Third movie, four stories, five or more shades of fucked-up: That’s V/H/S: Viral. And that’s a good thing.

Coming from the filmmakers behind such indie shockers as Timecrimes, Resolution and Deadgirl, this presumably final sequel of the rather divisive and ornery horror-anthology franchise again plays with — and relies upon — the found-footage concept, yet adds a level of subtext bound to sail over the heads of those viewers who could stand to heed its message. We’ll get to that in a sec.

But first, a quick rundown of Viral’s videos:
• An amateur magician graduates from the trailer park to the Vegas stage when he acquires a cloak that derives its considerable powers from human blood.
• A scientist invents a machine that enables him to interact with the parallel-universe versions of himself and his wife.
• Punk-ass skateboarders in search of the next killer curb mess with the wrong drainage ditch in Mexico: one that wakes the dead.
• Finally, serialized as the wraparound tale is the cryptic saga of a young man, his abducted girlfriend and the streets-speeding ice cream truck that just might have her inside.

Coiled with a devilish sense of humor, Viral is more malleable and freeform than 2012’s V/H/S and 2013’s V/H/S 2; more often than not, unpredictability rules, leaving us to believe that anything can happen. It does, in a glorious parade of mayhem that sends up the utter self-absorption of today’s attention-seeking tweeters, Instagramers and YouTubers who live for “likes” and soak up validation like a sponge to spilled milk. If that plan of attack sacrifices scares — and it does — for knowing winks at the expense of the Me-Me-Me Generation, so be it! #theywouldntgetitanyway —Rod Lott

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The Merrye children of Spider Baby don’t seem like they would have much to be merry about. The poor kids suffer from a rare neurological disorder particular to their bloodline. As a narrator helpfully tells us in the opening, at around the age of 10 or so Merrye family members regress to a “pre-human condition of savagery and cannibalism.”

Incredible, but true.

Okay, so it’s not really true. But try telling that to the slobbery, tongue-wagging Ralph Merrye (Sid Haig, House of 1000 Corpses) or his creepy sister Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn, Pit Stop). And then there’s incorrigible Virginia (Jill Banner, The President’s Analyst), who believes herself to be a spider, trapping victims with a rope before “stinging” them with a flurry of butcher knives to the head.

The only thing standing between the murderous Merryes and civilization is the kindly figure of Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolf Man) as the family’s longtime chauffeur and now caretaker for the plum-crazy brood. And when Lon Chaney Jr. is the beacon of normalcy, you’ve got problems, friend.

From an irresistible opening theme song by Chaney Jr. to its could-this-be-the-end-question-mark resolution, Spider Baby spins a web of pure exploitation gold. You should expect nothing less from the debut picture of Jack Hill, the B-movie writer/director of Switchblade Sisters who would help launch the career of Foxy Brown herself, Pam Grier. The film was shot in 12 days in 1964, but languished on the shelf for several years after the producers went bankrupt.

Spider Baby is a cautionary — albeit funny and macabre — tale of inbreeding run amok. Do not miss. —Phil Bacharach

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In the annals of Clive Barker cinematic adaptations, The Midnight Meat Train is a redheaded stepchild, often put to the side and ignored. And it’s a damned shame; while it never achieves the classic status of Hellraiser, Meat Train has a lot going on beneath its engine.

Barker’s never been a “buxom co-ed battles hockey-masked lunatic” sort of writer. Instead, his tales revel in thematic subtext: Hellraiser concerns itself with the BDSM subculture; Candyman, the importance of folk tales to society; Nightbreed, a classism/racism allegory; Lord of Illusions, the fragility of reality. Even the horrid Rawhead Rex contemplates the nurturing qualities of mothers vs. the stereotypical aggressive male. So, too, Meat Train is less a “serial killer run amok” gorefest and more about the mythological heart of New York City, a heart that requires much blood to continue pumping.

But don’t fret, gorehounds; you won’t be left wanting.

Bradley Cooper (The Hangover trilogy) goes gritty as Leon, a photographer trying to capture the true black heart of NYC. He becomes obsessed with the nocturnal wanderings of Mahogany, a strange, silent behemoth played by former UK footballer Vinnie Jones (The Condemned). Following the mute leviathan into the subways, Leon discovers exactly where most of the city’s missing persons end up; in an abandoned subway station, slaughtered by Mahogany to be prepared and fed to what appears to be relatives of The Descent’s cave dwellers.

The performances surpass those of more standard horror fare. Cooper goes darker than his current status as Hollywood golden boy will ever allow again; Jones proves that, like fellow hulk Arnold Schwarzenegger, he’s far more effective when he doesn’t open his mouth; and the eternally underutilized Leslie Bibb (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) brings nice heft and grit to her role as Leon’s concerned fiancé. The spectacularly bloody proceedings (boy howdy, are they bloody) are unsettlingly orchestrated by director Ryûhei Kitamura (Versus), although an overuse of CGI bloodletting takes a viewer out of the story once too often. And if the ultimate ending doesn’t resonate quite like that of the eponymous Barker short story (one of the finest horror tales of the 20th century), there are moments of true dread scattered throughout.

And, yes, plenty of practical gore. Sure, the characters’ actions stretch disbelief to the breaking point, but it’s all presented with a heady seriousness, with nary an audience-friendly wink to be found. It’s unsteady on its feet, but I’ll take The Midnight Meat Train over the “safe” horror of Ouija or As Above, So Below any day. —Corey Redekop

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Right away, as in mere seconds, the genius-titled Nude for Satan delivers on the “nude,” with a woman fleeing something at night. We’re not made to wait too long for the “Satan” part of the equation, either, assuming Ol’ Scratch is that guy who won’t cut out the cackling and has the blacked-out tooth — a safe bet, wouldn’t you agree? (As for “for,” well, let’s just give this slice of Italian cheesecake the benefit of the doubt.)

How does one get au naturel for the Antichrist in the first place? Per writer/director Luigi Batzella (The Devil’s Wedding Night), the first step is to be like Dr. William Benson (Stelio Candelli, Demons) and assist a confused beauty like Susan (Rita Calderoni, Delirium), who’s just been injured an auto accident. Then you seek help at the nearest spooky castle, preferably inhabited by Beelzebub (James Harris of Jess Franco’s Kiss Me Killer) because the pieces naturally fall into place from there.

Inside the Gothic estate, time is suspended, which means Susan and the doc meet alternate-reality versions of themselves. That’s just for starters, as other strange stuff happens, from seeing painted images on canvas move to falling down a hole and into a room-sized spiderweb. The latter happens to Susan; upon landing with a bounce, her life-affirming right breast pops free and hangs out carefree for the remainder of the 82-minute wonder of softcore surrealism.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so back to that web: Susan nearly becomes a midnight snack for a giant spider, so poorly made it would not be out-of-place in a small-town church spookhouse. The arachnid has somewhere between 10 and 12 legs, and looks like a dog turd rolled in hair. It also emits sound effects that merge space transmissions and sirens. Basically, it makes the robotic spider from a similar scene in 1965’s Bloody Pit of Horror look good.

Batzella’s work makes about as much sense as Batzella’s last name; he’s like a vo-tech Mario Bava, which equates this project to junior-college performance art, complete with dime-store fireworks, but tell me you don’t want to see that! Research tells me the Dutch added hardcore inserts to push Nude for Satan in full-on porn, but given the extra limbs the spider got, I shudder to think at what the humans might acquire in their triple-X translation. —Rod Lott

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If it’s Tuesday, it must be a new straight-to-video horror film starring Robert Englund. In this case, it’s Fear Clinic, born from the short-lived web series of the same name, in which the former Freddy Krueger traded Nightmares for phobias.

Englund reprises his role as Dr. Andover, renegade brain researcher and inventor of a coffin-like machine that animates one’s fears into vivid hallucinations, in hopes of curing his patients of that which frightens them to the point of crippling. This being a horror movie, the contraption doesn’t work as planned. This being from the same creative team as the 2009 series — namely, director/co-writer Robert Hall, the man behind the effective throwback ChromeSkull slashers — it arrives as a missed opportunity and a major disappointment. What worked in episodic bursts does not gel as one shared story, which concerns the struggling survivors of a tragic diner shooting that left several dead, including one child.

In shedding the serial nature of its source material, Fear Clinic the feature loses its base appeal. While it’s not required viewers have the show under their belt before watching the movie, this project does serve as a direct continuation. Yet it doesn’t even follow its own internal logic, so fans may be as lost as newcomers as to just what the hell is going on. I was, and I happily devoured those episodes as they premiered five years prior.

Budgetary issues are apparent, and may be somewhat to blame for the script not being up to snuff. I am assuming that a poor showing in crowdsource funding are why once-attached Kane Hodder and Danielle Harris are no-shows in reviving their series characters; in their place is Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor — not exactly a fair trade. Casting issues aside, one can’t help but notice how fake the CGI spiders look: so pitiful, the intended scare effect is anything but. Speaking of the arac war, a special effect Hall is able to pull off seems swiped from the Venom portions of Spider-Man 3. Oh, what a tangled web … —Rod Lott

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