Horror

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

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PA4Deride it all you want, but Paranormal Activity 4 performs a valuable public service by illustrating the dangers of helping a hot single mom in need.

The found-footage film begins with the end of Paranormal Activity 2, which saw the demon-possessed Katie (Katie Featherston) kidnapping her infant nephew, Hunter; a title card informs us neither has been seen since. Turns out, Katie and her creepy kid, Robbie (Brady Allen), live right across the street from Alex (Kathryn Newton, Bad Teacher), the blonde teen through whose eyes — or various camera lenses, to be technically precise — we see the events unfold.

PA41Katie has to go to the hospital for a few days, so Alex’s pushover parents (Alexondra Lee and Stephen Dunham, married in real life until his unfortunate death shortly before the film’s release) take in Robbie … and his imaginary friend, who turns out to be not particularly a figment of imagination. In fact, the malevolent spirit tries to kill Alex with a falling chandelier and lifts her off the bed. It also plays Xbox.

Needless to say, more sinister forces are at play, and discovering them on your own is part of the fun. This franchise continues to be a punching bag for many, yet each entry to date is wildly profitable and popular, and I’ve figured out why: They work. They tap into one of the most common fears shared by all: that someone — or something — might be in our house, invading our personal space, penetrating that one place we feel safe. And if we can’t feel safe there, boy, are we screwed.

The fact that Hollywood can do all that for relative pennies helps, too. —Rod Lott

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Sex

The Erotic Witch Project (2000)

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eroticwitchWhile The Blair Witch Project was by no means the horror masterwork as it was touted, it still had potential to be a good film. Obviously, director John Bacchus (Batbabe: The Dark Nightie) saw this potential, too, and decided to run with it, adding the essential elements needed in any great movie: gigantic, silicone-enhanced breasts and an on-the-loose ape.

Following the same basic plot of Blair Witch, The Erotic Witch Project follows three horse-faced hotties — Darian Caine, Katie Keane and Victoria Vega — as they venture to a remote wooded area to debunk the myth of the “Erotic Witch” for their sexuality class. They head off, even with news that an ape has escaped into the woods. The three bicker argue and lose their map. Pretty much the same so far, right?

eroticwitch1Soon, the girls start hearing the orgasmic howl of the witch, which causes them to perform many, many sexual acts, both solo and with each other — one even using a twig! These scenes are never really “hot,” mostly because of all the stretch marks and pimples on the actresses’ asses. Also, they seem really forced and fake. Unlike so many others, these girls just don’t seem to really enjoy being exploited in a film that is just above porno.

They wake up in the morning and find dildos and an inflatable woman strewn all about the campsite. Then, the ape finds their camera and watches them get it on. I think he masturbates, too, but it is implied and not shown. Not that I really wanted to see it anyway.

Blair’s nonexistent chills, production values and dialogue are mimicked perfectly, but this is the better movie, which is really not saying much. —Louis Fowler

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Thriller

JCVD (2008)

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JCVDOn 9/11, I remember thinking how different things might have been if someone like Jackie Chan or Jet Li had been aboard United flight 93. Certainly those guys could’ve, would’ve kicked the crap out of the hijackers, and thus, saved the day. At least that’s how it works in the movies; real life doesn’t follow a script.

The same kind of thesis is at work in JCVD, a film that has no right to be as good as it is. With the former Timecop and Universal Soldier Jean-Claude Van Damme playing himself, it asks, “What would happen if Van Damme found himself in the middle of a bank robbery? A couple of kicks and it’d all be over, right?”

Director/co-writer Mabrouk El Mechri (The Cold Light of Day) answers, “Nope! You wish!”

jcvd1In fact, after popping into the place to pick up a wire transfer, Van Damme is not only held captive as one of the hostages, but is assumed mistakenly by the authorities (stationed at a video store across the street) to be the mastermind. And “mastermind” is too kind of word for the true criminals; as with real life, they’re unpolished and unplanned. One of them looks eerily like John Cazale in Dog Day Afternoon, an obvious influence.

The highlight of the English/French co-production, partly improvised, isn’t concerned with the robbery at all. It’s the most meta moment of a meta work: a six-minute soliloquy of sorts, in which Van Damme speaks directly to us — in one unbroken shot — about his failures in life. He’s an internationally known movie star who appears to have it “all,” but “all” includes battles with drugs and ex-wives, the latest over custody of his daughter. It is stunning to see him deliver a honest-to-God performance, and he’s excellent.

Sounds grim, but JCVD is not without good humor, either. As an impressed captor relays to a hostage, “He’s the one who brought [John Woo] to the U.S. Without him, he’d still be filming pigeons in Hong Kong.” Without El Mechri, Van Damme still would be waiting for a chance to actually act. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Ghosthouse (1988)

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ghosthouseDamn, do I love a great haunted-house movie! And then there’s Ghosthouse.

In a large Massachusetts home — a ghosthouse, if you will — 11-year-old Henriette Baker (Kristen Fougerousse) stabs the family cat. As punishment, her father locks the girl in the basement, where she hugs her terrifying clown doll for comfort. Upstairs, somehow (and never explained, because ghosthouse), her parents are slaughtered brutally.

Flash-forward 20 years later, when Paul (Greg Scott, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II), a ham radio operator who makes a good bowl of chili, hears a cry for help over the airwaves, so he and his girlfriend (Lara Wendel, Tenebre) track the plea to its source: our ghosthouse.

ghosthouse2Other dumb young people are there camping out, so they all experience the manse’s terrors together: a head in the washing machine, a Doberman with nips the size of novelty giant pencil erasers, a sink that spews blood, an errant fan blade, a rocking camper, visions of the creepy Henriette and her clown doll, which occasionally sports fangs and looks to have been ordered straight from the Poltergeist merch store.

As Paul says, “It’s all just one big horrible mess.” The same can be said for the movie, directed with by-the-numbers passivity by Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox). Little effort is put toward spatial orientation in the titular residence; even less toward the script, built upon illogic. Lenzi seems intent only on getting his money’s worth for its indecipherable theme song, played in part no fewer than 17 times in 95 minutes, yet one that drives you insane upon first listen. —Rod Lott

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Mystery

Massage Parlor Murders! (1974)

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massageparlorIf Herschell Gordon Lewis had tackled a mystery, I believe it would resemble Massage Parlor Murders! (exclamation point theirs), a Big Apple-born slice of sexploitation by first- and last-time directors Chester Fox and Alex Stevens. Credited as assistant director is character actor George Dzundza (Basic Instinct), who briefly appears as a suspect in the case, a portly john dubbed by a trick as “Mr. Creepy.” Which among these three men is most responsible for the static camera and odd cutaways is anyone’s guess.

Budweiser and Schlitz men, respectively, detectives Rizotti (George Spencer, If You Don’t Stop It … You’ll Go Blind!!!) and O’Mara (John Moser) investigate the string of homicides of several masseuses/prostitutes around town by a pair of shaky hands in rubber gloves. One girl is smashed face-first into a mirror; another, smothered with a towel before being doused in acid. It’s the work of a Jack the Ripper of jack-off joints, or, as Rizotti puts it in one of the many scenes of voice-over, “Man, there’s sure a lotta sick weirdos in this town!”

massageparlor1That particular line is spoken during a montage of glorious, dangerous Times Square at night, where the 42nd Street marquees hawk such psychotronic fare as 5 Fingers of Death, The Young Seducers, Seven Golden Men, Blood of Dracula’s Castle and Black Belt Jones. Yes, if nothing else, Massage Parlor Murders! is quite a curio — both the film itself and everything in it.

Luckily, “if nothing else” does not apply. The flick has plenty to offer, being packed with nudity as gratuitous as the wallpaper is gaudy; a naked pool party/orgy, complete with balloons and streamers; rambling “comedian” Brother Theodore as an astrologer; and a car chase that completely outdoes The French Connection … provided we’re only talking about the number of fist-shakin’ fishmongers and mismatched sound effects, and we totally are.

I should note that Massage Parlor Murders! is not porn, although it sure feels like it should be. There’s just that much ineptitude riding behind the camera and uncredited script, which inversely makes the movie that much more interesting and watchable. Rizotti and O’Mara don’t so much as solve the mystery as Fox and Stevens realize they have about three minutes left ’til the closing credits, resulting in an absolute howler of an ending that’s really Quite Something to See. —Rod Lott

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