Cinema Head Cheese - Movie Reviews, News, a Podcast and more!: September 2021

September 29, 2021

Lurking Terror (2002) Movie Review

I’ve been going back and forth on whether I wanted to review this movie as, you might guess, I didn’t enjoy it. I’m friends with people who worked on it; I’m familiar with those who wrote/directed it and the…less than stellar behavior they’ve exhibited toward their vendor friends and family in recent years. I, personally, have not been a victim of their, let’s be honest, unethical business practices. But I know quite a few who were.

I only say this because I don’t want anyone reading my review to think that I’ve taken up the flag of war and am ripping the movie because I think these folks are big poopy heads and I don’t like meanies. For any review, whether I know the creators or not, I always give my honest opinions. ABOUT THE MOVIE. If a movie is great, I’ll say so. If it’s a total train wreck, I’ll say that, too, regardless of the creators being total shitbags or Mother Theresa reincarnate.

We good? Good. Let’s get to the review. SPOILERS: More than likely I’ll let a few plot points and spoilers loose in the hopes that will keep anyone from watching the film themselves.

Lurking Terror is a 2002 indie horror about a backwoods family that must sacrifice total strangers to a centuries-old curse on their town of Bridelson and the family line. If they don’t, The Evil will come and destroy them all. And sometimes, when they’ve got more than one person to choose from, they’ll sacrifice one and BBQ the other.

The movie starts with three fugitives on the run from police. Honestly, I don’t remember their names but I want to say they are Reggie, Betty, and Kenny (and if I’m wrong, does it really matter?). Reggie has been shot and they need to find help. After pulling off the road, they stumble through the woods toward a house in the distance. After Kenny is killed by The Evil, the other two hide out in the house and receive help from its owner.

Only he ain’t helping them. He’s leading them into a trap - into the waiting arms, and cage, of the family. Betty will be sacrificed to The Evil and Reggie…well, he’s wounded and won’t make a proper offering. Plus, they haven’t eaten well in too long so he goes on the spit! Unfortunately, before they can enjoy him (blargh), Deputy Laura shows up in her search for the fugitives.

They get the jump on her and lock her up with Betty. But, because BEWBS, the two sons get suckered into her cage where she promptly knocks them out. She and Laura escape in a stolen truck, leaving the family to be taken by The Evil, or even just each other as tempers and fears arise.

But just as you think our two heroines are in the clear, The Evil hitches a ride on their getaway buggy. After Betty slams on the brakes in an attempt to shake it loose, The Evil pops up and snatches Laura from her tentative grasp on freedom and safety.

The closing shot is of “some woman” listening to a news broadcast in her car as the announcer talks about the missing deputy. Just then the car passes the sign to Bridelson where Deputy Laura’s head sits atop a pike.

HOW DOES NO ONE NOTICE THIS??

Oy, where to begin? Let me get all the bad out of the way first (believe it or not, there are a couple things I enjoyed while watching).

The acting is absolute trash. Not exactly unexpected though. The original music is amateur. It sounds like any indie horror movie soundtrack with its distortion effects and gruff voicing. Completely generic. Camera/photography is shoddy at best whether for regular shooting or shaking the camera for effect. Editing is terrible and the slo-mo effect was overused and unnecessary (except in one instance which I’ll touch on in a minute). The blood and guts practical effects are...okay.

The sound is uneven. It seemed they only had one or two mics so not every character’s lines could be heard well within the same scene. But at least there wasn’t a lot of disparity between the dialogue and the sound effects. I never felt the need to grab gauze because my ears started bleeding from decibel overload.

The story is derivative, unoriginal, filled with cliche characters. Way too many exposition dumps, character ramblings, confusing actions, and things that just made no sense. Examples: After taking off her bra to seduce the brothers, does Betty really have time to put it back ON before escaping? I mean, is that a priority here? And how are members of the family confused that The Evil took their “livestock” after they chained it to a tree, like they do with their sacrifices?

By the way, using the word livestock as code for your human BBQ victims…*eye roll*

The Evil itself is confusing. Is it only supposed to attack those from the original bloodlines that incorporated Bridelson or literally anyone on the land, aside from the sacrifices? Because it seemed to do whatever the fuck it wanted. One family character spits out a quick factoid about The Evil not acting normal, which happened once before, but they never expand on that.

With all that said, though, I did find a few things about this flick enjoyable.

Jamie White, who played Deputy Laura, was actually fantastic. Her acting was top notch and she played the only character I gave a damn about. I’m surprised, and a little sad, she didn’t pursue an acting career. Her final scene was the only time the slo-mo effect worked really well as The Evil snatched her up. It’s a great shot.

The daughter of the family pretending to be a captive before her mother scolds her to help the others - I actually laughed out loud at that part.

The Evil creature itself was pretty cool. We never really get a long close look at it during the film but that may have added to its mystique. I have seen a few still images of it and the overall design is great - giant teeth, moss covered body, and long savage claws and teeth make for a creepy creature!

Unfortunately, those few bits are all that’s worthy in this 74-minute pile of hot, steaming garbage. I can’t honestly encourage anyone to watch this just for those few morsels. Avoid this like the clap, people.

1/4 hatchet (out of 5)

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September 16, 2021

Baby Oopsie (2021) Movie review

Okay, you all know how much I love Charles Band, right? I mean, I did watch AND review the entire Puppet Master franchise. Even most of his bad films are still kind of fun, whether he wrote, directed, or produced them. I’m just not sure this flick can be included on that list.

Baby Oopsie is the story of Sybil Pittman, an unfortunate, lonely woman. She lives with an overbearing, garbage of a human being stepmother, Mitzi; two local youths constantly harass her, basically robbing her every chance they get; and works for a boss who could give Bill Lumbergh from Office Space a run for his money.

Though there are a few people who do like her (Earl, the mailman, Ray Ray her best friend, and Kristy, who’s renting a room in Sybil’s home), Sybil really only has one joy in life - her dolls. She loves to restore and collect antique ones, and runs a dedicated video channel/series to her doll work. One day she receives a mysterious package that contains the trashed head of Baby Oopsie (the little bald, nightgown wearing baby doll from Demonic Toys). Immediately, Sybil falls in love and works diligently to restore it.

Unfortunately, she can’t get the mechanical elements to work. Until, one day, she receives ANOTHER mysterious package. This one contains some kind of pentacle charm. Once she puts that in Baby Oopsie’s new body, the doll springs to life.

The next thing we know, Baby Oopsie has taken it upon herself to get revenge for her ‘momma’, Sybil. Once she realizes what’s happening, Sybil tries to warn Ray Ray and Kristy, but they write it off as part of Sybil’s stress and depression. Eventually, Sybil warms up to the idea of getting revenge on the assholes in her life and helps Baby Oopsie out. Until the doll turns its attention to the innocent.

Sybil must do what she can to stop the doll’s murderous rampage. Can she defeat the satanic muppet in time?

Let me just say right off the bat, this is not a good film. Honestly, the original Demonic Toys wasn’t all that great, and I’ve never watched the sequels. Just that Puppet Master mashup from 2004. Baby Oopsie (the actual doll) looks awful, its voice is annoying, and all it spouts are bad jokes and ridiculous quips. Most of the characters are just cliche stereotypes, with bad dialogue and lackluster acting. It probably goes without saying all CGI effects are just crap, and it is very obvious we are watching someone running around with a puppet on his/her hand.

Wait, you're gonna put your hand where....HEYYO!

HOWEVER…

I loved the character of Sybil Pittman, played by Libbie Higgins. Sybil is a very sympathetic character, though it does seem her misfortune reaches hyperbolic levels. Even though dolls are not my jam, I can see how much joy Sybil derives from them and how they have become her whole world. She’s written to be the underdog who you want to end up the reigning champion. Libbie did a fantastic job of fully bringing this character to life.

The story itself is well done, despite the cliche dialogue and mostly stereotypical other characters. I won’t give away the big twist at the end but honestly, I didn’t see it coming. When I thought I knew what was what, they threw in another surprise. And the ending was much bleaker than I expected.

Keep an eagle eye out for little Easter eggs from other Charles Band productions throughout the film!

Overall, like I said, not a great movie. But it does have some entertaining elements that make it worth a watch. At least once, anyway.

1.75 hatchets (out of 5)

September 4, 2021

Hollywood’s New Blood (1989) Movie Review

What seems to be happening to me more and more lately is that I’ll come across a flick that I think, at first, will just be a small fluffy piece of crappy entertainment. I’ll watch it; I’ll hate myself for watching; eventually, I’ll move on. Perhaps I might even turn it off because it’s boring beyond belief.

But sometimes these flicks make me pause. I hold my thumb over that “off” button for a long time before I realize I’ve put the remote down and have become fully immersed in the shit show unfolding before me. The only time I pick that fucker back up is to pause said garbage parade when I can’t stop laughing and I’m afraid I’ll miss more terribleness that might keep me entertained.

Hollywood’s New Blood is just such a movie.

(SPOILERS AHOY)

Picture it: 1989, a small troupe of up-and-coming thespians attending an acting seminar out in the woods. A woods that comes with its own tragic backstory – of the Glouster family clan (yes, the entire clan) that was accidentally blown to smithereens on a movie set. Legend says the locals can still see the figures of three Glouster brothers as they roam the woods, looking for the body parts of their clansmen.

Or something like that.

One of the young performers, Bret, grew up nearby. He heard all the stories; he spent his summers on this very lake. And he piecemeals these gory little tidbits over the course of the seminar to his fellow actor wanna-bes and their teacher. Too bad absolutely NO ONE cares because if they did, they might have been able to save themselves from terrible fates at the hands of the vengeful Glouster family ghosts as they exact their revenge.

Sounds good on paper, right? Maybe not that new or exciting but a reasonably entertaining dive into the ghost/revenge/horror trope, right?

If they’d stuck with the ghosts out for revenge idea, that would have been fine. But halfway through the film, Bret tells us oh yeah, three of the brothers – Jeb, Luke, and Neil - were never found but let’s just count them as dead, okay? Even before that, when we see the three Glousters, they’re hobbled and scarred and still wrapped in bandages. Okay, yes, Jacob Marley looked like that, too, but Charles Dickens this is not.

Pretty much all of the characters are fodder. They aren’t developed enough for us to care about. The viewer wants them to die so they can just STOP BEING TERRIBLE ACTORS. I will give Joe Balogh, who plays Mitch, some props because he was the best actor in the bunch, and his character was the biggest smart ass. That doesn’t mean I was sad to see him die; he just did a decent job with his character before the Glouster boys got him.

The whole movie is filmed on two locations – the cabin and the woods. So there was a lot of repeated usage of the same stills, shadowy action shots, killer cam moving through the woods. I’m sure that was a budgetary choice but it also felt like padding the run time. And I’d wager they REALLY padded the film with the extended grappling scenes between killers and victims, stalking scenarios, and shambling though the woods to their intended destinations.

What if C-A-T really does spell dog?

The sound isn’t the worst I’ve come across. There’s not a huge range of decibels between dialogue and sound effects. But the sound effects themselves…any time we got the killer cam as he moved through the woods, the sound effects were jungle noises. And I’m talking howler monkeys and shit. That was the first time I paused the video. I thought I was hearing it wrong. Noooope. Honest to gods: howler monkeys.

The second time I paused the movie was during the scene where each actor had to find an object in the woods, bring it back to the cabin, and make up a story about it. And Mitch finds some bones and a skull. A mother fucking skull. Fortunately for us, Bret is there to tell us that it’s not an animal. It’s human!

Whoever didn’t already know that is probably too young to be watching this. But thanks for clearing up any confusion none of us were having.

The third time I paused the film was during the climactic fight scene between the last Glouster brother and Bret. At a point earlier in the film, Bret instructs Liz to break up the skull and bones and sharpen them so she can have a weapon. Later, as Bret wrestler with Neil Glouster for FAR TOO LONG, Bret grabs the skull and slams it into Neil’s face, whereby it sticks as Neil screams bloody murder.

I honestly hurt myself laughing so hard at the point, though I will admit that the jawless skull stuck on Neil’s face as he screamed looked pretty fucking creepy.

Resting Bitch Face a Deux

The last bits I’ll harp on come at the end. Once the story is done, we get cut scenes of each character that probably last about 15-20 seconds each. You’d think the filmmakers would use this as a chance to put up titles such as “Bobby Johnston as Bret” or “Lynn Pirtle as Joely”. Nope, just snippets of film while the most terrible, awful, no good, very bad, unbelievably dreadful theme song plays. FOR SEVEN MINUTES AND FIVE SECONDS before we get the ending credits.

Who was in charge here? I demand to see the manager!

Look, I try not to steer people toward unmitigated crap if I can help it. There’s nothing worse than spending 90 minutes watching something that makes you want to question all your life choices leading up to this point in time. However…Hollywood’s New Blood is 77 minutes of accidental hilarity. Yes, at times it’s painful. You may even feel personally attacked. But why not pour a hefty drink, maybe have a little edible (hey – it’s legal here, shut up), and tune into Hollywood’s New Blood? Chances are you’ll hate yourself in the morning but you’ll enjoy the ride before the sun comes up.

Extra: best line of the film come from the character, Donna. “How can I feel scared? There’s nothing dangerous around here.”

You got that right, sweet cheeks. You got that right.

1.5 hatchet (out of 5)

(SORRY - I could not find a trailer posted anywhere for this one)

September 2, 2021

A Binge too Far #18: Horror Garage

Haunting image from The Wretched (2020)

What exactly is ‘fan service’? In recent times I noticed that many film reviewers use the term ‘fan service’ quite liberally. They do so when they review new independent genre films that offer mutilated body parts (i.e. gore) and/or nudity. Usually those films have no budget, no intelligent script or talent to speak of, and they are shot on video in the director’s backyard. Here’s exactly where the term ‘fan service’ is inappropriately used. Is this really what horror movie fans want to see in 2021? Or is this simply an anachronism and a nostalgia tendency that wants to take us back to the video boom era when tits and splatter were good enough entertaining material? I believe that ‘fans’ have stirred away from such material, and now have found shelter in the works of people such as Jason Bloom and Jordan Peele, and to be honest, rightly so. The so called ‘independent’ SOV epics have become more uninteresting with the years and the majority of them quite unwatchable too, forcing ‘fans’ to more innovative ‘thinking man’s’ horror.

One thing that played a big role in helping me make this decision was the recent pogrom of Amazon Prime against those backyard horrors, when an infinite number of them was taken down from the website with no explanation given. Although this was unethical business-wise, especially considering that the people that made them were given no opportunity to make an appeal (the decision was final), one has to wonder what streaming service would want such material littering their catalog when they can offer so much quality material instead – and at the same price. For example, Netflix (currently the king of streaming services) rarely offers no-budget horrors and usually acquires hits. I am all about independent film – especially when it comes to my favorite filmic decades, i.e. the 1960s and 1970s – but there is a difference between independent film and amateur film, and the SOV horrors need to take their game to the next level if they desire to be taken seriously again.

Reviews

Relic

Relic (2020) poster

Director Natalie Erika James’ (who also co-penned the screenplay with Christian White) debut feature is about old lady Edna (Robyn Nevin, who works mostly in television), who disappears for a few days. Her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote), as well as the local police search for her. When the ‘gran’ (as they call her for short) finally comes back home she appears to slowly descent into dementia.

Treating the signs of early dementia and their inevitable progress to becoming lost, this film is treating the disease with the outmost respect as well as its main subject which is an aged human being that needs help. The hardest challenge in such situations is the decision that has to be made on whether the subject is better off in a home or your home; and fear not the main characters here face that as well. However, this is not their only problem, as it quickly becomes apparent that the female-centric family is cursed with personality elements that make for a dysfunctional living as well as many secrets, some of which are never revealed and even more should have been stayed buried.

When Edna becomes as needy as a kid, seemingly all she needs is a dance with her granddaughter. This is a very beautiful (and oftentimes cute) film, but it is also a haunting one. The plot structure is typical of the recent ghost story blockbusters, and it is the main reason that the film received favorable mentions from critics and audiences alike. It was nominated for the ‘Best Motion Picture’ Award at the 2020 Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival. Although it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, it went on to gross a mere $1.3 million, making it a case study of a neglected movie that needs to be discovered on V.O.D. Slow burn and atmospheric, the end result is genuinely creepy.

Considering that this is a film about three women of different generations grounded mostly in one old dark house and directed by a woman, it was easy to become an art house study of the mannerisms that such a situation would generate, and that is indeed the case mostly in the first and second acts, but in the third act and climax, RELIC becomes an all-out horror epic that will scare your pants off.

The Wretched

The Wretched (2020) poster

Ben (John-Paul Howard) temporarily moves with his father (television actor Jamison Jones) who goes through a messy divorce. If that’s not enough for their fragile ‘father and son’ relationship, the two of them also have to deal with an old witch (living next door, no less), which we first saw making an appearance in the 1980s.

Written and directed by the Pierce brothers this is modern edgy horror at its best and as such it should be cherished. Sure, you’ve seen it all before somewhere (the familiar grotesque imagery that makes horror hounds like us feel at home) but it’s all so well-done here that you won’t mind its lack of originality or some annoying teenage characters that do stupid things such as binge-drinking. As a matter of fact, it’s not what you film – yes, we all have seen a monster dragging someone under the bed – but how you film it, and in that department the film under review works in spades.

Premiering at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival, this is not exactly neglected in terms of box-office placement, as it topped it for six consequent weeks (something that hadn’t been achieved since a small film called Avatar [2009]), but this should be seen in context as it happened due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic and those were very few drive-in theaters, therefore it deserves a place here as it’s now available on V.O.D. and waiting for you to catch it.

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