What Keeps You Here?
Hate.
Hate for those who did this to me.
Hate for those who allowed this to happen.
Hate for those who will allow this to happen to others.
Hatred that there’s so few of us willing to draw a line and say, “No further.”
Hatred at the fact the bastards might win in the end.
Hating myself for turning love into hate.
When the last of them burn and dawn breaks, then maybe, maybe, I can love myself for one final, brief moment.
While I try to watch a movie each night, real life does gets in the way. I tend to get caught up on weekends, and the goal is to get through 31 by the end of Halloween, so do not worry if a day or three passes without a new movie review. With that said, let’s look at last night’s film.
Blood Red Sky has an interesting and potentially fun premise: a woman suffering from a baffling blood disorder is on a transatlantic flight to America with her young son when their plane is hijacked. But the hijackers picked the wrong flight to commandeer. It’s with little surprise that we discover the woman is actually a vampire trying to hold onto her humanity for her son’s sake. But you can only push a vampire so far…
Blood Red Sky is a German production with an international cast. I’m unfamiliar with the work of Peri Baumeister who plays Nina, our vampire protagonist, but she does a wonderful job slowly becoming more and more animalistic as all her good intentions about holding on to her human nature start to slip once her son’s in danger. Alexander Scheer portrays our main antagonist, channeling Crispin Glover’s maniacal energy and sharing a not-dissimilar appearance. Dominic Purcell of Prison Break and Legends of Tomorrow fame has a supporting role as one of the hijackers, but feels underused. And speaking of underused, Graham McTavish has a glorified walk-on role that left me wanting more.
The film is more action than horror for most of its run time, but once Nina’s infection begins to spread throughout the passengers on the flight, we start veering into the airline sequence from World War Z, and the balance shifts towards gore and the horrific. By the end of the movie, one feels like this could be the prequel to The Strain.
The film’s biggest flaw is its 2-hour running time. Had it been shaved down to a tense 90 minutes, I feel it would have been a more effective story. Pacing was certainly an issue, but if you’re looking for an action/horror mix with some good physicality in its lead and a plot you could steal for a Night’s Black Agents campaign, you could do a lot worse.
Rating: With no major flaws, but also limited bits of true creativity, Blood Red Sky earns a middle-of-the-road 3 skulls out of 5.
A Dream Worth Dying For
The police sirens’ screams echoed off the high rises. The red and blue lights competed with the flames of burning impromptu barricades to light the street. A wall of black-uniformed figures with riot shields and clubs walked slowly lockstep towards the mass of angry faces just beyond the burning barricades.
A bottle, then another sailed out of the dark, only to be deflected by riot shields. A whistle sounded, followed by the cough of a tear gas launcher. A smoking canister flew into the crowd, scattering them briefly, until a young woman, her face covered by a soaked scarf, hurled the canister back.
A shout came from the black-unformed wall and it stopped. Riot clubs were replaced by shotguns. The sound of rounds ratcheted into their chambers.
A flaming bottle filled with amber liquid flew from the crowd, pinwheeling through the air, before smashing onto the street before the police wall. A pool of fire and black smoke was born among the chaos.
Guns leapt to shoulders, followed by staccato sounds of gun shots as the police fired at will.
Screams from the crowd as they scattered, hurling invectives in their wake. As they dispersed, bodies lay on the street, bloody wounds visible through buckshot-torn clothing.
This riot was over.
In the years to come, a legend spread. A tale of police officers found dead in their patrol cars, in their homes, even in the precinct parking lot. Each bore horrific wounds like those inflicted by a shotgun at close range. The coroner’s reports for each murder were confiscated by police officials, buried in a dusty records room all but a few had forgotten about.
Nobody wanted to explain the absence of buckshot in the fatal wounds. One medical examiner assistant would later tell their spouse, “Even if the killer had hours to remove each pellet, some evidence of them being there would remain. It’s almost like the victims inflicted these injuries psychosomatically, their minds causing the wounds. But that’s against all known science.”
Not all martyrs let a little thing like death stand in the way of fighting for their dreams.
Reality is Negotiable
The footage was clear despite the night. A row of streetlamps down the middle of the parking lot threw the concrete plaza into daylight-bright illumination, darkening the shadows beyond it. Even with the back lighting, the figure was clearly visible. And, more importantly as far as Prince Theodosia was concerned, so was its actions.
The digital recording showed a pale form streak across the edge of the parking lot, far faster than any human could run. Its face was a horror show of running sores, mangy patches of hair, and keloid scars. At the end of the lot, it leaped over a parked panel van, clearing it with ease, before vanishing into the shadows.
Prince Theodosia watched as the woman sitting in front of the workstation’s three large monitors rocked the footage backwards and forwards, taking in all the details. She occasionally paused to tap a few keys or move her cursor from one screen to another as she worked one of the apps distributed across them.
“What can you do?” the Prince asked, her eyes not straying from the footage.
“It’s a simple fix. I can run it through so many filters and edits to make the whole thing look like ‘AI slop’ by midnight. By the time I’m done, this will look like something someone cooked up with freeware and too much time on their hands. I’ll post the doctored footage through the normal sock puppet accounts on all the usual socials, and it’ll have 2,000 comments claiming, ‘I could do better f/x on my phone!’ in an hour. It might not fool everyone, but once enough people buy my version as the real one, anyone claiming the original is real will be a laughingstock.”
The Prince nodded. “Excellent. If there’s one thing we can count on the kine for, it’s their predictable tendency to choose their own reality, no matter what the truth is.”
“Archimedes needed a lever. I can move the world with Photoshop,” the woman smiled, tapping a few more keys. “I’ll let you and Kincaid know when it’s live. He should be able to clean up the rest of this Masquerade breach with his usual heavy handed methods.”
The woman paused, still looking at the screens. “I assume the person who recorded this has been silenced?”
“Their new reality is not one they would have chosen. And, barring the Second Coming, permanent”
Prince Theodosia walked out of the room, leaving the woman—one of her more useful ghoul—to finish the job.
“A Song of Rage” by Man-Eating Witches
[Gutter Vinyl Records ©2002]
[Verse 1]
Born under a bad moon
Came out with teeth and tail
Angry until the tomb
Too pissed to ever fail
[Chorus]
I’m living rage
Relic from a savage age
Can’t be calm
I can only rage
[Verse 2]
My hands tear up the streets
Chewing up the city’s bones
Blood rain pours down in sheets
Night is filled with screams and moans
[Bridge]
You say I’m too emotional
And I need to play it cool
Sounds to me like cowardice
Advice spoken by fools
Your “future” is bullshit
And I’m not going to swallow it
I’m going to burn this fucker down
So you better fuckin’ deal with it
[Chorus]
I’m living rage
Relic from a savage age
Can’t be calm
I can only rage
[Guitar]
[Verse 3]
Light my fuse, I’ll explode
Shrapnel kisses to the crowd
I only know beast mode
And mercy’s not allowed
[Chorus]
I’m living rage
Relic from a savage age
Can’t be calm
I can only rage
I can only Rage
I’m not student of filmmaking. I’ve worked in Hollywood and I’ve seen a lot of movies, many of them bad, but I’ve never taken a course or read a book about the technical aspects of making motion pictures. So when the opening title card on a movie makes me immediately think, “Oh, this is going to be a stinker,” you know it’s bad.
The Tomb (aka La Tomba, if you want to use the original Italian title. Yes folks, this is an Italian cheapie) takes The Mummy and From Dusk Till Dawn and mashes them up with a $1.95 budget. The film concerns a group of American (mostly) archeology students and their professor who head south of the border to embark on a field trip cataloging Mayan sites. When their tour guide goes missing, they’re forced to rely on the local healer to guide them into the jungle. She leads them to a previously undiscovered temple where she secretly hopes to finish a ritual of immortality interrupted centuries ago.
Friends, as I say, I’m not student of move making, but even I know not to use footage from better movies in your stink bomb. Luckily for The Tomb, Italian IP laws being somewhat lax, the films gleefully steals footage from Army of Darkness, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Tomb, plus several more I couldn’t immediately identify but, judging from the competency of how they were shot, were pilfered from superior productions.
The script is no better. We have an honest-to-goodness “Help, I’ve fallen into quicksand!” moment, a “I’ve fallen and dropped my glasses, and I hope nobody steps on them as I flail around looking for them” scene that would make Velma from Scooby Do ashamed, and a trap where if you break the light a sharp implement impales you (minus Alfred Molina).
31 Days of Horror is always about quantity, not quality, but this one was BAD. I’m hoping I’ve hit the nadir early and everything else this month is Citizen Kane in comparison.
Rating: I’m torn. This one really deserves half-a-skull at best, but since I got my laundry done while I watched this one and didn’t entirely waste 97 minutes, I’ll give it a 1 skull out of 5.
After two films that weren’t quite traditional spooky movies, I decided to watch something I was certain would fall into that category. And who doesn’t love a good vengeful ghost story, right? That brings us to Day 3’s film, The Curse of La Llorona.
A CPS case worker in 1973 Los Angeles finds herself and her two children in grave peril when she inadvertently draws the attention of “La Llorona,” the Weeping Woman of Mexican folklore. Can she defeat the spirit before her children pay the final price?
The Curse of Lal Llorona started really strong, immediately showing the audience the events that led to the creation of La Llorona, before leaping forward to the 20th century. We meet our protagonist, Anna (Lind Cardellini), a dedicated Child and Protective Services case worker raising her two children alone after the death of her husband. Anna, trying to be compassionate, unfortunately sets events in motion that lead to the deaths of two of her case’s sons and puts her own family in the sights of La Lorona. Can she undo the curse before it’s too late?
The movie relies heavily on all the haunted house/ghost tropes and cliches you’d expect. Despite this, some still remain effective and a few good jump scares happen early on. Unfortunately, after about 30 minutes, the movie becomes a cookie cutter ghost film, indistinguishable from any other made in the last 20 years.
Of course, with La Llorona as our villain, a spirit who drowns children, there’s no shortage of water throughout the film, be it bathtubs, the Los Angeles River, swimming pools, even puddles. I couldn’t help but think of Lisa Simpson’s critique of the TV show “Kightboat”: “There is always an inlet, canal or fjord!” I couldn’t help but ponder that maybe the way to break La Llorona’s curse is to move to the desert and just take showers from now on.
Given the movies now put their credits at the end of the film, I was halfway through this one before I discovered it was part of the larger “Wan-O-Verse,” movies directed or produced by James Wan, including The Conjuring films, Annabelle, and The Nun, that share a connected setting. Had I known that, I might have gone in with my expectations a little lower.
Rating: Despite a strong beginning, the movie quickly peters out. Not terrible, but not good enough to earn The Curse of La Llorona 2 skulls out of 5.
The Monster You Love
His hands move with mechanical precision. Each stroke of the blade along the whetstone makes a scraping sound that electrifies his nerves. Scrrch, scrrch, scrrch, the sound sings to him, a duet of steel and stone.
Good boy.
Outside, the last tinges of red on the horizon, barely visible between the glass towers of the downtown, fade to a purple stain heralding the night. It’s almost time.
Time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
He tests his thumb against the knife’s edge, feeling no pain as it slices into his flesh. A thin line of blood follows in the blade’s wake. His mouth moves into a shape that isn’t a smile. He looks like an animal trying to mimic its master’s grin but failing.
Hide the blade and don the garment.
He rises from the easy chair, slides the knife into its sheath at the small of his back, and walks across the near-empty room. A frame of 2x4s stands at the far end, its base affixed to the floor with bent, brutely hammered nails. He reaches out, pulling the leather shawl from the frame’s hooks. Patches of hair—blonde, brunette, silver-gray—decorate the garment, each carefully stitched to the tanned skin. He drapes the shawl over his shoulders, covering his upper body completely.
Look upon your majesty.
He takes three steps to the old mirror hanging askew on the back of the apartment’s front door. He gazes into its fly-spotted glass and sees a predator, a killer, a hunter dressed in the hides of his kills so that his prey will think he’s one of them. He touches the knife’s handle at his back, caressing it like a lover.
Go now and teach them. Show them that for all their accomplishments, they’re still prey.
He opens the door and vanishes into the dark corridor outside. The door closes slowly behind him, leaving the apartment empty. Empty but not silent. A whisper, like a breath from the grave, slithered through the air.
My beautiful, beautiful monster.
I go into every movie during 31 Days of Horror with as little foreknowledge of the film as I can manage. This keeps the surprises coming, but sometimes leads to me choosing a movie that doesn’t 100% meet the criteria of a horror flick. Tonight’s film is an example of one. It’s got plenty of violence, some gore, a decent amount of humor, but is short on scares. It’s not a standard horror film, but it sure is fun.
Day 2’s movie was Mayhem, a 2017 film starring Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead fame and Samara Weaving. When a viral outbreak that destroys the infected’s moral inhibitions runs amok in a corporate office building, an unlikely due fights their way to the CEO’s office to address wrong-doings. Mayhem, predictably, ensues.
I was expecting a 31 Days Later type scenario, but the film put a great twist on that premise. The virus is known by the public at large and even led to a precedent-setting court case when a man wasn’t charged for a brutal murder he committed while infected by the contagion. This legal loophole means that if our two heroes (who do engage in some unheroic violence throughout the film) get to the building’s corporate suite on the 8th floor, they have free rein to perpetrate some bloody mayhem on those who did them wrong. With the quarantine set to be lifted after 8 hours—the duration of the infection—the need to enact their vengeance before they lose their proverbial “Get out of Jail Free” card.
Mayhem isn’t going to appeal to your die-hard zombie outbreak fans, but it is incredibly cathartic for anyone who has ever worked in a corporate environment. I could have used this virus back in 2000 when I was working an office in Manhattan.
The film includes some great dialogue (“You think I like the taste of kale? Come on! I’m fucking dead inside.”) and a tremendous amount of violence via office supplies. And from a filmmaking standpoint, a nice bit of cinematic shorthand quickly sums up Derek Cho’s rise up the corporate ladder from his first day until the day of the events of the film.
Rating: While not 100% horror, Mayhem was still fun enough to earn 3 skulls out of 5. Add another half-skull if you’re stuck in corporate hell.
A Feast for the Damned
The handcuffs scraped my wrists as I tried to pull free from the iron railing bolted to the edge of the banquet table. The chain links rattled and the cuff slid from side to side along the railing until it was stopped by the bolts drilled into the table’s thick mahogany. I was trapped, only able to move my arms far enough to reach the plate of grotesqueness set before me. Around the table with me sat five other people, each handcuffed like myself. The looks of nausea and misery that marred their faces was reflected in my own.
“Now, now. No getting up from the table without permission,” a rich bass voice chided me from the head of the table. I tried to glare at my captor, but my eyes held more helplessness than malice.
My dinner host laughed, a childlike giggle that sounded inhuman in his deep voice. His ice-blue eyes met mine, staring me down. His glare extinguished the feeble sparks of rebellion I’d kindled in my heart. His eyes were like the talons of a beast that grabbed my soul and twisted. I shrank in my chair, looking away from his pale face, only for my eyes to fall upon the meal laid out before me.
It was a man’s forearm, broiled in an oven and covered with a thick, red sauce. My dinner companions had similar fare placed before them: a woman foot, a child’s leg, a mismatched pair of hands. The odor of dinner was…enticing, God help me. Six days of nothing but rust-tainted water served through the bars of a makeshift cellar prison had sharpened my appetite to a razor-like edge. Despite what my eyes beheld, my nose betrayed me. I felt the saliva pooling in my mouth.
“Thank you for accepting my dinner invitation. I hate to dine alone.” That obscene giggle followed. “We’re going to play a little game tonight. It’s called ‘Whoever Finishes First Gets to Live.’” Our captor, lean like a hungry wolf, steepled his skeleton-thin fingers in front of him as he reclined his the throne-like chair. A killer’s smile graced his face, his inhumanly long incisors revealed by his arching lips.
“Now when I say, ‘Go,’ you all start eating. And when the first person finishes, then it’s my turn to dine.”
This monster in the form of a man rested his hands on the arms of his chair and leaned forward.
“Ready. Set. Go.”
The fast rattle of handcuffs filled the dark dining room as we all reached for our meals.
