All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)

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Contrary to popular belief, the worst type of movie isn’t a bad one; it’s a bad one that’s not any fun.

Enter Rhys Frake-Waterfield, one of the “talents” behind Spider in the Attic, Firenado, Dinosaur Hotel and other extremely lazy assembly-line flicks, many of which seem to take place on the same piece of property in rural England. The man deserves credit for seizing the day: Jan. 1, 2022, to be exact, when A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh legally entered the public domain, meaning now anyone can make a Pooh film (or TV show or book, etc.), free of fear of copyright infringement. Frake-Waterfield’s literal million-dollar idea was to turn the silly old bear from kiddie icon to serial killer.

Unfortunately, the imagination stopped there. The piss-poor outcome, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, appears to be written and directed by someone who has never seen a feature film. While that’s clearly not the case, Frake-Waterfield struggles (although that implies effort) with the concepts of pacing, plot, frame composition and other elements of storytelling, visual or otherwise. Its poster boasts the tagline, “This ain’t no bedtime story,” because it hasn’t a story at all. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are the stuff of Charles Dickens next to this.

A hastily animated prologue in charcoal sketch posits the idea of Pooh, Piglet and friends becoming crazed once young Christopher Robin leaves the 100 Acre Wood for university. Suddenly short of food, they even eat Eeyore.

The second prologue finds Christopher (Nikolai Leon of Frake-Waterfield’s The Killing Tree) returning to introduce his fiancée (Paula Coiz, Tooth Fairy: Queen of Pain) to his animal buddies. Despite many minutes of her sensing danger and pleading they GTFO, they don’t, so he gets to watch her be slaughtered by Pooh (Craig David Dowsett of Frake-Waterfield’s The Area 51 Incident) and Piglet (Chris Cordell, Werewolf Cabal) — now hulking man-creatures in rubber masks because just go with it, I guess.

Prologues now over, we meet Maria (Maria Taylor of the Frake-Waterfield-produced Mega Lightning) and her four friends, none of whose names I caught, not that you need. They’re girl-tripping at a rented cottage, so they, too, can help reduce the world’s population in less than 90 minutes. The most vapid (UK model Natasha Tosini) is yanked from a hot tub to be squished under a Pooh-driven car. Gore looks like cartoon strawberry jelly, because the entire movie is underlit.

Between its kills are enough padding to generously stuff the fluff of the pillows of every orphanage, hospital and hostel within a 100-mile range. I get the curiosity factor; I, too, succumbed. But I implore you: Stick with the trailer. Life’s too short. So short I’ll tell you how the movie ends: Pooh repeatedly stabs Maria in the head; fade to credits; everyone is the audience is agog, like, “What? That’s the finish? Is a scene missing?”

One would expect the thing to keep going to an actual denouement. Instead, Frake-Waterfield will keep going, returning to the honeypot with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Bambi: The Reckoning and assuredly several more until the ROI is DOA. It’s not unlike the brief flurry of classic literature/modern horror mash-ups that followed Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 viral-smash novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies until the craze ran itself dry, except the film adaptation is watchable.

Look, when you cover genre film for as long as I have (three decades plus, professionally), you often end up “taking one for the team.” However, Blood and Honey is a different sort of beast. Upon buying two tickets at the AMC Theatres kiosk and seeing the total exceed $30, it’s the only time I started to question my life’s choices. Oh, bother. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon, if you absolutely have to.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Phil Herman’s Doomsday Stories (2023)

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Even if only for marketing purposes, the possessive movie title is usually reserved for your Alfred Hitchcocks and John Carpenters and your Stephen Kings — you know, your name-brand filmmakers and creatives. Nonetheless, here’s Phil Herman’s Doomsday Stories.

For this multidirector microcinema anthology, Herman (behind such SOV faves as Burglar from Hell) hosts as Zorack, one of a mere 8,000 people remaining worldwide, following the apocalyptic “Meanies” virus. As savages outnumber humans, Zorack roams the earth, occasionally stopping to read from a clutched composition book containing “stories from the old world.” Of the five, one entertained me and another impressed me. Also, three characters are named James.

The entertaining one comes from Florida’s prolific Joel D. Wynkoop, offering a possessive of his own: “Joel D. Wynkoop’s 187 Times.” Attempting to prevent the virus, Wynkoop’s nebbish protagonist hops throughout a 30-decade time span, up to 2050. Each time he thinks he succeeds, the ol’ butterfly effect rears its wings. Its slight comic tone, breathless pace, clever premise and good-enough computer effects make it endearing.

The most impressive is “A Broken Promise” from Derek Braasch (Murder for Pleasure). Approaching an epic sweep with a Western flair, Justin Bower’s crawfish-capped Rick Butts and his canine companion scavenge for food in rural Illnois. They encounter everything from kid zombies to rednecks with a hankering for “dog steak.” The short may look like Paul Blart: Last Man on Earth at first glance, but for being so hamstrung, its sheer scope is mighty accomplished.

Lesser segments involve an organ recruiter and a fevered phone call between siblings. And in “Bomb Threats” from Hollywood Warrioress’s James Panetta, a woman (Debbie D, Herman’s Jacker) wrongly decides to seek emergency shelter at the home of a man she just met at a bar (Jim Ewald, Nacho Mountain); W.A.V.E.-style torture ensues. Its high point is her hysterical retort, “You’re a sick, sick weirdo! And a rapist!”

In between each, Herman cuts back to hosting duties — sometimes with the wind beating the crap out of the camera’s microphone — and waxes nostalgic, e.g., “Man, that brings back some memories. Some bad memories.” At two hours and then some, though, there’s enough variety that to leave with a couple of good ones. —Rod Lott

Get it by contacting Phil Herman or Joel D. Wynkoop on Facebook Messenger.

Horror

The Welder (2021)

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In merging horror with racial politics, Florida-based filmmaker David Liz seems to draw inspiration from Jordan Peele’s Get Out. After all, Liz’s The Welder is about a Latina woman and her Black boyfriend in fear of a white man who can’t get over the death of his Black wife. The movie affixes these labels, not I, then presses hard to make their corners don’t peel. Subtlety is not found in The Welder’s toolbox.

Eliza (Camila Rodríguez) and Roe (Roe Dunkley) play the respective girlfriend and boyfriend. With her PTSD growing more intense, he books them a much-needed weekend ranch getaway: ATVs! Horseback riding! Godforsaken science projects!

The ranch owner, Dr. Godwin (Vincent De Paul, Rottentail) screams “sinister” upon greeting his guests. Despite enough red flags to cover a used-car lot on inventory-clearance month, Eliza and Roe stay.

Dr. Godwin’s on a personal mission to “cure the blight of racial hate” vis-à-vis an experiment that’s downright Frankensteinian. While I won’t disclose the deets, viewers will see Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic Vitruvian Man drawing with one slight change: He wears a welder’s mask. It’s not meant to elicit the giggles it did.

So obvious it’s oblivious, The Welder is 90% a drag. No amount of poetic slow-motion scenes with music swelling can convince otherwise. Liz’s film is deeply hindered by poor acting from almost everyone in a cast numbering precious few. As the female lead, Rodríguez’s groggy performance proves contagious to her audience; as her male counterpart, Dunkley displays more energy, perhaps attempting to distract from consistently demeaning dialogue, e.g., “We gotta hella recharge these phones.” He at least appears to be aware of something the movie does not: its own ludicrousness. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

The Long Dark Trail (2022)

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Teen brothers (newcomers Carter and Brady O’Donnell) escape their abusive, alcoholic father (Mick Thyer) and bike through the wilderness of Northwest Pennsylvania. They’re in search of their mom (Trina Campbell), who left them for a satanic cult into pig heads, fireside rituals and human sacrifice via sharp, wooden stakes.

Although adult in themes, The Long Dark Trail is structured not unlike a YA adventure novel, presented in eight short chapters bearing a one-word tease of a title (e.g., “Absconded,” “Lake,” “Salvation”). Our two protagonists are likable, yet deliver their lines rather flatly, void of personality.

However, the true star is nature, which co-directors Kevin Ignatius (My Best Friend’s Famous) and Nick Psinakis (who plays the cult leader) treat more than a mere backdrop. It bears the brunt of establishing and building a pervading sense of doom. Despite all the portents, a satisfactory payoff isn’t found at the end of the map. At least one can appreciate the elements that are first-rate — namely, Ignatius’ score and Mitchell Kome’s cinematography. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler

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After covering the filmographies of Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ted V. Mikels, Christopher Wayne Curry turns his completist’s eye to a more difficult subject with The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler. Certainly this is the only text to draw a dotted line between the director of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and Luis Buñuel. After all, Steckler was the kind of low-low-budget filmmaker who thought nothing of ending a movie “with three characters the viewer knows and five they do not.”

Published by McFarland & Co., the book is a thorough examination of the man’s nearly 50-year outré oeuvre in — but mostly on the fringes of — Hollywood. As Curry puts it, “Hollywood was not answering and Steckler was tired of calling.”

Those aware of the psychotronic legend largely do so for his early pictures, including the Arch Hall Jr. vehicle Wild Guitar, the aforementioned accidental superhero spoof Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and the mouthful-titled, monster-musical madness from which Curry’s book takes the most opportune pun, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

The author takes readers through each in an amazing amount of detail, essentially scene by scene. This would be frustrating if not for Curry using the opportunity to weave in behind-the-scenes stories and facts, historical context, interview quotes and related minutiae all the while; thus, the effect is akin to listening to a solid DVD commentary, both informative and lively. Naturally, his own opinions play a great part. While Curry sees many of Steckler’s deficiencies as a plus, it’s hilarious when he doesn’t, as in his coverage of the padded slasher Blood Shack (aka The Chooper): “Simply put, there should never be protracted conversations about irrigation and filtered water in a horror film.”

A shameless self-promoter, Steckler (who died in 2009) would no doubt be overjoyed with being the focus of an entire book. But no doubt he’d be livid over the chapter devoted to the roughly 75% of his directorial career he not merely disowned, but denied: the dozens and dozens of hardcore pornos. Curry covers them all, but only in brief, because they’re so bad, they don’t merit, er, probing. (And considering how bad Steckler’s legit pics could get, that says a lot.)

Curry’s all-encompassing description of the X-rated fare says it best: “These films contain the usual humping, bumping and pumping, all of this augmented by mounds of unkempt curlys, arcing ropes of reproductive fluids, pimples, cold sores, in-grown hairs and lots of sweat. … The viewer’s sense of smell is spared, but for the eyes and earls it is an all-out assault.”

The book would not be complete without looking at this sordid bulk of Steckler’s work. Same goes for his oft-leading lady, the beautiful Carolyn Brandt (Body Fever), detailing Steckler’s marriage-wrecking infidelities. Without venom, Brandt sheds a light on their personal life to a degree of candidness I’ve not seen reported (not to mention shares a curious tidbit about Ilsa star Dyanne Thorne’s nipples). Curry deserves commendation for telling the whole story, proving a writer can show reverence without being disingenuous.

The only knock against the book is one of unavoidable timing: Severin Films’ recent Steckler box set, in which Curry participated, renders some of the contents out of date, in that projects regarded as lost no longer are. However, these are few and minor.

If you’ve never experienced the uniqueness of a Steckler film, you’re not ready for Incredibly Strange Features. For everyone else, it’s fascinating and fun. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.