Film Review: THE RITUAL OF DEATH (1990)

Where do you find good material for a stage play?  In an ancient Egyptian ritual that’s where.  In The Ritual of Death (1990) a theater troupe decide to try something new by staging a play based on an ancient Egyptian ritual involving human sacrifice.  Doing this has caused them to unleash the evil spirit of a fanatical cult leader who led his followers into suicide.  When one of them becomes possessed by the spirit they soon realize that members of the troupe start to disappear one by one and it is only a matter of time before the Egyptian ritual finds its final sacrifice. 

Starring Leo Robinson, Michael Kelly, Lilian Ramos, Tiao Hoover, Carina Palatinic, Sergio Hingst, and Mara Husemann the film has a staple of interesting actors in the ensemble but they are hampered with a basic ‘90s horror film plot that doesn’t allow any of them to really shine or show range.  This being said there is a handful of interesting deaths scenes but overall the film never reaches the height of becoming a legitimate ‘90s cult classic.  There are worse films out there and this is just a film barely worth watching.

Film Review: DEMONWARP (1988)

The ‘80s were an amazing type for the horror genre as there was no one particular subgenre that dominated any other.  Between the slasher films, the mutated monster films, and the psychological film there was also room for the occasional alien horror film of which Demonwarp (1988) can partially be included.  The film starts off with a Priest witnessing a space craft crash land.  It’s not until years later that the ramifications are truly felt. 

Bill Crafton (George Kennedy) and his daughter are enjoying a nice day in their cabin (that they rented) in the middle of the woods when they are attacked by a Bigfoot Monster which knocks him unconscious and abducts her.   Crafton then vows to find and kill the monster at any cost.  Several months later Jack Bergman (David Michael O’Neil) and his friends go to this same cabin which is uncle owns to search for his uncle who has been missing for almost a year.  It seems that there have been many disappearances in these woods of which Jack and his friends quickly realize when the Bigfoot Monster appears abducting one of his friends and killing another.  Not only that but this monster has also torn apart their car and stolen particular items from the house; it appears that this monster is intelligent.  Now Jack and his surviving friends must find a way out of the woods before the monster comes back but there are more strange things going on in these woods than just a Bigfoot monster as they encounter dead bodies and bones and victims of the monster now turned into zombies.

Kennedy was a major fixture in horror films in the ‘80s with Death Ship (1980), Just Before Dawn (1981), Wacko (1982), Creepshow 2 (1987), Uninvited (1988) and The Terror Within (1989), to name a few.  He was a big influence for my love of ‘80s horror films but he is given little to do in this film.  The best thing about Kennedy is that he always brings his “A” game whereas much of the rest of the cast is pretty much throwaway especially since they don’t do much for most of the running time of the film.  It’s your typical ‘80s horror film where people get killed one-by-one and a few extra people are thrown in to add more victims.  By the time the film actually gets to presenting more of the obscure ideas of the third act it may too much too late.  Regardless, it’s still an interesting little oddity of the ‘80s that reminds us just how crazy that decade in horror really was.

Book Review: THE MONSTER SHOW: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF HORROR by David J. Skal

Writer David J. Skal is one of the best writers that the horror genre has.  His books Hollywood Gothic and V is for Vampire are some of the best books out there.  His book The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror is one of the very best on horror’s significance to film culture and our understanding of the horror genre. 

Although this book is mainly concerned with classic horror cinema and its significance to film and culture, readers of all generations can appreciate the depth to which Skal has gone to show his love and appreciation of classic cinema (so that others can as well).  His chapters “Tod Browning’s America” and “Dread And Circuses” take a look at some of the horror genre’s more misinterpreted moments in history, whereas his chapter “’I Used to Know Your Daddy’: The Horrors of War, Part Two” delve into the war’s effect on the genre and what audiences were interested in.  He also delves into drive-in culture (“Drive-Ins Are a Ghoul’s Best Friend: Horror in the Fifties”) and even the phenomena that is Stephen King (“The Dance of Dearth”).  Skal leaves no stone unturned as he delves into some film, moment, or incident that helped defined that time in history and culture and how it affected the films being made and the people’s tastes.

The great thing about Skal’s writing is that he is very detailed with his research and writing but he has a great way of presenting his “academic” material for the regular reader.  He may at times touch upon things that other writers already has but in this book he not only touches upon each moment or decade in history but also lets you look at the whole picture in order to understand and comprehend just how important the horror genre has had an effect on our culture.  The horror genre is more than just scares and monsters and horrifying stories; it’s a way in which people’s fears and anxieties are reflected back at them in a safe manner.  Skal’s book takes a hard look at this and he succeeds in spades.

Book Review: KILLING FOR CULTURE by David Kerekes & David Slater

There will be few people that will pick up the book Killing For Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film From Mondo to Snuff with other than complete distaste and disgust because of its subject matter.  It is, in fact, a book dedicated to the death film and culture as depicted in mondo and snuff films.  The book is written by David Kerekes and David Slater and it leaves no stone unturned when describing the history and influence of mondo and snuff films on culture and the film industry as a whole.

Originally the mondo film was a collection of realistic and horrifying incidents caught on film and showcased for the enjoyment of an audience.  Snuff films were films that depicted the real torture and killing of innocent people for the enjoyment of an audience.  The rise of the mondo film can be seen in such classic hardcore films as The Last House on the Left (1972) and Peeping Tom (1960) when audiences began to experience violence in a different way.  These led filmmakers to believe that if fake violence could draw in an audience then so could real life violence and atrocities.  This gave rise to films such as Faces of Death (1978) and Mondo Cane (1972) and Mondo Bizarro (1966), all well as a plethora of others.  This book outlines the rise and fall of the mondo and snuff films starting with the influence of those early films to the oversaturation of these films in the marketplace up until the video boom (in which these films thrived when they could no longer command an audience at the underground and drive-in theaters).

The real treat of the book whether you are interested in these types of films or not is the fact that Kerekes & Slater do an amazing job presenting the films and facts in chronological order and how they affected the film industry and genre as a whole.  The book doesn’t dwell on the contents of each of the films but does give an overview of each of the films to help illustrate the market for such films especially during its downfall when most of the films comprised of recreated material instead of actual real footage.  There is nothing that is sacred in mondo film as not only violence but sex, racial discrimination, and other atrocities become cannon fodder.

This book is presented as a historical reference for the genre and doesn’t glorify any of the films or filmmakers mentioned because unlike the films themselves this book tries to present “just the facts.”  The chapters on snuff films are rather light considering that officially no authority has ever recovered an authentic snuff film, but just simulated snuff films.  This does not deter the fact that there is an audience out there for snuff films to begin with which just delves into the darker recesses of humanity.

This book is an intelligent read but the subject matter may only be for the film historian and analysts and not the casual movie goers.

Film Review: THE CORRIDOR (2010)

Death can cause childhood trauma that can stay with a person until that person either overcomes it or it consumes them.  This is what happens when a group of high school friends get together for a retreat in order to help one of them get over the unusual death of his mother which left him briefly in a hospital.  Once at this cabin in the middle of nowhere the men discover something unnatural just within the woods – an almost invisible corridor.  In The Corridor (2010) these four friends discover an anomaly in the woods that causes minute changes in their physiology.  It starts to drive them unstable and they are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the corridor a secret from outsiders but time is running out as the corridor grows larger consuming everything in its path.

 

The people trapped in the cabin with an exterior force on the other side of the door is something made infamous through The Evil Dead (1981) and for which has been often copied time and time again.  Although this is the set up for this film it detours significantly as this corridor is harmless until the four friends decide to keep it for themselves and then things start to take a turn for the worse as each turn on others and themselves leading to a bloody ending.

The film holds its own as a film about the mental breakdown of the characters and the effects of true friendship against all odds.  For some it may go too extreme in the third act as there is a lot of bloodshed but fans of horror will not be disappointed.  If anything, horror fans will be dismayed with the type of film this is as it starts off as a drama then goes into sci-fi territory before ending on a very gory horror note.  For those looking for something a little different this might be right up your alley.