CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE (2025)

I grew up a fan of the stoner comedy albums of Cheech & Chong, years before I ever inhaled of the sacred sweetleaf, enjoying their work because it was basically old school-style radio comedy for the then-modern era. The success of the humor had nothing to do with having experienced being stoned. It was simply about the misadventures of two hapless stoners and other characters in their daily lives, so it was highly relatable. Their movies, which is where they made their real money, were a mixed bag, with, in my opinion, only UP IN SMOKE and CHEECH & CHONG'S NEXT MOVIE being legitimate classics, and NICE DREAMS and THINGS ARE TOUGH ALL OVER being entertaining enough, if not particularly inspired. Which brings us to CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE. 

 Man (Tommy Chong) and Pedro DePacas (Cheech Marin) during their 1970's heyday.

The film is a bit of a misnomer, in that it isn't a narrative comedy, and is instead a bittersweet career memoir framed within an aimless road trip by Cheech & Chong as their old man selves. Those of us who are fans and who have researched their history will be aware of the behind the scenes details, but it serves as a solid history lesson for newcomers. Cheech & Chong's comedy was very much of its post-hippie era and might not translate well to today's sensibilities, but back then they were HUGE, literally the comedy equivalent of rock superstars.

                                                  The '70's comedy legends in the 21st century.

CHEECH & CHONG'S LAST MOVIE is recommended for comedy historians and fans who want to see our heroes one final times before the inevitable meet the reaper, a time that's sadly growing ever closer.

WICKED: FOR GOOD (2025)

 

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) returns to wreak more righteous mayhem. 

Just got back from WICKED: FOR GOOD. 

 

I was entertained, but I felt it was definitely the weaker of the two films, with the stakes and characters having been firmly established in the first installment, while the second film is basically a final act that's been padded out to 137 minutes. I did not see the Broadway version, but I'm guessing that show was about three hours max, excluding intermission, so translating it to the screen in two films totaling close to five hours was doomed to feel bloated with filler. I found the second film to be more of a case of racing to the narrative finish line than actually engrossing the audience. All of its plot threads wrap up rather abruptly, especially Glinda's banishment of the Wizard and the imprisonment of Madame Morrible, which leads me to ask if she could rid Oz of those villains with such relative ease, what took her so fucking long to get there?

 

Was it bad, No. Does it pale in comparison to its livelier and more fun first half. Absolutely, but it's still worth seeing. I loved the production design and the performances, plus to say nothing of the seamless flying sequences, and Cynthia Erivo exuded major presence as Elphaba. When Glinda slapped her, the entire Bay Ridge audience let out a collective "Oooooooh..." as if to note how ill-advised it is for a palm-colored person to strike a black woman, even if said black woman happens to be green.

 

Worth seeing, especially if you can score a discount matinee. Also there are some theaters that are screening both films back to back. I don't know how well that will work from the audience's POV, as the falloff from the first film is considerable, though your mileage may vary. And in my opinion, when it comes to films ancillary to the classic 1939 THE WIZARD OF OZ, by far the best of the lot is 1985's RETURN TO OZ, which remembers in no uncertain terms that the Oz of the novels is a place that is simultaneously fantastically wondrous, but is also downright terrifying. Give that one a watch if you never saw it.

 

 Poster for the theatrical release.

THE LEATHER BOYS (1964)

Enjoy it while it lasts.

One of the best-known of the era's working class "kitchen sink" dramas (think A TASTE OF HONEY or SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, and a personal favorite, the genuinely sleazy BEAT GIRL), THE LEATHER BOYS (1964) focuses on the marriage of Reggie (Colin Campbell) and Dot (Rita Tushingham), who get married very young. (Rita is sixteen.) Reggie is fond enough of Dot, but it's pretty clear that his true interest in her revolves around her being sexually available. All he wanted to do with her is have sex, but the self-absorbed and immature Dot 's interest in perpetually having fun begins to grate on Reggie's nerves, as well as her incompetence as the housewife she's expected to be during that era, and the marriage begins to sour while the pair are on their honeymoon at a holiday facility in Bognor.

The pair regularly fight and soon Reggie loses interest in physical intimacy with Dot, instead preferring to spend as much time as possible with his biker pals. He soon begins a friendship with blonde leather-clad "certified nutcase" Pete (Dudley Sutton), a happy-go-lucky sort with whom Reggie finally finds a legit human connection.  

Pete (Dudley Sutton).

The only other person Reggie gets on with is his grandmother, and when his grandfather dies, he moves Pete into his grandmother's house so she'll have some company, which works out just great for everyone. Unfortunately, Reggie moves out on Dot after less than a year of marriage and begins boarding at his grandmother's with Pete, the two even sharing a bed. Reggie's relationship with Pete deepens as the two become inseparable, and Reggie finds it easy to communicate and express himself with the ebullient Pete. As the pair become closer, it becomes clear to the audience that Pete is gay, though at no point is he portrayed as in any way a stereotype of a homosexual man, while Reggie remains oblivious. 

 Get a clue, Reg.

Dot takes up with another of Reggie's biker crew in an attempt to make Reg jealous, even going so far as to claim that she's pregnant with Reggie's child (a strategy suggested by her mother), but Reggie immediately scoffs at this, noting that there's no way it could be his kid because he hasn't touched Dot in ages. Dot notes how Reggie and Pete seem attached at the hip, even going so far as to bitterly state "You two look like a couple of queers." (She's not wrong. They could be a butch couple that Tom of Finland would have illustrated, what with the biker culture and leather fetishism, though considerably less cartoonishly buff.) Reggie and Pete even go on holiday together and have a blast, though when Reg tries to pull two girls, Pete's lack of interest is barely hidden behind a polite facade, and of course Reggie does not pick up on what is blatantly obvious: Pete is clearly in love with Reg, and he even suggests that the pair leave England for New York City.

                         Reggie finds a sympathetic ear and genuine human connection with Pete.

During a multi-person motorcycle race to Edinburgh, with Dot riding bitch with her new beau, Reggie and Dot begin to reconnect, much to the consternation of Pete, and the two decide to reconnect. I won't outline how, so you can see it for yourself, but the story's conclusion leaves the lives of our three main characters shattered. 

So, after sleeping overnight and ruminating on the events in THE LEATHER BOYS, I enjoyed the film but am disappointed that it didn't do more with examining the relationship between Cockney mechanic/biker Reggie and fellow biker Pete. After decades of hearing about how the film was tarred for "promoting moral turpitude" and banned in some areas, I came to it expecting something as off-putting as the infamous CRUISING (1980), but even for its time I found nothing particularly offensive or salacious about it, unless the mere hints of the existence of homosexuality or a positive same sex relationship were enough to send the critics and the greater British public into paroxysms of wailing and hand-wringing. (Which, let's face it, was pretty much the case. Homosexuality was not decriminalized in England until 1967.)  

Reggie's a typical Cockney from the British dramas of the pre/early Beatles era and is serviceable enough as a protagonist, but he's kind of bland. Dot is immature and quite selfish, and definitely not yet ready for the responsibilities of a British housewife in 1964. The one truly likeable character in the triangle is Pete, who is sensitive, caring, kind, down-to-earth, and just plain fun, the kind of person anyone would be glad to associate with. It's pretty obvious from the get-go that he's gay and has feelings for Reggie, but he is at no point played as a stereotypical mincing sissy. Pete's just a nice guy with a taste for high-octane motorcycles and black leather, and he came from out of nowhere to become my favorite queer character in cinema. His utter lack of stereotyping is refreshing, especially when considering when the film was made, and sheer normal human decency of such a character must have been quite unsettling for the average British moviegoer in the early 1960's. Pete was far from the first gay character in UK cinema, but he was easily the most human. He reminded me of some of my friends, people the likes of which I never see properly depicted onscreen. I would have loved to see a film that continues Pete's story from the point where we left him, but alas. Anyway, check out THE LEATHER BOYS. Low-key but very good stuff indeed. 

 Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 31: WITCHING AND BITCHING (LAS BRUJAS DE ZUGARRAMURDI, 2013)

Witchery shenanigans with a distinctly Latin flavor.

Armed robbers disguised as street performers stage a violent daytime heist and hijack a passing taxi, with the plan being to flee to France, with the 10-year-old son of one of the robbers along for the ride (the kid was an active and willing participant in the robbery), as well as the innocent passenger of the cab. 

                                   A piss poor example of "Take Your Kid to Work Day."

 During the ride, the men grouse about how fed up they are with women in general, and the mastermind of the heist notes that he planned the robbery so he could have enough money to properly provide for his son. After a devastating high-speed chase with the police, the group make their way to the remote town of Zugarramurdi, which their driver at first refuses to enter because he is aware of its long history with the most diabolical of witchcraft, but a series of not-so-coincidental encounters and accidents lead them right to the mansion that houses the local coven, a merry group of cannibals that prophesied their arrival, heralding the robber's son as their "chosen one." Two detectives are also in hot pursuit, as well as the head robber's pissed-off ex-wife, who trails them. because she believes her son has been kidnapped. All parties converge at the mansion, where much mayhem and dark shit transpires, including torture, two romances blossom, elder forces are summoned, and it all culminates with the coven's Lovecraftian ritual that will bring about the end of the worldwide patriarchy.

                                                             In the mansion of madness.  

It was my intention to close this year's 31 DAYS OF HORROR with a solid witchcraft movie, so when the goofily-titled WITCHING AND BITCHING was recommend earlier this week, I opted to give it a chance. I love witchery stories and I had never heard of this one, so I went in blind and what I got was not at all what I expected. 

                             Comely witch Eva (Carolina Bang) eagerly anoints her broomstick.

It turned out to be a subtitled horror comedy from Spain that's actually very funny, striking the perfect blend between the humorous and the genuinely horrific. The laughs are earned while not shying away from adult visceral content and shocking imagery in the least. The entire cast give it their all, and I was delighted to see my girl Macarena Gomez, perhaps best known as the eerie mermaid in DAGON (2001), as the boy's angry mother. She has a creepy-eyed beauty that gives the legendary Barbara Steele a run for her money.

                           Macarena Gomez demonstrates the perils of roadside restrooms.

There's a lot that I could say about this film, but it would be criminal to spoil more than I already have, so I urge you to see it for yourself. Just remember to turn on the subtitles.

And with that, this year's cycle of 31 DAYS OF HORROR reviews comes to a close, and I thank you for joining me. And of this year's films, I hereby cite THIRST (Day 15) and WITCHING AND BITCHING as the unexpected hidden gems of the crop. Those are the two you absolutely should check out. Anyway, thank you for your support, and keep the flame of love for horror alive!

                                                             Poster for the Spanish release. 

Poster for the American release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 30: KOLCHAK - THE NIGHT STALKER "Chopper" (1975)

 

 

Investigative reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) follows a trail of murders in which the victims are all beheaded by a headless leather-clad biker on a cherry motorcycle of a make that ceased production some twenty years earlier. Kolchak's sleuthing reveals that the killer is the sword-wielding reanimated corpse of a teenage biker hoodlum who was accidentally beheaded in a prank gone horribly wrong and whose bodily was hastily buried without its head, and apparently a body interred sans noggin will rise and exact vengeance, so Kolchak must stay one step ahead of the this modern Headless Horseman and figure out a way to and its swath of six-cylinder slaughter.

 

You can't reason with a headless man.

 

"Chopper," Episode 15 of the short-lived KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER (1974-1975), features one of the show's more memorable monsters in the headless biker, though admittedly its practical execution leaves much to be desired when seen fifty year after the fact and viewed through 60-year-old eyes. KOLCHAK was the one new network TV series that I never missed during original airings (whenever possible), and to a nine-year-old monster kid, that show was like manna from heaven. Its "monster of the week" format would prove its undoing (How could they hope to keep the series running indefinitely when it's pretty much the same gimmick every week?), but I ate it up and watched most of its episodes from the relative safety of beneath the family room's coffee table. Of the show's many dark antagonists, the headless biker was always a favorite simply because of how visually disturbing it was when filtered through my 9-year-old imagination. Sure, it looks like something from a cheesy carnival spook show to me now, but back in January of 1975 it was the stuff of nightmares. I would love to see this story retold with a decent budget and actual super-visceral gore, but I'll gladly cherish "Chopper" for adding early shades of darkness to my world.

  

Vintage TV GUIDE ad from the series' run on THE CBS LATE MOVIE.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 29: THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA (1971)

                                                                            Back for more.

Apparently COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE was a success, so this sequel followed a year later. Zero concrete explanation is given as to how the Count (Robert Quarry) and his hulking henchman have been resurrected after their quite decisive slayings in the previous film (it's alluded to that it may have something to do with the ominous Santa Ana winds blowing in), nor how they relocated to a labyrinthine mansion in San Francisco that's tricked-out with assorted gadgets controlling its interior doors. All the film is concerned with is getting the vampiric ball rolling as soon as possible by putting Count Yorga on the scent of the lovely Cynthia (Marietta Hartley), a teacher at an orphanage. After placing a young boy under his thrall, the Count sets about killing those around Cynthia, including unleashing his pack of six vampire brides on her family in what is arguably the film's scariest scene. 

 A diabolical home invasion.  

The brides spare Cynthia and bring her to the Count's mansion, where he hypnotizes her into forgetting the massacre of her family and also convinces her that it is in the interest of her health to stay as his guest for a few days. But Cynthia's fiancee, Dr. David Baldwin (Roger Perry), twigs to the fact that vampire is loose and on the rampage, so he launches a hopeless campaign to rescue Cynthia and do away with the Count once and for all. Aided by some unbelieving detectives (including a young Craig T. Nelson in his screen debut), Baldwin invades the Count's compound and must face the Count's henchman, the ever-increasing compliment of vampire brides (seven at last tally), and finally the Count himself, who is hell-bent on having Cynthia as his eternal lover.

                                    What you get when you invade a master vampire's lair.

I'll give THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA this much: It moves briskly and it isn't boring, and, like its predecessor, it's a fun entry-level vampire film for beginners. That said, there are numerous plot holes that one cannot help but ponder as the film proceeds, and it's clear that the filmmakers could not have cared less. This time they upped the vampire action and basic shocks at the expense of a tight script. It's not bad, per se, but it comes off as a mostly lazy retread of the first film, with a handful of memorable bits. In fact, if they took the best bits from the first film and this installment, they could have had an all-time classic, but what remains is, while worth seeing, somewhat tepid.

 

Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 -Day 28: COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970)

 As if Los Angeles in 1970 didn't already have enough problems. 

Count Yorga (Robert Quarry), a Bulgarian vampire, lands in 1970 Los Angeles and begins preying upon the populace. Acting as a mystic and hypnotist, Yorga conducts a seance for Donna (Donna Anders), a woman who wishes to communicate with her recently-deceased mother, and it is noted that Yorga dated Donna's mother weeks before she suddenly died, and he insisted that she be buried rather than cremated. When contact is made with a disembodied presence, Donna goes into hysterics, so Yorga sets about calming her via hypnosis while actually placing her under his mental subjugation. In the days following the seance party, Donna is visited at night by the Count, who feeds on her and initiates her transformation into the latest member of his undead harem (some of whom engage in sapphic shenanigans while Yorga watches). 

 

The Count watches as his girls put on a "show." 

When the other members of the party note Donna's debilitated state, they call in Dr. Jim Hayes (Roger Perry) to examine her, and he immediately realizes that she is being vampirized. Meanwhile, Yorga begins systematically killing the male attendees of the party and enslaving the women, so Dr. Hayes and Donna's boyfriend Mike (Michael Macready) launch a half-assed invasion of Count Yorga's mansion in an attempt to save Donna. There they confront the Count directly and face off against the vampire brides, one of whom is Donna's resurrected mother. It does not go well for our heroes...

                                                                       The undead harem.

COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE is a humble effort, but it's a lot of fun and would serve as a perfect entry-level vampire movie for budding horror kids. Not as sexy or brutally gory as a Hammer effort (though reportedly originally intended as a softcore porno film, which I can totally see), its collision of 20th Century America and a supernatural menace from the old country can be seen as a dry run for what came two years after and was refined to a fine edge with the made-for-TV film THE NIGHT STALKER, the success of which spawned the tragically short-lived series KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER. Many a monster kid of my vintage cut their teeth on that show (I never missed an episode), and the tale of Count Yorga would have fit on that series like a hand in a glove. 

Not quite a classic but definitely a worthy entry, COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE satisfies, and it earned a sequel a year later, but we'll get to that one...

 

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 -Day 27: VIY (1967)

                                                          Bottom line: Don't piss off a witch.

In old Russia, a young monk (Leonid Kuravlyov). from the seminary near Kiev has a bizarre encounter with an ancient crone who reveals herself as a witch. After rejecting her aggressive sexual advances and being forced to fly over the countryside with her on his back, the monk compels her to land by invoking the name of Christ and beats the witch to within an inch of her life, at which point she transforms into a beautiful young woman (Natalya Varley). 

                                                              Flying the witchy skies.

Freaked out, the monk escapes and returns to the seminary, where he's immediately summoned by the master of the village he just escaped from. Against his will he is tasked with performing a three-day ceremony of last rites for the master's beautiful daughter, for which he is promised a healthy reward of a thousand pieces of gold, but when he arrives to perform the service, the daughter has died and he realizes that she was the which that he brutalized, apparently to her death. As he reluctantly performs the rites, the girl's corpse sits up and flies through the air, basically surfing around the room in her coffin, clearly bewitched or possessed. 

                                                                     The haunting begins.

The experience causes the monk's hair to turn white, and he attempts to bail on the final day of the ritual, but the village master threatens him with a brutal public lashing if he refuses. After a failed attempt at escape, the monk is forced to return and fulfill his obligation. It does not end well for him, as the witch curses him with torment by spirits and demons from Hell.

                                                                The monk's final moments.

I'd heard of VIY ("Spirit of Evil") for years and was curious to see it, because I had yet to experience a Russian horror story, so I leapt at the opportunity when I found it online. Adapted from the 1835 novella by Nikolai Gogol, I don't know if it's the film's Soviet-era vintage or if it's a case of cultural disconnect, but I found the film not scary in the least, and even at a short 76 minutes I had a hard time staying awake through it. The supernatural bits are few and far between, with the majority of the running time being devoted to the slow-paced world of the dead witch's peasant village, punctuated by lots of drunken folk singing by the elder village men. The film moves like a drugged tortoise and the spookiest imagery happens during the last ten minutes, by which point it's too little too late, and much of those visuals are about on par with those of a generic carnival spook house. 

The final haunting.

This one's a disappointing curiosity that I wish I had skipped, but at least I can now cross it off of my list.

Poster for the Russian theatrical release. 

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 26: DANGEROUS ANIMALS (2025)

Welcome to Captain Tucker's shark experience! Welcome....and goodbye.

Off the Gold Coast in Australia, weirdo sea captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) operates a shark cage diving experience for tourists, taking them into the middle of nowhere in the ocean and chumming the water to attract any of the area's numerous varieties of man-eating sharks. Tucker also happens to be an unhinged serial killer who has murdered dozens of innocent tourist who come for the shark diving thrill, trussing them up and dangling them over the side of his boat like they were bait (which, let's face it, they are), chronicling  their terrified, agonized screams on videotape as the carnivorous fish eat them alive. American surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) has come to Australia to escape her hard previous existence, hooking up with nice guy real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston) and forming a connection, but her deep mistrust of people after years in foster homes and juvie lead her to leave in the wee hours after their tryst, and she goes to a remote beach to surf alone in the night. There she falls prey to Tucker, and from that point onward she must use  every bit of her hard-earned toughness and survival skills to try and make it out alive. Good luck with that, as Tucker has his twisted serial killer methodology down pat, and his sadistic operations are conducted on the high seas, where no one is watching...

Forced to witness a fellow prisoner's agonized consumption by sharks.

Making a decent shark movie in the wake of the genre-defining JAWS (1975), even fifty years later, is a daunting task, and only a few films in the sub-genre have managed to pull it off. DANGEROUS ANIMALS is one of the better of this breed, featuring solid performances, a tense vibe, a tough as nails protagonist in Zephyr, and a vile killer in the hulking Tucker. He equates himself with sharks, takes locks of hair from his victims and makes deep-sea fishing lure with them, souvenirs that he preserves in the cases of the library of his videotaped murders, and he nonchalantly eats meals while watching the video evidence, which he considers "the greatest show on earth." He's a vile piece of work who one can't wait to see get his just desserts.

                                                       Arts and crafts with Captain Tucker.

DANGEROUS ANIMALS is not a classic, but it is very entertaining, and you really feel for Tucker's innocent victims. I I were to describe this film to knowledgeable horror fans in one sentence, I would simply say "PEEPING TOM meets JAWS." If you get that gene-spliced reference, you get what DANGEROUS ANIMALS is, so proceed from there. It's a fun way to spend 98 minutes, though I. could have done with more graphic depictions of sharks eating people. What we get is pretty good, but when it comes to man-versus-man-eaters stories, I prefer things as visceral and nasty as possible. DANGEROUS ANIMALS earns its R-rating mostly for profanity, though there's a good deal of nastiness that killed any possibility of a PG-13, which is fine by me. Give me R-rated horror and beyond, not watered-down pablum that brings in the lucrative younger audience. I want my horror with teeth, goddammit, and a proper shark film must possess said dental appendages. That said, DANGEROUS ANIMALS joins my short list of quality shark flicks, a roster that includes JAWS, DEEP BLUE SEA, and the superlative THE SHALLOWS.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 25: MAGIC (1978)

                              "Abracadabra, I sit on his knee/Presto chango, and now he is me."

As his star rises, stage magician/ventriloquist Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) is offered a series of specials by a major television network, but network policy demands that he submit to a medical exam. Adamant in his refusal to be evaluated, Corky flees to where he grew up in the Catskills, and he encounters Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret), whom he had a crush on during high school. She's stuck in a loveless marriage, and she and Corky become lovers while her husband is away on a business trip. It all looks rosy, but Corky's facade of normalcy periodically cracks, revealing a twitchy, short-tempered, and frighteningly volatile side, and as he slides headlong into outright unstable territory, he regularly engages in conversations with his creepily aggressive dummy, Fats, with the back and forth between them being a clear marker of his escalating insanity. When his agent (Burgess Meredith) tracks Corky to the Catskills and witnesses one of the ventriloquist's meltdowns with the dummy, he realizes Corky's reluctance to undergo the network's medical exam was due to fear over his mental state being discovered. The agent makes it clear that Corky is not mentally sound and offers to get him help, but the influence of Corky's Fats persona prompts Corky to murder the agent, and from there things only get worse when Peggy's jealous husband, Duke (Ed Lauter), returns from his business trip. Corky — as Fats — stabs Duke to death while Peggy is away in town, and he resolves to run away with Peggy to Paris, but Fats doesn't want to be left alone, so he threatens to tell everything...

Fats gets stabby.

I clearly remember TV ads for MAGIC when I was in 8th Grade, and I wanted to see it, thanks to the "Is the ventriloquist crazy, or is his dummy actually alive and homicidal" trope being a tried and true scary gut punch since at least as far back as DEAD OF NIGHT (1945), and it's an aspect of horror that many kids my age were first exposed to via reruns of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, specifically the episodes "The Dummy" and "Caesar and Me." Ventriloquist dummies in general are visually unnerving, and when deployed in a horror context, they can be downright terrifying. That's what I was hoping to get with MAGIC, but while it was well-made and packed with solid performances, I found it to be quite a tepid affair that wishes it were as hair-raising as "The Ventriloquist's Dummy" segment of DEAD OF NIGHT. Admittedly, that one's a high bar, but I was hoping that a film nearly 35 years after that British classic would bring some shattering scares in a far more permissive era of cinema. Not bad by any means, but nothing I will revisit.

                                                         Poster for the theatrical release. 

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 -Day 24: MARK OF THE WITCH (1970)

In the 1600's, a witch talks mad shit before meeting her fate at the end of a hangman's noose.

In the 1600's, in order to save his own ass a member of a coven betrays the witch who leads the group, and she is sentenced to be hanged. However. before the noose dispatches her, the witch curses her former coven colleague. 300 years later at a college book drive, a coed finds an ancient read book that's full of all manner of witchy spells and formulas, and when she reads from it at a party held by her professor of occult studies, she unwittingly summons the vengeful spirit of the witch, who promptly possesses her and sets about enacting her diabolical agenda. 

 The witch, after her 20th Century glow-up. 

Mind-controlling the occult professor — who happens to be the latest descendant of the man who sentenced the witch to hang — and the coed's boyfriend into doing her bidding and helping her blend in with the rest of the students and adjust to the 20th Century, the witch immediately embarks on a series of ritual sacrificial murders of students. The professor and boyfriend, despite being bound by her spell, work tirelessly at researching a way to break the spell and boot the witch out of the coed's body.

MARK OF THE WITCH is an obscure little zero-budget flick that bears the look and feel of a community theater one-act play. It stars no one anyone's ever heard of, features several over-the-top laughably try-hard performances, and has the air of a film about a half-decade before its release date. It's not scary at all, but it at least presents its story in earnest and doesn't wear out its welcome. (It's under 80 minutes long.) It's not bad for what it is, but witchery fans like myself will find it rather tepid, and the only reason for a witch fan to sit through it is for the sake of obsessive completism. It means well but, sadly, it will likely be forgotten not long after being seen. It's a passable enough diversion if watched on home video, but I would have been quite vexed if I had paid good money to see this during its theatrical release. When it comes to witchy yarns, ROSEMARY'S BABY it sure as hell ain't.

 Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 -Day 23: THE FACULTY (1998)

 Staying hydrated.

An Ohio high school finds itself as Ground Zero for an alien invasion by aquatic lifeforms that possess human hosts, in this case the school's students and faculty, and from there the creatures intend to spread and take over the world. Only a disparate handful of students stands in opposition, and the odds against them grow with every passing minutes. Parents and the authorities don't believe them, and pretty soon our heroes realize that the aliens have infiltrated their group. With all of that to contend with, our heroes must also figure out the identity of the queen invader and destroy it before it infests the globe.

THE FACULTY is a late-1990's take on the tried and true basic template of "alien invasion via replacement" set in stone by INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) and its remakes (the most notable being the landmark 1978 iteration), and it's a lot of lively fun. Its vibe is very much that of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER teevee series, which was super-popular at the time, only with R-rated shocks and gore thrown in for good measure. The cast, led by a pre-Frodo Elijah Wood, is engaging, and although our gaggle of mismatched heroes would be right at home on pretty much any teen show of its era, the story's teenagers are quite engaging and not obnoxious in the least.

The aliens start off as tiny aquatic creatures but the more water they absorb, the larger they become, with their forms being defined by loads of sharp teeth and masses of wiggly tentacles. One they have inhabited a human host, they can withstand outrageous amounts of what would otherwise be fatal damage, with a memorable sequence involving a possessed faculty member getting beheaded in a fiery car crash, only for her head to extend tentacles out of the gaping neck wound and crawl to its headless body, which blithely leans over, picks up its head, and reattaches it, leaving it as good as new. Just one of several moments that evoke shades of John Carpenter's game-changing remake of THE THING (1982), which I am absolutely there for.

Shades of THE THING.

 

It's a welcome throwback to old school cre4ature features, with the benefit of advanced practical and digital effects, and I wholeheartedly recommend it as an entry-level shocker for tweens. 

 

The queen invader.

I went to see THE FACULTY on opening weekend, but it wasn't until it hit home video that I saw the film uninterrupted from start to finish. What happened was that it was playing at a crappy hole in the wall theater on Flatbush Avenue, a theater known for its low-rent ambience, and as my friend John and I sat there among opening weekend attendees, about fifteen minutes into the film, the movie abruptly stopped, the screen went blank, and sounds of some sort of a kerfluffle could be heard from the projection booth. After a few minutes, the obviously stoned projectionist addressed the audience, noting technical difficulties, but he promised to have the film repaired in just a little while, so he beseeched us for patience. Another ten or fifteen minutes passed with no results, but the projectionist addressed us again, once more assuring us that he was working on sorting the problem. Another fifteen minutes passed, and by that point the audience was getting restless, with some even giving up and walking out. Finally, the projectionist (shamelessly reeking of weed) came down again and sheepishly admitted defeat, then he directed us to hit the box office for a full refund, which we all did. A memorable moviegoing experience, to say the least.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2025 - Day 22: TENTACLES (1977)

Shark...giant octopus... Who'll know the difference?

 

When JAWS opened in 1975 to unprecedented worldwide box office success, arguably becoming the first summer blockbuster in the process, a deluge of international copycats was inevitable, and of course Italy,  perhaps the world leader in cinematic ripoffs (slightly edging out Turkey and Japan), contributed a few notable and utterly shameless examples, with GREAT WHITE, aka THE LAST SHARK (1980), getting my vote as the most hilariously brazen of the first wave JAWS clones, but arriving two years after Spielberg's landmark was this stultifyingly dull cinematic sedative.

 

Easily the film's most memorable scene. Was this meant to elicit laughs?
 

As expected, TENTACLES takes the basic JAWS template, swaps out a Great White shark for an humongous cephalopod, and mayhem and gory deaths do not ensue. What we get instead are a number of victims disappearing with little or no visceral action, and the few times we see a full-scale animatronic of the colossal sea monster, it's in the dark and barely visible, basically because the puppet, much like Spielberg's mechanical shark infamously did during filming, sank. 

 

One of the film's few shots where you get anything even close to a good look at the monster.

 

To remedy this, the filmmakers instead resorted to using a living octopus that they shot from closeup, which at no point works to make the creature look monstrously massive. Instead it looks like footage from a cheap 16mm reel that one might be forced to sit through in a junior high school biology class. Oh, and the octopus is defeated at the end by a pair of highly trained orcas, but it's too little too late. Meanwhile, the moviegoing audience has found itself lulled into a torpor.

 

TENTACLES also features several American actors, some of impressive pedigree, and utterly squanders them. We get Shelley Winters, Claude Akins, John Huston, Bo Hopkins, and Henry Fonda (who was only available for one day of shooting because he was recovering from recently having a pacemaker installed), and at no point will you care about any of their characters. Each pretty much sleepwalks through their roles, to vary degrees, and by the time the film reaches its overdue climax, it's more than clear that this was just a paycheck for the Americans who were involved. 

 

Bottom line: If you must watch a JAWS ripoff, I recommend THE LAST SHARK instead. Sure, it has its dull patches, but it sports a ludicrous giant animatronic shark and some hilarious kills. With TENTACLES you get bubkes.

 

Poster for the American theatrical release. The poster is scarier and more exciting than anything found in the actual film.