All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

After Midnight (1989)

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aftermidnightOne of the horror anthologies that popped up in the wake of HBO’s success with Tales from the Crypt, After Midnight emerged from the unreliable talents of Jim and Ken Wheat, sibling scribes of The Fly II, The Birds II and one of those made-for-TV Ewok movies. As you’d expect, this is equally lackluster, but worth a look for omnibus nuts.

A college psych class headed by a freaky professor (Ramy Zada, Two Evil Eyes) provides the framework, as he has students tell each other stories of fear. First up is a couple stranded on an out-of-the-way road; for help, they go to a spooky old house. Second is a pointless tale of four high school girls out for a night on the town, only to end up menaced by a greasy gas station attendant and his ferocious dogs (which end up tearing Tracy Wells, the sister from TV’s Mr. Belvedere, to pieces).

aftermidnight1Marg Helgenberger (TV’s CSI) stars in the final story, of a late-night answering service employee on crutches who’s receiving threatening calls from a psycho (Righteous Kill’s Alan Rosenberg, who became her husband). As is clearly evident, the Wheats don’t know how to end any of these stories, although the first one offers a bit of gore to compensate.

After Midnight isn’t terrible, but — wait, yeah, it is, but for some reason, I’ve seen it a few times and wouldn’t mind it again. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Thriller

The Purge (2013)

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PRG_31_5_Promo_CAN_4C_4F.inddHunger for some near-future games? Joining the likes of such government-sanctioned bloodsports as Death Race 2000 and Battle Royale is The Purge, an annual, 12-hour amnesty of rape, murder and what have you— that one night of the year in which you’re allowed to “release the beast,” so to speak, without fear of legal reprisal.

By the year 2022, when this film takes place, the rates of crime and unemployment in the United States have become all but nonexistent and are kept in check by The Purge, practically a national holiday. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke, Sinister) has made a fortune from selling security systems, which shows in the palatial abode he shares with his beautiful wife (Lena Headey, 300) and their two children. Because their high-tech home can go into fortress mode at the push of a button, they’re pretty nonplussed by The Purge; it’s just another night in front of the TV.

purge1All that changes when their son (Max Burkholder, Daddy Day Care) stupidly decides to allow a homeless African-American man (Edwin Hodge, 2012’s Red Dawn) inside after lockdown. The desperate stranger’s pursuers — spoiled rich kids donning private-school blazers, eerie face masks and a swath of entitled arrogance — are so eager to satisfy their savage desires, they’ll do anything to infiltrate the Sandin residence.

With that, the movie shifts into becoming Assault on Gated Neighborhood 13.

The sophomore film of writer/director James DeMonaco (Staten Island), The Purge possesses a preposterous premise that would work better if it set up adequately and if he moved his characters from beat to beat in ways that resembled logic, even judged by speculative fiction’s more forgiving terms. Therefore, I found myself only half-invested in what should be a slam-dunk take on the home-invasion thriller. It’s a slick piece of work and deserves points for having the balls to make an unexpected turn it actually sticks with, but wouldn’t take more than minor tinkering to emerge as so much better than strictly average. —Rod Lott

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Documentary

Monsters Wanted (2013)

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monsterswantedWith visitors of seasonal haunted houses, there’s no telling what might scare them most. However, the partners behind the Asylum Haunted Scream Park know exactly what terrifies them: the stake of their life savings. The 2011 debut of this Kentucky-based Halloween venue, starting 83 days before its uncertain opening, is documented in Brian Cunningham and Joe Laughrey’s Monsters Wanted.

Touting four themed attractions in one, Asylum Haunted Scream Park was established, says co-owner Rich Teachout, to “raise the bar of Halloween in Louisville.” He and girlfriend Janel Nash — the one who talks to a sock puppet during the doc’s talking-head segments — get serious about that statement. To them, the park is more than an income — it’s the way they long to live, no matter the time of year.

monsterswanted1Granted apparent all-access, the camera captures the entire process, including monster auditions (hence the title), actor training and dress rehearsals. It’s one fraught with problems and setbacks and failure and conflict; tensions come to a head between Rich and another partner, resulting in a screaming match you expect to come to blows. The warts-and-all portrayal gives Monsters Wanted credibility, from run-ins with city inspectors to Rich and Janel handling their meager budget with knowing fiscal irresponsibility. Who needs groceries?

Getting to know the people behind the haunted house is the film’s greatest asset. As deadlines loom and pressure mounts, Janel downs instant coffee — in powder form, mind you — and chases it with a swig of soda. One of the more colorful (to put it lightly) personalities among the cast is a bald, beefy grandpa who takes a little too much delight in terrifying kids with a chainsaw, to the point of prompting defecation. And to think the only bodily fluid Leatherface dealt with was blood. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Horror

Curse of Chucky (2013)

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cursechuckyAfter a couple of comedic entries, the killer-doll franchise returns to its horror roots with Curse of Chucky, the sixth of the series. Voiced by Brad Dourif, Chucky mysteriously is shipped to the home of a tortured painter (Chantal Quesnelle, Bruiser) who takes care of her paraplegic, 20-something daughter, Nica (Fiona Dourif, who’s Brad’s daughter, but good enough to avoid charges of nepotism).

Chucky quickly does away with the mother, which prompts an influx of family members for her funeral … and, unbeknownst to them, theirs. Nica’s vampish sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti, Insidious: Chapter 2), wants to sell the house and send Nica to assisted living, so you know she’s not surviving. Barb’s precocious daughter (newcomer Summer Howell), however, is another story. The kid does great with lines like, “Chucky says life’s a bitch and then you die like a stuck pig.”

cursechucky1Directed by series creator Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky boasts a nice tie or two to the 1988 original, Child’s Play, bringing the 25-year saga full-circle. Brad Dourif even gets to appear in human form for the first time since the start, in flashbacks that make him look less like serial killer Charles Lee Ray and more like The Room mastermind Tommy Wiseau.

Mancini’s decision to avoid humor almost entirely pays off, again making Chucky an object of fright, not funnies. Several sequences are calculated to make the most of audiences’ fears of dolls that move, much less kill, and despite the occasional overflourishing camera movement, they click with a gory goodness. If only Mancini knew how to bring the thing to a close; Curse is stuffed with about four endings, and to top it off, there’s another awaiting at the close of the credits. —Rod Lott

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Documentary

Deception of a Generation (1985)

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deceptiongenSome years back — ’84, ’85, I’m no “pray TV” expert — this freaky religious nut named Gary Greenwald made a freaky religious propaganda program, Deception of a Generation, in which Greenwald invokes the name of God to denounce children’s Saturday morning cartoons as All That Is Evil.

It’s funny because he is not joking, and it’s not funny because he is not joking. (It’s also quite funny because Greenwald is quite hairy, but that’s beside the point.) Greenwald welcomes a guest — whose name I didn’t feel was important enough to write down, but he talks like a girl and wears glasses — who claims God told him to spend years studying cartoons to unearth the satanic elements within them.

deceptiongen1So Gary and Guy (as I’ll call him) go back and forth chastising the likes of The Smurfs and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. For the whole, it unfolds something like this:

Greenwald: “Now we’re going to watch another clip from Scooby-Doo, is that correct?”
Guy: “Yes, watch how witchcraft and astral projections play a part in this clip.”
Greenwald (post-clip, flustered): “Well, I must say, this is not the Scooby-Doo I remember, what with all the witchcraft and astral projections!”
Guy: “Amen.”

They go on to imply that the writers for these shows are not under the employ of Hanna-Barbera or Filmation, but Beelzebub; in reality, it’s not likely they were worshipping the dark one with their quickly written scripts, but rather flying higher than a kite. —Rod Lott