35) Quella Villa Accanto al Cimitero - "House by the Cemetery" (1981)

No one will ever know if children are monsters, or monsters are children.

Director
Lucio Fulci

Cast
Bob Boyle - Giovanni Frezza
Dr. Norman Boyle - Paolo Malco
Lucy Boyle - Katherine MacColl
Dr. Freudstein - Giovanni De Nava
Mae - Silvia Collatina

Thanks to the streaming service Shudder bringing me a vast library of horror/thriller titles, I've been introduced to Italian Director Lucio Fulci and his "Gates of Hell" trilogy.
I've been looking into his movie House by the Cemetery a little more after watching it, I didn't realize it's the third movie in a three-movie series. This includes City of the Living Dead and The Beyond - both I believe are available on Shudder, and will be watched (by me, of course) in the near future.
The title caught my eye. "House by the Cemetery!" Was that the best title writers could come up with? It seems like a very generic title for a horror movie. It would be just as "frightening" to title it The Dark and Stormy Night or just The Horror Movie. Of course, I'm just nitpicking. Seriously, the title is no reflection on the movie's performance.
About 10 minutes into this movie, I caught faint whiffs of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining which was released the previous year.
I don't know for sure, but I'd bet my entire movie collection, and a few action figures, that there was some loose inspiration pulled from Kubrick's movie.
In The House by the Cemetery, there's a little boy who has some sort of remote viewing, or ESP, mind power and who's visited by a little girl from time to time. There's also a father who's preoccupied with his research work. And this all takes place in a big fancy place where people were previously murdered (not nearly as big as the Overlook Hotel, but still fancy and dark). There's also a worrisome mother who tends to fret and scream a lot. If you've seen The Shining, this should sound familiar.

The movie starts off right away with horror. There's a young girl roaming an abandoned house looking for her boyfriend. But much to her disappointment, she finds his dead body stabbed with a pair of scissors. Things go from bad to worse for her as she's then stabbed in the head with a knife. Someone or something unseen then drags her body into the basement.

Meanwhile, in New York City, a little blond haired, blue eyed boy named Bob Boyle (Giovanni Frezza) and his parents, Norman (Paolo Malco) and Lucy (Catriona MacColl) are planning on moving into the same house called Oak Mansion.
The previous owner, Dr. Peterson, was also Norman's ex-colleague. Peterson murdered the girl he was having an affair with, and then committed suicide in that house.
Norman is conducting research on old houses which is why he wants to move in.
As the family is getting ready to move, Lucy shows Bob a picture of the house. The boy notices a young girl staring out of the window in the picture. She disappears when he points her out to his mom.
As they travel to the town of New Whitby, Boston, where Oak Mansion is located, Bob's parents leave him in the car as they make a stop to collect the keys to the mansion. While he's waiting, he sees the same little girl from the picture, Mae (Silvia Collatina), standing across the street. She communicates to him with the shining...oops, I mean, telepathically warning him not go into Oak Mansion.
But the family moves into the old place, which is in dire need to work and renovations.
One obvious oddity about the house is that the basement door is nailed shut. If that's not a red flag, then what is?
As the family is getting used to their new digs, a girl named Ann (Ania Pieroni) shows up claiming she's the babysitter that the real estate agent they picked up the house keys from had promised to find for their son. They welcome her in, though she acts hesitant.
I get the impression there's some sort of attraction or...something...between her and Norman.
As everyone settles in, Lucy finds a grave marker with the name Jacob Tess Freudstein in the floor covered under a rug, right in the middle of the house. That's stranger than the basement door being nailed shut.
Norman plays it off as normal claiming old houses often have indoor graves because harsh long winters causing the ground to freeze made it difficult to bury the dead back in the day.
Mae continues to visit Bob, and shows him the grave site of a Mary Freudstein in the cemetery near the house. She tells him that Mary isn't really buried there.

When Norman successfully opens the basement door and goes down to see what's hidden below the house, he's attacked by a bat. The bat bites his hand and won't let go. He ends up stabbing it into a bloody mess- literally.
It's a scene that's both horrific and laughable. Watching a grown man repeatedly fight and stab a bat latched to his hand is hilarious. Bravo performance for Norman and the fake bat!
After this epic battle, his attention goes from researching old homes to researching Freudstein.
Norman discovers that Freudstein killed his family - his wife and young daughter - over 100 years ago in that home. But that's not his most horrific aspect of Freudstein.
Things really begin to escalate as whatever or whomever is in the basement begins to emerge.
The gore level and freakiness of this picture is pretty high.
One scene has the unseen being living in the house cut Ann's throat not once  but several times until it's severed.
The climax at the end of the movie begins with Bob getting locked in the basement. He starts noticing eyes staring at him from the dark recesses. The image of those eyes still manages to hold up as an unsettling scene.
The end manages to maintain just enough intensity and nightmarish trauma that kept me glued to the screen. The effects are dated, but that's not the movie's fault.

Despite the bad voice dubbing, and the similarities with The Shining, this movie still satisfied my horror fandom. It tries to tell a compelling story, but more originality and less borrowed material would have made it better. It's not the greatest horror movie, but it still has a sinister atmosphere and enough gore to make it a slasher classic

34) Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)

A psychotic killer prowls the night. Will he be stopped before he strikes again?

Director
Boris Karloff (as Brooke L. Peters)

Cast
Ronnie Burns - Mickey
Pamela Lincoln - Pat
Darrell Howe - Chet
Michael Grainger - Lt. Mac

During my visit to Crypticon - the Horror Convention in St. Joseph, Missouri, near Kansas City -  this past summer, I found one of those horror collections with 50 B-horror movies in one box.
This collection is called "Night Screams"... because "day screams" just isn't scary, I guess.
If you're going to go to a horror movie convention, you're going to look for horror movies. And for a sticker price of $12, I grabbed it.
I'll watch all 50 movies for sure, starting with this one - Anatomy of a Psycho. And I'll take any readers out there with me as I get through all 50.
What makes Anatomy of a Psycho stand out is its director, Boris Karloff - Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film, Frankenstein. 
However, he's credited as Brooke L. Peters. And notable B-movie director, Ed Wood, was evidently a contributor to the screenplay. With music borrowed from Wood's movie Plan 9 From Outer Space for this movie, that's definitely believable.
The premise centers around Chet (Darrell Howe), a teenager whose brother is sentenced to death.
Chet can't handle seeing his brother placed on death row. It drives his mind into severe states of psychosis.
No one, not even his loved ones, seems to be able to help him. Chet looses his mind and his grasp on reality. He swears revenge on all involved in the prosecution of his brother. This revenge starts with Chet assaulting the son of the prosecuting attorney involved in the trail.

But one police lieutenant named Mac suspects Chet of this assault.
Chet, meanwhile, has completely lost touch with reality.

Lt. Mac (Michael Grainger) and Pat (Pamela Lincoln) try to help

Chet (Darrell Howe) as insanity slowly takes hold of his mind.

This movie is really more of a crime thriller than a horror movie.
And even as a crime thriller, it's very underwhelming.
None of the acting comes across as convincing, or even half good.
At times, I felt a little confused around the story.
Chet didn't strike me as a character loosing touch with reality. Rather, he seemed like a man grieving pretty hard over the fate of his brother, and wanting retaliation.
At least the movie didn't resort to some special effect or transition scene showing Chet go from angry to loosing his sense of reality. You know, like a swirling spiral superimposed on a close up of Chet's face. Rather, the movie attempts to act it out. Kudos for the effort!
This movie bored me more than it entertained. I was interested, though, in what Chet was going to do in the end, when circumstances caught up to him. It tried. The movie really did try to tell a compelling story. I'm sure I'll watch it again to give it another chance.
The camera angles were so nostalgic, especially at the end when tension and intrigued runs its highest. The drastic high and low angles are very much techniques common in these period films.
All in all, this is very much a B-movie among B-movies. Take it for what it's worth. So, one down, 49 to go!

Coming Up Next...

A 1981 Italian horror movie that I swear took some inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. 

33) Desperation (2006) - Obscure Stephen King Flick #10

Cans't thou say who made thee...Tak!

Director
Mick Garris

Cast
Ron Perlman - Sheriff Collie Entragian
Steven Weber - Steve Ames
Tom Skerritt - Johnny Marinville
Matt Frewer - Ralph Carver
Charles Durning - Tom Billingsley
Henry Thomas - Peter Jackson

The last movie I wanted to review in my search for obscure Stephen King movies is this 2006 TV movie starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Tom Skerritt (The Dead Zone), Henry Thomas (E.T.) and Steve Weber (Dracula, Dead and Loving It). 

There are definitely other obscure, or less popular, King titles out there - Willa, Night Flier, Graveyard Shift (with Brad Dourif - the man who single-handedly made The Exorcist III the only good sequel in that franchise), and Sometimes They Come Back. There's a bunch more.
Desperation seemed to be the best fit for this blog of obscure, or b-horror films, especially when considering its cast.
I didn't know this story was a movie until a few years ago. I happened to stumble upon it while flipping through used DVDs at a Vintage Stock.
Its teleplay was written by Stephen King. It was directed by Mick Garris who also directed other made-for-TV King movies such as Riding the Bullet, Quicksilver Highway, (both of which I reviewed earlier), The Shining, The Stand, and Bag of Bones.
He also directed Sleepwalkers which was written by King but not based on any of his published works at the time. So, he's no stranger to King stories. Those adaptations are hit or miss. I'd say The Stand (1994) is his best King movie - the closest one to a grand slam. Anything else that might be a hit doesn't come close.
Desperation gained poor ratings when it first aired on ABC thanks to more TV audiences tuning in to American Idol on Fox. But it's not like Desperation was the major television movie event of the year.
The movie starts off well with Peter Jackson (Henry Thomas) and his wife, Mary (Annabeth Gish), driving through the Nevada desert.
Their solitude on the lonely highway is interrupted as a police car soon lands on their tail.
The officer pulls along next to them to get a good look, and then pulls back behind them. Confused, Peter takes it slow until the police lights come on.
Sheriff of Desperation, Collie Entragian (Ron Perlman), a towering behemoth of a patrol officer with rimmed hat, black sunglasses, and leather legs, approaches their vehicle.
He's calm, collected, and intimidating as goes through the usual cop stuff. He finally asks the couple to open their trunk. When they do, he finds a huge bag of marijuana.
Entragian flies off the handle and begins shouting at them with insults and demands. Of course, he arrests them and hauls them back to town.

Ron Perlman as Sheriff Collie Entragian, Desperation.

While they're in his cruiser, it's clear there's something not right about this cop.
He tends to blank out,
and also ends his statements with "tak." His mood and mannerisms change on a dime.As he's telling them their Miranda rights, he nonchalantly throws in, "I'm gonna kill you."
When they get back to the station, they find a dead little girl inside the entrance.
Entragian then shoots Peter several times point blank in the chest, leaving him to die as he takes Mary to the holding cells.
Others have already been taken and locked in different cells by Entragian - the parents of the dead girl down stairs along with her older brother David (Shane Haboucha). David "talks to God" as he previously swore to maintain a close relationship to the Almighty after praying his friend would be o.k. after he was hit by a car while riding his bike. We see this in a expository flashback. There's also Tom Billingsly (Charles Durning) who's an old veterinarian from town.
Meanwhile, Steve Ames (Steven Weber) is driving a truck down the same stretch of desert road. He's assisting famous writer, Johnny Marinville (Tom Skerritt), who's several miles ahead of him on his motorcycle. Steve picks up a young female hitchhiker named Cynthia (Kelly Overton).
The scene cuts to Johnny as he pulls his bike over to urinate. He doesn't notice Entragian has pulled up, too, catching him in the act.
He soon recognizes Marinville and asks for an autograph. He later checks his motorcycle bag and finds a bag of marijuana - the same bag he found in Mary and Peter's car. It's obvious now where the stash came from.
Entragian beats up Marinville, hides his bike in the desert several feet from the road, and takes him to the holding cells. While he's hiding the bike, Marinville is able to contact Steve on his cell phone despite bad connections, to tell him what went down.
When they get to the police station, Entragian takes David's mom with him to a huge mine in town called "The China Pit."
The sheriff happens to be possessed by a spirit named Tak, and he needs a new body to take over as Entragian's body is deteriorating.
Back in the police department, the ghost of David's deceased sister, Pie (Sammi Hanratty), appears to him and shows him a bar of soap in his cell. David lathers himself up so he can slip through the bars.
He sets everyone free, and they attempt to find a place to hide.
At this time, Steve and Cynthia find an abandoned RV in the desert, along with Marinville's bike. They suspect something foul, so they drive into Desperation. The place has become a ghost town of dead residents, and buzzards feeding on remains.
The pair decide to explore an abandoned building where they find some historic artifact that momentarily possesses them and ignites their passions, but they overcome this trance fairly quickly. The role of this artifact and others like it is never really explained.
They run into the group from the jail, and together hide in a theater and try to find a way out of town without running into the sheriff.

Kelly Overton, Annabeth Gish, Steven Weber, and Matt Frewer in
Desperation (2006).

David see's the ghost of Pie again who leads him to a projection room where he sees old footage from the early days when Chinese men were taken to the mine and forced to work.
It's related through the footage, the film perspectives of which are not well thought out, that the miners accidentally released the demon monster, Tak, who had been dwelling deep underground.
Now the group realizes they have to fight Tak and put him back where he belongs.

Ron Perlman is laudably daunting as Sheriff Entragian. His presence
makes me want to keep watching. I found it funny every time he'd finish a sentence with "Tak." I don't think I was supposed to laugh at that. Nevertheless, he pretty much makes the movie. But once Entragian is no longer in the film, it completely falls apart, leaving me bored.
The dialogue scene in the theater is just not interesting and drags on for too long.
As the movie starts off strong and promising, it quickly rolls downhill with some dragged out scenes- particularly the scenes inside the theater. There, the group waits for...something to happen while the find a bag of sardines to survive on (for just a few hours) while they prepare for their next move.
The actors just don't seem very invested in their roles. They lack the right emotions at the proper time, except for Sylvia Kelegian as Mrs. Carver who yells at her son harshly for praying to God. Otherwise, Perlman seems like the only actor bring on the scares.
By the end of the movie, I already lost interest in what was happening, or in the characters themselves.
This is a story that would probably do better on the big screen without the limitations of what is allowable for the small screen.
I think TV audiences in 2006 got more out of watching American Idol. This is a weak movie.

Coming Up Next...
Boris Karloff is famous for his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the classic Universal monster movie, Frankenstein.
But he also did some directing as well. And my next movie from 1961 is one of his, starring Ronnie Burns (the adopted son of the late comedian legends, George Burns and Gracie Allen.)

Not Reviews Necessarily: Gateways Into Horror - MORE Personal Favorites in the Genre

The Grudge (2004) - I know the American version of The Grudge has had a lot of poor reviews, I find its use of terror seen in the eyes of various characters as a tool to arouse fear in the audience very clever.
Simply seeing emotions on someone's face can cause that same emotion in another person.
This movie pulls that off rather well with long shots on character's faces when something dark and terrifying is about to show itself. It's all in the eyes.
Despite poor reviews, I enjoyed this movie.

The Invisible Man (1933) - There's so much written about this monster movie. As the Invisible Man is considered a Universal Monster, like Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and Gillman (aka The Creature from the Black Lagoon) I've often wondered why he's considered a monster based on the mere fact that he's invisible. The answer lies in his intentions.
For this era of movie making, the special effects are well done. This movie is dark and grim, sometimes humorous. Claude Rains as Dr. Jack Griffin (the chemist who discovers invisibility) is superb.
His monstrous nature arises from his desire to conquer the world, and do so by any means possible, leading to widespread of terror.

The Exorcist 3 (1990) - A lot has been said about The Exorcist (1973). When it comes to the sequels and its one prequel, the third is the only installment in the franchise that's compelling and scary, thanks primarily to Brad Dourif. He's the man who single-handedly made the third Exorcist movie the only good sequel.
Though the movie does drag a bit, the performances are great. Brad Dourif's performance especially really makes the movie. He puts everything he's got into it. And George C. Scott is great to see in this film. Scott is an actor I sorely miss altogether.
The intense exorcism at the end is perfect, and visually memorable.

Trick 'r Treak (2007) - I haven't found any horror movie yet that really utilizes the lore and traditions of Halloween as we know them today into a story.
The John Carpenter Halloween movies take place around the holiday, but Halloween isn't necessarily an integral part of the film's storyline.
Trick 'r Treat is an anthology movie, with separate tales that are all woven together.
The visuals work well, leaving me with an uneasy feeling. And the use of Halloween to tell each story is great. Just as I watch movies like A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life during the holidays each year, I watch Trick 'r Treat every October 31.

The Stand (1994) - After the TV movie Salem's Lot (1979), I think Stephen King's TV miniseries, The Stand, is second best as it's compelling and entertaining.
Sure, the effects are a bit dated, but that...you know...what are you going to do? It is what it is.
It's long if you watch from beginning to end in one sitting. But it kept me interested right from the start. The characters are memorable. The storyline develops fairly well. And though this aired over several episodes, it doesn't really drag on.

The Witches (1990) - While this movie is a children's movie, it centers on witches so it fits well here. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, it delivers scary visual affects (thanks to magic of Jim Henson) wonderful make-up, great casting, fantastic story telling, and is the best Dahl story adaptation after Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).
Angelica Houston plays the "Grand High Witch" - a role that couldn't have gone to anyone else. She went on to play Morticia Addams the following year in the movie The Addams Family. I wonder if she drew some creepy inspiration from her part in Witches. This movie is original, entertaining and chilling right from the beginning with no dull moments in between.

The Blob (1988) - Seldom are movie remakes both good and memorable. The remake of the 1958 SciFi/Horror movie The Blob is both.
While the original is good despite its B-movie feeling, and stars the legendary Steve McQueen, the remake delivers more in horror and terror.
I loved this movie, turning what could pass as a B-sci fi movie into an entertaining scarefest. It's a fun horror movie. Oh, and great horror effects!
Movie critic Leonard Maltin called it a needless remake. I call it a worthy one!






For more recommendations, click here: Personal Favorites in the Genre no.1