I COULD SWEAR I ALREADY DID THESE BUT I CAN'T FIND THE DAMNED THINGS SO HERE'S THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY - ALL THREE 'HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL' MOVIES...






House On Haunted Hill (1959)
House On Haunted Hill (1999)
Return To House On Haunted Hill (2007)

Wow, I must really have lost my mind because I swear I looked everywhere for my review of these movies and could not find them. AT ALL. I looked everywhere. It started when I got interested in an article about the type of gun the original movie used, and the way people in the movie took them and just waved them around everywhere like they were just, well, props. Plus there was a story problem with the remake I wanted to make sure I pointed out.


The original of course was the best, although very dated (duh, 1959). People have often gotten it confused with the Haunting of Hill House, a novel by Shirley Jackson, written in 1959. I have read more than a couple of people complaining that the movie "wasn't even close to the book". Well, duh. Can't really blame 'em though - when it comes to titles, that era seemed rife with similarities - House On Haunted Hill, The Haunting (based on Jackson's novel), The Haunting of Hell House (based on Richard Matheson's classic Hell House) - my conclusion is that their confusion was inevitable. So.

House On Haunted Hill (1959): One of William Castle's creations (Acclaimed The Super-Shocker Of The Century!) this spook fest was also chock full of stars - most notably Vincent Price as the cuckolded husband of a cold beauty. We've got Richard Long and Elisha Cook and several charactor actors with very long resume's.


In this version the story is superior, although the main dialogue of the women seems to be annoying, piercing screams. Just watch it for five minutes - you'll need to turn the volume down, guaranteed. However, it is still a blast to see Vincent overact, the cheap (but effective) special effects, and the schlocky horror story of a scheming woman getting what's coming to her.

Why did I even start looking? I happened to run across this sweet looking gun, a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer. I wasn't looking FOR guns, just happened to see an article about the original movie and it showed this gun (and how actors in the movie would wave the damned things around in people's faces or swing it all over to emphasize words, fingers always on the trigger) and that got me looking for my movie review... these 'toys' that Vincent passes out to his guests now range anywhere from roughly $700 (if you want a piece of junk) to $2,500.00 and up...



House On Haunted Hill (1999): This remake was panned horribly by critics and yeah, I've got some major problems with it, but it hasn't prevented me from enjoying some of the silly little moments and it is in regular rotation in my movie watching list. But shit somebody dropped the ball (many, many times) while making this movie...

There are so many continuity, logic, factual, and (enter your preference here) errors that it's laughable. There are boom mics visible in a couple of scenes, Chris Kattan empties an already empty scotch bottle (twice), and the guns...

For this movie they used as 'party favors' the SIG-Sauer P228. As soon as one is picked up, it is noted that the magazines have been 'welded shut'. Hmm... would YOU want to put that kind of heat next to live ammo? The purpose was, of course, so that no one would know if they were really loaded with live ammo or blanks. Pfft... eject one, dummy, and you'll know.


From the silly beginning of the 'rollercoaster of the future' starting '20 stories at the top' (today's tallest in America is the Kingda Ka coaster at Six Flags in Jackson, NJ which starts at a staggering 45 stories) with a cameo of Lisa Loeb (singer and wife of Dweezil Zappa) and James Marsters (Buffy's 'Spike'), to the house (which in this version is actually an abandoned mental asylum of course) being the one who 'invites' the guests to the birthday party, this is pretty corny at best.

Geoffrey Rush, whose character was named Stephen Price as an homage to Vincent Price (although it is spelled as 'Steven' on the bank drafts and poster), actually tried to make his look to resemble Ed Wood but instead the combination of his look plus the mustache gave him an eerie resemblance to Vincent as well.

The story is really, really stupid but I still love it. We've got a great cast - Famke Janssen, who I'll watch in just about anything,  Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan who was more hilarious trying NOT to be hilarious, Ali Larter (Final Destination, Resident Evil) as the strong female lead who did NOT scream thank you very much, and of course our main baddie, whacko doctor (because every insane asylum has one) Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt.

The stakes go up thanks to inflation - where the guests were to receive $10,000 in the original version, this time they are offered $1,000,000 - if they live of course. Since they were really pushing paranormal stuff, this time the house is in control, somehow putting the idea of a party at the house in Evelyn's (Famke Janssen) head, having Price (Geoffrey Rush) agree to it, and have him make the invitations on the computer so the house could erase the list and make its own guest list and get the people it wanted.


This was about revenge. In the 30's, Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs) was busy ripping people open. When they rebelled, setting the place on fire, he tripped a mechanism that sent the whole place into lockdown, with only five people escaping. The house wants those five - well, their descendants anyway. Duh. The fact that one is a phony and another was adopted doesn't seem to matter...

The 'party' starts with Marilyn Manson butchering a song by the Eurythmics as the guests go to their doom. Yes there are major tactical and logical problems with this story. See, Mr. and Mrs. Price, plus the three guests were picked by a computer to be there. But Blackburn (Peter Gallagher) was not. How did he get an invitation? The wife didn't choose or see the invites, and neither did Price. Duh.


Also a major point that bugged me - the strong female character Sara (Ali Larter) was passing herself off as Ms. Jenzen, one of the descendents. She told one person about it, and he wasn't even around to hear it, yet for the rest of the movie, everyone knew her by her real name. So either they cut out a whole scene, or they were just being lazy.

The freakouts are obvious, the special effects aren't bad, and there's enough gore for a '99 horror film. Again, despite everything, I love this movie. But...

Return To House On Haunted Hill (2007): This straight-to-video abortion is just awful. But I watch it anyway. Despite eight years in between movies, Jeffrey Combs returns as Dr. Vannacutt, and looks exactly the same. The only other names I recognized were Erik Palladino (Dead And Breakfast, 666 Park Avenue) and Andrew Lee Potts (lots and lots of stuff). So. There were several different types of guns and I wasn't particularly interested, sorry.

Even for CGI this is... just sooo awful...

Sara (because she didn't want to come back in another movie) has killed herself so her sister tries to find out why. Why bother when she never paid attention to her anyway, who cares? Sara, despite having millions (she and Eddie got all the money when they survived the first movie), lived in squalor, becoming obsessed with the asylum and the over-used mythology of Baphomet and has somehow gotten hold of Vannacutt's journal to try to 'find the evil' in the house. Umm, again, why? She's out and never has to go back, right?

But they wanted a movie so they slapped some bits from here and junk from there and pretended they were using the same 'house' (which, to be fair, didn't exist anyway). It had been assumed that Mr. Price had thrown a party, then massacred the guests - a hard story to prove since there were no bodies but...


To try to make it interesting (yawwwwn) they have two groups - one who wants the statue of Baphomet for a museum who are, uh, I can't even say good people - they just weren't as evil as the other group who wants the statue to sell, I guess. Sara's sister Ariel is roped into the search which shows more of the 'house' than the previous movie (not impressive in the least). 


To 'explain' things and keep the movie going, a former patient's spirit keeps showing Ariel the icky stuff that happened and how to stop it. Goodie. She's also there to get revenge for her sister Sara who was actually killed by Desmond (Erik Palladino).



Even getting to see Jeffrey Combs in this drek isn't enough to really hold your interest. They up the violence and gore of course, but the story and ending are so dumb that if this thing had a lot of errors, I couldn't pay close enough attention to tell you what they were. And I've seen this thing over a dozen times. Just the masochist in me, I guess.

AAAUUUGGGHHH! I just finished my review and was sorting through the pictures and guess what I found? You got it - I KNEW I'd done this before. Oh well, the original is dated 6/19/12 (since I can't even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday I'm not too surprised I couldn't remember) but I did notice it's pretty bare so if you wanna, check it out but you really don't have to...

                        

MOVIES ESPECIALLY MADE FOR THE LOGIC IMPAIRED



Satanic (2006)

This. Was. Awful. Why did I bother? Sigh - it had Jeffrey Combs in it. That's it. And he had a relatively minor part - he was a cop. Boooooring. It didn't help that the person you're stuck with for the whole movie (Annie Sorell) has like, maybe three expressions in her repertoire and she only used two in this turkey.

Again we start with a car accident. No I don't group these movies on purpose, it just sometimes happens. Anywho, the only survivor is this girl who's skull is like a jigsaw puzzle with little bitty pieces and the surgeon tells her she has to have tons of reconstructive surgery to get back to 'normal'. In this case, 'normal' is the unrealistic movie equivalent of 'never had a bruise in her life'. When he's done, she looks perfect. Uh huh. If I thought that could happen to me, I'd... well, maybe not.

Our angst filled idiot is full of memories but not of anything important - all she can remember are some flashes of being with a man and another person in a car then - boom. So she's told the guy was her father (nobody mentions the other person). He's dead of course and she keeps remembering that somehow it's her fault. 

They bring the personal effects from the car and here is where I officially said 'DONE!' on my review sheet. Among small things is a handmade Ouija board - it's revealed it was made from the dad's blood, sucked out by leeches. Geez, my head hurts - but at least I know what's happened and how this is going to end. Not well. Certainly not for the people around her who begin to die.

Let's not make you suffer as I did to the end of this garbage - the girl is using her two expressions back and forth because although she feels she is a good person she keeps remembering evil things. And there's a boy - you know for the life of me I can't remember from where - who's also convinced she can't be evil. 

So he talks to the doctor and asks him questions that, dammit, should have been Medicine 101 - like did he make sure of her identity before he 'rebuilt' her using photos of who he THOUGHT she was? Like, uh, dental records for instance? Yup boys and girls it's just that stupid - she is NOT the girl the doctor thought was in the photo. 

What would have been MY first clue if, oh, I chose a profession that would make me rich with apparently little brain power required? Well, the girl she actually WAS had short, blonde hair. Now it's not just that the doctor implanted new hair on her or something else retarded to make it long and brown. In the beginning when she's first in the hospital and in bandages, her LONG BROWN HAIR is sticking out the back in a ponytail. Can we say DUUUUUUUUUUUUUH???

So the next stupid step is that, of course, the third person in the car IS the girl with the hair and now there's two identical idiots. And they fight. Who will win? I'm hoping WE do and the people who made this movie are now out of work.

https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies

HULU SNOOZE FINALE!




Voodoo Moon (2006) Canada TV Movie

Well I'm ending my Hulu crapfest on a kind of positive note because this movie wasn't half bad. Unfortunately that means that half of this movie IS bad and you should be warned. But we have a hunky hero, a hunkier villain and a whole lot of famous friends to round this movie out to be a kind of soap opera-ish story of good and evil having a final battle in good ole' New Orleans. Well, sort of. Near there somewhere.



Bad part - this was actually a TV movie. Good part - Jeffrey Combs is in it. Well that's good for ME. Actually quite a few people make an appearance in this thing including John Amos who will look F-I-N-E well into his hundreds, Dee Wallace, Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia for you Buffy fans), and a slew of others you may recognize.

Okay the story is thin but: Twenty years ago give or take a demon destroyed an entire town using a possessed guy to take the fall 'cause hey, they're like that - the only survivors were a boy, Cole (Eric Mabius) and his sister. Why? Don't ask questions, that will just make this longer. Anywho, the boy grows up fighting this guy all over the world and because Christianity doesn't make him strong enough - just quoting the movie, calm down - he borrows from all the 'beliefs' of the world to pump him up to defeat this same demon over and over. Seems monotonous. His last stint of learning is in Haiti with voodoo. I thought it amusing (because I'm twisted that way) to see someone shaking chicken bones and quoting scripture at the same time. Oh well.

Sensing that his playmate has come back and in fact is making a beeline for his sister (Charisma Carpenter) who, while not being a psychic powerhouse like her brother does have the uncanny ability to draw things that are going to happen. He then calls together all the 'friends' he has in the States for this final battle, which apparently will take place in his hometown, where it all began for whatever reason.

We get lots of soap opera style action with longing looks, forbidden love, a brief flirtation between Charisma and the man she doesn't know is evil, Daniel (Rik Young). Quite a few of Cole's gathered friends bite it before they can really help. Poor Jeffrey Combs - his character, a cop who owes Cole for saving his life, dies but somehow rises anyway to come and help - brain dead, stiff and rotting but he's there. Needless to say he makes a presence but can't really do anything.

The final battle is silly and typical of these types of movies. Even the bad guy comments on Cole using pagan objects while quoting scripture but he's still getting his ass kicked. Now here's where it gets stupid. Uh, stupider. Their whole hometown was flooded because the town was massacred and they decided they'd rather have a good water source (With all those corpses? Ewww.) than rebuild the town. I mean it's WAY under water, right? Well, good old Charisma notices one of the churches has it's steeple sticking out of the water. What, is this church twenty freaking stories high or something? Conveniently she had drawn that very steeple and someone impaled on it, she just didn't have a face. 

She scurries to finish her drawing with Daniel's face on the picture and sure enough - splurch! Yeah, I know, not a word but a good sound effect - splurch! He's impaled on the steeple (in the shape of a cross of course) and Cole is rescued by the impressive and still hunky John Amos as he sinks to the bottom of the lake/town. He takes him from the arms of his dead mom who's, I dunno, holding him still I guess.

At this point Jeffrey Comb's character, very much worse for wear, says, 'Cole okay? I can sleep?' and slumps over dead again... uh still. Ahhh, how sweet. Ick. And our movie is over and so is Hulu.



Hulu in case you Google yourself and this comes up here's a tip: If you want to charge for your service, don't pack your damn movies full of commercials. I don't need to watch Jennifer Aniston rub her elbows with Aveeno a thousand times, or how having a tablet in my new car is an absolute necessity or how Stayfree twists and turns to keep me fresh all day. I can watch TV for that, idiots. That combined with the lousy buffering, no close captioning available and dumber than dumb movie choices is not worth a monthly fee.

HULU SNOOZE PART SIX





From Beyond (1986)

Once again an H.P. Lovecraft story... wait a second. Six in French is six? Really? No sh... kidding? Okay. Once again an H.P. Lovecraft story is desperately tried to be squished into a movie. I say try because H.P. wrote practically a whole mythology all by his lonesome, which is why so many efforts to make them into mundane movies kind of go splat. And nobody splats better in an H.P. story than Jeffrey Combs.

I'm not knocking Combs - he's one of my favorite character actors, and I hadn't seen this one yet so I was actually pleased because I know he's a great fan of H.P. - he's appeared in eight movies of H.P. stories (I don't know if they count the Re-Animator series as three or as just one) so seeing him in an older one was a treat. I wish I could say the same about the movie.

Oh it was much better than most, believe me. Just having a machine that makes your pineal gland grow and open you to another dimension that already exists overlapping our own is a great attempt at an H.P. idea. Using a huge room to house the 'computer' needed to run it was funny, considering that today it would probably be smaller than the one I'm typing on now.

Oh and they made it in Italy 'cause they love that stuff number one and number two it was much, much cheaper. Like instead of fifteen million they did it for two and a half. Of course that's 1986 dollars.

The gore is gory, the sticky bits are sticky, the silly stuff is silly and it just goes from good effort to c'mon end this already - especially the scene where.. uh, never mind. It would take H.P. to sort this one out so let's just say if you're a fan this is one of the better efforts and if not, pass.

OUTRIGHT RIP-OFFS OF GEORGE ROMERO MOVIES

Night Of The Living Dead 3D:

Reanimation (2012)

How can this keep happening? These horrific 'remakes' of the 1968 classic keep coming, and now they're not even bothering to change the titles! Well children, here is an important business lesson: Whenever you've created something, be extra sure it is properly copyrighted. Poor George Romero was a young and inexperienced filmmaker, and as a result his greatest creation has become public domain. That means YOU could put together a film about, I dunno, zombies that crave snot instead of brains, call it Night Of The Living Dead and the FBI isn't gonna come after you. Zombie fans might, but nothing legal.

NOTLD was first 'remade' in 1990 by the great Tom Savini who at least tried to keep the faith and be true to the original. The second was the first 3D movie made in 2006, and I guess this abortion created in 2012 is a prequel to that. Which doesn't even try, want, or have anything about the original. And unfortunately, it doesn't have to. Anybody with a camera can rape NOTLD and believe me, if they think they can make a buck, they will.

That said, again when you check out a Netflix movie, take a second to read the reviews written by those before you. It can be hilarious! It was the reason I had to check out Vampegeddon, and it was a major reason I went ahead and watched this awful thing. Well, that and Jeffrey Combs. Poor Jeffrey. He probably didn't even realize that he was part of the joke (Get it? He was in ReAnimator?). So this is the story or actually this is the non-story you will be tortured with if you have a masochistic streak in you:

At the Tovar Funeral Home (I understand this was used in the 2006 movie also) the two Tovar brothers, Gerald and Harold (sorry, real names) both want the Funeral home, or at least have it sold and the money split between them. But Gerald's been keeping a secret: He hides zombies in the cremation room because 1. He's afraid of fire and 2. He's been obsessively watching them when they slowly squirm around. If they get too active, it's a shovel to the head. 

So Harold (Jeffrey Combs) listens to his brother's mad tale and quickly asks him 'Are they shambling or sprinting?' When he hears shambling he sighs and says 'Good, they're Romero zombies.' Best. Line. In. This. Movie.

Harold had been humoring his brother, who he thought had lost it until he sees the cremation room (they call the retort an 'oven', massive DUH) and smells, I mean sees all the slowly reanimating bodies slinking here and there. The makeup and gore was decent enough, I'm sure their budget was huge, they just didn't do a whole lot with it. Probably concentrating on that 3D factor - you know, guns pointed out, zombies jumping at you, I'm sure it was worth the extra $4 to $6 you paid for it <snicker>.

So after Harold gets bit and all the ancillary characters except the smart girl (there's always one) die, get up and then die again after delivering gems of dialogue such as 'It's almost like she was a movie zombie.' we end with Gerald taking the shaken but still alive smart girl to his office where he tells her to swallow 'an energy drink'. Suddenly she's not so smart and she does... of course it's the goo that's been zombifying everything. Now we get to see what it does to a live person... oops nope we don't 'cause the movie's over. Duh.



                              

A HORROR MOVIE WITH MICHAEL J. FOX? NO, YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT IT'S ABOUT, I'LL WATCH IT ANYTIME...












The Frighteners (1996)
Bless your heart Michael J. Fox. You've done so much and even after becoming ill you continue the fight and we love you.

This one is the only horror movie I know of that Michael appears in. He plays a former architect who, after a fatal car crash that takes the life of his wife, gains the ability to 'see ghosts'.
Depressed, broke, and unable to design anything anymore he decides on a new career: Assemble some willing ghosts together, have them 'haunt' people, then be hired to show up and get rid of them, using various fake gear that supposed detects their presence.



All goes.... well, miserably for Frank Bannister (Michael) until after conning yet another couple to 'exorcise' their poltergeists, he notices a number on the forehead of the husband. Not knowing what it could mean, he gets his 'ghosts', his money, and leaves.

The husband dies shortly after. As do other people on whose foreheads Frank again notices numbers - each one an increase from the last.

It is discovered that the ghost of a mass murderer Johnny Charles Bartlett (played with silliness by Jake Busey who you can't help but have fun watching) has come back because he has learned his murder 'record' has been broken and wants to be the one with the most bodies. His former girlfriend, Patricia, who was only 14 when she helped him and so was committed to a mental institution then house arrest (played demurely by Dee Wallace), seems at first to be tortured by his ghost and also to become one of his victims but things soon turn. 

Frank also then learns it was actually Johnny who 'murdered' his wife - the car wreck didn't kill her. This Michael finally starts to remember, having been unable to remember anything about the accident before. Sure enough, his wife also had a number on her forehead as she died. The numbers on the foreheads of the victims are put there by Johnny as he keeps track of his 'kills'.

An FBI agent who is a supposed expert on cults (and a totally insane freak, sporting tattoos, scars of satanic symbols and other whacko stuff on his body) follows Frank around, hoping to expose him. This was the first movie I'd seen both Jake Busey and Jeffrey Combs (the FBI agent Milton Dammer) and have watched for both of them since then.

With terrific performances by the above, plus a role by John Astin as a very geriatric ghost, this movie tries to scare (it may to others, not me) and does have some very tense moments. The humor, however, is just as good and makes this a good choice for viewing.