Horror

Spine (1986)

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Beware, lady nurses in the Valley who happen to stand around 5’3″: A serial killer is targeting you. Be on the lookout for a guy who looks like Jim Henson after a visit to Sunglass Hut. 

Nurse Carrie Lonegan (Janus Blythe, Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive) sure is. Her co-workers at the hospital — really just an office park with an overly fern-laden reception room — keep getting killed by the guy. He’s looking for a “Linda,” but slays regardless of actual name. Worse, Carrie’s new, naive roommate (Lise Romanoff), fresh to El Lay from Kansas City, gets hired there. Will the investigating cop be able to find the culprit before the roomies fall victim, too?

No one tell Carrie, but said crack police detective (co-director/co-writer John Howard) tries to solve the case by punching the following five terms into a TRS-80 database:

  • LINDA
  • NURSE
  • STRANGLE
  • BACKBONE
  • KNIFE

And holy shit, it works!

As the killer, R. Eric Huxley and his pink shirt exude skeeze. If his extended, methodical torture of his tied-up prey in the third act feels a little, well, fetishy, that’s not accidental. Howard infuses the incidentally amusing Spine with the deliberate kink of his pornographic past: bondage videos with titles like Rope Burn.

For the record, Howard’s creative partner, Justin Simmonds, has no such wank-minded credits, much less any other credits. That’s de rigueur for these shot-on-video affairs. As is the great deal of ice cream truck tunes. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

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The tagline to Lisa Frankenstein, “Dig up someone special,” perfectly encapsulates this irreverent, Grand Guignol teen rom-com. Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Zelda Williams, the film plays like a spiritual sequel to Cody’s previous supernatural outing, Jennifer’s Body, with its goofy tone, magnificent dialogue and comical gore (even with a PG-13 rating, it goes pretty hard). Overall, the film plays like a mad scientist’s unholy mashup of Heathers and the works of early career Tim Burton. 

The narrative follows Lisa, a social misfit who finds herself living in a nuclear-esque family after her widowed father remarries. She’s haunted by the death of her mother, who was ax-murdered by a home intruder only months prior. Lisa spends much of her time in an abandoned cemetery near her home, where she makes wax-paper rubbings of the various old tombstones. Her favorite is a grave marker for a young, unmarried man with a bust of his Victorian visage on top, with whom she has one-way conversations.

Lisa’s life becomes super-complicated when the young dead man gets reanimated during a freak, mysterious storm, and fairly quickly professes his love for her. Problem is, Lisa is hung up on her school’s lit-mag editor, and doesn’t like her new undead friend that way. Still, she vows to keep him hidden in her room and help him in any way she can — even if that means getting up to some nefarious deeds in the process. 

Williams just happens to be the late Robin Williams’ daughter, and her directorial debut features a dark sense of humor similar to his. The two leads, Kathryn Newton as Lisa and Cole Sprouse as the creature, handle the material as expertly as their newcomer director and veteran screenwriter. Though Lisa Frankenstein clearly is intended for a younger audience, adults will deeply enjoy this film as well, especially if they remember all too well what it’s like to be a misunderstood teenager in a world that seems hellbent against them.—Christopher Shultz

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s-1980s

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Daily Dead columnist Scott Drebit’s first book can be summed up in one sentence from its 33rd page: “Sometimes you just want to see children have their hands cut off with a samurai sword.” Hear, hear!

No, not in real life, Karen — just at the movies! Specifically, the four decades’ worth Drebit covers in said book, A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s-1980s, from McFarland & Company.

For the paperback, the author champions 60 films — not all horror, despite the subtitle, with sci-fi running a distant second. Like preschoolers, the movies featured are grouped tidily into fives to ensure a semblance of control; Drebit’s themed chapters include such terrors as zombies, satanists, animals and — yikes! — Canadians. Yes, there’s something for everyone … assuming someone out there is into “hookers in weird masks, slimy alien babies, interdimensional traveling, cheap beer, and plastic chainsaws.”

That quote describes one movie — 1989’s shot-on-video Things — and you better believe someone is into it: Drebit, for starters, then hopefully, the adventurous readers swayed by his passionate plead to give it a try, glacier-sized flaws and all.

Three times out of four, the sheer randomness of his picks works in A Cut Below’s favor, lifting it well above a “Horror 101”-style text. For example, I like that the slashers chapter tiptoes into thrillers for the Charles Bronson vehicle 10 to Midnight. I love seeing something as anti-mainstream as Japan’s Evil Dead Trap chosen to represent amusements from other countries. And I really love that the aforementioned chapter of the undead doesn’t invite a certain Mr. Romero to play — no offense meant, George.

As for the other 25% of the time, does Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space need even more ink? Although Drebit’s stated purpose is to commemorate, not unearth, I got more pleasure reading about the titles I haven’t seen. That’s not to say the book is bad when the subject is familiar — not at all, thanks to his folksy, chummy writing style always on duty as a safeguard. You won’t encounter a page not worth your time. If a follow-up is in the cards, I’m hoping for at least 60 more reviews. Is 600 too much to ask? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or McFarland.

Horror

Midnight Peepshow (2022)

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Among the hundreds of horror anthologies I’ve seen, Midnight Peepshow boasts arguably one of the most unique settings for its wraparound: a private booth in a London sex shop. On Valentine’s Day, no less!

That’s where convention attendee Graham (Richard Cotton, The Living and the Dead) drunkenly stumbles into. Each time he inserts cash to make the window go up, the woman on the other side shares her story. It’s no coincidence all three involve Black Rabbit, an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-themed site on the dark web where people pay to have their wildest sexual fantasies realized.

From director Airell Anthony Hayles (They’re Outside), the first segment starts the film on a misstep just sketchy enough to give me a Verotika vibe, which no one wants or needs. Here, the miserably married Roisin Brown and David Wayman experience a home invasion that doesn’t unfold as planned.

Now, imagine if Saw’s games were run not by Tobin Bell, but by Gremlins’ Zach Galligan. That’s the case with the next story, courtesy Andy Edwards (Ibiza Undead). Here, a woman (model Miki Davis) wakes up in a makeshift bridal gown and trapped in a dungeon, where three men she’s slept with are tied up and shock-collared. She’s forced to literally play Fuck, Marry, Kill.

Finally, Jake West (Razor Blade Smile) lets Graham witness his own origin story of sorts. As his better, sexier half (a debuting Sarah Diamond) starts liking their intercourse rougher and rowdier, he starts to wonder why … only to learn the hard way (in both meanings, unfortunately).

Merging fear and fornication in the anything-goes style of Showtime’s The Hunger TV series or the Jeff Gelb/Michael Garrett-edited Hot Blood paperbacks, the movie is naughty enough for a nice night of erotic horror. Two outta three make for greater odds than most indie anthologies can muster these days, and that last hour is strong enough to cry out for another go-round. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Documentary

The Hobby (2022)

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When I was 7 years old, the kids next door came back from the 7-Eleven — which I wasn’t allowed to go to — with something called “trading cards.” Not only did these cards feature full-color photos from everyone’s two favorite movies (Star Wars and Superman), but came with a sticker and a slab of gum. I was extremely, insanely jealous. Still am.

The Hobby, a documentary on the recent resurgence of the trading-card biz, explores the push and pull between collectors and investors. I wish it were more varied in subject than concentrating on two high-stakes types of cards: sports and Pokémon. With select rarities now going for millions on the market, there’s much ado about cardboard.

Director Morgan Jon Fox’s inside-baseball approach may alienate more casual viewers eager for a glimpse into this world. From dealers and podcasters to — just kill me now — a “full-time Pokémon content creator,” interview after interview rattles off price after price of cards they’ve acquired or sold. That makes the doc geared toward people willing to watch YouTube videos of others opening pack after pack, box after box — something more passive and alien to me than watching others play video games.

Although not a total wash, the movie quickly enters a repetitive cycle that’s oddly void of conflict, especially since the end titles hint at later events of hostility and volatility Fox’s camera wasn’t around to catch. Speaking of catching, The Hobby’s graphics aren’t exactly “Topps” in the spelling department, with such errors as “ECLUSIVE” and “FUED.” —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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