Asks the cover art of Tales from the Other Side, “DO YOU DARE WATCH THEM ALL?” While the horror anthology’s makers intend that tagline to be ominous, consider it a public service announcement and save your time.
On Halloween night, a few trick-or-treaters decide to approach the front door of “Scary Mary” (Roslyn Gentle, 1989’s The Punisher). Although rumored throughout the neighborhood to be a mean old witch, she kindly invites the kids inside for — guess what! — six stories, each helmed by a different director. Two-thirds are simply mediocre; the remainder, monotonous.
A traveling circus’ ringmaster enthralls crowds with the legend of his turd-like “petrified boy,” leading to too little a payoff after a long buildup. A would-be filmmaker takes an overnight job editing memorial videos for a funeral home; his gig ends predictably, yet with an excellent boogeyman. In the most creative segment, Krampus battles a Christmas elf in something I hesitate to call “animation” because the stop-motion elements cut too many corners, more resembling a stack of flipped-through drawings.
Sadly, Other Side’s most seasoned directors (Sushi Girl’s Kern Saxton and Mope’s Lucas Heyne) are saddled with a story that doesn’t even qualify as horror: In a psychiatric hospital, a patient (James Duval, Go) claims to be a prophet of God. While far and away the most well-made of all the Tales, it’s also pretentiously written.
In total, the collection’s only surprise is that it holds none. —Rod Lott
No doubt Famous T and A proved an enormous VHS hit for Charles Band back in 1982. Hell, it probably paid for an L.A. divorce or a Romanian castle. Now, a full four decades later, the exploitation film legendfinally gives it something his 2006 movie Evil Bong already has seven of: a sequel.
What in the holy name of Craig Hosoda took you so long, Chuck?
Whereas sex bomb Sybil Danning hosted the original, Famous T and A 2 comes fronted by a sex doll in human form, Diana Prince. A former (?) porn star, she’s best known as the sidekick to drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs on his current Shudder series, a gig that doesn’t ask for much. This compilation flick calls for even less: Sit still, face the camera, read innuendo-leaning lines off cue cards, raise an eyebrow now and again. (The latter accounts for more movement than Band’s camera.)
After a quickie quick run-through of early skin-on-the-screen history — or herstory, really — Prince officially kicks off Band’s “tit-illating trip” with a tribute to Russ Meyer. Strangely, it’s done so with clips from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, one of the few Meyer mamm-sterpieces with no nudity. That oddity immediately rectifies itself with segments honoring Jess Franco, Andy Sidaris, Linnea Quigley and the like. As one could guess, the bulk of T&A 2 pulls from Band’s Full Moon-owned archives, from the respectable (Tourist Trap, also skin-free) to the reprehensible (Unlucky Charms) to the Skinemax staples.
In these cases and most others, the clips aren’t clipped enough. For example, as a one-time 13-year-old, I’m pretty sure viewers want to see Sherilyn Fenn making the two-backed beast with an actual beast in Meridian, not several minutes of talk leading up to it. The erotica from Band’s Surrender Cinema titles wear out their welcome sooner, in particular the tentacles-a-poppin’ Femalien: Cosmic Crush.
Among the other Surrender snippets are Veronica 2030 and Bad Girls at Play, both notable per Prince for their featured porn personalities. The former puts Julia Ann in some kind of gold tinfoil (but not for long) as some kind of sex robot; the latter finds Trump belt notch Stormy Daniels unleashing breasts with angles so boxy, they don’t appear to be finished.
Something about it all seems … off. Perhaps it’s a lack of energy; perhaps it’s my age; or perhaps the concept’s irrelevance in an everything-on-demand world. Or perhaps it’s all these things, and Famous T and A 2 is really as boring as it struck me. Co-directed and written by Full Moon regular Brooks Davis (The Gingerweed Man), it stretches the definition of “famous” as far as Band does with dollars. —Rod Lott
Watcher’s title could refer to the film’s protagonist, Julia (It Follows’ Maika Monroe), who moves to Bucharest with her husband, Francis (The Neon Demon’s Karl Glusman), despite not knowing the language. Thus, most conversations place her as an observer, an inactive participant in need of translation. However, Watcher being a horror thriller, it more likely refers to the guy across the street, who always seems to be staring into her apartment.
After she hears of nearby decapitations carried out by a serial killer called “The Spider,” Julia wonders if her fears of living in an alien country aren’t unfounded. If that neighbor might be the man she believes is following her in public. If the things that go bump in the night are perhaps not “things” at all …
For the suspense genre, an apartment building makes an ideal setting, as paranoia lives on every floor, even if its name isn’t on a single mail slot. Hell, Roman Polanski has used such a structure three times, including Rosemary’s Baby, which writer and director Chloe Okuno visually checks as Julia and Francis pass the aforementioned crime scene on their way home one night.
In just her first feature, Okuno makes all the right choices in depicting her heroine’s plights as newcomer and potential victim, with Monroe aptly pulling off both. Okuno’s conscious decision not to use subtitles during Romanian conversations puts viewers in Julia’s outsider wavelength. Equally discomforting is how Okuno shows the man throughout the first half: in a blur or with his full face blocked or out of frame, to keep tension at a gentle rolling boil. Although less patient audience members may start getting antsy, they’ll be jolted into silence by a dynamite final 10 minutes. —Rod Lott
What’s the matter with Kansas? Well, lots of things, but in the case of Dark Before Dawn, its farming community of Milo is being destroyed by corporate shenanigans. In the opening Senate subcommittee hearing that plays like a campaign ad full of phony testimonials, we hear the farmers’ plight. “I ain’t gettin’ a fair shake,” complains a guy who should be credited as Old Coot, if he weren’t already ID’d as one Francis Zickefoose.
Redneck reporter Roger Crandall (Paul Newsom, 1996’s Public Enemies) suspects much of the blame falls on the Dallas-based Farmcor (not Farmcorp, which would make sense). The company’s up to sumthin’ and, by gum, by minute 13, he has it all figger’d out: Farmcor is falsifying reports to control grain futures.” Then he’s killed, pushed off a tall metal thingamajig to his death (before dawn) in a grain elevator.
Crandall was correct; as Farmcor bigwig J.B. Watson (Morgan Woodward, Supervan) tells the board, he’s cooked up a 12 billion-buck plan that’ll allow them to snap up foreclosed farms for pennies, then sell bread for $6 a loaf! Crandall’s romantic partner, “big TV lady” Jessica, heads to Milo to investigate. For the record, Jessica is played by Reparata Mazzola, of whom three things should be noted:
1. She constituted one-third of Lady Flash, Barry Manilow’s backing vocalists.
2. This is not only her one try as actress, but her one try as screenwriter.
3. “Reparata Mazzola” sounds like either a cooking oil Florence Henderson might shill or a place where they fix wheels of cheese.
Anyway, Jessica’s snooping around is aided by yet another reporter (Buck Taylor, The Legend of the Lone Ranger) and yet another farmer, Jeff (Sonny Gibson, Underground Aces). Jeff’s John Deere mesh-backed cap is Dark Before Dawn’s equivalent of Superman’s chest insignia; heck, he even saves Jessica from being chopped up by a combine, six years after Superman III.
But he sure can’t squeeze a diamond out of this lump of coal. There’s an irrefutable reason moviegoers no longer see conspiracy thrillers centered around the price of wheat: because they didn’t see this one. Good reason exists there as well: because Dark Before Dawn is terribly dull, indolently written and hokily acted — an irrational, fist-measured mix of political chicanery and your local station’s 4 a.m. farm report. Other than one instance of bulldozer DUI, a scene of Silkwood-style intimidation night driving and a suicide by truck and tree at 85 mph, not much happens that isn’t told in dialogue rife with jibber-jabber about “subsidies,” “surplus,” “harvest,” “commodities” and “I’m interviewing the grain inspector this afternoon.”
Ben Johnson appears as the sheriff who says, “You ain’t got the brains of a soda cracker” with absolute conviction and professionalism, knowing his Last Picture Show Oscar can’t be repo’d. Rance Howard (Busted) carries out crop arson and other nefarious acts on behalf of Farmcor. Doug McClure (Satan’s Triangle) and Billy Drago (Delta Force 2) are also compensated, less for their acting skills than for having to shoot in the heat of Kansas and Oklahoma.
If Dark Before Dawn succeeds anywhere, it’s only as a piece of agri-agitprop. Robert Totten (1963’s The Quick and the Dead) directs its big speeches like he might approach a military recruiting video, but instead of trying to convince you to don a helmet and storm foreign land, it’s to don denim suspenders and plant legumes. —Rod Lott
Commented one skeptical reader on a Facebook post about Ski Films: A Comprehensive Guide, Bryan Senn’s latest book, “Ski films!?! Uhh … I’m not knocking it but I think people are running out of genres to write about??! Just an observation.”
A fair observation, but one that misses the point. The majority of Senn’s bibliography explores the niche of the niche, from voodoo and werewolves to human-hunting and horror/sci-fi double features. Each of those subjects holds tremendous interest for him — more than evident by the passion on each page, even in each review. So naturally, Ski Films finds Senn traversing an equal path of adoration, this one down the slopes!
At a heavy 400-plus pages, the McFarland & Company trade paperback looks at more than 200 titles in depth. The books is neatly sliced into halves: full ski films (for which the sport is “integral”) and semi-ski films (for which it is not). Of course you have your top-of-mind usual skiing suspects, including Downhill Racer, Aspen Extreme, Better Off Dead and, as the action-packed cover colorfully promises, James Bond working On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
But you also get 005 other 007 adventures, a third of Olympic skater Sonia Henie’s filmography and scads more T&A on the menu beyond Hot Dog … the Movie. Plus, you’ll find several beach parties in snowbound settings, natural disasters, slashers, Bigfoot films, Roger Corman cheapies and Hallmark rom-coms. When Abbott and Costello, Greta Garbo, Jackie Chan, Klaus Kinski, Inspector Clouseau, Pope John Paul II anda pig named Scrapple have popped on planks, it’s clear more movies qualify as “ski films” than one assumes.
Even if you have zero interest in skiing (as I do), Ski Films isn’t alienating. Doling out background info and thoughtful, often humorous criticism, Senn first covers each film as if the entry could be published anywhere, then considers the quality of athleticism — or lack thereof — on display. Speaking as someone who will never shove his feet into the sticks, it’s still highly amusing to read major studio productions called out for using improper equipment.
Because movie guides are ultimately about discoveries, Ski Films can be judged on whether you found any on your way to the finish line. My short answer is “many,” capped by the 1972 heist movie Snow Job and the 1974 thriller The Ultimate Thrill, both featuring some of the best skiing in fictional film, per Senn. (The worst? xXx.) If you haven’t seen Adam Green’s Frozen, the terrifically tense thriller about a three friends stuck on a ski lift overnight in subzero temps, Senn makes a case for its greatness I wholeheartedly second. I’m also eager to see a few of the failures, like former Bond Roger Moore in the misguided Fire, Ice and Dynamite.
Although he’s far more forgiving on lodge-set sex comedies thanI, Ski Films: A Comprehensive Guide is yet another solid, illustrated and well-researched effort by the ever-reliable author — one of cult film’s best critics. He clearly knows his crud. —Rod Lott
Asks the cover art of Tales from the Other Side, “DO YOU DARE WATCH THEM ALL?” While the horror anthology’s makers intend that tagline to be ominous, consider it a public service announcement and save your time. 
Watcher’s title could refer to the film’s protagonist, Julia (
