The Final Frame

This is the final frame from...

The Final Frame

This is the final frame from...

The Final Frame

This is the final frame of...

Yeah, I gave you an easy one this first time!

awesome movie poster friday - the INSANE edition!

Ah, movies featuring insane asylums...how I'm a sucker for 'em.

This post has awakened in me a burning desire to watch Bad Dreams again. I know it's not terribly good, but there will always be a nostalgia-shaped place for it in my heart. Any time my brain goes "It stinks!", my brain then goes "Yeah, but Jennifer Rubin and E.G. Daily and Bruce Abbott and Dean Cameron!" and I want to watch it. Stupid brain!

Oh, and if you want to see more posters from the ever-fabulous Nightmare on Elm Street 3, click here. Or here. Or go find more yourself- see if I care!

I love Indian food!

Did you know that I love movies about demonic possession? I've only mentioned it 9256 times, so it's entirely possible that you don't know. Or didn't know, I should say, because now you do: I loves me some movies about demonic possession. The thing about this subgenre, however, is that there's pretty much only two ways to go: you either rip-off The Exorcist, or you don't. If a film is on the grounded in reality side of the fence, as are The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, then there's not much ripping off. But if the film is of a more shocking, straight-up horror bent, then it will pale in the shadow of The Exorcist. Mind you, The Exorcist is soooooooo much more than its most shocking moments- but the movies that came after (particularly in the late 70s and early 80s) ape nothing but the effects and therefore wallow in Pazuzu's shadow. Ovidio Assonitis's Beyond the Door (1974) is one such movie.

The film begins with a voiceover from Satan. Yeah, I'll just let that sit there for a moment.

Meet Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills), a housewife from San Francisco. While her husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia, Revenge of the Dead) is off producing fabulously funky record albums (yes, record albums- it was the 70s), Jessica goes grocery shopping and deals with two of the most awful, obnoxious children ever committed to celluloid. Ken slurps Campbell's pea soup from the can (GET IT PEA SOUP) while Gail constantly has her nose buried in one of the dozen copies of Erich Segal's Love Story she's always toting (GET IT OH WAIT I DON'T GET IT) They bicker, they whine, they swear, and they're generally unpleasant. Imagine the joy the Barretts feel when they discover that birth control has failed and there's another jerk on the way!

domestic bliss: Jessica rehearses suicide (or tastes batter, whatever)

Meanwhile, Dimitri (Richard Johnson, The Haunting) wanders around, spying on the elder Barretts. See, he's Jessica's long-lost ex and now he's on a mission from Satan: in exchange for a few more years of life, Dimitri needs to ensure that Jessica's unborn baby completes its journey down the baby hatch. This is because, somehow, it's Satan's baby. That's right, Satan can infect a baby with evil just like that- sans chalky mousse or the aid of the Castevets!

As you may expect, carrying the spawn of Satan in your baby-place is not without its downside. See, Satan spreads his dominion beyond the door womb and things get totally craycray up in the Barrett household. Okay, maybe not totally craycray, but there's one night when the kids' room starts shaking and the floor lights up (like, through the floorboards-style, not disco-style. Unfortunately.) and toys move around and dolls get extra creepy via glowing eyes. It's some Poltergeist shit!

Jessica, of course, has it far worse. During some Paranormal Activity shit, she's visited in the night by an unseen force that cruelly removes her bedcovers. Then she floats around the room and...wait, did I say she has it worse? Fuck that! I'd love to float around.

The baby grows at an exponential rate and Jessica fears it's trying to kill her. She's sort of right, for her condition rapidly deteriorates. What starts out as vomiting blood and eating rotten banana peels off the street (???) soon becomes hi-Exorcist shenanigans like head-spinning, speaking in different voices, and puking up green stuff...although perhaps it's worth noting that her vom is more palak paneer than it is pea soup.

Okay, it's not worth noting, but I felt like noting it anyway.


As the screencaps show, Jessica also sweats and suddenly has weird eyes and corn teeth. During these moments, I felt hearts shoot right out of my eyeballs and into Beyond the Door. What can I say- I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

Eventually Dimitri stalks Robert so hard that they end up meeting. Dimitri convinces Robert that he wants to help Jessica. Robert is all, "okay". I mean, what else is he gonna do? Oh yeah- he briefly tries some science with a doctor friend. The results prove nothing, but the...science apparatus did give me an opportunity to imagine that a possessed Jessica was visiting a hair salon, so all was not lost.

Once Dimitri enters the room beyond the door (SEE WHAT I DID THERE), things go from mostly incomprehensible to "dammit, we passed incomprehensible 20 minutes ago". Satan whines about always having to be born into another person's body and no one knows the suffering of a body-squatter Then he demands that Dimitri "plunge his hands into her" and rip out the baby. He refuses so Satan kills him, and the baby is stillborn. Hooray, the Barretts are back to normal! OR ARE THEY?

I know what you're thinking. That is some Zoltan: Hound of Dracula shit!

There's an awful lotta wrong in Beyond the Door. There are several lengthy passages where characters walk around the city while crazy 70s music plays; don't get me wrong, I dug the music, but the scenes went on too long and largely felt like filler. The time could have been better spent on things like...oh, you know, characters and the plot. Still, there's no denying that there's a certain...mmm, "charm" doesn't seem right somehow...there's a certain something to the scene where Robert is relentlessly harassed by a dude playing a recorder-flute-thing with his nose.

Everything's just too damn vague in this film and we don't much care about what's going on, never mind the undeveloped characters, which give us no reason to invest in their stories or plight. Dimitri explains things to Robert without explaining anything. Jessica is full-on possessed pretty quickly, and then suddenly she's not possessed. It's all sort of shrug-worthy, which...dammit, demonic possession is not supposed to be shrug-worthy! It's supposed to be terrifying and awful.

Still, there are a few things that work in the movie. There's a nugget of a worthwhile story buried deep under all the crap; we get peeks at it when Jessica confides in a friend that she dreams of running away from it all, or when she yells at Robert for not giving her "any room to breathe". If The Exorcist is in part a metaphor for puberty and burgeoning sexuality, then Beyond the Door is in part a metaphor for those- women in particular- who are dissatisfied with the idea of traditional domesticity. Granted, I may be stretching it a bit and that "in part" is a verrrrrrry small one, but it's there. Don't worry about having to think much, though, as it's never addressed in any real way. It's too bad, because it would have put some meat on the movie's bones.

The shocks, for what they are, suffice for the sub-genre. Yeah, we've seen them all before in The Exorcist, but if you dug 'em then, why wouldn't you dig 'em now? Demonic sweat is always good. And there's one bit with Jessica's eyes that- well, I don't want to spoil it but it literally made me gasp. It's a moment like that in The Exorcist when Regan has been acting out (if you can call masturbating with a crucifix "acting out") and suddenly throws her head back, her eyes stark white and her throat stark lumpy. Basically, it's that moment when "acting out" blows past "she's ill" and heads into "what the eff is going on here this is really not right" territory.

Like me, fans of possession movies will probably enjoy Beyond the Door, if only because it brings to mind thoughts of its far-superior predecessor. However, The Exorcist shouldn't get too high and mighty- after all, I didn't seen anyone play a recorder-flute-thing with their nose in that movie.

Buy Beyond the Door at Boulevard Movies and judge for yourself, judgey!

scenes i love - creepshow

There are times when I don't think about Creepshow. Then I think about Creepshow, and I think, "Creepshow. Creepshow is so fucking good!" I think that because it is true. Creepshow is so fucking good. I know I've mentioned this before, but perhaps I've never talked about one particular scene I love- the scene in "Father's Day" where Nathan Grantham busts out of the ground and puts the kill on his daughter Bedelia.

Or maybe I have spoken of it, in which case I will reiterate: that scene is boss!

It's just perfect. Director George Romero lulls you with a lengthy quiet passage as Bedelia vents her frustrations to her father's tombstone. It's calm, serene, and Bedelia is a bit buzzed on Jim Beam. Then a hand bursts through the dirt right in front of her- it's a terrific terrific unbelievably wonderful jump scare- and then a rotten corpse claws its way out of the Earth. How terrifying is that?

It's very terrifying, that's how terrifying! It's one of my favorite aspects of zombie films, and one that's used way too infrequently- seeing the dead return to life and rise from their graves. In most instances the zombies are just there, no matter how recently they've turned. They're shambling (or...sigh...running) around, or maybe someone dies and subsequently gets their undead on. But breaking through their coffins and coming out of the ground? It's rare- even Romero, who's perhaps the Zombie King, hasn't featured it since Creepshow. So, I turn to "Father's Day" and Zombi and Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror and hell, even Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to get my fix.

Yeah, I know that "Father's Day", like all the other stories in Creepshow, is at least partially meant for laughs- I mean, the first thing Zombie Nathan does upon his return is ask for his damn cake...and yeah, he chokes Bedelia to death rather than eating her. But man, I saw this as a kid and let me tell you- dead people unexpectedly rising from the ground, dripping worms and making with the murder? That shit ain't funny. It is, however, most awesome.

Make yer voice heard!

Yeah, I'm talking to you...and even you! Here's the deal, folks: I have decided to engage in a kooky social experiment scheme- one that I may or may not come to regret later- and I need your help. Don't worry, it's easy: all you have to do is email me a list of your top 20 favorite horror films. That's it. The 20 horror films you like the best. You can comment here, if you like ("Ahh, if Night of the Whatever Whatever doesn't make the list you're all jerks and I'll kill myself!"), but email me the complete list. I'm leaving this open until September 26th, and then something magical will happen in October SHOCKTOBER.

Yes, it's that time of the year again and I'm so excited I could...well, you know. Something.

Email your list to: stacieponder (at) gmail (dot) (c)(o)(m). Put LIST or MY LIST or LIST-O or something like that in the subject line.

Getcher vote on and let's see what comes of it, shall we? Besides me pulling my hair and wondering why I'm doing it, I mean. YEAH HORROR MOVIES!

EDITED TO ADD: Unless you indicate otherwise, I will assume you mean the original versions of all films and not the remakes...so if you mean, say, Snyder's Dawn of the Dead and not Romero's Dawn of the Dead, be sure to include the year or director name. If you just say "Dawn of the Dead" with no indicators, I'll assume it's the 1978 version.

EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: The order doesn't matter, as the results won't be weighted- it's strictly numbers. You don't have to provide commentary or justification, unless you want to give me something entertaining to read- these are your choices. Your favorites! You might know that Movie Whatever technically sucks but you love it and it's your number one favorite- and that's totally fine. You don't have to pick "classics" or esteemed films- just your 20 favorites.

this is not horror!

Nope, it's not horror and it's 100% pure pimpin': I just listed every page I inked from IDW's Star Trek: The Next Generation mini-series on eBay. I'm selling the lot- 64 pages (SAY WHAT) with an opening bid of 99 cents (SAY WHAT WHAT). There are 2 2-page splashes in the mix, plus all the Picard you could ever hope to see. HERE'S THE LISTING...spread the word! If I can't sell 64 pages of original comic art for at least 99 cents, then...I don't know. The world would suck.

This could be yours! Yes, YOU!

awesome movie poster friday - the 100th edition!

Siiiiiiigh. Yes, my friends, the post title gives it away: this is the 100th edition of Awesome Movie Poster Friday. That's a whole bunch of posters! Let's take a moment to agree with that last statement.

Okay, we're back. You know, every time Final Girl reaches some sort of landmark post I think about doing something big and exciting to celebrate. Like the site's recent-ish five fucking year anniversary- I mean, five years is a long time. I thought it was noteworthy enough to celebrate, but then when it came down to it...I didn't know what to do. What does one do to celebrate something like that? I guess one goes and congratulates oneself, but...eh. That seemed like too much effort or too jerky-off-y or something. In the end, I did a celebratory AMPF showcasing my favorite posters from AMPFs past whilst promising some big 5 Year Blowout, but that never materialized. I should never make promises! I promise I won't make them anymore.

So now here we are at the 100th AMPF, which I also think is noteworthy. If AMPF was a television show celebrating its 100th episode, I would probably be eating cake right now. Instead, I am not. Also, if AMPF was a television show, it would be really fucking boring.

Anyway, I'm not really sure how to celebrate; my impulse would be to do what I did for the aborted fifth anniversary extravaganza. Here, I'll congratulate myself by referencing two of my favorite AMPF posts, which you can go read and mayhaps enjoy: the VHS Box Art Edition, part one and part two. I think some of the stuff I wrote in those posts is funny. There, I said it. See? Jerky-off-y.

I realize that I can't call this a proper Awesome Movie Poster Friday without posting some sort of art, so in keeping with the VHS theme, I now present some more delightful VHS box art. If this was any ol' AMPF and not the 100th edition, I would probably call this the HOLY CRAP I NEED TO SEE THESE NOW edition.

I'm not quite sure that "W" qualifies as a word, per se, but I am intrigued nonetheless. I am curious- what's going on in the high-rise dwelling of the negligée-clad woman? I'm already on board with this, but that oval "Starring TWIGGY" in the corner has me yelling CHOO CHOO.


Obviously, this would make a stellar double feature with And Now the Screaming Starts!- but even on its own...I need to know what those red flash warnings are all about!


Good thing she's in her underwear, otherwise I might not find an image of a giant cockroach killing someone sexy.


My reasons for wanting to see this quite DESPERATELY need no explanation.


Nor this. Man, Joan Collins teamed up with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Is there anything she can't do?


Is this wig shooting fireworks? It matters not. It's a wig. This box art says to me: horror movie about a Countess of some sort. That's probably not accurate at all, but it matters not. It's a wig!


Christopher Lee and Sybil Danning versus an evil albino? Please. This movie should live in my pants!


Hooray, 100! Here's to...well, more anyway.

it's time to choose!

And choose the next Film Club choice I shall!

Now, I am not too proud to admit that Hellbound was a bit of a disappointment. It has to do with hard math, like, the ratio of Jackson and tomfoolery to roundhouse kicks and lasers. To make it up to you and my brain (which still smarts over the whole thing), this month's selection is all "classic" and "artistic" and "rated 8.0 on imdb in case you think that means anything"...that's right, it can only be one movie: Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba (1964). Here's the Netflix summary, where it happens to be on instant watch:

During the great war-torn upheaval in medieval Japan, a poverty-stricken mother and her daughter-in-law scratch out a desperate existence by murdering lost samurai, disposing of their bodies and selling their belongings for grain. But when a neighbor returns from the war, lust, jealousy and rage threaten to drive a wedge between the mother and daughter-in-law. It isn't long before the presence of an ominous demon mask seals the trio's fate.

That's right. We're classin' up the joint this go-round!

The film: Onibaba
The due date: Monday, October 4
What you do:

1. Review the movie on your site. Add a link to Final Girl in there somewhere. If you've reviewed the film before, that's fine- but you must retrofit your review with a link to FG to be included in my round-up.
2. Email your link to me at stacieponder at gmail dot com. Put 'film club' or some such in the subject line.
3. Bask in the warm, glowing, warming glow of Film Club Day. Easy, breezy, et cetera et cetera.

WARNING: talk of me ahead

LET'S MAKE THIS QUICK.

Theron Neel of Slammed & Damned asked me some questions recently. Even more recently, I answered them. Lawd a-mighty, I do yammer. It was one of those instances where I had to tell myself to shut up, basically, before I went off the rails. "Ecch", as Alfred E. Neuman might say.

The Boston Phoenix has a wee write-up regarding All Things Horror's screening at the Somerville Theater. This happens TONIGHT, so put on yer movie-watching pants and get over there. You won't regret it! Side Effect is worth the five dollar admission alone, but in addition to that you get two more short films (Rubber Whore Hell; Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear) and a feature (Dead Hooker in a Trunk). Man, you can barely buy a pizza for five bucks. That's some good bargainin'!

Also tonight: The Scare-ening. 8pm PDT. I don't know what Heidi and I will be talking about, but surely we'll be talking about something...so if you fear there will be naught but an hour of silence, don't worry!

Phew. Okay, I think that's all the me news for now.

Wait! More me news: I wish this was me. Seriously, I need to get some Glamour Shots done before I die.

Film Club: Hellbound

My friends, when this...

...and the name Yoram Globus appeared on my screen at the beginning of Hellbound, everything felt right in the world- right, and decidedly 1985. Now, if you're all "What's the bigs?", then let me tell you: The Cannon Group and Golan-Globus Productions were responsible for a huge chunk of genre output in the late 70s-late 80s, action flicks in particular. From Lifeforce to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, from American Ninja to American Ninja V, from Breakin' to Electric Boogaloo, from He-Man to every Chuck Norris opus, Cannon simply IS the eighties to a lot of movie nerds, myself included.

Hellbound hit in 1994, after Menahem Golan left Golan-Globus Productions, and it's terrible, terrible, terrible...by which I mean it's the most awesome thing I'll never watch again. Well, okay- it's not truly awesome, but it's so thoroughly drenched in the essence of awesome that it's a bit hard to tell the difference. It's like the shittiest frozen pizza- you may make a note (mentally or literally) that you'll never buy that brand again...and yet, it's pizza and therefore it's still better than anything that's not pizza.

Oh...fine. Hellbound is crap on a crap stick and there's no getting around it. My love of Cannon, though, makes me a total crap denier. Or not a denier, exactly, but my view can be summed up thusly: yes, it's awful, but it's a Cannon film. So, it's awful but I don't really care. I'll never watch it again, but when I talk about it, I'll probably say things like "Oh, Hellbound was great! You should totally watch it." I'm not sure what kind of person that makes me- obviously not one who can be trusted, but there you go.

Hellbound opens with a text crawl, which lets you know that shit is about to get epic up in here. It begins with "The legend says..." and tells of Prosatanos, an emissary of Satan who's going to bring Hell to Earth and blah blah blah. What legend, exactly? It's THE legend, and that's good enough!

To reinforce the epicness, the action starts during the Crusades, with Knights Templar and King Richard the Lionheart on horseback, heading off to stop Prosatanos from...you know, doing everything the text crawl said he was going to do. They seal him up in a tomb and smash his scepter. There are monster-types in Satanic robes to be defeated, and I begin to think this movie is going to rule my world.

Fast-forward to 1951! The tomb is raided (not by Lara Croft, unfortunately) and Prosatanos is set free.

Fast-forward to Chuck Norris, A.D. and the seedy neon-lit streets of Chicago. Norris is Sergeant Shatter (YES I SAID SERGEANT SHATTER), a tough cop, and he's partnered up with Jackson, a Rick James/Whoopi Goldberg-hybrid stereotype who has GOT to be one of the most irritating characters ever put on any screen of any kind, anywhere. Ever. I hated him. I would rather watch a remake of My Dinner with Andre starring Franklin from The Texas Chain Saw Masssacre and Shelly from Friday the 13th Part 3 than suffer through another second of Jackson's antics.

Anyway, here's what we get in Chicago that had me excited...and mind you, we've already seen Knights Templar. This all just reinforced my hopes that Hellbound would become master of all my children days.

• a hooker, with a HORRENDOUSLY dubbed voice, who gets all chiropractical on herself
• said hooker, defenestrated
• Prosatanos, looking a bit like Phantasm's Reggie Banister, acting a lot like Silent Night, Deadly Night 2's Eric Freeman
• A heart ripped out of a chest
• Chuck Norris kicking the shit out of a dude wearing a snakeskin tanktop
• Antiquities kept in fannypacks
• A hardass police captain who surely would have been more at home raping female convicts with broomhandles in some women-in-prison exploitation flick
• Chuck Norris in a high-waisted, shoulder-padded teal suit

I mean...I mean...SEE WHAT I MEAN? Hellbound could do no wrong, but then suddenly it started doing everything wrong. I got a return of "utter disappointment" on my investment of "high expectations" which rivaled that one Christmas where I had totally convinced myself that my parents got me a huge TV- these were the days when having your own TV was still a big effing deal, and I knew for sure that the big box under the tree was a television just for me- but then it turned out to be...I don't even know what it was. I unwrapped it and found it was not a TV, but, like, a blanket. I was crushed for five minutes! Hellbound brought back those feelings, but my state of crushed-dom continues, even several five minuteses later.

I don't know what happened. How did things go so wrong, when they were going oh-so right? Well, maybe I do know what happened: Hellbound got a bit zany. Madcap, even, as our Chicago cops trotted the globe all the way to Israel to figure out the deal with Prosatanos's scepter pieces. There was this...this...piano music and one-car car chases and street urchins and too much Jackson and not enough demons. Granted, any Jackson was too much Jackson, but the minions of Satan were so nonexistent that I had to get my Clara Peller on and bust out a "Where's the demons?" once or twice. For reals, Hellbound could have been the best movie in the history of things that could have been, but lo, the middle hour was just. So. Bad.

And then the last ten minutes happened and suddenly Chuck Norris was slo-mo punching and kicking an emissary of Satan and I thought YES. Yes, this is what I wanted all along. It's all I wanted from Hellbound- well, Chuck Norris beating up demons and maybe an explosion.

Then I got an explosion, as Prosatanos- showing his true, rubber demon face!- exploded all over a tomb in a shower of sparks and smoke. The only way it could have been better was if Jackson had exploded as well. Or instead. Or if he was never there to begin with.

Ah well. Things are rarely as good as we dream them to be, and Hellbound is no exception. By which I mean Hellbound was great! You should totally watch it.

---------------------------------
Film Club Coolies, y'all!
---------------------------------
Mondo Bizarro
Cinema Gonzo
I Will Devour Your Content
Haiku Film Reviews
The Horror Digest
Horrorful
From Midnight, With Love
Aphorisms and Ectoplasm
nijomu
Scarina's Scary Vault of Scariness
From Beyond Depraved!

awesome movie poster friday - the FILM CLUB edition PART TWO!

Hey humans, this Monday is Film Club Day! Don't forget to watch the Chuck Norris vs demons extravaganza Hellbound and send me a link to your review! I apologize in advance if it stinks.

In honor of the prestigious day, I present to you the second AMPF that commemorates the FGFC. The first can be found here. After posting these, I have this wicked urge to watch something involving lasers. I hope Mr. Norris busts some out to battle Satan!

Black Sabbath

Aaaahhh the old woman in the bed!

The Manitou

From my review: "There's a dude in a lizard suit, the worst fake ice you'll ever hope to see, a jacked-up medicine man midget, decapitations, typewriters with souls, and a naked Susan Strasberg sitting on a floating bed shooting lasers at a big eye. Sometimes, my friends, all is right with the world." Still so very true.

Uzumaki

I think this movie deserves better posters, although I like the simplicity of #2.

Lifeforce

What the world needs now is more movies about hot naked space vampires, don't you think? Most of these posters are better if you make a "pew pew pew" laser noise whilst looking at them.