Campy
Relocation Horrors, Oh My!
By
Kristin Battestella
What
does one do when one has recently moved? Watch a bunch of laughably
bad and campy horror movies about those very same household fears and
relocation frights!
Encore
– An airplane arrival, fur coats, and a mod pad lead to one rickety
elevator and some serious sickle slicing on the staircase in this
1978 thriller. Sure it's Made for TV cheap with poor video quality
and dated easy listening recording sessions a la Engelbert
Humperdinck, but one phone call fills us in on the divorcing American
star moving to England for a new music retreat as intercut suspense
and well edited attacks add chopped off hands and up close splatter.
A saucy secretary, seemingly friendly agents, and a shady best friend
create red herrings alongside an old lady housekeeper saving all our
singer's press clippings, the gardener with all the sharp tools, and
one giant tape recorder. The undiscovered body is used for scene
transitions and a decomposing passage of time, invoking a sense of
unease as the victim's voice and sobbing are heard between nightmares
and foreboding noises the closed captioning calls “demonic
cackling” and ghostly shrieking.” Our manager is angry at the
precious years our star's interfering wife took away from the
spotlight, and grandfather clocks, interior shadows, and a roaming
camera add to the creepy house explorations and spooky atmosphere.
Flashback clues, buzzing flies, beachside naughty, and corpses in
wheelchairs build motive as swift violence, juicy implications,
locked basements, and psychological twists potpourri the shady afoot.
Revelations in the final half hour give information but raise more
questions as the country manor maze and madness escalates. Maybe some
parts are obvious or corny and derivative, but this is a fun little
guessing game with choice horror moments and a spooky, entertaining
atmosphere.
Stormswept
– Grand columns, bayou scenery, candles, thunder, ghostly gusts,
and possessions start this almost seventies feeling 1995 romp
starring Kathleen Kinmont (Renegade)
amid
realtors avoiding a house of horrors disclosure and muddy accidents.
The chandeliers and staircase grandeur can also seen in North and South, but
there are spiders, covered furniture, and flashes of past boobs,
blood, and some kind of skeleton dildo thingie. Saucy paintings
abound, naughty books contain graphic ejaculation or cunnilingus art,
and red four poster beds await. This is obviously low budget Skinemax
style – so despite the eerie atmosphere, some scary filming,
ominous silhouettes in rain slickers, and frightful reflections in
the window, one can't tell if everyone is going to die or have sex,
probably both. Four women and two men are Marilyn
Chambers
numbers! It takes too long for the crew to get stranded at the
plantation, but the film within a film chases feature girls in white
shirts and no bras while playing into girl on girl fantasies with
let's get off your wet clothes talk and accidental towel drops. I
laughed out loud at that, I really did! Although the dated
midriffs, acid wash jeans, giant old portable phone, and faxed
paperwork are bemusing, most of the sexual dialogue is uncomfortable.
The men say once a guy has sex with another man he's a homosexual but
it's okay for the women to experiment for them as it doesn't make
them lesbians. Truth or dare demands the women kiss, word association
games start with “pink” – it's disturbing the way actor turned
luxury rehab guru Justin Carroll's director character has these women
trapped, doing what he wants and not caring if anyone is upset by the
sex chats. Whooshing storm effects live up to title and there's a
torture history binding everyone to the house, but not much sense is
made of this evil spirit driving one and all to sex and kill. The
overlong wet dream confessions and lez be friends scenes embrace the
step above soft core rather than exceed that lower rung with the
horror. I almost wish this could be redone to be more quality. Hidden
people in the basement, secret diaries, murders – but our actress
has never had an orgasm and it's more important for the manipulative
director to hypnotize her into touching herself in front of everyone
like Showgirls thrashing
in the pool. She recalls painful
abuse and incest memories, but he tells her she need not be guilty
over masturbating with her brother and can go ahead and have her
ultimate sexual fantasy about Alex Trebek. O_o o_O I thought this
was supposed to be a horror movie! While terribly laughable and base
level entertaining, I just... insert Nathan Fillion confused gif
here. Is there even a saucy ghost or is this what happens when you
lock messy horny people in the house on a stormy night?
I
Didn't Think it was *that* Bad
Cold Creek Manor – New
York skylines, business flights, morning rushes, and scary accidents
lead to a perilous country renovation for Dennis Quaid (Innerspace),
Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct), Kristen Stewart
(Twilight),
Stephen Dorff (Blade),
Juliette Lewis (Strange
Days), and Christopher
Plummer (Somewhere in Time)
in this 2003 thriller from director Mike Figgis (Stormy Monday). The prologue,
drive to the scares, and less than friendly redneck rest stops are
just a few of the usual horror staples for our pretty rich white city
folk. However, there is a high end style with a great brick manor,
overgrown charm, and unusual slaughter tools amid the spiderwebs,
children's clothes left behind, vintage family portraits, and saucy
Polaroids. Older cell phones and flip cameras feel more rural than
dated, and overhead camera angles, up close shots, in and out of
focus usage, slow zooms, and pans in the stairwell add chills.
Intercut conversations also build community tension with chats in a
booth versus whispers at the bar revealing the small town connections
as uncouth relatives insist there are no hard feelings over the
foreclosure sale. The trailer park naughty, shirtless handyman
steamy, and mano y mano contests, however, are weak try hards
alongside several unnecessary characters compromising what should be
taut isolation. Snakes – and I do mean snakes for those terrified
of them – nursing home nasty old men, skull bashing and devil's
throat dialogue, and tavern violence accent the backwoods car chases,
animals in peril, and buried evidence as storms approach. Rather than
in your face hectic loudness, the most frightening scenes here are
the quiet chills, but of course nobody pays attention to the son
who's holding all the information needed and being upfront about the
real estate deal would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. The
evasive camera and poor editing are used to distract from confusing
logistics, and drinking or affairs contrivances are planted to
deflect from the wealthy people claiming they have no resources to
leave before the weak rooftop standoff. This tries to be
sophisticated and had the pieces to be better but fails in putting
together a steamy, fatal, cerebral thriller. Ironically this
derivative is better than the recent trite scares shilled out, and if
you go in expecting the standard house horrors, this can still be
bemusing.
But
a Skip that Should have been Better
Havenhurst
– Julie Benz (Buffy) and
Danielle Harris (Halloween)
battle
the titular apartment building cliches in this 2016 eighty odd
minutes with thunderstorms, bloody bathrooms, false jump scares,
drags across the room, slow motion tosses in the air, and whooshes on
the ceiling. Silly sex scenes, security cameras watching, shower
scene scares, clueless men, and drunken dream
flashbacks are also unnecessary – rehab meetings and a picture in
the locket are child lost enough. These female roles are typical
ladies in towels, and the editing is designed for the audience rather
than building internal atmosphere or characters. Nothing is needed
before our new tenant meets Fionnula Flanagan (Brotherhood)
as the classy but suspicious building owner, the action should never
leave the complex once we're there, and 666 Park Avenue is
not a show this should copy.
The
locale has style, a fine patina, handsome woodwork, retro cameras,
and undeveloped film. Photos within photos, scribbled
maps hidden in picture frames, and ominous envelopes slipped under
the door suggest more amid hints of red – a seal on the contract,
ink for a signature, the eviction notice. Unfortunately, rattling
walls, unseen frights, and screams in the next room are never as dark
or scary as they should be because the
secrets are given to the viewer early – and it's frustrating when
the characters can't figure it out despite laughable strongmen behind
trap doors, false walls, and weak horror set pieces. If the audience
never sees anything or doesn't leave the protagonist's point of view,
we can wonder if this is real, surreal, or all in her mind. Instead,
the basement, tunnels, and guts feel hollow because there's no
mystery when viewers see the secrets before the character. We know
who's involved, and conveniently placed flashlights easily allowed
one to find the dusty file room for a research montage that's just
cool clips onscreen for the audience to read – not
the
character actually looking at the lame history herself. The
nonsensical building logistics, physical impossibilities, and
supernatural red herrings underestimate the viewer, removing any
suspension of disbelief with too many preposterous happenings and no
in-world anchor for the anemic house of horrors.
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