I seemingly never get tired of saying it, but I sure do love horror anthologies. Typically, I fully expect that not all of the shorts contained within one would appeal to me, but usually there is at least one decent one. The Monster Mash sets itself up as a creature feature, an old school TV special featuring a presenter who introduces each of the three short films. Each share a similar vibe, featuring gruesome and bloody practical effects, while being created in the style of eighties style grindhouse/exploitation movies.
The wraparound segment takes the form of a presenter appearing on a TV screen. Here, Dr. Freudstein (Michael Gentile) operates on a corpse, hoping to find a way to reanimate it. Each time the film goes back to him, he is further into his deranged experiments, but this campy section is only used as a means to introduce the horror shorts. I did enjoy the format, and worked at making this feel like an old style horror show. Film grain effects are used here and throughout the rest of the films to give them an old feel. Thankfully, while constant, they were not over the top, and added to the grindhouse vibe the anthology was going for.
Whispering Hollow Road is the first of the shorts, and also the shortest, at twenty five minutes long. This was written and directed by Richard Terrasi and mainly takes place within the car of a serial killer. Gentile plays Andrew Lakewood, a killer who likes to film the last moments of his victims on his super 8 camera. One dark night he picks up a woman, Sky (Cherry Fu), whose car has broken down, and offers to take her to a nearby petrol station. Things don't go according to plan however, with Sky maybe not as innocent as she at first appears. The general plot wasn't something I hadn't seen before, I thought it was all quite obvious. What wasn't so obvious was how demented this unexpectedly got, with some great and twisted special effects that made certain elements almost appear stop motion. While there is some obvious CG effects mixed in with the practical, the later is the focus. The literal darkness of this short helped create the oppressive isolationist atmosphere of this late night car ride, and I thought the contrast between the extroverted narcissist killer who couldn't stop talking about himself, and the introverted, near mute victim was darn cool.
The middle of the shorts is The House, again written and directed by Terrasi. Despite featuring one of my least favourite movie monster, the werewolf, this was another strong entry. Paul (Kevin Losani), and his heavily pregnant wife, Sara (Monica Wednesday Sharma) are looking for a home to raise a family, and have gone to a viewing at a remote house out in the countryside. The current owner, Creighton Reed (William Kozy) and his home both come across as a little creepy, so the couple decide to look elsewhere, but Reed has other plans for them. This doesn't shy away from stating its influences, with one of the characters even referencing John Landis (director of An American Werewolf in London) at one point. It features a great looking extended transformation scene that I thought was wonderfully done, and also includes the first ever baby werewolf I have seen on film. Along with the great looking werewolf, there is also some fun puppetry to be found here. I liked the effect used to simulate the werewolf's perspective, and flashback scenes being shown in black and white were a fun touch. The effects lead to some very gory and gruesome moments later on, such as a head getting pulled off of someone! I thought the story was decent enough for the most part, but it was a bit odd that the decision was made to end this one on a near identical note to Whispering Hollow Road, made me begin to think that this was the only idea that could be thought of to end a film.
The final film goes for a slightly different style, veering more into eighties grindhouse trash (in the best way). In Homebound Horror (co-directed by Terrasi and Losani), Victor (Roschaad Milner), a soldier returning from a tour of duty in order to propose to his girlfriend, is mistaken for a thief and is abducted by a cruel and twisted local gang. After realising their error, they sadistically kill the man, before dumping his body in a field. Unknown to him, this was where a UFO had recently crashed, an alien parasite having survived the impact burrows into the corpse of Victor, bringing him back to life as an unstoppable agent of vengeance. With the protagonist having had his face sliced off previous to being killed, this character looked horrific. This was the longest of the shorts at around forty minutes long, and also the most mean spirited and gnarly. The gang leader is played fantastically by Gentile, this wheelchair bound psycho was pure insanity. A revenge story is always fun to watch, here, this felt like it had been transported from decades back, if not for modern technology this could pass for a lost cult classic. It even managed to fit in a subplot of a sheriff (Tim Whalen) on his last day before retirement, though this didn't really end up going anywhere.
I was impressed with The Monster Mash, I thought the reliance on practical effects was wonderful, it made for some very gruesome and fun moments. Rather than these shorts feel too stretched out, I liked that the longer run time for these allowed some of the stories to breath a little bit, without the feeling of having to tell their stories too quickly. The wraparound was functional, though not really memorable, and it was a bit of a shame that two of the three films ended identically. Overall though, this was impressive, heck, it even had a werewolf film that didn't repel me, so this was all very well worth a watch.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment