31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 23: THE STEPFATHER (1987)

The perfect suburban family...

Jerry Blake (Terry O'Quinn) is a real estate salesman who aspires to live "the American Dream" by crafting the picture-perfect suburban home and family, a la what he grew up watching on 1950's and 1960's television. In short, a fantasy that can't exist and never did. He's married to Susan Maine (Shelley Hack, late of CHARLIE'S ANGELS), whom he met about a year ago, shortly after her husband died, and along with that commitment comes her high school-aged daughter, Stephanie (Jill Schoelen). Stephanie is having issues with her dad's death and repeatedly causes disturbances at her school, which leads her to being forced to see an analyst. She reveals to the analyst that she is indeed having problems getting over her father's death and consequent absence from her life, but part of the problem is the presence of Jerry and his aggressive Ward Cleaverism. The two regularly butt heads and Jerry tries to make things work with his new family, but Stephanie instinctively senses that there's just something not right about Jerry, a fact driven home when she witnesses him utterly lose his shit in the basement during a neighborhood cookout, the basement being his "man cave" and also where he goes to be alone and let his hair down...

True colors exposed.

You see, we, the audience, are informed from Frame 1 that "Jerry" is too good to be true, as we see him with shaggy hair, a 'stache, and glasses, washing off the blood he's covered with, the blood of his previous "family," who all lay dead and butchered in their house's living room. "Jerry" is a serial killer whose M.O. is to insinuate himself somewhere in and around Seattle, Washington, where he changes his appearance, assumes a fake name, gets a job and sets himself up as a well-liked and trusted new citizen, and becomes involved with widows or divorcees with kids, in a never-ending obsessive quest to create the perfect American family of his twisted fantasies. While things with a given family go swimmingly, he's the model husband and father, but if anything happens that threatens to shatter his fabricated white picket fence paradise, it's murder time and the quest begins anew.

Jim Ogilvie, the brother of his previous murdered wife is beside himself over the loss of his sister in such a brutal and senseless manner, so he embarks on his own investigative crusade to find her killer. He even approaches the detective who handled his sister's case, but all that the cop can tell him is that the killer has done this several times, under several different identities, and he's so smart about what he does, they have nothing on him other than his false names. Meanwhile, Stephanie, spurred by witnessing Jerry's basement meltdown and having heard of his previous unsolved murders, sets about investigating him herself, so it's only a matter of time before the two amateur investigations yield some sort of fruit. But Jerry's behavior is becoming more and more erratic and unhinged, so it may be time to clean the slate and start all over again...

I last saw THE STEPFATHER on VHS 31 years ago, having skipped it in the theater due to being oversaturated on slasher films during their '80's domination of the the screen, and many of them were outright cheapjack trash. THE STEPFATHER looked like it would be another "nothing special" effort, but that snap judgement was proven quite wrong when I finally saw it. (A friend wanted to see it, so she rented it and invited me over.) It's leagues better than the majority of that era-defining sub-genre's efforts and should more properly be considered a psychology horror film and a compelling character study of a would-be idealized father and husband and those within his twisted orbit. As opposed to the majority approach of slathering the screen with as many gory kills and as much gratuitous female nudity as they could get away with in order to excite its audience, THE STEPFATHER benefits from a rock-solid script first and foremost, penned by legendary crime author Donald Westlake (aka "Richard Stark," author of the deservedly-famous Parker series), and that effort is capably carried by the entire cast. Terry O'Quin is terrific as the chameleonic "Jerry," being the Ward Cleaver-esque patriarchal ideal in public and around friends and family, but there's always a note of overripe phoniness about his persona that Stephanie twigged to early and has confirmed when she witnesses his assumed-to-be-private freak-out. He's clearly unhinged and it's made quite clear that his veneer of impossible perfection is never too far away from shattering and unleashing a savage monster in the all-too-familiar form of "dad." Hints are given here and there that point to "Jerry" having been brought up in a rigid environment that strictly enforced 1950's-style family values and behaviors, and he also seems to have been heavily and unhealthily influenced by the image of the picture-perfect suburban American family unit put forth by the TV shows of his youth.

There's a lot going on in this film and it deserves rediscovery, especially as a strong counterpoint to the assembly line hack-'em-ups that it landed amidst. I never bothered with either of its two sequels, and I'm almost afraid to out of fear that they would tarnish the memory of this semi-forgotten gem, but maybe someday...

Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 22: THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009) Unrated

The very definition of "unwanted guests."

1972's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT was a landmark in the annals of cinematic nastiness due to its unflinching, no-holds-barred violence, gore, and depravity, bolstered by cinematography that gave its tale of torturous rape and revenge the look and feel of the most low-rent basement-lensed pornography, or a snuff film. It broke new ground in what could be depicted onscreen in thrillers and horror movies, even now, just shy of five decades after its release, the film still holds a savage, genuinely unpleasant power that has been known to unsettle even the most hardened of exploitation mavens and seasoned gorehounds. (To give perspective, it's second only to 1978's infamous I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as the definitive rape/revenge shocker.) So why bother remaking it? The answer to that is twofold: 

1.  To presumably cash in the name-recognition.
2.  Because the filmmakers were creatively bankrupt and had zero by way of original ideas in their heads. 

If you are familiar with the details of the original THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, you already know the plot for this version, so I'll spare you the recap. (For those of you who have not seen it, click here for my review/analysis that includes spoilers.) As this remake came along in the early 2000's, as part of the wave of unnecessary remakes of items that have become cult classics for a reason, I was curious to see just how watered-down it would be when stacked against its brutal template. To put it mildly, the remake, while still quite nasty by the standards of most decent individuals, castrates the 1972 version by slicking-up the production with an aesthetic, cinematography, and overall storytelling that never lets one forget that they are watching a standard cranked-out Hollywood "product" film. Gone is the unsettling snuff film vibe, replaced instead by a standard thriller that could quite casually run at the two-screener in the local mall. No potential grindhouse perennial, this.

"Are we there yet?"

As previously stated, the plot is basically the same as what audiences got 37 years earlier, so we once more get two sweet teen girls attempting to score weed from the wrong people and enduring all manner of horrific abuse from their four captors. This time, however, the junkie son of the tormentors' leader is treated with sympathy as he has clearly been abused all of his life by his awful father, and he survives at the end, a pitiful, burnt-out shell who now must live with the guilt over what transpired with the girls. The girl who is not the daughter of the vengeful parents is the only one of the teen pair who meets her fate at the hands of the fleeing criminals who have kidnapped them, while the other girl is raped but not tortured, and left to die, which allows her parents to find her, so she too survives to the end of the film. The parents, meanwhile, take the killers into their home during a sudden storm, figure out what went down, and exact vengeance that is nowhere near as wrenching and visceral as that found in the 1972 version. 

BREAKING BAD's Aaron Paul gets vile.

 Once the killers are dispatched, with the leader left alive while the family takes the daughter and the abused boy to a hospital for medical attention — dad is himself a surgeon, so after stunning the leader, he paralyzes the villain with some quick surgery, leaving him for when he returns after making sure his daughter is being cared for — dad returns to the site of the mayhem and offs the lead villain by sticking his head into an open microwave oven, turning it on, and causing his head to explode. I can't speak for anyone else, but that moment completely took me out of the movie because a properly-working microwave will not function if its door is open. They are built with a fail-safe switch that only allows the unit to work once the latch of the closed door trips the switch. Unless dad came back and did some quick sabotage of the device, which we do not see him do, I call complete and utter bullshit on this.

It's the bland and vanilla wearing a party mask of the savage for the titillation of those too chickenshit for really strong meat, freshly torn from the bloody carcass and straight from the celluloid charnel house. Stick to the original, nasty and vicious though it absolutely is, and skip this flaccid imitation. In fact, I'll give this the ultimate insult that I can muster: This is what you'd get of the Lifetime network tried to get edgy. If I could sit my 87-year-old mother through a LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake and she would be fine with watching it, it's a film that has nothing to offer for me or, I would wager, the majority of you reading this.

Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 21: FRANKENSTEIN AND MONSTER FROM HELL (1974)

More fun with Baron Frankenstein.

 

Having survived the conflagration at the climax of FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969), Baron Frankenstein blackmails his way into being the secret power within a mental institution, lording it over the alcoholic and lecherous head administrator and being allowed to treat the patients. Into this scenario is thrust young surgeon Dr. Simon Hedler (Shane Briant), a talented practitioner who seeks to follow in Frankenstein's footsteps by crafting a man from choice components and animating it. Hedler's pilfering of corpses and body parts is discovered and he is sentenced to a minimum of five years in a mental asylum, despite clearly not being insane. Fate lands him at Frankenstein's looney bin and in no time they develop a master/acolyte partnership, aided by the beautiful and mute Sarah (Madeleine Smith, late of1970's  THE VAMPIRE LOVERS), aka "the Angel," and Helder reveals an obsession with the secret of life that rivals his mentor's. 

 

The Baron, the Angel, and padawan.
 

From there it's pretty much what we have come to expect from a Hammer Frankenstein outing, as the Baron slowly lets Helder into his close circle of trust, revealing that he is once more attempting to create life from the dead, only this time garnering his choice parts from the remains of two inmates who expire under, er..."mysterious" circumstances, and using the hairy, hulking body of a homicidal "neolithic" throwback as the main chassis. Resembling a foul-tempered Sasquatch more than a human being, the creature (played by a pre-Darth Vader Dave Prowse) was once a man possessed of inhuman strength and a fascination with glass, which he enjoyed breaking and using to stab his victims in the face. The body, odd though it is, will do, but Frankenstein seeks the hands of an artist (that he lops off of the murdered body of an insane sculptor) and the brain of a genius (a professor of music and advanced mathematics, whose suicide by hanging via his own violin strings was prompted by the Baron making him aware that he would never be released, despite him only being locked up for something minor and curable), and once the Baron obtains them, the shenanigans begin...

 

Shopping for parts.
 

By the time FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL was released, it was pretty obvious that the writing was on the wall for Hammer, as their once-shocking brand was more or less rendered passe by the new permissiveness of onscreen sex and violence — which they had helped to usher in over the previous 17 years — and the flavors of horror shifting away from "adult fairytale Gothic" to outright festivals of carnage like BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS, and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. To be honest, and I say this as a Hammer devotee, their best years had been behind them for a while and they had begun to run out of ideas as the 1970's dawned. But at least this final outing for the wicked Baron was a case of the Frankenstein series going out with a bang. There's no sex or nudity in this one, but the story is solid and the lashings of gore are quite vivid and satisfying. 

 

Back in 1974, this sort of thing got you an "R" rating.

 

The Baron is as evil and coldly aristocratic as ever, and it's a delight to see him reduce the hospital's sadistic and corrupt staff to fearful lumps of jelly when he takes them to task for their abuse of the patients. (Including serial torture and rape.) The Baron may be a bastard, but even he will not abide wanton cruelty inflicted upon the clearly helpless and mentally-unwell.

"Pikachu...I choose you!"

The monster is one of the most unique designs for the classic shambling abomination, and Dave Prowse acquits himself nicely with a role dependent more upon his gym-earned physical presence than the sparse amount of lines the creature is given. He's definitely version of the famous creature that no one would ever want to tangle with, what with his super-strength and a mind that is subsumed by the body's natural propensity for mutilating people with glass...

The creature.

When it's all over, the Baron and his accomplices live to cause mayhem and blasphemous crimes against nature another day, with them set in place in their asylum base of operations should the series have continued, but such was not to be. 

As a final entry in a series that had run on and off for 17 years, FRANKENSTEIN AND MONSTER FROM HELL is a lot of fun, though certainly not up to the standards of some of the installments that preceded it. Nonetheless, it's a good entry-level shocker for the older monster kids. (If released today, this would earn a PG-13.)

Poster from the American theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 20: NEVER HIKE IN THE SNOW A Friday the 13th Fan Film (2020)

 

Winter sports with Jason Voorhees.

It's the dead of winter and hiker Mark Hill (Courtlan Gordon) makes the fatal mistake of snooping around the abandoned site of Camp Crystal Lake in hope of snapping photos of where all of its infamous murders took place. Unfortunately for him, Jason Voorhees is not just some local legend or boogeyman, which he finds out less than five minutes into the film.

 

Shades of Marian Crane: Our presumed protagonist, less than five minutes into the story. 

The rest of the narrative involves a pair of local cops handling the fallout from Jason murdering the snooping 17-year-old, while Jason retreats to one of the camp's dilapidated cabins and spends quality time with a vision of his doting mother. 

NEVER HIKE IN THE SNOW works quite well as a followup to 2017's impressive NEVER HIKE ALONE, and its filmmakers, fans of the actual FRIDAY THE 13th franchise, have once more crafted a fan film that's better than any of the franchise's actual entries. It's a 30-minute episode that ups the previous effort's ante by trimming all traces of fat, giving us a nasty kill almost immediately, and holding our attention through what follows. Within its short running time the film establishes that Jason is largely considered a local legend, reveals the sheriff to be aware of exactly what he's facing, depicts the horrific fate of a young cop assigned to clean up the scene of Mark's murder, and restores Jason shrine to his mother, a la the one seen to great eerie effect in FRIDAY THE 13th PART II (1981).

 

 A remembrance of mommy.

It's short and sweet and absolutely worth your 30 minutes, especially if you're a diehard Jason fan.

Promotional image for the film.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 19: THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964)

It had to happen sooner or later...

This third entry in Hammer's Frankenstein series is hands down the weakest of the lot, offering little or nothing new while being surprisingly turgid for on of this studio's efforts from its heyday. To be honest, I fell asleep during the first half-hour while watching it, and upon finishing it I lamented the 84 minutes of my life that I wasted on it and will never get back. It's wholly mediocre and dull, which are two unforgivable sins for any movie, but they especially rankle in a film released by a trusted studio and starring a favorite actor.

THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN is so rote, its details barely even merit recounting. The basics of this one amount to "after once more being discovered up to his ghoulish shenanigans and driven out of town, the Baron and his assistant return to his hometown of Karlstaad and once more mayhem and vengeance ensue." It takes the well-worn Frankenstein cliches and just leaves them on the screen in much the same way as one would imagine someone setting a Thanksgiving table with a cheap rubber turkey as the main attraction and expecting those in attendance to be satisfied with it. Peter Cushing returns as the Baron and appears largely bored throughout, nearly all of the surrounding characters are cookie cutter "types" common to Frankenstein movies in general, and the monster looks like it was rejected from a cheap local TV station's "spooky" afternoon kiddie show, or maybe a first pass at Peter Boyle's makeup from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (only unintentionally humorous).

Kiwi Kingston as the monster.

I've certainly endured worse movies but, as I have said elsewhere, Hammer ste a high standard for itself, so when it issued a dud, it stung. I expect better from them, a lot better, and this one is weak tea at best. Worth seeing only for hammer Frankenstein completists and definitely the sickly runt of the litter. If you opt to skip a Hammer Frankenstein, make it this installment.

Poster from the U.K. theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 18: THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

Taking the concept of "homemade" a tad too far.

Here we are, at the Hammer imprint's Ground Zero. 

Though Britain's Hammer Studios had been around for a while, it was 1957's THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN that put them on the map (along with the following year's HORROR OF DRACULA). WWII was only 12 years in the past, so memories of real-life horror were still quite fresh, and it was also the era of the fugue state between the Profumo scandal and England losing its cherry to the sexual and psychedelic excesses of the swinging Sixties, so the U.K. simply was not ready for Hammer's flavor of shocks. The Universal cycle was swiftly becoming an antique during a market dominated by alien invaders and gigantic monstrosities spawned by the dawn of the atomic bomb, so something new was needed to sate audiences. What Hammer brought to the table was lush (some would say garish) color, a pervasive Gothic atmosphere that felt like dark fairytales for grownups, a more "adult" sensibility — remember, the British had just endured WWII, so hiding the nastiness of the world was no longer an option — stories geared more toward the audience's experience as adults, a reasonable amount of "sauce" in the form of generous, heaving bosoms, and the groundbreaking depiction of then-copious amounts of fire engine-red blood (that always looked to me like Sherwin-Williams house paint). Hammer kicked off their horror run proper by reinventing horror's two biggest stars, Frankenstein and Dracula, by putting spins on them that worked from the late-1950's/early-1960's, and in the case of Frankenstein, the focus was shifted from the creature to the creator.

If you have seen pretty much any Frankenstein movie, you know the basic building blocks (and the fact that only the germ of them were cribbed from the classic source novel):

• Obsessed scientist with a drive to create a living man from the dead bits and pieces of assorted corpses
• A hapless, misunderstood creature that did not ask to be created, possessed of superhuman strength
• The robbing of graves and pilfering of necessary organs from medical schools
• A female character to get in the way of the ghoulish medical shenanigans, often betrothed to the scientist
• Some sort of rampage by the monster
• A tragic climax

All of those elements are present in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN,  so there's little need to bother recounting the details of film's plot. All you need to know is that it's the 1800's in Switzerland and we are introduced to the aristocratic Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing, in one of his career-defining roles), a wealthy scientific/medical genius who, with the aid of his tutor-turned-lab partner, Paul (Robert Urquhart), builds a man from random deceased components and seeks to grant it life. The pair discover the secret of life (which is conveniently not explained to the audience) and they have the hanged corpse of a highway man with which to get started. Now, all they need is a decent head and, preferably, the brain of a genius. As things escalate, Paul suffers bouts of conscience, while the baron forges ahead with a single-mindedness that can be read as madness.

 

 The Baron (Peter Cushing) goes shopping.

Matters are complicated when the Baron's cousin, Elizabeth (Hazel Court), arrives to take up residence at Victor's mansion. The Baron supported her and her mother since she was a child, but now her mother is dead and she has been promised to the Baron in an arranged marriage, which she's totally down with, but her presence throws a hitch into the Baron's ongoing affair with Justine (Valerie Gaunt), his lusty FRench maid. It all comes to head, and once it does, the Baron finds himself awaiting execution by guillotine, recounting his story to a priest in his dungeon cell. 

The film was a massive hit, despite the open revulsion expressed by critics and certain sectors of the general public over its then-shocking bloodiness, medical gore, and mention of the French maid being made out-of-wedlock pregnant by the Baron. Other than those daring elements, it's a well-made but pretty standard Gothic yarn, with its other big difference being that it was made in color, which it certainly took advantage of.

If I have one gripe about the film, it's that its creature, brought to (un) life by Christopher Lee (who, like Cushing, became an icon for his subsequent Hammer roles, most notable his especially evil take on Count Dracula), really doesn't resonate much, other than for his visual aspect.

 

Christopher Lee as one of the most pathetic variations on Frankenstein's monster.

The creature has no personality and does not speak, as the genius brain was severely damaged during an altercation between the Baron and Paul, and it moves with an impaired stiffness that does not allow it to do much. It does manage to escape briefly and shamble about the local woods, but over the course of the story the creature racks up exactly two kills, both offscreen. If you're into Frankenstein movies, then this is definitely not the film for you. Some of us, however, are in it for the monster's creator, and here is where things get interesting.

Peter Cushing, redefining Frankenstein from a mere mad scientist to an obsessed and cruel aristocratic sociopath.

Hammer's stroke of genius with its Frankenstein franchise was making the Baron the true monster of the cycle, and relegating the creature to mostly the role of being a goal to be striven for. The Baron rich and thinks himself beyond the laws of man and the Church, and he will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. Ghoulish grave-robbery and acquisition of fresh organs, abuse of those around him without a second thought, utter disregard for general human compassion and decency, the list goes on and would be further refined as the series progressed. He's a total hateful piece of shit here, but this is just the blossoming of the cold and vicious assholism that he would display further down the line. Cushing is always a delight, but his Baron goes so against his actual nice old man personality, it's astonishing. But, hey, such ifs the pint of acting.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, though rather tepid by today's standards, is a landmark and as such it is worthy of your time. It's not my favorite of the Hammer Frankensteins, but it's certainly a good entry with which to get the ball rolling. A solid origin story and definitely recommended.

Poster for the British theatrical release.

PARK SLOPE SATURDAY NIGHT

 I just aurally witnessed an epic ultra-ghetto curse-out.

While enjoying the remainder of my dinner, a car horn began loudly honking on the street outside. this went on for a good half-hour, only stopping occasionally, and it was just as annoying as you would imagine, especially at this hour on a Saturday night when thing would hopefully be quiet. (And it's also a night where the Stoop Louts are absent, so no matter what I apparently cannot have even one night of peace and quiet.)

The honking continued and I debated going outside to ask the person in the car to stop, but another local beat me to it, politely yelling out "Would you please stop honking your horn??" That was met with a bellowed and extremely hostile "TELL THE MUTHAFUKKA TA COME OUT HERE AN' MOVE HIS MUTHAFUKKIN' CAR! AND FUCK YOU!!! FUCK OFF!!!" after which she continued with the honking.

Another half hour of intermittent honking ensued, until the owner of the car that was blocking the honker's exit finally showed up. As the guy put his key into his car's door, the woman who was pinned in got out of her car and let fly with the following: "MUTHAFUKKA, I BIN TRYIN' TA GET MY CAR OUTTA HERE FOR A FUKKIN' HOUR, BUT YOU KEPT ME PINNED!!!" The guy tried to apologize, but she was NOT having it. "FUCK YO' 'SORRY!!!" I GOT THINGS TA DO AN' YOU BEEN KEEPIN' ME HERE!!! FUCK YOU!!! START YO' MUTHAFUKKIN CAR, MUTHAFUKKA!!!"

With that, the woman got back in her car and waited for the guy to pull his car out of the space. I have never in my life heard a car peel out so fast.

COSTUME IN PROGRESS

The other day In posted this costume sketch for this year's Halloween costume, which I initially referred to as "Afro Plague Doctor," then "Plague Brutha,' but now I'm thinking of calling it "Soul Brutha," as the character is here to steal the souls of trick-or-treaters.

Since then the assorted bits and bobs that will compose the outfit have begun arriving and I have had fun test-driving some of them. 

The array of components thus far, and me test-driving the mask with the wig and hooded cloak. I'm still awaiting the feathered ruff for my neck.

Regarding the warlock's staff, it’s a three-section item that screws together for assembly, and the plastic on the “wood” part is relatively sturdy but not meant to be leaned on. It’s for carrying only, or hanging up as decoration by the loop in the skull, and the screw-in sections are a bit dodgy. I’m going to find someone with a Dremel tool to remove the screw section from the head and “leather” part with the runes and shave down the resulting opening to fit, so I can place it atop one of my taller, more durable rattan kung fu poles. I will sport in place of the traditional plague doctor's cane.

The warlock's staff, pre-customization.

I tried out the plague doctor's mask, the oversized afro wig, and the hooded cloak together, and I was quite satisfied with how it all looked, though there's still plenty of rook for tweaking once everything is in hand.

When I get the full outfit together I want to walk around on Halloween in hope of encountering kids, so I can call to them in a demonic voice — “Come to me, child...COME HERE.” — and those who are brave enough to come to me get rewarded by getting to take candy from the bag I will be carrying. I hope I can find a proper plastic pumpkin for that purpose.

STAY TUNED.

 

31 DAYAS OF HORROR 2020-Day 17: I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)

The titular event.

After over fifty years of movies showcasing Romero-style living dead , it's sometimes difficult to separate that perception from what came before NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) broke new ground, thus establishing nearly all zombie tropes going forward. Pre-Romero zombie movies featured revenants based on what was then known of traditional Haitian zombies, meaning the creatures in question were merely enslaved West Indian plantation workers who were rendered shambling automatons via the administering of assorted drugs. That effect was passed off as being straight-up voodoo, and though we know it's not supernatural in origin, the superstition still persists. Anyway, a bunch of black guys shuffling around aimlessly while posing no real threat makes for pretty tepid cinema, and that's exactly what I got when I finally sat through I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, a film many hail as a classic. I can see how it would have had impact some seventy-plus years ago, but to today's audience it's little more than a curio crafted by the makers of the far superior CAT PEOPLE.

I WALKED WIITH A ZOMBIE is basically a standard 1940's "exotic" romance picture, bolstered by solid performances, an intelligent script, and atmospheric art direction. The story, about what transpires when a young Canadian nurse is tasked with caring for the comatose/somnambulistic wife of a plantation owner. Some time earlier, the wife achieved her present state for reasons revealed during the climax, and for all the world it seems that she has been made into a classical zombie, and the only way to cure her might be to subject her to a voodoo ritual performed by some of the plantation's natives. Simultaneously, the nurse falls for the plantation owner, so the complication is what would happen if the missus is cured?

It's by no means a bad movie, in fact it's quite good, but if you're going in looking for any kind of actual thrills or supernatural content, especially after a steady diet of gory flesh-eating "roamer" epics, this film ain't necessarily for you. It's worth seeing for genre completists and so one can discuss it from an informed point of view, but it's very much of its era and likely will not work for a a 21st century audience. I will, however, give it praise for its treatment of black characters during an era chock-a-block with offensive racial content and coon stereotypes. All of the plantation's blacks are depicted as intelligent, well-spoken humn beings, and the fact that slavery was an atrocity is very directly addressed. Kudos for that.

Poster from the theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2020-Day 16: NEVER HIKE ALONE (2017)

When you should have heeded the "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

Hiking vlogger Kyle McCleod (Andrew Leighty), armed with a backpack full of supplies and his GoPro video camera, parks his jeep in the woods and sets off on foot by himself to chronicle his journey along a mapped-out path to a picturesque summit, a trail noted as advised only for advanced-level hikers. He wanders around the silent forest, noting everything in his DIY travelogue, and eventually he encounters a closed area with a prominent "No Trespassing" sign, which poses a problem as his path leads him directly through the forbidden stretch. He crosses it anyway and in no time a sinister presence lurks in the near distance, avoiding Kyle's line of sight with superhuman speed, agility, and stealth. As Kyle forges ahead, he unearths the remains of a summer camp's entrance sign, and it reads "CAMP CRYSTAL LAKE." Kyle recognizes the name and recounts the events of FRIDAY THE 13th (1980) for the camera as he pokes around the abandoned remains of the former summer camp, now a legendary site of multiple murders. But is the derelict camp truly deserted?

That would be a hard "NO."

Yes, Jason Voorhees still haunts the camp grounds and Kyle has violated his territory, much to his great regret. What ensues is Kyle attempting to survive as he, all by his lonesome, faces cinema's most implacable and prolific slasher.

NEVER HIKE ALONE is writer/director Vicente DiSanti's 53-minute fan film love letter to the FRIDAY THE 13th series (and its fans), and I think it says a hell of a lot that a fan film  is arguably better than any film in the actual franchise. A lot of thought went into this effort and it rewards the audience by treating its viewers with respect for their intelligence and also by eschewing nearly all of the annoying tropes that defined the series. With just one character to focus on and get to know, we become genuinely invested in Kyle as his well-intended trek goes horribly awry, and we root for him to survive, unlike the cannon fodder ciphers that pass as characters in the legit franchise. This is a FRIDAY THE 13th movie that proves a Jason outing doesn't have to suck, and the only missing element is the gratuitous nudity, since Jason and Kyle are the only characters (excluding two EMT's who arrive during the final act).

If you, like me, love the FRIDAY THE 13th series in spite of all good judgement, NEVER HIKE ALONE is a must-see in order to experience what can be done with a Jason movie when brains, solid filmmaking, and a simple, solid script are a part of the formula. FRIDAY THE 13th could be so much more than just a cheap, mindless charnel house and jiggle fest, and this humble not-for-profit fan effort points the way to what could and should be done with it.

Promotional image for the film.