Author Archives: J.R.

Holidays (2016) Review

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One from the to watch pile…
Holidays (2016)


Film: There’s two things that horror movies do better than other genres of films: anthologies, and films commemorating special holidays… yes, New Years Evil is much better than News Year’s Day, by about a million times.

This is very much a modern anthology tale though, and sits more amongst the V/H/S and ABCs of Death-styled films rather than something like Creepshow or John Carpenter’s Bodybags. The difference, to me, being that older anthologies have a sense of fun, and are far more in tune with comics like Tales of the Crypt, and have an almost ironic comical resolution to each tale. These newer ones can have endings like that, but they are far darker, and the resolutions far more horrible and the irony rarely amusing.

There’s a great mix of creators in this movie though: Anthony Scott Burns ( who worked on visual effects on The Last Exorcism Part II), Kevin Kolsch (director of Starry Eyes), Nicholas McCarthy (director of The Pact), Adam Egypt Mortimer (director of Some Kind of Hate), composer Ellen Reid, Gary Shore (director of Dracula Untold), Kevin Smith (c’mon, you know who Kevin Smith is!), Sarah Adina Smith (writer of The Midnight Swim), Scott Stewart (director of Priest) and Dennis Widmyer (writer of Starry Eyes).


Holidays asks us to celebrate 8 occasions with it:

The Valentine’s Day story tells of a teenage girl with self-harm issues who seems to be entering into a relationship with her coach, and who has been a victim of bullying, and maybe self-harm is no longer her objective…

St Patrick’s Day explores a young school girl who is encountering difficulties in starting at a new school, and her teacher who is experiencing a strange pregnancy that the young girl seems to be aware of…

The Easter tale looks at the confusion a child can experience with the celebration, which incorporates Jesus’ resurrection and the legend of the Easter Bunny, but maybe it’s not her that’s confused.. maybe it’s the rest of us… maybe the story of Christ and that if the Easter Bunny and horribly intertwined…

Mother’s Day explores the life of a woman who gets pregnant every time she has sex, and how a doctor advises her to meet her sister, who runs a weekend retreat for women who can’t get pregnant… but maybe the women have more serious intentions for her…

Father’s Day has a young woman receive a tape recorder which contains a message from her estranged father, who asks her to meet her at a place they once went together. The woman is upset as her mother had previously told her that her father was dead… was she lying..?

Halloween tells the tale of three girls who work for a ‘girly’ webcam site who decide maybe this isn’t where there future lies…

Christmas sees a man desperate to get a particular gift for his child, and goes to deadly extremes to get it. The gift, a VR headset, may know the man’s dirtiest secrets though…

New Years Eve is the culmination of the tales, and we visit a murderer who has a thing for teeth, and wants to meet a new girl to kiss at midnight, but the girl he meets is much more than she seems…


Having a variety of writers and directors obviously makes for a somewhat uneven mix of story quality, but they do all entertain. Each story has a very small pool of talent but they are mostly fully engaged in the story which makes them even more unsettling. The poorest of the stories is Kevin Smith’s as even when being dark, it’s still sophomoric, and the acting in it is clearly less than the rest of the tales. That’s not to say it’s awful, it’s just the lesser of all the shorts on this disc.

The more I muse on this film, the more I am impressed with the variety of writers and directors managing to make a film cohesive even above and beyond the similar theme. Best thing is, you don’t have to wait until Halloween or Friday the 13th or Valentine’s Day to watch it!

Score: ****


Format: This region B, Australian bluray of this film runs for approximately 105 minutes. The film is presented in 2.35:1 and with a Dolby DTS-HD 5.1 audio, both of which are great

Score: *****

Extras: Not a brass razoo.

Score: 0

WISIA: It’s a fun mix of shorts, yeah it’ll be watched again.

Robert Vaughn R. I. P.

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The To Watch Pile was saddened to learn of the death of actor Robert Vaughn yesterday, aged 83, after a brief battle with leukaemia.

Vaughn was in many films, including The Magnificent Seven and Bullitt, but for me he will always be the guy from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Battle Beyond the Stars!

The To Watch Pile would like to pass on our condolences to Mr. Vaughn’s family.

Haunt (2014) Review

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One from the to watch pile…
Haunt (2014)


Film: On occasion, I’ll pick up a scary movie based on just name in the credits. Honestly, it rarely is a good choice, and I have been burnt by several latter-day Argento flicks, for example. I’ll pretty much well grab anything with any of the 80s Scream Queens in it and, well, rarely are they anything but a little titilation.

This movie was picked up due to the presence of a single Australian actress amongst a bunch of American ones who I either had never heard of, or I had only seen in bit parts of other films.

In this case the actress is Jackie Weaver.

Haunt: Jacki Weaver as Doctor Morello


Haunt is written by Andrew Barrer, who is current working on Ant-man and the Wasp for Marvel (though I imagine more will eventually be credited) and directed by Mac Carter, who wrote and directed one of my favourite documentaries about comics, Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics.

Haunt tells of a reserved young man, Evan Asher (Harrison Gilbertson) who has moved into a strange old house with his family. Whilst on a walk in the woods, Evan meets a neighbour, a girl of about his own age Samantha (Liana Liberato) who appears to be somewhat of a loner herself, and the two of them start exploring the house.

Now this strange old house has a secret: the family that lived there, the Morellos, are all deceased except for the mother, Janet Morello (Jacki Weaver) and it looks like our two potential new young lovers have accidentally opened a door to the spirit world by activating a ‘spirit radio’ they found in a hidden room, which can be tuned into the dead.

Haunt: Harrison Gilbertson as Evan


Will they survive though, when the dead start transmitting back?

I think I can see what they were hoping to do with this film. They were hoping to take the post millennial ghost story and put a twist on it, and at the same time, push Jacki Weaver’s character into a point where she is the linchpin for a series of tales, maybe a future franchise but there are a few problems.

The first is the two leads are boring and generic. It’s not they act badly, they just don’t seem to be given too much to do and when the ghostly happening do start to occur, the story doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with them.

The next problem is the ghost radio thing doesn’t really seem to be given much of a story. It’s there and then it’s not, and then it’s back, and it seems it supposed to be this epic device to get to speak to the afterlife, and it has a cool design, but it doesn’t feel like it gets the reverence it’s probably should.

The last issue is Jacki Weaver. She takes command of every scene she is in, but doesn’t really have any one to act with. She is given a couple of really great scenes but it’s just not enough.

I’m not saying it doesn’t lend itself to a sequel, it really does as there is a skeleton of an interesting story starring Weaver and the ghost radio, but it just needs to be a little more horrific, and maybe a ghost redesign as The Conjuring styled ghosts, with their j-horror influences are old hat now… surely there is still an art designer out there with a fresh idea!

Score: **


Format: The film was reviewed on the Australian region B Bluray, which runs for approximately 85 minutes. Both the 2.40:1 image and DTS Master Audio 5.1 track are excellent.

Score: *****

Extras: This disc entertains a complete lack of extras except for three trailers that show before the movie starts, which are for Two Men in Town, Poker Night and The Devil’s Hand.

Score: 1/2

WISIA: A well acted and finely directed but at the end wholly unsatisfying movie. I doubt if I’ll ever watch it again. I would suggest though that it’s one of those films where a lot of dialogue may hint at the ‘secret’ ending, so a second watch may be full of ‘ooooooooooh’ moments.

Haunt: ghostly manifestations!

The Last Man on Earth (1964) Review

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One from the re watch pile…
The Last Man on Earth (1964)


Film: Richard Christian Matheson’s I Am Legend has been translated many times for film, but I have only seen three of them, and in my opinion, only one that is really worth repeat watching. 

The most recent was in 2007, where Will Smith starred in a version given the same name as the book, and it was pretty dire. The basic concepts were there, but the execution of the monsters was a CGI nightmare… though I do like the fact that they were voice by Faith No More’s Mike Patton!

Before that was 1971’s The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. This film, directed by Boris Sagal, is a heap of fun, and I did enjoy it. For a period of time as an early teen I had this, and The Ultimate Warrior starring Yul Brynner on VHS (copied off the TV) and watched them both regularly but as I got older I lost interest, either due to over-watching it, or maybe I became bored of Heston’s machismo and macho scientist. Maybe I’ll watch it again one day, but that day is not soon.

For me, this one, The Last Man on Earth, is the one. It’s easily my favourite, even though Vincent Price may have been miscast, but godammit, its Vincent freaking Price, and he can be in whatever the hell he WANTS to be in!!

The Last Man on Earth: Vincent Price as Robert Morgan


Originally slated as a Hammer film with a different cast, The Last Man on Earth had Matheson himself write the screenplay, albeit under an alias, and was directed by Italian director Ubaldo Ragona, with a predominantly Italian cast, so as one would expect, there is a fair bit of dubbing.

Our story is set slightly in the future world of the late sixties (the film being made in 1964) and we follow the memories and internal monologue of the survivor, Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) of a plague that has turned its survivors into strange creatures of the night, who hate garlic and their reflection, and are repelled by daylight.

He spends his days getting supplies, and going systematically through neighbourhoods killing sleeping infected people before throwing their bodies into a giant pit where their corpses are burnt by a fire that seemingly has been burning for years. At night, he hides in his battered house, trapped not only by the vampire/ zombie creatures, including his former friend and fellow scientist, Ben Cortman (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) but also by the memories of dead wife, Virg (Emma Danieli) and daughter, Kathy (Christi Courtland).

His loneliness after being alone for 3 years reveals a descent into madness, until he sees another living being, Ruth Collins (Franca Bettoia). Is she another survivor of the plague, or is she a part of something else… something that could lead to Morgan’s eventual destruction…

The Last Man on Earth: Vincent Price and Franca Bettoia


This story is a disturbing psychological drama where we are basically observing a mission-oriented psychopath, brought upon by the stressor of his wife and daughter’s death, and how he becomes sloppy and unstuck completely when his routine is changed by an interloper. A lot of the film sees Price going about his business with a constant monologue running over the top, and his history told through flashbacks.

This film was said to be an inspiration on George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and you can really seen it in so many scenes! For me, I like this as much as Romero’s film and Price adds such a degree of class to the whole thing.

Score: ****

Format: This film, the Australian, region B Cinema Cult bluray is presented in a quite good 2.35:1 image with a decent DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack. The film has frequent artefacts but not to the point that it becomes a distraction. It’s hard to bag a film of this age on its quality considering the vintage of the print.

The Last Man on Earth Cinema Cult menu screen


Score: ***1/2

Extras: Only a bunch of trailers that have been released under the Cinema Cult banner: The Killing, Paths of Glory, Dr. Phibes Rises Again and Masters of the Universe.

Score: *

WISIA: For me, this is the best adaption of Matheson’s I Am Legend. It may not be entirely faithful to the book, but it shows that the story can be told with quality acting, and subtlety rather than dreadful CGI or Heston heroics.

The Last Man on Earth: vampire/ zombie things attack!

Gnome Alone aka Legend (2015) Review

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One from the to watch pile…
Gnome Alone aka Legend (2015)

The Australian DVD release of Gnome Alone


Film: In the 90s there was this brief horrible period of horror movie-dom where it seemed every studio was trying to replicate the big franchises of the 80s like the Friday the 13ths and the Nightmare on Elm Streets. 

Particularly the Nightmare on Elm Streets. 

For a brief moment, glib one liners and ironic deaths were all the rage, and unfortunately, the makers of this film have decided that they should make a comeback. Something in which I firmly disagree. As much as I love Freddy, I prefer a more machine like, less chatty killer. I mean, a subtle threat here and there is one thing, but amusing taunts are another.

Gnome Alone: Kerry Knuppe as Zoe


Gnome Alone tells the tale of Zoe (Kerry Knuppe), who has a hard life. Other kids at school pick on her, her teacher make humiliating advances on her in front of other students, her step-dad is molesting her and her late night job is unpleasant. 

One night, a homeless lady, Ms. Mae (Willow Hale) who is a customer of the shop Zoe works in, is beaten up by a couple of local thugs but they, and we, the viewers, find out quickly that she has a curse where anyone who crosses her, gets their just desserts at the hand of a gnome (Verne Troyer).

Unfortunately for both Zoe and Ms. Mae, Ms. Mae dies after being hit by a car, and the gnome, who took a liking to Zoe, passes the curse on to her. Now whenever Zoe makes an idle threat, it comes horribly true!

The police start investigating some of the deaths and find the common denominator is Zoe, and they start to close in…

I have to say that I enjoyed pretty much well nothing about this film. The quips from the gnome were obvious and terrible, the effects average and the acting was of high school musical standards…and I don’t mean the movie High School Musical: that acting was fine in comparison.

Gnome Alone: Verne Troyer as the gnome


Verne Troyer plays the gnome like some kind of bizarre, and I hate to say it, Mini-me version of Freddy Krueger, but latter day Freddy with the bad puns and stupid asides. Most of his scenes seem to be shot separately and edited together to look like he is there, as he doesn’t actually interact frequently with many other cast members.

For me though, I feel sorry for Kerry Knuppe. Her acting ability seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of others in this film, and at times she almost looks like she is waiting for the people acting opposite to raise their games, but it never happens.

I’m not sure what the director was trying to do with some of the decisions made in this film either. For example, the female teacher, who is nothing short of a sexual predator on her students, is shown in a scene that makes her affair with a female student appear to be sexy. I’m not so sure it is.

That’s not to mention that police procedures that have been around for years, you know, like a little thing called ‘evidence’, have been thrown out the window in place of assumptions and bullying, and it’s quite hard for me to swallow a movie that shows all the police as buffoons. If you are making a film about corrupt cops, that’s one thing, but to have your entire police force in that manner in a film is just bad scriptwriting.

I paid $6.98 for this film at JB Hifi’s Halloween horror movie sale and was overcharged by about $111.68. Avoid like a herpes milkshake.

Score: *

Gnome Alone DVD menu screen: note lack of extras


Format: It’s one thing to make a shitty movie, but another to release it in a poor manner is unforgivable. This Australian, region 4 DVD release of the film runs for approximately 90 minutes (the cover says 85 minutes, but it’s wrong… another unforgivable crime). The film is presented in a 16:9 video of varying quality, mostly too dark, and in a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio that is far too quiet at some points. I’m not sure if that’s the film quality or the mastering of the disc, but it’s still pretty poor.

Score: **

Extras: Nothing to see here, move along…

Score: 0

WISIA: I doubt very much if this film will ever see the light of day in my house ever again.

Gnome Alone: didn’t I mention there’s a leprechaun? (Travis Eberhard)

Countdown to Halloween review #1: Halloween (1978)

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One from the re watch pile… And day one of our ’13 Days of Halloween’ celebration…
Halloween (1978)


Film: One thing every serious horror fan must agree on is that Halloween is our Christmas. The further away it goes from what it actually stands for, the more it becomes the day that all horror fans come together as one and raise our machetes/ finger-knife gloves/ kitchen knives to the heavens and hail a holler to horror.

Now if the holiday Halloween is ‘ours’, surely the film Halloween by director John Carpenter must be ubiquitous in all our collections. It must be the beginning and end of every collection, whether it is a favourite or not.

As if I need to remind anyone, I’ll quickly run through the synopsis of Halloween.

The film opens with a young Haddonfield, Illinois resident, Michael Myers (Will Sandin), in a POV shot that in the 80s became synonymous with horror, wander through his house on Halloween, until he finds his sister, post coitus, and stabs her to death.
He is committed to a mental institution where his doctor, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) claims that he is the very epitome of evil and should never be released. 


Unfortunately, 15 years later, a now adult Michael (Nick Castle) manages to escape with the intent of returning to Haddonfield and seeking out his younger sister Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), and he has no remorse as to who gets in his way, including a bunch of her school friends… But will he catch her? Will he be able to complete whatever his mission seems to be?

Well, horror fans should know by now.

With this film, John Carpenter completely nailed down the formula of what became the slasher film. Borrowing liberally from the film Black Christmas, and with elements of Italian giallo films thrown in for good measure. I can clearly remember as a youngster my step-father telling me when he and my mother went and saw this at the local drive-in theatre that it was the scariest film he’d ever seen.

Whilst I think that may be not completely true now, it certainly took the horror world by storm. The story is fairly generic slasher by today’s standards but at the time it would have been pretty scary.


The fear level came from a couple of things. The first was the fact that the villain was a driving force that was seemingly unstoppable, almost super-human, and his tenacity for destruction is truly a trait inspired to cause shudders. The second was that the hero, in Dr Loomis, seems even MORE deranged in his unwavering need to stop Myers. His madness seems to increase and his sanity collapse over the course of the sequels, but the seeds of that future insanity are firmly planted in the soil of his mind in this film. Thirdly, John Carpenter’s score for the film is this slow building, tension drenched piece that is just so awesome… Well, it’s my ringtone on my iPhone…

Well, for everyone except my wife who has her own ringtone: the Imperial March from Star Wars. 

Don’t tell her.

This and Friday the 13th are the Beatles and the Rolling Stones of horror. You can like both, but you’ll only truly love one of them. For me, it’s Friday the 13th that’s my love, but Halloween is right up there… Riiiiiiiight up there. It’s an example, like Psycho and Alien, of a horror film that gets every beat perfect. If you don’t have it, get on to eBay, Amazon or your local DVD/ Bluray retailer and get it. NOW!

Score: ****

Format: The review copy of Halloween was the Australian Beyond Home Entertainment bluray, 30th Anniversary release. This region B disc runs for 93 min and is presented with a decent and fairly clean 16×9 widescreen with a great Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Score: ****

Extras: 


A Cut Above The Rest explores the creation of the film and the influence it’s had since with interviews with Executive Producer Irwin Yablans, writer/ director John Carpenter, co-writer/ producer Debra Hill, actors Jamie Lee Curtis, P.J. Soles and others involved.

Halloween 2000…. Though the title card of the documentary calls it Halloween Unmasked… Is more of the same as above, retelling the same stories.

Then there are several trailers, including the original trailer, the rerelease trailer, and some TV and Radio adverts.

There is also a still gallery. I hate stills galleries.

This disc also has an audio commentary with John Carpenter, Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis, which is interesting, but does tell a few of the same stories as the two documentaries. 


Score: ****

WISIA: It’s Halloween: at the very least you should be watching it once a year, you know, at Halloween!

Countdown to Halloween Review #2: Halloween II (1981)

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One from the re watch pile…
Halloween 2 (1981)


Film: I have a special love for Halloween 2. My days of being a voracious film collector started with two films that I grabbed in the days of VHS: Halloween 2 and Dawn of the Dead, so excuse me whilst I zip up my 80s pants, so you can’t see the size of my nostalgia.

I am not even quite sure if I had even seen the first Halloween when I first saw this, and realistically, I am not sure it mattered. All I do remember is being stunned by how awesome horror movies didn’t have to have either Godzilla or Abbott and Costello in them, which is what I had mostly been exposed to before that, either on a Saturday afternoon when they played those sorts of things on Channel 7, or something like Octaman on a late night creature feature.

I mean I knew other horrors existed as I had been getting Famous Monsters of Filmland for several years, but this was something else!

From what my young mind could tell, obviously something bad had happened before, then a whole pile of more bad stuff happened, then boobs… Pause…. Then more bad stuff happens and then the bad guy gets his come uppence.


… or to put it in a slightly different way…

Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) Halloween night has so far been pretty terrible, as all her high school friends have been slaughtered by a madman named Michael Myers, who then pursued her, but she fought him off, and he was shot 6 times by Professor Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) before falling out of a second story window… And disappearing!

Our story takes us to Laurie’s journey to the hospital, and how her night of being terrorised by Myers is not over. Her recovery is not without event, as Myers survived the fall, and has tracked her to the hospital, carving a bloody path all the way there, and through the hospital staff… But why is he so intent on Laurie’s death? The revelation that she is the younger sister of Myers, adopted by the Strode family, would perhaps suggest that he has a job to finish…


As I previously suggested, I believe this may have been the first slasher that I ever saw, and I’ve loved them, and by extension, giallo films as well. I’ve definitely rewatched this more than any other slasher, even my beloved Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (!), and I still enjoy it today… Even though it contains the two most ridiculously luckiest shots from a handgun by an amateur in the history of cinema!

Basically I just love this film, and I am well aware it’s not the greatest film in the world, but I love the cast, the look of the film, the soundtrack and it’s higher body count, and even though the revelation if Laurie’s relationship seems to come from left field, it does create the basis for the franchise that the film’s became… Whether that’s a good thing or not is a different story. Is it nostalgia that makes me so fond of this film? Maybe, but that’s not SO bad, is it?

Score: ****1/2


Format: The review copy was the Australian region B bluray, which goes for 93 minutes and is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 image no a Dolby DTS-HD 5.1 both of which look just fine.

Score: ****

Extras: There is a few extras on this disc. The first is a series of deleted scenes which show more of the personalities of the hospital staff, and throw a few unnecessary story elements in. There is also an alternate ending which shows the survival of a character previously assumed to be dead. There is also a theatrical trailer.

Score: ***


WISIA: This is one of my favourite movies for story, body count, boobs and nostalgia, so it is a regular respinner at the To Watch Pile Cinema.

Countdown to Halloween Review #3: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

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One from the re watch pile…
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)


Film: Over the years, Halloween III: Season of the Witch copped a lot of crap. I can still remember a conversation I had with the receptionist at a company I worked for in 1988, Lisa (a fellow horror fan) where she said that when she saw it, the only part that excited her was the image of Michael Myers walking down the stairs on the TV Tom Atkins watches as the Buccaneer Lounge.

I disagreed with her. Irwin Yablans claims that removing Myers from the series was a misstep after having part one and two starring him, but as far as we were concerned, he was dead, and it was time to perhaps take the series in a new direction. The concept at the time was to release a ‘Halloween’ film every Halloween, but each film could potentially be the beginning of a brand new franchise, or a stand alone film.

I think that was a great idea, and let’s face it, Friday the 13th did not an entirely dissimilar thing with its horror subgenre gear changes from giallo to slasher to giallo to zombie to supernatural to science fiction switches throughout its first ten films.

Would this film have been a success if it didn’t have the ‘Halloween’ label on it? Perhaps, but it shouldn’t be punished for it either as I think it’s a pretty good horror film in its own right!


Halloween III: Season of the Witch tells of Dr. Daniel Challis (Tom Atkins) who teams up with the daughter of a deceased patient, Ellie Grimbridge (Stacy Nelkin) to travel to the town of Santa Mira, home of the Silver Shamrock, run by Conan Cochran (Dan O’Herlihy) in an attempt to find out what happened to her father, but what they find in the small berg is death and horror!

An evil plot is uncovered which may result in the death of hundreds of thousands of children, and does it have something to do with the missing piece of Stonehenge?

Of course it does!


Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a fun horror romp that is creepy and clever and well worth a watch, though the Silver Shamrock song is an insidious jingle, like the very best/ worst of advertising you’ll see at any time on your TV, and it will get stuck in your head for days.

It’s not a perfect film though, and the bad guy’s overall plan is a little murky in its intention, like the worst of James Bond baddies, and the combination of science and supernatural require a small leap of faith at times.

Essentially, the film is a decent watch that didn’t deserve the criticism it received at the time it came out.

Score: ***1/2


Format: The reviewed copy of this disc was the Australian region B bluray release. The film runs for approximately 99 minutes and it presented in a clear and decent 2.35:1 image and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 audio.

Score: ****

Extras: Not a bad amount of extras on this disc:

Stand Alone: The Making of Halloween III: Season of the Witch explores the reasons behind the dumping of Michael Myers from the franchise, and in general, the actual making of the film. There’s interviews with director Tommy Lee Wallace, producer Irwin Yablans, DoP Dean Cundey, actor Tom Atkins, stunt coordinator Dick Warlock and actress Stacy Nelkin.

Horror’s Hallowed Grounds revisits the various locations from Halloween III today. It’s cool to see what all those 80s locations look like now, and it’s pretty funny too.

Stills Gallery, I bloody hate stills galleries, and this is no exception.

There is also a series of TV spots and a trailer.

In addition to all that, there are 2 commentaries, one by Tom Atkins and one by Tommy Lee Wallace. Both are interesting in their own rights, and are thankfully led by interviewers to fill any quiet spots.

Score: ****

WISIA: Even though the Silver Shamrock song gets stuck in my head for weeks after, I can’t resist rewatching this film. I’ve always liked it and never understood the detractors from it.

Countdown to Halloween Review #4: Night of the Demons (1988)

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One from the re-watch pile…
Night of the Demons (1988)


Film: I find it hard to criticise films from the 80s as this was when I really became a super horror fan. I’d liked monster movies before this decade, but early 80s still really distilled my love and made me the horror fan I am today.

It’s with a slight bit of embarrassment that I admit to this being not just because of stories of murder and mayhem, but also due to the ‘scream queen’ culture, and the names associated, like Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer, Debbie Rochon and the legendary Linnea Quigley. It was not always necessary due to Academy Award (r) acting performances that I admired these women, but more due to a more physical aspect of their performances.


Ok, because they were nude quite regularly, and I’m a fan of boobies.

So what is this film about?

Weirdo Angela (Amelia Kinkade) and her friend, the facile Suzanne (Linnea Quigley) have decided to hold a Halloween party for their friends, but what they don’t realise is, is that she is holding the party at the notorious Hill House, an old mortuary that has several legends of awful things happening associated with its history.


Of course, the moronic groups of sex-crazed teens decided to hold a seance, which of course causes one of them to become possessed, who then passes the ‘infection’ on, slowly turning all the group into demonic distorted images of themselves, but who will survive, and what sort of condition will they be left in?

Badly acted and a stupid story with bloodshed and bodacious boobies: it’s all the great things about 80s horror condensed into 90 odd minutes of fun.

Score: ****


Format: The reviewed copy of Night of the Demons was the 2004 release, region 1 DVD from Anchor Bay, and it hasn’t really aged to well, especially with our fancy new equipment that we have now, 12 years later, that’s not to say it’s unwatchable, but it could do with a touch up here and there. This edition is the unrated version with additional gore and violence (the cover slick’s words, not mine) and is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen with a Dolby Digital ‘Ultra Stereo’ soundtrack.

Score: ***

Extras: There’s a couple of extras on this DVD, of which the video quality on them all is lacking.

My Demon Nights is an interview with Linnea Quigley looking back at her career at her experiences on Night of the Demons. It’s interesting but ultimately superficial.

There is also a commentary with director Tenney, executive producer Walter Josten and Producer Jeff Geoffray.

There are two trailers, one the theatrical and the other the video, and three TV spots for the film.

Promo Reel seems to be a promotional piece for video store owners to tempt them into taking Night of the Demons into their shops for rental. It’s actually quite an interesting piece of propaganda!

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: It’s one of my true loves from the 80s, and it gets a regular spin at my place.

Countdown to Halloween Review #5: Hocus Pocus (1993)

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One from the re watch pile…
Hocus Pocus (1993)


Film: As much as us horror fans keep Halloween as ‘our’ holiday, we do have another group that we have to share it with… kids!!

My daughter, now an adult, was brought up on horror films. Now I don’t mean I started her on Last House on the Left: no, we started with things like Casper, Addams Family, The Witches, various Scooby Doo movies, and this film, Hocus Pocus, before moving into not-quite age appropriate things like Dawn of the Dead at age ten.

Hocus Pocus tells the tale of three witches from Salem, the Sanderson Sisters: Winifred (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy) and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) who way back when used to draw the life-force out of kids to restore their youth. Of course they are caught and executed, but not before casting a spell…

Hocus Pocus: the Sanderson Sisters, Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker


Several centuries later, Max (Omri Katz), his little sister, Dani (Thora Birch) and their parents move to Salem from California to find the town, at Halloween, have reduced the story of the Sanderson Sisters to little more than a myth. On Halloween night, Max manages to convince local hottie Alison (Vinessa Shaw) to take him and his sister up to the abandoned Sanderson museum, but he accidentally brings the sisters back to life by casting their long dormant spell.

As one would expect from a Disney film, the rest is spent in an attempt to defeat the witches, and many shenanigans take place, and maybe a song as well…

… and that song is to be expected. This film is directed by Kenny Ortega, who is probably best known for the Grease remake series of High School Musical films, and it’s a beautiful and fun set of visuals with some great performances, especially from Midler, Najimy and Parker (as a side note, Parker never looked better than in this film!)

Hocus Pocus: Omri Katz and Thora Birch


The screenplay is also brilliant. Written by long-time Stephen King collaborator Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert, who wrote Return of the Swamp Thing, from a story by Garris and David Kirschner, who created the American Tale series of animated films. Like any good PG film, it has heaps of funny stuff for the kids, but there is a lot of sly innuendos aimed directly in the laps of the adults as well.

If I have to fault this film at all, it is in the casting of the school bullies, Ice (Larry Bagby) and Jay (Tobias Jelinek). Yes, I appreciate that this is a Disney film, but these two overact to the point of distraction. They are more cartoon characters than anything else, and their performances stand out as a low point of the film.

Hocus Pocus: Vinessa Shaw as Allison


Is it possible I have affection for this film from the aforementioned daddy/ daughter days? Possibly, but the film is still fun and funny and a better example of Disney’s live-action stuff. It also has a great deal of fun with horror tropes like zombies and witches without actually poking fun AT them. Of course it does end up getting a little schmaltzy at the end, but that’s what The House of the Mouse wants, isn’t it?

Score: ****

Hocus Pocus DVD Menu Screen


Format: The reviewed copy of this film was the Disney DVD release from several years ago. The feature runs for approximately 92 minutes and is presented in a slightly grainy and artefact-y 16:9 video with a 2.0 audio.

Score: ***

Extras: Nothing.

Score: 0

WISIA: It’s a fun and easy to watch family film that my adult daughter and I STILL like to watch together, even though we both possibly should have grown out of it.

Hocus Pocus: Doug Jones as Billy