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January 31, 2022

A Binge too Far #21: Fright Nights: Horrorant 6 Film Festival report

Posted by Christos Mouroukis

6th Horrorant International Film Festival, 2019, poster

I am a 35-year-old film journalist madly in love with a 6-year-old festival (wait a minute, what did your perverted mind thought?). Said film festival is none other than Horrorant from Greece, which this year took place simultaneously in both Athens and Thessaloniki, from the 9^th to the 15^th of May 2019, kick-starting its festivities with a cosplay event.

In terms of screenings, the opening ceremony featured Mon Mon Mon Monsters (2017), i.e. last year’s winner of the best film prize.

The competition panorama was compiled of several great features, including Freaks (2018), Anya (2018), Long Lost (2018), Two Times You (2018), Albatroz (2019), Scopophilia (2018), Every Time I Die (2019), The Tenants (2018), Kill Ben Lyk (2018), The Spell (2018), Finale (2018), Carga (2018), Go Home (2018), Werewolf (2018), Pledge (2018), Last Sunrise (2019), Romina (2018), Alive (2018), The Soul Conductor (2018), I’ll Take Your Dead (2018), After The Lethargy (2018), The Last Serb In Croatia (2019), Abrakadabra (2018), Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018), Dead End (2018), Dukun (2018), Long Lost (2018), and Blood Fest (2018).

Famous for its retrospectives, Horrorant this year also provided the aegis for the ‘3X3 Latin’ special, in which the talents of South American filmmakers were explored, and included screenings of Sonno Profondo (2013), Trauma (2017), Sendero (2015), Perfidia (2014), Luna De Miel (2015), Perdidos (2014), and Francesca (2015).

But Horrorant is also known for featuring in its program some of the very best short films currently on the festival circuit, and this year audiences had the opportunity to catch up with Clickbait (2018), Stray (2018), Escalada (2018), Muffin (2017), Met@slash (2018), It Follows (2018), Amme (2018), Mum I’m Scared (2018), Piggy (2018), Apollyon (2019), A Doll Distorted (2018), Blackout (2019), Lura (2018), Mask of Sanity (2018), The Last Well (2018), Anacronte (2018), Glitch (2018), My Brother Juan (2019), Claudia (2018), My First Time (2018), Beyond Money (2018), Forgive Me (2019), Η Ερήμωση (2019), Antxoni (2018), Sin Ti (2018), Do you Want me to Kiss you this Time? (2018), and Brainrain (2018).

Once again Horrorant was packed with guest filmmakers from all over the world that either provided master-classes or informative and entertaining Q&A sessions.

The Reviews

Yours truly was once again the Head of the Awards Jury, and watched all films in the competition block, and here’s selected reviews.

After the Lethargy (2018)

After The Lethargy

Upon receiving a dodgy alien conspiracy DVD and during the writing of a book on that particular subject, the female lead Sara Hamilton (Andrea Guasch) travels to a U.F.O. hot spot, where she is introduced to the local weirdoes (including a ranger and a repairman), until she will come face to face with a well-made CGI creature. In the meanwhile, a police investigation is taking place in the broader area, after the surfacing of some dead bodies, but things may not be what they seem to be.

Writer/director Marc Carrete (ASMODEXIA [2014]) takes his time to build up the tension, and that makes its third act even more exciting, when all hell breaks loose, and a combination of CGI and practical effects, as well as a few twists in the plot result in a very worthy viewing. Although it is apparent that the film was made with limited means, the filmmakers made the most of them.

The film premiered at South America’s prestigious Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival, and has played many more festivals since, nominated for several awards and actually winning some of them.

2018, Spain

DIRECTOR: Marc Carrete

The Spell (2019) poster

The Spell

Director Amit Dubey’s second feature comes from Cambodia (it must be the first film from that country that I get to see), and it is reminiscent of other Asian ghost films. The plot revolves around a young couple which is moving to a new secluded villa, where they will come face to face with supernatural terror, in the form of a ghost. Instead of leaving, they decide to stay and fight evil. Will they make it? You should watch the film yourself and find out, as loads of scares ensue, both of the jump variety and otherwise.

Sure, the story is not the film’s strongest asset as we have seen all of the above plenty of times already, but the visuals are impressive. The film benefits from Jeremiah Overman’s stunning cinematography and the glorious widescreen version is a work of art, really. I’m glad I caught up with it at Horrorant Film Festival, where the world-wide premiere took place.

2019, Cambodia

DIRECTOR: Amit Dubey

Freaks (2018) poster

Freaks

Chloe (child TV actress Lexy Kolker) is a young peculiar girl, that upon escaping her weird father’s (Emile Hirsch, who also started as a TV actor, but has now graduated to features) custody, she finds solace at the hands of Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern, no introduction needed), an ice-cream man that may or may be not her grandfather and who helps her bring out her super powers.

Written and directed by the dynamic duo of Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein (a television specialist), this is thematically weird and visually creepy, and you can’t really go wrong with aspects like those. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Freaks then went on to perform very well at several festivals all around the world, nominated for several awards and even winning quite a few of them.

2018, Canada/USA

DIRECTORS: Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein

Puppet Master: The Littlest...

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

Imposing a twist on the Puppet Master franchise’s (1989 – present) story, this kind of mainstream and quite high profile reboot from directors Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund has a decayed Andre Toulon (Udo Kier, no introduction needed) as a homophobic Nazi, who created the famous puppets as the ultimate evil spy killing machines back in the day of the Reich. Fast forward to the present day, and Carol Doreski (Barbara Crampton, again no introduction needed), a guide at a tourist resort at the infamous murders of Toulon’s puppets murders, loses control of the situation, when said puppets are unleashed and start murdering gypsies, Jews, etc. Panic ensues and many cast members face inevitable gory deaths.

Wildly entertaining, this is actually the franchise’s bloodiest entry yet (and I imagine that it will be difficult for anyone to top this in the near future, although a ‘To be continued…’ title card in the end is promising). It is also featuring slick cinematography (the kind that the franchise never had the luck to feature previously) and the best score the puppets ever had in their background (it was composed by Lucio Fulci darling Fabio Frizzi). The puppets are amazing as well (and it is quite the innovation seeing them here as the bad guys, an idea so great it surprising it wasn’t developed earlier by Charles Band, who is an executive producer here), but the real winner is the stellar cast, and I am not talking only about the two mega-stars mentioned above; it just seemed that every cast decision works in spades here.

I believe that this is the best Puppet Master film we have seen so far, but even you don’t agree, fear not, as it has been said that this reboot will run independently from Full Moon’s series canon, so in the near future you will have two celluloid universes to choose from. Why not indulge in both?

2018, UK/USA

DIRECTORS: Sonny Laguna, Tommy Wiklund

The Awards

Best ‘Competition’ Film: Pledge

Best ‘Panorama’ Film: Last Sunrise

2^nd Best ‘Panorama’ Film: Kill Ben Lyk

Best Director: Adrian Panek (Werewolf)

Best Screenplay: Luna Gualano & Emiliano Rubbi (Go Home)

Best Male Lead: Bruce Dern (Freaks)

Best Female Lead: Anne Bergfeld (Finale)

Best Cinematography: Yuri Bekhterev (The Soul Conductor)

Best Special Effects: Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

Special Mention: Nicolás Onetti for his contribution in the giallo revival.

Best Foreign Short: BrainRain

Best Greek Short: BlackOut

Afterword

This event report was written almost three years ago, but somehow managed to remain on shelf for far too long, now that Horrorant is about to come back from the dead (or rather, the pandemic), I think that the timing is perfect for its publication.

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January 10, 2022

Monsters in the Closet (2021)

Posted by PeggyC

Even though this film’s trailer intrigued and excited me, I still had that uneasy feeling that comes with most indie films. It’s not often that these flicks succeed and I was worried my hopes would be dashed against the rocks of mediocrity. Fortunately, my psyche experienced only slight battery over the 88-minute running time.

Monsters in the Closet is about a recluse writer who suddenly dies. His estranged daughter goes to his house to do what all surviving family members do – rifle through his shit. Interrupted for only a moment by her father’s publishing house representative about getting their hands on his last work, Jasmin gets to her dad’s house to find a laptop with a recorded video, just for her.

Aside from not taking any responsibility for his aloofness and terrible parenting skills, he wants to tell her about his latest project. It’s going to be a HUGE success! You see, he found a seventeenth-century book on black magic that teaches the reader how to cast spells by writing stories about them. And once you read them aloud, the characters in each story come to life. Imagine, having a real vampire in your house!

Not sure that’s so great, but go on, Father…

What follows is her dad telling four different tales. And as you might guess, an element from each story comes to life in the house where Jasmin sits, ALONE, watching her father’s final video.

I do love a good anthology film. And while the execution is lacking, overall I have to say I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a comedy/horror mash-up and each story is quite unique from all the others. Not saying the individual stories themselves were particularly original, but I’m glad they didn’t all blend together with shared tropes.

We’ve got zombies, a serial killer, a mad scientist, and just good, old-fashioned, isolated mania. While some of the acting is horrible, I gotta give props to John Paul Fedele and his ability to sell the idea of having sexual relations with an…assembled woman. His story was my favorite as it had me laughing the most often. And I wish I could remember the character names to shout out the actors, but the pair playing the couple who bought their first fixer-upper house in the second segment balanced hyperbole and believability so well! This was a close second place behind the mad scientist story as the humor hit home more often than not.

Something's missing. I can't quite put my finger on it...

The mixed bag of CGI did little to help. Some looked completely realistic, and others were obvious cheap computer programming. But it didn’t detract too much from the movie, making it easily forgettable.

Thankfully, the acting was better than I expected. The worst of it came in the weakest story, the third segment called “The One Percenters”. Cliché, obvious and terrible, and I’ve forgotten most of it. The performances in the main/wrap-around story were lackluster at best, awkward at worst, but not so bad as to make me want to shut it off. The good acting in the rest of the film absolutely made up for anything lacking elsewhere.

If you like to give indie films a try, despite that nagging feeling you might be setting yourself up for a long night of binge drinking, check out this one. I don’t think you’ll be sorry!

3.5 Hatchets (out of 5)

January 1, 2022

A Binge too Far #20: Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight duo (2020 – 2021)

Posted by Christos Mouroukis

Frame from Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight (2020)

Happy new year! For me New Year’s Eve is always about changes and setting new goals. Well, for starters, I thought I’d change the way my posts work in Cinema Head Cheese. You’ll still be getting one post per month by yours truly, but whereas both my columns were bi-monthly, for 2022 you’ll get A Binge too Far posts on the 1^st of January, February, April, May, July, August, October, November, and you’ll get Static Age posts on the 1^st of March, June, September, and December. In other words, for every two A Binge too Far posts, you’ll get one Static Age post. I decided upon this new arrangement in order for Static Age to grow a bit bigger and include more content each time (I’m thinking more than 1,500 words per post), while of course A Binge too Far will remain pretty much the same, with a couple of reviews crammed in each post. Got it?

Nobody Sleeps in the... (2020)

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight (2020)

Directed by Bartosz M. Kowalski (his second feature) this Netflix original from Poland, is about a group of internet-addicted teenagers (aren’t they all?) that join a reform camp in the woods of the aforementioned country in order to take some time offline; but it looks that someone or something is taking them off – period – in the most gruesome of ways.

Featuring an original concept (as it becomes apparent from the film’s premise) that is also quite convenient (mobile phones in horror films have been a problem since the device’s inception), this does not manage to stay away from the slasher tropes and quickly ends up being formulaic. The villain owes a lot to the Hatchet film series (2006 – present) and the tone is mostly reminiscent of the Wrong Turn franchise (2003 – present).

However, by aiming for an old school approach – the special effects are awesome in all their practical glory – and employing inventive kills, this is a winner. Special mention should be given to Radzimir Debski’s score, which would not be out of place in any 1960s Italian exploitation, and it could in fact have been composed by Riz Ortolani.

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 (2021)

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 (2021)

Following the events of the first film, this sequel helmed by returning director Bartosz M. Kowalski (who also penned the screenplay with Mirella Zaradkiewicz) leaves aside the original’s teenage-centric sensibilities and opts for a love story involving monsters.

Featuring wilder practical special effects and set-pieces, this loses steam with its enhanced comedy elements (apparently Poland is a country in which it is still relevant to make jokes about the connection between prostitution and HIV, or small dicks and swastikas). Elsewhere the Abbott and Costello approach fails miserably, making the end result seem tired, lifeless, and too self-conscious for its own good. However, it is still visceral enough to guarantee for an at least interesting visual experience, while some of its references are interesting [signaling Maniac Cop (1988) is always welcome].

December 20, 2021

Breeder (2020) Movie Review

Posted by PeggyC

Okay, this flick is even more recent than the last one I reviewed so I will definitely not spoil anything. Though, honestly, the further you get into the movie, the more predictable it becomes so you’d probably figure it out long before I could spoil it.

*shrug* It is what it is.

Breeder is about a mad scientist who’s trying to find a cure for the aging process. And yes, she sees aging as a disease, not a natural course of existence. That kinda gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with here. So she decides the best way to find just the right procedure is to kidnap young women and experiment on them via torture and…fertilization.

Interpret that anyway you want. All will be revealed by the end.

Thomas is the financial guy for this corporation and he’s keeping A LOT of secrets from his wife, Mia. Which, as any human will know, the more a mystery presents itself to us, THE MORE WE MUST SOLVE IT. This leads Mia to becoming part of the experimentations and discovering exactly what this corporation and mad doctor are up to in order to keep the human race young and beautiful.

Beauty is pain, so they say, but dayum…

That’s all I’m going to tell you.

The good things in this flick are the acting and the cinematography. Thomas, Mia, Dr. Ruben, and one of the doctor’s henchmen, The Dog (yes, that’s his character name) have the most screen time and are the more important players. I think Mia and The Dog are the most interesting and somewhat complementary. That may seem weird as The Dog is a misogynistic sadist and she’s a housewife/athlete with some unfulfilled kink desires. But they play off each other so well. I have to contribute that to the talents of Sara Hjort Ditlevsen and Morten Holst. Thomas and Dr. Ruben are a bit more cliché but it works for the storyline. Anders Heinrichsen and Signe Egholm Olsen play them beautifully, even when you want to punch them in the throat.

I would have to say that of all the captured women, the one who never speaks emotes more anguish and anger than any of the other victims. She’s pretty powerful, emotionally speaking. And the final shot of revenge against one of the henchmen is very satisfying to watch. No words, just animalistic brutality.

Does that make me a bit of a sadist, too? Maybe…

There is a scene at the end that absolutely made me weep but I can’t really tell you about it because that does give away a bit of the story. You’ll have to watch for yourself.

Every woman's POV at the OBGYN.

The cinematography is brilliant. While the suburb where most people live is pleasant and pretty, and the face of the corporation is enticing, the building where this experimentation is going on is appropriately disgusting. Dark, dank, filthy, claustrophobic, inescapable. It reflects Dr. Ruben’s mania, her henchmen’s brutality, and the victims’ hopelessness.

Once place where this movie fails is the pacing. It didn’t need to be an hour and forty-seven minutes. They could have cut out at least twenty minutes of scenery or running or meeting with investors for the project. I checked my watch twice during the viewing so that’s not a good sign. It’s almost expected for a movie to lose a viewer’s interest once (usually around the halfway mark) but consistently through every act? Less than optimal.

Another issue I had is the story. Some of the twists were predictable to a degree, others just made me scratch my head. The whole anti-aging procedure…I’m pretty sure there are easier and LEGAL ways to do what Dr. Ruben wanted. I don’t know if this was supposed to take place years before STEM cell research was even a thing or getting genetic material from women was taboo or illegal or what. I can’t remember for sure but I think people had smart phones so…that would mean present day.

That goes along with the “let’s just make this über extreme so people know how fucked up this is,” as if kidnapping women and hiring a sadist as their guard wasn’t enough to let us know. It screams of trying too hard, you know? Especially the garbage can reveal. Trust me on this one. *gag*

Overall, it’s a decent thriller with some horrific and gross elements. And just listening to the actors speak Danish is fun (I love listening to foreign languages which is why subtitles don’t bother me one bit). It’s nothing groundbreaking or spectacular, but it is a spectacle at times with great acting.

2 hatchets (out of 5)

December 13, 2021

Achoura (2018) Movie Review

Posted by PeggyC

Most of you here know that modern horror isn’t exactly my bag. More often than not, today’s indie horror movies suck major donkey dick. So it’s kinda nice to be pleasantly surprised from time to time with a decent horror film made after 1985.

Ladies and gents, I give you Achoura.

SPOILERS: I will do my best to make this a spoiler-free review, but as I’m drinking coffee with Baileys right now, I guarantee nothing.

Achoura is actually the name of a Moroccan religious celebration, also known as Child’s Night. Kids get to run around, play, splash water on each other, dance, gather around a bonfire, and have a night to revel in pure innocence and joy. The movie begins with such a celebration that happened “a long time ago.” A young girl and boy, obviously quite infatuated with each other, run off to the corn field to have a deep conversation. Bashira (who is A CHILD, I will remind you) is married to a man who’s probably older than me. The boy (I don’t think his name ever comes up), promises to take care of her if they run away together. She gives him a flute she made for him, saying he should blow that every time he thinks of her.

Daaawww. Honestly, they’re adorable together.

But before they can make plans to run away, the ball and chain comes looking for the pair. The young kids hide in an abandoned house in the middle of the cornfield. While hiding, the husband, acting like the gross pedophile he is, is shuffling through the house, threatening to beat Bashira when he finds her. Her boy crush bursts forth to fight the old man but gets the man’s belt around his throat for his trouble.

Luckily, Bashira jumps out and hits her husband over the head with a two-by-four. Saving her crush, they smile until…a dark, smoky mass on the ceiling forms, reaches down, and takes Bashira!

And that is the opening of the film, before the credits even begin to roll!

Flash forward to present day. Ali and Nadia are a married couple with issues. Ali is a police officer who works too much and blames himself for not finding a serial kidnapper; Nadia is a teacher exhausted by her husband’s lack of presence; their son, Youssef, is caught in the middle. Their friend, Stephan, invites them to his art exhibit where his work depicts some quite terrifying imagery. Stephan has remembered something from their past and it’s time for them to remember, too.

Kid, you are on my LAST nerve.

And everything comes rushing back to their collective memories once Samir, Ali’s brother who disappeared twenty years earlier, shows up. The film bounces back and forth between this present day and to the horrible afternoon twenty years earlier when Samir vanished and the group encountered the monster that took him, a monster that feeds on the innocence of children. Now, they must work together to figure out where the creature is, how they can trap it, and how to destroy it.

Okay, that’s all the detail I’ll give. I probably gave away too much about the opening scene anyway.

First let me say that this is the first horror movie I’ve watched/reviewed that’s based on Moroccan folklore. The opening scene is spoken in Arabic (I’m not sure which style of Arabic it is, or if it’s Amazigh, aka Berber) and the present day and twenty-year flash back scenes are spoken in French. So there’s just culture flying all over the place here. I also appreciate that the writers created the character of Bashira’s husband. My guess is child marriages were common at the time (even though we don’t have an exact timeframe, based on character development we can infer around 70 years ago), and child marriages do still happen today. Not sure if writer included this as a protesting statement or trying to imply it only happened ages ago.

*shrug* It’s just a cultural difference that many of us, I hope, have little to no experience with.

The whole opening scene built great tension. First we’re scared for Bashira as she and her friend talk about her husband; then the husband looking for them through the house and attacking the boy; and finally the black creature that snatches up Bashira.

The cinematography is great, but I love films that take place in locations I’ve never been. We get to see a country’s landscape – natural and man-made – and how the day/night affects the story within each setting. The original musical score blends well with each scene and never pulls the viewer out of the action.

The acting is fantastic. The two reunion scenes, between Ali and Samir and Stephan and Samir, moved me to tears. Omar Lotfi as Samir does an excellent job portraying a man who’s been captive since a boy and can’t quite pull off being a normal adult. Younes Bouab as Ali is a little one-dimensional, but then I think Ali doesn’t have much depth in general. He’s a typical gruff police detective with anger issues. And that’s okay! Even the child actors playing the four friends in the flashback carried their scenes well.

Do NOT make me use my mom voice.

The pacing starts to drag about halfway through, but most films do to be honest. Once we get to the final third of the film, the action picks back up. I will say, though, the final scenes leading to the climax of the film are VERY reminiscent of the book and movie, “IT”. The whole idea of long-ago friends having to get back together and go down underground to face the monster they encountered long ago…yeah. Just instead of a cosmic spider monstrosity, picture a pale-faced, 10-foot-tall black-eyed demon. Cool? Cool.

The little bits of CGI in the film aren’t great. They aren’t the worst I’ve ever seen but they did knock me off my suspension of disbelief bridge. Though I have to say it wasn’t difficult to climb back on and continue., especially since the demon itself is tits.

One of the best elements of this movie, though, is the story. Not just the Moroccan folklore, but the idea that evil can never be stopped; it can only be contained. As we watch the main characters battling this terrible demon, in the end, there’s nothing they can do but make the most heartbreaking decision possible to save the rest of the world.

Ow. My heart.

So, if you’re not opposed to reading subtitles (not sure if there’s an English dubbed version out there), I highly suggest taking a bite out of this little slice of Moroccan horror. You won’t regret it.

Four hatchets (out of 5)

December 1, 2021

Static Age #19: Ultraman Ace (1972 – 1973) [Complete Series 05]

Posted by Christos Mouroukis

Ultraman Ace (1972 - 1973) BD box art

This Static Age’s spotlight goes to Ultraman Ace (1972 – 1973), ‘Ambassador from the galactic federation’ as per the front cover tagline of Mill Creek Entertainment’s excellent Region A Blu-ray box-set [Complete Series 05], which contains of all 52 episodes in their original Japanese (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0) with optional English subtitles and a stunning 1080p High-Definition 1.33:1 transfer. The set also comes with a booklet that is featuring an introductory article to the series, and several guides (hero, episode, kaiju, character, and key technology).

Riding high on what is now defined as the second wave of kaiju entertainment from Japan, this new Ultra incarnation is significant because for the first time the series employ a story arc narrative that is prevalent throughout its entire run, instead of the usual one-offs or two-part episode format of the previous years. Said story arc finds the mean Yapool and his “Terrible-Monsters” experiments (kaiju much more powerful than what we were used to) attempt to push forward their plan for world domination, and it is up to Ultraman Ace to stop them!

‘Shine! The Five Ultra Brothers’ introduces us to Ultraman Ace, the fifth Ultra brother of alien saviors, who has passed his transformation ring to Seiji Hukuto (Keiji Takamine) and Yuko Minami (Mitsuko Hoshi), and the union of the couple upon cases of emergency will transform them to the superhero – and what do you know, the first emergency comes in the form of the fire-breathing monster Verokron that wreaks havoc upon the city of Fukuyama. A mysterious, oversized, silver egg that devours people makes an appearance in ‘Surpass the Giant Terrible-Monster’, before the ancient Chameleking monster shows up to battle with Ultraman Ace. In ‘Go Up in Flames! Terrible-Monster Hell’ the skies break and unleash the Vakishim monster. ‘A 300-Million-Year-Old Terrible-Monster Appears!’ is a very grim episode in which manga artist Mushitaro Kuri drugs Mikawa and keeps her prisoner in an attic with a dead body (such scenarios wouldn’t fly in today’s television), not to mention that he also unleashes the Garan monster. In ‘The Giant-Ant Terrible-Monster Vs. The Ultra Brothers’, young women disappear in moving sand as the ground opens in the middle of the city, and the only common denominator is that they all have type O Blood. An possessed-by-an-alien astronaut won’t remove his gloves because his hands have eyes in ‘Solve the Mystery of the Transforming Terrible-Monster!’. ‘Monster Vs. Terrible-Monster Vs. Alien’ is featuring an impressive monster showdown and the story continues in blood-soaked fashion in ‘Life of the Sun is the Life of Ace’. A pictures transforms a newspaper editor into the Gamas monster in ‘100,000 Terrible-Monsters! Surprise Attack Plan’. An evil version of Go is back in ‘Duel! Ultraman Ace Vs. Hideki Go’, but is it really him? In the otherworldly and a bit sexist ‘Terrible-Monster is Ten Women?’ the Unitang is really the women! The structurally unorthodox ‘The Red Flower of a Vicious Cactus’ has Ultraman Ace fighting the Sabotendar monster early on, before it transforms into a regular-sized cactus, albeit a carnivorous one. The series go Christian-themed in ‘Execution! Five Ultra Brothers’, in which the Ultra brothers get crucified, thanks to the Anti-Universe also known as Golgotha – the story continues in ‘5 Stars Scattered in the Galaxy’, in which Ace-Killer also appears. ‘Summer Horror Series: Curse of the Black Crab’ is featuring Ultraman Ace sumo-wrestling a crab monster. ‘Summer Horror Series: Scary Story of the Cattle God-Man’ is about a man that transforms into the Cowra monster, a creature resembling a cow. The titular presence of ‘Summer Horror Stories: The Demon Woman of Hotarugawara’ causes car accidents. ‘Give the Pigeon Back!’ is featuring the Black Pigeon monster. ‘The Mystery of the Haunted Kappa Mansion’ is one of the best episodes in the series and it includes a terrible monster that comes out of a swimming pool and steals people’s bellybuttons (you can’t make this up!), while some of them also happen to be eerie robots on the inside! ‘Stars of Youth is the Stars of Two’ is featuring a flying ship, as well as the mandatory terrible monster, not to mention TAC team members’ disbelief of the former sighting, as if the twice-a-week destruction of Tokyo by numerous kaiju is not as strange. ‘I Saw a Vision of the Celestial Maiden’ is an episode about the aforementioned beauty becoming a monster. Featuring fascinating kills and an amazing terrible monster, ‘Vengeance Demon Yapool’ is truly one of the greatest episodes in the series. ‘A Game Changer! Here Comes Zoffy’ is about old men luring children into ceremonial chants before they disappear (in today’s world this scenario wouldn’t fly, let alone in a children’s show); it’s your only chance of seeing a finale that has children falling from the sky, as if there was not enough bad shit in the air anyway. ‘Behold! Midnight Transformation’ is featuring raining blood, but instead of the metal band Slayer, you get another awesome kaiju! ‘Pyramid is a Terrible-Monster Nest!’ is about Michiru and her dangerous red smoke games, until the story escalates to a Pyramid that is housing a Pharaoh-like monster. The five Ultra brothers finally meet their match in the form of the Hipporit monster in ‘Annihilation! The 5 Ultra Brothers’; the story continues in ‘Miracle! Father of Ultra’, in which the Ultra father saves the day. The landmark ‘Goodbye Yuko, Sister of the Moon’ episode is horror-themed, featuring a werewolf-like terrible-monster, as well as the departure of Yuko, leaving Seiji the sole Ultraman Ace ringmaster. The dangers of alcoholism, as well as a monster that comes out of a graveyard are covered in ‘The 6^th Ultra Brother’. ‘You Can See the Star of Ultra’ is featuring the Red Jack terrible-monster.

And now, let’s switch our focus towards some recent series…

Handmaid's Tale - Season 4

The 4^th season of The Handmaid’s Tale (2017 – present) finds resistance leader June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) on the run after managing to organize the capture of several leaders of the tyrannical Gilead misogynist and fascist dictatorship. Boasting great drama as well as starting relevant discussions on freedom versus authoritarianism, this is absolutely one of the most intelligent, important, and relevant television series ever. What’s more this is the series’ best and most engaging season since its first.

Locke & Key - Season 2

The 2^nd season of Netflix’s Locke & Key (2020 – present) and its seemingly complicated and difficult to achieve shoot had me thinking that cinema (and nowadays also series) is all about showing you things you hadn’t previously seen whilst maintain a conventional narrative, and this show completely succeeds at this. What is it about? Well, the teenage filmmaking team finds some success but also amidst a chaos involving memory loss, demonic powers, and the keys of course. Although, at the end of the day this is a show about people who lost their keys.

Doctor Who - Season 11

The 11^th season of Doctor Who (2005 – present) is original for both maintaining a story arc for most of its run and introducing the first female Doctor (the quirky and gorgeous Jodie Whittaker). It kicks off with ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ and introduction to the female protagonists and her group of sidekicks as well as an alien menace in the form of an impressive ‘man in a suit’ robot. In ‘The Ghost Monument’ the Doctor attempts to solve the mystery of the Desolation. In the excellent and touching ‘Rosa’ the Doctor and her sidekicks find themselves in 1955 Alabama where they meet Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Part U.S. election satire and part spider horror, ‘Arachnids in the U.K.’ is a fascinating episode. ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ is a decent monster-of-the-week episode. ‘Demons of the Punjab’ is a soapy episode about the marriage of an Indian girl to a man from Pakistan. Although ‘Kerblam!’ kicks-off with an eerie concept, it ends up blatantly preaching anti-capitalist messages – I mean, we already know the system sucks, and it looks a bit naïve having a BBC series to explain this. One of the season’s better episodes is ‘The Witchfinders’ in which the protagonist team finds itself in 17^th Century Lancashire amidst witch trials. Set in Norway, ‘It Takes you Away’ is about a mirror that is also a portal to another dimension. The season concludes with ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’ and ‘Resolution’.

Also, please allow me to speak a word or two about some recent mainstream films…

The Addams Familly 2 (2021)

The animated The Addams Family 2 (2021), directed by Greg Tiernan and Cornard Vernon, finds the mysterious and kooky cast of gothic characters facing a new challenge, namely a lawyer’s demand for Wednesday to have a DNA test in order to prove that he is not an Addams, but rather the daughter of a mad scientist. Less dark than the first installment, but still a beautiful manifesto on being difference and how weirdness is good, it surprises me in a good way that these old comic strip characters still have an audience today, in a world that being alternative to the instagram-dictated norm is less and less relevant and tolerated.

Director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills (2021) finds Michael Myers (a surprising but absolutely welcome and honorable return from Nick Castle – one of many tributes to the franchise’s original run) continuing his onslaught of murder and mayhem in Haddonfield, Illinois, preying upon his family members (Jamie Lee Curtis returning) just where he left them off in this trilogy’s first chapter (this being the second). Filled with numerous Easter eggs for fans of the series as well as unbelievable gruesomeness (it’s as if Blumhouse wanted to make the bloodiest entry – it succeeded), and a top-notch score by John Carpenter himself, this is a slasher masterpiece that should not be missed. Now, I can’t wait for the next one!

Stargate (1994) poster art

In Stargate (1994) the action kicks off in 1928 Egypt when a mysterious device is found during an expedition. Fast forward to the present day (i.e. 1994, when this was made) and nerdy linguist Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is approached by the military to decipher an ancient hieroglyph. He does so, only to find out that the code unlocks the device’s ability to transfer you in other planets. The scientist takes Colonel Jonathan O’ Neil (Kurt Russell) and his troops to another planet indeed where they find a civilization that worships Ra. Made on a $55 million budget and looking even more expensive and massive thanks to the ambitious staging by director Roland Emmerich [Independence Day (1996)] this takes the conspiracy theory-like plot [ever so prevalent in The X-Files (1993 – 2018) that was already a hit] and takes to another level of entertainment with its Indiana Jones-influenced approach. Grossing a massive $196.6 and defining a generation of sci-fi audiences, it spawned a massive franchise (mainly in television), in which we will dive further into in future installments of this column.

And finally, I would like to let you know that I enriched my bookshelf with the following additions…

After criminally neglecting adding Stephen Thrower’s landmark Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (FAB Press) to my collection when it first came out in 1999, I gladly did so with its new and updated 2018 massive hardback edition, which is chockfull of lavish design and high quality picture reproduction from a seemingly endless collection, but its real strength is the unparalleled text by its renowned author, generously unveiling years of hard work, research, passion, and knowledge. An essential work not only for the fans of Lucio Fulci, but also any fan of genre cinema in general.

Stephen Thrower’s excellent mammoth work Flowers of Perversion: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco Volume Two (2018, Strange Attractor Press) is as you might have guessed (in case you live under a rock and haven’t yet heard of this delicious book) covering the second half of anarchist Spaniard director’s lengthy career. By combining academic (but genuinely interesting) analysis with deeply-dug historical fact, all filtered via the witty writing of its ace author, each review is pretty much the final word of the film tackled (the final analysis, as well as the ultimate thesis). Although Jess Franco’s work is so multi-dimensional that I doubt that we will be short of further analyses in the future (a book on the auteur by Tim Lucas is long due), it will be hard for Thrower’s input to be matched. Come to think of it, and in regards to the apparent continuum of Franco’s work – something that is well aided in the book as the films are presented in the order they were shot – I couldn’t help but feeling that it is a pity that his career of excesses and liberation had to end at some point (the moment of the director’s death), because the ideas in his films are like the ‘time’, they just go on infinitively. There are only a few pieces in the puzzle of his filmography that I have not yet seen. Also included in the limited edition of the package – aside from postcards etc. – is another 100+ pages hardcover book with scanned reproductions of abandoned Jess Franco screenplays and their translations, appropriately entitled The Sinister Case of Dr. Franco.

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