DOUBLE-BILL THIS: 'SUPERSTITION' AND 'THE HOUSE ON TOMBSTONE HILL'

[This article contains minor spoilers for each title.]

The concept of a haunted house and slasher hybrid, which sees your typical masked slasher villain take a backseat to a murderous house filled with ghosts and/or demons and/or witches doling out the bloody comeuppance, wasn’t exploited nearly enough. This brief movement likely came in response to how well haunted house flicks like The Amityville Horror and its sequel, The Possession, along with The Shining and The Changeling, were cleaning up at the box office during the ‘80s era of the slasher, which made the concept of combining the sub-genres into one film very alluring. Sure, haunted house flicks are a dime a dozen, and sometimes they off a few cast members, but how many can you name where a hapless victim gets chewed literally in half by a window?

While I want to believe there are many more, I can only name you two: 1982’s Superstition and 1989’s The House on Tombstone Hill.   

Superstition was completed in 1982, but sat on the shelf for four years before it opened in the UK, preempted by a trailer that retitled the film As The Witch and which featured narration by eccentric actor Brother Theodore (The Burbs). Helmed by cinematographer James Roberson, it’s clear right away that Superstition is intent on mining from the stalwarts of the slasher, opening with a teen couple doing some car kissing in the middle of nowhere. “You said you loved me,” the boyfriend says, his hand solidly on his hesitant girlfriend’s chest, but there’s no time for love, because a monster head is suddenly thrust into the car’s open window, sending the teen couple speeding off.

Turns out the monster head comes courtesy of a couple prankster teens who have chosen the house—a house, mind you, that’s infamous for its bloody past involving the drowning execution of a witch—to just…hang out in, I guess. (Don’t miss the Unsolved Mysteries-caliber wigs and stick-on facial hair during the flashback witch scene, by the way – they’re hysterical.) The teens don’t have long to celebrate their successful prank, as the house comes to life and dispatches them in graphic and gooey ways. 

After firmly establishing its slasher roots, Superstition moves on to steal its plot from The Amityville Horror, including having a priest out to the house to bless it, only for the house to, er, politely decline the ceremony. However, this time, instead of hordes of flies, a wayward circular saw blade detaches from a table saw, bounces across the floor, and slices directly into the priest’s chest, magically and impossibly spinning/cutting the entire time. Before you can say Father Pieces, we meet a trio of young people, including a pair of girls who wear the skimpiest of summer attire. Despite a cast of mostly adult actors, the presence of young people helps Friday the 13th the proceedings a bit, being that, in this genre, if you’re old enough to drive but not legally drink, you’re probably a goner. As expected, everyone begins to die very graphically. 

Despite a pre-credits running time of 82 minutes, Superstition still runs a hair too long, falling victim to second-act lag as many horror films of this pedigree tend to do. Still, the pace is mostly assured and there’s always a fresh body drop to liven things up when the story begins to stagnate. Except for one off-screen kill (likely because the victim was a child), every death is fully shown, very bloody, and, when we’re lucky, relies on a dummy—my favorite kind of kill. 

As for The House on Tombstone Hill (originally titled The Dead Come Home, and later retitled on home video as the far superior/far stupider Dead Dudes in the House), well, I fucking love it with equal parts sincerity and irony. One of maybe three watchable titles produced by Troma Entertainment (home of The Toxic Avenger), The House on Tombstone Hill inspires the same feelings of enjoyment, awe, amusement, and total bewilderment as 1979’s slasher Tourist Trap, entirely because the oddness factor. As The House On Tombstone Hill unfolds, you honestly can’t tell if director James Riffel (hey, another James!) is in on the joke or not, and that’s my kind of jam.

During the film’s opening/prologue, we see the murderous Abigail Leatherby, who has just killed a man, walk back and forth across the living room, hunched over her cane, apparently coming to terms with what she’s done, all while her teenage daughter sits on the couch completely nonplussed and sipping a drink. You’ll watch Abigail walk back and forth so many times, uninterrupted, in one single shot, without a single line of dialogue, as jaunty piano music plays on a loop, that you’ll realize you’re about to watch something very, very special. 

Like Superstition, The House on Tombstone Hill wasn’t released right away following its production in 1988, though it was eventually relegated to cable and VHS under its new title. (Like most Troma productions, it was shot in New Jersey, easily confirmed by one character, Joey, repeatedly saying, “Hey, yo!” to his friends.) And despite being a Troma production, The House on Tombstone Hill plays things straightforward, which makes the flick come off very weird, as it strives to be a ghost story, a slasher, and a zombie flick all at once. Speaking of ghost stories, The House On Tombstone Hill is happy to homage/rip off an all-time classic in an extended scene where a recently killed college yuppie returns from the dead, possessed by the house’s bad mojo, and begins threatening his girlfriend, demanding to know, “What about my responsibilities?” as she slowly backs away swinging a large 2x4 at him. (Sound familiar?) All during this sequence, you honestly won’t know whether The House on Tombstone Hill is purposely honoring The Shining this long, or if it’s simply ripping it off instead. I don’t know and I don’t want to know; ambiguity is all part of its charm. 

The characters are your archetypal young adults, and though most of the actors give underwhelming performances, Victor Verhaeghe, who plays Bob the carpenter, is tremendously over the top, very overbearing, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Dialogue doesn’t exit his mouth, but slithers out—with the kind of disdain that makes him sound like the most hateful man alive. (“I ALWAYS have a cigarette before I start a job,” he tells another member of the cast wanting to know if he has to smoke. “It’s a RITUAL with me.”) That Bob is a dick from his first minute to his last makes The House on  Tombstone Hill much more entertaining, and seeing him act the asshole to every single person he evidently calls a friend is glorious. (He’s also the one that resurrects the spirit of Abigail by purposely breaking her tombstone, so every bloody thing that happens to him and all his friends is literally his fault.)

The House on Tombstone Hill’s odd retitling on video wasn’t the only attempt by Troma to market the film to a different kind of crowd, packaging the VHS with completely brand new cover art: 

Falling back on a marketing scheme that will never make sense to me, Troma leaned on aesthetical designs calling forth Home Alone, House Party, and, evidently, the New Kids on the Block, even though none of the dudes depicted on the cover are actors in the film, nor do they come close to representing what the actual characters look like. (I hope you noticed that one of the dudes on the new cover is holding a pair of nunchucks.) 

Previous synopses for the flick referred to the teens as “heart-throbs” and “hip-hop yups,” along with their “groupie” girlfriends, solidifying that Troma was obsessed with selling these characters as musicians/singers. That wasn’t me putting those words in quotes, but Troma themselves on their own VHS releases, as if they were acknowledging they were fibbing about the movie’s plot. (Example: Troma is a “professional” company that exercises “good judgment” in their business practices.)

Having said all that, I’m totally fine with it. It’s all part of what makes The House on Tombstone Hill so great.

Both flicks have recently enjoyed solid high-def releases, with Shout! Factory tackling Superstition and the glorious Vinegar Syndrome knocking it out of the park with The House on Tombstone Hill, which includes reverse artwork with the Dead Dudes/“hip-hop teens” cover that I love so much. To approach either or both titles as mere haunted house films will inevitably lead to disappointment, as “proper” ghost stories work much better with frightening images, suspense, and the establishment of a creepy, ambient environment. However, if you are fully aware of the hybrid you’re getting, I can’t imagine how you could ever be disappointed. Basically, if you’ve marathonned a handful of Friday the 13th sequels and thought, “this would be better if Jason were a HOUSE,” now’s your chance to live out your weird fantasy, you weirdo. (Just remember to invite me over.)

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

SHITTY FLICKS: PIGS aka DADDY'S DEADLY DARLINGS

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

Pigs, released in the '70s as Daddy's Deadly Darling, remains three things: amateur, boring, and about pigs. This is seriously one of the most boring films I've ever sat through. This is like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with pigs. Any film that was ever made that involved pigs in any way, like Babe: Pig in the City and Charlotte's Web, is automatically better.

There's even a movie called Pig Hunt. I've never even seen it, and it's allegedly pretty stupid.

You know what? Better.

In fact, there is a scene in Hannibal in which a man is eaten by a large group of pigs, and the pigs begin to eat the man's cock and balls, and what that must feel like in real life - to have your cock and balls being eaten by a bunch of pigs, and you probably get pig shit all over your face - is still better than just sitting down and watching Pigs.

There have even been better historical political pig-related fuck-ups, like the Bay of Pigs. That crazy fucking redneck in Canada who killed a bunch of people and fed them to his pigs is better than Pigs, and while that's exactly what this movie is about, that redneck killer is better. So many more things in this world are better than Pigs that I am thinking of starting a blog called Hairy, Spiked & Boiling Shit in My Cheeks And It Plays Rihanna 24/7: Better Than Pigs.

US!

Crazy Lynn, a girl locked up for murdering her rapist father, looks on from the small window on her asylum door as a nurse and doctor make weird love in the middle of the hallway. Crazy Lynn rolls her face around the window, hair mussed and plastered to her forehead, as she longs for the day that she will be able to make weird love to a doctor twice her age in a busy hospital. This couple, distracted in their lust dance, isn’t keeping watch, and the lonely girl escapes. None of the cells in this insane asylum are locked, I guess. She easily steals a car and motivelessly drives, seemingly directionless, to a farm out in the middle of nowhere.

Upon getting there, she is haunted by the over-modulated squeals of pigs that we can't see. The squealing of pigs layered over footage of people looking lost and confused will occur occasionally throughout the film, and it is genuinely unnerving.

Lynn meets Zambrini, a lonely old man who owns a farm but wears a leather vest and whose voice betrays that he is clearly from the Bronx.

Zambrini questions Crazy Lynn as to why she drove so far into a dead area looking for work, and though she doesn't answer, he is satisfied with her boobs and shows her to her new room.

Later in the film, we meet Ms. Macy, an old busy-body who shrieks to Patrolman that Zambrini feeds corpses to his pigs. What's weird is that it's understood by pretty much everyone in town that Zambrini feeds dead bodies to his pigs, but as Patrolman says, "I don't think that's against the law." What's even weirder is that Zambrini is NOT a murderer. So where does Zambrini get these dead bodies?

Shrug.

Crazy Lynn works for Zambrini in his café as people near and far come to snack on Old Man Zambrini's White Non-Descript Food.

Lynn had a rather unorthodox way of letting
people know her parties were over.

Crazy Lynn runs afoul of Brown Teeth Man who likes to flirt and eat Zambrini's Pure White Triangle-Shaped Food while simultaneously grossing out the audience and validating the Southern stereotype.

Despite Crazy Lynn's clear repugnance over this foul dolt, the two later go on a date that ends in forced kissing and blue balls (for Brown Teeth Man). Lynn establishes her status of a strong, independent woman and fights off the disgusting man’s advances, but then relies on another man to get her out of this fix.

Enter Patrolman!

Crazy Lynn is rescued by Patrolman and he drives her back to Zambrini's café. From here on out, the movie actually becomes interesting; not because of plot twists or character metamorphosis, but because the editing of the film becomes abruptly terrible. New scenes will begin, and once established, will suddenly begin again, reestablishing what's already been established.

Example?

EXT. FARM - DAY

A dog jumps over the fence.

ZAMBRINI

Wanna see--

SUDDEN CUT TO:

EXT. FARM - DAY

A dog jumps over the fence.

ZAMBRINI

Wanna see my pigs??

This altering of space and time will occur at the start of every new scene until the end of the film. Was this purposely done in an artistic way to convey to us a question which we should endlessly ponder? Are we all stuck in one place at one time, unable to escape our fates as our lives encircle us; suffocating us; cutting us off from society and perhaps the world?

Or is this just a terrible directing debut, and appropriately a swan song, for director/star Marc Lawrence...?

...Huh?

Oh.

It's a terrible directing debut by Marc Lawrence.

Marc Lawrence could appreciate a fine set of

double-Ds, even if they were his daughter's.

Crazy Lynn makes frequent phone calls to her dead father throughout the film as Zambrini attempts to help Crazy Lynn pick up the insane pieces of her insane life and help her to move on. Lynn begins to murder random men, and what else can Zambrini do but feed them to his pigs?

Lynn appreciates his heroics in her own way, making him safe from any future psychotic breakdowns on her part. Why, Zambrini has been really the only caring figure that she’s ever had. Caring…and almost father-like. Wait, her father?

Uh-oh!

Crazy Lynn freaks out and kills Zambrini, feeding him to his own pigs.

We then reach the resolution of the film, which is carried out in three parts:

1. Lynn peels off her clothes.
2. The camera focuses on Lynn's delectable breasts.
3. Lynn alludes to also feeding herself to the hungry pigs.

It's kinda weird that Lawrence makes the audience think that she is committing pig suicide, but then we find out seriously two minutes later that she had faked her death and driven off into her psychotic sunset.

A crowd of three people soon gather at Zambrini's farmstead and Patrolman and everyone else agrees that Crazy Ol' Lynn has fed herself to the pigs and look into it no further, even though her car is clearly missing.

Sure, Timmy could fight, but it was his lackluster
dance moves keeping him from joining up with The Jets.

Director Lawrence, as if daring the audience not to laugh at his film one last time, employs a scene in which a random farmer at the crime scene gets in his truck and drives it off-screen. Once the truck is clearly well on its way into the distance do we then hear poorly applied sound effects of a truck starting its engine and pulling away. About five seconds off there, Lawrence.

I laugh.

The movie ends. The credits roll. The credits are as badly edited as the rest of the film, and once the cast list is in progress, it begins again.

I laugh again.

What I Learned From Pigs:

• Boobs.
• Everyone knows the following: Zambrini feeds dead people to pigs. Zambrini slaughters said pigs for food. Zambrini runs a successful café, in which some of the menu is pig-based. Everyone eats there, anyway.
• Breasts.
• Filmmakers don't audit their films for errors before before releasing them to the public.
• Fathers who cast their daughters in trash will feature their boobs very prominently, but only inside bras.
• Editing is really hard.
• (Boobs.)

FATHER'S DAY (2011)

 
Father’s Day is now my second immersing in the world of Astron-6, a small Canadian film production company responsible for some legitimately fun creations. After first watching Manborg, I knew I’d found something special. But now after watching Father’s Day, I think I found a new group of filmmakers to closely follow, as whatever these fellows create, I need.

Honestly, I think I’m in love.

Though Father’s Day was released by Troma Studios, please don’t let that be a deterrent, and please don’t think it has anything to do with Troma’s other infamous film Mother’s Day.

Father’s Day is so much more insane.  It is the blackest of absurd comedies masquerading as a grindhouse offering masquerading as a satanic 1970s thriller masquerading as an I don’t even know. It is incredibly graphic, incredibly sexualized, and incredibly hilarious.

The plot? Well, someone out there is raping fathers. That’s kind of fucked up, but there’s something about the phrase “raping fathers” that becomes inherently funny. Is it supposed to be? I honestly don’t know, but during the opening credit sequence awash in newspaper headlines that scream “MORE FATHERS RAPED,” I laughed.  Intentional or not, Father’s Day can bank it.

If you’re already familiar with Troma, you should know there’s not much they’re not willing to do to shock their audience. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a Troma fan; except for their one perennial hit, The Toxic Avenger, I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed any of their films (although a few non-originals they have licensed over the years have brought me unintentional enjoyment). This seems to be one of those non-Troma originals they are lucky to have distributed. Sure, Lloyd Kauffman man appear in the film as God, but this production reeks of something much more original and genuinely entertaining than anything that’s come down from the Troma offices in quite a while.

Father’s Day contains the aforementioned scenes of father rape, along with bodily dismemberment, incest, necrophilia, and not one, not two, but three scenes of penis mutilation.

You know, for kids!

This is not something I normally enjoy. Not because I am squeamish (though I think I can say without shame I don’t enjoy seeing penises destroyed), but because I just think humor like that is cheap. Anyone can build a fake penis out of plastic and cut it in half with a knife, but unless the film wrapped around this gag is worth a damn, then it’s just empty shock. But Father’s Day earns the right to destroy penises. Three times, in fact. This kind of over-the-top sight gag can sometimes seem out of place when juxtaposed against the film’s other far more innocent jokes (toxic berries vs. tasty berries; a man who hyperbolically compares life to the process of fermenting tree sap into maple syrup), but because the Troma brand is stamped on the case, we just kind of accept all the penis biting and move on.

Written and directed by the final onscreen credit of Astron-6, our cast consists of the usual mainstays: Adam Brooks plays Ahab, the eye-patched vigilante out for revenge; Matthew Kennedy plays Father Sullivan, the very gay priest whose job it is to find Ahab’s shack out in the middle of nowhere, and Connor Sweeney is Twink, another very gay young man whose father is murdered by the "Father’s Day Killer" and is out to clear his name.

Oh, and the killer’s name is Fuchman. Chris Fuchman. The first time you hear it, you may ask yourself, “Did I really just hear that?’

Yes, you did.

Played by the very brave Mackenzie Murdock, Fuchman bares all more than once and has no problem doing some naked grinding on top of other middle aged men.

Father’s Day takes a little bit to get going. It starts off with a nice grindhouse feel, but soon gives off the wrong impression that it’s yet another Troma production with little reason to exist. The humor doesn’t kick in right away, and the film is very quick to show off some Troma-esque scenes of shock.

I implore you to keep with it.

Odds are you’re more familiar with Troma than you are with Astron-6. Based on this production, I think it’s safe to say preexisting fans of Troma will find a lot to love about Father’s Day. And Astron-6 once again proves they can play a little bit outside their wheelhouse and come up with something fresh, shocking, and legitimately hilarious.  The best thing that can come out of their association with Troma is more exposure to a broader fan base. They absolutely more than deserve it.

(I also wish we were friends. Because they must be the most fun men alive.)