Manhattan Baby (1982)

Manhattan Baby is one of Lucio Fulci's worst films and its almost impossible to believe this thing came out the same year as New York Ripper which is (In my opinion) one of his best films. Where New York Ripper is a fast paced, mean spirited, ultra violent Giallo. Manhattan Baby is a slow moving super natural flick. It truly is a sleeper.
In the beginning of the film we see two men exploring a tomb in Egypt. We are treated to a eye wound when one of the men fall through a secret trap door and is impaled on spikes. Being that this is a Lucio Fulci film naturally a spike goes through the mans eye.
Don't let this bit of violence fool you. From here on its a slow talky drama with much to much child acting in it.

Giovanni Frezza, who most would remember better as Bob from House By The Cemetery plays the son of the survivor from the Egyptian tomb eye-wound scene. In this one his name is Tommy and although not quite as annoying as Bob, its still irritating to look at his face through the run time. Tommy and his sister (some how) get a hold of a medallion from the ancient tomb. The medallion holds some sort of evil power and the kids become possessed.

 Then we have a bunch of unsuccessful old school scare gags, like creaky doors shutting on their own, lightning storms, sand appears in the house along with a scorpion. The kids baby sitter disappears along with a friend of the family. Fulci even brings back the white eye gag from the far Superior gore flick The Beyond.

Aside from the spike through the eye scene the only other gore we get comes towards the end of the film and most normal humans will be nodding out by then. We get this awesome scene which Dario Argento might have lifted from for Opera (1987). It involves a man being horribly mutilated by birds. The birds rip huge chunks of flesh from the mans face and eventually he bleeds to death. Its a shame such a cool scene was wasted on such a awful movie.

13 Ghosts (1960)

William Castle is famous for his gimmicks and his fun, silly brand of horror films. Sure their cheesy but their still fun. This one is about a family who inherit a house haunted by (yes, you guessed it) 13 Ghosts.

The ghosts can only be seen through the special "Ghost Viewer Glasses" Which were of course also handed out in theaters during the "Illusion-O" screenings. Some of the ghosts look pretty cool. We have a zombie-looking corpse running around. Then thers a decapitated ghost and we even have lion roaming around the house.
Aside from the 13 Ghost's, the house also has a large sum of money hidden somewhere within it. A handsome, manipulative, murderer wants to get his hands on the money before the ghosts get to him.

13 Ghosts offers up cheesy f/x, flying axes, the good old falling chandelier gag, the worlds biggest 3-D glasses, repetitive stairway banister sliding, a wicked witch, flying milk containers, kids with bull whips, murderous beds, head eating lions and 13 silly transparent ghosts.

Cheesy or not, I'll take the original 1960 version any day over that Hollywood remake that came out in the 2000's. William Castles films live on forever in the hearts of countless fans while the unimaginative waste of time remake is virtually forgotten in 10 years.

Curse Of The Living Corpse (1964)

How many times are they going to make this movie. This is one of the most recycled plots in film history. It has been used countless times in forgettable movies. Its the old tale of a wealthy relative who has passed on and leaves the fortune and castle/mansion to family members providing they stay in the old castle foe X amount of time and follow the wishes on the will.
This time the castle and wealth is being left in the will of a crazy old man whom is presumed dead. In the will the old man demands that his children stay in the castle and follow certain orders.

If they fail to meet the demands they will be killed in a way that each individual fears the most. One is afraid of fire. Another afraid of drowning and the crazy old mans fear was being buried alive. Well sure enough the deceased coffin turns out to be empty and the family members start dying. Is the old man back from the grave or was he buried alive? You will have to see for yourself. I suppose out of all the movies that used this tired old plot, this is one of the best.
 Still that isn't saying much but at least this one has a bit of gore.

It was directed by Del Tenney who is most remembered for The Horror Of Party Beach which would play on a double bill with The Curse Of The Living Corpse. I'm sure 99% if not all of the late night movie goers who went to see this creature double feature found the beach party monster flick to be the more entertaining of the two. Still The Curse Of The Living Corpse is not a bad movie it just is a bad choice for a double bill. The Horror Of Party Beach was a total fast paced camp flick where this one moves rather slow with an occasional bit of nastiness.  Some of the highlights consist of a death by quicksand, we have lots of cane beatings, a man is dragged by a horse and has his face ripped up, a woman is drowned but the real money shot is a decapitated head served on a platter for breakfast. This thing was rightfully placed on a double feature dvd with the far Superior Horror Of Part Beach. The dvd is worth owning, there for Curse Of The Living Corpse is worth a watch. The dvd has beautiful cleaned up prints of both movies and neither one ever looked so good.

Sorority Sister Slaughter (2007)

Wow this sucked! Sorority Sisters Slaughter is a tale of a girl who bleeds to death during an abortion gone wrong with a knitting needle in a bathtub at a sorority house back in the 50's. 46 years later the old sorority house is bought by a group of girls and they are killed one by one by the ghost of abortion-girl.
Sorority Sister Slaughter's cast is predominately black and although the acting could have been much worse its pretty ridiculous watching these actors try to pull off a scene set in the 50's. From the girls straightened hair to the African American jocks and their sarcastic mannerisms it comes off like modern day, just shot in black & white.

On the other hand, the abortion scene was cool. I found it slightly disturbing watching the teary eyed, desperate girl attempt to de-fetus herself with a knitting needle. The bath water turns a murky dark color and the camera lingers on the girl who is bleeding to death in front of us. From the opening credits I knew this was going to be a bad one but this scene gave me a sort of false hope that maybe I was in store for something half way decent. Oh how wrong I was...
Jump forward to modern day and we get a bunch of uninteresting characters and a really shitty hip hop soundtrack. As if the music wasn't bad enough the movie had some of the worst lighting I have ever seen and I'm not talking bad 80's slasher film lighting where everything is to dark to see. I'm talking bright red, green, blue and purple lighting. At first I thought the crew were going for a sort of Dario Argento style lighting but it was so over done it becomes strenuous on the eyes. Most of the time I was staring at the strangely lit screen wondering how they were trying to justify the source of the bizarre lights. It wasn't until close to the end of the movie that I realized that the electricity was supposed to be out and the house was supposed to be lit by candles. This just made me more angry. I have never seen a candle cause a room to glow green and purple.
Aside from the shitty lighting, we have these endless scenes of the ghost chasing people around the house with what seems like the same shriek looped into shot after shot. The murder scenes are all pretty dull aside from this one completely unintentionally hilarious death by basketball scene. A girl is hit in the face with a basketball (and no her head doesn't explode. this isn't Deadly Friend.) and she falls to the ground. The murderous ghost then dribbles the ball on her her face. This scene seems to go on for way to long and every time the ball comes crashing down on the victims face we get more and more blood.
Then the captain of the cheer leading team has a trophy shoved down her throat and blood pours down into her busty cleavage. I sense a bit of animosity here, especially because the writer/director is a woman. All the other murders are relatively boring and the movie just seems to go on and on.
Aside from the basketball murder sequence, a death by bong and the bloody bathtub scene there is absolutely nothing entertaining about this movie. Sorority Sister Slaughter is just one big abortion. Skip this one and watch Black Christmas again.

Hausu (1977)

Hausu is probably my new favorite movie. Its kind of like Evil Dead on acid. The whole movie plays out like a dream with extremely one dimensional characters. Their names alone show the depth of the character. One is named Gorgeous and shes of course the beautiful one. Then you have Fantasy who has the wild imagination. Another is Kung Fu and I'm sure you can guess her characteristics. All together there is seven of these girls and they all take a trip to spend the Summer at Gorgeous's aunts house. The house is haunted and Auntie is a sort of ghost/vampire who feeds on the blood of pretty young girls.

From what you have just read you would naturally think this is a horror a movie and technically it is but Hausu never tries to be scary. Instead it chooses to be one of the wackiest, silly horror movies of all time with the brightest uses of colors and very stylish camera work. All together it makes for one of the most visually stimulating films I have ever seen. You can't help but be reminded of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Holly Mountain in particular but unlike Jodorowsky, Hausu makes no attempt to be deep or meaning full.
I was lucky enough to see this thing in the theater last Summer with some friends and my eyes were glued to the screen with jaw dropped. I don't think anybody in the audience was quite prepared for what they were seeing. It was interesting to hear people comment and voice their opinions after the screening. It almost felt as if we were Beatniks in a sort of time warp. Some of the people thought there was some sort of artistic message to the movie which there absolutely is not but others took it for what it is, a chaotic barrage of visuals packed into a fast paced 88 minute film. I over heard one conversation in the lobby, where one cat asked his friend what he thought. His buddy replied "Eye Candyyy!" I couldn't agree with him more.

Some of the off the wall madness Hausu has to offer is a girl being eaten by a piano as her dismembered limbs fly all over the place and bright red blood sprays through the air as her chopped off fingers play a tune on the piano. Then we have my personal favorite scene where a mattress comes to life and attacks a girl. Feathers fly through the air with some very Argento esque lighting while the camera records the chaos from below through what looks like a glass floor. It really just has to be seen to be believed. We also get a crazy scene where a decapitated head flies from a well and bites a girl on the ass. There is also a small bit of naked flesh thrown in here and there for extra viewing pleasure and who can argue that. Hausu is filled with weird happenings from beginning to end. Theres dancing skeletons, demonic cats, rooms fill with blood, A girl turns to glass and her face shatters, another girl gets stuck inside a clock, dismembered legs fly about and cause destruction. The list of weirdness goes on and on.
Hausu is a 70's oddity in Asian cinema and its a must see for anyone who likes strange movies.
I always loved this tagline for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Once you stop screaming, then you'll start talking about it. It could have been reused for Hausu.

House On Haunted Hill (1959)

I first saw this one when I was a little kid with my father. It had a pretty big impact on me along with all the other horror films my father showed me, Night Of The Living Dead, The Exorcist, The Invisible Man and even the incredibly cheesy Night Of The Lepus. Over the years I have seen all these films so many times but tonight was the first time I have ever seen House On Haunted Hill colorized. Usually I can dig colorized movies almost as a sort of novelty. I usually prefer the original B&W version but I have to admit, tonight I saw this movie with completely different eyes. The colorization was done really well and it brought so much life to the castle. It was pretty amazing seeing the decapitated heads and the rat melting away in the vat of acid. Fans of this movie should take a look at this one in color if the chance comes. I already have about five copies of this movie since its in every public domain pack that you can get your hands on for about 50 cents but now I feel like I need one more copy.

Vincent Price is excellent as usual in the amazingly ultra-goofy haunted house flick. He plays a very wealthy man who invites five people to spend the night in the haunted castle. If the people make it all night they will receive ten thousand dollars each. According to legend the castle has a long history of murder. In one scene one of the guests explains that a murder was committed in almost every room in the house at one period of time or another. With this in mind each guest is given a small coffin with a handgun inside it. Once the guests are armed they are given free reign to the house. Its not long before they are visited by floating ghosts and walking skeletons. There are hangings and decapitated heads. Certain rooms seem to be booby trapped with falling chandeliers and vats of acid in the floor. The guests start to lose their cool and its not long before everyone loses their trust for one another. The guests attempt to drug, poison, shoot and stab each other.
House On Haunted Hill is a classic from the king of gimmick William Castle and those who love the original really need to see the colorized version if not for anything else at least just a change of pace. Its well worth the watch and way better then that crappy Hollywood remake. Even Emergo would find this version interesting.

At Midnight Ill Take Your Soul (1964)

This is the one that made Coffin Joe famous, or would infamous be the better word? I believe this was the first horror movie ever to come out of Brazil and a pretty nasty one at that. The movie sutured up a lot of controversy being that Brazil is such a religious country and the film has a atheist message to it. For this reason Jose Mojica Marins a.k.a. Coffin Joe had a very hard time even getting this thing started. He wrote, directed and was pretty much forced to take the lead role on himself because nobody else would touch this content. I'm glad Joe took the lead for himself because the film just wouldn't be what it is today if some other half hearted sap played the lead. The movie became so infamous in Brazil that Coffin Joe himself became a real life boogieman. Joe kind of did mold the main character from himself. The real Coffin Joe had long finger nails and dressed all in black. He is also a atheist and apparently he slept in a casket. His name alone would scare Brazilian children and outrage many adults. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is a free-style piece of monologue from Coffin Joe where he goes on about a 5 minute rant about how gods and devils do not exist and were created by weak people. The movie is also very violent for a mid 60's flick. In one scene we get to see Coffin Joe brake a wine bottle and smash the jagged end into a mans hand, chopping off a few fingers. In another we see a man have a crown of thorns shoved into his face. We also have a head smashed with a fire poker, a head smashed repeatedly into the bathtub causing the bath water to change colors very quick, we also have some violence towards women and a simulated rape. Theres also a lot of creativity going on in this film with the special affects. Coffin Joe obviously didn't have much money to do this thing so he came up with new ideas. To enhance one scene Joe sprinkled glitter onto the actual film causing a zombie to look like he is glowing. Coffin Joe did a sequel to this the following year which in my opinion is just as good if not better then this one. Joe remained a cinematic rebel throughout his career and the censors didn't take it easy on him. Most of his movies would end up extremely cut or just out right banned in his home country. Coffin Joe is someone who must be stumbled upon by anyone who's into the cinema of the weird. So skip church and check out At Midnight Ill Take Your Soul.