The Ghost (1963) : The Look of Boo Steele

Margaret (Barbara Steele) is the unhappy wife of the crippled Dr. John Hitchcock.  He has spent years researching both natural and occult remedies for the affliction thaya confines him to a chair.  He is convinced a regimen of poison followed by antidote will help, but only Dr. Livingston is shady enough to administer it. He's also having an affair with  Margaret, and she's fed up with her invalid hubby. Encouraging her Doctor beau to off her hubby, he only administers the poison. However, when strange occourances rattle the murderous pair, they begin to wonder if Dr. Hitchcock has returned as a vengeful Ghost.

Paranormal Activity 5: The Marked Ones- This Time With 94% Less Annoying White People

I have a complicated history with the Paranormal Activity franchise. While I deeply enjoyed the first film, perhaps due to viewing it opening night in a packed theater, I've skipped out on subsequent installments due to my aversion to found footage movies and continuing stories about unpleasant, middle class, white people (I'm looking at you Katie and Micah.) When I heard the fifth installment would leave behind the main storyline and instead tell a tale of witchcraft, demons, and possession with a Latin slant, I knew I was going to jump on board for another round. I'm glad I did. Paranormal Activity 5: The Marked Ones is far from a perfect film, but with engaging characters, an original storyline, and even a clever callback to the first film, it gets Paranormal enough to get Marked highly by me. 

The Innkeepers (2011) We’ll Leave the Spectral Light on For You

Two years ago, when I reviewed Ti West’s House of the Devil, I gave the film a 4 out of 5 and praised the director for his period setting, even tone, and use of suspense despite my wish that a little more had been held back. Since that time, I haven't heard much from the one time savior of horror since. I intentionally missed out on Cabin Fever 2 as West was loudly displeased with the film, and unlike everyone else in the horror reviewing world, somehow I have yet to see V/H/S so I can't comment on his segment there. In one way it is promising that West hasn't started turning films out meat grinder style to cash in on the cachet of his name while he can, but I have wanted to see what West had in store for a his next, non-sequel vision. As I am always running behind on new releases, I'm just getting a chance to catch up with the answer to my wonder, West’s The Innkeepers. Combining comedy and horror effectively while still playing around in the 80s horror format that West so clearly loves, he delivers another stunningly deep entry into the horror genre. To discuss the film today, I will be dealing in some spoilers, but rest assured I will let everyone know before I go there and deploy my patented Bugg method for spoilery secrets. So come with me on a trip with Mr. West to a small Connecticut town and the Yankee Pedler, the setting for The Innkeepers.

The Lair Interview: Grave Encounters 2 Director John Poliquin

Last Monday to kick off October, I got an early look at Grave Encounters 2. Well, back then I told you it wasn't the last you would hear about the film this month, and I’m back today with that other part. I was lucky enough to get a few minutes to sit down and ask questions of John Poliquin, the first time director at the helm of Grave Encounters 2. So read on, and find out a few things about the movie, a little bit about John, and what Wall Street could have to do with it all.

T.L. Bugg: You took over directing duties from The Vicious Brothers with Grave Encounters 2. What was your approach to the sequel and did it remain a collaborative effort?

John Poliquin : Yeah, yeah, it definitely was. They were on set every day most days, actually they were on set every day but  they were editing in a room. So they were involved from pre-production all the way until delivery. So it was definitely collaborative. My approach was basically I wanted to maintain the style and a lot of the vibe and what worked on the first film but bring my own style to the second film. New but familiar was really what I wanted so it felt fresh but still like a Grave Encounters movie.

Grave Encounters 2: Because ‘Graver Re-Encounters’ Just Didn’t Have the Same Ring

Hello folks, and welcome to October. Let me tell you, I’m super excited for Halloween this year. It’s my favorite time of year, as I am sure it is for many of the LBL’s readers, and it just so happens that I have an incredible way to kick off the month. What I’m talking about is an early look at Grave Encounters 2. You may recall my review of Grave Encounters which I paired with the classic British spookshow Ghost Watch for an article I cleverly titled Grave Encounters on a Ghost Watch. The first Grave Encounters focused on Lance Preston (Sean Robertson) and his band of Ghost Adventuresque paranormal hunters who stumbled into an abandoned asylum which was filled with actual ghosts. Through the found footage film, we see the team gets picked off as time and space begin to have no meaning in the supernatural vortex in which they have stepped. In other words, it was one of my favorite movie conceits, ghost hunters find more than they were bargaining for.

The Dead Want Women (2012): The Living Want Chicken and a Nap

Mars might need ‘em, Mel Gibson might claim to know what they want, and Neil Diamond might know that a girl will be one soon, but when it comes to women, the dead want ‘em. That is if you take the title of the newest Full Moon feature at its word, and if you cant trust a paragon of virtue like Charles Band, then I don’t know what this world is coming to. I suppose it's coming to be the kind of place where you can go out on a sidewalk and rent Full Moon’s newest feature, The Dead Want Women, exclusively from a movie vending machine with a rather color specific name. I’m still not completely sold on the concept of DVD vending, but striking an exclusive deal with a rental company like this is exactly the kind of forward thinking that has kept Charles Band making and producing movies for years. Are they all good? Rarely. For every Parasite Band has directed or Re-Animator he’s produced, there’s three Evil Bong films (seriously three?), a Leapin’ Leprechauns, and a Beach Babes 2: Cave Girl Island waiting to fill the void. What I had to know, on this week where we’ve all been watched over by the “super moon”, was if Full Moon had done something super or if this moon was waning.

Dead End (2003): Over The Hills and Through the Woods to Grandmother's House We Die

There are many horrors associated with the holiday season. There's killer elves and ax wielding Santas, endless lines in the stores, the traffic on the roads, or the terror of trying to mail something. That's not to mention the constant ringing of bells, the endless din of carols rerecorded by a bevy of today's pop stars, and the barrage of  weak, uninspired television specials that premiere year after year. The biggest horror for most people may well be one of the holiday's main occasions, the family gathering. It's an event that is often fraught with mysterious relations, long distance travel to keep feuding relatives separated, and, if you're really lucky, someone will get drunk and start a fight. Hmm, maybe I'm just talking about The Lair's last office party. At some point in December it all runs together in a Nog fueled haze. Anyhow, for the characters in today's film,  the horror isn't in the holiday gathering; it's in the getting there that turns into a massive Dead End.

The Harrington family, father Frank (Ray Wise), mother Laura (Lin Shayne), brother Richard (Mick Caine), sister Marion (Alexandra Holden) and her boyfriend Billy (Brad Miller), are on their way to Grandma Harrington's house on Christmas Eve. Driving late at night, Frank decides to take a shortcut to keep himself awake and interested in driving. Instead, Frank falls asleep at the wheel only to be jolted awake by Marion seconds before they would have had a head on collision. While recovering from the shock, Frank sees a woman in white standing along the road with a baby, and in the spirit of the season, picks her up. Things really start going bad from there, the woman in white is carrying a dead baby, Billy disappears and shows back up as a heap of bones and flesh on the asphalt, and no matter how far or fast they drive they can't seem to get anywhere. Trapped in an endless forest on a lonely road, the family is picked off one by one, and their only suspect is the woman in white and the driver-less black hearse that takes each of them away.

It's going to be a little tricky discussing Dead End without talking about the film's last five minutes. In those 300 seconds, everything that has happened in the film feels like it should be looked at differently. Then, in the credits, a short clip realigns the film once more. As I don't want to spoil the film, I won't get any more specific, but I will say that the first ending pissed me off and the second confused me. Now to go back to the main portion of the film. Clearly directors Fabrice Canepa and Jean-Babtiste Andrea wanted to say something about the horrors of family in the context of people getting mysteriously mutilated. Dad turns out to have been a cheater, as does Mom (even the paternity of one of the kids comes into question). Richard is a pothead who can't stop jerking off even on the way to Grandma's. Marion is pregnant. Dad turns violent. Mom loses her mind. You know, Christmas.

The plot of the film is so basic that Dead End really is an actor's film. With only three of four locales in the film, with the majority of time spent in their SUV, there's little other than the performances to watch. Thankfully, they are worth watching. Wise, who I always love (especially his turn as Satan on Reaper), is pitch perfect. Wise's Frank goes from irritable to emotional to all the way to flat out crazy, and every step along the way. There's a ton of dark humor in the film, and Mick Caine's Richard provides much of the smirking laughs. When his character leaves the action, there's a hole the film never quite fills.Veteran actress Lin Shayne, who many will instantly remember as the landlady from Kingpin, has had a varied career and will soon play Eleanor Roosevelt in FDR: American Badass! (starring Barry Bostwick as the titular badass and, yep, Ray Wise as Gen. MacArthur) In Dead End she plays the repressed wife who harbors an awful secret perfectly, and that's more than  can be said of the film's weak link Alexandra Holden. When her character goes catatonic, I just didn't buy it. Especially with the path her character takes later in the film. Knowing the ending it makes a bit more sense, but not enough upon reflection.

That's really what troubles me about Dead End. It's not a film that can be taken on surface value, but then the film makers chose to change what it might mean in retrospect not once, but twice, and neither time is ultimately satisfying. While Dead End is well acted on the whole, it lacks an emotional punch at the end to bring it all together. While the film comes in like a lion, it goes out squeaking around for cheese. As a Christmas adjacent film (I hesitate to call it related. Die Hard has more holiday references), it does examine a portion of the holidays that often gets ignored in the horror genre. The only films I could compare it to are the 2008 French film A Christmas Tale and the 1995 Thanksgiving themed Home for the Holidays, but with more gore, less drama, yet the same amount of familial dysfunction.  So the next time you're dreading the ride to a holiday gathering, look at it this way, the chances are you wont get caught up in a supernatural time vortex where everyone dies... probably. You might wish it, but just like Dead End, it's not as fun as it looks.

Bugg Rating

Ectovember: Grave Encounters on a Ghostwatch

Last week when I was talking about House of Bones, I mentioned a couple other films that shared a similar plot line, a ghost hunting TV show gets more than they expected. Those films were the punningly titled Grave Encounters from Tribeca Films and Ghost Watch which originally aired on BBC1. In the last week, I caught up with both of these, and with only one week left in Ectovember, I thought I would talk about them both. They present two very interesting and different views of ghost hunting shows, British and American views on the supernatural, and how best to utilize a limited budget. I'll go ahead and say right up front that these are the two finest examples of the ghost hunter horror films that I have encountered, and both of them mine the television concept effectively and with precision.

Grave Encounters is set up like a found footage film with a tacked on beginning featuring a producer who has been sent a tape of a proposed series called, you guessed it, Grave Encounters. Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) leads his team of paranormal investigators into Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, a site where supernatural phenomena has been reported for years. The hospital has a history of murder, lobotomies, and insanity ingrained into it, but the team is more fascinated by how creepy the place will look on camera. After being locked in for the night, they soon find that the hospital offers up much more than an eerie locale. As one of the team goes missing, the others are menaced by ever growing ghostly activity which forces them into breaking down the chained door they entered through, but behind they find only more halls. As endless night stretches on, Lance and the crew begin to surrender their bodies and their minds to whatever evil lurks in the hospital walls.

Without a doubt, Grave Encounters sets its sights on two particular paranormal shows, Ghost Adventures and Paranormal State. Lance's show intro for Grave Encounters is nearly a verbatim melding between those two shows' preamble. (For the record, Adventures is silly fun while State is among the worst that the paranormal reality genre has to offer.) Throughout, writer/ directors The Viscous Brothers (Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz) absolutely nail the patterns of speech used in ghost hunting shows as well as correct use of terminology and actions. I completely believed that the characters responded in the way their real life counterparts would in the same situation, with a mixture of fear, intrigue, steady unremitting disbelief, and the absolute need to put everything on tape. The movie goes for almost an hour before a big scare happens, creating tension throughout the first hour with small happenings and good old fashioned personal conflict between the characters. When the effects work finally intrudes, that is where the film stumbles somewhat. With a larger budget, the effects would have felt much cleaner and less forced, but I do have to give it up to them for showing something and not taking the cop out Blair Witch route.

Despite the occasionally hamfisted effects, Grave Encounters is really a movie that hinges on the actors. Most of the weight in this regard is taken on by Sean Rogerson as Lance. Sean does a heck of a job drawing the audience in with his as he succumbs to horror and madness, but by the end of the film, he took it a bit over the top for me. However, his performance can be seen as a perfect example the decent into Lovecraftian insanity, and it is very telling that his only link to normalcy comes through the lens of a camera. I was equally impressed by Mackenzie Gray as the "psychic" Houston. I would be hard pressed to believe that this character was not based on debunked British psychic Derek Acorah. His performance was highly entertaining, and I really liked that his character was a self aware charlatan but when shit went down he stuck to his shtick in hopes that it would save him. Merwin Mondesir, Ashleigh Gryzko, and Juan Riedinger all give effective performances to round out the team, and no one really felt like they didn't carry their weight.

Ghostwatch takes a slightly different angle on the found footage film by presenting itself on television as a live spectacle. Host Micheal Parkinson and Sarah Greene invite viewers to join them as they investigate a home in Northolt, London reported to be the most haunted home in England. They present both photographic and audio evidence backing up the claims of Pamela Early (Brid Brennon) and her daughters Kim and Suzanne (Michelle and Cerise Wesson) who have been troubled by a spirit that the young girls call "Pipes". While Parkinson and paranormal researcher Dr. Pescoe (Gillian Bevan) remain in the studio to take calls and analyse the evidence, Sarah joins the family in their home where strange happenings slowly begin to unfold. At first it seems like it might only be the work of the daughters creating a hoax, but as the night wears on, the spirit begins to strengthen, affecting the family, the studio, and even the viewers at home.

Airing October 31st, 1992 on BBC1, Ghostwatch was preceded a short title sequence indicating the writer's name and that it was part of the dramatic Screen One series, but many viewers missed that entirely and assumed that the events unfolding on the screen were real. To stem some of the panic they expected to cause, director Lesley Manning had included a number where people could call into to the "show" and share their own ghost stories. When viewers called in, they were let in on the fact they show was fictional. However, the phone lines remained so clogged many couldn't get through, and Ghost Watch created a mini-War of the World's style hysteria. As such, BBC has never repeated the program, and it was only released on VHS years ago. (Thankfully it's in its entirety on Google video and linked below.) What also made the program especially believable was that Parkinson and Greene were respected British television personalities. Parkinson was a venerated journalist and Greene a children's television presenter. (In sort of a twist Yvette Fielding, host of Most Haunted, which clearly based the format of its live events ten years later off Ghostwatch, also started out in kid's TV.) The natural reactions of all the actors, both playing themselves and characters, really sell the whole affair.

Where Ghostwatch really shines is where Grave Encounters faltered, the effects. Ghostwatch chose to keep it subtle with vague images that happen and then are gone in a blink of an eye. I had the advantage of being able to watch scenes over and over, but I can imagine that many home viewers were disturbed by things they thought they might have seen. The director did a great job integrating the ghostly presence into the film. In one instance a scene is looked over three times by Parkinson and the Doctor to determine if a presence has appeared. In the first run, there is something in the frame. In the second, nothing is there, and in the third, there is a vague notion of a shape. A later instance showcases a full body apparition which disappears in the split second it takes for the camera to swing back around. Keeping it subtle (while still paying off and showing something) made Ghostwatch incredibly effective and believable. The only drawback that Ghostwatch has is its pacing. Having to keep in the context of live television often made it feel like it lost steam throwing back and forth between the studio and the haunted home.

One of the main differences between Ghostwatch and Grave Encounters is the cultural gap between North American and European view of the supernatural. In a recent poll over 70% of British respondents said they believe in ghosts. By comparison, the North American figure lingers around or below 50%. Grave Encounters works against the disbelief. The paranormal team is presented as a group of skeptics who are more concerned about making money than actually finding a ghost. Some of them even continue to deny far past the point of reason as a means of coping with the strain. The cast of Ghostwatch however seems eager to believe and have genuine concern for the family being haunted. When it looks like it is a hoax, the investigators genuinely seem crushed. I attribute the differing opinions on the supernatural to the dominance of religion in societal norms, and while North Americans predominately define themselves as Christians, attendance in churches across England and Europe as a whole are at an all-time low.

While neither Ghostwatch and Grave Encounters get it perfectly right, both films are very enjoyable watches. Hopefully someday, Ghostwatch will get an actual North American DVD release, but until then, i highly encourage folks to check it out online. With its television format, it is easily watched in chunks for your viewing pleasure. Grave Encounters, while not "the scariest movie since The Ring" as claimed by The New York Times, is a tense little actor's film with some really interesting supernatural elements. If you can forgive the first stumbling effects shot, you're in for a genuinely scary ride. I'm really interested to see what the next project for The Vicious Brothers will be as Grave Encounters is a hell of a film debut. Well, that wraps it up for Ectovember. I hope you enjoyed my look at haunted cinema (though it descended into ghost hunter territory), and come on back next month for more cult, horror, and genre goodies for the holiday season!

Bugg Rating
Grave Encounters

Ghost Watch

Ghost Watch in it's entirety! Woot!

Here's the trailer for Grave Encounters. Sadly the trailer spoils one of the film's big money shots. 

Ectovember: House of Bones (2010): Ghost Hunters become the Ghost Hunted

More than a few times I've professed my love for ghost hunting shows here at the Lair. I have my favorites (Most Haunted), ones that make me chuckle (Ghost Adventures), and ones I can't stand (Ghost Lab). In between there's a plethora of other shows of varying degrees of mediocrity. So I've long looked for a horror movie that incorporated ghost hunting in an interesting way. While I've never gotten to see the crown jewel in this particular sub-genre,the 1991 BBC1 mockumentary Ghostwatch, I've sat through Haunting of Winchester Mansion and Death of a Ghost Hunter both of which I felt no compelling reason to write about. (I'm still holding out some hope for Grave Encounters (2011)) Today's ghost hunter flick is the first I've seen to both show the seedy underbelly of the paranormal show and give a satisfying, and often horrific, ride. The strangest thing is that it hails from the home of one of the premiere spiritualist shows, Ghost Hunters. That's right. You're about to be treated to something very scary, a SyFy movie I enjoy. House of Bones is thankfully not a horror/porn, a sequel to the Snoop Dogg flick, or a theme restaurant based on the Emily Deschanel. Instead, it's made for TV fare with a ton of potential, some decent scares, and, dare I say, a whole lot of spirit(s).

Corin Nemec (Mansquito, Parker Lewis Can't Lose) appears as Quentin French, the prissy, small ponytailed host of the paranormal show Sinister Sites. With the ratings beginning to fade, the network is demanding that the host get his hands dirty and actually join the ghost hunting team on an investigation. Meanwhile, in New Orleans (Really nearby Crowley, La. The one exterior city shot could have literally been anywhere.), the team is busy setting up for an investigation in the Wicker House, a home notorious for numerous murders and disappearances over the years. Despite the home's sordid past, lead investigators Tom (Ricky Wayne) and Greg (Marcus Lyle Brown) are non-believers more than willing to set up a shot or create evidence. In addition to the host joining the team, new addition Heather Burton (Charisma Carpenter), a psychic, and production assistant Bub (Kyle Clements) soon find that the house is indeed haunted. In Bub's case, he finds out the hard way. With actual evidence being captured, Tom gleefully disregards the team's safety in order to make exciting television, and soon they all find that the house itself is a presence and it will not let them leave.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this SyFy original is that they would air it in the first place. The entire premise of the film relies on the conceit that ghost hunting shows are bunk, full of actors scaring themselves, and actively engaged in fakery. With Ghost Hunters still pulling in a sizable viewership, it took a certain amount of balls to air a film that basically says the fans are stupid. The second most surprising thing is that the film is actually pretty good. While House of Bones initially relies on jumpy video cuts to create tension, director Jeffery Scott Lando lets those fade into the background and actually manages to come up with quite a few creepy visuals.Writer Anthony C. Ferrante has clearly watched a ton of the shows and gets his stuff right, and I do have to say his style is improved since the underwhelming Boo (2005). That's not to say that the film is not full of useless expository passages, inane dialog, and broad characterizations. After all, you can take the movie off of SyFy, but you can't take the SyFy out of the movie. What a cast and crew can do is make the best out of a fumbling script, and with House of Bones, they've done just that.

There were actually three things that drew me into watching House of Bones, the ghost hunting angle, the "New Orleans" setting, and Charisma Carpenter. While I am no huge fan of Buffy and Angel, I am quite the fan of Ms. Carpenter. Far and away, she's the best portion of this film, but her psychic character is totally underused. (The character is also roundly ignored. When a psychic spits up blood and tells me a house is possessed by malevolent spirits, well, I can guarantee there would be a Bugg size hole in the door pronto.) Ricky Wayne, who has recently landed roles in Real Steel, the Charlie's Angels tv series, and Burn Notice, impresses as the lead investigator. His character arc is the most dynamic, and Wayne pulls it off nicely. Marcus Lyle Brown is likable enough and the same can be said of Kyle Clements and Collin Galyean, who played the team tech guy, but neither became fleshed out characters. Top billed Corin Nemec is really not in more than 15 minutes of the film, and that is being entirely generous. As a group, the cast rises above the script, but not far, perhaps a Chris Angel street magic rise, but no further.

Looking at the film from a ghost believer's point of view, the characters come to believe that the house contains both intelligent (as in they will respond with some intelligence) and residual spirits (who appear or act without an awareness of our timeline). The most interesting concept is that the house itself is not only possessed, but it had been constructed as a means of storing and amplifying psychic energies. The same has been said of Winchester Mansion (which the aforementioned film borrowed a name, but not an actual setting from) built by Elsa Winchester to both protect herself from ghosts as well as focus their energy for Ouija and other means of communication. Again, someone knew their stuff. Sadly the things that bothered me most in the entire film were when the characters went to the basement, a place that would not exist in below sea level New Orleans, and when the spirit drives a cop car away. The first scene is just a personal pet peeve, but the second was so silly it almost took me entirely out of the film.

No matter what your feeling on ghosts or shows concerning them, I highly recommend no one go into this movie without knowing from whence it came. As far as SyFy films go, this is far and away one of the best I've ever seen. As a regular film, it rates below average which is the rating I'm going to give it. Even so, I had a great time watching it, and while much of that has to do with the cast, I can't underestimate some of the macabre creepiness that House of Bones manages to achieve. With another writer taking a pass over the script, a little bit more money in the budget, and perhaps a couple minor casting changes, House of Bones could have been a solid, quality entry into the supernatural genre. As it stands, House of Bones built something good upon a shaky foundation, and when your network can't even afford a proper amount of letters in their name, that's pretty damn impressive.

Bugg Rating

Home For Rent (Occupants Included): Bedlam and American Horror Story Move Haunting Into Primetime

Right now, the housing market is terrible. With loans hard to get and sellers unable to unload properties, it's no surprise that people would be desperate for somewhere to live. Yet there is a line between being desperate and not doing due diligence. I'm not talking about getting the building inspectors out or making sure all the utilities are in working order. Nor am I thinking about checking school districts or the local amenities that the surrounding area has to offer. I'm talking about bringing in a medium or two, going down to the library to make sure your house isn't built on top of a burial ground or ancient ruins of a long forgotten religion's sacred home, and, if all else fails, calling around to local plumbers and tight t-shirt shops looking for a ghost hunter. Unfortunately for the cast of characters in Bedlam, BBC America's haunted offering (originally aired earlier this year in the UK), and American Horror Story, airing on the FX network, they didn't do all the checking they should have before they signed their lease.

Both of these shows share a similar theme, a group of folks move into a new place and slowly begin to realize their new digs are haunted. The interesting thing to me is how they compare as visions of paranormal activity from opposite sides of the pond. Bedlam centers itself around the modern, young, hip looking set of residents of Bedlam Heights, a new luxury apartment complex shoved into what used to be a mental institution. While Jed (Theo James) can see the spirits, the other inhabitants are menaced mainly by a few passing visions and the frequent sound of dripping water (usually coming from a laptop stuck on a picture of a river under a bridge.) American Horror Story throws it's cast, an average American family bruised by infidelity, into a creepy looking mansion where the previous inhabitants killed themselves in a murder-suicide scenario. Where Bedlam relied on subtle imagery and sound, American Horror Story went straight for the jugular subjecting each of it's characters to taxing visual and mental horror. 

As a fan of ghost hunting shows from both the US and UK, I can see how social attitudes about the paranormal and haunting play into both shows. Watching British ghost shows such as Most Haunted , very rarely are EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) or other audio communication attempted, something standard in shows like Ghost Adventures or Ghost Hunters in the States. Instead, paranormal activity is treated with more of a nod to the Victorian spiritualist movement with a focus on table tilting, communication through mediums, and intelligent responses through knocks or Ouija boards. Meanwhile, American ghost hunters like Zak Bagins seem more interested in fighting (or having sex with) a ghost than perusing a means of communication. When they do go down that avenue, they are intent for a spirit to talk, touch, or appear. Where British paranormal researchers seem content with exploring the unknown and unseen, Americans require proof. If we can't see it, hear it, or touch it, then it must not be real. This is even reflected somewhat in survey results. A 2009 CBS poll puts belief in ghosts among Americans at 58% while a 2010 British poll by Choice.com puts their percentage at 73%. 

While both of them engender a very different attitude toward the non-corporeal, I found both of them entertaining though I like what I can hear, touch and see so American Ghost Story gets a slight edge. Bedlam used its pilot to do a heck of a lot of setup. With five new characters to introduce, their relationships, and back-story to be fit in, there was precious time for thrills and chills. There were a few spectral appearances, some Paranormal Activity style freaky standing, and of course the drip-drip-drip. I do like how it sets up psychic Jed to unravel the mystery of a different spirit every week, but I wonder how long it will be sustainable. With Season 2 in development already for the BBC, I suppose they think it has legs. Legs that float about 6 to eight inches above the floor, but legs nevertheless. 

American Horror Story throws both its characters and its viewers right into the thick of it. Before the credits rolled, there was already a creepy kid, two deaths, and all the set-up you need. Patriarch Ben (Dylan McDermott), his wife Vivian (Connie Britton), and their daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) move into their new haunted home with the specter of Ben's affair and Vivian's miscarriage still lingering over them. Ben, a psychiatrist, sets up his practice which includes creepy patient (Evan Peters), a teen with Columbine dreams (and a Twisted Nerve soundtrack) and designs on his shrink's daughter while Vivian settles into her new home including hiring maid Moira (a cataract-ed Frances Conroy in her eyes/ and sexpot Alex Breckenridge in her husband's). They encounter the eerie neighbors, and soon enough the house starts affecting everyone. Ben begins to sleepwalk and have an attraction to fire, Vivian has sex with a man in a rubber suit she believes to be her husband, and Violet starts to think her new beau (Peters) might be more than meets the eye. Packed with effects and visuals, American Horror Story wants to make an impression, and on this viewer it did. It remains to be seen if it can keep up the same kind of pace and intensity throughout the whole season. 

American Horror Story seems just that. The family involved, minus the spooky stuff, could be any family that lives up and down the block in any neighborhood. Bedlam on the other hand reflects the more disorganized  un-regimented life of a group of youths. AHS fits the formula of an American show, a long format drama driven by characters, and Bedlam seems like its story will propelled forward though an ongoing story-line augmented by a "monster of the week" in the Dr. Who vein. Both shows are good enough to garner your attention, but it remains to be seen if either can maintain a premise for a whole season, and American Horror Story seems built to resolve in the time frame of one season. Perhaps then it would move onto another tale as a season long anthology. Where horror has had success in the past was in the anthology vein (Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside, Freddy's Nightmares), the occasional series (Dark Shadows, Kolchak, True Blood) makes it way through. It will be interesting to see where these two series go and what they scare up. 

Violent Kind (2010): Teddy Boy's Bloody Picnic

When you sit down at home and press play on any film, unless you’ve already seen it, there’s really no telling what you’re getting yourself into. Like most people I try to make judgments based on the cast, the director, or a brief synopsis, but if worse comes to worst and I’m on the fence, sometimes it comes down to cover art. In the case of today’s film, I knew nothing about it when I came across the cover on Netflix. Here it is...

Taking what I could from the cover, I first tried to ignore the connection to both the lackluster Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot, but moving on to the main image, it comes across like a biker themed horror film, Sons of Anarchy with a higher body count perhaps. Having recently watched the entirely tepid biker horror flick Poker Run,  I wasn't really looking for another chopper themed slasher, but something in the synopsis caught my eye, "rowdy bikers who find their partying cut short by a malevolent force and a gang of equally rough Rockabilly types who may already be dead." Now that, I thought, would be worth a watch. So setting aside the qualms given me by Violent Kind's cover, I pressed play wondering if I'd just gotten myself into Night of the Easy Riders. 

The tiny tidbit that intrigued me from the Netflix synopsis was surely a fresh, interesting hook to get me into the film, but it was also only the start of things. Cody (Cory Knauf), his sister Shade (Taylor Cole), and their friends Q (Bret Roberts) and Elroy (Nick Tagas) travel to the California mountains to attend their mother's 50th birthday party at the old haunt of "The Crew" a biker gang founded by their father. Cody's old flame Michelle (Tiffany Shepis) shows up trying to make trouble, but she finally wanders off into the night with the intent to bone her new boneheaded beau. Before Cody can breathe a sigh of relief that nothing had gone wrong at the party, Michelle shows back up covered head to toe with blood. Now possessed by a supernatural force, Michelle attacks Elroy and sews the seeds of dissension among the friends. As if a friend under demonic possession wasn't bad enough, then a group of '50's style toughs show up and start torturing the crew in preparation for a dark ritual  to welcome what now resides inside Michelle. 

If that at all seems convoluted, I apologize. The film shifts in tone so drastically throughout that it's a bit hard to explain. To begin, Violent Kind goes almost a  full twenty minutes feeling much like an episode of Sons of Anarchy stripped of its stars, but when it takes that bloody, bloody left turn, it means business. In the second portion of the film, the possession piece, there were flavors of favorites such as Cabin Fever and Burnt Offerings, but it stayed away from taking the easy pea soup route. Throughout this portion,  the audience is kept guessing and tension is very effectively built. When the film tumbles over into its last third, the supernatural sock hop set, it veers into territory I would have thought far too dark from what either of the first two thirds of the film had shown. It goes dark in a Last House on the Edge of the Park kind of way filled with that specific kind of nihilistic, sexualized violence that can really, really make my skin crawl. 

Violent Kind is the third film from directing duo "The Butcher Brothers" (Phil Flores, Mitchell Altieri), and never having seen 2006's The Hamilton's or their 2008 film April Fools Day, I have no way to compare it  to any of their other output. Taken on its own merits, Violent Kind is easily one of the best horror films I've seen since 2008's Martyrs. The Butcher Brothers skillfully weave together a number of tones ranging from comic (See lines like: "You tried to eat Elroy's face honey."), to deviant (simulated lesbian bottle sex and cling wrap fetish are just two examples) to just plain horrific (Girls covered in blood never want to make out.) They also do an incredible job with using music in the film. I thought they had dug up a number of retro gems, but it turns out that the soundtrack was packed with indie rock, rockabilly, and folk artists. The most effective example to me was the placement of Lys' Guillorn 's song Little Wren  playing while Shepis' possessed Michelle is struggling to resist being tied to the bed. 

I'm already gushing way too much, but I really must talk a bit about the acting. Tiffany Shepis is a well known name to horror fans as she's one of the current reigning scream queens, but I've rarely enjoyed Ms. Shepis as much as I did in Violent Kind. While certainly she spent a good portion of the film muttering and writhing, she does solid work early as "the bitch" and later hit a bloody, emotional home-run with simply the phrase, "you saw me different." Cory Knauf, who also appeared in The Butcher Brother's The Hamilton's, proves that he's an actor that should be in many more things. Providing a vulnerable performance that set a fulcrum for the film, Knauf easily anchored the film's weightier portions. The real star performance though has to be Joe Egender as the greaser's leader Vernon. Full of menace and mirth in a gleeful meshing of David Hess in anything meets Johnny Cash in Five Minutes to Live, Egender  (who has appeared in all three of The Butcher Brother's films) easily summons up more onscreen menace than that freaky puppet in Saw has for the last three sequels. 

Now, let me get back to where we started, the cover. After I watched the film, I pondered what kind if image might have better conveyed the type of film it was. Coming up with something in my mind that would have been inspired by classic, lurid posters for 50's exploitation films such as The Blackboard Jungle, Live Fast and Die Young, or Teenage Doll, I then went looking to see if Violent Kind had any other alternate images associated with it. I did find two. Here's the first.... 

I like this one more, but I think it might be even less indicative of what the film is. While it does actually show the face of Knauf  and the side of Egender's head, I would read this poster as possibly being a French horror film out of the same school that produced Ils and Frontier(s). Here's the second one....

Finally one that conveys something about the film. Featuring the glowering eyes of Joseph McKelheer as Jazz (Vernon's henchman/lover?), it captures a retro feel, draws me in, and would make me want to know what is going on with this flick. While I was lucky enough for Violent Kind to catch my eye, it might not happen for everyone. So I hope this post leads a few people to check out this film. You still can't judge a movie by its cover, but you'd think that they could help you out a bit!

Bugg Rating

The Sleeping Car (1990): All Aboard, Next Stop, Terror!

As I don’t live in an area where commuter travel by train is a viable option, my only experience with trains is the hellish undertaking known as a cross-country trip by rail. Spending anything beyond four hours in coach on a train is akin to spending the greater part of the day in the DMV, and your fellow travelers are suspect at best. I don’t feel at all bad making this generalization about them because, in turn, I expect they feel the same about me. I’ve always suspected the way to go is to have your own car, and my wife and I have visions of a Nick and Nora style existence where rail travel would mean a number of cocktails and silk robes for all. However, I don’t think I could extend this desire for sleeping car life to living in one that has been remodeled as a trailer home. The same can’t be said of today’s protagonist who finds not being able to resist the kitschy allure of stationary rail living can be a hazard to your health (and life expectancy). So come along and hitch a ride hobo style while I tell you folks a little bit about The Sleeping Car.

It all begins with a massive rail accident in which two trains slam headlong into each other. The conductor is one of the only survivors, leaping free of the train. While the blame for the accident would fall on the conductor, he knows the real culprit is his watchman, who was entrusted to make sure the track is clear, but was busy having sex with a girl he had snuck on the train. Let go from the work he had known all his life, the conductor became a bitter and mean old man. He moved one of the train’s remaining cars, a sleeper, out behind his house, and for years he took out his rage and anger on a number of innocent young girls. Years later, Jason (David Naughton), a middle aged student just getting a start in college, takes up residence in the train car turned apartment, but he, along with his girlfriend (Judie Aronson) and suspect professor (Jeff Conaway) soon find out that while Jason might be the only one living there, something else still exists.

I must admit that I was attracted to watching The Sleeping Car for the same reason I have enjoyed films like Death Bed and Attack of the Killer Refrigerator, the absurdity. What I really didn’t expect was for The Sleeping Car to actually be a serviceable piece of cheese which actually contained a smattering of horrific moments. Director Douglas Curtis only had only one other directorial effort to his name, 1977’s The Hazing, though later in his career he would transition to being a producer with films like Freddy vs. Jason and Shoot Em Up to his credit. Even so, Curtis clearly knew what went into a horror film, and working with cinematographer David Lewis (The Hills Have Eyes 2, Night of the Demons), he built a decent level of suspense with the film’s visuals. Unfortunately, he also set up an uneven tone for the film. The Sleeping Car cannot decide if it wants to play it straight emphasizing the supernatural entities’ murders and rapes, be a comedy leaning on Jeff Conaway’s journalism professor for laughs, or something in between. It also greatly suffers from a soundtrack dominated by pan flute more at home in a martial arts epic than in the confines of a haunted rail car film.

What really makes The Sleeping Car work is the cast who got the memo about what kind of film The Sleeping Car would be. David Naughton, star of John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, wisecracks with his tongue firmly planted in cheek throughout, but he still easily makes the transition when the film veers out toward the horrific. Jeff Conaway, who is still probably best known from Grease (or Celebrity Rehab), is a full on larger than life personality here full of braggadocio and douchy tendencies. In short, he seems much like Jeff Conaway. The real question for me is how his character became a journalism professor and who would want to take his class? When I think ethical media practices, Jeff Conaway is hardly the image that springs to mind. There are also two great performances from supporting cast. First off is Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Kevin McCarthy, who appears as Naughton’s New Agey neighbor who knows all about the evil residing in the train car. McCarthy is gloriously over the top, and it was fun to watch the veteran actor chew up the screen. The last memorable performance is Judie Aronson. Playing Kim, a college age girl caught in a love (or lust) triangle between Naughton and Conaway, Aronson holds her own against the two more experienced actors and manages to come off as more than cinematic fluff.

If you’re looking for a horror film which will scare the bejeebers out of you, then The Sleeping Car is not the film you want. However, if you’re looking for a flick with a few laughs, some decent enough scares, a smattering of gore, some ghostly supernatural notes, and Jeff Conaway, then look no further as you’ve found it. The Sleeping Car, a high concept idea given low concept execution, yet still miraculously turned out to be something more than the sum of its parts. It’s the kind of underappreciated cult film that makes the constant digging though dreck worth it. It will cause me to take chances on dozens of other films. It will lead me to look for other train inspired horror films or other terrors featuring people living in strange places. It will give me faith that there are still plenty of obscure gems out there still well worth discovering. While The Sleeping Car may not be a classic of modern cinema, it is the kind of flick that will keep a love of cult horror on the rails.

Bugg Rating