Werewolves like their burgers rare

 THE HOWLING (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Smiley face stickers are a clue to a murderin' werewolf, known as Eddie Quist, prowling the streets of L.A. Dee Wallace is the terrified TV anchorwoman, Karen, who has to confront Eddie and it leads to a porno store with a peep show booth! The cops arrive, shots ring out, blood is spilled and it appears Eddie might be dead. Such an opening scene could easily pass as a cheap, junky, exploitative slasher flick particularly in the early 1980's. Don't be fooled because "The Howling" is a nearly goofy horror-comedy with the mildest of serious overtones. It is director Joe Dante playing the game by almost decimating all genre conventions and he keeps the werewolf tongue firmly in its cheek. Ahhh, and those werewolf transformations.

The setting has an otherworldly quality as it is set in a colony somewhere in the California countryside. The supposedly rehabilitative colony owned by a renown therapist (Patrick MacNee) is actually a piece of beautiful scenery occupied by local odd ducks such as John Carradine playing a lonely man who wants to end it all; the local smiling sheriff (Slim Pickens); a peeping tom-type who already looks like a werewolf (Don McLeod), and most memorably a Wiccan-looking nymphomaniac named Marsha Quist, Eddie's sister (Elisabeth Brooks exuding mystery and sex appeal in equal droves), who has her eyes set on Karen's protective husband (Christopher Stone). These colony denizens like to party with barbecue and beers but they also have a touch of the lycanthropy in them - they transform into huge werewolves. They tear your skin, disembowel you and also enjoy sex. What a weird colony! 

"The Howling" is not be taken seriously but there are moments that are more spooky than scary with a grain of wicked humor throughout. Eddie Quist as played by Robert Picardo remains a fearsome killer who doesn't stop from transforming even when acid is thrown in his face - his particular fascination with stalking Karen is never made clear but, then again, it need not be. When he says without a trace of irony, "I want to give you a piece of my mind" and actually pierces his brain - yuck! There is also some funny business with Dick Miller as a bookshop owner with dozens of books on all sorts of subjects including werewolves ("They are worse than cockroaches!"). For inside jokes (other than the placement of books like Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," of all things, and footage of Lon Chaney, Jr. from "The Wolf Man"), there are some nice digs at the world of broadcast journalists pre-"Broadcast News" and dozens of amusing cameos from the likes of Roger Corman to Kenneth Tobey to even cinematographer Michael Chapman who lensed "Raging Bull."  

What works in the film best is the visual imagery of this Californian colony in the woods - it has a sense of the forbidden and is reminiscent of a fairy-tale setting. You half expect to see Little Red Riding Hood in many of the moonlit-night scenes. We hear more howling in the woods than we actually see the superwolves themselves, a clever touch and a budgetary issue according to director Joe Dante. But this helps the film more than it hinders and we get an amazing werewolf transformation of Eddie Quist as his sickly pale skin pops on his forehead and his canine mouth protrudes - easily some of the best effects you will see along with "An American Werewolf in London," which was released the same year.

I shan't leave out Dee Wallace, a remarkably good actress who shows enough vulnerability and flashes of courage in Karen to make us care (though one scene where she reacts to her dead friend leaves a lot to be desired). She holds this movie together along with her then-husband Christopher Stone (who passed away in 1995). Also well used is Joe Dante regular Belinda Balaski as a journalist and photographer who pieces together the mystery of this colony. The werewolves howl on cue and some of them like their hamburgers rare. Really rare. 

Laurie Strode Saga Finale

 HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have taken exception with the "Halloween" sequels for years, if for no other reason other than their underimagined need not to exploit the supernatural possibilities. Lord, they have tried. Blumhouse's "Halloween" trilogy that began in 2018, 40 years after the John Carpenter classic, has taken on a new approach. With the exception of a glorified cameo by Jamie Lee Curtis as the PTSD-stricken Laurie Strode in "Halloween Kills," the approach was to expand Laurie's character and to show her as an aged Ripley in action. She can't get past the trauma of that dreaded Halloween night in 1978 and had turned her house into a death trap (the one inspired touch in the 2018 reboot). Comparing the first two chapters in this newfangled trilogy is like comparing a ripe banana with an over-rippened black banana. Yet "Halloween Ends" (clever title) is far superior to either sequel and has many twists and turns that I didn't see coming. This time, Michael Myers has the glorified cameo.

The opening sequence is a stunner. A young teenager named Corey (Canadian actor Rohan Campbell) is babysitting a rambunctious kid who loves watching John Carpenter's "The Thing" (nice touch echoing the original with its 1951 counterpart) and loves to scare everyone on Halloween. We are all entitled to a good scare, and Corey gets locked in the attic by the kid. Finally Corey kicks the door open only to accidentally kill the kid who falls to his death. We cut to opening titles and it is startling how this movie begins - they had me at male babysitter with no Michael Myers. Where is this movie going? What is happening? These are good, rare questions to ask when it comes to the umpteenth Michael Myers slasher flick. 

Laurie Strode does return in more than just a glorified cameo. She is writing a memoir of her trauma-laden days surviving Michael Myers' endless attacks and she is just as winning a personality as she ever was - in fact, this Laurie flips the bird and curses like a sailor. She's living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak, maximizing her potential in a terrific performance) who works at the hospital with a mean boss (yeah, you can guess what might happen to her boss). Corey, meanwhile, works at his father's auto salvage yard and is trying to come to grips with his own past trauma (the town's residents hate him), only he doesn't handle it well AT ALL. Let's just say that Corey has a run-in with Michael Myers who has been hiding for three years and hasn't killed a single soul (not even the homeless man who lives near the dank sewers beneath the bridge). Michael Myers did not kill anyone in three years? Say it ain't so, Mikey. He also looks like a phantom of his murderous self who has problems walking around (this does happen when you are an immobile 60-plus-year old) and keeps a dirty, blood-stained knife in a brick wall. 

So Corey has trauma issues, doesn't get along with his parents, yet is falling for Allyson! Laurie Strode is single, still facing neighbors who hate her for somehow resurrecting Mikey Myers and his body count, albeit in a figurative sense, and may have a thing for the sheriff's deputy (Will Patton, in an even more abbreviated role than the previous installments). Laurie also understands what Corey is going through, initially tries to counsel him yet senses imminent danger ahead with this troubled kid. Allyson is drawn to Corey and wants to escape Haddonfield - everyone is afflicted by the the town's past murders and can't seem to move forward. Cue the Haddonfield DJ who has no qualms waxing on about those gruesome murders.

I will not reveal what occurs in this highly entertaining and sublimely paced sequel and that is not something I ever expected to say or write about this endless franchise. Suffice to say, director and co-writer David Gordon Green has taken the reins and unleashed a lean, mean and, dare I say, psychological thriller with slasher tendencies. Those slasheroos are hardly as gory as the previous entries and I was still in shock and awe as to how it ends. The Laurie Strode Saga is over and I am actually sorry to see it end. It is signed, sealed and delivered with visual echoes of the original 1978 shocker final montage, another splendid touch. The formerly grief-stricken, sardonic Haddonfield heroine, Laurie, has been through enough. 

Lots of pain but not much soul

HELLRAISER (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The "Hellraiser" sequels never rose to the depths of depravity of the 1987 film that started it all, nor did they come close to Clive Barker's novella itself "The Hellbound Heart." The depravity went straight to the jugular with the singular characters who equated pain with pleasure - pain was pure ecstasy to them, like a psychedelic drug. So when those dreaded Cenobites (Demons from Hell) came knocking after some poor soul unlocking a puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration, the chains branched out of some dimension and pierce flesh in horrific ways. Maybe the very idea that this was an orgasmic delight to those who wish to see incredible sights in Hell was too much for audiences. That is why I am puzzled that director David Cronenberg never took the directing reins of this reboot/remake - it sounds like it would be up his pulled-flesh-and-severed-organs alley. Yet here we are with a half-hearted yet intriguing "Hellraiser" remake that devises new characters and new situations though they never come close to hitting a home-run, or at least they don't merit flinging those piercing iron chains quite enough to sustain the horror the original film had. 

Pamela Segall's daughter Odessa A'zion plays a pill-popping, not-quite rehabilitated drug user, Riley, who lives with her wearily overprotective brother, Matt (Brandon Flyn) and his boyfriend, Colin (Adam Faison). The brother keeps tabs on who Riley is seeing and where she goes during the night. After a while, I became a bit bored with their constant back-and-forth sibling arguments and bickering. We, the audience, are meant to gravitate towards Riley though her character is far too undernourished (considering the film is two hours long, we should be privy to more character exploration). Riley's semi-boyfriend, Trevor (Drew Starkey), has gotten hold of a shipping container that just contains that creepy puzzle box. I almost want to say that this is a gag but we are meant to take this seriously - a huge empty shipping container that just holds that small puzzle box? Nevertheless, it comes from an antique-collecting billionaire, Voight (Goran Višnjić), who lives in a Lament Configuration-type fortress where the iron doors can keep the Cenobites away. Why those iron doors stop Cenobites from walking towards their intended victims, I can't say. That is not a detail I am familiar with from past "Hellraiser" stories, nor the nifty device of having the puzzle box eject a sharp blade. The billionaire who has dealt with the Cenobites has a golden contraption in his body and needs major transfusions of blood to eject himself from this contraption. Enter the Cenobites and their bloody gifts, though surprisingly the movie shows precious little gore.

"Hellraiser" is far too long, spending an inordinate amount of time on Riley and her brother and his love interest - none of it did anything except make me snooze a little. A'zion has the charisma and the potential to go a lot further with Riley's character than the writers have allowed - the best they can do for her is have her teary-eyed and scream when expected. The rest of the cast is far from making their mark in this endless horror franchise (excepting the far too brief role of Serena (Hiam Abbass), Voight’s assistant who has a run-in with the Cenobites). Jamie Clayton, however, as the androgynous Pinhead (Hell Priest to Barker devotees) is chillingly magnetic to watch, matching pretty well with Doug Bradley's iconic incarnation. Kudos to the other Cenobites who are still repellent creatures with the prerequisite body modification and piercings - there is something eerily beautiful about them at the same time.

"Hellraiser" is watchable horror, at least for 2/3 of it, but it just doesn't have the chattering bite of the original. The pain-as-pleasure theme is not present here - we just see a lot of screaming pain and a lot of piercing hooks cutting into flesh. I just wish, for once, we would see those incredible sights that Pinhead keeps talking about. All that suffering for naught. 

Literal Witch Hunts

THE CRUCIBLE (1996)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Original review from 1996

 
Period films based on literary masterpieces range from the superior ("Age of
Innocence," "The Remains of the Day") to the detrimental ("The Scarlet
Letter"). "The Crucible" falls somewhere in between and, although it is not a
great film, it is certainly a passionate, powerful film that does justice to
Arthur Miller's spectacular 1953 play. Its power has not been diminished on the
big screen.

"The Crucible" is set during the 17th century when an array of witch hunts
began, mostly led by the teenage girls who were accused. Set in 1692, the movie
starts off with a devilish ceremony where a group of girls are ranting in the
woods of Salem, Massachusetts, performing an unholy ritual. Abigail (Winona
Ryder) is the master of ceremonies, and she drinks animal blood to destroy the
wife of the man she loves. This unholy practice is witnessed by Abigail's
uncle, Reverend Parris (Bruce Davison), and a witchcraft trial commences the
next day. And almost immediately, the accusations, denials and name-calling
begins - Abigail and the others decide to fool everyone into thinking that the
devil is visible, but visible only to them.

Numerous innocent townspeople are accused, including John Proctor (Daniel
Day-Lewis), a farmer who had a brief affair with Abigail and is now married to
his strictly devout wife, Elizabeth (Joan Allen). Abigail's form of revenge is
to accuse the reverent Elizabeth of witchcraft - at this point, any of these
girls can accuse anyone in town of witchcraft no matter how false the claims
may be (they go through extreme measures to prove them, too). The trials
continue and destroy many lives (mostly by hanging). Paul Scofield plays Judge
Danforth who overlooks the trials, and decides that if the accused confess to
their demonic ways, they will not be hanged. He presides over the trial with
doubts but is inclined to believe that demons of another kind have infiltrated
this town.

"The Crucible" is a startling, alert interpretation of the Miller play, which
should come as no surprise since Miller wrote the screenplay himself. The
performances by the young actresses are over-the-top but necessarily so, to
establish the lengths of their insane accusations. Winona Ryder is effectively
hateful as the angry, vengeful Abigail (a far cry from her role in "Little
Women"), a frail, demonic child ready to pounce. Daniel Day-Lewis is also
superb as the brave, decent Proctor who simultaneously finds his soul being
eaten away by Abigail and his love growing stronger for Elizabeth. Joan Allen
("Nixon") gives the most understated performance as the seemingly frigid
Elizabeth, and her final scene with Proctor is heartbreaking to witness. And
let's not forget the overpoweringly magnetic Paul Scofield ("Quiz Show"), a
delectable presence whenever he's on screen spouting his lines with gusto and
verve. Another Academy Award nomination is in order for this grand actor of the
cinema, in addition to the whole cast.

If "The Crucible" falls short of greatness, it is because director Nicholas
Hytner ("The Madness of King George") plunges us into a sea of excess right
from the start, giving us little time to catch up with the story or the
characters (Ryder's portrayal of Abigail is nutty and vicious from the
beginning). Still, this beautifully mounted version summons the rage, hatred
and madness of those rough times with knowing cinematic skill, and doesn't
commit the fatal flaw of becoming a static, filmed play.

I am Vengeance and I need a Monster

 PUMPKINHEAD (1988)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It is shameful to contain a germ of a good idea for a horror flick and then reduce it to the level of a gross-out slasher picture. "Pumpkinhead" is not an exceedingly gory flick but it is not much more than the thinner-than-a-claw story about a monster seeking vengeance on a group of people who did "a bad thing." Before you start humming Chris Isaak's electrifying song, consider that this group did not do such a bad thing as much as not face the consequences of the mistakenly bad thing they did. Yeah, okay.

Let's consider the youthful camping group for a second. They ride in two separate vehicles, one has a wagon full of motorbikes. They arrive at Harleys' Grocery Store and start riding their bikes on some of the dirt trails. Harley's son (Matthew Hurley) chases the dog who chases the motorbikes and as the kid stands there, wondering if the dog might get accidentally struck, the kid gets struck and slowly dies. Everyone feels guilty for striking the child except for one. Joel (John D'Aquino) is the one who doesn't want to report the accident to the police because he is on probation for a similar accident. By the way, Joel has a change of heart and decides to go to the police - can this vengeance be stopped before it is enacted? I guess not when a witch puts on a spell,

Let's backtrack as we discover Harley himself (Lance Henriksen) the kid's dad, is furious about his son's death and seeks vengeance. First, he hopes the kid can be brought back to life by an actual witch living somewhere in the backwood swamps. Apparently, this is not possible but vengeance is. This requires the witch taking blood samples from Harley and his son and placing them into a cup. Next Harley must dig up a demon embryo buried in a hill at the cemetery and bring it to the witch, thus reanimating a monster that looks a little like the rawboned creature from "Alien." My question is why didn't Harley simply seek vengeance without going through all this superfluous nonsense - this whole monster plot seems like a lot of work.

After a while, I lost patience with "Pumpkinhead" and it began to numb me. These youths are not the brightest - they should have left town and let bygones be bygones. One after another of these dimwits are snatched by the creature while Harley's body convulses and he adopts red eyes like the Pumpkinhead. The creature is well-designed but the movie deserves to be buried in that hill with no chance of revival. Of course, I am late to this game since three sequels have come out since 1988.   

Robin and that Candy-Colored Clown

 BLUE VELVET (1986)

Reappraisal by Jerry Saravia

Of all of David Lynch's films, I find myself ranking "Blue Velvet" on a lower meter. It's a good, blazingly original film that is also wholly uneven, sometimes obscene and not nearly as tasteless as it has been regarded. I also find "Blue Velvet" to be underwhelming, as say compared to "Eraserhead" (his

greatest film) or "Lost Highway," at least in retrospect. It's just that the other Lynch films have themes that are more complex and disturbing than this perverse take on suburbia.

"Blue Velvet" was released back in 1986 and was highly controversial for its time, mainly due to graphic scenes of torture and sex perpetrated by its main antagonist, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). There was also much talk about the sequence where Isabella Rossellini (Ingrid Bergman's daughter) is naked and publicly embarrassed with teeth marks and cigarette burns covering her entire body. The sequence itself doesn't serve much purpose other than to shock and we don't know how she arrived at this state (we can surmise it has something to do with Frank). Rossellini also endures several beatings by Frank Booth as a helium-sniffing psycho, the helium of which prepares him to beat and rape Rossellini. There are also numerous close-up shots of ants and cockroaches littering the screen as if they are aware of something beyond our knowledge.

The story revolves around a murder mystery that is more or less explained involving a kidnapping of a child and Rossellini's husband suffering the loss of an appendage. Kyle MacLachlan plays Jeffrey, a college student visiting his picture-postcard hometown of Lumberton when, one day, he discovers a severed human ear on his usual walking path (hence, the loss of that appendage). He contacts the police and then decides to investigate on his own. This all leads to the apartment of a distraught singer, Dorothy Vallens (played by Rossellini), who is always singing "Blue Velvet" at a nightclub. Frank is the deranged psychopath who tortures her, and the scenes between the two of them are as startling and effective as any other scene in the film. As Jeffrey veers further into this S & M world with the help of a policeman's daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), things get much weirder especially when Dean Stockwell shows up as Ben, a pale-faced, lipstick-wearing drug dealer who loves to sing Roy Orbison songs (Frank is a big fan of Orbison and Ben's suaveness). Both Stockwell and Hopper must hold the record for spouting more f-words on film than Eddie Murphy (at least back in 1986). 

"Blue Velvet" is a fascinating, intriguing film that still doesn't quite mark it close to greatness. The elements of the mystery seemed warped to me the first couple of times I've seen it but now it makes more sense - drug-dealing, murders and police corruption are self-evident here. The performances are mostly shouting matches, especially between Hopper and Rossellini, but they definitely shock to such a degree that you can't help but want to sympathize and care for Rossellini's Dorothy. I initially said years ago that Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern merely react than act but that is not true at all - they do have some ounce of chemistry together and they have more than one exquisitely subtle scene (the cafe scene is excellent, and I love Dern's reactions to Rossellini wrapping herself around MacLachlan). I still don't completely buy the movie's ending with a robin appearing at a window, nicely foreshadowed by Dern in an earlier scene, though I did like seeing the wasp in its beak. That gives the indication that ugliness is still around the corner of any suburban street, you just have look for it.

For whatever strange reason I cannot comprehend, I still liked "Blue Velvet" because nobody has ever produced or directed anything like it prior to its release. There isn't anything you can easily compare it to. It has moments of horror but it is not a horror film. It has moments of humor but it is definitely not a comedy. It has noir trappings (writer Barry Gifford, who later worked with Lynch on "Wild at Heart" and "Lost Highway," called it phlegm noir) but it is not quite noir at all. It has the ants as a metaphor of what is buried deep in our society that remains a secret (The policeman's reactions to the severed ear and Jeffrey's discoveries seem to yield something unsavory about him). It is definitely Lynch's wildest endeavor (at least at that time) and, somehow, strangely compelling.

Buzz is back in a topical slasher

 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

After close to 50 years of Leatherface, it is hard to distinguish one sequel from the other. I've seen the first two "Massacre" films and "The Return of the Chainsaw Massacre" and then the 2003 remake. I am not sure why I bothered since the only sequel that seems to match the feverish pace of the original shocker was "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2," and that is only because the original director Tobe Hooper helmed it. This new film supposedly ignores all the sequels after the original. I suppose that is why it is titled "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" leaving out the "The" yet not splitting chain from saw but I digress.

A bus load of entrepreneurs have bought a ghost town in South Texas called Harlow. These are the current Generation Z'ers who think nothing of converting a town in Texas to a gentrified business marketplace full of eateries, comic books and anything you might find in a strip mall. There is Sarah Yarkin as Melody, one of two San Francisco chefs from a cooking show who drags her sister, Lila (Elsie Fisher, looking like Bud Cort's daughter), a survivor of a school shooting, to this town. There is also enthusiastic Dante (Jacob Latimore), the other chef who might have misplaced the deed to this town, and his fiancee (Nell Hudson) whom you know will be roadkill. An older woman living at an orphanage (Alice Krige) is forced out by these entrepreneurs (oh, let's not forget there is a torn Confederate flag on a pole) and she calls Dante a, well, you get the idea since he's black. Leatherface himself (Mark Burnham) is living upstairs in this building and when the old woman dies during a seizure, you know the chainsaw will be buzzing soon enough and someone's skin is needed for a face mask.

I was never bored by this new entry in the Leatherface Chronicles and some of it is gruesome fun (the bus massacre is bloody as hell and does not leave out one exposed entrail). I wanted Melody and Lila to leave this godforsaken ghost town and so that is the level of involvement I had with this movie. We also get the brief return of Sarah Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré replacing the late Marilyn Burns), the lone survivor of the original film who is ready for vengeance (apparently she's been wanting to kill Leatherface all this time and she skins pigs, though for a nanosecond I thought she was skinning a human corpse). 

In the end, this just felt like a gory slasher movie rather than anything approaching the level of the first two Massacres. There is no real intensity, no feverish pitch, nothing here to remind us of that claustrophobic 1974 nightmare which is among the greatest horror films of all time. The ending mimics the original with some minor differences yet without, dare I say, balletic grace. Leatherface still knows how to use that saw and pound somebody's head into mashed potatoes. He is not perplexed by cell phones, self-driving vehicles or cancel culture - he just want things to remain as they once were like that tiny Confederate flag.