Freaky’s darkly comic, heavily violent tone. The second concerns a different type of war: one of words in a rap battle between Too $hort (Symba) and two young ladies (Normani and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s Dominique Thorne) who might be set up to lose. This bit would be entirely incidental, if not for introducing the movie’s ultimate villain (Ben Mendelsohn, Ready Player One) as an ultimate piece of shit. 

Things pick up considerably in the third segment, fronted by Pedro Pascal (Wonder Woman 1984) as a freelance enforcer on what he promises to his pregnant wife is his last assignment … until suddenly, he’s willing to work overtime for vengeance. (Psst: Somewhere within those ellipses, a surprise A-list cameo awaits to delight.)

Tales reaches its cathartic crescendo in sharing the legend of NBA player Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis, Top Gun: Maverick). Although the former Golden State Warrior is a real athlete, the night depicted here sure isn’t as Floyd takes grisly, glorious revenge upon a house party of Confederate scumbags for misdeeds against his family. This bravura sequence not only feels like a kung-fu cousin to the thwarted Manson murders in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood …, but practically doubles as a bid for Ellis to front that long-gestating Blade reboot.

Befitting a Tarantino reference, Freaky Tales often plays like chunks from a weekend’s Blockbuster Video binge — say, oh, Repo Man, Heavy Metal, Wild Style and Game of Death — vomited back up in a fever dream. Scrappy and strange with infrequent bursts of energy, this mishmash tries throughout to reach the level of fun it continually teases, until achieving near-nirvana in that fourth and final chapter. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema

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As a painful chapter in my life ended several years ago, I nonetheless found myself having four addresses in as many months. Among the casualties of that chaotic string of pinballing moves was Chris Alexander’s Blood Spattered Book. Although overpriced for a mere 104 poorly laid-out pages, the 2010 paperback offered enjoyable criticism of exploitation films from the horror and fantasy realms.

Luckily, a good chunk of its contents exists in the former Fangoria/current Delirium editor’s newest collection, Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema. And this time, I don’t have to cart it around in a dangerously flimsy cardboard box, which is extra-wonderful because at 460 glossy pages, this book is heavy. And because it’s from Headpress, publisher of Alexander’s acclaimed Corman/Poe in 2023, we also don’t have to deal with ghastly design.

Worthy of its punctuation, Art! Trash! Terror! touts 25 interviews, including Werner Herzog, Joe Dante, Caroline Munro and, most welcome of all, Richard Benjamin. But the book’s main attraction is more than 100 movies reviewed at length, each examined with introspection, know-how and wit (and an overuse of “a marvel” and “full stop”). Flicks cover the gamut of cult, with titles such as The Vampire’s Night Orgy and Godmonster of Indian Flats rubbing elbows and other extremities with Abby and Psychomania, plus newer fare like The Love Witch or Alien: Covenant (not to mention 10 Twilight Zone episodes).

With the exception of 1975’s X-rated Helena, there’s no film here of which I wasn’t already aware. But don’t you dare let that register as a complaint. Alexander’s greatest skill as a writer is connecting his reviews to his personal life, most especially recalling the experience surrounding that initial viewing — whether quietly watching a verboten tape as parents slept or acquiring pneumonia by trekking across town in Arctic temps to catch a Hammer double feature. Given streaming’s everything-everywhere-all-at-once availability, such stories are becoming rarities deserving of record.

That could be why the author chose to fill the book strictly with only plaudits, no pans. The essays herein have convinced me to give several lambasted flicks a try, like 2020’s The Turning, the Dean R. Koontz adaptation Hideaway and even James Franco’s Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? remake for the Lifetime cable channel. In the rare cases I disagree (say, William Friedkin’s The Guardian), I appreciate Alexander’s passionate defense; were I to be prosecuted in court for my viewing tastes, I’d want him to represent me.

Among all these Adventures in Strange Cinema, only one recommendation strikes me as a bridge too far: “Night Patrol is probably the funniest movie ever made. You should see it.”

Nah. But you should read it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

Horror

Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour (2022) 

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In its seven-word title, Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour promises a lot. It even overdelivers on that last word by running an extra 28 minutes. Still, it comes up short in the one word that counts most for a horror film: “terrifying.” It’s anything but that.

Now, what the title doesn’t signal is that portions of the pic are funny — better, even intentionally so. We’ll get there shortly.

Lucky Cerruti’s anthology comes positioned as a horror-hosted show à la Elvira. Armed with equally awful puns in “boils and ghouls” mold, the eponymous Uncle Sleazo (first-timer Jordan Hornstein, outfitted to be one foot too close to a schoolyard) intros three “movies.” These include a tiring werewolf tale in black and white, a one-note psychic romance and a sci-fi-tinged slice of body horror that, while slow, at least closes with a terrific gross-out visual.

All three segments share a core problem: They’re neither scary nor suspenseful; frankly, each exhibits weak plotting and dreadful pacing despite minimal running time. Serving as something of a saving grace, however, are the commercial breaks in between. This is where the jokes come in, from a cartoon about a Basket Case-esque vestigial twin to a musical with a talking, singing puke puppet.

Whether these inspired bits toss you a fake trailer for the movie Clown Cop or an ad for Dahmer’s Apartment Playset, the influence of Chris LaMartina’s WNUF Halloween Special on Cerruti (2020’s Freak) is apparent. I could go for a full feature of them. Now, whether these smatterings of humor belong sandwiched between stories we’re asked to accept at straight-face value depends on your tolerance for tonal whiplash.

To diminish their weaknesses, the three stories could stand to be more zippily paced, even if it brought Uncle Sleazo’s closer to that titular Hour. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thriller

Locked (2025)

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Within 12 months’ time, Bill Skarsgård has marched into theaters as the lead of three films: Nosferatu, The Crow and Boy Kills World. Here’s a fourth if you want it.

In Locked, a seedy-looking Skarsgård plays Eddie, an irresponsible part-time father and full-time vapist. He’s angling for quick cash to get his van back. By minute 8, Eddie’s plunked his ass in a luxury SUV he finds unlocked in a parking lot. 

It’s a trap! A soundproof, bulletproof, signal-blocked, leather-upholstered trap with six built-in cameras and an untold number of torture methods, from tasered seats to yodel-based polka — all the remote doing of the car’s elderly owner who mocks Eddie through the stereo system (Anthony Hopkins, literally phoning it in).

“Fuck this car!” shouts Eddie, and I’m inclined to agree. All that roomy interior means squat when the script dilly-dallies its way through all the scenarios that come standard for being stuck in a small space. But this is not a single-setting tale, so that time spent cooped up feels like stalling. In the second half, when the car finally starts and moves for a self-driving joyride, so does the movie. Then Locked idles again until Hopkins shows his face for a scene, ultimately yielding to a too-simple resolution and equally hasty coda.

With thrillers, producer Sam Raimi usually exhibits a golden (or at least silver) touch, recently including Crawl, the Don’t Breathe duology and Netflix’s Don’t Move. He’s so known for it, the poster practically treats Raimi’s name as the third lead. With his involvement and Locked representing the third country to remake Argentina’s 4×4 from 2019, it’s not out of the realm for viewers to expect a killer concept. Brightburn’s David Yarovesky directs with high energy for the opening montage, yet the story of Locked arrives uncharacteristically monotonous.

More could be done with its warring perspectives of the haves, the have-nots and the had-it-up-to-heres. Recommended if you’ve longed to see Hopkins toke up or Skarsgård down pee. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Devils Stay (2024)

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If Devils Stay has the nerve to call itself a possession picture, why does the title lack a possessive apostrophe? Ba-dum-tss!

That joke is to prove to my English teachers I paid attention. Devils Stay, however? No laughing matter.

Schoolgirl So-mi (Lee Re, Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula) dies of cardiac arrest shortly after a heart transplant. Her father (Park Shin-yang, The Big Swindle) takes the tragedy hardest of all, because he’s also the surgeon responsible for her procedure.

Looking back, Dr. Cha notes his beloved daughter did act strangely after getting her ticker swapped out. What’s more, he believes his little girl is still alive. Say, you don’t think that secondhand heart could have something to do with it, do you?

Of course! We’ve all seen Body Parts.

A young priest (Lee Min-ki, 2009’s Tidal Wave) explains it all: So-mi is possessed by a demon who will rise again in three days, using her fresh corpse as a vessel. As Dr. Cha and his family grieve, So-mi’s “guest” kills some people and an oversized moth crawls from the girl’s cakehole. This is either the first feature for TV director Hyun Moon-seop (Nightmare Teacher) or the weirdest episode of ER ever.

Soused in South Korean customs and universal superstition, Devils Stay earns points for finding a new angle into the exorcism subgenre. The movie may not exist without The Exorcist, but minus one short scene, it’s not ripping off The Exorcist. One could argue the strangest element is its front-and-center embrace of Catholicism since Asian films usually default to Buddhism.

On one hand, Hyun cues up rote scares, accompanied by suddenly loud music stings as if he distrusts his own abilities. And he has abilities, because on that other hand, Devils Stay displays some arresting, imaginative visuals — none more potent than So-mi’s body hovering outside in mid-air. Still, with a drawn-out denouement, Hyun’s theatrical lacks the trickery to ascend to next-level special where recent Korean spookers Sleep and Exhuma reside. Maybe next time? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.