REVIEW: HAYRIDE

Hayride opens with a scene in which our main character discusses with his girlfriend the history of his uncle's Halloween hayride attraction. After running through the list of oddball horror characters his uncle has created over the years to fill out his hayride, he adds: "You have to keep it simple. Simpler is scarier. People don't want a compelling story. They want to be scared."

"Sounds like lazy writing to me," his girlfriend says. Mm, boy howdy, don't it, just?

Steven Summers (Jeremy Ivy) has come back home with his girlfriend, Amanda (Sherri Eakin), to see his family for the holiday. That holiday would be Halloween, which while I can fully get behind the idea of supporting, seems weird he would make what seems to be a long trip for such an occasion. But it's because his family takes Halloween very seriously, which includes his Uncle (Captain) Morgan (Kindergarten Cop's Richard Tyson!). Oh, also - a killer is on the loose, bludgeoning people awkwardly with an axe. This is important to note, since, ya know...we need conflict.

Written and directed by T.R. Parsons, who must be an Alabama native based on his ability to capably capture its beauty, Hayride is yet another Halloween-set slasher film about a killer picking off one misguided young adult at a time. How to properly approach the final output depends on your level of prejudice against low budget film-making. I tend to teeter back and forth, as it's unfair to let a low budget affect one's opinion, as what matters was the attempt at transcending that kind of limitation. But if said film simply isn't trying anything new, then it's fair game. Hayride has a lot of neat new features, but once you strip them all away, we're still dealing with the basic model. 

Surprisingly, the film fairly shares time with the kids and the hayride subplot as it does with the killer. But when it wants to be horrific and bloody, it is. The problem is, after a point, it really does devolve into the usual slasher fare that we have seen time and time again. It tries to jazz up the proceedings by including a subplot about the law proactively attempting to hunt the killer down, instead of the usual "you're crazy, so-and-so's been dead for years!" reaction we so often get, but we're still left with the same old thing - our lead attempting to survive against the villain while simultaneously overcoming his own ingrained fears.

The film makes a concerted effort to establish some character development for our lead characters, attempting to flesh them out beyond their typical Abercrombie archetypes. There's a particularly sappy but pleasant scene between uncle and nephew about the latter's possible future - and whether what he considers to be more of a sure thing: a career, or his future with Amanda. None of this is expected to be included in this sub-genre, so it was a welcome surprise.

From a directing standpoint, though I'm not too big a fan of the hand-held movement taking over at every budget level, I rather like the flashback sequences used to help fill in the gaps about the killer's origins. Where most films would simply shoot in black and white, these scenes have been altered in post to give it a nice look - almost that of photographs bubbling and melting over an open campfire. And Hayride, its tongue firmly planted in cheek, has no shortage of homage. The detective hunting the killer is named Loomis; the camera settles in for a close-up of a girl's ass; a scary campfire about the killer's origins ends with a cheap scare a la Friday 2.

The sequences involving the hayride and walk-throughs are especially fun. We've all been to one, and whether it was shitty or fantastic, we remember the experiences, so the inclusion of these sequences work, even if by affiliation.

As usual in films of this manner, the younger portion of the cast's acting isn't tremendous. It's not terrible to the point of distraction, but much of it comes across as clumsy and awkward. Richard Tyson, however, seems to be teetering back and forth between sleepy Nic Cage and over the top lovable Billy Ray Cyrus. Either way, it makes me realized something: I've missed Richard Tyson!

There is bad out there, ladies and gents, and lord knows I have seen it. Seeing what I have seen, I can't in good conscience call Hayride a bad film, or even a missed opportunity - completely overwrought final minutes notwithstanding. It's perfectly and reasonably entertaining, and for a multitude of reasons. If you want an engaging story, it's here. If you want a body count, you've got one. But if you're looking for originality, that's one I can't say you'll find in this old Hayride.

CLOWNING AROUND

Daniel Licht's most prestigious gig might be his current one - scoring TV's "Dexter." But he took some time out to provide some eerie melodies for this entry in the Silent Hill video game franchise.

This one, in particular, is chilling.

A "LORD OF TEARS" UPDATE

The filmmakers behind the upcoming Lord of Tears, which has been accepted into the San Diego Comic Fest and will screen in October, are having a little fun. Writer/director Lawrie Brewster sent the below viral video my way, which features the elusive Owl Man giving some teenagers around the globe the mighty creeps via online video chat.

But seriously folks...

In Brewster's own words:

Lord of Tears is a feature-length supernatural chiller set in the remote highlands of Scotland. The idea for this film came about from my deep interest in the dark mythologies of ancient civilisations, old gods and legendary monsters - not to mention my obsession with terrifying ghost stories.

As a director, I'm passionate about telling uncanny tales that bring new nightmares to audiences. I want to create alternate realities filled with mystery, terror and suspense - fusing the ancient and modern, preying on our most instinctual fears with threats and twists we cannot foresee.

When researching the Pagan folklore of the Highlands I discovered accounts of a terrifying stalker never before seen on film. It reminded me of the chilling Slenderman and the old ones oft referred to in the short stories of H.P. Lovecraft.

Set against the bleak backdrop of a Scottish winter, Lord of Tears is a classic gothic-style ghost story with an insidious Pagan twist. Our film is inspired by classic horror movies like The Shining, The Wicker Man, and traditional horrors like The Haunting and The Innocents including the sinister influences of the J-Horror subgenre.

Lord of Tears tells the story of James Findlay, a school teacher tortured by childhood memories of a strange and unsettling entity - a figure dressed like a Victorian gentleman but with the head of an Owl, and elongated limbs with sharp claws. It took the boy years to recover from his vision, years of forgetting before he could resume a normal life into adulthood. He might never have remembered had it not been for the death of his mother... the nightmares... the return of that familiar, watching presence.

As James faces a descent into madness, his only hope to fight his tormentor, to banish the evil that haunts him, is to return to his childhood home. He travels to the lonely mansion in the Scottish Highlands, a place notorious for its tragic and disturbing history. There, he must uncover, once and for all, the chilling truth behind the immortal stalker.

The film's Kickstarter campaign has met their first goal, and their second has been set: the crew needs to raise £10k ($15k); donations would be used to:

polish the film further, to complete our soundtrack product, to create marketing materials and reward products, to develop an exhibition campaign to get our film publicity, press screenings and to meet the costs of festival submission.

All who donate would be eligible to receive an incentive or reward:

For those of you who choose our extra special film/soundtrack combo, you will be the first audience to experience the film and its score! Supporting us on Kickstarter is currently the ONLY way to see the film.

Perhaps the most appealing package for those watching their wallets (as we all are these days) would be the DVD pre-order, which would be shipped to donaters in July.

Really I'm just regurgitating what is on the film's Kickstarter page, so head on over for the full details. 

I really hope the crew meets their goal. Lord of Tears definitely looks interesting and unusual, and that's something the genre needs right now. 

HIS RESURRECTION COMETH

"Mom," said the little girl, rubbing her eyes and standing in the doorway to her mother's room. "Mom, the Easter Bunny is eating my candy." 

"Nonsense, baby," the woman replied. "The Easter Bunny gives out candy, he doesn't eat it..."  

The woman lightly shook her covers and continued to speak, halfway into her pillow and halfway to her daughter. "Go back to sleep, baby..." 

"But, mom," the girl said. "The Easter Bunny is eating candy!" She now spoke in a more serious tone, almost as if she were going to cry. 

Her mother sat up and opened her arms. "Baby, I just told you. The Easter Bunny doesn't eat candy, he hands it out to little children. Besides, it's not even Easter yet. Go back to sleep," she said in her kindest voice. 

"Okay, mom," the child sighed as she turned to walk out the room. 

The woman smiled and thought, 'Crazy kid with her lively imagination,' and went back to sleep on a whim. 

Out in the hallway, the little girl stood for a while staring at the Easter Bunny eating her candy. She then sighed. "Mommy said I should go back to bed." 

The Easter Bunny smiled. "Good idea, child. Turn around and don't look back."  

He flicked a shiny metal pendant at the child. She picked it up and cried as she saw what it was: it was a dog tag, and it read 'Candy.'

SHITTY FLICKS: ICE CREAM MAN

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.

If you were to me ask me if there was one filmmaker out there who has consistently avoided falling into the Hollywood system and continued to create films his own way, I could think of a few possible names: John Carpenter, George A. Romero, even David Cronenberg.

Now, if you had asked for a filmmaker who had worked primarily in tits-and-ass cinema, and who had directed one single non-porn film that managed to smell worse than green shit, well, I would tell you that filmmaker’s name: Paul Norman. Yes, Paul Norman, the director of such films as Sperm Bitches, Cry Babies: Anal Scream, Bitches in Heat: Pt. 1-Locked in the Basement, The Boneheads, and roughly 100 other movies that have those kinds of icky titles.

The point is, Paul Norman, director of all those wonderful flicks of debauchery, is a master of his craft. He knows how to make a great dick film. He knows how to light deep penetration and parallel the conflicts of humanity with some serious hard anal love. He knows how to fill a scene with tension and terror just like he knows how to fill a mouth with...you know. He knows how to zoom to the inside of a woman's love hole as it's invaded by the coach, just like we wish he would zoom out from Clint Howard's face, which looks like it's been hugged by a cactus monster.

Yes, there is a movie beyond the man’s typical resume staggery; it’s a movie made from the heart, a story compelled to be told, driven by true passion for the cinema. Ice Cream Man is to Paul Norman as Plan 9 from Outer Space is to Ed Wood. Ice Cream Man was Paul Norman’s chance to mark his presence in Hollywood, to storm the red-carpet premier of his first mainstream film and say, “Shall no one celebrate my career...shall no one ever give thought to me after I pass on, let it be known that I was here…that I held my head up high…and that I crafted a movie that captured the imagination!”

Paul Norman was delirious. And oblivious. His choice to temporarily halt his porn career to make a lousy, stupid horror movie starring Richie Cunningham's brother will mystify me long after I am boringly staring at the lid of my coffin.

Paul Norman, up to the year 2001, had directed 120 films. 119 of those were pornography. One was Ice Cream Man.

"It's OK to cry when you're sad, Billy. I cry every night
before I go to sleep."

Ice Cream Man was released in the fall of 1995 and was greeted by many a head-scratching critics and probably the ignorant love of 12-year-old boys. And it’s a bad, bad film.

So why do I fucking like it so much?

Is it the masterful scenery-chewing performance, delivered by the scary looking Clint Howard?

Is it the dopey, twinkle-box music that distractingly sounds like a pornographic soundtrack better suited to play during scenes of awkward foreplay leading up to ass-slapping and dirty name calling?

Is it the “oh, I’m on camera?” acting techniques of Jan Michael Vincent?

Or is it all of the above?

Have you ever watched a movie that was bad and jokingly asked, “Jeez, did this guy used to direct PORN?” Well, you know what, fuck you, because Paul Norman seriously used to direct porn, and it’s so prevalent at several parts in the film that it’s distracting.

Ice Cream Man did for ice cream men what Jaws did for the ocean, what A Nightmare on Elm Street did for sleeping and what Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 did for garbage day. It gave pause to people considering on embarking on what used to be typical, every-day behavior; in this case, children buying ice cream from a leering man who looked anything like Clint Howard.

Ice Cream Man begins with flash back to a young Gregory Tudor, who sees the Ice Cream King get ICED (ROF) right in front of him by a passing mafia caravan spraying machine gun bullets. His mother rushes to his aid, but it’s too late, as Gregory Tudor dumbly asks, “Who is going to bring the ice cream now, mommy?” Gregory is hospitalized for the rest of his young life, and many years later, he is released after being treated by a pair of totally insane staff members. He picks up where The Ice Cream King left off.

A group of neighborhood children, who call themselves The Rocketeers for no good reason, begin to grow wise of the ice cream man’s impending insanity after one of their friends, Small Paul, goes missing. Surely this is the work of the ice cream man. Or wait, could it be the town pervert who creepily spins the children on the park tilty-whirl as he reiterates the story of the Pied Piper?

It’s OK to think that for a few minutes before the ice cream man kills him.

You know you're in the presence of a cinematic master when he introduces a red herring and then immediately kills him off.

It wasn't the giant man-head-cone that Darla objected to,
but Clint Howard's face.

The Rocketeers assemble and begin their conspiring.

Member # 1: Johnny, (who will grow up to be the guy that shouts MILF at the portrait of Stiffler’s Mom in American Pie) pisses off the ice cream man with his constant indecisiveness involving the texture of his cone.

Member # 2: Heather, a girl whose mother is possessed by a demon, plays the potential cooties interest.

Member # 3: Tuna, the “fat” kid (who is fat merely because of a fat pad placed in his shirts—notice the thin legs).

Tuna eventually ends up as the ice cream man’s target after the fat little miscreant catches him inexplicably dancing in the middle of the night for no explained reason. Once realizing he has been caught during his dance, Tudor shouts after the fleeing child, “You little turds are gonna have to realize you can't run from the ice cream man! I know where you live! If you tell anyone, I’ll get your mom and dad!”

Subtle, ice cream man. So subtle.

As the movie progresses, ice cream man kills more and more people, like Tuna’s cheating father and the town whore with whom he adulterates.

Two cops, Detectives Maldwyn and Gifford (played by the son of Lee Majors and seasoned wife-beater Jan Michael Vincent, respectively) show up to begin their investigation. Maldwyn then orders ice cream and ignorantly tongues a sliced eyeball around in his mouth as Gifford looks like he couldn’t give any less of a shit to be in this movie. There's "phoning it in," and then there's Jan Michael Vincent.

"Miami Vice" at the hands of Robert Altman.

The movie is peppered with odd behavior from our beloved Ice Cream Prince (his self-anointed title), weird flashbacks from the wacko jacko things that went on during his hospital stay, and a million shots of shoes, as Converse was a heavy sponsor of the film.

Maldwyn and Gifford eventually subpoena Ice Cream Prince with a search warrant and then rape the shit out of his ice cream headquarters. Pictures frames, little jars of sprinkles and other very small places where missing children couldn't possibly be hidden are smashed haphazardly on the floor, as Ice Cream Prince helplessly looks on.

Not finding anything, the two detectives leave, with Gifford spotting a bed of fake plastic daisies, the petals of which spin in the wind.

"Those are beautiful daisies - how do you get them to bloom like that?" (He's 100% serious.)

"I use dead policeman," says Ice Cream Prince, for reasons unknown. Gifford walks away, accepting his answer without the slightest hint of worry.

Later, as the two detectives investigate Gregory’s history at the mental hospital (and see that it’s a hellhole where the insane literally have control of the asylum), you’ll get to witness the fine acting chops of Jan Michael Vincent.

In a scene in which I am 100% confident that he was just being an asshole on the set that day and didn’t want to cooperate, we see him and his fellow detective walk through the hallway of the hospital as a large horde of the insane follow them - screaming, pawing at them, and threatening them with makeshift weapons.

As Lee Majors II attempts to act and look threatened as he fends off attacks, Jan Michael Vincent simply walks, completely and totally calm, if not a bit bored. He literally looks like he couldn’t care less about being there.

It would be rather insulting if it weren’t so fucking hilarious.

When Clint Howard handed over his 'head-shot',
the producers laughed...out of pity.

Nearing the end of the film, we unearth a shocking discovery: Small Paul, whom we thought was dead, was just cooling his jets at the Ice Cream Prince's hangout.

So, wait, why didn't the detective find him when they trashed the place?

Moving on!

Small Paul realizes that the Ice Cream Prince is an asshole and pushes him into the giant ice cream mixer and kills him.

The end.

There. I just spent more time and effort on Ice Cream Man than its own director.

HEY, KNOW WHAT'S A REAL MOVIE?

MORE CONJURING

I am conflicted about the release date for this film. Part of me wants it to come out in the fall instead, as horror always plays better then. But then the other part of me realizes I'd have to wait an additional three months for that to happen.

I think the first part of me needs to STFU.