Post by Ultimo Gallos on Oct 28, 2023 10:03:57 GMT -5
TITLE-Alison's Birthday SOURCE-Shudder streaming service
One thing I have noticed is usually within a month of being released lots of cult/horror boutique label releases hit Shudder. Which makes it more than worth the low price for a year. What I pay for a year of Shudder is what two purchases would cost from a Boutique.
When Severin released their "folk horror" big boxed set I wanted to see a few of the films in the set and the documentary. But not wanting to drop 200 bucks I waited. Tried watching the documentary on Shudder and still haven't made it all the way through it.
Earlier this year had someone tell me this early 80s Austrailian made horror was worth a watch. Alison's Birthday is almost a forgotten film. I had heard of it but never seen it until earlier this year. And out of the cast only person I knew was the lead. Who IIRC was Mad Max's lady in the first film.
So needing a film to watch today put this on for my second viewing. Starts off with 3 teenage girls attempting to contact a spirt. One girl gets possessed and warns Alison to leave this place and make sure to never be here on your 19th birthday. They crazy shit happens,wind blowing a shelf falls on the possessed girl. And Alison ends up leaving her home and moving away.
Skip ahead a few years Alison is almost 19. And she gets a call from her aunt and uncle.They want her to come stay a bit and celebrate her up coming birthday. And off Alison and her boyfriend head to the Aunt and Uncle's. Riding in what appears to be a street legal dune buggy.
Once at the home Alison is reminded of just how odd stuff is. Like one area of the property she is reminded to avoid "cause there is snakes". And her aunt's ancient grandmother who rarely leaves her room.
This is a real slow burn of a film. While only being 1 hour and 30 odd minutes it feels longer. This isn't a flaw. But to people not use to how cinema had a slower pace a few decades ago I can see it being an issue.
We finally find out the Aunt and Uncle are druids. And they are planning on holding some kind of ritual when Alison turns 19. The boyfriend tries to prevent this from happening. But he fails. At the end the ritual causes Alison's mind to go into the ancient grandmother's body. And vice versa. And we end on alison in the old elderly body screaming.
Worth watching if you want a slow but decent religious horror. No real gore or much violence. Some nice camera angles and shots.
Love the work Vinegar Syndrome did on this one. Historically I dig it because it's really the first hi-tech horror of the 80s digital age. I also love the restored garage door kill at the very end. Underrated Troma flick.
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- This one might have been a little too overhyped for me before I saw it. An impressive DIY undertaking about a shipwrecked liveboat on an island inhabited by tiny doll-size anthropomorphic creatures, it got a little too repetitive for my tastes. I might need to rewatch it, but as someone who loved the trailer and heard it raved about forever, it fell short for me.
27) Blood Hunter (1996)
- Now THIS was a lot of fun. Mistaken for years as being shot-on-video but the 16mm just looks that...not great... this rural Kentucky take on the cool 90s vampire movie is just what I wanted. Imagine if The Crow were a vampire but with 1/100th of the budget and everything just screams 1996 and you have 'Blood Hunter.' Recommended.
28) The Crazies (1973), Effects (1980)
- Pittsburgh double feature night! I love, love, LOVE Lynn Lowry, and she's great in it, but 'The Crazies' focused a little too much on the martial law side of things and not enough on the horror elements for my tastes. Maybe it's partly watching it in a post-COVID world that subjectively changes the tone, but I wish it was a little more how the VHS box art (which always haunted me) portrayed it. I also don't know what Romero was going for with the editing on this one.
'Effects' rules. So glad this resurfaced and looks as great as it does now. It's a making-a-movie movie where parts of the cast and crew begin to suspect things are a bit too real and that they might be involved in a snuff film. The absolute best score I've heard all month, it's a slow burn for the first 2/3 that then super kicks into gear for the final 1/3 that had me on the edge of my seat and all my follicles on the edge of their goosebumps. Pittsburgh horror at its absolute finest.
29) The Children (1980), Beware Children at Play (1989)
- Troma childcare double feature night! 'The Children' was shot with just about the same crew right after 'Friday the 13th' wrapped so aesthetically it looks like another story happening in that world. While I'd heard about the painstaking restoration process of fixing the negative and tracking down original 35mm prints to somehow frankenstein a true director's cut together, I didn't like it. The special effects are FAR better than the reviews at the time gave it (sidenote, The Orlando Sentinel's review of this is one of the most out-of-pocket needlessly mean reviews I've ever read, it keeps going on about how "ugly" the cast is and how they shouldn't be filmed, just bafflingly cruel) and the first kitana scene definitely has the "Welp, they went there and I kind of respect that," but the pacing didn't justify the rest. I'd heard the twist ending is amazing (and it was from the same writer as 'Luther the Geek,' which I also didn't like but loved the ending and still consider it one of the most creative horror film endings I've seen) but, and I'm never this guy, but I was able to guess the twist the moment I saw a character was pregnant.
I much preferred the infamous 'Beware! Children at Play.' The new restoration looks unfairly great. Really makes you appreciate the steadycam and the set design. While it is definitely a film most know for the still just-as-shocking final ten minutes (as well as the trailer which showed clips of the last ten minute which caused one of the largest theatrical walk-outs in Cannes history), I found myself really into it beyond the shock aspects. The parent-child chemistry is well cast to the point I really felt bad for the father and son in the opening scene. My favorite character though is the discount Bible salesman - the exact type of character and performance you'd want in a low budget horror film. If you watch anything from this movie, even moreso than the last ten minutes, track his scene down. The movie's a lot smarter than it's given credit for and the score is a perfect eerie mini-synth that give it this clandestine paranoia anything-could-fall-apart-at-any-moment feel. It's still too shocking and unsettling in a lot of moments for me to give it an outright reccomendation, but if what you've read sounds like a good time then go for it. (Side note, between these two, 'The Guardian' and 'All Hallow's Eve' I've seen WAAAAAY more children killed this month than I ever thought I would).
Check out my music featuring CHILDISH GAMBINO, COLT CABANA, NUR-D, KA LIA UNIVERSE, HOMEBOY SANDMAN, MAC LETHAL, DC PIERSON, MARIA ISA and MORE! - chazkangas.bandcamp.com
- A made for TV horror classic (perhaps the most infamous made for TV horror film ever made), a three part anthology film with the third and the killer doll being the most well-known. Karen Black stars in all three and she really acts her ass off. Such a fantastic talent, she's excellent in all of them. While it's been said that the third is the most well known, the twist at the end of the first story completely knocked me on my ass. I didn't see it coming at all. Really a fun watch, especially with the Svengoolie-hosted version on YouTube.
31) The Trouble with Miss Switch (1980), Frankenstein's Daughter (1958)
- Closed the month off on Halloween with two first time watches. 'The Trouble with Miss Switch' is a Hanna Barbara animated movie that premiered early in the year 1980 but, being it involved a witch, became a Halloween staple. Without commercials it clocks in around 45-50 minutes but since it was initially meant to air with commercials and presented as a feature, I'm counting it. Thought it was really fun and a great snapshot of emerging technology at the time. A logical plot that has layers upon layers of batshit insanity stacked on top of it, even if cartoons (especially vintage cartoons) aren't your thing, give this one a watch. Fun for the whole family or the sillygoose loner.
Frankenstein's Daughter (hosted by Elvira for one of her most fun closing skits ever) is endearing and worth watching for a few reasons. It's very ambitious in terms of being a late 50s indie horror film whose pacing aimed to replicate the structure of the classic Universal monster formula from a few decades prior, but the cultural conventions of the 1950s (and the fad of having a band playing at a pool party being shoehorned in) really make it a unique step back into time. Also notable is the gore - there's only three scenes of real gore but given this was pre-'Blood Feast' all three were very surprising in their explicit vividness. Worth seeing, especially with Elvira. Oh, and it stars the song of silent comedy legend Harold Lloyd and the band playing an attempt at rock and roll by the pool were Frank Sinatra's real life backing band at the time, hence why the playing is sound technically well but the music genre elements seem uncomfortable.
Check out my music featuring CHILDISH GAMBINO, COLT CABANA, NUR-D, KA LIA UNIVERSE, HOMEBOY SANDMAN, MAC LETHAL, DC PIERSON, MARIA ISA and MORE! - chazkangas.bandcamp.com
Love the work Vinegar Syndrome did on this one. Historically I dig it because it's really the first hi-tech horror of the 80s digital age. I also love the restored garage door kill at the very end. Underrated Troma flick.
Honestly While I did enjoy it....
But holy shit was it an incoherent mess and feels like a sex film disguised as a horror movie.
17. The House by the Cemetery (1981) 18. Saw X (2023 - theatrical screening)
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