REVIEW: KILLER LEGENDS

Co-writer/co-director Joshua Zeman took an interesting approach with his previous documentary, Cropsey. What is ultimately a true-crime examination of a series of child murderers that occurred in Staten Island, New York, actually began with a brief rumination on the idea of urban legends and how real-life monsters become mythical ones. This idea of investigating urban legends must've sat well with him, for he has returned with Killer Legends, a documentary that examines the origins of four of the most infamous urban legends in popular culture. Zeman posits that every urban legend is based on "some sort of truth," and our desire to believe these legends allows us to "pull back the curtain" on what scares us most: reality. This approach is taken as each popular legend is recounted and its real-life inspirations are analyzed.  

I have always been incredibly intrigued by urban legends – their origins, their power to spread from person to person like something contagious, as well as the stories themselves. I recall, when having watched the pretty terrible Urban Legend in my youth, wishing that the fancy leather-bound book one character looks through in the film, called simply "Urban Legends," both existed and sat on my shelf. There was something that seemed especially dangerous about those particular tales – they weren't just ghost or murder stories. They achieved a real power to them because many people who told them honestly believed they had happened to someone close to them. 

Though that fancy schmancy book of urban legends filled with classy pencil-sketch drawings may never exist, Killer Legends is a phenomenal substitute. Well realized and very well executed, urban legends of the "hook man," the "candy man," the "murdered babysitter," and motherfuckin' "killer clowns" are each explored as in-depth as the doc's running time would allow. Though certain legends have more time dedicated to them than others, the filmmakers deserve accolades for having put such effort into each investigation. We hear so often growing up, and see in films when one character tells a camp-fire story, some of which are featured in Killer Legends, only for the punchline to be a cheesy fake scare punctuated with proclamations that the storyteller's yarn never happened - that it was the stuff of fiction.

Not true. And that actually kind of surprised me. For so long we've been reassured by our parents and teachers that such stories we exchanged on the playground never happened, and we shouldn't worry. I suppose it was "okay" for them to lie to us at that age, in favor of letting us have a few more years' worth of peaceful nights before we found out that, yeah, this shit actually happened, and happens, and will happen.

The doc is propelled by onscreen hosts Zeman and Rachel Miller, but interviews with specialists, historians, and the real people who were local to the various crimes being examined also share their insights, some of them more surprising than others. Also bolstering the theme of life's infatuation with the dark are the assembly of movie clips from such titles as Halloween, Candyman, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and oh yeah, Stephen King's IT.

Killer Legends has a lot to offer, and to many kinds of viewers. Students of true crime, folklore, psychology, and the casual horror fan – the doc will ably provide a wealth of entertainment, information, and at times even poignancy, depending on what you want to get from it. I'd love for Joshua Zeman to consider this documentary as the first in a series in which he examines handfuls of urban legends at a time. This kind of attempt has been done before, in cheesy shows like "Fact of Fiction" or the recent series "Urban Legends," but not with this kind of serious, investigative, or philosophical approach.

It's now available on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures.

DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL (2014)

What was the last theatrically released torture movie to crash and burn? Was it Captivity? Hostel 2? I honestly can't say/remember, as that was a brief detour for the horror genre that I absolutely detested. The Saws, the Hostels, the ass-eating Human Centipedes - all the direct-to-video rip-offs that soon followed; they were all an absolute waste of time, money, resources, and in some (but few) cases, talent. Only so many horror films can be released per year by a major or mini-studio. And for every film released that involved someone being strapped to a table or wheelchair while their organs were removed, that was one film that could have eschewed that easy, go-for-the-throat mentality and instead tried to earn its audience's discomfort and fear. I'm not against the torture movement; in theory, an engaging story with well-rounded characters can surpass any gimmick or technique, and that goes for the torture movement. It's just...that hasn't really come along yet.

Though Derek (Michael Thomson) is separated from his wife, Stacy (Allira Jaques), and his business is failing, at least he still has his beautiful little daughter, Georgia. That is, until she goes missing one night and is eventually found brutally murdered on the beach. Derek does not take it well, scream-blaming his ex for not having fixed Georgia's bedroom window, and lying around having conversations with the voice of his daughter that resides entirely within his head. He hears disembodied sounds of her laughter behind closed doors and seeing hallucinations of her in the tub, as if she never left. In an attempt to reconvene with everyday-life, Derek goes back to work and even attends a party thrown by his brother, Tom (Christian Radford). It's there when he discovers the first "clue" - the first indication of what really happened to Georgia. This revelation sets Derek on a path of revenge, which includes heavy research into the act of torture. The individual responsible for Georgia's death is going to know Derek's anguish, one exacting slice at a time.

The first half of writer/director Chris Sun's Daddy's Little Girl is a drama/thriller, which depends entirely on Thomson's performance to hook the audience and get them to feel what he is feeling. And we do: we feel his sadness, guilt, and anger; it's easy to empathize with someone who endures what Derek has endured. Thematically, we've sorta been here before, with Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (of which I am not a fan, though I do laud Dennis Iliadis' redo - don't punch me!), but where that was a one-by-one revenge killing spree, the latter half of Daddy's Little Girl is nearly one long, non-stop torture sequence. Were it not for Fangoria Magazine's screaming warning across the film's marketing materials, I never would have guessed that this is where we would have ended up. 

Other reviews I've read for Daddy's Little Girl show a lack of patience with the film's first half, and almost awe for the "brutal" and boundary-pushing second. What does it say about me that I preferred the first? Why did I find the first half engaging and dramatic, but instantly bored the minute the "villain" was strapped down to the table having his digits removed one by one? Because maybe once we've reached that point in any film that includes this subject matter, there's nowhere else to go. All we can do is sit back and see our "hero" become just as vicious as the killer. Because at what point do the "good" become as bad or worse than the villain? You know, that whole thing.

Perhaps I'm not the best person to review something like this - it would be tantamount to me reviewing the new Pussy Riot album, or a scholarly volume about the collected works of Jane Austen. I'm, frankly, not particularly interested in these things, so how could I provide a fair evaluation?

If you're into this sort of thing, the low-budget independent approach is refreshing and well handled. Thomson's performance - when either mourning or manic - really is fantastic. Even the musical score, usually the least dependable when it comes to low budget genre stuff, is emotional, stirring, and involving. 

Did you enjoy the Saws, the Hostels, and all their imitators strictly for the sheer carnage? If so, that alone makes Daddy's Little Girl nearly a sure thing. After a while, there are only so many things you can cut off a human body, and while Daddy's Little Girl cuts off all those same things, it does it better than its  inspirations that came before.

REVIEW: ANTISOCIAL

I didn't need a movie to tell me that people obsessed with social networking websites are actually slobbering brainless psychopaths, but, thanks anyway. (Just kidding!)

(Not really.)

A spiritual sequel (of sorts) to films like The Signal, Pontypool, and even George Romero's The Crazies, Antisocial is the next step in realizing a wide-scale outbreak of mass hysteria and madness, this time seemingly perpetuated by the world's dependence on social networking sites. 

It's New Year's Eve, and college student Sam (Michelle Mylett) joins a group of friends to do what college kids do best: drink too much and act like buffoons. But random news reports of murder-suicides occurring on college campuses across the country threaten to put a damper on the New Year...that is until it begins occurring at their own. One by one their friends begin to exhibit the signs of being infected: bleeding from the nose and ears, incoherence, and finally, bouts of brutal violence thrust upon the self or others. 

With the windows and doors boarded, and doing their best to remain calm, the friends do whatever they must to survive.

We've seen Antisocial so many times before I have to wonder why filmmaker Cody Calahan bothered. Is it to let us know we've become so overdependent on Youtube and Twitter and the slowly dying Facebook that we're turning into mindless monsters? If so, we know. Still, Calahan has delivered a competent film that manages to pack a few layers of freshness into an overused dish. The aforementioned Romero himself tried this a few years back with Diary of the Dead, only this time using social networking as a positive - a means to get the real truth surrounding the zombie outbreak as opposed to relying on the highly censored and manipulated media - but Antisocial remains the superior film. 

While Antisocial is obviously a low budget affair, thankfully that's only prevalent when it comes to the nature of the story and location, not the look or feel. And our young cast are all up to the task, which is another miraculous feat, because so many in films of this ilk are not. The pretty Michelle Mylett makes for a sympathetic lead, though she shares her most of her screen time with the ensemble cast.

Great musical score, too.

Antisocial asks the question: If we were slowly going insane, would we turn to social networking sites to share this insanity? Would we broadcast our newfound madness to our hundreds of fake friends and strange followers just as we do when uploading our dinners to Instagram or offering status updates saying "had the worst day and i DON'T want to talk about it!!!"?

Probably.

And that's when Antisocial is at its most horrifying. Heavy-handed and at times completely unsubtle, it still manages to be energetic and effective. Though it offers up many things you've already seen, it gives you a few you haven't. (Don't miss the bit with the Christmas lights.)

DVD REVIEW: AN AMERICAN GHOST STORY

If you read my previous review, you saw I was a fan of Derek Cole's An American Ghost Story. It was an exercise in extremely low budget shooting with an effort on emphasizing suspense and subtlety over shocks and bloodletting. I won't get too in-depth here, as I pretty much covered it in my favorable review. 

An American Ghost Story hit DVD this week via Breaking Glass Pictures, and those of you willing to take a chance on this do-it-yourself effort might be pleasantly surprised - especially those of you currently studying filmmaking. Director Cole and co-writer/lead actor Stephen Twardokus, in a Behind-the-Scenes featurette, provide a point-by-point breakdown of the production (the film was essentially a two-man operation) and how they improvised some technical creations to aid the shooting. Not only do they show off one of the devices they literally built to aid their lighting scheme, but they break down some notable sequences from the film and explain how they essentially tricked you into thinking you were seeing a visual effect. The duo are very self-deprecating in their recollections and freely admit to some of their cheapest tricks.

Next up is an audio commentary track with Cole, Twardokus, and fellow producer Jon Gale. The filmmakers continue to reveal their tricks, and the track mixes together admissions of certain weak areas with comments of self-congratulation (though less in arrogance and more in awe that they were able to create something of which they are proud - as they should be). Not everything discussed will be of interest to audiences, but much of it is. They discuss scenes written but not shot, and scenes shot, but excised from the final. Aince they're obviously friends, they're not afraid to rib on each other, which makes the track that much more entertaining. 

The special features conclude with a trailer to the film as well as other releases from Breaking Glass Pictures, deleted scenes, and a photo gallery.

Regardless of the features, the DVD is literally selling on Amazon right now for less than $8. If you'd like to take an entertaining 90-minute course on DIY filmmaking, buy it. But if you're also looking for an earnest effort made by some spirited individuals who honestly just wanted to make a classy haunted house film, you should buy it for that reason, too.

REVIEW: AN AMERICAN GHOST STORY

"Are you ready for your first night in a haunted house?"

And so begins An American Ghost Story. Like Sinister and The Amityville Horror before it, our characters knowingly move into a house allegedly haunted and previously the scene of a family murdered. Paul, much like Elliott Oswalt in Sinister, has decided to write a book about the infamous house to which he and his girlfriend have moved, his rationale being the explosion in popularity of the supernatural, as well as his own desire to "finally finish something" he has started. And he has a plan to make the so-called haunted house more interesting for his potential book. "Supposably [sic] recreating a room's look can make spirits more active," he explains. "I'm going to make this house look as much like it used to as I can." Well, he doesn't even get that far when all kinds of spooky goings-on begin to occur: a phantom ball following him around a la The Changeling; moving kitchen chairs and teleporting dolls a la Poltergeist; a ghost actually wearing a bed sheet a la Paranormal Activity 3; and spontaneously opening drawers and cabinets a la The Sixth Sense. It's not long before Stella peaces-out of the house immediately following her first brush with signs of the haunting, leaving Paul to be alone with his ghostly company.

Ghost movies are getting hard to do and harder to appreciate it. Because it's all been done. All of it. We've seen the twist endings involving dead main characters, we've heard the disembodied whispering in the dark corner, and dear god, we've seen the jocular and obnoxious friend/comic relief purposely scare our lead(s) because, you know, why not? And too often we see low budget "filmmakers" who crap out a rough outline for a film in order to ride the coat-tails of another more popular and high profile one. (The Asylum has been known to do this when they're not tossing sharks in tornadoes.) What can trump these hurdles are two simple things: a well-told story and filmmakers with honor and taste.

An American Ghost Story is not the most original haunted house movie ever made, nor is it the best, but it is well-made and at times effective. You will see an awful lot of familiar gags taken from other well-known genre films, but our filmmakers are smart enough to know that it's precisely because you have seen these other well-known films that you are watching their film in the first place. And so in that regard An American Ghost Story instead becomes a charming, if at times familiar experience.

Stephen Twardokus as Paul (and also our script writer) makes for an effective lead. He's boyish and innocent, perhaps at times a bit too saucer-eyed, but it's hard not to like him. After a rocky beginning, in which he grins as he tells Stella about the bloody killings that took place in their house and makes tasteless jokes about brain matter, he soon sobers up and becomes a much more respectful character. In keeping with the previous (and unavoidable) comparison to Sinister, Paul is far more sympathetic than Ethan Hawke's Ellison. While he was driven by a desire to prove something to everyone and rediscover his fame by writing "his In Cold Blood," Paul's goal is not a selfish one. He's not particularly interested in the paranormal; he instead just wants to prove something to himself, and he's willing to ride a current fad to do it. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it does make his reasoning seem like a cheat. "Ghosts are in, so I'll write about ghosts," etc. And it's not even like he starts off as a skeptic and soon learns to believe - from minute one he's already trying to communicate with the ghosts via tape recorder. Because of this, the character of Paul is limited, emotionally, and gives us less to invest in.

The acting itself is just fine, and that goes for the entire ensemble. Wendy Haines as Sue does the best job out of everyone, playing a former tormented tenant of Paul's new house. Liesel Kopp and Cain Clifton as Stella and Sam, respectively, do well in their limited roles; they only seem to make an appearance when the plot calls for it (or we need a humor break).

Oh, and I love this ending - both on a thematic level as well as a technical one. And that's as far as I'll go in describing it.

Director Derek Cole knows the less-is-more approach. Likely this was a result of the low budget, but who cares? It's still effective, and forces he and Twardokus to rely on mood and traditional scares. This decision makes for a solid backbone of tension, and is only periodically ruined by unnecessary jarring musical stings. A purposeful slow-burn pace and extreme lack of special effects may turn off some viewers used to breakneck speed and ghastly set-pieces, but I doubt this film was made for them, anyway. Think The Haunting. Not, you know... that other The Haunting.

An American Ghost Story hits video August 20.

REVIEW: K-11

You know how everyone has that one friend who, no matter what kind of story you're telling, somehow has a story even more amusing or ironic? Well, god forbid you ever begin a story with "I had the WORST day recently...!" around K-11's Raymond Saxx, because he would respond, "Well, one morning I woke up from a really fucked-up drug and booze binge, found myself accused of murder, and discovered I was locked up in a special transgender wing of a prison ruled by a deviant security guard and a tranny named The Queen."

Yeah, he'll always win with that one.

Goran Visnjic ("E.R.") is the unfortunate and aforementioned Raymond Saxx being dragged through the dingy halls of an ominous looking prison. He has no idea what he's done to find himself in such a place, but there he is all the same. After being held in isolation along with a fellow inmate named Butterfly (Portia Doubleday, the upcoming Carrie remake), he is eventually added to the gay and transgender wing. You see, the malicious and perverted Sgt. Johnson (D.B. Sweeney, Fire in the Sky) finds Raymond rather attractive, and with him locked up in his domain, he can wait until just the right time to...you know...strike.

While locked up in K-11, we meet its inhabitants: Mousey aka The Queen (Kate del Castilo), the head honcho who makes the rules; her bitch Ben (Jason Mewes, Clerks), who runs a mini drug operation; and Detroit (Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, The Dark Knight), an irreformable child molester, among many many other flamboyant characters. The prisoners of K-11 are colorful, to say the least, and though there is some drama from time to time, mostly these cellmates seem to get a long. But the arrival of Raymond has shaken the wing's establishment, both in front of and behind the locked cell doors.

K-11's own marketing describes it as The Shawshank Redemption meets John Waters. That's a fairly accurate representation, especially when taking the former into consideration, as we have seen this kind of story before: Before Shawshank there was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and before that, Cool Hand Luke. A new inmate shows up, unites other inmates thanks to his intelligence, non-conformity, and human spirit, and leaves everyone changed just from his existence. K-11 attempts the same thing; the problem is it's nowhere near the magnitude of those other films.

K-11 is, except for Visnjic's Raymond, extraordinarily well-acted. del Castillo as Mousey is scarily good. Apparently quite the heralded actress in her native Mexico, a quick glance at her filmography confirms I am not familiar with any of her past work. Because of this, having nothing previous to go on, I found her especially convincing. She seemed dangerous and intimidating, but also conflictingly beautiful. All except for the bulge beneath her tiny underwear. Alternately, Portia Doubleday's Butterfly seems simple-minded but good-hearted. Her and Raymond become fast friends, and he soon develops a paternal protection of her. But, like previously mentioned, Visnjic seems rather flat and unconvincing. When he's playing a muddled mess he does just fine, but otherwise it feels like anyone could have played the role. His character is also maddeningly inconsistent. He seems to alternate between being a drug-added sweating mess, desperate to get out of K-11 by any means necessary, to a smiling, just-fine inhabitant, taking delight in Butterfly's bubbly personality, or the prisoners' ...er...fashion show.

The most frustrating aspect to K-11 is that it's impulsively watchable. The interactions between all the characters are very good, and D.B. Sweeney is especially effective as the very slimy Sgt. Johnson. The interplay works; the everyday-life of such a place seems genuine and realistic, though at the same time surreal and foreign. The things that occur are oftentimes so crazy you almost want to believe they are real, because in all honesty, what the fuck do you or I know about the transgender prison populace? But the reason I chose the word "frustrating" is because when the movie's conclusion happens, and the film ends, your immediate question will be "so what?" If co-writer/director Jules Stewart wanted nothing more than to shed some light on such places in a docudrama fashion, then mission accomplished. But if there was supposed to be more to it - if Raymond Saxx was supposed to learn where his life went astray and become a better person for it - if his character was supposed to "grow" - it certainly wasn't earned. There was no epiphany. Whole scenes of inmate camaraderie or catharsis seem to be missing. And the film doesn't end so much as it stops happening, and it sadly makes the journey up to it a little irrelevant. 

The DVD comes with commentary by director Stewart and producer Tom Wright. It's an okay listen, but I'm surprised that Stewart didn't have more to say about her odd choice for a directorial debut. She points out a little trivia from time to time, like explaining that the color of jumpsuit K-11 inhabitants wear are purposely different from those of the general population, but we never get anything meaty or useful. The track starts off with energy, but soon devolves into "and this is what's happening now"-type observation which is audio commentary suicide.

K-11 was an interesting watch, and one I don't regret. I feel as if a curtain has been lifted on a world on which I never gave much thought - whether it exists or not - but it's a shame that this world wasn't utilized to its maximum potential. At the end of the day, K-11 feels like nothing more than a really compelling missed opportunity.

K-11 streets on DVD and Bluray on April 23. Pre-order the DVD here.

REVIEW: DUST UP

Boy, desert-set adventures just about always end with a grown man being roasted on a spit and then eaten by a bunch of meth heads, don't they?

But seriously folks...

Jack (Aaron Gaffrey) is a war-torn "high desert handyman" who lives in a trailer way out in the middle of a barren landscape. He is haunted by memories of his time spent in the marines during the (Iraq? Afghanistan?) war, in which an explosion kills a fellow marine and tears half his face apart, ripping out an eye in the process. His only companion is Mo (Devin Barry), a skinny white kid cavorting around in Native American garb and looking nothing at all like an actual Native American.

A routine plumbing call has him paying a visit to young mom Ella (Amber Benson), whose pipes are shooting out muddy crappy water. It's right around this point when Jack meets Ella's drug-addicted husband, Herman (Travis Betz), who is thousands of dollars in debt to the local drug king pin Buzz (the absolutely insane Jeremiah Birkett). As you can probably guess, Jack gets involved with all the goings-on of Buzz's drug underworld and things get a little bloody.

If there existed an alternate universe in which Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers collaborated on a script, which was then directed by a Natural Born Killers-era Oliver Stone, Dust Up would come as close to such a wicked threesome as that. A script filled with quirky characters and snappy dialogue is visualized on screen in the frenetic, yellow-tinted style that Stone eventually bequeathed to Tony Scott (RIP). It is a fun, gory romp that contains just as much charm as it does slimy, grimy set pieces.

And the film is funny. Legitimately so, but in that odd, screwball way similar to its cinematic soul mate, The FP. Most of the characters are over-the-top and outlandish, but it all exists in a world where everything is perfectly normal. Broad Dust Up is not. It is a very refined and specific type of humor, and general audiences need not apply. Because while it is often funny, it is also often crude, violent, and even disturbing. Basically, if you can't get behind one character strangling another to death, all the while jerking himself off and ejaculating on the victim's face - all done for both comedic and shock purposes, mind you - perhaps you better check out before you get in too deep. Because you will see things in Dust Up you might not be able to unsee.

Gaffrey as Jack seems to be having the least amount of fun, per his character, being that he is a lonely and isolated figure whose only companion is a half-naked fake Indian. His eye patch and constant lemon face are deceiving in the sense that Gaffrey is actually quite capable of holding his own as far as the humor element goes. Straight-faced humor is often a gamble, because if the humor itself is lame and ineffective, such a performance can come off as boring. But because of the completely diverse group of characters by which he is surrounded, his straight man schtick plays well when coupled with Betz's Herman, who has some of the best lines, or Barry's Mo, whose mere presence never really stops being ridiculous.

Amber Benson plays the sole female lead, and she is saddled with the archetype of the young mom with a dead beat husband who is just trying to hold it all together. Still, she's given some fun lines and is allowed to get into the thick of it when shit really hits the fan. I can't say I'm familiar with any of her work on "Buffy," but her ability for comedy wouldn't surprise any fans of the Joss Whedon favorite.

And Jeremiah Birkett - holy shit. He takes the generic stock character of the drunk king pin and turns him into a devious, misogynistic, sodomizing, bisexual-for-the-fuck-of-it, baby-threatening son of a bitch. He seems to be having a hell of a time playing one, as his performance is near electrifying. At several key moments he is eerily reminiscent of Bernie Mac (RIP), and somewhere I hope Birkett takes that as a compliment, because he definitely should.

As is the case with most low budget cinema, Dust Up isn't entirely perfect. The character work for this type of film is definitely well-done, and you get the sense that anyone on screen can get knocked off at at moment. (One particular sequence, in which one of the more colorful antagonists hops aboard a quad and chases our heroes as they run through the desert, shooting one bullet after another, is effectively suspenseful. The quick editing leaves the viewer unnerved that one of our protags could drop at any moment.) Dust Up, in that regard, works in making you care about its characters, as batshit insane as they may be. But what rubbed me the wrong way was the filmmakers' inclusion of what, to me, seemed like irrelevant defamation of the country's current economic crisis, which has been caused by those "living behind golden gates." And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm certainly not telling writer/director Ward Roberts to shut the fuck up and just make a movie. But these condemnations (straight from the maniacal Buzz) come so late in the third act that by the time he gives his speech to his crowd of meth heads, you begin to wonder why it was even included. The idea of "war is bad" literally occurs within the film's first frame, and its effect on Jack are felt throughout the running time. And that's fine. If a morality message had to be included, the war motif more than satisfied the job, and it felt natural and unforced. 

Filmmakers, more than any other artist, have long used cinema to condemn the actions of political systems. George Romero's been doing it for forty years, and he was not the first, nor the last. But in order for your point to have any validity, it needs to be organically weaved through your story. The third act inclusion feels like a late-stage attempt at giving Buzz some motivation and rationale behind his meth business and the Christ-like sway he holds over his meth head followers. It's not like it derails the film at all, as the majority of it is too silly and weird to take seriously, but on the flip side, this little detour into holier-than-though territory makes it stick out all the more.

But that aside, Dust Up accomplishes its number one goal, which is not to preach, but entertain. I can't say that if you have a sense of humor you will laugh and have a good time, because as I previously mentioned, this is not a film for everyone. Unless you find the idea of random sodomy amusing. And don't we all?

Dust Up hits video November 13. 

REVIEW: SCREAMING IN HIGH HEELS: THE RISE & FALL OF THE SCREAM QUEEN

For a person to say they like horror movies is kind of a misnomer. While it’s easy to break down films into horror, action, comedy, etc., that really only scratches the surface of the multiple sub-genres and mini-divisions of each of those basic genre groups. But within the horror genre, there are so many of these aforementioned subsections that it’s easy to become lost, and even intimidated. Somewhere down this rabbit hole exist the B-horror comedy, the B-horror softcore, the B-horror exploitation, and on and on and on.

So again, when a person says, “I like horror movies,” does that automatically include stuff like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, or Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers? Who knows? Probably not. But while they may have been shot in 5 days and cost $50,000, they’re still horror, through and through.

For those of us old enough to remember the mom-and-pop video stores that provided most of us horror-loving sociopaths our fixes in the ‘80s and ‘90s, these titles may sound familiar. Their cover art featured glorious cartoon cleavage, belonging to a group of blondes and brunettes cowering in terror from a monstrous thing. I personally recall wandering down row after row of gigantic VHS cases like these, transfixed by the chesty ladies right before my eyes, terrified my mother would catch me leering at the halfway-pornographic images when I should have been in the Kids section. 

Screaming in High Heels: The Rise & Fall of the Scream Queen celebrates that gone-but-not-forgotten subgenre of horror: the cheap, low rent, trashy, direct-to-video movies that overflowed video store shelves during their reign. The doc begins, literally, with an ending – that of the heyday of drive-in theaters – and explained the tactic behind their programming, something I’d previously not known and found incredibly interesting. Many drive-in theaters would show not one but two films in order to appeal to the entire family unit. The first, the A picture, was the one with more appeal, and the more family-friendly tone. But somewhere during that A picture, the kids would fall asleep, leaving the parents alone with the B picture, featuring the types of films celebrated in High Heels. The films were fun and titillating, and because they were cheap to produce, they should have made an instant profit. But because of the questionable investors and release companies involved with these types of films, the filmmakers hardly ever saw such profit.

But that all changed once drive-ins became a thing of the past, and filmmakers realized they could make films directly for video stores, and with moderate publicity, rake in the profits.

For fans of the cheapest, most low-rent horror films that could be found in said video stories, Screaming in High Heels: The Rise & Fall of the Scream Queen is an endlessly fascinating piece of entertainment. While the skeleton of the doc is centered around the three scream queens of the ‘80s – Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre), and Michelle Baur (The Tomb) – the doc really covers the genre in which these ladies worked and prospered. Featuring additional interviews with known trash-makers Fred Olen Ray (Jack-O, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) and David DeCouteau (The Tomb, Puppet Master 3), this unheralded and looked-down-on subgenre is explored and discussed with great, but not at all deluded, admiration. The filmmakers and actors interviewed know they were making trash, but there is not a detected ounce of shame in regards to their films, which they recollect with fondness. Nor should there be, really.

This is Fred Olen Ray.
He directed Alien Dead.
He says, "you're welcome."

The doc makes great and clever use of hundreds of clips from films being discussed, not just as reference material, but to fill in the on-screen gaps and keep the study moving forward. Even as the interviewees explain the video store era, or recall specific anecdotes, appropriate scenes from these cheapie movies are spliced into the doc to complement the information we're being provided. It was a clever tactic and one I appreciated. The quality of sources from which the doc's film clips are grabbed range from crisp to 37th generation VHS. Personally, the first time I saw The Slumber Party Massacre was courtesy of a previously viewed VHS with hundreds of miles already on it, so the degradation of the film clips weren't a distraction at all, but rather strangely appropriate and indicative of the many films like it that I watched in my youth.

Our ladies start at their beginnings—with their upbringings, their exposure to the biz, and their highs and lows affiliated with their careers. They speak candidly about being comfortable with their bodies (though Quigley shocking admits to having been been very shy and self-conscious about her body during her youth) and how they had eventually become known for doing such movies. In the same way Schwarzenegger and Stallone became the default choice for action films during the late '80s/early '90s, these ladies, too, had soon become the default choice when a film needed a lead character to have a little fun, get a little dirty, and kick a little ass.

I was interested enough to sit down with this doc and give it a watch, being that I love watching documentaries based around horror movies, but admittedly I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate High Heels’ focus. I consider myself pretty well-versed in the horror genre, but I’ve only seen a handful of films featuring Linnea, one with Brinke, and hadn’t even heard of Michelle. Despite that, High Heels proved an immeasurely interesting watch, as it covered not just their careers, but the subgenre for which they skyrocketed to B-movie stardom. Not only that, but I came away looking at all three ladies in a different light; they were no longer just “those girls” who took off their clothes for whatever array of films in which they appeared, because in High Heels they had been humanized, explored, and celebrated in a way that most people never would have even considered doing.

Hats off to director Jason Paul Collum for this little endeavor. While a few more talking heads to fill out his cast of interviewees would have been nice (where the hell was Jim Wynorski?), those who did sit down and discuss their careers more than made up for the absences.

Strap on some High Heels, people. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

REVIEW: THE FIELDS

In 1969, America was glued to their televisions as news of Charles Manson and his murderous family hit the airwaves: Manson’s maniacal followers had slaughtered the very pregnant Sharon Tate (actress and wife of famed director Roman Polanski) amongst others in her own home. Following this crime, never was the generational gap between flower children and baby boomers more insurmountable. Americans just didn’t know what to do with this. How could this happen? In America? This kind of thing simply didn’t happen here. 

And ever since then, Charles Manson has been a pop-culture phenomenon. Idolized by shock rockers Rob Zombie and the name-stealing Marilyn Manson, the man’s face can be found on t-shirts, posters, bongs, and other paraphernalia sported by awesome, mall-dwelling teens. Even Manson’s music (Charles, not Marilyn) received a very underground release. (He was a musician, did you know that? And a shitty one, at that.) 

More than forty years later we have The Fields, a very unique and brooding film from directors Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni. A combination of Zodiac, The Strangers, and steeped in America’s shock and mourning over the Sharon Tate murders, The Fields is very much a different beast from your usual serial killer movie fare. Because this is not a serial killer movie. Yes, Charles Manson and his family play a large part in the events of this film, but this isn’t a blood-and-guts affair. It’s very much an examination of small-town life in 1973, and the effect that news of Manson’s possibly imminent parole has on its citizens. 

Steven, a young, curly-haired kid, is shipped off to the isolated farm owned by his grandparents (Tom McCarthy and Cloris Leachman) after a very ugly domestic dispute goes down between his parents (Faust Checho and Tara Reid). The parents need to sort out their issues, and both agree Steven should not be around to witness it. The Fields is told through his eyes, and his fear of Charles Manson being released from prison begins to take hold of him. Very strange and suspicious characters are scattered throughout the film, including Eugene, a farm hand with not too much going on upstairs. His first appearance is very unsettling, and with Manson-like floating arms and lilting voice, your immediate first thought is that young Steven’s fears have come true – that Manson has been paroled after all, and has come for him. 

But this isn’t that kind of movie. It’s much smarter than that. It’s very much about the duplication of evil in our world. It suggests that evil is cyclical, and that it’s born at home, in basements right beneath our feet. It is Steven’s fear of Charles Manson that drives the film, and because he is your narrator, you immediately question the things he is seeing – like the demented carnival he discovers after crossing through his grandparents’ cornfield, or the body of the young girl in this same field so very close to their front door… 

Cloris Leachman plays an absolutely wonderful part, embracing her role as Gladys and infusing it with equal parts Bad Santa and Barbara Bush. She brings a lot of heart to the film, and people less familiar with her dramatic side (I’m one of them) will find themselves very surprised. While tabloid/human mess Tara Reid delivers a typical Tara Reid performance, her screen time is limited, so her so-so performance is lost in a sea of great ones and does not up-end the film (though her awful wig threatens to). 

The film was produced by Tommy Lee Wallace, known to most horror fans as the director of Stephen King's IT miniseries, as well as having worked side-by-side with John Carpenter on some of his earlier films, most notably Halloween and The Fog.

As for the events of the film experienced through Steven’s eyes, you might find yourself asking: What’s real? What’s not? Unlike other films of its ilk, The Fields does answer those questions. And because of this, the audience might find their reaction to the film divided. Some like to have things spelled out for them (even if they don’t like the chosen path) while others like to use their own imaginations to determine what they have just witnessed. This may be The Fields’ only shortcoming, depending on what camp in which you tend to find yourself. Then again, this isn’t so much a shortcoming on behalf of the film as it is of the audience and their inability to allow themselves to go where the movie takes them. It’s certainly not for everyone; it has an established pace and it takes its time telling you just enough to wonder what the hell you’re being told in the first place. Despite this, it’s never a frustrating view, and for me was a pleasant surprise. 

Fans looking for something grislier should look elsewhere, but those looking for a meditative slow burn should seriously consider a trip to The Fields.

REVIEW: CROPSEY

There’s a scene during Cropsey, a documentary that explores the events behind several missing Staten Island kids from 1972-87, where someone holds up a photo of the presumed killer.

He says:

“I can show you this picture…

…and tell you this guy murdered five children. And you would say, ‘Yeah, yeah…I can see it. I can see it.’ But then I can show you this same picture…

…and tell you, ‘This guy saved five children from a burning building,’ and you would say, “Yeah, yeah…I can see it. I can see it.’ ”

That pretty much sums up Cropsey in its entirety. It is a documentary that relates events between 1972 and 1987 when five special needs children went missing. To date, none of those bodies have been found…except for the young girl who had vanished most recently. Because the young girl's body was unearthed in the woods not far from suspected Andre Rand's campsite/home, he was charged and remains in prison to this day...but his legacy never left Staten Island. Cropsey dredges up old memories and recollections, and shows you that the horror that took place on this island so many years ago still weighs heavily on so many hearts. But unfortunately, it asks a whole lot of questions and doesn’t really provide any answers.

Who really was Andre Rand?

Could he really be responsible for the kidnapping and murder of five missing children over a period of 15 years?

Was he a Satanist, or was he involved in Satanism groups said to inhabit the island during that time?

Did the prosecution that went after Rand really have anything more than circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimonies from known alcoholics and drug addicts?

Were the charges against Rand just, or did the jury and surrounding community judge him too harshly based on his manic appearance and behavior?

Sadly, you don’t really find out the answers to any of these questions. The filmmakers – Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio – present multiple theories on what could have happened that caused those children to go missing and never return. Many theories are suggested, but only one of them really receives the bulk of the documentary's focus: that Andre Rand was the true killer, and that he acted alone. 

There’s a difference between research and investigation, and it would seem the filmmakers opted to focus on the former. Cropsey is based primarily on what everyone already knew; it’s a Cliffsnotes version of the true story. It presents no new information and no revelations. And while the filmmakers leave “the truth” ambiguous, it seems pretty obvious that Rand is the Cropsey the island is searching for. After all, the first time you see Rand in the documentary, he is being taken into police custody; his eyes are wide and empty, as if there is no soul behind them, and a thick line of drool hangs from mouth. It is an eerie sight, knowing that this man is allegedly human...

Despite its shortcomings, the documentary is not entirely without merit. For those who had never heard of the Staten Island murders, the doc fills you in and provides you with a wealth of background. Parents and friends of the missing kids are interviewed, as well as other Staten Island citizens who lived through the ordeal. Police officers, detectives, lawyers, news reporters—everyone who was around at that time and involved in the investigation are fairly represented.

The most shocking piece of footage from the film comes not from the filmmakers, but Geraldo Rivera’s exposé shot at the island’s Willowbrook Sanitarium. In an effort to show the world the horrid conditions that both the patients and the staff underwent while confined there, Rivera turned his cameras to the suffering, the unhinged, and the insane. This is important to mention, because Rand had been employed at Willowbrook, and it was his interaction with these special needs children that many people believe later fueled his impulse to kill them. He allegedly once said that special-needs kids did not deserve the life they were forced to live, and further, they could potentially pass down their deficiencies to future generations of children. Rivera's exposé was a visualization of what Rand was supposedly thinking: "What a horrid life to have to live...if only someone would do something to end their suffering..."

Why Cropsey for the documentary’s title? Because the name “Cropsey” is synonymous with urban legends—a popular name given to a killer who lurks camp grounds at night, looking to mutilate any camper out of their bunks after lights out. The name was even given to the killer in The Burning, a cheap slasher movie from the 80s most famous for its special effects work from genius Tom Savini (and written by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, of all people). The filmmakers explain in their documentary that before, during, and after the five Staten Island children went missing, the legend of Cropsey remained consistently strong…but unlike other urban legends, this one was real.

While the documentary has good intentions, it only really manages to be superficially entertaining, not thought provoking. At best you will be left with “I wonder who really killed those kids.” But because that’s the question you already had when the documentary began, you’ll be left feeling a little disappointed.

On a technical level the documentary is very well made. The “direction,” insofar as one could utilize within a documentary, is competent. The editing keeps things moving steadily, although the bit where the filmmakers go to the sanitarium at night – and see a pack of people coming towards them in the darkness, only to realize they are thrill-seeking teens – reeks too much of sensationalism. This scene brought nothing to the overall investigation except an empty thrill. Sure, it's a bit eerie the first time you see it, but when you realize it's just kids, and there is no threat, you wonder why it was even included.

Despite everything, Cropsey is worth a watch. With the right frame of mind, it’s a conversation starter, and would satisfy those looking for a dark piece of thrilling true crime. But while Cropsey might be the most prominent examination of Andre Rand to date, it would hardly be considered definitive.