If Shadow Over Innsmouth was adapted as a Grade-Z horror film, it might play out something like Bad Fish, written and directed by West Coast indie filmmaker Brad Douglas.
Filmed for measly money over a two-year period in locations near Brookings, Oregon and Crescent City, California, Bad Fish follows alcoholic marine biologist John Burton (Jonny Lee) on a quest for clues in a remote coastal community where fishermen’s body parts keep washing ashore.
After confabbing with Sheriff Porter (Mark Schneider), Burton examines a mangled torso and concludes that this was no boating accident. But it wasn’t a shark either, he decides.
Giant squid? Not known to inhabit these water. And what’s driving away all the salmon?
Turns out it’s all the work of Abby (Abby Wathen), the beguiling bartender at the local boozer, who comes with a whopper of a backstory. Seems when she isn’t mixing martinis, Abby is the leader of a nasty deep-water cult in search of fresh blood (and other fluids).
Despite a few too many talky scenes enacted by amateur thespians, Bad Fish is an admirable, atmospheric, small-town mystery that concludes with Burton getting left without a leg to stand on in a very bad domestic situation.
Not to worry, Douglas has Bad Fish II in the works, so maybe someone will throw the poor sap a lifeline.
Screen history repeats itself, as Carrie-Anne Moss is once again paired with an amnesia victim (Douglas Smith) searching for answers in Die Alone, a Canadian post-apocalypse drama crawling with a verdant variety of zombies that have gone to seed.
Writer-director Lowell Dean makes sensible use of Saskatchewan’s panoramic grasslands to anchor the action, following a few hardy survivors stumbling through a barren landscape largely stripped of humanity thanks to a plant-based virus that’s amped up the vegetation to lethal levels.
Ethan (Smith) and Emma (Kimberly Sue Miller) are a young couple on the run when the environmental shit hits the fan. Despite making a plan to meetup at a remote cabin in case they get separated, Ethan’s trauma-induced amnesia keeps getting in the way, and the two predictably lose track of each other.
Luckily clueless Ethan gets rescued by rugged survivalist May (Moss), who agrees to help him locate his lost love and provide reasonable room and board in exchange for farm labor.
Instead of gratitude, Ethan steals May’s truck and goes off to search for Emma on his own, but the absent-minded protagonist requires frequent rescuing. That means many scenes begin with Ethan regaining consciousness in different locations, usually covered in blood, sweat, and ears.
The zombie community is represented by hungry humanoids that have been reclaimed by the earth, each with its own distinctive look fusing foliage and fashion. The makeup department deserves the donuts for creating such intriguing new creatures.
Strangely, Dean mostly employs the undead as set dressing, rather than as a serious threat, limiting their fright potential to a precious few moments.
But it’s not a dealbreaker.
That Die Alone succeeds as a movie is largely due to the unbreakable strength of its central relationships and the filmmaker’s fully developed arsenal of appreciation for those that came before him.
Cinema nerds will eagerly recognize shots paying tribute to everyone from John Ford to Terrence Malick to Sam Raimi. Dean’s script, though maddeningly fractured and episodic, leads to a crushing finale that I’m still chewing on like old Milk Duds.
Be like the cows. Keep chewing. It’s making more sense all the time.
The late Bill Paxton (1955–2017) will always be remembered for his distinguished genre credentials. As the not-so-brave Private Hudson in Aliens (1986), he got all the best lines, including “Game over, man!”
A year later he was part of a kick-ass vampire gang in the criminally underrated Near Dark, reunited with his Aliens costars, Lance Henriksen and Jenette Goldstein.
Still not impressed? How about this action? Paxton is the only actor to play a character killed by a Predator (Predator 2, 1990), a Xenomorph (Aliens) and a Terminator (The Terminator, 1984).
Serious respect!
In Frailty, Paxton directs and stars as a mild-mannered mechanic who becomes a divinely inspired killer after a visitation from an angel.
Rather than keep this to himself, he awakens his two young sons Fenton (Matt O’Leary) and Adam (Jeremy Sumpter), informing them that they will be helping Dad destroy demons in human form.
Adam, the younger son, is gung-ho to please his avenging father, while older brother Fenton doesn’t like the idea one bit.
Too bad the Lord’s will must be served.
The brothers’ upbringing is recounted years later by a grown-up Fenton (Matthew McConnaughy) to incredulous FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe), who reluctantly gets reeled into a twisted tale of a family under the dominion of a terribly unbalanced man.
As a director, Paxton imbues Frailty with a naturalistic, small-town feel that makes the episodic violence particularly jarring. As an actor, he delivers a nuanced, but emotionally reserved performance that evokes a little sympathy and a whole lot of terror.
Anyone expecting the unhinged Hudson, or perhaps the belligerent bully Chet from Weird Science will see nothing of the sort here.
By the time he locks Fenton in the basement for a week (no food, one glass of water per day) in an effort to drive out any demonic influences, the horror has gotten uncomfortably real, as Paxton dons the face of unblinking fundamental fanaticism, reminiscent in tone of Kevin Smith’s Red State.
Bill Paxton’s ability to goose the tension as a filmmaker in Frailty, is more than matched by his extraordinary performance as an ordinary man called upon to serve God by fighting evil.
The most impressive thing about Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man is that it got made.
Whannell, the Australian horror maestro who introduced us to the Saw and Insidious franchises, clearly has serious show biz clout to get this turkey green-lighted.
This was obviously a “troubled” production.
Blake (Christopher Abbott) is a stay-at-home dad married to busy magazine writer Charlotte (Julia Garner). While Charlotte earns bucks, Blake looks after their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth), until he’s notified that his father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has been declared officially dead, after being reported missing for several years.
Now the owner of the family farm, Blake drags his dubious brood out to the Middle of Nowhere, and in real time they are attacked by a strange creature (see the film’s title), and spend the evening running and hiding from same.
Meanwhile, Blake, the dutiful husband and father, begins to change into something remarkably similar to the beast that’s stalking them.
Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.
There is little dialogue, which lends itself to Mystery Science Theater ad-libbing during the howlingly bad action sequences, such as Blake gnawing on his own arm, and two guys in simian rubber masks wrestling on a dark floor.
What are we watching?
Wolf Man is simply godawful, and since Whannell directed and cowrote this mess, he gets the lion’s share of the blame.
It’s a complete waste of Julia Garner’s talents, and hopefully won’t interfere with her trajectory as one of Hollywood’s best young actresses. She’s given very little to do besides wander through the night with a flashlight.
I’ve said this before when reviewing werewolf movies and it certainly applies to Wolf Man: If you can’t come up with better transformation effects than The Howling or American Werewolf In London—both of which were made 43 years ago!—then don’t bother.
Through a magical editing process, Frogman brings together all the filmed components of a quest to locate a legendary cryptid that allegedly inhabits the swampier suburbs of Loveland, Ohio.
Amateur filmmaker and daydreamer Dallas Kyle (Nathan Tymochuk) is worried that his career peaked as a child, when he snapped a photograph of a mysterious amphibian creature while on a trip with his parents.
It happened near Loveland, Ohio, a small town that stays afloat financially by luring v-loggers, podcasters, documentarians, and other media soakers to have a look around for their slimy mascot.
Tired of the world at large perceiving him as a kooky kid with a camera, Dallas decides to go back to Loveland and shoot a hard-hitting documentary about the Loveland Frogman.
Accompanying Dallas is his wedding photographer drinking buddy, Scottie (Benny Barrett), and his longtime friend and secret crush, Amy (Chelsey Grant), who is ostensibly on her way to Los Angeles to become an actress.
Inspired by Dallas’s passion to create something meaningful, the trio saddles up and checks in at a charming Loveland B&B run by Gretel (Chari Eckmann), an enthusiastic dame who acts as an unofficial tour guide for all things related to the Frogman.
As we see all too often, a lark expedition with three friends turns into a very nasty little trip (trap).
It’s easy enough to classify Frogman as a found-footage descendant of The Blair Witch Project, as it sticks to the interview-vs-wilderness template pretty closely.
If we look back to the earlier part of the previous century, it also bears some resemblance to Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which a nameless tourist stumbles into a dilapidated fishing village populated by folks with an unsettling “batrachian” appearance.
I believe writer-director Anthony Cousins purposely designed Frogman to dig deeper and bite harder than Blair Witch. It definitely establishes a darker shade of horror, especially after the viewer pieces together all the awful implications.
A beleaguered Georgia landowner summons a husband-wife team of investigators to document possible paranormal parties driving away his customers at a remote hunting lodge.
The hunters are scared of ghosts that noisily walk around at night, and whose presence is felt by virtually everyone who stays there.
Filmmakers Kendall and Vera Whelpton set up shop in the antler-festooned farmhouse, promptly noting atmospheric changes on their EMF readers, and seemingly making contact with an entity that flashes lights in response to questions.
Eventually the Whelptons bring in a rather theatrical psychic, Jill Morris, who makes her own connections into the spirit realm that causes a minor metaphysical ruckus.
Keep in mind, The Haunting Lodge is a DOCumentary and not a MOCKumentary.
The Whelptons maintain that what we are watching is a genuine event, a legitimately filmed paranormal happening.
Therefore, the doors opening and closing by themselves, accompanied by the sounds of booted feet marching down the hallway, are real ghosts.
And there are a few glimpses of beings (?) that appear and move digitally through the darkness.
With plenty of “Did you see that?” moments, the footage allows disbelief to be temporarily and precariously suspended.
Actually, it doesn’t matter if you believe what you see here. It’s the storytelling equivalent of saying, “I swear! It’s true! It happened to my Mom’s cousin’s sister!”
In any case, The Haunting Lodge clocks in at a lean 67 minutes, so it’s not much of a time investment.
Has it really been 27 years since that summer when everyone knew what we did?
Type O Negative’s gloomy cover of Seals & Crofts’ “Summer Breeze” playing over the opening credits should have tipped me off.
There’s angst in the air, probably from Y2K, just over the horizon.
We’ve got major marquee value here. I Know What You Did Last Summer has a formerly fresh cast to die for, led by Sarah Michelle Gellar as Helen Shivers, a small-town beauty queen being chased by a vengeful fisherman decked out in foul weather gear.
Along for the ride is her angry douche boyfriend, Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe), the group’s moral compass, Julie James (Jennifer Love-Hewitt), and Julie’s working-class beau, Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze, Jr).
Best-looking cast ever assembled? No dogs in that bunch.
On a fateful Fourth of July evening, the four most attractive graduating teens in a North Carolina fishing community accidentally run over a pedestrian on their way home from a make-out sesh at the beach.
The formerly close-knit quartet quickly comes apart at the seams. They decide to ditch the stiff in the Atlantic Ocean, and seal their secret by vowing never to speak of this unfortunate incident again.
We skip ahead one year to find out that our pretty protagonists are suffering the effects of collective guilt as their lofty ambitions have fizzled out.
Instead of heading off to New York to become a star, Helen is stuck in town working at her family’s bridal shop. You know, in the fishing village.
Julie, the brain, is bombing out of college, and rich kid Barry is holed up at his parents’ house drinking and brooding. Ray is on a boat.
Then Julie gets a note with the title of the movie in it, and the band gets back together!
The script by Kevin Williamson (Scream) is played with a straight face, so anyone expecting witty insights into horror movie tropes, are simply left with a bunch of tropes to sort through.
The plot proffers suspects aplenty, red herrings, and a few surprises, but it’s all pretty standard cat-and-mouse revenge stuff that unfolds at a leisurely pace.
The kills, courtesy of a maniac mariner armed with a gaff hook, are nothing special, and the eventual unmasking contains zero drama.
Tack on a WTF ending and cue the music.
Most of the “entertainment” value derived from IKWYDLS comes from screen time spent with the spirited ensemble, but Gellar, Phillippe, and company aren’t given much to work with.
The principal characters are rough sketches from better movies, and our comely cast is mostly reduced to fleeing and fretting.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with seeing TV’s Buffy Summers afraid of some swab in a raincoat, and eventually being snuffed out in cursory fashion.
I get it, this is a different character, but even so…
Apparently there were sequels and a remake. I can’t imagine why.
I’m going to make a bold prediction that Dark Harvest becomes a Halloween movie-night staple.
Alternately luminous and vicious, Dark Harvest is a captivating adaptation of Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel about a cursed small town that must destroy a local monster every time the calendar hits October 31.
In a seasonal swash of ultra violence, the legendary Sawtooth Jack, a pumpkin-headed demon, rises from the cornfield and is hunted by a posse of hungry high school boys. Jack must be killed before the church bells chime midnight, or the community will be plagued by storms and misfortune for an entire year.
It’s a tradition, you understand.
At harvest time, the boys from the local senior class are locked up for three days without food so they’re properly motivated to bring down Sawtooth Jack, a frightening and deadly foe that is nonetheless loaded with candy.
Director David Slade and writer Michael Gilio conjure magic, madness, and terror in a coming-of-age tale that pounces on the viewer like a midnight collaboration between Ray Bradbury (luminous) and Joe Lansdale (vicious)—with a bit of Hunger Games thrown in after some focus-group input.
Editor’s Note: The kids attend Bradbury High School.
Dark Harvest could have used more exposition and context, but the fevered sepia-toned sights of raving teenagers versus an uncanny enemy, is first-rate cinematic mayhem that actually does justice to its literary origins.
Make it a welcome addition to your annual festival of fright films, m’kay?
Eleven years after Joe Dante and John Sayles delivered one of the best giant critter movies ever, the not-as-good (but not bad!) sequel, Alligator 2: The Mutation shows up.
It lacks the satirical bite of its predecessor, but the plot is a carbon copy of Alligator, with a smattering of Jaws, once again pitting a wise-cracking cop against a reptilian nightmare lurking in the city sewer system.
Speaking of cities, A2 is filmed in Echo Park dressed up to look like a small town where everyone knows each other. Here, local Latino families are threatened by an evil developer (Steve Railsback) with a lot of toxic waste to unload.
David Hodges (Joseph Bologna) is the detective in charge of the mutilated bodies that start piling up, and he’s beset on all sides by difficult choices, not made any easier by the fact that his scientist wife Christine (Dee Wallace Stone) wants him to quit smoking for his birthday.
Taking another page from the original movie, Vinnie Brown (Railsback), the black-hearted villain of our story, hires comic-relief hunters, led by Hawk Hawkins (Richard Lynch, in a scene-chewing special) as a Cajun gator-getter flanked by a brood of gun-toting rednecks.
Good old Major Healy, Bill Daily, is on hand as the spineless mayor, and veteran faces like Wallace, Brock Peters, and Kane Hodder add some seasoning to the soup.
It’s a fun flick, but Alligator 2: The Mutation can’t duplicate the depth and daring of the first film, which is what happens when you replace director Joe Dante with Jon Hess, and screenwriter John Sayles with Curt Allen.
The practical effects depicting gore and gator mayhem aren’t nearly as good as the first movie, released a decade earlier. Fluctuating gator size doesn’t help. Come on people! Keep up with technology!
In the final reckoning, it checks a bunch of boxes, and you’ll have a decent time chuckling at all the ridiculous hair-dos and don’ts, and occasional cheese-metal anthems.
I have to admire the moxie of writer-director Brendan Rudnicki—aka, President and CEO of DBS Films—who doesn’t let little things like money get in the way of quick-hitting horror films like Forest of Death.
Weighing in at a lean 75 minutes, Rudnicki wastes no time with story arc, motivation, or any of that other fancy pants nonsense. It’s two basic-cable couples playing drinking games in the woods with a skinwalker/shapeshifter haunting the vicinity.
Despite a predictable premise and a shortage of dramatic talent, there are moments in Forest of Death where the total is greater than the sum of its cheapo parts, and Rudnicki makes his crude puppet show dance and caper.
Make no mistake, this movie doesn’t dawdle, placing the protagonists in danger within 10 minutes of the opening credits. Even so, Rudnicki feels confident enough to include two cheerful, upbeat musical interludes of his nondescript characters enjoying a few rousing rounds of gin rummy.
There is very little creature action, since the evil spirit can assume any form, which is another handy budget-saving device employed by the resourceful Rudnicki.
Once the skinwalker has infiltrated the cabin, it’s only a matter of time before the dominos start falling, and friends turn on each other. The question each viewer must answer for themselves is how much nutritional value can be derived from such a thoroughly chewed bone?
When there’s no meat, you make soup. Forest of Death is strictly warmed-over leftovers.
I was passably entertained, but no one will be blown away by loads of fresh ideas. As a resumé builder for Brendan Rudnicki, though, it’s a statement of purpose.
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