Horror

Jack-O (1995)

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Sung to the tune of “The Muffin Man”:

Do you know the pumpkin man
The pumpkin man, the pumpkin man
Oh, do you know the pumpkin man
In Jack-O, he’s very lame

Because good Christians in the olden times don’t cotton to sorcerers, a man by the last name of Kelly kills a warlock. To get revenge, that wizard, played by (visibly deteriorated stock footage of) John Carradine, conjures up a scythe-swingin’ man with an oversized pumpkin for a noggin. Call him Jack-O if you like, even though the movie Jack-O never does.

As Halloween nears in modern-day Florida, Jack-O (née Lantern) goes after a grade schooler in glasses named Sean (Ryan Latshaw, son of Jack-O director Steve Latshaw) because he’s the last of the Kelly clan. In the climactic scene, li’l Sean even goads his monstrous pursuer with, “Come and get me, pumpkin man!” Them’s fightin’ words, kid.

Meanwhile, babysitter Linnea Quigley takes a shower; Cameron Mitchell posthumously appears on TV via leftover footage; Sean’s ineffectual father (one-and-doner Gary Doles) turns his garage into a spookhouse; and Sean’s mom (Rebecca Wicks, Latshaw’s Biohazard: The Alien Force) forever looks like an unblinking deer caught in headlights. I dunno, maybe it’s just her perm.

It shouldn’t be hard to make a passable horror movie out of a gourd/guy hybrid, yet for about an hour and a half, Latshaw and his frequent producer, Fred Olen Ray, show you how soundly they failed. Their monster (Patrick Moran, Latshaw’s Dark Universe) looks cool, but — like the flick itself — barely bothers to move. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Line (2023)

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News flash: Fraternities suck. 

Even the fictional ones like Kappa Nu Alpha at the fictional Sumpter College (as played by the University of Oklahoma, my alma mater). The KNA boys — for they are certainly not men — fall under the microscope of Ethan Berger’s The Line, a dramatic thriller with, unfortunately, as much real-world resonance today as the time of its setting a decade ago. Progress!

A freshman no more, Tom (Alex Wolff, A Quiet Place: Day One) relishes the start of the new school year — particularly the freedom of living in the frat house with his fellow coke-snorting, power-hungry, racist, misogynist, homophobic, immature, gun-fetishizing, elephant-walking, backwards cap-wearing motherfuckers. Their enthusiasm sours when Sumpter’s powers that be, fed up with the frat’s repeated code-of-conduct violations, outlaw hazing, period. 

Authority, however, means nothing to Tom’s spoiled-rotten, beefy bestie/roomie, Mitch (Bo Mitchell, TV’s Eastbound & Down), he of the lid reading “SHOW ME THAT BUTTHOLE.” Unlike the cash-strapped Tom, the easily detestable Mitch is used to getting anything he wants, thanks to the deep pockets of his rich asshole father (a slithering John Malkovich). 

But when Mitch doesn’t get automatic obsequiousness from a headstrong pledge (an excellent Austin Abrams, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), Mitch vows to make the kid’s life hell. Things inevitably go so far, they go overboard, leading Tom to wonder if all the KNA talk of “brotherhood” is just a bunch of chest-pumping bullshit. Which, of course, it is.

Wolff admirably continues to bury every last remnant of his Nickelodeon kidcom/tween-idol upbringing. In fact, his performance as Tom is his best since his 2018 breakthrough in Hereditary. Tom begins this story as a complete phony (with even his hardscrabble mother, played by SNL vet Cheri Oteri in a serious role, calling out his “faux Forrest Gump accent”), and ends it so humbled, having found his place in the world — not his purpose, mind you, but his spot in the world’s pecking order.

Berger’s debut feature as writer or director earned my respect early — even well before scoring Tom’s frowned-upon hookup with a Black classmate (Halle Bailey, 2023’s The Little Mermaid) to a track from Stereolab’s Dots and Loops. The Line is intelligently written and staged with a quiet intensity until the powder-keg situation has no other choice but to explode. Berger manages to avoid preachiness until the infuriating final shot — infuriating not because it hammers home as message we’re already aware exists, but because the scene around it plays out exactly like it would — hell, like it does — in real life. —Rod Lott

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Kitchen Sink

Gummo (1997)

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WTF

A white-trash travelogue through the scabies-infested underwear of the crusty underworld of destitute hell, Gummo is the overpriced souvenir photo you get the world’s worst gift shop.

Featuring budding sociopaths, disabled sex fiends and freshly killed pets, the rancid smell of this movie is a combination of rotting trash, decayed carcasses and dirty jean shorts. Filmed in a cinéma vérité-style anti-style somewhat within the boundless boundaries of the supposed Dogme 95 movement, it’s an art film for the perpetually artless.

In the ruins of Xenia, Ohio, a traumatic tornado has decimated the mostly white population and their malformed brethren in a drastic cycle of abject poverty, serious non-education and, for the most part, death metal. Gummo starts with an emaciated boy in dingy bunny ears, spitting and urinating from an overpass. From this first minute, things get progressively worse with the mostly amateur cast of jobless ne’er-do-wells excreting the most anti-social behavior.

In small, disparate sections, a kid feeds glass-riddled food to stray cats, platinum blondes with puffy nipples dance on a bed, skinhead brothers engage in bareknuckle horseplay, a pair of foulmouthed youngsters shoot cap guns, director Harmony Korine sexually assaults a gay little person, and, in the most suitable section of the film, the world championship of chair wrestling goes down.

Even with all that, Gummo has a through line of two junior delinquents like to huff glue, score with an underage prostitute, murder a comatose granny, drown numerous kittens and, worst of all, take baths in the foulest green water while eating sparse spaghetti.

Known for his shock-based indie features like Spring Breakers, Korine has assembled a stellar cast of the worst possible losers, users and in the case of Chloe Sevigny, poseurs. It’s a remarkably pathetic time at the movies — and one that is infinitely watchable.

It’s a totally class-based scare film about that one house on the block whose residents drunkenly play their music too loud at 3 a.m. and then pistol-whip you for complaining. You know the one!

Some people think Gummo is truly destitute outsider art — actually, most of Korine’s work is like that, but that’s a whole other thing — leading me to wonder if this is an actual narrative film or a documentary of the most homeless order.

Or both?

Either way, it’s that type of movie that will make you claw deeper into your white-bread Christian worldview of opioid-addicted sinners or expand your holy subconscious into venereal medicines usually administered though the penis. —Louis Fowler

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Horror

Tarot (2024)

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Whilst scouring for booze in the Catskills mansion they’ve rented for a birthday blowout, seven stupid collegians explore a basement full of astrological shit, including a — spoiler — deck of tarot cards. Haley (Harriet Slater, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) reads everyone’s fortunes. And I do mean everyone’s, which takes up a lot of time. 

Before long, the kids start to perish in ways their readings predicted, each carried out by the supernatural character on the card in question. For example, the birthday girl is the first to go, attic-laddered to death by The High Priestess. 

Tarot is the kind of dead-teenager movie that, 20 to 25 years ago, would have starred the likes of Chad Michael Murray and/or Rebecca Gayheart. However, the most recognizable face is this cast belongs to Jacob Batalon (Ned from Jon Watts’ Spider-Man trilogy), who essays one of the more annoying stoner characters the genre has seen this millennium. 

In today’s horror-film landscape, the concept is the true star. This one comes courtesy of Horrorscope, a forgotten (if ever known) 1992 paperback, but the source matters not with co-writers/co-directors Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg squandering nearly any potential. Visually, the film looks drawn with only the darkest-colored crayons, so it’s difficult to discern what you’re seeing when it most counts: with the kills!

Among the death sequences, those featuring The Fool, The Hanged Man and The Magician emerge as the most notable almost by default, by virtue of at least getting a fair glimpse of the architects of these kids’ fates. (And you just know producers have a whole “Tarotverse” in mind with spin-offs spotlighting each villain.) Tarot is pedestrian at best, and it’s never best. —Rod Lott

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Horror

A Return to Salem’s Lot (1987)

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Much of the promotional material for A Return to Salem’s Lot features the caped, grotesque figure of Barlow, the head vampire from Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel ’Salem’s Lot. Fans of that 1979 TV miniseries will be disappointed to learn, however, that Barlow does not actually appear in the sequel, which strays pretty far from King’s source material.

Written and directed by Larry Cohen, creator of satirical horrors It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and The Stuff, among others, the film teases a few interesting ideas about the origins (and symbolism) of vampires in society, but never fully ties these concepts together.

The plot follows anthropologist Joe Weber (frequent Cohen collaborator Michael Moriarty), who must look after his troubled, foul-mouthed yuppie son, Jeremy (Ricky Addison Reed, in his only onscreen role). The father and son decide to restore a house left to Joe by his deceased Aunt Clara in the little town of Salem’s Lot, Maine.

They of course quickly learn that the townsfolk are all vampires, led by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan), and they have a proposal for Joe: Study their ways and create a “Vampire Bible” to formally introduce the oldest race of creatures to the rest of the world. Joe appreciates the anthropological implications of this proposal, but isn’t sure about helping the bloodsuckers out.

Meanwhile, the vampire children of Salem’s Lot, primarily Amanda (a young Tara Reid), tempt Jeremy with a life of eternal youth, and a crusty Nazi hunter (cult director Samuel Fuller) comes snooping around town. Will Joe and Jeremy choose evil over good, or will they “do the right thing” and fight the vampires?

Ultimately, the film isn’t sure what the right thing is, and thus, neither is the audience, leaving viewers more confused than ponderous. On top of this, A Return to Salem’s Lot is neither scary nor funny, making it a rather tepid entry in Cohen’s otherwise outstanding body of work. —Christopher Shultz

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