HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981)

March 1, 2025 by J.R. in digital retribution review, To Watch Pile and tagged 80s, bluray, Fulci, gore, haunted, horror, italian, italy, lucio fulci, Zombie, zombies | Leave a comment

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981)

*The cover to Cinema Cult’s bluray release*

I make massive attempts to not be a gatekeeper when it comes to horror. I am almost definitively a live and let live guy. Manos The Hand of Fate is the best horror film ever? Ok, sure thing pal. There’s nothing scarier than an Annabelle film? No worries, junior.

There is a caveat and that is Italian horror: you don’t like it, I doubt your horror cred, sorry, that’s just the way it is. Is it because I’m an arsehole? Maybe. Is it generational? Definitely.

For those who don’t know, let this Gen X dinosaur explain who Lucio Fulci was. Lucio Fulci was an Italian movie director who made his first film, a comedy, in 1959 and was in the middle of making the movie The Wax Mask in 1997 when he tragically passed away, a film eventually finished by Sergio Stivaletti.

Fulci is best know for his horror and giallo films of the 70s and 80s. Such films as the thrillers Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Don’t Torture a Duckling, the slasher New York Ripper and what most horror films of a particular generation know him for, three unrelated in story but tonally equivalent City of the Living Dead, The Beyond and this one, The House By The Cemetery.

The House by the Cemetery tells of Dr Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco), his wife Lucy (Catriona MacColl, though listed in the credits as ‘Katherine’) and son, Bob (Giovanni Frezza) are moving to a strange house in New Whittby, Massachusetts so Norman can continue the work of his ex-colleague Dr. Peterson, a man who murdered his partner and then himself.

Strangely, Bob has been having strange visions of a girl named Mae Freudstein (Sylvia Collatina) who has been consistently warning him away from going to the house, something a child obviously has no control over.

*Pieroni is up to no good, or is she? It’s not really explained…*

Odd things keep happening though as Norman is recognised by several locals even though he claims to have never been there before, and the basement of the house is locked and boarded up… well, it was until babysitter Ann (Anita Pieroni) inexplicably removes the boards one night, but what is down there?

What is going on in the house? What do Bob’s visions have to do with it all? Is there someone else living in the house, or maybe someTHING is dwelling in the basement…

Honestly, I can’t tell you what the hell is going on in this film. There is so much stuff that’s unexplained like characters looking knowingly at each other like co-conspirators, but there time travel involved, are these ghosts… so many questions, so few answers.

I feel like Fulci was trying to make Norman some kind of enigmatic character like Jack from The Shining. All of the recognition from the locals is quite obvious and yet it is not even slightly explored. I kept expecting the film to end with a photo of the house from the 1800s with him standing out the front. It’s never exploited outside of the strange side-eyes and ‘have you been here before?’

There is a lot of fun gore though, and the dubbing of some characters, particularly Bob, is so laughable that it makes the movie even more fun to watch, and between those two things, all that confusion with the script washes away and it just become dumb entertainment.

Whilst this certainly isn’t top level Fulci, it IS infinitely rewatchable: I don’t know why, but it is! Yet another thing I don’t understand about this film!

Disc: There’s 4 interviews and a featurette on this disc.

Back to the Cellar is an interview with Giovanni Frezza aka Bob.

Cemetery Woman is a decent interview with Catriona MacColl. Lots of memories of Fulci here.

Finishing the Final Fulci is an interview with Sergio Stivaletti and him taking over the directorial role of Fulci’s final film, The Wax Mask, after he passed away.

Freudstein’s Follies is an interview with Gianetto De Rossi, the special effects man for the film.

Ladies of Horror is a look at various Italian horror movie stars.

These are all High Riding Productions shorts which are all directed by Calum Waddell whom usually works for Arrow Video with these shorts so I am assuming they have been purchased by Cinema Cult for this disc.

All interesting but of varying lengths. There is probably a really good solid singular feature about Fulci in here somewhere, but these shorts have some great anecdotes in them.

Film: 6/10

Extras: 8/10

Rewatchability: 10/10

*The real estate agent realises the housing crisis is worse than she thought!*

This Australian Bluray was purchased from JB Hifi.

UNTIL DAWN (2025) – PLAYSTATION 5

February 19, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged horror, PlayStation 5, until dawn, video game | Leave a comment

UNTIL DAWN (2024)

Game: I would like to say that as a horror fan I am not 100% sure how I missed out on Until Dawn’s release in 2015, but I was probably due to this reason: Call of Duty.

My video game experience at that point was solely online: Call of Duty and Battlefield were my thing all day and all night, so Until Dawn slipped right by me. I’m older now and my tolerance of online personalities and also the fact that I’m ten years slower than what I was then so my online gaming avocation is coming to a close and I spend more time playing games solo and a few weeks ago I discovered the remastered redo of Until Dawn that was released in 2024.

My discovery of Until Dawn came after I spoke highly of a game called ‘The Quarry’, less a video game but more an animated Choose Your Own Adventure experience like the series of books of the same name, you know the ones you would read as a child… or as an old man like the fact I read one last week, and a friend told me I needed to try this.

Until Dawn isn’t like you average game: you don’t run and shoot, or drive in cars or get a victory Royale, instead, you get to play it how you want to play it. A scene is played out and through the course of it you are given decisions, and these decisions don’t just effect the gameplay, they change the characters as you play them, so the gameplay evolves as the characters evolve. This means the games have lots of opportunities for replaying them.

Until Dawn started with a bunch of friends away on a trip at their rich friends snow lodge, which honestly is massive, like an old hotel, labyrinthine like the Overlook in The Shining and some of the members of the group decide to play an awful prank on one of their own, Hannah (Ella Lentini), that is so cruel she runs into the forest at night, her twin sister, Beth, in hot pursuit. They quickly find themselves being chased by a flamethrower wielding man (Larry Fessenden), who causes them to run blindly off a cliff, and are never seen again.

12 months later, their brother Josh (Remi Malek), invites the friends back for a party to remember the sisters, but after separating, they quickly find they are being hunted by a man in a mask. Who is this man hunting them? Is he the same flamethrower wielding man from the previous year, and what do any of them have to do with the mysterious asylum further up the snowbound mountain, and the miners who went missing over 50 years ago?

Cut in between the scenes of the game are sections where you are being interviewed by a psychologist, played by Peter Stormare, who asks you questions about what scares you, and this, in addition to the decisions you make, taper the game to your personality.

The game is extraordinarily clever in its play. If the decisions made cause a character to die, the game will continue without them and will adapt to their absence. This is a game mechanic called ‘The Butterfly Effect’. This makes for a clever scheme where you can replay the game and try to save everyone, or like the replay I’m currently enjoying (on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/jurm1969 )where I am not just trying to make everyone as awful as possible, which can be shown by their constantly changing personality profiles, but I am also trying to finish the game with everyone dead. Sounds easy but the game, as I’ve stated, adapts, and it’s not just as simple as walking off a cliff like any other game.

There are 10 chapters in the game, represent the ten hours ‘Until Dawn’ and in amongst them are 22 critical decisions which mould the games outcome. The game had an auto save feature that stops the player from being able to simply go back and try to save a character, instead, you’ll have to start the game over. This could be frustrating but if you are trying for a PlayStation Platinum trophy, you would be used to this repetition. There is also a bunch of totems one must collect throughout the game which are also a fun way to give it longevity. Clever stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised by the cast of this game also, as I said previously, I went into it quite cold. The aforementioned Fessenden, Malik and Stormare are joined by other actors like Scream’s Hayden Panettiere, Meaghan Martin (10 Things I Hate About You), Jordan Fisher (The Flash Tv series), Brett Dalton (Agents of Shield), Nicole Sakura (Superstore), Galadriel Stineman (The Middle) and Noah Fleiss (Josh and S.A.M.). Fessenden also co-wrote the game with Graham Reznik for Supermassive Games.

Funnily enough, this game is what I want from a modern horror movie but don’t get anymore. Fortunately, or unfortunately, a film adaptation is being released in 2025 which rather than tell the story straight, will seem to have a ‘groundhog day’ effect for the feel of multiple play throughs. I liked the look of the trailer so I’ll cross my fingers and dance around the wishing tree for it to be good.

It’s a great game and I can see myself actually attempting to get all the trophies on the PlayStation Network even though I don’t normally give a crap about that kind of stuff.

*Our killer at work, but is he the WORST thing in the mountain?*

Extras: Extras… on a video game? What kind of clown shoes bullsquirts is this? As you finish the game you actually unlock a bunch of DVD extra type stuff which sees cast and crew talk about the creation of the game. It’s such a fun thing and really fascinating.

Game: 8/10

Extras: 6/10

Replayability: 9/10

The New Digital Retribution Podcast

February 18, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile | 1 Comment

Hey there, readers! This is just a small post to tell you all that the airwaves are now the SCAREwaves as Digital Retribution now has a podcast!

It’s still only a toddler, but as we get our feet we are hoping to bring you a variety of content.

So far, I have done an episode rounding up my favourite films from last year, which should be an annual event for December, I done a ‘13 Things’ episode where I talk about my 13 favourite things about my favourite films, and finally, I’ll occasionally do an editorial on something that is either sticking in my craw, or that has annoyed my like my latest episode about the problems with Hollywood from a film fans perspective.

I am still learning to use my equipment properly, but hopefully I’ll eventually be able to get other members of the Digital Retribution gang on to talk about some of their favourite stuff, be it VHS or movie poster collecting. I also have a university professor who is keen to discuss giallo films and other eurotrash stuff.

At the moments the frequency of the shop is sporadic but I’m hoping to get that on a more regular basis quickly.

So sit down, strap in, jam your headphones into or onto your ears and enjoy the dulcet tones of my voice as I product more waffling than a dessert shop.

Here’s the link to the podcast! Go give it a like and a follow and a 5 star review if you have the time!

Digital Retribution Podcast

TERRIFIER (2016)

February 15, 2025 by J.R. in digital retribution review, To Watch Pile and tagged art the clown, bluray, clown, horror, Slasher, Umbrella Entertainment | 1 Comment

*The cover to Unbrella’s Bluray release*

TERRIFIER (2016)

Film: Horror movie ‘franchises’ are made or broken on how charismatic or how visually striking their antagonist is.

The Freddys, the Jasons, the Michaels, the Ghostfaces all rely on those two points. The victims, the ‘final girl’, the story are all secondary to how appealing the bad guy superstar is! The caveat to that is recasting some don’t always work… sorry, Jackie Earle Haley, but I think you know it’s true.

Terrifier, with its new superstar antagonist, Art the Clown, came out of the blocks racing at full tilt. Suckling on the teat of coulrophibia and doubling down on it with a creepy mime costume, and acting choices, Art slipped it to a space in cinema where the old franchises, except for Scream, were missing in action, and perhaps too old to be revitalised effectively anyway.

Maybe Art is the first of a new generation, and we’ll start to see some REALLY screwed up stuff.

*Not all clowns are funny, especially this work of Art*

Terrifier, along with its two sequels (to date) were written and directed by Damien Leone, who created Art the Clown (he’s more of a mime but you get what I mean) for his earlier film, All Hallows Eve, an anthology film from 2013.

Terrifier tells of party girls Tara (Jenna Kanell) and Dawn (Catherine Corcoran)… are these Buffy references…who by sheer bad luck meet Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) at a pizzeria they stop at on their way home from a Halloween party.

Art creeps them out by, well, just being a creepy guy in a clown costume, and is quickly kicked out after he defecates all over the walls of the restaurants bathroom, only to return after the young women leave to execute the two workers.

Tara and Dawn return to their car only to find a tyre slashed and call Tara’s sister, Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi) to come and pick them up as the spare was already in use.

Unfortunately for them, Art catches up with them before Victoria’s arrival, and then the gory night of terror REALLY begins.

I’m gonna start with the gore as it really is in your face and all looks practical. Leone a-pears to have come from a make up and special effects background and it’s generally good when those people end up directing as they can see how an effect can be done practically and not resort to substandard CGI. The only effects work I don’t really like was the make up on the nonsensical prologue that ties in with the ending.

On make up, Art the Clown is a terrifying looking thing. The actor is tall and lanky and knows how to manipulate his body so he looks like a combination of a preying mantis and Dhalsim from Street Fighter. His smile is an awful thing to behold also. Doug Jones would be impressed with his physical performance and his lanky, tendrilous body is a sight to behold.

The acting of the four females leads is pretty good, with Canell and Scaffidi being the highlights. The male characters just seem to act by seeing how loud they can yell at each other. Sure I get the script calls for that but at points it was borderline Kitchen Nightmares.

The locations are occasionally laughable as well. The morgue in the basement with what looks like Kaboodle kitchen cabinetry is laughable.

As for the script, well there isn’t really much story here: prologue, killer kills, kills again, and again, and then again, ending. As horror fans we shouldn’t expect more than that, especially from a smaller budgeted film, but the lack of depth was apparent. To Leone’s credit, he certainly is a horror fan judging by the tributes to other horror films thrown in here and there but this was gory over story every inch of the way, and if that’s want you want, something that doesn’t challenge you and just shows cool kills, you will probably dig this, but for me, I just needed a little more of a tale told.

I’m constantly criticising Hollywood for its lack of originality with its incessant need for remakes and sequels and stuff based on comics or books, and whilst I don’t think this is the cure, it’s a great start.

Extras: There is a decent amount of extras on this disc:

‘All Hallow’s Eve’ the Anthology Prequel Film: it’s a great joy when a director’s earlier film is an added extra, it’s even better when that film features the same character from the feature you just watched and even better when it’s a full length film and not just a ten minute short. Winning all round!

Behind the Scenes featurette is a badly films pile of behind the scenes footage but at least they show the final film of some of the bits so you know what part of the film it came from.

Interview with Jenna Kanell sees ‘Tara’ talk about her experiences with the film and her history with Leone.

Deleted scenes shows two scenes that would have made little difference to the film at all.

Dread Central presents Terrifier San Diego Crowd Response is what you would expect: a bunch of people who loved the film… of course they did, why would you showcase the people who hated it. A bit onanistic as these things usually are.

Art the Clown Time Lapse Makeup – it does NOT look like a fun application, but it was fun to see the transformation: I wish there had been a talk through of what was being done.

Finally, trailers for Terrifier and All Hallows Eve.

Film: 5/10

Extras: 9/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

*Guess who isn’t coming back for the sequel!*

This Umbrella Bluray release was purchased from JB Hifi

THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

February 2, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile | Leave a comment

*Madman’s sleeved release of The Substance in Australia*

THE SUBSTANCE (2024)

Film: I watched this film for the first time a few days before Demi Moore received her well deserved Golden Globe award, and honestly I was stunned by the film I saw. The film had received a shedload of buzz and I was excited to watch and did I think it deserved the buzz? Well not to bury my wishy-washy lead, but yes and no.

Mostly yes.

The Substance was written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, who also wrote and directed 2017’s Revenge, which I faintly remember watching and thinking it was a solid film… I need to revisit it, for sure.

The Substance tells of Elizabeth Sparkles (Demi Moore) who lives in a world where aerobics TV shows are still airing, and hers has existed for years, but she’s getting older and ratings are dropping, so the TV executive Harvey (Dennis Quaid) gives her the golden handshake.

On her way home after being fired, and on her birthday, I should add, she is involved in a car accident and is handed a USB stick by someone at the hospital that says ‘The Substance’ on one side, and has a phone number on the other.

The video on the USB stick shows a product that can make a person young again, and in desperation, she orders the product and is issued a card with an address where she goes and picks up a box.

*Margaret Qualley as Elizabeth’s ‘replacement’, Sue*

The box contains a bunch of medical equipment and instructions telling her how to execute a program that begins with injecting a green reagent, that causes a fresh, new version of herself, who names herself Sue (Margaret Qualley), to be able to exist independent of her. The thing is though, the young version can only exist for seven days whilst the ‘original’ is passed out and is fed on a drip, and every day Sue has to inject herself with spinal fluid from Elizabeth.

These two people share a mind and eventually Sue becomes addicted to being young, and starts to ignore the seven day rule, but these has dramatic effects on Elizabeth… and when you are the same person in two bodies competing for existence, things are bound to become… well, difficult…

For starters, before I discuss the performances of the film, I must say how much I admire the visual design and the cinematography of this film. The contrast of Elizabeth’s and Sue’s vibrant colourful but artificial entertainment world to the emotionless reality of her apartment, to the even further clinical world of The Substance, reflected in a starkness of both the collection spot and the bathroom where all the ritual is committed. The bright yellow that’s used as a sign of rebirth (though I’m not sure how accurate the science of the yolk splitting in the opening is very accurate… isn’t the yolk the food for the chicken that develops in the albumen? Never let scientific fact get in the way of a good visual, I guess) is so striking amongst the whole experience and is such an amazing yellow that is such a great image… I’ll never look at a raincoat the same way again!

There’s is so much amazing background stuff happening that you don’t notice on first watch. Sue’s back up dancers are young and vital and sexy, whereas Lizzie’s may have been with her from the start, and are showing their… wear and tear, shall we say. Make sure you watch this more than once for these background bits and pieces.

Every set piece is a lecture in perspective and cinematographic design. I really cannot express my love of the look of this film.

As for the performances: wow! Moore plays the world-weary, beaten down and done professional so well one almost wonders how much of it was acting. She nails both the ability to put on a show, the loneliness of fame and the desperation some may have to hold onto their fame. Next is Margaret Qualley as Sue, who plays the coquettish newcomer with devilish charm and devious resolve. She is fantastic as the new ‘Elizabeth’, taking advantage of her youth, and ignoring the rules of The Substance like the very best selfish brat. Finally, Dennis Quaid as the sleazy Harvey is easily the most disgusting thing in this film, in his attitude towards Lizzie as she hits the end of her career, his lecherous approach of Sue and even more repulsive is the way he eats shrimp.

There’s a lot of gross stuff in this film but his consumption of food at a dinner is stunningly awful, both in performance and the extreme close up.

The first two acts of this film are primo cinema. Beautiful in execution, amazing performances and with a totally satisfactory set up and mis point. The ending is satisfactory except it’s far too long. I do appreciate though that a film that is so clinical in its first two acts becomes like a nightmare of Hennenlotter proportions. The way that Elizabeth/ Sue ends up is a magnificent and tragic thing, but it just goes on and on and on. For me, if not for its saggy ending, this film would have been a ten out of ten, but it just needed a trim in the editing to tie it up a bit quicker, and I say this with no intention of belittling how marvellous I think the rest of the film is.

*The menu from the Madman Bluray release*

Extras:

Reality+ is a short film by Fargeat which riffs on things like the film Surrogates starring Bruce Willis and like The Substance, is about self-image and technology removing identity but unlike the film, this has a quaint romantic angle to it that is projected quite early on but is still satisfying in its resolve. Like The Substance it’s beautifully shot and a great precursor to The Substance to the point that the film is almost a remake of the ideals presented in this short.

There is a trailer for The Substance, as well as others for Megopolis, The Apprentice, Anatomy of a Fall and Blood for Dust.

Film: 9/10

Extras: 9/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

This film was reviewed with the Bluray release purchased from JB Hifi

LONG WEEKEND (1978)

January 26, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile | 1 Comment

LONG WEEKEND (1978)

*The contents of the Umbrella Entertainment release*

Film: I’m pretty sure I saw Long Weekend before I watched the amazing documentary about Ozploitation films Not Quite Hollywood by Mark Hartley. When watching the documentary I saw some bits of footage from the film and having it spark memories of seeing it. One thing I definitely remembered was Briony Behets, which is probably a reveal of my character more than anything. I was very thankful to that doco though as it brought this film (along with many other Australian films) back into my memory and I started actively pursuing them.

Special continuing thanks to Hartley for opening my eyes to the joys of cultural cringe!

I wanted to pick a film to review for the Australia Day weekend and the way my brain works is such: Australia Day, so it has to be an Australian film, and it’s a Long Weekend, so I guess now is as good a time as any to review this 70s classic, especially seeing how Umbrella Entertainment released this corker of a release as a part of their Ozploitation Classics collection (it’s number 12), and the fact that they kindly provided me with a copy.

Long Weekend was directed by Colin Eggleston, who directed Cassandra and Sky pirates, and was written by Everett DeRoche, who basically wrote everything in the cinema or on TV in Australia, including Patrick, Razorback and Harlequin.

Long Weekend tells of couple Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) whose marriage is holding on by the skin of its teeth. Peter organises a weekend away, getting amongst nature and enjoying the beautiful Australian bush.

We soon discover that these two are awful people who don’t even have any respect for each other, let alone the Australian outback, polluting the environment not just with their rubbish and cigarette butts, but also with their acidic and poisonous attitudes and as all good mothers do, Mother Nature starts to defend her green leafed, four legged, swimming and flying children against these interlopers.

This film is such a character piece that it really hinges on the performances and Hargreaves and Behets and disturbingly good in their roles. Their entire interaction for the whole film is like being a kid and a friends house and watching their parents argue. There is a persistent discomfort for the viewer the whole time, and you get to the point where you even start anticipating the cringe which makes for an uncomfortable and alienating time.

This is to a deliberate effect, I think. I feel the feeling of being witness to these private moment, of being an intruder upon the dissolution of their relationship has bearing on them being intruders onto the outback setting. The difference though is that we are distinctly aware of our interloper status and that we don’t belong, whereas they believe themselves to be masters of the situation, and have no issue stomping on their surrounding, unconscious of the fact that everything they do is simply dreadful, ignorant and imposing.

The film is shot beautifully and the outback looks as exquisite and as dangerous as it should. It really is a lovely travelogue of the bush as long as someone from another country doesn’t assume that all Australians are like Marcia and Peter.

This is a great Australian film, and this package is fantastic also. umbrella have really included a lot of exciting extras in the package… speaking of which…

Extras: Blimey! This disc has an absolute SLAB of extras!

Before we get to the extras on the disc, this Umbrella Entertainment release of the film has 8 miniature lobby cards, and the soundtrack on CD.

2021 Interview featurette with Behets and Eggleston’s sons, Toby Reed and Sam Reed is an interesting look at the film but a confusing ‘arty’ production. Some great anecdotes about the film’s production though.

2021 interview with executive producer Richard Brennan sees him talk about his history and the production of Long Weekend.

Extended Not Quite Hollywood interviews with director Everett De Roche, Behets and cinematographer Vincent Monton. Umbrella continue to milk the brilliant cow that is the Not Quite Hollywood for content and why not? It’s bloody bonza, cobber.

New audio interview with Executive producer Brennan, which further discusses the film.

2004 audio commentary with Brennan and Monton discussing the production of the film with some great anecdotes about film production of the time.

Nature Found Them Guilty: Examining Long Weekend panel discussion with film historians Lee Gambian, Alexandra Heller-Nicolas, Emma Westward and Sally Christie. Fascinating analysis of a film hosted by Gambin (who tragically passed away since) that dives deep into the film. Honestly I watched it twice because of the cool books in the house where it’s filmed and I’ve added about ten book titles to my Amazon book list.

Stills gallery accompanied by an interview with Hargreaves. Normally I’m a critic of stills gallery but putting an audio interview over it makes it worthwhile.

Long Weekend remake trailer with commentary by director Jamie Blanks (director of the remake, as well as Valentine and Urban Legend)

Colin Eggleston trailer reel features trailers for Long Weekend, Nightmares, Innocent Prey, Sky Pirates and Cassandra.

Excerpt from Whitsunday Ash – the lost Colin Eggleston film is a short piece of footage from a 1990 fiom that unfortunately remained unfinished due to Eggleston passing away.

Theatrical Trailer – it is what it says.

Film: 7/10

Extras: 10/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

Long Weekend was provided for review by Umbrella Entertainment

LONGLEGS (2023)

January 19, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged Nicolas cage | Leave a comment

*The cover to the Australian 4K release*

LONGLEGS (2023)

Longlegs had this bizarre and magical air about it when it was released. I hadn’t heard a word spoken about it and suddenly social media was a-buzz about it. Was it because Nicholas Cage had become such a meme that to see him actually perform in a film was a surprise to people who aren’t aware of any of his work before The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent?

Go and watch 8MM now!

I admit that I found that it was magical as well, as it took me 4 goes to stay awake through the whole thing. The spell of boredom it cast was such that it took me that many goes to sit through it.

Longlegs was written and directed by Osgood Perkins, not just the writer/ director of I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House but also something I didn’t know until writing this review, is the son of Psycho’s Tony Perkins and starred in Legally Blonde as David!!

Longlegs tells the tale of FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) who, after a disastrous door to door investigation that saw her partner shot, has an evaluation that discovers her to be a little bit psychic.

She is partnered with Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) and is put on the Longlegs case, which sees a group of families getting a visit from a person who calls themselves Longlegs (Nic Cage) and soon after the father cracks, kills the family and then himself… but why, and what does it have to do with the child of the family’s birthday? After being visited anonymously during the night with a key to the Zodiac Killer-styled notes being left, Harker seems to somehow be involved, or is she? And why are these bizarre dolls left behind at the victim’s houses?

This film ticked all the boxes for me: serial killer, police investigation, a little bit of cult craziness, some interesting choices of casting and cinematography and yet I found it a slog to get through. It felt like someone had discovered all my favourite foods and had decided that I’d like to eat them all together in a big silver bucket with a wafer-thin wafer for desert… but unlike my suggested Mr Cruseau, it did not split me open in a painful and difficult vomitous birth: it put me to sleep.

All through the film I felt there was an ingenuous homage/ parody of Silence of the Lambs, but instead of Jodie Foster’s uncomfortable take on being a woman in a ‘man’s’ environment, the main character of Harper is more like Ed Norton in Red Dragon: flat, emotionless, clinical… almost dispassionate in its performance. This made her unlikable and distracting and I even found her performance to just be an emulation of Holly Hunter in Copycat (remember that one?). The similarities to Silence of the Lambs even resonates down to the mildly effete sanitarium operator, helped to muddy its identity. They do address the aforementioned woman in a man’s world situation Harker is in, but it’s a ham-fisted take, and not at all subtle like Jonathon Demme’s film.

I found Cage’s performance to be quite interesting, but the awful make up kept distracting me . I think it would have been far more effective and less like a parody if he had been able to use his own, far more interesting face rather than this terrible prosthetics which even blocks his performance a little. Honestly, Alicia Witt as Harker’s mother’s physical transformation is far more surprising and interesting that Cage’s.

I have to say I get that cinema is about mood, but much like my beloved CSI and Criminal Minds TV series’s, I’m sure these crimes could be solved a lot faster if the investigators TURNED THE LIGHTS ON!!

Ahem, excuse me.

Here’s an interesting twist though: it all pays off in the third act. If you can make it through the first two acts, the pay off is pretty good… not excellent, and maybe not even worth the laborious first two acts, but it does come good. Even better, a rewatch reveals a lot of answers that out of context you flat out would never guess.

I have a constant craving for a horror film that is original and bucks the trend of the usual sort of mainstream crap that cinema goers, streamers, and physical media purchasers are subject to… this isn’t the solution, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Most really good horror movies can leave you with a sleepless night, but for me, Longlegs is a CURE for a sleepless night, that pulls itself up at the end… if you can stay awake to it. I hate to be the guy that tells you, like I was told about many TV shows, that by the sixth episode it gets good… I want to be hooked from the start, not by the time I’ve started to lose interest.

Extras: Only one extra, which is a commentary by Perkins, and it’s thorough and he clearly loves the process of filmmaking. Worth a listen.

Film: 4/10

Extras: 4/10

Rewatchability: 6/10

*One of the bizarre dolls left at the victims’ houses.*

This film was reviewed with the Australian 4K release purchase from JB Hifi

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)

January 11, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile | Leave a comment

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)

The entire contents of the Arrow release.

A Nightmare on Elm Street really opened my eyes to horror when I saw it at the cinema back in the 80s. I took one of my early teen dates to it in Sydney, she got a lift home with her dad and I had to catch the train home solo and then walk a good 40 minutes home from the train station so it made for a thoroughly scary experience for a mid teen boy.

What that night did though, was make me really look at directors and what they made, and a lifelong admiration for Wes Craven started then. I didn’t actually see this film until much later (along with Last House on the Left) but, and this kind of buries the lead, but liked it, and also started a love of that hillbilly horror subgenre of horror.

I have a special relationship with 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes insomuch that my second favourite movie poster of all time is the Italian poster for the film, and I have one hanging in my house next to my record collection, which I think is pretty damned cool.

The Hills Have Eyes tells of the Carter family, on holidays and making their way to California with a nice big caravan on the back of their vehicle. Unfortunately for them, they take a wrong turn, and end up in an area forbidden to public access.

Big Bob definitely NOT asking for directions

After the car breaks down, Big Bob (Russ Grieve) and Doug (Martin Speer). They venture off in opposite directions leaving the family abandoned in the middle of the desert, and one of their dogs goes missing.

Doug returns but Big Bob has been captured by a mutant family living in the hills, and they set fire to him in front of his family before attacking the rest of them, raping, killing and kidnapping the baby.

Will Doug and the surviving family members be able to save the child… or even save themselves?!?

I like this movie mainly due to its theme which asks how far can you push a person until they snap, and maybe they response to pressure changes them permanently and in a way where they may not recognise themselves, and no longer like what they may have become.

I also admire the choice in making the hill people more like a force of nature, a natural disaster that descends upon a normal family who have to go above and beyond, both in inventiveness and ruthlessness to survive. Even down to their ignorance of the sanctity of human life may be revealed in the choices of names: Mercury, the god of travellers, trickery and thieves, Jupiter, the god of thunder, Pluto, the god of the dead and Mars, the god of war.

It’s almost like the cast were cast for two separate films and a calamity brought them together. The hill people are an extreme parody of what we city folk imagine hillbillies to be like, and the city folk are played completely straight. It makes me think of movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where the animated cast are so extreme they don’t seem to fit except for the fact that the story and the direction are so finely tuned to suit them both. That alienation is what makes these sorts of films so much fun, I suppose.

The location is such a character of this film as well. The dry, obtusely horrible terrain makes survival appear harder that what it could ever possibly be, and like Tobe Hooper’s visual eye for Texas Chainsaw Saw Massacre, one almost feels like they need to be rehydrated after spending anytime in the environment.

All in all, every hillbilly horror I’ve enjoyed, from Wrong Turn to Hosue of 1,000 Corpses can be tracked back to my enjoyment of this film. I probably dig the remake even more, but that might be for budgetary reasons, which allowed the mutants to be more mutated.

The menu screen of the Arrow Bluray set.

Disc:

Before I look at the extras on the disc, there are a few other extras in the slipcase edition of the film from Arrow Video. First there is a series of 6 postcards with movie posters for the film from all over the world… including my aforementioned Italian one. There is also a double sided poster of the film depicting two of the American posters, and finally, a small book with two essays, one by Brad Stevens and one by Ewan Cant, and a small blurb about the film’s transfer.

Now let’s look at the extras on the disc:

Looking Back at The Hills Have Eyes is a general making of style thing but it goes for a solid hour and has extensive commentary from Craven which is fantastic.

Family Business is a new interview with Martin Speer who played Doug, and he discusses his memories of the making of the film.

The Desert Sessions is a 2016 interview with composer Don Peake who wrote the score. He has some really nice recollections on Craven and how they approached the soundtrack.

Alternate Ending is an interesting curio but little more than that. I like the choice that was made instead,

I’m not sure who the Outtakes are for, but the filled up the disc?

Trailers and TV Spots features a U.S. trailer, a German trailer and some TV advertising.

Image Gallery which I’ll actually compliment for the first time as it is even MORE movie posters from the film!

Audio Commentaries, which are only available to watch with the ‘regular’ release of the film, and there are three of them, one with the cast, with with Wes Craven and Peter Locke, and finally, one with Mikel J. Koven. Having the three different commentaries in pretty amazing as it offers so much information from different points of view.

Film: 7/10

Extras: 9/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

Jupiter (James Whitworth) learns about caravan safety the hard way.

ALIEN 2 ON EARTH (1980)

January 4, 2025 by J.R. in To Watch Pile and tagged 88 Films, bluray, horror, italian, Sci Fi, scifi | 1 Comment

Alien 2 On Earth (1980)

Did you know there was a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien that was made a year after Alien’s release? Surely, just because something isn’t ‘official’ doesn’t mean it’s not a sequel, right?

Fan fiction is legitimate writing, isn’t it? If that’s the case, I’m going to say that Alien 2 On Earth, aka Alien Terror, aka Alien 2 Sulla Terra is just as legitimate a sequel as Patrick Lives Again, and Zombi 2.

Alien 2 On Earth was written and directed (under instruction/ advisement of a Mario Bava) by Caro Ippolito under the pseudonym ‘Sam Cromwell’ and even though it’s not an actual sequel, and doesn’t look anything like Scott’s Alien, 20th Century Fox attempted to sue, but were stopped when it was shown that a book called Alien also existed.

The plot of the story is bizarre.

The world excitedly awaits the return to earth of some astronaut hits in their landing shuttle, but when it arrives, it’s found to be empty, just as weird blue rocks start to appear around the world.

Thelma Joyce (Belinda Mayne) is a spelunker who has a bizarre psychic seizure when being interviewed on a TV show about caves. The interview is cut short and she joins husband Roy (Mark Bodin) and the rest of her spelunking crew to go into some caves (filmed in the beautiful Castellana Grotte: a cave system in Italy).

On their way, one of the team Burt (Michele Saovi) finds one of the blue rocks and gives it to Thelma, knowing she loves geology, and of course for some strange reason, she takes it with her into the cave system.

Once down there, the rock starts to pulsate and a bizarre ‘thing’ comes out, attacking the crew, murdering them one by one in all manner of gory ways. Panicked, they lose their way in the caves but will any of them escape? And if that blue rock had that ‘thing’ in it, what of all the others above ground..?

Alien 2 On Earth is a silly as a film can be. It looks like an Irwin Allen science fiction TV series, has extreme gore that is actually quite indefinable, considering we never actually get to see the alien properly, and has bizarrely bad pacing with lingering shots of bowling alley ball returns that go on for so long that they are clearly there to stretch the time of the film. This all goes without commenting on how dismal the handheld camera work is; it’s so rocky at times that it makes The Blair Witch Project look like it was filmed on steadicam.

Sadly, and it is a reflection of my taste, I guess, I enjoyed watching every stupid minute, and this 88 Films Italian Collection release has treated it with far more respect than it possibly deserves.

An amusing story surround this film as it was originally supposed to be far more grand in scale, opening with the remains of the Nostromo from Alien crashing to earth (it must have traveled back in time) with the remains of the alien onboard, but legend has it that Ippolito spent a large proportion of the money raised for the film on an expensive car, escorts and casinos.

I really can’t express how stupid AND how much fun this film is. I’m almost embarrassed to like it.

*The menu screen from 88 Films’ bluray release*

Extras: The delightful folks at 88 Films have provided us with a handful of fun extras:

Special Effects Test is an interesting way to sit in silence for a few minutes whilst blank screens and blood and guts fill the screen. Would have been more interesting with some editing and maybe a commentary?

Franchised Terrorist: An Interview With Eli Roth, who is a big fan of 80s Italian horror and his enthusiasm for the film is visible, and he knows a lot about it! Interesting, but I would have preferred seeing someone who worked on the film chatting about it.

Alien 2 On Earth Trailer is exactly what it says on the box; the trailer for Alien 2 On Earth… but that’s not all, folks! We also have a trailer reel for other films like Creepshow 2, Invasion U.S.A., River of Death, Graduation Day, Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland, The Couch Trip, Cuba, Messenger of Death and The Dead Next Door! Whew!

Film: 5/10

Extras: 6/10

Re-Watchability: 7/10

This 88 Films release was purchased from Amazon.

Thanksgiving (2023)

November 28, 2024 by J.R. in digital retribution review, To Watch Pile and tagged digital retribution | Leave a comment

THANKSGIVING (2023)

We all though it was silly throw away trailer thrown into the middle of the two features in the Rodriguez/ Tarantino two-for-one film Grindhouse from 2007, but in actual fact, Thanksgiving has been a simmering and festering idea hidden within the brain of Eli Roth and his friend from school, Jeff Rendell like a tasty walnut stuffing since they were kids.

Today, I am giving thanks to the fact that in 2023 it became a full feature, with the scenes from the trailer intact albeit refilmed with the new cast.

A year after a horrifying Black Friday sales that went horribly wrong that saw a local championship baseball hopeful, Bobby (Jalen Thomas Brooks) having his pitching arm injured and the store manager’s wife, Amanda (Gina Gershon) brutally killed by shoppers rioting to get the best deals, a killer emerges.

Whilst the owner of the shop, Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman), got of scott-free due to the security cameras conveniently not working, a killer dressed as a pilgrim has decided to take out those who committed crimes on that night and didn’t pay, and via social media, is tagging his potential victims at a dinner table being set for a thanksgiving dinner that slowly is being filled with their victims.

This of course puts a group of young friends who were there that night on edge, mainly because they were already in the store due to one of them, Jessica (Nell Verlaque), being the daughter of the store owner, and this incensed the crowd out the front who saw them inside.

Local sheriff, Eric Newton (Patrick Dempsey) is on the case with his new deputy, but as the body count rises, so too does the suspect list… who is the pilgrim serial killer?

I’ve always been a fan of Eli Roth. I liked Cabin Fever and Hostel, even though I’m not one of those ‘horror bros’ that his fans are accused of being… well, I don’t think I am… and for me, this trailer was the best one of the Grindhouse ones.

The story of this film is as ridiculous as the 80s slashers it emulates, and there’s a couple of nice tidbits of homages that show some respect to the history of horror that Roth love throwing into his films.

The violence and gore is surprising as one would expect in a Roth film also, but occasionally its quite shocking and as much as I hate to admit it, it occasionally has a sense of fun and silliness which takes the edge of just how extreme it is.

The look of the serial killers outfit is iconic as well. Sure its a traditional pilgrim look but it has a stark look on it face that makes it terrifying. Also, the film takes the idea of a mass market Halloween mask, like Michael Myers for example, and puts it on everyone in the town so the killer can hide in plain site, and what is even better, during a thanksgiving parade scene, it completely turns that idea on its head which I can’t describe here without a massive spoiler.

The reveal at the end is fun and upon a second viewing, like a decent giallo even, it does show you on several occasions who is the killer with blatant hints, which is great.

The film also doesn’t not ignore the fact that mobile phones exist, and even plays on the gross trans of influencers and the dumb stuff done for clout and likes.

All in all i really enjoyed this film. The gore effects were silly and effective, the story was surprisingly engaging, some of the stars were surprising (Patrick Dempsey… really?!?) and it all made for an all over fun watch.

Disc: There is a great bunch of extras on this disc.

The first one is Behind the Screams, which is the usual blah blah blah self love masturbatory short where the cast and crew can rub each other’s rhubarbs. This is no different; its just a few brief comments from the gang that worked on the film squeezed together in a 4 minute MTV collection of sound bytes.

Gobble Gobble Gore Galore looks at special effects artist Adrian Morot’s work on the film… his sickeningly realistic work on the film!! It’s just another short piece but i like special effects so i like it.

Outtakes are what it says on the box. As usual, I am sure they are far more funny to the cast and crew in them rather than us.

There is a Commentary with Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell which is almost wholesome in the affection that these two lifelong friends have not just for the horror genre but also for each other. It is as much a commentary on their lives as it is on the film.

Deleted, extended and alternate scenes has about 35 minutes worth of footage that the film didnt need, and I probably didn’t need to watch.

Massachusetts Movies: Eli and Jeff’s Early Films can be watched with or without commentary by Roth and Rendell, and is some films they made at school which don’t have much for we, the viewer, in them, but there certainly are some fond memories with the commentary.

Film: 7/10

Disc: 7/10

Rewatch : 8/10

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