Officially or not, The Unliving (aka Tomb of the Werewolf, in a shorter cut) is the 12th and final entry in the cycle of films starring Spanish-horror icon Paul Naschy as the lycanthropic Count Waldemar Daninsky. We say “or not” because Naschy neither wrote nor directed it. Hell — and this is not a complaint — he’s hardly in it!

In the creative mitts of B-movie auteur Fred Olen Ray (Bikini Drive-In), the sequel is also the only one of the wild bunch — among them, The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman and Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror — to be most interested in a bodily fluid that’s not colored red.

In present day, sole Waldemar descendant Richard Daninsky (Jay Richardson, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) is anxious to find the treasure rumored to be buried in the count’s castle. To do so, he hires a psychic investigator (Stephanie Bentley, Rapid Eye Movement) and, to document it all, the crew of the investigative TV series Current Mysteries, whose host (Ulli Lommel regular Danielle Petty, Diary of a Cannibal) is slappin’ skin with her himbo producer (Leland Jay, reunited with Olen Ray after 2003’s Bikini Airways).

Unbeknownst to all, the caretaker of the Daninsky castle is actually 17th-century blood-bather Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Michelle Bauer, Evil Toons). Down in its catacombs, she tricks Richard into reviving Waldemar’s skeletal corpse, thus kick-starting a reign of nighttime terror throughout the village as the ol’ count goes loco in werewolf form.

Then five years away from death, Naschy appears awfully (and sadly) frail and slow. The poor guy can’t catch a break onscreen, either, because when he’s not sporting a horrid mullet that makes him look like a pudgier version of Dante from Clerks, he’s hidden behind a five-and-dime werewolf mask seemingly borrowed from a box in Michael Landon’s garage. (I Was a Late-in-Life Werewolf, anyone?) Naturally, when the hirsute creature runs around, it’s not Naschy doing the running.

That Naschy appears in The Unliving at all is reason enough for his fans to watch, although they should temper their expectations that this Daninsky outing feels like it tonally belongs with the others; it does not. As anyone familiar with the Olen Ray oeuvre knows, pure horror is not his thing; intentionally campy homages to pure horror are. Disembowelments are present, but they clearly take a backseat to four- and five-minute sex scenes. Fred’s films are parties, and only certain people fit in. To be one of them, know before crossing the threshold that he keeps the budgets low, the atmosphere light and the ladies’ chests ample and gelatinous. —Rod Lott

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While watching movies for review, I often take notes on my iPhone, as I did for Shutter. Tellingly, the device infamous for incorrect autocorrections wanted to change “Shutter” to “Shitter.” Given that “shutter” is a legitimate word, I can’t explain the switcheroo; perhaps, as in this film, otherworldly forces beyond our understanding were trying to tell me something.

Shutter, shitter: It fits. Shudder.

Newlyweds Ben and Jane Shaw (The Skulls’ Joshua Jackson and Transformers’ Rachael Taylor, respectively) move from the U.S. to Japan for his new job as a fashion photographer. Driving late at night to their new digs, Jane runs over a young Asian woman who suddenly appears in the middle of the road, then loses control of the vehicle and plows into a tree. Both Shaws emerge with only minor scrapes; the woman is nowhere to be found, nor is blood, let alone any trace of her to suggest she existed as nothing more than a figment of Jane’s weary imagination.

If so, that’s some imagination, because subsequent photos taken of and/or by Jane develop with inexplicable smears of white. Ben’s assistant refers to them as “spirits,” so to whom should Jane turn for counsel? Why, Tokyo’s own “spirit-photography magazine,” of course! (Want more unbelievability? The publication appears to have a paid staff of 10.) What do these spirits start to do? Kill people, of course!

A remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name, Shutter exists as one of many substandard Americanizations of Asian horrors — Dark Water, Pulse, One Missed Call — that smothered our multiplexes in the aughts, following the wave created by The Ring and The Grudge. In keeping with those films, director Masayuki Ochiai (Infection) gives Shutter’s story space to breathe. That is a nice way of saying it’s slow. But a slow burn, it is not. Unworthy of its slight time investment, it is a humorless piffle that checks off the boxes with duty and without enthusiasm.

Only at the denouement does the movie break from its sleepiness long enough to convey a jolt. I’ve yet to conclude if that twist is truly clever or utterly ridiculous; then again, I stopped thinking about it the next morning — already several more hours than the whole deserves. —Rod Lott

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Now that all of them are married, three sisters are called to New York for the reading of their father’s “highly irregular but legal” will. The document decrees that they and their spouses are to reside “in sexual harmony” at his island estate for three days. Then and only then shall his mysterious trunk be brought down from the attic and shared among the women.

Presumably, the inheritance includes the Victorian house, although its halls and walls bear such gaudy wallpaper, I’m not sure who would covet the property. Perhaps The Ghastly Ones refers to these eyesores of rooms? Or maybe the home’s three servants, one of whom (Hal Borske) is a half-wit hunchback with novelty Bubba teeth and a craving for live rabbits.

A brief tear of murder begins when the bloodied, furry corpse of a bunny turns up beneath one couple’s sheets, prompting the serious admission, “It’s not very comfortable having a dead animal put in your bed.” (My favorite bit of dialogue? “I did not, you brazen hussy.”) Performances are accidental in The Ghastly Ones, as they are in all of Andy Milligan’s penny-ante productions that escaped from his mad mind: a sex-gore netherworld that includes Torture Dungeon, Bloodthirsty Butchers and (exclamation points his, of course) The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!

His directorial approach is an anti-style marked by not much going on in the upper half of the frame, the camera appearing clearly in the mirror (especially startling for an attempted period piece as this) and being so in-your-face as to accentuate his cast members’ nose hairs and blemishes. A considerable amount of blood also exists, exceeded only by boredom. —Rod Lott

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So much of modern horror has been reduced to a series of cheap jumps and contrived shock-value tactics, a trend 20 years or so in the making that managed to suck a lot of the life out of a once artful ilk. The genre arguably peaked in the late ’70s and early ’80s with heavily stylized, blood-curling flicks like Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining — movies predicated mostly on the potential perils of the unknown. And the best of horror’s contemporary offerings — The Blair Witch Project, The Others and, most recently, The Babadook — were similarly averse to predictable jostles and jolts.

It Follows is this same breed of horror, inducing its pervasive unease through the use of old-school tactics: crafty camerawork, a hair-raising score and Maika Monroe’s breakthrough performance as the film’s tormented lead actress. It has the look and feel of a work that could have been released at any point in the last 50 years — something writer/director David Robert Mitchell (The Myth of the American Sleepover) seems keenly aware of, given the prominence of landline phones and TVs with knobs on them — yet its one-of-a-kind premise combats any disposition toward mere homage or some uninspired retread.

Set in suburban Detroit, the film follows a teenaged Jay (Monroe, The Guest) who, after a sexual encounter with her boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary, Zombeavers), contracts the worst kind of STD: being stalked by naked dead people. Only those who have had sex with someone affected can see these ghastly creatures, who walk slowly yet persistently toward the most recent victim with intent to kill. This supernatural force takes on many faces and arrives when its target least expects it, and the only way to alleviate the haunting is to pass it on to someone else through intercourse. With the aid of her friends, Jay’s struggle is to first acknowledge that it’s real, then to remedy it, then to ultimately destroy it.

That may sound ridiculous on a surface level, but it’s executed with such mastery that it’s nearly impossible to find fault. The notion of there being something out there somewhere that’s going to find you at some point lends itself to a state of constant paranoia, a concept compounded by Mitchell’s brilliant use of backdrop and camera movement. The movie is shot almost entirely in deep focus, not just allowing but coercing the audience to be mindful of what’s happening behind every single frame. And through the use of 360-degree pans and prowling slow-zooms, Mitchell’s camera can, depending on the circumstance, create either full spacial awareness or lull you into complacency.

The synth-heavy score — composed by Rich Vreeland under his Disasterpeace moniker — adds an anxious, retro-horror undercurrent to it all, not unlike that of John Carpenter’s Halloween or the aforementioned Suspiria. Yet the music acquiesces at all the right moments, whether to approaching footsteps or a disquieting youthful whimper, allowing the suspense and anguish of ambience to take hold without relinquishing effectiveness.

Through each of the film’s 100 minutes, Mitchell injects new life into horror by conjuring elements from decades past and applying them to modern-day ideals. It’s one of the genre’s most subtly immersive, if not altogether scariest, films of the last several years, and it accomplished as much with an indie-friendly budget and a cast of relative unknowns. No matter; It Follows is less about the spectacle and more about the experience. —Zach Hale, Oxford Karma

Anyone expecting the epic battle promised by the title of Frankenstein vs. the Mummy to be an epic battle is in for a rude awakening. Ironically, in keeping the fight confined to one scene toward the end, writer/director Damien Leone is sticking closely to the monster-mash template of the past, à la Universal’s black-and-white classic Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.

To many, that won’t matter. What will is the time it takes to get to the point where those creatures are ready to rumble. Whereas the aforementioned 1943 film was over and done with in less than 75 minutes, this one takes nearly 120.

As if you needed to be told, leather-jacketed med-school professor Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Max Rhyser, Razortooth) is working on a secret project: reanimating the dead! Meanwhile, fellow faculty member and Maxim-ready archaeologist Naihla Khalil (Ashton Leigh, The Virginity Hit) has brought a rather unique souvenir back from her trip to Egypt: the crusty corpse of a pharaoh!

While Dr. F and Ms. K go on a first date (on which she puts out), her mummy (Brandon deSpain, The Black Water Vampire) spritzes its ancient death curse into the face of an old, bald colleague (Boomer Tibbs, Working Girls) who immediately gets all murdery across campus. Eventually, Victor’s own killer monster (Constantin Tripes, looking like an emaciated Glenn Danzig) gets loose, too.

Okay, so story is not Leone’s bread and butter; the guy sure loves him some old-school monsters, though, and their design is so impressive, it still would be for a picture 10 times the budget. I just wish this picture moved faster. The pacing is off — and consistently, suggesting Leone cannot kill his darlings either in the script stage or the editing phase, or perhaps both. Between the two, the role as editor is the one I would rather see him cede.

Frankenstein vs. the Mummy marks the multitalent’s first true feature, as 2013’s All Hallows’ Eve — a clown-centric and genuinely creepy horror flick I really dig — is an anthology cobbled from his short films. Judging from that and this, I presume he’s not yet accustomed to the differences of long-form narrative. He’ll get there. Until then, somewhat enjoy this graveyard semi-smash. —Rod Lott

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