Day 11 - "I am telling you that strange things happen here."

Not to pop my collar too hard or anything, but man, spending this SHOCKtober with the movies you all called favorites back in 2020 is really paying off for me. So far, I've watched things I'd been meaning to see forever, or movies chosen from the list because they just sounded cool. Today, though, I'm actually revisiting a film that I saw...oh, who knows how many years ago...and I didn't enjoy it! But in the who knows how many years since that first viewing, whenever I would see it mentioned anywhere I would say to myself, "I didn't like that? Really? Because it sure seems like something I should definitely dig..." But then I would shrug and move on to whatever adventure (or episode of Real Housewives) was waiting.

Well! Thanks to the one upstanding citizen-reader who voted it a fave, I have now finally revisited The House That Screamed (aka La residencia, 1969). Have my feelings about it changed? You won't have to wait long to find out!

HELL YEAH MY FEELINGS ABOUT IT HAVE CHANGED. (See, I told you you wouldn't have to wait long.) But! I also can see why I wasn't into it the first time around. But! What is this movie even about?

Picture it! 19th century France. Señora Fourneau (Lilli Palmer) rules a boarding school for teenage girls who are, shall we say, all various kinds of wayward with a well-mannered iron fist, quick to hand out punishments to the girls who rebel or break the rules. Sometimes they're tossed in isolation, where Fourneau tasks her protégé, lead student/narc Irene (Mary Maude) with doling out some whippings. 

It's a miserable place to be stuck, but it livens up a bit when new girl Teresa (Cristina Galbó) arrives. Sweet-natured but reluctant to talk much about her family, Teresa catches the eye of Luis, Fourneau's weird, affable, "sickly" teenage son who spends a lot of time lurking about and spying on the girls.

Teresa and Luis eventually begin a quasi-relationship, meeting clandestinely whenever they can. Irene, bitter after her lesbian overtures were rejected, sets out to wreak emotional terror on Teresa. She hints to  Fourneau that Teresa is fraternizing with her son, thus breaking one of the headmistress's cardinal rules. None of these girls could ever be good enough for Luis! He needs and deserves a woman who will love him and take care of him just like his mother does! (It worked out nicely for that Bates, family, right?)

After Irene subjects her to even more cruelty and humiliation, Teresa decides to run away, just as a few other unhappy girls have been rumored to do. Like those other girls, Teresa disappears...but Irene knows that she didn't actually run away. When she confronts Fourneau about it--well, it all leads to an ending that is simultaneously out of nowhere and not very surprising. But who cares, really, when the ending is almost an afterthought to this delightful, spooky, classily sleazy movie.

As much as I dug it this time around, I also understand why I wasn't so into earlier: it's billed as a slasher movie, and while technically I suppose it is--insomuch as a couple of people do die by slashing--there's more "action" on that poster up there than there is in the film itself. Co-writer/director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (who also brought us the terrific Who Can Kill a Child?) is less concerned with killing off the girls one by one than he is with the politics and goings-on at Fourneau's school, which is a hotbed of hormones and sexual repression. And yet for as sexually charged it is, whips aside, surprisingly La residencia doesn't wallow in smut. Sometimes it's merely an uncomfortable patina of sleaze, as when Fourneau's gaze--both the mother's and the son's--lingers too long on the students as they shower. Other times, it's comedic, as when the needlework class gets all worked up, knowing that one lucky girl among them is out in the barn having it off with the man who...ahem...delivers the wood every couple of weeks. 

Ultimately, it's more of a gothic thriller that dabbles in giallo territory on rare occasions. Having set aside my slashpectations and meeting the film on its own terms (imagine that!) I basked in the vibes. There aren't a lot of outright "horror" sequences, but the ones we get are rife with atmosphere and tension; the dark and stormy night when Teresa tries to escape is a highlight. 

The other highlight here has got to be Irene and her journey from cruel That One Bitch to genuine heroine, who gives up everything to do what she knows is right. It's the rare arc that transforms a villain's villain into the star of the show, and I loved it.

I also loved seeing so many familiar faces from the world of Spanish horror, as the cast includes the likes of Maribel Martín of The Blood Spattered Bride (which you can listen to me talk about on The Evolution of Horror podcast right here!), Cristina Galbó of Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, and ubiquitous character actor Victor Israel, who featured in Horror Express, which fucking rules.

You know what else rules? The House That Screamed. Just like I've always said!

Day 10 - "It was good, efficient butchery."

As a bonafide, certified, deep-fried fan of Lucio Fulci, I've long been a woman torn over whether or not I should check out his 1982 sleazsterpiece The New York Ripper. Every once in a while my curiosity would get me on the brink of diving into it, only for me to think about its notorious reputation and my lack of love for misogynist brutality and promptly pull myself back. Over time, I admit, I came to be a little bit afraid of it, if you know what I mean. But hey, you know what? Back in 2020 one brave soul said YES, The New York Ripper is one of my favorite films! And so now I find myself thinking...what's the harm? I'm standing here looking at The New York Ripper the way that Dr Loomis looked at Michael Myers at the end of Halloween II, and I'm saying "It's time, Michael movie." 

If somehow you had any idea that a film directed by one Lucio Fulci called The New York Ripper would be a classy affair, that notion will be dispelled moments after it begins, when a dog finds a rotten, disembodied hand under the Brooklyn Bridge and we get a loving, freeze-framed close-up of it over the entire opening credits.

From here the movie is a ludicrous, often mean, often silly journey through the the muck of early 80s New York. Someone out there is carving up young women--someone who quacks and speaks like a duck during the crimes and while taunting the cops over the phone. A rogues' gallery of red herrings comes and goes, and we're supposed to suss out the killer along with the world-weary lead detective (Jack Hedley, who seems to be tiredly thinking "I left the West End for this?" throughout the proceedings). Who could the quacking killer be? Is it:

• the gigolo who is missing two fingers on his right hand?
• the secretly-gay psychoanalyst who is working with the police?
• the pervy woman who makes audio recordings of live sex acts for her husband to enjoy later?
• the pervy man whose wife makes audio recordings of live sex acts for him to enjoy later?
• the young woman who looks like Reese Witherspoon and who narrowly escaped being assaulted by the gigolo?
• the young woman's handsome boyfriend, who seems perfectly normal?

Perhaps it's fun to try to figure it out as suspects are removed from the suspects list in various ways, before it all culminates in a last-minute reveal and explanation that will leave you saying "Ehhhhh, sure." After all, we're not really here for a masterful story, are we? (Pssst: why are we here?)

On one level, the explicit violence here feels like the explicit violence in every other Fulci movie: he loves nothing more than to gross us out and make us squirm. But the sexualized nature of much of the violence here--violence aimed exclusively at women--makes it difficult to ignore the misogyny at play. But ultimately, Fulci doesn't just hate women, he hates everybody! And that makes it...okay? Right? Haha? 

I'm not trying to be an apologist. The New York Ripper is absolutely a repellant film. Maybe it's just that all the build-up in my head over it, it was all just too silly (and often too dull) for me to get worked up over, I don't know.

Still, I do wonder what this movie is trying to say...assuming it's actually trying to say anything at all. Is this a sex = death horror movie thing? There are some finger-waggingly cautionary scenes with shades of Looking for Mr Goodbar here, and every manner of sexual! depravity! is on display. But surely there's a difference between getting your jollies by having a stranger fondle your down-belows with his bare foot (gawd, that scene went on forever) and getting your jollies by slicing up a woman's nipple? What are we to take from the scene of the analyst buying a male nudie mags on the downlow? Is this a misguided attempt at some kind of "Hey man, we're all perverts, so don't judge!" message? Again, this could all be sound and fury signifying a big nothing, and it's likely a fool's errand to overthink it. Maybe the four (!) writers on The New York Ripper simply leaned into the seediness that's amply on display as we travel up and down The Deuce and gander at the flashing marquees promising all manner of nudie thrills.

In fact, the time capsule effect of this movie is probably the most interesting thing about it. It's a real sleazy slice of the Big Apple, way back before the XXX theaters became M&M stores. It's easy to romanticize that grindhouse era, to bemoan Times Square turning into a bland, Disney-fied playground in the decades since this movie was shot. But here and there Fulci also manages to convey just how dangerous the city was at the time, in particular the dark, graffiti-covered subway. The scene in which Fay (Almanta Suska) finds herself alone in a locked car with a man who has definitely noticed her is genuinely rife with tension and a palpable air of menace. It calls to mind William Lustig's Maniac, Ripper's smarter, more subdued (!) predecessor. I warned you not to go out tonight...quack quack!

Well, I've seen it. Was it as mind-meltingly violent and hateful as I thought it would be? No, not even close, though you certainly still won't be finding it onto my next list of favorite horror movies. But to that one person out there who loves it, I say hey man, we're all perverts. I'm not judging!

Day 9 - "We're not supposed to be down here. No one is."

In this overly complicated workaday world of ours, I appreciate the simplicity of William Eubank's 2020 monster flick Underwater. Underwater has no lofty goals. It's only here to show you a good time. Thank you, Underwater! And thank you to the one person who voted it a favorite in 2020, because you got me to finally sit down and watch this.

It is the kind of movie that features a bunch of newspaper headlines over the opening credits to give you the whole setup and backstory in about 30 seconds.

It is the kind of movie that will also feature a bunch of newspaper headlines over the closing credits to give you a nice wrap-up in about 30 seconds. 

It is also the kind of movie that has our lead character Norah (Kristen Stewart) provide monologues to start and end the film, monologues that aim to provide some sort of "universal truths" (being underwater might drive you crazy, sometimes you have to stop feeling and start doing), but they're really just nonsense that have no bearing on anything. It doesn't matter. The action kicks in about two minutes into Underwater and it doesn't let up for the rest of the runtime--a runtime, might I add, which is blessedly only 95 minutes. In an age where the simplest slasher movies are bloated to a length that even Irwin Allen wouldn't dare, a movie clocking in at an hour and a half feels positively transgressive.

The underwater station explodes, taking out the escape pods. Norah and a handful of survivors have to descend further down and walk across a plateau to another station in the hopes that there are functioning escape pods over there. They encounter a monster, and then a bigger monster, and then...well, it's like a monster matryoshka doll down there. The end.

Really, that's it! Again, it doesn't matter. The survivors are, like, Norah, the grizzled captain, the clown, the new girl, and headband. We get the occasional random tidbit about them (oh, those two who haven't really spoken to each other are in love...? okay), but we're not going to care about any of these people, and that's a-okay. Vincent Cassel is there to class up the joint, and Kristen Stewart is...perfectly serviceable. Look, she's not a bad actress! She simply has a rather narrow range. When a role falls into that range, she's fantastic (see: Personal Shopper, Certain Women, Clouds of Sils Maria). Of course, no one has much to do here beyond "be scared" or "be determined," so it's fine. 

After all, Underwater is the kind of movie where the core meltdown of an elaborate, multibillion dollar drilling installation is triggered by dragging a circle from the bottom of a touchscreen to the top and then tapping the space bar on a keyboard.

It's all a throwback to creature features of yore, the ones sprinkled throughout the late 80s, late 90s, and even early 2000s. Be they under the water or outer the space, they all centered on a small number of people--including at least one or two A-list stars--in a fancy, hi-tech place facing off against some kind of monster. I mean, if you'd told me that Underwater came out in 1998, I would say "Oh, really?"

It's truly a bummer, though, for this movie that's nearly all action to have a sizable chunk of that action rendered incomprehensible by dodgy cinematography and editing. I get it, there's no light miles under water! There's gonna be murk! But man, it was difficult to get any kind of spatial bearing or figure out what was going on a lot of the time when our characters were outside the station. There's a slight chance that was purposeful, you know, to make us feel what the characters were feeling? To disorient us? Maybe it was to mask lousy CGI? Regardless of the reasoning, it makes for a lousy viewing experience.

like...what?

But aside from multiple instances of having no idea what I was looking at, Underwater was the good time it wanted to be. Put away your science calculators, get out your popcorn, and watch a bunch of people run away from...something. I couldn't make it out, really. But it was fun!

Day 8 - "Just because I drive a truck does not make me a truck driver."

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later: I'm afraid today brings us my first "That's a no for me, dawg" of the month. Infinite apologies to the lone reader who cited Road Games (1981) as a favorite!

Going in, Road Games seemed like it would be a sure-fire winner and today I'd be here cyber-flagellating myself that I took so long to see it. It's from 1981! It's got Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis! It's Australian! It's directed by Richard Franklin, who blessed us with Psycho II! It's got that poster, which looks kind of sleazy but also kind of futuristic to me for some reason! "How could it go wrong?" I will sigh to myself for the remainder of my days (or at least until I'm finished writing this).

Pat Quid (Keach) is a truck driver who takes great pains to let everyone he meets that he's not a "truck driver." Unlike those crude rubes, he is a man of letters! He has a harmonica and a guitar! He has a dingo, not a dog, okay! He only hates women sometimes!

Late one evening, Quid loses the last available room at a truck stop motel to a man driving a green van and the hitchhiker the van man picked up. In a stylish sequence, we see the van man kill the hitchhiker as she enjoys a little nude guitaring. 

The next morning, Quid notices some weird behavior from the van man (why is he watching the garbage pickup from his window? why is Quid's dingo so interested in the garbage bags? what of the news reports about a serial killer stalking hitchhikers?) and puts it all together Rear Windshield Window-style: the van man done did some murder!

However, Quid doesn't much really care, he's just sort of curious. He's also got a trailer full of frozen, butchered hogs he's got to deliver to Perth, so he hits the road. And so begins his long journey through the Australian outback along shimmering highways and byways. Quid keeps seeing the same drivers on the road as they pass each other, and he also keeps spotting a myseterious hitchhiker, whom he finally stops to pick up. Why, it's Jamie Lee Curtis, playing just about the same role she played a year earlier in The Fog: she's a sardonic runaway with a maybe-shady past, far wiser than her teen years betray and looking for a little excitement, who gets wrapped up in a li'l mystery and falls for the much older moustachioed man who gives her a lift. This time though, she's classy, see: a diplomat's daughter who only hitchhikes in her Sunday's finest.

They spot the van man a few more times and kind of try to piece together what's going on. Quid, however, becomes the number one suspect in the murders. Is he after the van man? Is the van man after him? It all comes to a head in a climax featuring the world's slowest "chase"--like they are literally going 5-10 mph while Brian May's incessantly irritating score tries to make us think that something exciting is happening. Yes, I know Brian May is from Queen! No, I don't care! Besides, as someone pointed out in the comments, it's a different Brian May! I could delete my error but I'm going to leave it, because the awful Road Games score damaged my brain. It's endlessly grating no matter which Brian May composed it, and it will leave you feeling like a tiny fife and drum corps is using your eyeballs as snares.

This movie should work. In a few moments during its interminable runtime it does, when it gets its Duel or The Hitcher or its Joy Ride or its yes even the beginning of Jeepers Creepers on and we get a smidge of tension between Quid and the van man. But mostly, my goodness, the tone, like the score, is just off and Franklin can't decide if he's making a thriller or a comedy, or he simply wants to annoy the audience to death (why else would you choose to include five minutes of a car alarm going off in the background of a scene?). He plays a bit with the "sleep-deprived road madness" angle with a multitude of scenes of Quid talking to himself (or Boz, his canine companion), but ultimately they're only endurable thanks to Keach's innate charm. 

There's also a whole conversation to be had about an Australian director choosing to cast two American stars in the leading roles, have them never really discuss how they're Americans in Australia, and portray all the Australian characters as dumdums and/or sinister backcountry hayseeds. Keach and Curtis could be here simply to boost potential box office and international appeal, but there's also a noticeable stranger in a strange land angle that is there and is completely ignored. It only serves to add to the film's messiness.

Overall this one was a big bummer for me, but you know what? Who cares! There is a lid for every pot, as they say, and someone out there loves Road Games. To them, I pump my arm and say "honk honk" as I zoom on by, headed to whatever SHOCKtober brings me next.

Day 7 - "She was born under an unlucky star."

I'll just say what one voter already knew, right up front: The Vampire Doll (1970) rules.

I'd long wanted to indulge in director Michio Yamamoto's Bloodthirsty Trilogy, and thanks to the blessings of SHOCKtober I finally cracked open the simply gore-geous Blu-ray from Arrow Video (I've been busy, okay) and phew lawd, I'm in love. In love, I tells ya! From the warm fuzzy feelings the familiar Toho Studios screen will induce in anyone who grew up watching Godzilla movies to the end credits, I was in this to win this Japanese take on the bloodier, creepier side of Hammer-style horror.

On a dark and stormy night, Kazuhiko Sagawa (Atsuo Nakamura) takes a taxi to the family estate of his fiancée Yûko (Yukiko Kobayashi), deep in the countryside. He's excited to see her, as he's been away for six months...but he's worried, because she was supposed to meet him at the train station. Sadly, Yûko's mother (Yôko Minakaze) confirms Sagawa's worst fears, telling him that Yûko died just two weeks prior in an auto accident caused by a mudslide.

But is Yûko really dead? Or is her that Sagawa sees wandering the grounds late at night, ethereal in her flowing, white gown?

A week passes and Keiko Sagawa (Kayo Matsuo) hasn't heard from her brother since he went to visit Yûko. Worried, she and her boyfriend Hiroshi (Akira Nakao) head to the estate in the countryside, and the question remains:

First of all, yes, look at how impossibly damn cool Hiroshi and Keiko are. 

The Vampire Doll is a lean, mean 71 minutes as it wastes no time getting to the goods and...well, staying there. It's a fascinating 70s contemporary take on Western gothic as filtered through a Japanese lens: Yûko's mother dresses traditionally, but her estate is decidedly Western ("My husband was a diplomat," she explains, simply). She's suitably sinister, her motives largely unclear as she keeps insisting that her daughter is really dead, even though her daughter is spotted all over the house and its grounds. Keiko and Hiroshi are the perfect detective duo, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and find Kazuhiko. Yûko is creepy as hell but her story is ultimately a sad one. In fact, "creepy as hell but ultimately sad" is how I'd sum up this whole movie. (That's how you know this is Asian horror baby!)

I know I'm all over the place and not really saying much here, but hey--this is one of those films that Ijust want to yell "GO WATCH THIS!" about because it's simply a delightful experience and perfect SHOCKtober season viewing. So do yourself a favor. GO WATCH THIS!

Day 6 - "I hate talking to ghosts with plaque on my teeth."

Reader, let me tell you a little bit about the journey my brain went on before hunkering down to indulge in a little something called Witchboard (1986), which earned three votes and entered the 2020 list of your favorite horror movies at number 246. 

I knew that I hadn't seen it, even though it's something of a cl---well, it's well-known, let's say that. I did briefly wonder if I should do a Witchboard-a-thon at some point because, as I says to myself I says, "There are like 700 Witchboard movies." This is where my spiral into madness began! It turns out that there are only three Witchboard movies. Hmm, perhaps I was conflating it with Witchhouse, there must be 700 of those. Turns out that's wrong, too. So what was I thinking of? Maybe the Mirror, Mirror series? I've never seen any of those and there are a whole bunch, right? DUH I know that there is a difference between a Ouija board and a mirror, but nevertheless, my mind persists in equating the two series. Wrong again, there are only four Mirror, Mirrors! So what GD series has a million movies and is not Witchboard, Witchouse, or Mirror, Mirror? Eventually I figured out that it's Witchcraft. Go figure!

It's really pointless for me to type all of that out. It's not an exciting story in the least! But it took me forever to get from point A to point Z, so I figured I'd share. Oh! But along the way I did learn that Karen Black and Yvonne De Carlo are in Mirror, Mirror...? So I guess the journey was good for something beyond proving that my brain is full of holes (which we already knew anyway).

 So. Witchboard. I bet you've all seen it, right? Well in case you haven't...

First of all, it starts with a party scene and I just could not get a handle on the demographics of this party, like how old everyone is supposed to be, how they all knew each other, if it was actually some kind of function for an insurance agency or something? Everyone seems to be well into their adulthood and some of them are drinking...milk? Who are these people?

I can tell you who two of these people are, at least: Brandon and Linda, aka holy shit is that Patch from television's Days of Our Lives?? and Tawny Kitaen looking like the "before" in some before and after shots of Miss Havisham?? 

Brandon and Linda used to date, see, but now she's dating and living with Brandon's ex-best friend Jim, and they're the ones who are hosting this party, whatever it is. Brandon has brought along his Ouija board and explains a whole bunch of rules for using it, stuff that no other horror movie ever bothered to tell me: it's best used by a man and a woman who have "clean systems" (that is, they are narc NERDS), it's best if the board is placed on the knees of the man and the woman before they gently lay their hands on the planchette and begin to caress--HEY WAIT, is this all actually Ouija rules or some weird attempt at getting Linda back?

I hope you like this shot because you'll be seeing a shitton of shots just like it throughout the movie!

Well, no matter. Brandon goes on to explain that his board seems to be attached to one spirit in particular, that of David, a 10-year-old boy who died 30 years ago. Things seem to progress well--you know, planchette moving and all that--until Jim starts cracking wise, irritating both David and Brandon with his totally sick burns like "David's alright, he's just a little dead, that's all!"

Later that evening, Linda is very mad at Jim for his behavior and don't you just want to take a nap in Tawny Kitaen's hair? It's like it's made out of Golden Retriever or something (in a nice way) and it looks so soft and luxurious and comfortable, like you would have the best sleep of your life!

Also, side note, no she's not the best actress but she tried? I think? And she's kind of charming in this. Reading a bit of the behind the scenes stuff for Witchboard, of course she was hired because she was the  hot video vixen, and it sounds like she was mostly pestered on set, with the crew pulling heee-larious pranks on her like...telling her that her dog got run over by a truck and was dead. 

Anyway, Brandon forgot to bring his board home with him, so Linda sets about doing the one thing no one should do with a Ouija board. Okay, sure, there are a few things you shouldn't do with a Ouija board, but perhaps the hugest no-no is using it by yourself. That's how you get a Captain Howdy! (Not a euphemism.) (But it should be!)

Told you about this shot

The spirit of David is nice, in that he tells Linda that the ring she lost a while back went down the bathroom sink. The spirit of David is not nice, in that he tells Linda that he doesn't like Jim. The spirit of David is really not nice in that he makes a pile of sheetrock fall on Jim's friend Lloyd, killing him, when the two of them are having lunch at their construction job.

Man, one minute you're just sitting there all cool, and the next minute you can be laid out by a stack of sheetrock.

The folly of life, right? The spirit of David laughs while we make plans. It really makes you think.

At this point, Linda (who I keep wanting to call Julie while I write this...? She seems like a Julie to me, sorry) is totally addicted to the Ouij and can't stop using it.

She's also started swearing (but only when she gets startled) and she's had morning sickness. Suddenly she's all "I feel like I'm going crazy!" and while I #believewomen, honestly there hasn't been a lot of evidence shown about why she'd be feeling that way? It's literally just the swearing when startled and the morning sickness. But oh well, if Linda says she's going crazy, she's going crazy, I guess.

She tells David that she's going to give the Ouija board back to Brandon and David gets so mad! SO mad, in fact, that a knife flies off the wall and stabs the floor, and then some ketchup spills on it. 

I mean actual ketchup, because apparently Julie Linda keeps an open bottle of ketchup just sitting on the counter. You know what, maybe she IS going crazy.

When he finds out that Linda has been using the board all by herself, Brandon shows up at her apartment out of concern. "Has she been swearing a lot?" he asks Jim. Because she has, Brandon worries that Linda may be falling to "progressive entrapment" and that the spirit is lowering her resistances in order to possess her. In other words, yeah, she's getting Captain Howdied. That means there's only one thing to do: call a medium!

Brandon brings in his friend Zarabeth, who serves to inject a little energy into what has really been a pretty dull movie so far.

Yes, that is Kathleen Wilhoite! But if you are anything like me, you always think she's Amanda Plummer when she shows up in something. 

Anyway, Zarabeth is great, just pure 80s kitsch à la Cyndi Lauper, a refreshing change from the kinds of mediums we tend to get in horror movies. She channels David, who apologizes for being a jerk. It's just that he loves Linda, and he doesn't want to leave her. However, they tell him that he must leave her, and David is like "okay :( "

But later, David is like "Haha psych!" and, well, once she returns to her kitschy apartment, it's TTFN, Zarabeth. (You'll get that joke if you've seen Witchboard.)

David is getting so powerful that he doesn't even need the board anymore, but Linda can't help herself. She's even more progressively entrapped!

See?

She ends up in the hospital after getting thrown into the wall by an unseen force, so Brandon and Jim take the opportunity to head to Big Bear, because that's where David supposedly died. They drive up the coast in Brandon's convertible, at the library they use a microfiche (which is very exciting for me), they investigate at the cemetery, and they share some tender bonding moments at a motel.

Look, on the one hand I say, how nice that these two fellows have rekindled their friendship! Earnest friendship between men is so nice, especially in horror movies!

On the other hand, I spent some time imagining the Witchboard that liberals want, the one where things didn't work out between Brandon and Linda and Jim has never told Linda that he loves her because Brandon and Jim are in love and they realize it in Big Bear. It would be a better movie. 

Anyway, they swing by Wanda's Warehouse of Witchcraft and pick up a new Ouija board in the hopes of contacting David. We get some lakeside man-hands-on-planchette action, and I am not dissuaded from my gay Witchboard fantasies! 

"David, are Brandon and Jim in love?"

David lets them know that he's not the one who's been doing all the bad stuff, and that EVIL is here. Before you can say "Does he mean...Victor Buono?" though, all my hopes and dreams are crushed when Brandon ends up dead, the victim of a hatchet wielded by an invisible force. As he cradles Brandon's dead body, Jim cries for literally the very first time in his whole life, a sad reminder of the Witchboard we could have had. The Witchboard that would have thrown the first brick at Stonewall. The Witchboard that will live on in my fanfiction, Witchboard, But Now It's Gay for Real (working title).

Anyway, the evil is referring to someone named Malfeitor. Jim swings by Wanda's Warehouse again, and as I'm typing this I am wondering if he just left Brandon's body by the lake...? Hmm. Well, whatever. Wanda's got all the lowdown on Malfeitor in some book: he was a serial killer who chopped up his victims with an axe, but the police killed him in the 1930s...in the very same house where Jim and Linda live! Wow, what are the odds?

Wanda is so cool, though, right? In my fanfiction, she will help Jim and Brandon as they solve supernatural mysteries together. Be sure to like and subscribe.

Meanwhile, Linda has checked herself out of the hospital and is back on the board.

Back on the board and using the planchette upside down

Jim returns home to find the apartment trashed (they are not getting their deposit back) and Linda now fully possessed by Malfeitor! But, instead of her teeth turning into corn teeth and her eyes turning yellow and blah blah pea soup and all the usual gross possession trappings, she puts on some eyeliner, a suit, and is hot.

They have a showdown, a cop who thinks Jim has been doing all these murders shows up, and yes that is theeeeee iconique Rose Marie as the landlady.

The ending of Witchboard is...well, "exciting" is the last word I'd use to describe it, honestly. The whole movie, in fact, is kind of fun but also just sort of there. Maybe it's the Kevin Tenney of it, or the 1985, or the Tawny Kitaen, I don't know, but I was expecting a little oomf? A little 80s bonkers? Not any sleaze, exactly, but some more action, certainly. It's all so tame! Not much really happens! Unless you're really into seeing hands on a Ouija board, in which case you'll get a thrill in just about every other scene. Hmm. Well, that's okay. At least I've seen it now, and I know it's not Witchouse, Witchcraft, or Mirror, Mirror. Small victories, am I right?

Day 5 - "This sounds weird, but...I think there's something here!"

Today's movie, The Evil (1978, dir. Gus Trikonis), is another one vote favorite. Spoiler alert, there are going to be a lot of one vote faves featured this month. It's kind of the really compelling end of the list, isn't it? The underseen stuff, the weird stuff, the stuff that might not be "good"--sure, there are a few "Wait, that only got one vote?"s down there at the bottom, but mostly you'll find movies that are off the beaten cinematic path. But someone out there loves these movies enough to call them favorites, and I love that! It's part of the reason why I ask for your favorites in the first place. Who cares what the "best" horror movies might be? Tell me what you love. It's much more interesting.

And so here we are with The Evil, the tale of a house with a sordid history (people driven mad, accidents, murder, the local indigenous population giving it a wide berth, sulfur pools, etc etc) bought by well-intended psychologist CJ (Richard Crenna!) who hopes to turn it into an alternative treatment center. His counsellors show up to get the place cleaned and ready for business, but we know this will end poorly: just look at how it looms, all Hill House-esque.

As any Amityville enthusiast knows, if things get hinky in a house you should immediately check the basement for a portal to Hell (or, at least, to Heck). Sure enough, there's a trap door under the dirt floor of the cellar and once nosy-ass CJ opens it up, the titular evil escapes and the earth quakes! Everyone is trapped inside as the windows and doors seal shut, and as our plucky band of counsellors tries to find a way out, they're dispatched one by one like they're in some kind of cosmic slasher flick. Whatever's in this house doesn't mess around, I can tell you that!

The special effects are simultaneously hokey and quite good considering The Evil's era and budget. Like sure, the electrocutions don't come off as "real," but the lines scratched into celluloid look is leagues above and beyond the blue movie lightning effects that would become the standard in the next decade. Characters are set on fire, tossed around like rag dolls...look, if The Haunting ('63) has you saying "Okay, so someone holds an invisible hand and a door bulges and that's it?" and The Haunting ('99) has you saying "Okay, that was stupid," well, The Evil might just be your ticket, baby.

And did I mention there's some great doggie acting? And also Andrew Prine is in it? We know he's always cool in everything, but he might actually be at his coolest here. I mean!

Take a dash of The Legend of Hell House, toss in some The Legacy, add a wee pinch of Phantasm, douse liberally with the aforementioned Amityville Horror and The Haunting, and cook for a brisk 90 minutes at ...AND VICTOR BUONO AS THE EVIL degrees and you get this maybe it's half-baked but I don't care, it's fun delight.

Wow, that was tortured, huh?

The Evil feels like a random Saturday night cable movie that you'd watch, enjoy, and then kind of forget about for years until you see it randomly mentioned somewhere and, remembering it fondly, you'd give it a long-overdue rewatch and still find it enjoyable as all get-out. Unless you're that one person who named it a favorite in 2020. Now they know what's up.