Corazine

Unlike the other Legend Films version of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, this one doesn’t feature a color version. What it DOES feature that is just as cool, if not more so, is a commentary track from not just Mike Nelson (as with the colorized edition) but also Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. So there’s a full Mystery Science Theater 3000 trio on tap to rip – make that riff – into HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, William Castle’s classic convoluted tale of ghosts – or is it? – HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is so chock full of ghastly surprises – like acid baths, walking skeletons and deathly-visaged old hags, not to mention mini coffins containing guns and, of course, Vincent Freakin’ Price – and packs a twist ending that is, if ridiculous, still a neat and nifty wallop, that it’s easy to fail to notice that there are a lot of loose (story) threads lying around when all is said and done and that the film’s events are so preposterous as to strain credulity. Seriously, once you’re done watching it, go back through the story in your mind and your jaw will drop. Of course, Castle was all about titillating viewers with catchy ads then giving them a gimmick-laden roller coaster ride in the theater. Here, you get all the fun Castle could contrive PLUS the added bonus of MST3K style commentary from Nelson, Murphy and Corbett that makes this creaky classic twice the fun. Highly recommended entertainment!

Taking a cue from “Paranormal Activity’s” success, The Asylum turns in a found-footage fest of its own, PARANORMAL ENTITY. One can’t really pick on it for slow starting, since that comes with the genre. And I’m a sucker for the genre, so maybe my review is rejectable on the grounds of bias, but whatever. Once it gets rolling, PARANORMAL ENTITY gives you the creeps and boo! factor of a groovy haunted house movie with the added sense of reality provided by the faux non-fiction approach. The Asylum also ups the ante by added a few exploitative bits typically absent from more mainstream found footage horror movie endeavors. And that’s just fine by me. You won’t find me complaining about a tad bit of the red stuff and a little nudity. PARANORMAL ENTITY escalates from quiet disturbances to violent and violating attacks by whatever malevolent force is focused on the daughter of the family (who lost its father/husband prior to the events of the film). The performers, particularly the one playing the daughter, are effective and generally help heighten the realism of the movie. The climax of the film delivers a pretty great payoff, and, let’s face it, these found footage horror flicks are kind of like H.P. Lovecraft stories – it’s all about the payoff ….

There are two different editions of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS available from Legend Films. One, already reviewed here at Corazine, boasts a sharp colorization job as well as Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 lobbing jokes at the movie on the commentary track. The other version of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, which I’m reviewing here, lacks the colorized film but includes a commentary track by not just Mr. Nelson but also Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, fellow MST3K cohorts. B king Roger Corman’s infamous low-budget quickie – notoriously shot as an afterthought when there was a couple days’ worth of budget left after the completion of another film – lends itself to the making-funnery made so famous by the MST3K guys. Poor schmuck Seymour breeds (dunno if that’s the right word; my wife, a botanist, isn’t handy) a new kind of plant, a hybrid whose genetics include the Venus fly trap. Except now Seymour has got a Venus HUMAN trap on his hands. The tragedy of this story is really almost Shakespearean.

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For many Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, this will be something of a holy grail. Take what is voted by many as the worst film ever made – PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, Ed Wood’s opus of awfulness – and team it with a trio – Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of MST3K – famed for its mockery of cinema bad, weird and both, and you’ve got a helluva package for this poplar nerd-geek demographic (in which you may include me). Take the concept to the live stage and you’ve elevated this niche art form to possibly its highest form – especially with a neat trick courtesy the marvels of modern technology. In Nashville in 2009 (hence the Blu-Ray/DVD’s subtitle), Rifftrax held a screening of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE in which Nelson, Murphy and Corbett performed their brand of smart-ass film commentary live (ditto the last parenthetical phrase) on-stage. Besides making fun of PLAN 9, Rifftrax dug up a 1940s short film, “Flying Stewardess”, for the three comedians to rip into as a prelude to the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE screening. Plus, musical comedy act Jonathan Coulton laid out some nerd troubadouring culminating in a four-man performance of a song about PLAN 9 – including dirt on Plans 1-8! – with Nelson contributing by playing nose flute! Really, this release from Rifftrax is a coming around to full circle. The addition of preliminary entertainment – especially the short – is a throwback to the way the movie experience was when films like PLAN 9 and its ilk were made. Back then there were shorts and cartoons and stuff before the feature presentation. Here, you get a short and live musical entertainment. There’s even an emcee in the form of the lovely Veronica Belmont. But this is even more a full-circle event in the fact that a what started as a TV show about a three wiseacres in a theater making fun of old movies ends up as a real-deal event IN A THEATER MAKING FUN OF AN OLD MOVIE! It’s a pretty terrific deal!!!

It’s about time INTRUDER got the royal treatment. I remember reading about this in Gorezone or Fangoria magazine way back in the late 80s when the film was yet to be released, so there’s a bit of nostalgia in this for me. But let me be if not the first, then the loudest, to say that there’s more to INTRUDER’s entertainment value than mere nostalgia. In short, INTRUDER gets right what most slasher films get wrong. Whereas the kiddies in lots of body count movies are stereotypes, and frequently obnoxious stereotypes at that (such is admittedly the case in my beloved “Friday the 13th” franchise), the characters in this flick ARE characters, as opposed to caricatures. There’s a bit of substance. Sure, this isn’t Kubrick or Bergman, but these have the sense of being real people. And, for the most part, they’re a likeable lot. This has multiple effects on INTRUDER’s ability to chill and amuse. For one thing, it makes it that much more enjoyable spending time with the characters before the horror starts happening. (We all know the first half hour or so of a slasher film is the getting-there, the buildup.) Plus, it makes it that much more horrifying when they start getting killed off in gruesome and sometimes creative ways.

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MANIAC (not to be confused with the gore-drenched, William Lustig-helmed film with Joe Spinell from 1980), all on its own, would be a film worth sitting through. I’m not saying it’s great cinema. I’m saying tearing your eyes away from the bizarreness that unfolds with maniacal (couldn’t resist), non sequitur glee would be a real challenge. 1934′s MANIAC almost doesn’t need the drubbing provided by those three funny fellows from Mystery Science Theater 3000. The horror breaks loose when a doctor/mad scientist – whose next door neighbor is a cat farmer (for the fur) who feeds his cats to rats, which then get fed to more cats (!) – is hell-bent on bringing the dead to life but gets killed by his assistant, who quit his gig as a Vaudeville impersonator to come be a lab henchman. The terror grows when the actor puts his acting skills – and a knack for make-up – to work impersonating the now dead mad scientist. After treating a lunatic who believes he is the orangutan from Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” by injecting him with super-adrenaline (?!) – said lunatic absconding with a naked woman (this is pre movie code) after mightily chewing scenery in a deliriously ham-fisted performance – the Vaudevillian goes on to pursue his own career as a mad scientist, completely taking over the life of his dead, mad mentor.

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