STING is a 2024 killer spider picture, but it’s not the French one that I already reviewed. That’s INFESTED. This one is set in New York City but hails from Australia. I remember seeing a trailer and being interested, I think I heard not-great things when it came out, but then when I saw it was on Hulu I noticed that the writer-director was Kiah Roache-Turner. That’s the guy that did WYRMWOOD: ROAD OF THE DEAD (2014) and WYRMWOOD: APOCALYPSE (2021), two fun movies about people roaming a post-apocalyptic world with cars powered by zombie breath. Well shit, yeah, I’ll watch his spider movie.
Just like he did in WYRMWOOD, Roache-Turner uses an absurd and inexplicable sci-fi disaster to set up the scenario he wants to tell a story within. A news broadcast tells us we’re in the midst of the worst ice storm in New York state history, and that it’s believed to be connected to the asteroid shower that came unusually close to Earth. During the opening credits a tiny rock from space shoots through an apartment window and a dollhouse inside the apartment.
The rock cracks open and a spider crawls out and through the floors of the miniature home. The sequence is very stylized, and foreshadows that this spider will grow to this scale in relation to the actual building, so I wasn’t sure until after the credits that yes, this literally happened in the story – a spider fell from the stars, like the Blob or the Body Snatch plants or Venom in SPIDER-MAN 3. (read the rest of this shit…)
SKINNED DEEP is a movie released direct-to-video in 2004 by Fangoria and Gorezone Video. For that reason I recognized the cover but never paid any attention to it until Mr. Majestyk recommended it. Turns out it’s a really interesting one – if not great, at least very distinct. It’s the directorial debut of Gabriel Bartalos, a makeup effects guy who worked on DOLLS, the LEPRECHAUN movies and the BASKET CASE sequels. More recently he did the zombie horse in ARMY OF THE DEAD and worked on DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS.
Different parts of it reminded me of HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, THE ROAD WARRIOR, THE HILLS HAVE EYES and TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE 2, except with acting out of a John Waters movie and a few characters that would work in FREAKED or a Brian Yuzna movie. It has a grimy indie look to it and okay, I’m doing the math in my head here and it does seem that 2004 was 20 years ago, but I definitely would’ve guessed this was older than that – in a good way. This does not seem like the same year as DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, SEED OF CHUCKY, CURSED and EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING. I don’t know, maybe it’s that low budget rawness.
It opens with a (reportedly done for real) scarification ritual branding an S and a D into skin, which is not part of the story, just an intense way to lead into the title card. Next an old man driving at night is killed by a monster-faced man with goggles bolted into his head and a bear trap jaw who swings a grappling hook at him and causes his car to flip. This is intercut with close ups of a bodybuilder flexing. We don’t see the muscle man’s face, and much later we’ll learn that he doesn’t have a head at all. This one is pretty different from other movies, is what I’m getting at here. (read the rest of this shit…)
WISHMASTER was a theatrical release, and given its low budget a profitable one. A year later, producer LIVE Entertainment was acquired by Bain Capital, restructured and rebranded Artisan Entertainment. While distributing real movies in theaters (including absolute classics GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI and THE LIMEY), they also started dipping into DTV sequels like the appalling CANDYMAN: DAY OF THE DEAD, the enjoyable THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL’S OUT, and yes, a whole trilogy of WISHMASTER followups, starting with WISHMASTER 2: EVIL NEVER DIES (1999).
The sequels are not presented by Wes Craven, but funny enough the writer/director of part 2 is the same guy who did A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2, Jack Sholder. Sadly this is not on the level of FREDDY’S REVENGE, much less THE HIDDEN. He told interviewer Hellter from Gruemonkey that he’d turned down the first WISHMASTER and “didn’t especially like” it, then “needed the work” when part 2 came his way. But he was happy that he got to write it and “had a lot of creative freedom as long as I could do it for the budget.” (read the rest of this shit…)
I remember seeing WISHMASTER in the theater in 1997. More than that I remember cleaning the theater, because I worked there. There weren’t many people going, so there wasn’t much to clean, but I would try to be around at the very end of the credits because I thought it was funny that you hear the Djinn saying “Careful what you weeessshhh for!” in his ludicrous evil voice. That was the main thing I remembered.
It definitely did not impress me back then, and I’m afraid this is not one of those SLEEPWALKERS situations where I just wasn’t ready. But I can at least say that WISHMASTER is pretty good for a laugh when it’s decades after the fact and you’re not hoping for anything genuinely good, let alone an exciting new horror creation from Wes Craven (who “presents” it).
I’m not sure what Craven contributed, if anything, but the director is Robert Kurtzman, who is usually not known as a director. He’s the K in KNB EFX who in his capacity as a makeup FX genius helped create versions of Freddy, the Predator, Leatherface, Darkman, Pumpkinhead and more. As a filmmaker his biggest feat was writing a 24-page vampire treatment and commissioning newcomer Quentin Tarantino to write a script based on it, then after not getting it off the ground letting him give it to Robert Rodriguez.
Not that I wouldn’t love to see Kurtzman’s FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, but he obviously couldn’t have done anything slick like Rodriguez did. He makes true b-movies like THE DEMOLITIONIST, starring Nicole Eggert from Charles in Charge as as a zombie cyborg cop. Even though this here genie movie got a wide theatrical release, it’s coming from the same realm.
The villain of WISHMASTER is a nameless Djinn played by Andrew Divoff (TOY SOLDIERS, EXTREME JUSTICE, AIR FORCE ONE). We’re told by one of the movie’s exposition-providing mythology experts to “Forget Barbara Eden. Forget Robin Williams. To the peoples of ancient Arabia, a Djinn was neither cute nor funny.” Instead they are “creatures condemned to dwell in the void between the worlds.” (read the rest of this shit…)
I’m trying not to overdo the horror movies during these times of dread, but I feel very strongly that I didn’t fit in enough Slasher Searching this October. In order to be the change I want to see in the world I intend to continue the mission periodically, free of holiday constraints. So today I have for you a double-header of wrestling themed horror movies. I thought it was a good gimmick when I reviewed WRESTLEMANIAC 16 years ago (!), but I didn’t realize until scrolling Tubi recently that it’s a whole subgenre now.
WRESTLEMASSACRE (2018) is a slasher movie of the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT or Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN variety in that it follows the killer and gets into his psychology before he goes on a rampage. I guess it’s more of a grappler movie than a slasher movie, since he mostly kills with his bare hands. (But sometimes hedgeclippers.) Randy (Richie Acevedo, “Vendor (uncredited), SUPERFLY) is a timid Cuban immigrant who works as a landscaper but dreams of becoming a wrestler like his dad (Nikolai Volkoff). (read the rest of this shit…)
Maybe it’s weird to watch a post-apocalypse movie right before this particular election, but I’d wanted to see AZRAEL and then I saw that it was on Shudder. I knew it was a low or no dialogue movie starring Samara Weaving (MONSTER TRUCKS, THE BABYSITTER, SNAKE EYES), and not much more, but “genre movie starring Samara Weaving” is enough for me. It would’ve been a bonus if I’d known it was written by Simon Barrett (YOU’RE NEXT, THE GUEST) or if I recognized the name of director E.L. Katz from the dark comedy CHEAP THRILLS.
We’ve seen so many post-apocalyptic worlds, but this is a new one for me. It opens with a card that says, “Many years after the Rapture… Among the survivors, some are driven to renounce their sin of Speech.” Yes, it’s a movie where none of the main characters speak, or even sign, so the details of their situation are never directly addressed. But that leaves plenty of space to interpret and contemplate.
1977 gave us some pretty important movies. Some influential ones. Some we still talk about today. STAR WARS was a big one. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. ERASERHEAD. SORCERER. THE HILLS HAVE EYES. And hailing from Italy, Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA. One of the greats, a true original, and I think it’s safe to say one of the most beautiful looking horror movies ever made.
When I first saw it as a young man it set my brain on fire. I was pretty new to the world of Italian horror and had never seen anything quite like it, but it turns out that’s also because there’s not anything quite like it. Since then I’ve seen it many more times, including once in a theater with a Jessica Harper Q&A, and its reputation has grown even stronger as a generation or two discovered it in the age of screen caps and gifs. Its stunning visuals require no context to knock you on your ass. (read the rest of this shit…)
The central theme of ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) is right there in the title. It’s about someone having a baby, so it’s about fears surrounding a healthy pregnancy and beginning a new life as a parent. That’s part of what makes the movie so powerful, but one way I know it’s good is how effective it is even for someone like me, a non-parent, a childless cat lady. I’m sure it kicks your ass harder if you’re an expecting or aspiring parent, but it has other things going for it too.
My main association with ROSEMARY’S BABY is that it was my mom’s favorite horror movie. That might just mean it was one of the few she’d seen. But I remember when I was a teen obsessed with Freddy Krueger and Clive Barker she said “Do you want to see a real scary movie?” and we rented it. As far as I remember I thought it was pretty good, but not enough that I thought of as a favorite. It didn’t make it into the rotation.
That was more than three decades ago. For years now I’ve been wanting to revisit it and review it for the day before Halloween, my mom’s birthday. But I always get behind on all my other plans and get bogged down. I decided to make it happen this year even before I realized there was a new prequel on Paramount+, but I’ll review that soon. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE INVASION (2007) is the fourth (and final, the way civilization is going) official movie adaptation of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers. I actually reviewed it for The Ain’t It Cool News when it came out, which is one way I can prove it exists. It’s documented! Anyway I after I watched the other three I figured I oughta complete the set.
This one stars A-listers Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and is the Hollywood debut of acclaimed German director Oliver Hirschbiegel (DAS EXPERIMENT, DOWNFALL), as well as the first movie written by David Kajganich, who later wrote A BIGGER SPLASH, SUSPIRIA and BONES AND ALL for Luca Guadagnino. But it was kind of a fiasco, losing money and getting poor reviews, universally considered the weakest of the four versions. I’m sure we would’ve noticed it was kinda sloppy even if it hadn’t been widely reported that producer Joel Silver thought it wasn’t working and spent $10 million on reshoots written by the Wachowskis and directed by their guy James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA, NINJA ASSASSIN). It was delayed over a year and moved from a confident June release to a resigned August one.
Abel Ferrara’s BODY SNATCHERS (1993) was my first body snatcher invasion movie. I saw it when it was new on video, and I knew it had been poorly received, so I figured my ignorance of the original and the original remake must’ve helped me to enjoy it more than everybody else. But watching it now with a deep appreciation for the other ones, yeah, it’s still good anyway. So maybe I liked it better because I’m a unique individual with my own feelings and not a plant programmed only for survival. Or because I was ahead of my time – it seems to have a pretty good reputation now.
The title sequence is admittedly chintzy compared to the one in Kaufman’s version. Something about the long sequence of the title flying through a crude starscape and letter-by-letter turning from red to black, set to the score by Joe Delia (MS. 45, FEAR CITY, THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL’S OUT), was putting me in mind of a Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna type movie, but that might’ve been my subconscious remembering that this was actually from a screenplay by Stuart Gordon & Dennis Paoli, rewritten by Ferrara’s guy Nicholas St. John. Gordon was supposed to direct but couldn’t get a commitment from the studio to actually make it until leaving to do FORTRESS. He told Fangoria that his version was originally designed as a sequel to the Kaufman version and went into more detail about how the pod people are plants. “It’s not like they have a brain in their head. The creature’s consciousness is throughout its whole body, so that if you destroy the head, it doesn’t kill or stop it.” That would’ve been fun! But what Ferrara did is good too. (read the rest of this shit…)
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STING is a 2024 killer spider picture, but it’s not the French one that I already reviewed. That’s INFESTED. This one is set in New York City but hails from Australia. I remember seeing a trailer and being interested, I think I heard not-great things when it came out, but then when I saw it was on Hulu I noticed that the writer-director was Kiah Roache-Turner. That’s the guy that did WYRMWOOD: ROAD OF THE DEAD (2014) and WYRMWOOD: APOCALYPSE (2021), two fun movies about people roaming a post-apocalyptic world with cars powered by zombie breath. Well shit, yeah, I’ll watch his spider movie.
WISHMASTER was a theatrical release, and given its low budget a profitable one. A year later, producer LIVE Entertainment was acquired by Bain Capital, restructured and rebranded Artisan Entertainment. While distributing real movies in theaters (including absolute classics GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI and THE LIMEY), they also started dipping into DTV sequels like the appalling 
I remember seeing WISHMASTER in the theater in 1997. More than that I remember cleaning the theater, because I worked there. There weren’t many people going, so there wasn’t much to clean, but I would try to be around at the very end of the credits because I thought it was funny that you hear the Djinn saying “Careful what you weeessshhh for!” in his ludicrous evil voice. That was the main thing I remembered.
I’m trying not to overdo the horror movies during these times of dread, but I feel very strongly that I didn’t fit in enough Slasher Searching this October. In order to be the change I want to see in the world I intend to continue the mission periodically, free of holiday constraints. So today I have for you a double-header of wrestling themed horror movies. I thought it was a good gimmick when I reviewed 
WRESTLEMASSACRE (2018) is a slasher movie of the 
Maybe it’s weird to watch a post-apocalypse movie right before this particular election, but I’d wanted to see AZRAEL and then I saw that it was on Shudder. I knew it was a low or no dialogue movie starring Samara Weaving (
1977 gave us some pretty important movies. Some influential ones. Some we still talk about today. 
The central theme of ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) is right there in the title. It’s about someone having a baby, so it’s about fears surrounding a healthy pregnancy and beginning a new life as a parent. That’s part of what makes the movie so powerful, but one way I know it’s good is how effective it is even for someone like me, a non-parent, a childless cat lady. I’m sure it kicks your ass harder if you’re an expecting or aspiring parent, but it has other things going for it too.
THE INVASION (2007) is the fourth (and final, the way civilization is going) official movie adaptation of Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers. I actually 
