44) The Witches (1990)

My orders are that every child in England shall be rubbed out!

Director
Nicholas Roeg

Cast
Anjelica Huston - Eva Ernst/ The Grand High Witch
Jasen Fisher - Luke
Mai Zetterling - Helga
Rowan Atkinson - Mr. Stringer
Charlie Potter - Bruno Jenkins

I'm six movies away from 50 on my journey through 1,000 days of horror. I wanted to do something memorable (more or less) for my 50th review, and The Witches was going to be that movie. But I changed my mind.
Though the purpose of this blog is to review B-horror and obscure thriller movies, and the like, I'm bending the rule and reviewing this one for the sake of those who weren't around when the movie was released, or haven't seen it, or worse, didn't know it existed.
It's certainly not an obscure movie, and it's definitely not a B-movie.  But its popularity seems a bit pulled back.

So, think of this post as a sort of "in case you didn't know..." kind of write-up.

The most important aspect about The Witches (for anyone who didn't know) is that it's based on a book by children's author, Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr. Fox.)

After that tidbit of crucial information, this movie has a lot, and I mean a lot, going for it. It has a great and talented cast, especially Anjelica Huston. Critic Roger Ebert said this movie is almost worth seeing just for her performance as the "Grand High Witch." And, I agree.
There's very memorable visuals thanks in large part to Jim Henson's workshop. By the way, many argue this was the last film Jim Henson worked on before his passing.
Also, it has an original story line. And for a children's movie, it really doesn't water down the scares. Those scares aren't just in the form of ugly looking witches. There's an underlying theme of abduction in this movie.
I was nine-years old when this movie was released. And the idea - the possibility - of being permanently taken away from my family, depicted in the film, terrified me. No doubt my nine-year old self isn't alone in that regard.
The movie begins with a grandmother named Helga telling her grandson, Luke, who are living in Norway, about witches and how to identify one.
She explains that not only are witches ugly, and have distinct physical traits that non-witches don't possess. For instance, real witches always wear gloves because their hands resemble claws. They also wear wigs as they're bald. And those wigs give them rashes, so they're always scratching their scalps.
Their square feet have no toes, so they wear ordinary shoes. No sandals or open-toed shoes Their eyes have a purple tinge to them. In the book, their saliva was a blue color, which they often used in place of ink.
Above all, they hate children with a passion. So much so, their primary goal is to wipe out children! Witches always hold their noses around kids because to them the smell of a child is similar to a dog's droppings.
Even more frightening is the story Helga tells Luke about a girl she knew in her childhood named Erica who suddenly went missing.
As the story is played out, Erica is taken by a witch. And being witch, as Helga says, means never getting caught. When Erica finally turns up, it's in a very peculiar and unimaginable place that she cannot be rescued from.
Later that night, Luke's parents are killed in a car accident. Luke is now in his grandmother's care, and she decides to move out of Norway and into England.
It's at their new home that Luke has his first encounter with a witch. She tries to coax him down from his tree house, but Luke is no fool.

Jasen Fisher and Mai Zetterling

Later, on his birthday, Helga becomes sick from diabetes. The doctor advises them to take a seaside vacation, and to lay off sugar.
They check into a seaside hotel, operated by Mr. Stringer, played by the always funny Rowan Atkinson, who at the time had just finished his first episode of Mr. Bean.
But little do they know that the hotel is going to host a convention of all the witches England, including their leader, the Grand High Witch - Miss. Eva Ernst.
The witches disguise themselves as the "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" but their purpose is vastly far from their fake namesake.
Ernst has called the annual meeting of witches together to debut her brand new potion. Formula 86. This potion has the power to turn children into mice. And all the witches are instructed to quit their jobs, open up candy stores all around England, and eliminate all children once and for all.
Luke eavesdrops on their meeting, and witnesses the witches turn another boy named Bruno, whom he met earlier in the hotel dining room, into a mouse.
The witches catch Luke, and turn him into a mouse as well.
Now, Luke has to stop the witches before they all leave and execute their plan.
Huston's performance is so enjoyable to watch. Though, from what I've read about how difficult it was for her to perform in a full mask and heavy make-up and prosthetics underneath hot stage lights, it seems she's having a lot fun in her role as an evil witch.
In various interviews, she said it took five to six hours to apply her make-up, and another five to take it off.
Houston doesn't hold back on being scary. This is one of her best roles. And despite those harsh conditions, she puts her entire self into the character.
The make-up, visual and special effects are absolutely memorable. The hideous look of the Grand High Witch is well done. Her grotesque hag look contrasted with her seductive sleek black formal gown her character wears while wearing a mask to blend in with everyone else is just imaginative. The details in the mouse transformation is fantastic. Jim Henson's puppetry is unmatchable.
When it comes to children's movies, Witches is truly scary. In fact, there was a scene or two Director Nicholas Roag cut from the final film because he deemed them too scary based on reactions from his son.
When compared to the "scariness" of other children's films such as Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Watcher in the Woods, this one surpasses them.

Anjelica Huston

Though many know and love this movie, I'm surprised it's not on the same level of "classic" as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That could be due to the terrifying elements in the movie. But, then again, Wonka had that freaky tunnel scene that gave so many young people nightmares. 
Still, like Wonka, The Witches has the same charming qualities (great visuals, casting, and performances). However, The Witches isn't a musical like Wonka.
This movie is actor Jasen Fisher's second film. He only acted in three according to IMDB.com. Before starring in this film, he played Kevin in the 1989 movie Parenthood. After The Witches, he starred as Ace in the 1991 movie Hook, which was actually filmed before The Witches. 
The majority of his acting is through voice work since his character is a mouse, he still comes across a little too dry and scripted at times. Otherwise, he seems to also be having fun in the role, and the effort is truly there.
English actor, Bill Paterson, plays Bruno's father. He's perfect at adding a little comedy as he tries to be both dignified yet gluttonous, which is were is overweight son clearly gets his own love of food.
Like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl didn't like this adaptation either. He called the movie "utterly appalling" as the movie had a different, and happier, ending than his book. Sorry, Mr. Dahl. I completely disagree.
Also, comedian and Monty Python member Michael Palin has a cameo as one of the witches present at the meeting. Though he's wearing a dress and a wig, he's pretty easy to spot. Other men were used to dress as witches during the conference scene to bolster up the ugliness.
This movie deserves much more recognition because it's one of the best Roald Dahl movies out there. Since it's one of my personal favorite movies, I had to include it in this blog!

Personal Favorites in the Genre

43) Buried Alive (1939)

"There's no doubt Johnnys' been a victim of unfair tactics. But we must accept things as they are."

Director
Victor Halperin

Cast
Robert Wilcox - Johnny Martin
Beverly Roberts - Joan Wright
Wheeler Oakman - Manning
George Pembroke - Ernie Matthews
Peter Lynn - Gus Barth

Watching the early thriller Buried Alive puts me at four movies in out of the 50 included in the Night Screams collection.
As I've mentioned in previous reviews, this collection includes B-horror, thriller, and suspense films from a variety of decades.
Buried Alive falls into the suspense/ melodrama movie genre. And for a film from an early decade, it doesn't hold back in dealing with injustice perhaps too often found in the justice system.
For this story, the scary part is the officials with the remiss attitude surrounding an innocent person in jail and on death row.
A prison executioner, Ernie Mathews (George Pembroke), is overwhelmed by his job and asks a prison trustee named Johnny Martin (Robert Wilcox), whose on his way to the airport to drop off prison doctor Robert Lee (Steven Chase), to drive him over to a local bar.
While he's having a drink at the bar, Mathews is confronted by a jerk tabloid reporter named Manning (Wheeler Oakman) which ultimately leads to a fist fight.
Meanwhile, Joan Wright (Beverly Roberts), a prison nurse who was driving with Martin to see Lee off at the airport, asks him to swing by the bar to pick up Mathews.
When he arrives, Martin is pulled into the ensuing fight and ends up punching Manning pretty hard.
He manages to pull Mathews out of the bar and into the car. And in retaliation, Manning writes an unsavory article about Martin, blaming him for the fight though he himself is the one who actually started it. The article also makes the governor look pretty bad.
Martin ends up in jail, and the governor is now inclined to delay his parole.
After spending time in jail, Martin is in fact denied parole and sent back to jail.

His outburst of anger after the hearing certainly doesn't help his image with the parole board.
Meanwhile, Joan has been helping him deal with the list of injustices Martin has been buried under, and they both end up falling in love.
To add to Martin's dilemma, his cell mate ends up killing a prison guard and attempts to escape.
Martin chases him to discourage his attempt at fleeing, and is shot and captured under the belief he was also trying to escape.
Martin is brought up on murder charges thanks primarily to false testimony from an inmate who has nothing but contempt for Martin.
Now, Martin has to somehow find a way to prove  his innocence among unsympathetic officials.
The plot just seems a little too convoluted. I had trouble paying attention and trying to recall just what was going on, and what the significance behind a few characters was.
Nevertheless, I was intrigued enough to carry on, especially after Martin is falsely accused. The story tightens up at that point in the movie.
Despite the title, Buried Alive isn't a horror film. It's a metaphor for the main character being "buried alive" under a large amount of injustices.
The ending is a payoff worth waiting for.
This movie's pacing helps keep my interest, despite boring and often times disinterested acting.
But I have to hand it to early cinema choreography. The fist fight in the bar is brutal.
Actors really get into the scene. I imagine the director telling actors on set, "just start punching, and we'll see what we get." I've seen this same kind of style in other movies produced in the same era.
Director Victor Halperin had earlier directed Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi, in the famous horror movie, White Zombie (1932). So, he knows horror for sure.
Overall, this is a movie about determination and confidence in the truth while pursuing vindication. Martin is dangerously close to insanity with the heavy weight forcing him down. And being up against the justice system, escape seems impossible.
For early cinema, and film noir melodrama fans, this movie could easily satisfy.

Not a Review Necessarily: Is the Exorcist Still the Scariest Movie Ever?

Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973).

I believe it's a safe assumption that movie audiences, whether horror fans or not, know to some degree that director William Friedkin's 1973 movie The Exorcist was and still is an impactful movie. That's putting it in simple terms, but it's true.
The movie is about a young girl named Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) who's possessed by the devil. Her very non-religious mom (played by Ellen Burstyn) has no idea what is happening to her daughter. With all avenues of medical help exhausted, she finally turns to a Catholic priest for help.
The whole demonic possession motif is so common in the horror genre these days. By "demonic possession," I mean the idea that someone can somehow be taken over by evil spirits, and the remedy is the intervention of a priest or religious person to exorcise that malevolent spirit. I'm not referring to supernatural horror movies about haunted houses or possessed dolls, or the like.
Before 1973, there was no movie The Exorcist could really be compared to. It was a new kind of horror subject for the big screen - a subject as old as Christianity, and older. To see a Catholic exorcism reenacted was brand new and terrifying. But audiences get used anything the more they see it.
A lot of inspiration springs from this one movie.
After the release of The Exorcist, the theme was repeated in movies such as Abby (1974), Beyond the Door (1974), The Entity (1982), Burnt Offerings (1976), Prince of Darkness (1987) and of course the sequels to The Exorcist to name a few. 
The cultural impact of the movie is intense.
Though horror movies centered on exorcism and the demonic have lingered on through the 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s, the 2005 movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose brought the horror sub-genre back into a more prominent place not seen since audiences watched Linda Blair be taken over by the devil.
What these two movies have in common is what makes them stand out above the rest. They're both based on true events.
The Exorcist is based on the Catholic exorcism of a 13-year old boy back in the 1940s outside Washington D.C.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is based on the Catholic exorcism of a German woman named Anneliese Michel back in the mid-1970s.
Both movies also have a documentary style about them, especially Emily Rose which focuses around a court case.
Friedkin comes from a documentary background. His previous film, The French Connection, has a similar feel to it. That's why author William Peter Blatty, whose book this movie is based on, picked him to film the movie.
That style adds to the frightening nature of each movie. It's an emphasis on the idea of "what if it really is true."
There's a ton of movies centering around possession and exorcisms released in the last 10 years alone - The Last Exorcism (2010), The Rite (2011), The Possession (2012), The Last Exorcism II (2013), Deliver Us From Evil (2014), The Exorcism of Molly Hartley (2015), The Possession Experiment (2016), The Crucifixion (2017), The Possession of Hannah Grace (2018), The Prodigy (2019) and more possession-based movies slated to come out in 2020. There's at least one for every year of the last decade! Demons are all the rage now.
To be honest, I find these kinds of movies repetitive and dull. They rely mostly on jump scares and grotesquaries to frighten audiences - contorted bodies, eyeballs rolled back into the head, scars and lesions, and a lot of vomit! Occasionally there's a good movie, but they don't hold a candle to both The Exorcist  and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. 
I first saw Friedkin's movie back in the mid-1990s when I was a teenager. I grew up in a Catholic household as my late father was a devout Roman Catholic. He attended the old rite of mass said in Latin every Sunday. He was never without a rosary in his pocket. And he owned quite a library of books on various religious topics including demonic possession.
I've read a few of these books on actual exorcism cases - Hostage to the Devil by Fr. Malachi Martin S.J., Begone Satan by Carl Vogl- an account of demonic possession involving a girl back in the 1920s in Erling, Iowa which lasted nearly a month - and An Exorcist Tells His Story by the Vatican's Chief Exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, to name a few. I found all these books to be very compelling. And of course there's accounts of possession and exorcism recorded in Scripture. So, being raised Catholic meant a belief that these things can and have happened.

And with that belief about exorcism, I was initially scared to watch The Exorcist. But that was me.
For others, it boils down to personal religious beliefs. Are demons real? Is there an eternal Hell where the souls of unrepentant sinners go? And can demons possess the living?
There's a lot to be said about the intense reactions audiences had when The Exorcist first came out. Some people vomited and passed out in theaters. Others ran out crying. Some non-Catholics ran straight to Catholic confessionals. What other horror/thriller movie had such an impact before 1973?
But audiences are used to seeing the sub-genre portrayed over and over again. For the most part, audiences have become desensitized to exorcism movies.
It's that documentary style in The Exorcist  that still holds up and helps set the movie apart from other such films. What also stands out is the focus within the movie of how the events surrounding Regan are effecting the two priests performing the exorcism makes the movie work. One of the priests is in the middle of a battle against doubt regarding his faith. The other priest is suffering from a heart condition. And now they both have to take on the devil himself.
It's not just a scary movie. There's a lot more to the story. There is so, so much for audiences to take away from The Exorcist.
Exorcism has effected real people beyond those who are supposedly possessed by demons. This movie addresses that, and that depiction is a scary thing in itself.
As Friedkin said in an interview, "It's not a movie about Dracula. It's not a film about the alien. It's a film about a real street in a real town, and upstairs on the third floor of this house is a real little girl who happens to possessed by a demon."
Meanwhile, other exorcism movies lean towards being monster movies. Despite my general dislike, there have been some good ones. Hereditary (2018) definitely pops into mind as a memorable and truly scary possession movie. But even that movie is more of a monster movie than The Exorcist. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. Movies like that, and most other exorcism movies, are meant to scare the audience more than make them ponder the reality behind the phenomenon. The Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose have a much more educational undertone than most other sub-genre films.
But perceptions have certainly shifted over time. Compared to recent horror films not necessarily centered on exorcism but with scary visuals and such, maybe The Exorcist is a product of its day. However,  with the reality of the movie, along with knowledge that many religions (Catholicism particularly) deal with problems like this in real life, other possession horror movies just don't compare story-wise.
Maybe for non-religious individuals, the movie may lack in scariness. I've heard one non-religious person claim the scary aspect for them was how the mother in the film, Chris MacNeil, who isn't religious at all in the movie, and thinks her daughter is literally loosing her mind, finally has to appeal to a Catholic priest out of desperation because no medical expert could tell her what's wrong with her daughter. She places her trust in an institution (the Catholic Church) which she is completely unfamiliar with. Otherwise, for religious folks (Christians especially) it still holds true that it's the scariest movie ever. Demons and the possibility (though rare) of possession is a very real part of Abrahamic religions.

42) Demons 2 (1986)

 "The blood dripping from the ceiling...I touched it!"

Director
Lamberto Bava

Cast
David Knight - George
Nancy Brilli - Hannah
Coralina Cataldi Tassoni - Sally Day
Bobby Rhodes - Hank
Marco Vivio - Tommy

I've somehow consistently gone back to Italy for horror movies in the last few months without conscientiously doing so. That's certainly not a bad thing, of course. Italian horror film makers have come up with some classic movies.
If the horror movies from Italy I've watched lately have taught me anything, it's that Italian horror directors sure love blood, guts, and the gruesome.
Well, I've turned to this Italian horror movie simply because it's a sequel to the 1985 movie Demons (Demoni in Italian) which is my seventh review on this blog.
While Demons sees an infestation of possessed people among movie-goers trapped in a movie theater, part two has the infestation occur within an apartment complex. It's a classic premise that I personally enjoy. Such a scenario provides several points of view in a horrific situation, with more for the audience to pull from, and more opportunities for the movie makers to get creative.
Unlike the first movie, part two is set in reality where Sally Day (the actress who played Liz in part one) is one of the main characters in the sequel. But she's portrayed by a different actress - not the real Sally Day. I think if I tried to explain this further, it would lead to confusion.
The first movie is referenced in the beginning of this sequel. This time, the token horror movie I mentioned in my review of part one, with four teenagers searching for a grave that was playing at the theater, is now on TV. Most of the tenants in this apartment have it turned on.
Only this time, it's presented as a documentary rather than a movie. Then in turns into a movie. This aspect is completely misguided. But everyone watching it is glued to the screen.
The movie within the movie is changed somewhat in part two. This time, the teenagers sneak into a deserted city and stumble upon the rotted corpse of a dead zombie person pinned under some debris. The corpse is revived accidentally when blood from one of the teens drips onto it.
The demon chases the teens and attacks a few, and then draws its attention to Sally - one of the apartment tenants - who's watching all this unfold on TV.
Sally, who has been hosting her own birthday party, locks herself in her bedroom because her boyfriend didn't show up.
She has the TV on while her guests try to pursued her to come out and join in the fun.
We're treated to the demon's point of view from the other side of the screen. He tries to force his way through the glass. The special effects here are impressive.
Before she knows it, the demon is in the room her.
When she comes out, the audience is treated to quite a gorefest as Sally transforms into a demon with her teeth falling out, green bile splattering, and acid blood dripping and sizzling on the floor.
The blood seeps through the floor and into apartments below. In no time, other tenants are infected and transforming into demons. No one is spared if affected. Even one of the tenant's dogs turns.

Nancy Brilli and David Marotta

Also, a young boy named Tommy becomes into a raging demon with a worse fate befalling him afterwards.
Those infected join together to hunt down other apartment tenants.
A group of survivors are locked in the apartment's garage, where a fitness coach named Hank (played by Bobby Rhodes who returns from part one, but in a different role) is trying to call the shots and figure out a way to escape.
Somehow, all the doors and exits in the apartment are locked so getting out is nearly impossible - an aspect taken from the first film.
This movie is a showcase of gore with a story that tries to be like the first movie, but with barely enough differences. And somewhere in the middle, the writers remember they need a central character. So, they go with the most vulnerable yet unlikely character.
The majority of the movie's budget surely went towards the make-up and visual effects, particularly the scene where the demon attempts to push its way through a television screen. Its an early computer effect as far as I know. It's memorable, to say the least.
The director clearly wanted the audience to get a lot of close looks at the demon make-up with all the lengthy closeup shots of the demonic faces, especially Sally's, in all their frothy, foaming, grimacing, bleeding, dripping glory. In fact, the poster displays nothing but the movies best effects. It's right there!
Also, the dog's transformation was a little more comedic that what was probably intended. Still, when I think about it, this effect must have taken a lot of time and patience to accomplish as they used a real dog in makeup for the scene.
To the movie's credit, when it comes to scares and gore, Demons 2 doesn't pull any punches. The effort to scare and gross the audience out is very apparent. The movie tries hard to pull off a little more than the first. And for that, it deserves applause.
In my youth, I definitely would have found this movie terrifying with scenes I have no doubt would have locked themselves into my memory for years to come if I had watched in my youth.

There are some suspenseful scenes where the audience knows a demon is lurking nearby, but the movie doesn't use any music. This small detail makes the film a bit more chilling as there's no indication whether we should be scared something bad will happen, or when it'll happen. The anticipation still plays out.
Horror movie legend Dario Argento, who was a writer and producer for Demons returns for the sequel. Argento's name is attached to some horror classics such as Phenomena, Innocent Blood and Suspiria. 
The visuals are great in this sequel, especially the shots of demon-possessed tenants peering over ledges and down dark hallways dark with glowing eyes reminiscent of the scene in Salem's Lot with Geoffrey Lewis as a vampire sitting on a rocking chair in the dim light. 
For fans of true horror, this is a decent sequel to the successful first movie. It tries to give more than what we saw in the first. And it pulls it of rather well.

Demons (1985)

41) Grizzly (1976)

"Bears don't eat people." "This one did!"

Director
William Girdler

Cast
Christopher George - Michael Kelly
Andrew Prine - Don Stober
Joe Dorsey - Charley Kittridge
Joan McCall - Allison Corwin
Charles Kissinger - Dr. Hallitt

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, you got out of the water because a giant man-eating shark was swimming around. So, instead you thought it would be safer to take a nature hike through a national forest as an alternative excursion.  Well, think again. Why? There's a man-eating grizzly bear lurking around, and eating people, and doing some bad bear things!
It's blatantly obvious that the 1976 movie Grizzly is a rip-off of the more popular movie Jaws which was released the year before. Even the posters look similar. Just compare them. The Jaws poster has the shark, bearing razor sharp teeth, lurking underneath the unsuspecting female swimmer. On the poster for Grizzly, the bear with its razor sharp teeth, looms over the unsuspecting female camper.
I first watched this movie shortly after I had started my endeavor through 1,000 horror movies. That's what this blog is all about. Grizzly was originally going to be my sixth movie. I kept dozing off trying to get through it.
But this silly ol' bear kept popping into my head, so I attempted another viewing.
The National Philharmonic Orchestra scores the opening shot as a helicopter flies over the treetops of a national forest. The pilot tells his guide that the forest below has been pretty much untouched since the Native Americans lived within.
The forest is currently in its busy vacation season as tourists and campers roam the main area of the park. Meanwhile, two female hikers are taking down their campsite when a grizzly mauls and hacks one of them to death. The other girl runs for her life and hides in a shack where the grizzly tears through the walls, leaving her no where else to go.
When the mangled remains of the girls are discovered, the Chief Park Ranger, Michael Kelly (Christopher George) is determined to find the bear and destroy it. Other grizzly deaths take place.
Meanwhile, Park Supervisor, Charley Kittridge (Joe Dorsey) thinks it's Kelly's fault the attacks took place as Kelly was responsible eliminating bears from out of the forest.
As attacks continue, including the mauling of a young boy and the death of his mother, time becomes crucial as Kelly and a team of hunters try to find this bear. Though Kelly doesn't appreciate the number of hunters roaming the forest as he believes they'll just kill any animal they come across.
All the while, Kelly and Kittridge argue back and forth about keeping the park open to campers, and how to locate and take down the bear.
It's revealed that grizzlies don't live in this particular forest as they were purposely eliminated from the region. But somehow, this one remains.
Kittridge wants the park to remain open for camping while the deaths of campers and hikers is obviously reason enough to close the park.
Split second shots of the horror scenes make it so the audience can't get a good look at the gore. It's a good way to disguise a low budget. The elusive bear kills. Experts can't find this giant bear. It kills again. Rinse and repeat.
Grizzly definitely piggybacks off the success of Jaws. The similarities are uncanny.
The grizzly survived an attempt at regional extinction. So, its presence in this National Forest is very peculiar... just like Jaws' presence in that particular beach of Amity Island was peculiar.
A park ranger has to endure a battle of the wills against a greedy supervisor ridiculously lacking enough emotion to close the park as that would lead to loss of revenue. He allows campers to continue camping in the park despite the number of deaths. It's a plot point reminiscent of Mayor Larry Vaughn's desire to keep the beach open in Jaws. Like Vaughn, who feared Amity Island's economy would suffer by closing the beach during the summer, the supervisor fears the same sort of thing at the hight of tourist season. And both won't consider the reasons presented by the experts.
The movie uses lazy special effects and repeated footage of the bear that resembles stock footage to attempt to terrorize the audience.
It makes little sense that the movie initially conceals the bear until midway through the movie. Why? We know it's a grizzly bear. Presumably, everyone in the audience knowns what a bear looks like. It doesn't have any physical abnormalities designed to scare the audience. It's just a menacing, hungry, normal looking grizzly standing at 18 feet tall (according to the poster.)
Aside from sinister music (like Jaws) and point-of-view shots as the bear sneaks up on naïve vacationers (again, like Jaws), there's not a lot of scare tactics here except for a lot of shots of screaming faces. It's drab, predicatble, and lacks much originality and imagination.
For those who love man versus deadly nature films, maybe this movie will appease on a Friday night. Otherwise, it painfully tries to be Jaws while trying not to be so. 
If anyone out there thought the shark looked fake, there are a lot of scenes where the grizzly looks even worse.
On a side note, there is one interesting factor about this movie. The poster was designed by comic book legend Neal Adams.
Grizzly vs Jaws? Now that would be epic! I'd watch that.

40) Trilogy of Terror (1975)

Don't go messing around with teachers

Director
Dan Curtis

Cast
Karen Black - Julie, Millicent, Therese, Amelia
Robert Burton - Chad
George Gaynes - Dr. Chester Ramsey
Tracy Curtis - Tracy

I've heard of Trilogy of Terror several times, primarily from other horror movie reviews. And the reviewers pretty much all say the same thing about it.
I happened to stumble upon a copy of Trilogy of Terror at an antique store in Council Grove, Kansas. Obviously, I snagged it as finding a copy in the wild (from what I understand) is difficult.
With all the reviews and comments I've heard from other horror enthusiasts, I wanted to see this for myself. For some reason, this movie has a cult following.
It first aired on the ABC Movie of the Week back in 1975. Now some have gone so far as to call Trilogy of Terror one of the best TV horror movies of all time. I hope Duel and Salem's Lot are included in that "all time" list as well.
As the title suggests, this anthology movie is made up of three stories. All of them feature actress Karen Black.
In the first story, Julie, Black plays English teacher Julie Eldridge who's the quintessential college professor - hair pulled up into a bun, horn rimmed glasses, no makeup, earthen colored dress and black shoes. Underneath her humdrum appearance is a gorgeous woman who has attracted the attention of one of her students, Chad (Robert Burton.)
He has weird fantasies about her and tells his buddy, Eddie (James Storm), about them. Eddie discourages Chad from romantically pursuing his college professor. Chad, however, has too much interest in her to follow his friend's advice.
During one particular class, Chad catches a glimpse of Julie's thigh and decides to throw all moral restraint out the window.
He stalks Julie at her house later that night, and watches her through a window as she undresses.
The next day, he asks her out to a movie. First she declines, but later accepts. While he's chatting her up, he mentions he has an interest in photography.
They go to a drive-in movie to see a vampire flick. Of course! How sensual! During the film, Chad offers to buy her a soda at the concession stand. He spikes her drink with something unknown making Julie pass out.
He drives her back to a motel, checks in as husband and wife, and takes several photos of her in provocative positions dressed in revealing cloths.
When she wakes up, she's back in his car parked in front of her house.
Julie thinks she just fell asleep during the movie, and has no memory of what he put her through.
Chad develops the pictures in his dark room, and shows them to Julie the next day.

Karen Black and Robert Burton in the story Julie  from Trilogy of Terror.

Horrified, she threatens to contact the police. Chad, however, threatens that if she contacts police, he'll tell the school board that she seduced him among other lies. He then demands she submit to his all his requests.
This goes on for a while until Julie turns things around on him.
It's a story, perhaps, a little ahead of its time as it brings the horrific issue of date rape to the surface.
The second story, Millicent and Therese, is about sibling rivalry. Millicent (also played by Black) believes her sister, Therese (Black, again) is way too seductive and loose. Therese is also a practitioner of Voodoo and black magic. So, to Millicent, her sister is an evil that needs to be stopped.
To take care of her sister once and for all, Millicent uses a talisman Voodoo doll.
The family doctor, Dr. Ramsey (George Gaynes - Police Academy, Punky Brewster) knows the truth about Millicent and Therese, and his discovery at the end reveals to the audience just who these two women really are. It's a classic story, and plays out well. The only "horror" aspect in this tale is the Voodoo doll.
These first two stories aren't necessarily terrifying or even scary. They're more suspenseful than horrific. But that doesn't make them bad by any means. Both are still entertaining to watch, turning the cliché elements into classic television.
The last story, as those critics mentioned earlier have pointed out, is where the movie makes an impression. It's were the horror comes out. It's what audiences remember most about the entire trilogy.
That story, Amelia, is a one-woman performance featuring Karen Black yet again. This time she plays Amelia who lives alone in her apartment.
She comes home with a freakishly ugly looking Zuni warrior fetish doll she purchased at an antique store as a gift for her boyfriend - a collector of antiquities.
The wooden Aboriginal-looking doll is dark with piercing eyes peering through a menacing brow, wiry black hair, sharp glaring white teeth, a metal spear in its hand, and a gold chain around its center.
An attached scroll reads that the doll contains the evil spirit of a warrior called "He Who Kills" and the gold chain keeps the spirit within. Should the gold chain be removed, the evil spirit will be released.
After looking the doll over while on the phone to her overbearing mother, Amelia sets it down on the coffee table as she leaves the room. She doesn't notice the chain accidentally fall off.
When she returns, the doll is missing. And Amelia soon finds herself being chased by the screaming entity that possessed the doll.
The creature in this feature doesn't hide in the shadows for long. Once it's out for all to see, it comes out blazing.
I can see why this movie has a cult following. The doll is terrifying to look at, and to see what it's capable of doing is a scare-fest for sure. Its face and screams are unforgettable - the stuff of nightmares.
Critics I've heard say this movie will getcha at the end. And that's certainly true. The ending - the final story - makes the movie.
Also, Black is memorable in playing four roles. She plays each differently in an expose of her acting talents. Surely it placed her in a well-deserved spot among horror movie icons...scream queens.
Watching Black in her multiple roles in a single movie is like watching a magician perform a trick seldom, if ever, seen before, leaving the audience wondering how they did it.
She had since went on to act in a long list of other horror movies, most notably her role as Mother Firefly in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses. She also starred in Alfred Hitchock's final movie, Family Plot. 
Richard Matheson, who was a writer for this movie, has written many notable works such as The Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, The Legend of Hell House, and Duel. He also wrote for television, including Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. One notable episode of The Twilight Zone Matheson wrote was Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. He was a talented writer leaving his indelible mark on the horror/ SciFi culture for all time. 
I didn't know there was a part two until I watched part one. The stories in this trilogy are all based on his short stories.
It's an entertaining movie proving TV horror films can be done well with good writing and no ridiculous jump scares, cheesy acting and lame plots.
To horror fans, and then some, Trilogy of Horror is a classic. To others who haven't heard of it, it's worth checking out for a movie night.

39) A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

You better watch out!

Directors
Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban, and Brett Sullivan

Cast
William Shatner - DJ Dangerous Dan
George Buza - Santa Claus
Rob Archer - Krampus
Zoe De Grand Mason - Molly Simon

Recently, an article showed up on Ripley's Believe or Not's website speaking of an old tradition of ghost stories told around Christmas.
Just as the lyric goes in the Christmas jingle The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, "There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."
One of the most famous Christmas ghost stories in history centers around an old money lender who's visited by three ghosts just before Christmas day. Charles Dickens wrote this story at a time when, as the Ripley's article suggests, ghost stories were common at Christmas.
This tradition may have disappeared for the most part, save for the continual popularity of Dicken's novel, A Christmas Carol being adapted into film over and over again, year after year. But it might still exist as the random Christmas horror movie released around the holidays.
I've seen the Christmas anthology horror flick A Christmas Horror Story pop up in a lot of my streaming services - Shudder, Netflix (I think?), Hoopla. I keep seeing the cover with a powdery white Krampus figure (he suddenly became a thing in horror, didn't he), locked in battled against a ragged looking Santa Claus show up as a movie suggestion.
I think the ghost of Christmas Past Horror Movies has been shoving this movie in my face for reasons I have yet to figure out. Needless to say, I watched it. And now that I watched it,  the ghost of Christmas Past Horror Movies can go back to hell where it belongs.
The movie consists of four stories happening simultaneously, rather than back to back like most anthologies.
Radio DJ, "Dangerous" Dan (William Shatner) is immersed in the holiday spirit as he sips some Brandy with his egg nog and brags to his listeners how much he loves Christmas.
While he's on the air, shortly after his call-screener leaves abruptly telling Dan to "F--k Christmas," messages start coming in about a disturbance at the mall.
Dan tells his listeners to stay clear of the mall while continuing to play Christmas music. This ties in with the end.
The first story involves three high school students, Molly, Dylan and Ben, surreptitiously recording a documentary on the murder of two students the year before in their school's basement. One of their friends, Caprice, is invited but unwillingly has to take a road trip with her family to visit their old Aunt Edda.
They sneak into the school, which used to be a Catholic convent, during winter break to shoot their film. They barely escape getting caught by their principal by sneaking into the basement.
They end up locking themselves in.
Molly (Zoe De Grand Maison) sees an apparition of a bloody young girl - the girl who was murdered in the basement. She possesses Molly and forces her to seduce Dylan (who is Caprice's boyfriend). He resists her advances, so she turns her attention to Ben. He's more of a pushover and ends up getting her pregnant...immediately! Fast work.
Why the ghost possessing Molly wants her to get pregnant isn't well explained. All the audience knows through flashbacks is that there was an unwanted pregnancy and nuns performed an abortion on the now dead teen. Again, nuns performing an abortion? Never look to Hollywood for accurate depictions of religion. But why this constitutes the need for Molly's pregnancy is as mysterious as the ghost herself.
Meanwhile, Caprice (Amy Forsyth - Hellfest) and her brother Duncan (Percy Hynes White - 11.22.63) are reluctantly heading to visit their elderly Aunt Edda with their parents.
During their visit, old Edda tells the children about the legend of Krampus - the demonic adversary of Santa Claus.
Duncan intentionally knocks over a figure of Krampus Edda keeps on an end table. She's placed it there in order to annoy Edda's caretaker who wholeheartedly believes the creature's folklore.
Their aunt then insists they all leave. On their way home, the father has a car accident forcing them to walk out in the cold, snowy weather. It doesn't take long before they all realize they're being followed by someone or something otherworldly. So, they hide themselves in a small church.
The third story taking place at this time centers on a police officer, Scott Peters (Adrian Holmes - Red Riding Hood) who's the same officer that investigated the murder of the two students.
Due to the traumatizing nature of the case, he takes a necessary leave of absence.

George Buza as Santa Claus in A Christmas Horror Story

The day before Christmas, he encourages his wife, Kim (Olunike Adeliyi - Saw 3D) and his young son, Will (Orion John) to sneak into a privately owned spot of land to cut down a Christmas tree. As they're searching for the right tree, Will disappears. 

Scott soon finds his boy in the hollow of a tree. They finally return home, but it becomes clear that Will isn't quite acting like himself. And it turns out, he actually isn't their son.  
On top of all these stories is the one centered on Santa Claus himself as he's preparing his sleigh for Christmas.
One of his elves has become infected by a virus causing him to turn into a raging, ravenous zombie. The other elves quickly become infected, as does Mrs. Claus, and Santa is left to take care of this problem alone.
I love a good anthology movie. They remind me of the nostalgic, straight-to-the-horror EC comics such as Vault of Horror, Tales From the Crypt, or DC Comics' Ghosts: Tales of the Weird and Supernatural. 
The anthology horror movie Trick R' Treat is a favorite of mine that I make a point to watch every October 31. So, I was naturally curious to see another holiday get the horror anthology treatment. With Christmas, it has certainly been done before - The Holidays (2016), All the Creatures Were Stirring (2018), and Deathcember (2019).
When it comes to tying all these stories into one connected thread, it's quite a stretch. Characters alone tie the stories together, but each of their storylines don't seem to. It left me expecting something big by the end, but the movie certainly didn't deliver in that regard.
The suspense, twist and intrigue for most of the stories is done rather well, especially surrounding Krampus. 

However, the story of the students locked in the school's basement drags on with an effortless fizzle of a payoff. This story in particular leaned too far into the area of convolution. It made me think something big would tie everything together.
The acting in this particular story seemed tired and mundane, even for typical teenage shenanigans leading to fear. It seems like this story should have been the big payoff.
All the while, Santa taking on his zombie elves becomes the center story (so it seems). While its ending is certainly an unexpected one, the story itself takes a more comedic and different tone than the rest of the stories. It's the grittiest part of the film unlike the rest which are scarier, suspenseful, and intriguing.
Watching Krampus and Santa go head to head was a fun experience cut too short.
There's a lot of room for improvement within A Christmas Horror Story. It has potential, and did well in some regards, but failed in others.

Krampus attacks Diane (Michelle Nolden).