'Deadly Eyes' Blu-ray Review

Be it bats in the belfry, squirrels in the attic, or just plain ants in the sugar bowl, vermin by their very nature are a bloody nuisance. Sadly though, the inconvenience gets amped up by about a million when you add a little steroids to a rat infested grain silo, let them feast and mutate and then burn down their home down setting them free and headed toward your front door. This is the tail of 'Deadly Eyes' a 1982 Canadian horror flick that is pure grade B terror filled fun.

Paul Harris (Sam Groom) is a single high school teacher and father of little Timmy (Lee-Max Walton). He already has his hands full with over sexed coeds when our above mentioned rodents come a knocking. Health department inspector Elly Leonard (Sara Botsford) is trying desperately to undo what she has wrought, but one fumigated sewer system later and all hell brakes loose. Babies are pulled bloody from their high chairs, theater goers are made mush, and a subway grand reopening is crashed by our razor teethed riff raff hoard. Can anyone build a better mouse trap? Lets hope so because one Black Plague is more than any planet can handle.

Director Robert Clouse of 'Enter the Dragon' fame has given us a cheesy good time with this tale of nature gone a foul. With its casting of Scatman Crothers as a field inspector to its dogs in rat suit villains, this is "bad" movie making at its ever loving best. 'Deadly Eyes' has a little bit of sex, a whole lot of gore, and just the right amount of drive-in quality film nostalgia to make this a Friday night curl up on the couch favorite for all lovers of the cornball to enjoy.

Scream Factory has given us a wonderful package. You get a Blue-ray/DVD combo pack with lovely 1080p High-Definition Widescreen image to enjoy. The audio is good in its DTS-HD Master Audio Mono. The special features include new interviews with the films actors, writer, art director, and special effects artists.

In 2014 it sometimes seems next to impossible to keep the campy fires burning in the hearts of a nation born and bred in reality based mediocrity and over blown billion dollar blockbusters. There used to be a ridiculously fun middle ground of low budget goodness that didn't involve dreary, dull nerd serial killers tormenting waif like junior college high school bully victims. 'Deadly Eyes' is an example of such fun. So grab a carving knife and get a kick out of what the farmer's wife saw. 

'Lake Placid' Blu-ray Review

Nature gone a muck has always been the stuff of horror makings. Radio active insects, mutated houseplants, alien infected live stock, or the ever popular reptile tossed down the toilet bowl were Saturday matinee gold causing fun to be had by one and all. 1999's 'Lake Placid' is really no exception to this rule.
Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson) is a Twinkie eating good old boy Sheriff watching over a sleepy Maine town when all hell breaks loose. Reminiscent of 'Jaws' with its first victim torn asunder extremeness we are hooked from the beginning moments of this gory/funny little film. Finding the lake not safe for the locals the big city experts come a calling. Enter Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), and professor Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt) and the search for who knows what begins. A few chomped body parts later, and a 30 plus foot crocodile becomes public enemy number one.

This really is a fun movie. Filled with enough cornball slapstick to take ones mind off life's stress filled reality while giving scare lovers a couple of tense moments to enjoy. Betty White is a hoot as crazy local Delores Bickerman who has more than a few skeletons in the closet. The cast works well off each other in a wink and a nod sort of way, and its enjoyable to take a look at this film some fifteen years removed from its theatrical debut.

Scream Factory has given us one beautiful image with its 1080p High-Definition widescreen. The Audio 5.1is also very good. For added enjoyment this Blu-ray package includes new interviews with director Steve Miner, actor Bill Pullman, and director of photography Daryn Okada. There are also new interviews with the special effects team, a vintage featurette, and the typical TV spots and trailers. The movie really does look quite nice with its underwater lake scenes and wooded campy goodness.

Writer David E. Kelly of Ally McBeal fame delivered a silly trip down horror host nostalgia lane that everyone can enjoy. If Moe, Larry, and Curly decided that their Three Stooges hearts longed for the great outdoors it would be on 'Lake Placid' that a hiking they would go. Now that's enough recommendation for anyone! 

'Game of Thrones' It was the dragons made me cry

I came to 'Game of Thrones' late in the game. I read the hype. I bought the books. I began to read. Then I began to watch.

When I first began to read R.R. Martin's 'Game of Thrones' it hooked me and since I knew that HBO had always been faithful to most of their television productions, I decided to watch. Thanks to a knee injury that gave me countless hours of recovery time and the wonderful invention of HBO GO, I quickly caught up. It is superb. It was the end of my journeys viewing and the fourth season finale that gave me pause to pen my emotion.

Last night with the entrance of  "The Children" the series passed into an even more mythic realm.
A place where Tolkin as well as King Arthur dwell. The army of the dead was a sight to my 52 year old fan girl eyes. Master Harryhausen would be proud. Bran and company have been lead to a rooted place of legend.

Arya Stark has her iron coin, Cersei Lannister her blind, incestuous glory, Jon Snow his bittersweet sense of duty, Stannis Baratheon an occult flamed path to his one true throne, and Tyrion Lannister his hardened heart justice afloat to who knows where. It is this and much much more that made the final act of this four season creation a heart skipping sight to behold. But as the title of this slight article states it was the sight of Daenerys Targaryen, heart broken, chaining her children in the darkness that touched me most. Yes the dragons made me cry.

'Bloody Birthday' DVD Review: A total eclipse of the heart

It's the Summer of 1970. An eclipse is doing its thing while three babies are a birthing. These wee ones enter the world the same as most any other, but that sun and moon thing seems to have warped their brain pans just a bit. You see these kids grow up bad. By the age of Ten their psychosis is a raging.

The whole town is at the mercy of little Curtis (Billy Jayne), Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), and Steven's (Andy Freeman) whims. High School senior Joyce (Lori Lethin) is an astrology nerd but its her investigative reporter nature that get our kiddos to turn their homicidal tendencies towards her and her kid brother Timmy (K.C. Martel). One junkyard icebox trap and car chase later and it looks like our maniacal trio may be done for, but then again never underestimate the power of a twisted brain.

'Bloody Birthday' is a low on the curve grade B slasher flick from 1981. It plays a bit upon some far better horror predecessors like 1978's 'Halloween' specifically. Laying a similar small town neighborhood in trouble backdrop for its anemic madness. Director Ed Hunt does a decent job of peppering this simple tale with some odd choices in plot and casting. We get cameos from American Stage great Susan Strasberg as school teacher Miss Viola Davis and comedian Julie Brown as Debbie's sexed up stripteasing big sister. Overall this is a fun if vapid bit of 1980's cinematic nostalgia if nothing more.

 Severin Films has brought us a lovely Blu-ray package with great image and sound, and featuring interesting if minimal bonus material  -  "Audio Interview with Director Ed Hunt Don't Eat The Cake!" "Interview With Star Lori Lethin" and  "A Brief History Of Slasher Films Featurette".  It streets on July 8th, 2014 and will probably interest many a cult film buff fitting nicely on their shelf somewhere between that worn out  'Evilspeak' doll and those sad dogeared "Galaxy of Terror" trading cards.

It Must Be A Horror Thing

From the time I was a little tyke I loved the bizarre. Darkness scared me because of what I imagined could lurk in it, yet the very thing that I feared compelled me to no end. I craved the strange.
I had a set of Time-Life books circa 1968 that dealt with the mind, matter, health and disease, the cell, and all manner of science. They were filled with images of the human body and its inner workings. They contained artist rendering that both attracted and repelled. I loved those books and poured over them for years being fascinated by there combination of beauty with the grotesque.

Cartoonists like Charles Addams of "The Addams Family" fame terrified me. His drawings were hypnotic. I found myself examining there intricate Grand Guignol leanings for hours on end. In the same vein I found the humorously exaggerated animation of Terry Gilliam both frightening and funny. His contributions to the Monty Python legend were strangely unsettling indeed.

I suppose I found the creepy everywhere in my youth. The public library held untold visions of thrilling terror not only within the likely pages of Poe or Wells, but also in the tales of simple children's literature. "The Runaway Pancake" would eventually be devoured and "The Gingerbread Man" always left this Earth a quarter at a time.

The intriguing darkness only grew when EC Comics entered the picture. "Tales from the Crypt", "The Haunt of Fear", and "The Vault of Horror" cast no veil over the blood and gore they wielded. Add to these fantasy funny book nightmares my access to my Grandfather's Boxing magazines and my minds eye was fright-mare bound.

Television and the movies fed the horror beast in me. It was the sixties and seventies after all. Every local hometown TV station had there own horror host and every drive-in blazed dusk to dawn terror into the star covered night.

So, yes I love the bizarre, the grotesque, the things that go bump in the night. I soon hope to examine the choicest  bits from my warped memory so that all of you can get my 52 years honed perspective on horror. Just one little girls daydreams of blood.
  

It's Always Friday The 13th In A Voorhees' Universe

It was 1980 when Paramount Pictures graced us with the story of the boy. The boy Jason. Mama Voorhees was actually at the reins at the beginning of all the mayhem, but by now the legacy lies clearly with the boy. There has been much written about this sad saga of slightly disabled child carelessly forgotten by summer camp counselors ultimately leading to death by drowning. Poor Jason, life cut short by hormonally driven callous teens who should have known better. Mother will weave a vengeful trail in our boy's name, but it is the never dead Master V. who cuts the ultimate victims revenge after Mommy looses her head literally. Machete in hand the legacy continues.
So let's address the mythology just a little.

After little Jason drowns he survives, roams aimlessly throughout the Crystal lake grounds waiting and watching his grief crazed Mom hack horny, stoned, morons to pieces. Now Mother isn't satisfied with the original blood but has to target anyone who dares to promiscuously darken her woods. Death comes to nearly all, but in the end the camp hands emerge victorious decapitating Mama and saving what's left of the day.

The camp grounds remain dormant as Jason, burlap sack over deformed mug and aforementioned decapitated head in hand, deepens in his lust and lunacy while all the time policing Crystal Lake for young adult fodder for his revenge. Ain't life grand.

Enter another bunch of hopeful entrepreneurs toking, drinking, and screwing their hearts out and before you can scream duck and cover, our boy J.V. is severing arteries. This continues through 10 sequels and one remake until the reanimated corpse of the reanimated corpse is literally holding on by one sinewy thread.

The monster-man Jason matches wits with a psychic beauty, a pack of mental delinquents, The Big Apple, a monster loving wiz kid, outer-space, 3d mayhem, and elm streets dream warrior himself  Freddy Krueger. He has pierced, flayed, torn, impaled, stabbed, boiled, broiled, and even corkscrewed what seems like and endless number of simpletons who just can't remember to stay out of his forest. The man with the mask, hockey mask that is does not come out unscathed from these battles. Jason has been more than a little nicked in his lust for revenge. He, like his victims, has been blown apart and put back together again like some charmed, rejuvenating messiah. He takes a licking put keeps on hacking away.

So as the title says - It's always Friday the 13th in a Voorhees' universe. It's got a death curse. Crystal Lake local Crazy Ralph always knew it and shouted it loud. "We're all doomed"!

 

Of Blind Mice and Gingerbread Men

Around the globe all children's hearts turn on a tale. Some sweet and some not, but all a hypnotizing journey. From Grimm works to nursery rhymes our imagination boggles as pleasant calm turns to dread. Anyway you slice it horror has firm roots within the folkloric.

With Disney giving us yet another tale of evil at the box office, the scares are ripe on this Summer's wind. 'Maleficent' is just the latest in the long line of cinematic stories that owe there wickedness to fantasy tomes of old. In truth the house of mouse literally cut it's teeth on fear. 

Tales of escaping doom are common place in Walt's borrowed yarns. Take our little friend Red Riding Hood produced by Laugh-O-Gram Studio. The tragic childhood our girl must have faced with a grandmother eaten by a wolf and the prospect of the same fate in store for her. A straitjacket would a awaited most of us if we had survived. The Three Little Pigs, from the Silly Symphony series, lived lives equally terrorized and spent building shelters that per capita guaranteed their devoured fate. And what of Jack and his Giant grinding bones to make his bread, again done for Disney by  Laugh-O-Gram.

In later years we get Snow White vs her Evil Queen, Pinocchio and his Monstrous Whale, and Peter Pan longing to keep his youth while being chased by a hooked Captain and his trusty Mr. Smee. When a crocodile is your savior how frightening must your existence be?

As the above title reminds us even the 1805 English Nursery Rhyme bares true the heinous truth: 

Three blind mice. Three blind mice.

See how they run. See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer's wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a sight in your life,

As three blind mice?