HAUNTED HOSPITAL: HEILSTÄTTEN (2018)

You can’t keep a good gimmick down, which is why, ten years on from the release of Paranormal Activity, found-footage horror flicks are still trickling in. Thankfully, theaters are no longer inundated with them, but quieter and lower key productions are continuing to use the tactic – hence we now have the awkwardly named Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten (which, come on, I will DEFINITELY be calling Triple H for the remainder of this review).

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of kids take an array of filming equipment into an abandoned hospital believed haunted for sensationalistic reasons but then – plot twist – turns out the place really does have ghosts! (Or demons, or witches, or the pit of hell, or, you know, something that HMOs will write off as a preexisting condition.) Along with this, the Germany-lensed Triple H opts for a modern update by presenting all the trespassers as hosts of their own very disparate Youtube channels, some more successful than others, which has led to some tension between them all. (I think they used to be friends in real life before or during their Youtube fame, but that’s never made clear). There’s Betty (Nilam Farooq), whose channel seems to consist of her sitting on a bed and talking about makeup but never applying any (accurate); Emma (Lisa-Marie Koroll), who helps participants face their very specific fears; and lastly, there’s Charly and Finn (Emilio Sakraya and the amazingly named Timmi Trinks), who host something called Prankstaz, which is exactly what it sounds like, and which is the most obnoxious thing you have ever seen. (Also accurate). Joining them are Theo (Tim Oliver Schultz), the level-headed worrywart, and Marnie (Sonja Gerhardt), a psychic and Theo’s former squeeze. (I’m going to be honest, I’m not 100% of that breakdown because all the girls, bundled up in hats, scarves, and big jackets, kinda look the same, and most of their names are barely spoken aloud during the entire running time. Girls just sort of keep showing up, making you go, “oh, guess I missed her the first time.” Just know that this movie is basically Hellstätten 90210.) The kids all figure that cross promoting with the sadly successful Prankstaz will boost the number of theiir Youtube followers, and that’s all that matters on the entire planet.

For the first two acts, Triple H unfolds exactly as you would expect: the characters are introduced and established as: the main one who will probably live, the “silly” ones who definitely won’t, and the window dressing ones whom no one will especially care about. Dark hallways are wandered, fleeting creepy things in the dark are glimpsed, fights break out among the cast, and bodies begin to drop. During this time, Triple H is very okay – it’s absolutely every other found footage flick you have ever seen, but it’s well made enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re watching anything offensive. In addition, there’s a scene where Theo berates the two Prankstaz hosts for peddling idiocy on their channel and contributing to “the stupidity of our youth,” so you might be thinking, “Oh, wow, Triple H has a message.” Once the third-act twist happens, whatever credit you were willing to lend toward Triple H goes totally out the window and you will groan, groan, groan. To its credit, you’ve never seen anything like it in a found footage flick, but that’s because the twist is nearly as ridiculous as, say, if it’s revealed that the haunted hospital had been under the hellish influence of an evil cantaloupe named Jeremy.

Haunted Hospital: Heilstätten is every found-footage flick you’ve ever seen – that is, until it’s not, and that’s when it’s worse. If you’re among the breed of fan who devours these kinds of flicks regardless of budgets or reputations, you’re likely to find a few worthy yuk-yuks within. For everyone else, avoid.

SLASH OF THE TITANS: THE ROAD TO ‘FREDDY VS. JASON' (2018)

As a horror genre nutball, there were two films — held high above all others — whose statuses still remain as my top two most anticipated releases of all time. The first was Halloween: H20, released when I was a wee 14 years old. The second was Freddy vs. Jason, the ultimate mash-up dream movie combining the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street series' boogeymen. Unlike the former, an idea that came together pretty quickly, the genesis of Freddy vs. Jason, released in 2003, dates back to the late ‘80s, when both franchises were starting to suffer from box office fatigue and needed a shot of adrenaline. I even had in my possession, for a long time, a very small newspaper clipping announcing the film’s pre-production, then called “Jason vs. Freddy,” due to be released in “the summer of 1997” and would be directed by none other than special effects maestro Rob Bottin (The Thing).

This, obviously, did not happen — along with many other iterations which included different cast members, writers, and directors. Names like the departed Brad Renfro (The Client, Apt Pupil) and a pre-career revival Jason Bateman were once mentioned. Established characters from both franchises were to appear — Alice from A Nightmare on Elm Street Parts 4 and 5, along with Steven, Jessica, and a grown-up version of baby Stephanie from Jason Goes To Hell. That latter portion, especially, makes sense, given that Jason Goes To Hell’s shock ending included Freddy Krueger’s infamous glove pulling Jason’s mask down, essentially, into Hell. That’s how quickly New Line Cinema believed Freddy vs. Jason would come together, rather than the decade it actually took.

So, after all its false starts and legendary production hells, how did Freddy vs. Jason fare? Well, it lit up the box office opening weekend, and accumulated $115 worldwide by the end of its theatrical run. It was so successful that a sequel called “Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash,” which would have brought The Evil Dead series’ Bruce Campbell into the fold, was seriously discussed. Not bad for a very R-rated horror film consisting of franchises whose previous solo trips to theaters resulted in pitiful returns. Critics (genre ones, anyway) were split, but fans were mostly happy with the final product. Personally, I loved it, warts and all — and, holy shit, are there some warts. Kindly, and like Halloween: H20, the version of it that lives in my memory plays a lot better than on the flat screen of my present, but it still offers bloody violence, a reasonably clever plot, and a winking/knowing sense of fun. The creative talent behind the cameras of Freddy vs. Jason took the concept just as seriously as it deserved, and it shows (which is not a slight at all).

Not long after its release, Fangoria dedicated two whopping issues to feature a very long article about all the different iterations of Freddy vs. Jason that had been discussed over the years, along with interviews of those involved. It was reasonably in-depth for what Fango’s page count would allow, but was retold in an anecdotal nature. The morsels that were shared by previous screenwriters of unmade scripts hinted at far larger and more wild stories, some or most of which seemed destined never to have their stories realistically told.

From Dustin McNeill (interview here), author of Phantasm Exhumed: The Unauthorized Companion and Further Exhumed: The Strange Case of Phantasm Ravager comes Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs. Jason, the definitive look at the crazy-long and very troubled production history of not just the film Freddy vs. Jason, but the idea of “Freddy vs. Jason.” For those familiar with McNeill’s previous literary examinations of the Phantasm series, it comes as no surprise to hear that Slash of the Titans is a meticulously researched tome on the culmination of fandom’s favorite franchises. Some of the rejected concepts were admittedly nutty and ill-advised (Jason is arrested and goes to court; Jason and Freddy box in hell, refereed by Ted Bundy, and many more) but some of them make for some pretty interesting what-if concepts, such as Freddy having been a janitor at Camp Crystal Lake who had actually been the one to kill Jason as a young boy to keep him quiet…after having molested him. What’s interesting about the many different concepts is that they all seemed to share one thing in common: the screenwriters’ inherent bias as it pertained to either Freddy or Jason as characters. Much like how the final version of Freddy vs. Jason is more Freddy centric, each screenplay showcased a preference for one over the other — from their screen time to what they were given to do.

McNeill has done his due diligence, interviewing as many screenwriters of the many unused Freddy vs. Jason iterations as he could, as well as leafing through all the scripts and providing his own detailed breakdowns of their plots. Though the topic being discussed is light, it’s not exactly a breezy read. Small font covers nearly 250 pages, and it jumps back and forth between these script breakdowns, interviews, and the author’s own musings piecing together a timeline. It’s a dense book and there’s a lot of information to take in; as you read one plot breakdown after another, which particular detail belonged to which script starts to get hazy. Mainstays will remain in your brain (the kind of wacky stuff one might not forget), but some of the smaller details will fade. The book is best consumed in multiple sittings and consuming one unique script-dedicated chapter at a time. (Put it this way: the author’s previous book, Phantasm Exhumed, focused on four Phantasm films, as well as earlier films from director Don Coscarelli. And it’s only 20 pages longer than this one, a book that focuses on one film.)

Fans of the film that eventually came to be, or even fans of either franchise but not necessarily their long-mooted team-up, should absolutely snap up their own copy of Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs. Jason. It’s easily the most comprehensive source that will ever exist on the subject and will keep you busy for quite some time.

Official book stuff:

From the author of Phantasm Exhumed comes Slash of the Titans, a revealing look at why it took New Line Cinema nearly ten years and four-million-dollars to find the right screenplay for Freddy vs. Jason. Featuring new interviews with the original writers and filmmakers, Slash details the production’s troubled history from the surprise ending of Jason Goes to Hell all the way to the crossover’s red carpet premiere. Read about the many rejected storylines and learn how the project was eventually able to escape from development hell. This is the story of one film, two horror icons and seventeen screenwriters!

SLASH OF THE TITANS includes:

• Comprehensive looks at ten different versions of the screenplay
• Info on early crossover attempts by Friday the 13th filmmakers
• Exclusive details on the never made Freddy vs Jason: Hell Unbound video game
• Insights from producers, executives and developers including Sean Cunningham
• An examination of why the Shannon/Swift script was finally greenlit
• Summaries of the four endings considered for the 2003 film
• Coverage of the never made Freddy vs Jason vs Ash sequel
• New comments from the titans themselves Robert Englund and Ken Kirzinger
• Appendices full of story details including the outcomes of all ten versions

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)

The word giallo immediately brings to mind the names of horror stalwart directors Mario Bava and Dario Argento, the former who gave birth to the popular European sub-genre movement during the late 1960s, and the latter who took what Bava had done and ran with it. Argento turned the giallo up to eleven with more sexuality and more gruesome killings, but also more experimental camera techniques and more dreamlike atmosphere. Many, many other directors soon followed suit, eager to leave their own mark on the sub-genre, and each going about it in many different ways. Some vied for artistic, some vied for pulpy thrills (which would be mirrored by the slasher movement in the U.S. following the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween). Soon, the giallo, whose etymology is traced back to yellow-covered pulp fiction novels from the early 20th century, would be applied to many different concepts: straight-up murder mystery, psychological horror, supernatural slice-and-dice, or a combination of the three.  (They sometimes shared their elements with another non-horror sub-genre known as poliziotteschi – think Dirty Harry reimagined as an Italian production, but with gorier killings.)

Director Sergio Martino enjoyed a career every bit as prolific as the filmmakers named above (which includes titles like Torso and The Case of The Scorpion’s Tail, along with a fair number of sex comedies), but he never managed to find the same kind of mainstream success as his contemporaries. Ironic, given that his 1970 film All the Colors of the Dark is considered to be a quintessential giallo and clearly inspired Argento once it came time to helm his masterpiece, Suspiria.

Starring the unrealistically beautiful Edwige Fenech, All the Colors of the Dark is about a woman named Jane, possibly suffering a psychological breakdown, who believes that a mysterious blue-eyed man in a trench coat is stalking her…with a dagger. Naturally, as the genre demands, no one believes her, and those in her life instead offer armchair analysis and advice, believing it to be a figment of her imagination. Her boyfriend, Richard (George Hilton), tells her to take vitamins; her sister, Barbara (Susan Scott), suggests therapy; and her neighbor, Mary (Marina Malfatti), suggests the most outlandish cure of all: a black magic ceremony to purge her of her fears. Jane tries each one, finding success in none, but after taking part in a black mass, things really go south.

From its opening frame, Martino is quick to inject some nightmarish (literally) imagery into what so far had been a straightforward sub-genre dedicated to murder mysteries. The opening moments present something not seen in gialli up to that point, and that same sense of unease carries through to the entire film, leaving you to wonder just how much trust you can put in Jane’s eyes, or if she’s your classic unreliable narrator. There are just enough fantastic elements that help the film and Jane’s frenzied journey feel just the least bit surreal, often making you question if what she sees is for real, or if the double-whammy of her mother’s murder when Jane was young, and Jane losing her unborn baby in a car accident, has warped her mind. And given that it’s right there in the title, Martino plays around with colors; in a pre-Shyamalan show of sneakiness, Martino hides blue – the same shade as the mystery man’s eyes – in plain sight, subtly suggesting that the person wearing that blue sweater or driving that blue car is not to be trusted.

All the Colors of the Dark has long been considered essential giallo, and I won’t disagree. Don’t miss it.

THE POSSESSION OF HANNAH GRACE (2018)

 

The Possession of Hannah Grace is founded on an admittedly clever concept: what would happen to the body of a person who had died during an exorcism if the ritual hadn’t been completed? Well, naturally, it would become the morgue attendant’s problem, and there’s nothing creepier than the idea of being haunted by a possessed dead body in a basement morgue. Although I’ve always professed that I have no problem if plots are borrowed from previous movies so long as the one doing the borrowing does so with good intentions, it’s hard to ignore the fact that The Possession of Hannah Grace exists beneath the behemoth shadow of 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Not only do both ride on the same plot — a cursed body causing supernatural havoc in an isolated setting — but The Autopsy of Jane Doe did it so well without relying on corny visual effects or borrowing creepy set pieces from other flicks. (The Possession of Hannah Grace borrows from everyone, naming The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Ring as just a few.) The Autopsy of Jane Doe was gory, of course, but it felt classically done, anyway – a horror movie made by adults for adults. The Possession of Hannah Grace, despite the few good intentions it has, was clearly made for teens, and while I won’t issue a blanket statement condemning all teen-targeted flicks, let’s just say that when it comes to the horror genre, the odds are hardly ever in their favor. The Possession of Hannah Grace only wiggles a single dead finger in rebellion to that assembly line, teen-horror mindset, twitching to life every so often in an otherwise ho-hum horror offering that’s DOA. 

To its credit, what with this being a Screen Gems release (purveyors of the Resident Evil and Underworld franchises), The Possession of Hannah Grace never gets too stupid in trying to scare its audience. Yes, there are lots of jump scares, and the reliance on CGI for even the most everyday things seems unnecessary, but there’s at least an intent for scares leaning on pure genre tradition. Also like The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Possession of Hannah Grace blends supernatural shock with gory images, earning its R rating with repeated usage of the titular character’s twisted, wounded, burned corpse. (Several characters meet grisly ends as well.) In spite of its strong points, the movie falls victim to the usual kinds of lowest common denominators that plague mainstream horror releases, including a lead character (played by Shay Mitchell) whose magazine-cover beauty laughs in the face of her being a former police officer and a current morgue attendant. I’ve also never seen a more attractive and trendy looking city morgue, ever—the neo-gothic, art deco-inspired set looks more appropriate for Jack Napier’s penthouse in Tim Burton’s Batman than it does for an actual place where, at some point, a brain has definitely fallen onto the floor.

The Possession of Hannah Grace is a movie. That sounds like “no shit” level evaluation, but that is its biggest problem. It’s not good enough to warrant revisitation or critical praise, and not bad enough to leave behind a distinct impression. The movie, ultimately, is just there. (If you haven’t, see The Autopsy of Jane Doe instead.)

GWEN (2019)

With Gwen being marketed as a Shudder Original, and released to video from the genre-friendly RLJ Entertainment, it would be easy to assume it’s an out-and-out horror film. Its own synopsis includes the words “malevolent presence,” and the cover alone shows a gloomy and dim image of a young girl clutching a crucifix in front of a roaring fire. Having watched the film twice now, I’m hesitant to label it as a horror film, though the act of watching it definitely conjures horror (in a good way). Thanks to its period setting, its ease at earning and establishing dread, and its focus on the slowly dissolving family unit, Gwen comes off as a cinematic soulmate to 2015’s The Witch, another film I was hesitant to label as horror…and Gwen contains even less horror than that.

Despite that, Gwen is a solid, well-made, and eerily authentic feature from writer/director William McGregor. Every inch of its running time feels absolutely genuine. The actors, especially young Eleanor Worthington-Cox (The Enfield Haunting) as the title character, sell the desperation and despair of this poor family undergoing every possible hardship: the father is missing in action, the mother, Elen (Maxine Peake, Black Mirror), is suffering from a strange illness that causes her seizures, and the family is barely making enough money to scrape by. Bureaucrats in town continue to pressure Elen into selling off the only asset they have left — their house and farm — but she refuses, saying it’s all they have left — that it’s their home. Meanwhile, Gwen takes over her mother’s duties and tries to sell some of their farm’s produce in the town’s marketplace, but shoppers avoid her as if she has a catchable curse.

The moment Gwen begins, the viewer too easily slips into that world, and at no point does something “movie” happen to rip you out of the world that McGregor has created. Again, similar to The Witch, the dedication to making that world feel as genuine and realistic as possible is a total success, and it’s every bit as effective as A24’s eerie romp with Black Phillip. From the wardrobes to the accents and especially to the production design, it’s one of the most authentic period horror films you could ever see.

As for the horror aspect, where Gwen may lack in more typical horror scares (The Witch comes off damn near mainstream when comparing their horror content), it more than makes up in wallowing despair. Make no mistake: Gwen is certainly not a feel-good movie. If you have patience for slow-burn tales, you’ll enjoy watching it, but you won’t enjoy how it makes you feel. At times, it feels like a triathlon of how poorly things can go for a single family. Its ending, as well, comes off abrupt; when the screen cuts to black at the end, you’ll be waiting for it to fade into the next scene instead of directly into the closing credits.

The sound presentation might actually be the sleeper agent of the movie; the quiet ambience and low-key score by James Edward Barker infests your brain and lays most of the groundwork for the film’s focus on despair and futility. Gwen is one of those flicks where the sun never shines, where the world is draped in rainy gray. The picture only ever fills with life a single time–when Gwen is at the doctor’s office begging him for medicine to take home to her mother—it’s the only time the film feels hopeful, and that things might be okay for the family.

If you want a good-time, party-like horror movie, run as fast as you can from Gwen, but if you’re someone who prefers to wallow in the dark, or if you’re especially into period dread, Gwen and her family are waiting for you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 'JINGLE ALL THE WAY' FUCKING BLOWS AND YOU KNOW IT

Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the worst father on Planet Earth solely because he has a full-time job. His wife and son make lemon faces and complain that he’s never around, even though I don’t see Mrs. Langston throwing out her jewelry or tailored wardrobe, nor do I see Boy Langston donating all his toys and sealing off the door to his bedroom that looks like one entire daycare center. Despite Howard being a profitable salesman whose job is to follow trends in the marketplace, he somehow remains entirely ignorant of that year’s “hot” Christmas toy: the Turbo Man action figure, which has since become impossible to find. “Whoever doesn’t get one is going to be a REAL loser!” his awful son states, therefore establishing a very wrong message to convey to America’s youth.

Awful Son: I want the Turbo Man action figure with the arms and legs that move and the boomerang shooter and his rock’n roller jet pack and the realistic voice activator that says five different phrases including, “It’s Turbo time!” Accessories sold separately. Batteries not included.

If you close one eye, squint, turn your head, and pound five shots, you might mistake something like the above as pretty funny.

It’s clear that Howard has one option: locate this pretty-hard-to-find toy for his son to make up for the fact that he hasn’t been around to actually raise him. Howard’s desperation to obtain this toy possesses him, mind and body, leading him on a path of destruction from which he’ll never recover. Oh, along the way he meets Sinbad, played by Sinbad in a mailman suit. They’ll start off as enemies, become friends, go back to enemies again, come to some kind of mutual understanding (I think), and then you’ll remember that one time you saw that really awful surveillance video footage of that person dying in the waiting room of a hospital where none of the personnel noticed for hours and you’ll realize that was still less soul-crushing than Jingle All the Way.

Despite being a total flop with critics, Jingle All the Way somehow managed to make $130 million at the box office by the end of its run; some figures even put that gross somewhere around $183 million. Thanks, civilization.

There is exactly one redeeming thing about Jingle All the Way and its name is Phil Hartman – not because he was given all the best lines, and not because he gives a stand-out performance, but because he isn’t forced to reduce himself to the agonizing depths of embarrassment that nearly everyone else involved in this fiasco ably stoops to achieve. All he does is sit in a car, drink hot chocolate, and look awesomely smug, and that’s why we’ll forever love Phil Hartman.

Not even Arnold Schwarzenegger, with whom I will always have a heterobsession^TM, can overcome the awful pedestrian humor in which people slip on bouncy balls and fall down, trip over remote control cars and fall down, or get caught in crowds of Christmas shoppers and fall down. Along the way a reindeer is punched, Arnold screams, “Put the cookie down,” a lesser Belushi makes an appearance, and we all die a little.

Jingle All the Way is a piece of shit. It’s a horrendous, abhorrent, shameless piece of human, corn-peppered shit. Regular pieces of shit look upon Jingle All the Way and think, “We’re not shitty enough.” Or maybe they think, “Boy, that’s TOO shitty.” I don’t know. I don’t know how shit thinks because I am not the feature film Jingle All the Way.

Jingle All the Way exists because we’re a horrible people. We’ve done wrong – perhaps since the beginning of time – and we’ll never vanquish the darkness in our souls nearly enough to will Jingle All the Way out of existence.

Know how I know that?

Because this:

MOVIE MOMENTS: BLOOD RAGE (1987)

"What's your favorite dinner scene in a movie?"

Blood Rage isn’t just a slasher favorite, but a yearly Thanksgiving tradition. Frankly, it’s as much a Thanksgiving movie as Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and I will fight to the death anyone who disagrees because that’s the kind of mood I’m in.

For those unaware, Blood Rage is about an amorous mother (Louise Lasser) who has a penchant for auditioning new fathers for her clingy twin sons, Todd and Terry, with the latter being a homicidal killer even at a very young age. In the film’s opening, which takes place at a drive-in theater, the two young boys fail at sleeping through their mother’s car sex and Terry loses it and carves up another theater-goer. However, the wrong son, Todd, is implicated and he spends a solid decade locked up in a mental hospital until he escapes and beelines right back to his family, who are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. After mom receives a call from the hospital warning her about Todd’s escape, they…decide to go ahead with hosting Thanksgiving anyway, but she asks Terry not to say anything, to which he agrees. Moments later, as they all sit back down at the table, Terry very casually says to his mother’s fiancé and their numerous other dinner guests, “Looks like you’re gonna get the chance to meet the rest of the family—my psychotic brother just escaped.”

Cut to this face:

If Blood Rage weren’t a slasher movie, it would be a sitcom. The laugh track was created for this kind of cutting comedic timing. Still, the revelation of a homicidal maniac coming to dinner is probably less awkward than enduring that uncle of yours who can’t wait to start talking politics.

[Reprinted/excerpted from Daily Grindhouse.]