'Don't Answer the Phone' should be disconnected

Don't Answer the Phone (aka "The Hollywood Strangler") (1980)
Starring: James Westmoreland, Nicholas Worth, Flo Gerrish,
and Ben Frank
Director: Robert Hammer
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A serial killer (Worth) is on the loose in Los Angeles, murdering hookers and photo models with unchecked savagery while taunting radio psychiatrist Lindsay Gale (Gerrish) with on-air phone calls. Will the homicide detectives in charge of the case (Frank and Westmoreland) catch him before his torment of Gale turns to murder?

Indifferently acted with cinematography and lighting to match, not to mention listless direction, the thus poorly written killer-on-the-loose flick doesn't have much going for it other than the graphic nature of its highly sexually charged murder scenes and the overall creepiness of the mad killer... and that's only if you watch the uncensored version, which is what is included in the "Pure Terror" boxed set.

There's little question that the creators of this film were trying to be as nasty as they could be, with the kill scenes each lingering on the pain and suffering of the victims as they are choked to death (with the one exception feeling strange as a result) and almost always following up with some disturbingly perverted behavior by the insane killer. In some ways, this film is worse than some of the "torture porn" films that have been so popular in recent years. It could even be considered a precursor to them, although it has more in common with Italian bloody thrillers from the hands of Dario Argento or Mario Bava than the more recent flicks.

This is one of those films where I almost feel bad for the actors in it. I've no doubt everyone was trying their best, but they were working with material so badly written that even the greatest actors would have a hard time saving it. James Westmoreland plays one of the dumbest, most obnoxious cops that's ever been presented as a heroic lead character in any film, and his partner--played by career bit-player Ben Frank who probably had hoped that this, one of his few large roles would have been better--is only slightly smarter; Flo Gerrish is so shrewish and shrill that you will find yourself HOPING she gets killed just so she will shut up--although, to the filmmakers' credit, when she finally does become a direct victim of the killer, it is a scary and well-done sequence and we are genuinely worried for the character as she is about to be brutalized, murdered, and raped; and Nicholas Worth's killer is so brutal and crazy and depraved and so over the top that he almost become a parody of the mad killers from the aforementioned Italian thrillers.

In fact, the script for this film is so bad that I've seen some reviewers comment on it as if it was a satire of slasher flicks and Argento-style thrillers. While that is certainly a charitable way to look at the film, I sincerely doubt that writer/director Robert Hammer was trying to make anything but a serious thriller.

In the final evaluation, "Don't Answer the Phone" might be fitting as part of a line-up for a Bad Movie Night centered on detective movies or Italian-type thrillers, but only if your viewing buddies have a tolerance for stupid cops and extended rape/murder scenes.

'The Abducted' is saved by its stars

The Abducted (aka "Match.Dead") (2011)
Starring: James Ray, Kathleen Benner, and Michael Harrelson
Director: Jon Bonnell
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A serial killer (Ray) abducts a young woman (Benner) he met through an online dating site. After deciding he loves her, he forgoes his usual habit of murder, and he tries to win her affection through violence and terrifying mind games. Will she escape, or will she end up as just another victim?

"The Abducted" is a movie that's elevated by a actors that ALMOST manage to transcend the weakness of the material the are working with. The idea behind the film is an interesting one--it takes the basic framework of the countless torture porn movies that have been spewed forth into the direct-to-DVD market and onto the big screen since the surprise hit "Saw" but uses it for a psychological thriller instead of a disgusting sadistic gore-fest--but the execution is lacking.

The biggest flaw with the film is that we never get any insight into the film's villain, Ridley, and why he does what he does. Nor do we ever gain an understanding of the tortured heroine, Valora, even if we get several flashbacks to her childhood, which the writer and director presumably felt would explain why she was able fight her abductor and why he saw a kindred spirit in her. Because the villain and the heroine both remain unknowns to us, much of the potential emotional of the film never materializes. The battle of wills between the two characters feels a bit hollow and even the murder of the girl's grandfather feels like nothing more than a badly motivated excuse for some splatter and melodrama, because we know even less about the grandfather than we do the heroine.

While it's good for a movie to hit the ground running, it would have been nice if there would have been a little more set-up of the characters in this film. Specifically, how the main characters met, and why someone who seems as appealing and strong-minded as the kidnap victim had to resort to online dating to find love? All this could have been accomplished with just a few minutes at the beginning, perhaps even showing the two characters meeting after their online connection. (All the promotional material for the film references online dating and the initial meeting of the two main characters, so I wonder that material never made it into the movie.)

More background on the main characters would also have helped make the ending seem more satisfying, because as it stands Valora's transformation is very, very lame. (The ending also made me wonder: Why do so many action and horror films end with the villains getting killed? In so many movies, it would be a far worse punishment for the bad guy to go through the humiliation of trial and imprisonment. Death is the easy way out. It most cases, the justice isn't even poetic, nor barely even justice.)

It's a shame the script here ins't stronger, because James Ray and Kathleen Benner both give fine performances, and they each have enough charisma together and apart to carry the film despite its flaws. This is the second time I've seen Ray play an unpleasant bad-ass (the other time being in "Fable", a film which also happened to feature Benner in a small part), and I think he if all goes well for him he might find himself a prominent spot in the pantheon of cinematic heavies.

"The Abducted" will see wide release on DVD on March 7. My thanks to the good folks at Brain Damage Films for supplying me with an advanced copy.

'Dream Stalker' is not worth losing sleep over

Dream Stalker (1998)
Starring: Valerie Williams (aka Diane Cardea), Mark Dias, John Tyler, and Pamela Hong
Director: Alan Smithee
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

As Brittany (Williams) tries to move on following the accidental death of her violent and domineering boyfriend (Dias), he reaches out from beyond the veil of death to make sure that if he can't live with her than no one will.
 

"Dream Stalker" deals with the ultimate possessive boyfriend... one whose domineering ways isn't even stopped by death. It is fairly good when compared to other ultra-low budget horror flicks shot on video. The acting is slightly better than average, the camera work is mostly okay, and what effects and make-up it features aren't bad either. The pacing is mostly pretty good, and, although the script could have done with another draft or two to make the dialogue a little better, there aren't too many characters behaving stupidly or illogically due to plot dictates.

That said, the film is marred by some of the worst sound work I've ever witnessed. In several scenes, the dialogue is drowned out almost completely by background noise, as if the crew was using microphones on their video cameras instead of mikes on the actors or booms. It's certainly obvious that the filmmakers never heard of the concept of tracking/rerecording dialogue in post-production.

Even with that annoying techincal flaw, "Dream Stalker" might have earned Four or Five Stars if the last quarter of so of the story hadn't started to fall apart when it should have been building to its climax; it was almost as if the writer or director traded in story for wild hacking and slashing.





Trivia: Alan Smithee is the name a director puts on a film when he wants to disavow himself from it. Someone didn't like the way "Dream Stalker" turned out so he or she is probably thrilled the film will probably never make the transition to DVD!

'Trick r Treat' is a Halloween fear fest!

Trick r Treat (2009)
Starring: Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Isabelle Deluce, Britt McClipp, Brett Kelly, and Monica Delain
Director: Michael Dougherty
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

If there's a horror movie that perfectly captures the Halloween spirit, then this is it!

"Trick r Treat" is an anthology film consisting of four interlinked and intermingled short horror tales that all start out like traditional horror tales yet provide unexpected twists that are amusing and shocking at the same time... and in a couple if cases even dish out a little poetic justice like the tales in classic horror comics like "Tales from the Crypt."

The film doesn't have a framing sequence per se, but there are two main threads running through all the stories, each of which eventually reach their conclusion when they end up serving as a major plot point in one or more of the tales. The first of these deals with a strange little boy who is wandering the streets with his treat bag late Halloween night, while the other features a pair of sisters and their friend who are "on the prowl for men," so the more shy of the sister can "do it for the first time". Meanwhile, a vampire is killing the residents of a neighborhood, and a vampire is stalking partiers in downtown alleys.



As these threads weave their way in and out the film, a school teacher is revealed to have several dark secrets, a group of kids staging a mean prank Halloween prank on a socially inept girl discover that the legend of a driver killing a bus load of "differently abled" children on Halloween eve is far more than just a scary story; an "adult party" party in the woods comes to a startling conclusion when those who arranged it reveal their true natures, and a bitter, Halloween-hating old man is set upon by what can only be described as the Spirit of Halloween Past, Present, and Future all wrapped into one.

This film is a real treat for anyone who enjoys horror movies, be they of the classic variety or of the somewhat more fast-moving, modern variety. There's something here for everyone--as is usually the case with a well-made anthology film--but what is even better is that we're treated to a whole range of classic horror movie tropes that are then spun off in unexpected and wholly satisfying directions. The film features vampires, ghosts, werewolves, mad slashers... all the figures that belong in Halloween. But the each come with a fun twist that adds a trick with each treat. The stalker of innocent victims ends up stalked himself, the Halloween bullies find the tables turned on them in the most shocking of ways, and the Scrooge-like Halloween-hater gets some "Halloween Carol" action that will stay with the viewer for a long time.

With great looking sets and even better cinematography and lighting, with a great cast performing clever and spooky tales of terror, first-time director Michael Dougherty has delivered the best horror anthology film I've seen in a very, very long time. It's a far better film that its direct-to-DVD release indicates, and it should become a new Halloween tradition in any horror-lover's household. (Except maybe those with young children... but adults will have a blast with this one, even on repeated viewings.)






And with this review, the 31 Nights of Halloween come to a close for another year. I hope everyone out there has a spooktacular time tonight!

When Movie Buffs Attack!

Fanatic (aka "The Last Horror Film") (1982)
Starring: Joe Spinell and Caroline Munro
Director: David Winters
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A delusional would-be filmmaker, Vinnie, (Spinell) follows his favorite horror movie star, Jana Bates (Munro), to the Cannes Film Festival where he proceeds to stalk her and her collegues while making the ultimate, true-to-life slasher-movie.

There was great potential in this movie, but it fails to reach it because of excessive padding and bad scripting. The story only functions because its characters behave stupidly--Jana is being stalked by a crazed killer who has gone after her twice, and yet she doesn't even hire any bodyguards, and gets no police protection?--and because the killer manages to pull off the impossible--such as making a corpse and all the blood vanish in a matter of moments, gets his hands on a police uniform in a city he doesn't know, and gets in and out of a backstage area during an ongoing production without being seen by anyone. The twist ending helps explain some of these plot problems (and twist-on-the-twist helps further), but these also feel like cop-outs on the part of the filmmakerrs who must have known their script had problems and were trying to do an easy fix.

"Fanatic" was a movie I really wanted to like, but it was just too flawed to be good. Maybe with about ten minutes shaved from the running time, and a little more care taken with the plotting and the twist-endings, this would have been an excellent little flick. It's one that could do with a remake. (In the 2010 version, Vinnie would be updating his Rotten Tomatoes blog on a thrice-daily basis and would have been ejected from the Horror Bloggers Alliance for trolling.)

(Amusing trivia: The movie that Jana Bates is in Cannes to promote is "Scream", which eventually became a real-life self-referential horror movie directed by Wes Craven.)

It's a predictable view from 'Secret Window'

This review is being posted as part of Blog Cabins' 30 dAyS oF cRaZy blog-a-thon! The blogosphere is a tad more insane this month than usual!

Secret Window (2004)
Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, and Maria Bello
Director: David Koepp
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Mort Rainey (Depp) is a novelist on the verge of a burn-out when his life gets even worse: A maniac (Turturro) accuses him of plagiarising a story he wrote, and begins an ever-increasing campaign of violence and terror against Mort and those closest to him.


Based on a short story by Stephen King, "Secret Window" features a number of themes related to the darker side of the basically lonely professional life that every writer leads... and if one is familiar with those themes and how they've played out in King's works, where this movie ultimately goes is very predictable.

However, the cast is made up of competent actors--Depp once again shows what an excellent actor he is, and Turturro was downright frightening in most of his scenes--the script is well done, and the director clearly knows how to use all the tools in his bag of tricks to keep the suspense up.

Even if I realized early on that I was watching yet another movie about a crazy writer being stalked by himself, through a twisted part of his broken mind that has taken over, Koepp delivered a film that kept me watching due to nicely staged scenes and by managing to provide enough twists to keep me wondering if I was wrong about my assumptions. The script was also well enough written that I cared about the characters. I didn't want Johnny Depp's beleaguered writer to be a maniac, because
I liked him, and I certainly didn't want Maria Bello to end up in a shallow grave. It's one of those rare mystery movies where there really is no mystery if you've seen enough of them, but it is still well-crafted enough to make it worthwhile.

And it could be that this film was predictable to me because I've seen so many horror, mystery, and suspense films. Maybe viewers who haven't watched quite as many movies, or are as familiar with Stephen King's Package of Repeated Themes and Stereotypes would be taken aback by the "shocking twist ending."

Eastwood stalked by psycho hose beast!

Play Misty for Me (1971)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Jessica Walter, Donna Mills and John Larch
Director: Clint Eastwood
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A small-town disc-jockey (Eastwood) sees his life turned upside-down when an obsessed fan (Walter) starts stalking him.


"Play Misty for Me" is a nifty thriller where a completely innocent guy gets sucked into the fantasy life of a psycho chick with deadly results. It's the film "Fatal Attraction" wanted to be--something director Eastwood observes in a documentary included on the DVD when he calls it a "remake"--but has neither the style, class, nor properly tuned moral compass of this flick.

In "Fatal Attraction", the characters are almost universally dislikeable and Michael Douglas' character pretty much gets the life he deserves. In this film, skillful casting has guarenteed the characters are likeable--even the psychotic stalker wench has some charm about her, due to a well-done performance from Jessica Walter--and we further have a protagonist whose side the audience is completely on. (Eastwood's character Dave is not married and has been seperated from his girlfriend for several months when he crosses paths with his futuer stalker--he is not betraying any promises or commitments when he gets involved with her, nor did he make any promises to her. It's all-too-rare to see a movie of this type with a completely innocent main character... and for all his womanizing ways, Dave doesn't deserve the hell that comes down upon him and those around him.)

The scenic locations and some intense attack scenes when Eve also this movie very, very strong. I also admire the way Eastwood gave us a "false ending" halfway through the film, going all idyllic and romantic on us when Dave's stalker is apparently put away. The sequence goes on a little too long, but it was a great idea and when Evelyn reappears, the anticipation of her next strike is that much more intense.

If you enjoy movies like "Fatal Attraction"--and want to see that movie done better, over a decade earlier--or if you want to see Clint Eastwood in a role very different from the ones he usually plays, you should check out "Play Misty for Me".

Run away from 'Pursued'

Pursued (2004)
Starring: Christian Slater, Gil Bellows and Estella Warren
Director: Kristoffer Tabori
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

Never-say-die corporate headhunter Vincent Palmer (Christian Slater) sets his sights on Ben Keats (Gil Bellows) to recruit him away from a small hi-tech firm about to revolutionize the security industry to take the helm of a failing computer company. Vincent has yet to fail to recruit a mark yet, and that is because he is a complete psycho that uses everything from blackmail to murder in order to force his targets to sign on the dotted line. Soon, Vincent is threatening everything and everyone around Ben, including his naive wife (Warren) and little daughter.

The movie starts out promising, but it quickly becomes a boring morass of characters doing dumb things because the plot requires it, seemingly intelligent characters not using resources and options at their disposal, and just bad script writing. Once Ben catches onto what Vincent is up to, he SHOULD have been able to turn the tables on him, or even get the police involved, but he doesn't, because the movie would have been an hour long... or we might even have gotten an intelligent and satisfying spin on the hunted becoming the hunter instead of a lame, made-for-TV fight scene at the end.

Christian Slater does a good job as the psycho headhunter, but every other part in thefilm is both weak in the dialogue and performances. (And what the heck is up with Estella Warren's lips?! I've heard of the 'bee-stung look,' but there's gotta be something physically wrong with someone with lips THAT puffy and swollen!)


So, unless you're a huge fan of late-nite cable fare, avoid "Pursued."