Blood Capsule #370

EQUINOX (1970)

I've been wanting to review this film for ages.  It's a marvel of low-budget effects wizardry, and it has a kinetic energy that gives me sustenance.  While it's unclear if Sam Raimi ever saw Equinox, it could be seen as a dry run for The Evil Dead.  In both films, four characters discover a strange book.  Here, the spooky tome is unearthed in a cave.  They are even led to a cabin in the woods, although it's been destroyed by a Lovecraftian beast.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  This flick features winged demons, disappearing castles, and a shifty-eyed cop named Asmodeus.  Need I say more?  I won't try to be super cool by suggesting that Equinox is superior to The Evil Dead.  Because it isn't.  But!  It's totally awesome.  Hopefully, I don't have to sell you on stop-motion creatures and psychedelic undertones.  The bulk of the picture is relayed via flashbacks.  I should start writing these capsules via flashback.

A reporter visits a man in a sanitarium who swears that his girlfriend and his professor have been slain by supernatural forces.  He freaks out when the orderlies commandeer his crucifix.  That couldn't possibly mean anything substantial, could it?  Equinox was made for less than $10,000, but honestly, you can't tell.  Aside from the incredible effects (Ray Harryhausen would be proud), the acting is...okay, I admit my standards are low, but I thought these no-name cats were giving it their all.  Apologies if you have actually heard of Edward Connell and Barbara Hewitt.  Oh, there's a green ogre.  I forgot about the green ogre.  Folks, this drive-in hit isn't without its hiccups, but gee golly, it's entertaining as heck.  I don't usually use that kind of language, so you know I mean business.

April, April, April

I've officially started writing the reviews for April.  There is a theme, but I won't reveal it until Random Dinosaur Month has been cooking for a couple of weeks.  All I can say is that it won't be Random Turtle Month.  And yes, Raphael is my favorite.  He's clearly the coolest!

Blood Capsule #369

I, ZOMBIE (1998)

There is some "mockumentary" window dressing around I, Zombie (the film opens with supposed interview footage), but the gimmick is dropped almost immediately.  It pops back up later, but there is no real cohesion.  Truth be told, this might have been a more rewarding sit as a full-on mockumentary.  What we have here is a zombie character study.  I'm not so sure those words should ever appear in a sentence together.  There is plenty of grue to go with it, and the low-budget makeup effects are exquisite at times.  At times.  Where did I leave my synopsis?  Mark is bitten by a zombie.  He tries to make sense of it all as his skin becomes sallow and he develops a hankering for human flesh.  Essentially, you watch Mark decompose for 79 minutes.  Does that sound...fun?

There may be something valid in wanting to create an intimate, small-scale zombie rager, but I don't know that I would have chosen to go that route for the first release on my video label.  That's what Fangoria did.  I was a subscriber to the magazine in the late 90's, and I remember seeing ads for I, Zombie (as well as its follow-up, 2001's Dead Creatures) all over the place.  I didn't take a chance on it until 2026.  Um, I don't know if that's a reflection of the ads or the film itself, but either way, I can't say I had a blast spending time with ol' Mark.  At one point, he rips off his putrescent penis during a cheerless masturbation session.  Yeah, that was a choice.  At best, it's a good example of a questionable decision made by writer/director Andrew Parkinson.  All ribbing aside (pun intended?), there is obvious talent behind the camera, but I don't see myself revisiting I, Zombie.  Like, ever.

Domocracy

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Blood Capsule #368

DEAD OF NIGHT (1977)

Dan Curtis is synonymous with TV horror.  As such, I don't think I need to run through his credentials.  Seeing his name on the Blu-ray release of this puppy pretty much guaranteed that I was going to add it to my shopping cart, and that's with knowing very little about the film itself.  So what is Dead of Night?  It's a glorified pilot for a TV series that never came to fruition.  Boy, there were a lot of these situations, weren't there?  It shouldn't surprise you to learn that this is an anthology.  No wrap-around.  We dive right in to "Second Chance," which stars Ed Begley Jr. (at his most Ed Begliest, if I may coin an adjective) as a man who restores an antique car.  The bygone bucket of bolts serves as a time travel device, which means that this segment isn't terribly spooky.  I didn't have any problems with it, but it reads as tremendously dry, especially compared to the other two-thirds of Dead of Night.  "No Such Thing as a Vampire" may or may not concern a vampire.  I'm sure I'll tell you more about it in the next paragraph.

Apart from the goth-leaning atmosphere, this is where I was beginning to droop a bit.  That said, there are excellent performances to be found.  This is not the main event, however.  "Bobby" is up next.  If you see any portion of this picture, make sure it's "Bobby."  Technically, this is a spoiler (it's not a big deal; cool your jets), but "Bobby" is a reworking of "The Monkey's Paw."  If you've seen Bob Clark's Deathdream, you basically know what to expect.  Here, the action centers around a grieving mother who turns to the black arts to bring her son back from beyond the grave.  Utterly fantastic, despite the fact that you know exactly what's going to happen.  If I had seen Dead of Night on television in 1977, the final frames would have given me nightmares.  No question about it.  3.5 feels like a fair rating, considering that we don't gain any real acceleration until the halfway point, roughly speaking.  So watch along this Sunday night on CBS.

Blood Capsule #367

TERROR IS A MAN (1959)

This was the first film in the Blood Island series, a loose string of b-movies shot in the Philippines.  I own the Blood Island Collection on Blu-ray, but I don't want to commit myself to the rest of the series yet.  At the very least, I wanted to review Terror is a Man.  This is an interesting little picture co-directed by cult maven Eddie Romero.  It's a loose (what a random word to use twice in one paragraph) adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau.  Most people - well, most horror fans - are only familiar with 1932's Island of Lost Souls and maybe the 1996 retread with Marlon Brando.  There are others, but I want to keep things as simple as possible.  Oddly, the first half of this film reminded me of the '96 version.  A shipwrecked man washes ashore on a remote strip of land seemingly populated by natives.  He is nursed back to health by a scientist (and by association, the scientist's wife).  Eventually, he learns that help is definitely not on the way.  What's more, the scientist is busy with disquieting experiments, curious surgeries that involve a panther and a bandaged figure.

Can I just say that I love 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau?  God, it feels good to get that off my chest.  It's irrelevant here, but like I said, the story beats mirror each other to a point.  Terror is stylish and well-photographed.  It's actually better than it has any right to be.  The pace is methodical.  There is a payoff, and I dug how the creature is slowly revealed.  Because of the bandages, you can pretend that you're watching a mummy movie.  Who doesn't want to pretend to watch a mummy movie?  If it weren't for Hammer's The Mummy from the same year, you could call this the best mummy movie of the 50's.  Y'know, if it was about a mummy.  I need to abandon this line of thought, don't I?  Francis Lederer is strangely sympathetic as Dr. Girard.  It's almost as if the script doesn't want to portray him (or anyone, for that matter) as the villain.  Now, it should be noted that I'm picky, so I have to deduct points for a dull second act.  Still, I recommend checking out Terror is a Man.

Random trivia alert...during a scene where Dr. Not Moreau slices into his patient's larynx, we hear bells on the soundtrack.  A pre-title card tells us that the sound of bells denotes sickening imagery and we are cautioned to close our eyes if we are the least bit squeamish.  Consider me charmed!

A couple cool things coming out this month...

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Blood Capsule #366

THE VOID (2001)

Not to be confused with 2016's The Void.  No, this isn't cosmic horror.  It's barely horror at all, but I wanted to review it to convince myself that it exists.  I mean, I have a faint memory of seeing it on a shelf in the waning years of the video store.  Ah, the video store.  This is something I would have rented, so I'm surprised that I never did.  While it can't be argued that any ties to the genre are tenuous at best, The Void does make use of primordial sci-fi tropes that ruled the day in decades past.  We have a mad scientist, a crusty old curmudgeon played by...Malcolm McDowell?  What is he doing here?  He oversees Filadyne, an evil corporation bent on recklessly smashing particles together in a vain bid to create tiny bombs.  Or something.  Eva has crunched the numbers, and she believes that McD - er, Dr. Abernathy is on the verge of creating a black hole that could swallow the totality of civilization.  So it's a race against time, which I realize doesn't sound too appetizing.

Maybe it does sound appetizing.  Maybe you're into incomprehensible, near-cabalistic techno-babble.  I'm on record as enjoying pseudo-science (or "movie science"), but I have to admit that The Void pushed me to my limits.  The question is, why didn't I hate this flick?  For starters, the cast is game.  Amanda Tapping is solid as Eva.  Apparently, she pursued a career behind the camera, but she's comfortable in front of it (though I'm pretty sure those were stunt boobs, not that I'm complaining).  Her relationship with boyfriend Steven is reasonably well-developed.  The digital effects are standard for the period.  I knew what I was signing up for, so I'm in no position to gripe about CGI.  Will I ever watch The Void again?  Probably not.  Do I wish I could have those 93 minutes back?  Nah.  I'm sure there are folks on Letterboxd who will try to be cute and tell you to "avoid The Void," but you have seen worse.  My VCR has definitely seen worse.