FRIGHT NIGHT (2011)

Okay, so I know that I've been typically posting about older movies, but sometimes something new comes along that deserves the attention.

There have been WAY too many remakes of older movies going on lately. It seems like every horror movie that comes out is a remake of something that was done better before, and just shoved out onto movie screens because the name is familiar enough to fill some seats. That's why I was really skeptical about a remake of Fright Night. The original is SO GOOD. Chris Sarandon is great as Jerry the vampire. He's a total badass killing machine. And while the original is *funny,* it's not really a *comedy.* It's a horror movie with a lot of comic relief. And that's okay. When I saw that they'd cast McLovin from Superbad as Evil Ed, I thought that they'd screwed this whole thing up and made it into a wacky comedy about a vampire neighbor.

MAN, I WAS WRONG. The changes they made to the story worked completely. Changing the location to Las Vegas makes total sense -- so many people there work at night, people are always moving to and from there, and you can imagine the place being surrounded by half-empty subdivisions like the one Charley Brewster lives in. It's the perfect place for a vampire to set up camp. And the relationship between Charley and Ed makes sense, too. Charley is trying to be one of the "cool kids." He's got a hot, popular girlfriend, and he's started to try and put his geeky past behind him, so Ed feels neglected and left out. And it makes sense that Ed would be the guy to suspect the truth right off the bat and try to convince Charley instead of the other way around.

One of the things that really worried me was knowing that Peter Vincent wouldn't be a horror movie host in this one. In the original, Roddy McDowell plays a pretty thinly-disguised Peter Cushing variation who's washed up and reduced to hosting horror movies on TV. But today, we don't really have horror movie hosts. Elvira is back after being gone for FOREVER, and you can catch Svengoolie if you're lucky on syndicated TV, but most people aren't familiar with horror movie hosts. (Actually, if it wasn't for the fact that I READ EVERYTHING about horror movies, I probably wouldn't know anything about them either. I've only seen Elvira and Svengoolie in action. I've seen some other hosts on YouTube clips and some bootleg DVD compilation things, but it's mostly through reading about these guys that I know anything at all.) But they wound up changing the character to a Las Vegas celebrity magician, like Criss Angel. They give him the completely put-on "coolness" of Criss Angel (who HAS TO BE THE BIGGEST PAIN IN THE ASS IN THE WORLD), and the actual coolness of Penn & Teller (namely the HUGE collection of occult memorabilia). And David Tennant plays him! The 10th Doctor! He's hilarious, and his relationship with his "assistant" is amazing. I want to see another movie about this guy. I told Dad that he kept drinking Midori all through the movie, and Dad's reaction was "this guy is a hangover just waiting to happen." I guess if you just *stay* drunk all the time, that you don't ever have to worry about that, though. I should ask Cady.

But it isn't a vampire movie without a vampire, and Colin Farrell plays Jerry to the hilt. We've had enough of sparkly brooding emo vampire assclowns, and Jerry is just a predator. He's charming enough when he has to be, but you can always see that just under the surface, that he's always scheming and trying to outwit those around him. He's dangerous, and you never are allowed to forget it. He's not going to be going vegan like some other vamps I could mention.

The tone of the movie is just right, too. It hits just the right balance of tense horror and light humor. You never feel like what's going on isn't seriously life-threatening. Things are BAD, and the laughter comes from things that happen naturally from the characters, not cartoon-y wackiness (even though there's nothing WRONG with cartoon-y wackiness...I'm a BIG FAN of cartoon-y wackiness, just not where it's not going to work, and it wouldn't work here).

So I'm gonna say that YOU NEED TO SEE THIS. It isn't often that a good horror movie comes around, especially one that's a remake of a movie you'd never think would need to be remade in the first place. This one does it right.

Busy, busy, busy!

Man, I just realized that I haven't updated in couple of weeks. I've been SUPER busy getting geared back up for school starting. NOT READY. Summer's almost over, and I've gotten used to being able to just do whatever whenever. Structure, man. I hate it. Dad says I NEED it, but it's such a pain. Plus, I can't stay up half the night watching whatever I want.
But anyway, the combo of getting ready for school and the TONS of crazy stuff going on around here over the past few weeks (seriously -- you guys wouldn't believe me if I told you about it), I've been pretty lazy about getting this blog thing updated. It's not that I haven't been watching movies, though! I've got a huge backlog of this stuff to get posted! I just have to tie up a couple or three loose ends on the piles of crap that have been developing lately, and I'll be back in the game!

Dissecting the Beach Party movies...

Okay. So here goes.

Last summer, the park had one of those "screen on the green" kind of things where they show movies for free outside, and Dad and I went with Mr. and Mrs. Holiday to see BEACH PARTY (1963). It was a lot of fun, and there was a surprise cameo by Vincent Price! He made some goofy PIT AND THE PENDULUM joke, and fell asleep! It was almost like watching a live-action cartoon or something. There were stupid musical number segments (except for the Dick Dale ones – he's cool!), but the villains in the movie – Eric Von Zipper and the Rats (his gang of bikers) more than made up for it.

So I decided to watch all of the Beach Party movies that summer. And I did it again this summer! And I came to this kind of weird idea: there are like at least two different dimensions that these movies take place in. There are also all kinds of weird connections and continuity things going on. It might not be more than meets the eye, because these things aren't DEEP in any way, but it's WEIRD. It's like they were paying a little more attention than you might expect from the guys who made them.

Okay, first there was BEACH PARTY. This is probably one of my least favorite of these movies, it turns out. But it sets up the whole series. There's Frankie (Frankie Avalon) and Delores (Annette Funicello), and their pals. The main friend of theirs is Deadhead (Jody McCrea), who's a big stupid lunk of a guy. There are some other people who show up in all these movies, like John Ashley. He plays "Ken" in this movie, and I can't stand him. Enough about him for now. Then there's the constant of Eric Von Zipper and his gang.

The next movie is MUSCLE BEACH PARTY (1964), which is probably my second favorite in the bunch. It's great! It's got the first appearance of Don Rickles in these movies, it's got Stevie Wonder (!!!) and it's just a lot more over-the-top funny. The only real change here is that everyone is calling Delores "Dee Dee," which I think makes sense. It's probably a nickname she picked up over the year between the two movies in this universe. The coolest thing is seeing the cameo appearance of Peter Lorre (!!!!!!) as Mr. Strangdour, the king of the strong men (this movie's about a bunch of bodybuilders who move in next to the surfer kids, but none of it really matters much).

That same year, there was BIKINI BEACH, which is kind of a blow-out. It's got some goofy Beatles stuff going on because I guess Frankie felt like his career as a helmet-haired crooner schmuck was in danger. Besides this, the movie's all about car racing, which doesn't really fit, and about Keenan Wynn trying to prove that his pet chimp is smarter than a  teenager. There's too much plot and not enough wackiness. The highlight here is that Boris Karloff shows up for a minute, and he's always great to see. But Don Rickles is back, and he's hilarious like always, and Timothy Carey shows up for the first time playing South Dakota Slim. He's WEIRD.

Okay, now get this. The SAME YEAR, there's another movie that everyone always counts as part of the Beach Party series of movies, but I DON'T THINK IT IS. This one is called PAJAMA PARTY, and it's COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. It's got a lot of the same people in it, but they're playing different people!!! This one is about a martian, Go Go (Tommy Kirk, who gets ON MY NERVES), who comes to Earth to plan an invasion, and winds up falling for Connie – who's played by Annette Funicello!!! SHE'S NOT PLAYING DELORES/DEE DEE!!! Also, she's not dating Frankie in this movie, she's dating Big Lunk, who's played by Jody McCrea WHO IS NOT PLAYING DEADHEAD!!! We're in a whole other universe now, people!!! There's a whole thing about Big Lunk's aunt Wendy (Elsa Lanchester!!!!!! THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN!!!!) being ripped off by this guy named J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White). Weirdly, Eric Von Zipper shows up, and this movie sets up the running gag through these of silent film star Buster Keaton being paired up with a hugely tall Swedish girl. So those two things are constant through a lot of these movies, no matter the universe. I guess in parallel universes, Eric Von Zipper will always show up. Frankie Avalon shows up at the end as the Martian In Charge, and it's stupid.

Okay, next thing you know, it's 1965, and the best one of these movies comes out. BEACH BLANKET BINGO. It's got the best theme song, it's got the best plot, and it's the funniest. It's all about sky diving (Don Rickles runs the sky diving school with Buster Keaton and his Swedish girlfriend) and a mermaid who falls for Jody McCrea (whose nickname has changed from Deadhead to Bonehead for some reason, but he's obviously the same guy!). John Ashley plays an asshole sky diving instructor, and Deborah Walley plays his girlfriend who is probably NUTS (she tries to frame Frankie for rape!!!) but who is probably the hottest girl in any of these movies. (Her and whoever plays this "Animal" girl that shows up a lot. Nobody talks about Animal, and she's FANTASTIC.) Paul Lynde shows up with Linda Evans! South Dakota Slim shows up and tries to cut Linda Evans in half in a sawmill! Eric Von Zipper drives his motorcycle into the ocean! It's the best. But again, no real changes here.

Next, though, is 1965's SKI PARTY. Like PAJAMA PARTY, this is a whole OTHER universe!!! In this one, Frankie is playing Todd Armstrong who shows up at a ski resort with his buddy Craig Gamble (Dwayne Hickman). They decide to dress as girls to get in with some ski bunnies and learn to ski. You've seen this thing a million times in other movies and TV shows, and it's not much better here. But James Brown shows up and the whole thing RULES for a few minutes! He skis into the place and starts singing "I Feel Good!" WHAT A GUY!!! But then he's gone and the whole place turns to stupid again.

The whole Beach Party series comes crashing down with HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. In this one, Frankie's in the Navy (when did this happen???) and stationed in Tahiti, and he gets the local witch doctor (Buster Keaton) to conjure up some girl named Cassandra to distract Ricky (Dwayne Hickman) from trying to pick up Dee Dee. There are WAY TOO MANY MUSICAL NUMBERS HERE. This is probably my least favorite of the whole series. It's too bad. If they'd stopped with BEACH BLANKET BINGO, everything would have been great. The only real notable thing here is that South Dakota Slim is replaced by North Dakota Pete, who's played by Uncle Leo from SEINFELD!

Following this up was what seems to be a pretty unrelated movie: 1965's DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE. Vincent Price stars as Dr. Goldfoot, who is going to take over the world with beautiful girl robots who seduce the rich and powerful. One of them goes after Frankie Avalon, who has to be rescued by a secret agent played by Dwayne Hickman. Now get this: their characters have the SAME NAMES as their characters in SKI PARTY, only swapped around! Now, they're not the same characters as before, obviously, since they don't know each other in this movie (and they've got switched around names), but maybe there's ANOTHER universe, where these two idiots' lives were different and maybe they got swapped at the hospital or something! It boggles the mind. This movie does, too. It's pretty lousy, but it's got a great theme song by the Supremes. Annette shows up for a second, as does Eric Von Zipper.

Then the whole thing dies off with 1966's THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI. This takes place in the same universe as PAJAMA PARTY! J. Sinister Hulk is back trying to rip people off and there's a fake Buster Keaton as pretty much the same Indian chief Buster had played in PAJAMA PARTY (he'd died the same year). Basil Rathbone is a villainous lawyer and Boris Karloff is a ghost, but neither one can save this turkey. It's too full of Tommy Kirk. Eric Von Zipper can't even help this thing. Everywhere I read about this movie, they say that this is the final Beach Party movie, but IT'S NOT A BEACH PARTY MOVIE. The last one is HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI from a year earlier!

Okay, so let's break this down. We have at least three different universes going on here. There's the Beach Party universe. That contains BEACH PARTY, MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, BIKINI BEACH, BEACH BLANKET BINGO and HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI. That's five movies, and that's all. They're all about the relationship trials of Frankie and Dee Dee. Then, there's what I want to call the Supernatural Party universe. That's PAJAMA PARTY (which is all about aliens) and THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (about ghosts). Now, BEACH BLANKET BINGO has a mermaid in it, but it's not what the whole story was about. The focus in that one is on Frankie and Dee Dee still. Then there's the Craig Gamble/Todd Armstrong universe, where SKI PARTY and DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE take place (which are really two sub-universes of their own because of the weird differences there).

There. That's the entire series (which are actually THREE series) broken down for you. So if you want to concentrate on just the Beach Party movies, which are the BEST of all of them, you know what to stick with. Just don't consider the other ones part of the same thing because THEY'RE NOT.

I'm glad I got all this down, because I've been driving my dad NUTS with this for the past year, and he's sick of hearing about it.

(I'm not discussing 1987's BACK TO THE BEACH since that's more of a parody of the series, and Frankie and Annette aren't the same people – the script mixes up GIDGET with the Beach Party movies, Annette isn't called Dee Dee or Delores, etc.)

While I'm working on the mega-post...

Hey! The guys at io9.com are copying me!!! They just posted a review of the movie FROGS (1972)!!! And talked about how the frogs don't do much of anything! I don't know whether to be impressed, freaked out, or pissed off! I went yelling to Dad about it, and he told me that it was a "cool synchronicity," and that seeing these means that I'm on a "good path." And something about the "zeitgeist," whatever the hell that is. I think he's turning into a hippie. (He's going to KICK MY ASS when he reads this! LOL!!!!)

A Quick Update...

Just warning you in advance: The next few reviews from me might not be horror OR sci-fi related. I know, right? This news probably just screws up your plans, but I can't help it. This has been an obsession of mine for the past year now, and now that I've got a place to vent about it, I figure that I might as well as long as I've got the time (it's summer and I don't have to be in school). It might be one big post instead of a few little ones, too. So hold onto your hats for that.

Also, I noticed that I've now got two followers! Holy crap! I just had my first comment, and now I've got my first followers! I don't know who you guys are, but you've got GREAT TASTE!

FROGS (1972)

Okay. This isn't SQUIRM, but it's fun enough. Ray Milland is an old jerk who hates nature and poisons everything that moves on his little private island. Sam Elliott (who doesn't look ANYTHING like the moustached cowboy from THE BIG LEBOWSKI) is a wildlife photographer who winds up on the island after Milland's son nearly runs him down in a speedboat. Elliott must've picked the wrong weekend to go canoeing, because this happens to be the weekend that nature decides that it's had enough of Ray Milland's dickery. Everyone gets attacked by snakes, lizards, tarantulas, leeches, alligators, and, of course, frogs.

My only problem with this is that it takes itself a little too seriously. I mean, it's called FROGS, for crying out loud. (On the other hand, maybe it was supposed to be called something else originally. Frogs aren't the only thing attacking these idiots.) Then there's a big cartoon frog that hops out after the credits and slurps down a cartoon hand, so I don't know what these people were thinking. It's got a "message," which is basically "don't screw around with Mother Nature's plans, or you could get eaten by frogs," but all of these "nature turns on mankind" things have that kind of message (THEM! = "atomic radiation probably has some side effects that you might want to avoid, like giant ants"...SQUIRM = "downed power lines can make earthworms eat your face"). But it being so serious also kind of works in its favor, like a 1950s Big Bug On The Loose movie.

All in all, though, it's got a nice swampy summer vibe going on, and makes for some fun July movie viewing. Dad watched this one with me, said he remembered seeing it on TV way back when. According to him, stuff like this was on TV all the time back then. They even had made-for-TV horror movies just like this. He got off on a rant about how all the TV horror stuff was so great back when he was a kid, and nothing like the stupid CGI "Mega Octo-Python vs. The Sharkinator" stuff that Syfy shows these days, and how the next time he took me and Jack to one of those comic book conventions that we were going to find some of these things. And he wonders where I get it!!!

ASYLUM (1972)

Okay, confession time: this one actually made me stay up all night. It's probably because I started watching it at midnight this past Saturday, and I'm easier to scare after 12 o'clock. But MAN, this got to me for some stupid reason.

This is one of those many, many Amicus anthology pictures that I've already mentioned (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD), and while the *stories* aren't the best in this one, the *framing story* is. The setup is this: Dr. Martin is sent to an asylum for the incurably insane to interview for a job. One of the inmates is the former head doctor of the institute, Dr. Starr. But Dr. Starr has taken on another identity, and Dr. Martin has to guess which one of the inmates he is by interviewing each of them, accompanied by the attendant Max Reynolds. There's really only 3 stories in this: the first one is about a voodoo-practicing wife that gets murdered and takes her revenge from beyond the grave!!! The second is about a tailor who is hired (by Peter Cushing!) to make a strange suit out of a material that can bring things to life, but it winds up accidentally on his store's mannequin for a bit too long. This is probably the best story in the whole thing. The third is some lame split personality (or is it?) BS. The final one isn't really a story -- it's just a link back to the framing story, and is about a guy who makes tiny, anatomically correct (down to the organs!) dolls. He brings one that's supposed to be him to life, and it stabs the current head doctor of the asylum, and all hell breaks loose. In the end, we find out who the real Dr. Starr is, and there's this extended laugh that he does that goes on for FOREVER. And let me tell you, that laugh SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH. It's the craziest thing. Monsters, slashers, whatever...I can handle 'em. But this guy laughing just jangled all my nerves. Crazy.

So then I was up all night.

That's my story. Anyway, ASYLUM is great. It's a whole lot of fun, even if it's not the best Amicus anthology, but from what I've seen, you can't go wrong with any of them. Some are more hit than miss, but they're always goofy and lively.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974)

Man…This. Wow. I'd been bugging my dad for what seems like FOREVER to let me watch this. His response was always something like "no, you're not ready for this." I mean, I've seen a lot of stuff, right? I figured nothing could be as disgusting as DEMONS, or as scary as SUSPIRIA or something, so how bad could this be? This gets written up in all of the horror movie books I have, and there are reviews all over the internet about it, so it's not like anything in it could be that surprising, right? So I kept going to dad with my arguments. First, it's not supposed to be that violent. There's only five kids in this, and someone always has to get away, so there could ONLY be like 4 victims, right? And everything I had read said that there's almost no blood in it. Everything's all implied. So there's that. Second, it might have been extreme for when it was made, but that was GENERATIONS ago! The whole "kids getting picked off one-by-one by toothless yokels" thing has been done to death by now (no pun intended!).

So he finally gave up.

Holy crap, man. This was disturbing. First off, it's best to go into the movie not knowing anything about it, so I'm not going to spoil any of the plot details, but if you've ever, I don't know, been on the internet, you probably already know all about how the story plays out. But it's not really about what the story is (because there's not a lot of it to go around), it's how it does what it does. And it does what it does by filling every little scene with tension. This is probably the most tense movie I've ever seen. Everything keeps your nerves on edge. Whether it's people screaming, or Leatherface squealing, or Franklin whining on and on ("I'm comin' with ya, Sally! Hold on, I'm comin' with ya!") or the *really* disturbing soundtrack, everything is keyed up to 11. Most horror movies have a big scare every so often, and then things calm down a bit. Not this, buddy! This is constantly uncomfortable, and when the big scares come, we don't go back to normal, we just go back to being uncomfortable. And then it ends, and it's like someone pulled a chair out from under you. After it was over, I barely talked for a good half hour, and if you know me, you know that NOTHING can get me to stop talking. I think Dad thought I might have to go to the emergency room or something!

Anyway, this is a movie that can traumatize you if you're not careful. It's probably one of the best movies out there, just because it does what it sets out to do really well, but it's hard for me to recommend it because of how well it does what it does. You've really got to prepare for it, like a marathon or something.

Invaders From Mars (1953)

Watched this back-to-back with Invasion of the Saucer-Men for a night of invading saucer-men. This one is totally serious, and pretty creepy. A kid named David sees a saucer sink into a sand pit behind his house, and everyone who goes to check on it comes back...different. They get sucked into the sand pit and have brain-control devices implanted in their heads! Holy crap. So he's got the problem of everyone who believes him getting controlled by the Martians, plus having to convince people who *don't* believe him in the first place. Wikipedia says that this film is unique in telling the story from the point of view of a kid in an adult world heading into crisis. Man, I can identify with *that*. The film is amazing-looking. It totally takes advantage of whatever budget it had, and it turns out really bizarre and otherworldly. Even the "regular" scenes on everyday Earth are weird. Which makes sense when you find out the final twist, which I'm not going to spoil. You need to see this. Dad tells me to avoid the remake from '86. I don't see how they could make this any better, even with better effects, so I might just follow his lead on that one.

Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957)

Wow. Picked this up at a local comics convention that Dad and Cady took me and Jack to. I'd seen the little alien guys in this in pictures and posters and stuff, but had never seen the movie itself. This thing is nuts! These little aliens are invading and kill people by injecting alcohol into their bodies with these needles in their fingers. It winds up you can defeat the aliens by shining bright lights on 'em. There's a disembodied alien hand with an eye wandering around for good measure, too. It's obviously not taking itself very seriously, which is good, because there's no reason for it to. It has one of those great 1950s "The End...Or Is It???" endings. SO much fun. Me and dad laughed like idiots the whole time.

NIGHTMARE CITY (1980)

Okay, this one is probably even worse than DEMONS, but it’s at least FUNNY. There’s a nuclear accident, and a reporter waits for a plane to land to interview the scientists who researched it. But when the plane lands and the doors open, a bunch of mutated goons jump out and start stabbing and shooting everybody. (Most people might call these guys “zombies,” but THEY AREN’T DEAD. That kind of thing bothers me. You might also wonder how these mutated goons can fly and land a plane. This is one of life’s great questions.) The people attacked by the mutated goons turn into mutated goons, and things go all goony. They attack an aerobics/dance TV show. They use weapons (again, something ZOMBIES DON’T DO, PEOPLE). We wind up somehow up on top of a roller coaster. Then it kind of ends. The makeup is ridiculous (it all looks like masks made out of papier mache and stuck on), the violence is silly (the “flesh eating” is mostly just the goons licking people’s fake-looking wounds, and the “head shots” all seem to use the same 2 or 3 dummies), the story is stupid, and the people in it aren’t worth saving. But it’s lively! And energetic! And it’s entertaining! So I have to give it that. I never got bored, and I laughed a lot, and I’m not sorry I saw it.

DEMONS (1985)

What. The. Hell. This was co-written and produced by Dario Argento. I’ve seen some of his movies, and think he’s great. So I picked this up. It’s not directed by him, and maybe that makes a difference. Like the other movies I’ve seen by him, there’s not a lot of “making sense” going on here, but unlike those other movies, this just doesn’t work. Sure, it’s gory. There’s lots of blood, busting boils with demonic pus, weird transformations of people into demons, and all that good stuff, but NOTHING FITS TOGETHER. It’s about a bunch of people who go see this mysterious new movie in a mysterious new theater, and mysteriously the stuff in the mysterious movie happens to the people in the mysterious theater. Is the theater evil? Maybe, I guess, because nobody can manage to get out. Or maybe that’s the movie’s fault. I don’t know. There’s nobody running the projector, which is weird, but never explained. The ticket-taker at the theater seems mysterious, but she winds up being killed off like anyone else there, so there’s a wasted opportunity. Someone should have asked who hired her! It might answer some questions, maybe! So anyway, nobody can get out of this place, and people try everything. Then, for no good reason at all, a helicopter crashes into the theater. Just out of nowhere. It’s mysterious! Then we find out that the demons are all over the place outside, so you have to ask why we bothered going to the movies in the first place. Then there’s kind of a twist ending. Sort of. You expect it, though. I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.

ALIEN (1979)

You know, you think you know a movie. I’ve seen this before, and the sequels, but I forgot just how scary this movie was. The sequels tend to be a lot of action, especially the first sequel, but this one is just all tension. You know the story: cargo ship picks up a distress call, tracks it down, winds up bringing a deadly alien back with them that kills everybody one by one. There’s the “chest-bursting” scene where the baby alien hatches out of John Hurt’s chest. There’s the evil android robot guy played by Bilbo Baggins. But you forget how slowly the movie goes, but never gets boring. There’s always this atmosphere of tension in every scene, like anyone could die at any time. And then there’s the sets! I’d never noticed them this way before. The ship where they find all of the alien egg things is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It looks like it’s some kind of living thing, like it grew. They were all designed by this Swiss guy named H.R. Giger. I looked him up on the internet, and his stuff ALL looks like this. It’s all scary, and like some cross between living things and mechanical things. But back to the movie. I know most of you have seen it before, but you really need to watch it again.

SPIDER BABY (1968)

Okay, so I went on kind of a Jack Hill marathon. This one is from 1968, and it’s completely different from everything else I’ve seen from him. All of his other movies I’ve seen are big, fun action movies with women in the lead. This is a horror-comedy that’s like if the TV show The Addams Family was a LOT more disturbing. It’s about a family that’s afflicted with Merrye’s Syndrome, a condition that causes its victims to act more like kids the older they get, until they get so old that they – and get this – “devolve to a pre-human cannibal state.” Yep. You never see people eating people, though. Mostly you see these two sisters who are completely nuts and act like little girls (one likes to “play spider” and trap people in her “web”, and then kill them!), their brother (Sid Haig again! You’d never recognize him!), and Lon Chaney Jr. in one of his last parts. He’s great! A bunch of intruders come into their home to try and get in on the family’s money, and a lot of wacky stuff happens that I don’t want to spoil. All of the acting is great, the dialogue is hilarious, and it’s all creepily filmed in black-and-white. What a movie!