31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 31: LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2024)

 

When a Sweeps Week stunt goes horribly wrong.

As the 1960's gave way to the turbulent 1970's, television more than ever brought the horrors of the world directly into our living rooms, and that dire deluge was pointedly offset by fare such as late-night talk shows, with THE TONIGHT SHOW with Johnny Carson becoming a broadcast monolith. In1971, the UBC network launches NIGHT OWLS, hosted by former radio personality Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian), who seeks to challenge Carson's late-night supremacy. Welcomed to the network with a five-year contract, Jack builds an audience, but he and his show remain in the shadow of his rival.

Jack is happily married to stage actress Madeleine Piper (Georgina Haig), his deeply-loved muse,  and their marriage is hailed as one of the most solid in the entertainment biz, but his other support is the Grove, a men-only club sequestered deep in the redwoods of California. Established in the 1800's and comprised of politicians, entertainers, and captains of industry, the Grove presents itself to the outside world as a harmless diversion for the rich and powerful, complete with rituals and accompanying owl-based garb, but it somehow has the power to make or break careers. 

A ritual at the Grove. 

By the end of Jack's fourth year with the network, the ratings still can't touch Carson's and though repeatedly nominated for prestigious awards, Jack remains an also-ran. Then, in 1976, Madeleine is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. When Madeleine dies, a distraught Jack vanishes to parts unknown for a month, but Jack soon returns and, in a bid to bolster ever-flagging ratings, books controversial and exploitative guests. As ratings steadily plummet, a desperate Jack plans a live Sweeps Week Halloween installment that will hopefully turn things around. With the cultural impact of THE EXORCIST (1973) and the perception that the world had entered a satanic era very much in the zeitgeist, the night's featured guests include a spiritualist (Fayssal Bazzi) who claims to hear the voices of the dead, a former magician (Ian Bliss) who debunks metaphysical frauds, and a parapsychologist (Laura Gordon) whose star patient and subject of a best-selling case study, an eerie 13-year-old girl (Ingrid Torelli), is the sole survivor of a satanic cult's mass suicide and who purportedly is host to the demon Abraxas. What results is a live event that shocked the nation and that is presented to us as the found master tape of that episode, plus behind the scenes footage, and none of it goes well for any and all involved.

Regan McNeal redux.

I wanted to close this year's round of 31 DAYS OF HORROR with something truly good and of recent vintage, and LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL more than meets that criteria. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and preemptively hail it as a modern classic, one of the finest horror offerings of the 21st Century thus far.

The film perfectly captures the smarmy and trite banality of the 1970's late-night talk show genre, a look and feel that will be instantly recognizable to those of us who experienced the decades-long reign of THE TONIGHT SHOW, and the entire cast perform their roles with utterly believable verisimilitude while the narrative examines the price of fame and power. Jack Delroy is a study in ruthless show biz narcissism and lust for power, no matter who is exploited or hurt, and when the proceedings veer deep into the dark side, things become quite unnerving and downright Lovecraftian. To say more would ruin the fun, so I'll just sign off by giving LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL very high marks indeed. It's a must-see for all horror devotees, especially those who feel that the whole "devil junk" teat was milked dry after fifty years of attempts at topping THE EXORCIST. Proof positive that quality, intelligent, genuinely creepy and scary horror still exists.

And that concludes another round of 31 DAYS OF HORROR, my own humble annual veneration of the frisson that the cinema of the macabre bestows upon our hearts and minds. Thank you for reading my blather, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed reliving these flicks. See you back here next year for more!

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024-Day 30: SLEEPAWAY CAMP (1983)

  Fun in the sun...NOT.

1975: Young siblings Angela and Peter go on a boating trip with their father and his male lover. When the boat capsizes, the father and kids end up in the path of careless teens in a motorboat and are struck. The father and one of the children are killed.

1983: The surviving kid, Angela (Felissa Rose), has grown into a traumatized and withdrawn teen who lives with her weirdo psychiatrist aunt and her cousin Ricky, who's for all intents and purposes Angela's surrogate brother. Angela and Ricky are sent to Camp Arawak for the summer, where Angela's shy and quiet nature instantly finds her marked for abuse by bullies and the camp's pedophile cook. Ricky does his best to protect her, but he can't be everywhere. The usual summer camp movie tropes and hijinx ensue, but then "accidents" begin to occur, and then a series of killings that escalate in levels of nastiness. As the bodies pile up and the mystery deepens, the question is who is the killer? The answer is revealed in a disturbing flashback that leads to a now legendary shock ending.

 

Just one of the many fun summer activities at Camp Arawak.

Of the many '80's slasher movies set at a summer camp, SLEEPAWAY CAMP is perhaps the most unusual. We get a decent number of kills, including vaginal penetration with a hot electric curling iron and death by active beehive, and the script treats the audience like it's not composed solely of drooling idiots. We automatically identify with the traumatized and abused Angela, so it's cathartic seeing her tormentors meet horrible fates.  

                   A slasher movie first: death by vaginal penetration with a hot electric curling iron.

I was late to the party on this one, not seeing it until the early 2000's, when I should have seen it at the legendary Norwalk Theater during, but at the time I was in the midst of my first semester of college, so I seldom went to the movies and spent more time doing my damnedest to pursue college girls. I regret missing it in the theater, but when I finally got around to it, I was surprised by how good it was. Yes, the bar for quality was quite low when it came to films from the '80's deluge of stalk 'n' kill flicks, so this one being as good as it is was a welcome surprise, and I think it may have gotten lost in the shuffle if I saw it during the sub-genre's heyday.

You'll not I do not go into much detail regarding the plot, and there's a reason for that. SLEEPAWAY CAMP is best approached with little or no knowledge of its particulars, and the information that I outlined is just the bare basics, so nothing was ruined. If you have not already seen it, avoid other reviews, as most of them give away everything, and some of the recent posters for the film spoil the ending, presumably because, much like PSYCHO (1960), its final twist is now famous, even to those who have not seen the film. It's not a masterpiece, but it is a solid little summertime shocker, and it deserves to be seen without much foreknowledge. Definitely one of the Top 10 slashers of its era.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 29: EVENT HORIZON (1997)

Space is infinite... and so are its terrors.

2047: A rescue mission is sent to the orbit of Neptune, where seven years earlier the spaceship Event Horizon activated an experimental gravity drive and disappeared without a trace, but it has now suddenly returned. The designer of the gravity drive (Sam Neill) accompanies the rescue team and informs them that the gravity drive creates a black hole within its ship, which folds time and space, thus bypassing lengthy space voyages where the crew would remain in stasis until the destination is reached. Upon entering the Event Horizon, the rescuers find what remains of the crew to be dead, killed in horrific ways, with no explanation immediately apparent. The ship's log tape is reviewed, and its imagery cuts out just as the Event Horizon's captain initiates the gravity drive. The rescuers and the designer explore the ship, and what they find amounts to, well... Basically, the Event Horizon fucked off to another dimension, a place that's basically our concept of Hell, and the gravity drive has gained a malevolent sentience. It does not go well for the rescuers.

EVENT HORIZON wears its ALIEN influence on its sleeve, and features a game cast, great sets, and is gerally well-crafted all around. That said, It's definitely not for me. One of my least favorite flavors in horror is the haunted house. There are exceptions, but for the most part haunted house stories just don;t do it for me, and EVENT HORIZON is nothing if not a haunted house story set in deep space. It's good, but I kept check my watch to see how much longer I had to go until the end. Your mileage, however, is likely to vary. I know many who love it, and that's fine, but when it comes to haunted house chills, I'll take POLTERGEIST over this in a heartbeat. Anyway, it's a free country (for now), so you decide.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 28: THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973)

Relentless investigative reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) returns. 

Seattle, Washington — 

Having been run out of Las Vegas in the wake of the previous year's Janos Skorzeny vampire murder spree, investigative journalist Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) relocates to Seattle, Washington in search of work. He is once again hired by former boss Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), who is also now in Seattle, just as young women being turning up murdered. All were strangled, or, more precisely, their necks were crushed by an assailant possessing superhuman strength, and the corpses each feature a small hole at the base of the skull, from which their blood was stolen via a hypodermic needle. 

 

An invulnerable superhuman strangler hunts the nighttime streets.

Kolchak's investigation uncovers a cycle of such slayings every 21 years, beginning in 1868, with the killer operating within a window of eighteen days, after which he disappears for another 21 years, after which the cycle resumes, over and over. Witnesses to the slayings describe the murderer as having a skull-like visage or resembling a rotting corpse, and during a very much one-sided run-in with cops witnessed by Kolchak, the killer is impervious to bullets. Aided by a graduate student (Jo Ann Pflug) who's working her way through college as a belly dancer, Kolchak discovers that the killer is a 19th Century physician named Dr. Richard Malcolm (Richard Anderson), a surgeon in the Union army during the American Civil War, who has mastered alchemy and discovered the Elixir of Life, which grants him immortality.  

But the elixir requires blood from female victims, six to be exact, to remain effective, lest its user begin rapidly aging, and Malcolm is nothing if not savagely relentless in the pursuit of the required component. The trail leads to a final confrontation in the ruins of an underground city, the famous Underground, beneath the living sidewalks of Seattle, where Malcolm proves to be coolly urbane, but clearly and quite homicidally mad, and Kolchak is trapped in his eerie lair, a morbid sanctum that presages the dining room from the climax of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE the following year.

The eternal Dr. Richard Malcolm (Richard Anderson). So what if innocent women have to die horribly to sustain his immortality?

With 1972's THE NIGHT STALKER proving an unexpected ratings smash, a sequel was quickly rushed into production, and THE NIGHT STRANGLER is the end result. It's pretty much a remake of its predecessor, albeit with a shift in location and murderous creature, and as such it's merely okay. Its saving grace is Darren McGavin returning as Kolchak, and he remains as endearing as ever while his efforts are forever scoffed at, frustrated, and suppressed by his boss and hostile authorities. But we have seen this basic setup before, and previously done far better, so despite being-well-made and sporting a script by  returning horror master Richard Matheson, the proceedings are rather dull, though it does come to life during the final act, when the killer relates his history to Kolchak, who has invaded his lair. 

When immortality comes to a sudden halt and time catches up.

My re-watch of this was the first time I've seen this film since sitting through it during a family trip to Atlanta 51 years ago, and I clearly recall finding it entertaining because it distracted me from my parents' endless fighting during the vacation, as it was close to the last legs of their marriage. I liked the character of Kolchak, if not much else about the film, so I was on board when the character was granted his own weekly series, KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, which lasted for one season (1975-1975). That show was a monster kid's dream, bringing a different monster to the screen with every installment, and I, along with most of the American monster kids of my generation, never missed an episode. I did not see the original THE NIGHT STALKER until I was in high school, and I understood why it was popular enough to warrant a sequel and subsequent series. 

This one's only for Kolchak completists, of which I unabashedly am one, but even I found this to mostly be a slog. I nearly fell asleep on it twice, and I was watching it during an afternoon. That said, you can skip this and miss nothing. I cite it solely for historical purposes, and also to advise you to skip straight to the weekly TV series instead.

 TV GUIDE ad for the film's broadcast premiere.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Day 27: THEATRE OF BLOOD (1973)

 

Brush up your Shakespeare.

Master thespian Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) has trod the boards of the British stage with his performances of the works of Shakespeare for decades, crafting an impressive legacy, but when it is time for his career to be recognized with a prestigious award, his deserved accolade is instead bestowed upon some newcomer nobody by a panel of nine theater critics who have viciously used their reviews to tear down and ridicule the actor for years. 

Master thespian Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price).

Secure in their own haughty self-presumed superiority, the critics think nothing of how their snubs humiliate and destroy the men and women who work so hard to hone their craft, all in the name of promoting the arts, honoring the classics, and entertaining an audience, and their treatment of Lioneart drives him to throw himself to his death from penthouse room where the critics panel goes to celebrate after the awards ceremony. But Lionheart survives, fished out of the river by a gang of alcoholic derelicts, and takes up residence in an opulent abandoned theater. From there he plots revenge upon his critics with grisly reenactments of murders from the works of the Bard, plays for which he was renowned. Aided by his loyal daughter, Edwina (Diana Rigg), Lionheart works his way down the roster of those who humiliated him, while also staying one step ahead of the police. Aided by key theatrical detractor Peregrine Devlin (Ian Hendry), the authorities rely on Devlin's familiarity with Shakespeare and Lionheart's repertoire to predict which famous murder will next be enacted in real life. Unlike the other critics, Devlin holds genuine respect for Lionheart's talents, but he used his critical platform to attempt to goad the actor into stepping into genres other than Shakespeare, as he felt that sticking strictly within the Shakespearean was holding Lionheart back. Nonetheless, hell hath no fury like a thespian scorned, and Lionheart is one vengeful and creative homicidal maniac.

Shylock, from THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, prepares to extract his pound of flesh.

Ah, the utter delight that is 1973's THEATRE OF BLOOD, perhaps the ultimate showcase for the singular excellence that was Vincent Price. One of the grandmasters of cinematic horror, Price has long been one of my favorite actors, for his ability to portray the sinister and the kindly with equal aplomb, but it was as a villain where he was sublime. Some considered his approach to be overwrought, rather fey, and even downright hammy, but I delight in seeing him chew the scenery like nobody's business, and this film provides him with a banquet for his scenery-chewing appetites.

The immolation of Joan of Arc in HENRY VI Part 1, given a 20th Century spin.

Reportedly Price's favorite of his films, THEATRE OF BLOOD allowed Price to go hog wild and play several of the classic Shakespearen roles that he was denied during his career, perhaps due to him being forever pigeonholed as merely a horror actor. In 104 minutes, Price unleashes superb interpretations of characters and murderous scenarios from JULIUS CAESAR, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, CYMBELINE, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, RICHARD III, ROMEO AND JULIET, OTHELLO, HENRY VI Part 1, TITUS ANDRONICUS, and KING LEAR, and it's a joy to see him flex his legit stage acting chops. He's simply fantastic, simultaneously classy, chilling, and dryly hilarious as Lionheart, and though the character is insane and homicidal, I could not help but root for him to achieve his goals against his critics, whom are a pack of arrogant and pretentious assholes.  

 

Lionheart, in disguise as flamboyant hairdresser "Butch."

As per the works of Willy S., we are treated to a multiple stabbing, a spear impalement, 

 

decapitation, 

 

a pound of flesh extracted (a heart removed steaming from the victim's chest), 

 

drowning an a wine barrel, a sword fight, the orchestrated strangling of a wife by her jealous husband, electrocution to replicate the immolation of Joan of Arc,  force-feeding, 

 

and more. Played totally straight, it's all the blackest of black comedy and it is glorious, especially if you happen to be a Shakespeare nerd.

The entire cast is game, and the ever-classy Diana Rigg tackles the role of Lionheart's equally-Shakespearean daughter with gusto, spending much of the movie unrecognizable in drag in order to throw the authorities off of suspecting her as being her father's accomplice as the body count escalates.

 Diana Rigg.

 

As is no doubt readily apparent, I love THEATRE OF BLOOD and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Price was clearly having the time of his life, and his sense of fun is downright infectious. A must-watch.

Poster for the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 -Day 26: THE WOLFMAN (2010) Unrated Director's Cut

When more is less.

When the lush remake of  Universal's classic 1941 werewolf tragedy came out, I of course flew to the cinema to see it on opening night, me being that hardcore werewolf fan that so unabashedly I am. I reviewed the film immediately after seeing it, expressing my disappointment with it as a stolid MASTERPIECE THEATER treatment of what should by all rights be an exciting and visceral shocker. Its werewolf scenes featuring makeup effects by the legendary Rick Baker, he of hard-earned AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON renown, are savage, brutal, and bloody, and the CGI-assisted transformation in a London asylum for the insane is outstanding, so it's worth sitting through for the carnivorous lunar mayhem. That said, seeing THE WOLFMAN once in its entirety was enough for me, though I have watched all of the werewolf sequences on YouTube several times over the years. And now it's fourteen years later and the film has been issued in an unrated director's cut that restores seventeen minutes left on the cutting room floor, those minutes reportedly shorn in order to get the narrative to the transformation sequence faster. Considering how the film was already a dull slog, another seventeen minutes wouldn't have hurt the theatrical release, as it flopped anyway, but what the hell do I know? Anyway, upon becoming aware that a director's cut was available, for the sake of being able to comment on it, I resigned myself to see it.

I really should not have bothered.

The restored footage adds assorted bits of character business that mostly doesn't add anything of note to the story, and in the version found on Amazon Prime Video, an excellent deleted scene that's available on YouTube is not included. During the Wolfman's rampage after escaping from the mental asylum during a full moon, his bloody path leads him to a posh fancy dress ball where a blind opera diva performs for an enthralled masked crowd. 

 

The werewolf walks in from the back of the ballroom, so no eyes are on him until he makes his way through the crowd toward the singing woman. Onlookers remark on how excellent his "costume" is and how he's sure to win first prize, but things swiftly turn savage when an attendee attempts to lead him away from the sightless diva, whose voice seems to fascinate and calm him, and werewolf registers confusion at her not reacting to his appearance even though he's right in her face. 

 

Of course, she cannot see him, hence, the attendee grabbing the monster's arm to haul him away. You can guess how that works out... It's a great bit, and I have no idea why it was left on the cutting room floor. If you're making a lavish werewolf movie and can afford the makeup effects wizardry of Rick Baker, why would you cut a scene where the werewolf gets up to more butchery and mayhem? Anyway, you can find that sequence on YouTube. It may also be on the multi-disc Blu Ray edition, but I have no info on that. 

Bottom line, if you've already seen the theatrical version, you can skip this director's cut. Just make sure to check out the scene with the diva on YouTube.

Packaging for the director's cut.

31 DAYS OF HORROR - Day 25: ANTLERS (2021)

 

Flesh-eating indigenous horror approaches.

Oregon: A teacher suspects one of her young students is being abused, and her suspicions escalate when her younger brother goes missing. She investigates, and her findings bring her into direct confrontation with the ancient indigenous horror of the Wendigo, a cannibalistic spirit that has possessed the boy's father and has left a trail of half-devoured human bodies in its wake.

ANTLERS is a well crafted piece, but it the slowest of slow burns, and I had to repeatedly scan back to where I left off because I kept falling asleep on it. That said, the film has more mood than actual visceral scares, and the gore is relative restrained. The realization of the Wendigo is impressive, but it takes about an hour for it to show up and let us see it for its impaling and devouring thing. 

Bottom line is that out of this year's films that I watched for the first time, this one ranks at the bottom of the list, despite not being what I would consider "bad." It was just too tepid and plodding for my tastes, though it gets points from me for breaking out a Native American monster. Your mileage may vary.

Poster for the theatrical release.