HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021: Get Out (2017)

Okay, those of you who had the 10th on the 'When Will Tom End Up Skipping The Day,' come forward to collect your prize.  It seems like I can't do a whole month without my depression kicking in.

Yesterday's sponsor today is the man behind Hyphen Universe and its selection of podcasts, music and other entertainment delights, Kelen Conley.  As with last year, I urge you to check out Kelen's Bandcamp Page, where you can access some great music he records under the name B-Hyphen!  Kelen is representing the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society.

This year, Kelen decided to give me a break from Ratapalooza by asking me to look at the landmark horror film that netted its director Jordan Peele an Oscar for Best Screenplay, 2017's Get Out.

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaaluya) is going upstate to meet his white girlfriend Rose's (Allison Williams) parents.  Her parents seem to be somewhat embarrassing well-meaning liberals (Bradley Whitford and the long-missed Catherine Keener), and the two African Americans who make up the staff behave...oddly.  Chris endures the big family party, but is rather disconcerted by some of the questions and comments made by the guest...and he has every right to be disconcerted.  It seems Rose's mom did more than cure him of smoking when she hypnotized him, and he's about to be the latest subject of what is referred to as 'The Order of Coagula'...

There's an extremely good reason why Peele won his Oscar, as the strength of the film comes from its tight, well paced script.  Peele is able to juggle humor, social commentary and psychological chills very deftly, and this results in a two hour film which doesn't drag.  He's very straightforward with what is happening, at points even out and out says it...but because of the structure we may not even notice.  Even when things are beginning to come together with the silent 'bingo game' conducted by Dr. Whitford, Peele keeps us slightly distracted with a simple compare and contrast.  I also like the bait and switch where the character we are meant to take to be the comic relief (Little Rey Howery) ends up having a different role by the third act.

This is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted (and cast, for that matter, as I can believe that Keener and Williams are mother and daughter), and shows Peele's love for Rod Serling.  Most importantly, there's no jump scares; even those moments that are supposed to act as jump scares are very well set-up as to be logical developments.  There's not a moment that doesn't belong in the film, and that's refreshing.  

I do want to point out that, in addition to Keener I was very pleased with a small but significant role by Stephen Root.  When we get the reveal behind Root's character's motivations, I liked how it was for far simpler reasons than we may have thought...and that makes it more chilling.

I know this is another boring positive review, because there's so little to talk about other than 'it's great.'  It shows how you can make a truly unsettling film without special effects, extreme gore or the kind of 'Boo!' scares that seems to be all mainstream horror is interested in these days.  But I'm sure you've realized if you've followed the 'fest for long enough that when the review's short...I certainly recommend it.

Tomorrow...well, it's supposed to be today but you know what I mean...our sponsor is the Baddest Cheerleader of Them All, the great Kelli Maroney!  Kelli brings us the most recent film to date in this Horrorfest, a little tale of madness set in Great Britain during the notorious 'Video Nasty' era.  Join me for this year's Censor!

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT FIVE: Gnaw: Food Of The Gods II (1989)

RATAPALOOZA LIVES ON!  Today our sponsor is horror author and Brooklyn Bon Vivant Nicholas Kaufman!  His new book, The Hungry Earth was just released on October 5th, and you can get it on Amazon if you follow the length.  Nicholas is representing the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

To be fair, Nicholas originally wanted to sponsor yesterday's film Rats: Night of Terror, but Des got there literally minutes before him.  Now, given that last year Nicholas chose Food of The Gods, I suggested a very particular film as a replacement because I knew it was one of the very few film roles for my ultimate horror crush, Lisa Schrage.  He agreed, and I put Gnaw: Food of the Gods II on the schedule...so it's pretty much my fault I suffered today.

At Hamelin University (get it?  Get it?), Dr. Neil Hamilton is called to help his mentor Dr. Treager (Jackie Burroughs, the second time we've seen her this month) with her patient Bobby.  It seems Bobby suffers from some sort of growth disorder that's gone out of control once he was treated with a experimental hormone.  Dr. Neil heads back to the university with samples of Bobby's blood and gives the hormone to some tomatoes and a single rat--just in time for his girlfriend Alex's dumbass animal rights activist friends to break in and cause the normal sized rats that have been snacking on the giant tomatoes to escape.  They grow to enormous size and starts chewing up students...but since the dumbass dean of the college is throwing a big party for the university's new pool and the synchronized swimming championship he's hosting, things are going to get gross.

During the first Halloween Horrorfest, I wondered why Lisa Schrage's career was so brief.  In rewatching this direct-to-video epic--I saw it originally when it was first released--I now understand why.

It's because other than Mary Lou, Lisa Schrage was given nothing but 'stand and look pretty' roles.  Even though the script by Richard Bennett and E. Kim Brewster claims that Schrage's character Alex is a...college student/photojournalist?...who is passionate about animal rights, the fact is she's there solely for doughy lead actor Paul Coufus to rub up on.  I can see the light leaving her startlingly beautiful blue eyes as she says her handful of cliched lines, looking for the exit to escape this low-budget hell.  If all I could get were these kinds of roles, I'd be thinking about retiring early as well...but then, Gnaw: Food of the Gods II has no use for women, period, as the other female characters seem to be there to look purty and show their tits except for Burroughs.

I should probably also mention that the biggest science fiction angle in this film is how Coufus is made out to be irresistible to college co-eds.  One of the three topless scenes has Coufus dreaming he's making love to a woman and growing immeasurably larger--resulting in the first of two appearances by The Oversized Novelty Hand.

This is a terribly shabby production.  There are two boom mike shots (and I am usually pretty oblivious to boom mike shots, so if I notice them, it's really something) and a sustained shot where the special effects man's hands are clearly visible working the pumps that make the Deceitful Rival Scientist's dog cancer ooze with milky pus (he gets infected with a mixture of dog cancer and super-growth hormone; work with me here!) .  The acting is uniformly horrible, and made more so by the fact there's the sense that we're supposed to be taking this as a spoof of Jaws.  These characters are all broadly sketched and frequently come up with lines that I think we're supposed to laugh at, and even some of the names and references (like how the insufferably 'Look At Me, I's a Noo Yawker' police detective played by Michael Copeman is named Lt. Weizel) seem to indicate that somewhere, someone has their tongue firmly in cheek.  But the sheer awfulness of everything from the sets to the special effects to the molasses-slow pace prevents you from getting into a joke if there is one.  This was actively painful to sit through this time around.

The film does tick some of the boxes on my developing Rat Horror Movie Checklist.  This is the third film so far where Canada Pretends To Be America, although there's no evidence they want us to believe it's New York.  There are several Forced Perspective shots, and some Unconvincing Miniatures to deliver us with Big Rat Action.  There is a copious amount of Rat Puppets, although they're not Adorable.  Surprisingly, there is no Monologue About How Bad-Ass Rats are, and while there is a Distinctive Looking Rat, it is not the pack leader (oddly enough, the Rat Puppet representing said Distinctive Looking Rat is the only one that is Adorable).

This is the worst film of this Horrorfest at this point, not only because it's more boring than Rats: Night of Terror, but because the production is so.  Freakin'. Inept.  It wastes the talent of its female lead and actively annoyed me throughout.  There is no way I can possibly recommend this.

We're taking a couple of days off from Ratapalooza for now.  Tomorrow, the great Kelen Conley asks me to take a look at the film that won Jordan Peele an Oscar first time out, 2017's Get Out!  Kelen will be sponsoring the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT FOUR: Rats--Night of Terror (1984)

The Cavalcade of Rats Rolls On!  Today's sponsor is a man I am proud to call my Canadian Brother, the man who has kept up a weekly schedule on his podcast Dread Media for almost fifteen years now, the redoubtable Heavy Metal Monster Maestro Des Reddick!  New episodes of Dread Media (which sometimes features yours truly as a co-host) can be found over at the Earth-2.net Podcast Network!

Des has a tradition of choosing films from other nations to give me for Halloween Horrorfest, and he doesn't disappoint this year just because it's Ratapalooza...so this time out he's presented me with Bruno Mattei's vision of a rodent-fueled future, 1984's Rats: Night of Terror!

Apparently, the world was decimated by nuclear war in 2015, driving humanity underground.  In 250 A.B. (After The Bomb), a group of...scavengers?...that look like they're auditioning for a post-apocalyptic musical based on Purple Rain venture onto the surface and come across an abandoned town.  There they find food that they promptly waste by throwing around, evidence of a scientific facility and a bunch of very dead, chewed up corpses.  The group spends the night...and are quickly attacked by rats.  Lots and lots of rats.  Hungry rats

Three films into Ratapalooza, and I'm beginning to formulate a Rat Film Checklist.  For example, if you include last year's Food Of The Gods, this is the third film where there is a specific rat that is made out to be the ring leader.  This is the third film where you get a monologue about how bad-ass rats are.  Surprisingly, this is only the first film where it appears that a stagehand throws a rat at a character and the first one that features the 'shower of rats' trope.  On the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is the only film where I'll see a rat riding the head of a poor suck doing a fire stunt.  Seriously, that rat deserves a Pet Academy Award for that.

I know a lot of people remember this film fondly (Des is not the only one to request this movie; he just happened to be the first), and the only reason I can think of is how 80's it is.  I am always fascinated by how most science fiction-y films set in the future tell us more about the time they're made than the time they're set in.  One has to only look at the wardrobe our cast sports to know what decade we're in--even our leader Kurt (Octaviano Dell'Acqua), who is obviously meant to evoke Kurt Russell in The Thing with his shaggy hair and flame thrower sports a long red cravat in addition to his black leather jacket.  Some of the other characters seem to have been dressed in whatever was on hand in the studio; I particular liked Duke (Henry Luciani) who sports what seems to be a Union Army jacket festooned with police badges and Deus (Fausto Lombardi) who looks like what would happen if the WWE had a Hare Krisna themed wrestler.  And then there's Lilith (Moune Duvivier), who wears what looks like a sexy toreador outfit complete with a sword and, in the English translation, sports a Southern accent.  And I'm not going to mention the guy who I swear is wearing the same top Tegan wore in her last season as a Doctor Who companion.

You're prolly wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about wardrobe in this review.  It's because Rats: Night of Terror...well, it isn't very good.  In fact, it is the worst kind of not-very-good movie in that it's boring.  Bruno Mattei is usually pretty vigorous, especially when it comes to gore and craziness, and there's not a lot there save for the final twist.  There are long, long stretches of time where all we've got is guys yelling at each other that make the film feel longer than its ninety minutes.  And when Mattei resorts to three 'rats-escape-from-inside-a-corpse' gag, it just wore on me (although I will admit the exploding rats-escape-from-inside-a-corpse' gag was at least lively).    Yeah, its got that signature Italian actor overacting, but that only goes so far.  By the time I got to the Expository Tape Message well into Act Three--something that maybe Mattei should've put in Act Two--I was thoroughly checked out.  I had seen enough rats huddled together in a mass with silly synth music plays trying to convince me this is scary that it wasn't affecting me anymore.  Well, to be fair, it wasn't affecting me at first.

Yeah, it's brief and it's cheesy, but it's also lacking in anything that would make it fun.  I cannot recommend this one, guys.

Ratapalooza Gets Schooled tomorrow when our sponsor, the noted author Nicholas Kauffman (his new novel The Hungry Earth is out now!) goes back to the same ground he trod last year to present me with the way-too-many-years-later sequel to Bert I. Gordon's classic, Gnaw: Food of The Gods II.  It's all about the rats this go-round, but at least we have Mary Lou Maloney herself, the ever-lovely Lisa Schrage as the female lead!  Nicholas will be representing The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT THREE: The Killer Shrews (1959)

The Festival of The Rat Rolls On!  Today's sponsor is known to many people, including fans of Dread Media as Rich The Monster Movie Kid....but we know him as Kansas City's own Rich Chamberlain!  Be sure to follow Rich both on his blog, Monster Movie Kid, and on The Classic Horrors Club Podcast!  Rich is representing The Mid America Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Rich has chosen to gift me with a notorious bad movie that was once featured on MST3K, 1959's The Killer Shrews!

Captain Thorne Sherman (James Best; hope you like odd names) and his first mate Rook Griswold ("Judge" Henry Dupree) arrives at the island laboratory of Dr. Marlowe Cragis (Baruch Lumet) to deliver some supplies.  The good Doctor wants Thorne to bring his daughter Anne (the very Swedish Ingrid Goude) to the mainland, but there's a storm a'brewing, and Thorne refuses to leave until the next day.  Dr. Cragis has been working with Dr. Radford Baines (co-producer Gordon McGlendon) and Jerry The Wonder Weasel (other co-producer Ken Curtis)...okay, so his last name is Farrell, but trust me he earned my name for him...to find a way to genetically reduce the size and metabolism of the average human to prevent overpopulation (?), and have been using shrews as test subjects.  But what Thorne doesn't know is that there are a number of Shrews that grew rather than shrank in size and started breeding...and they've run out of food.  Guess who's next on the menu?

I will state this clearly--this is not a good film.  But it's not a good film in a way that you cannot get mad at it.  As cheap and magnificently awkward as this movie is, it's obvious that the cast and director/special effects supervisor Ray Kellogg tried real hard.  There's an earnestness I sometimes miss in more modern horror films...when Anne asks Thorne if he's curious about her Swedish accent, it's meant sincerely and not as a joke.  And because it's short, clocking in at 68 minutes, you don't have enough time for the charm to turn into annoyance.

I took a lot of joy in some of the stranger touches of the film.  I couldn't help notice that the cast downs a whole lot of martinis within the first twenty minutes of the film, and that certain plot developments, especially involving Jerry, seem made up on the spot.  For a while, I thought Kellogg was going for a Romero-esque 'humans fuck it up for themselves' vibe, but then I realized it was more 'Jerry fucks it up for himself.'  And the science, from the 'shrinking people to prevent overpopulation' thingie to the justification for why the titular Killer Shrews are so venomous, is gleefully wacky and made even more enjoyable by the gravitas it is treated with.

And you know what you've been waiting for.  It's time to talk about the Shrews.

Awwwww.....doggies!  And yes, they count as 'monstas'...

The fact is, while Kellogg does his best to keep exposure of the Shrews to the camera...there's no escaping the fact that they're, well, Fucking. Adorable.  Whether they're portrayed by hand puppets Kellogg uses for closeups or by dogs in shaggy carpets and cardboard monster masks, it is impossible to be scared by them.  There's a major size discrepancy between the hand puppets and the dogs, and we are so familiar with how dogs run and walk that we can't accept them as feral giant rodents.  These 'special' effects only serve to add to that feeling that we cannot scold this effort for its lack of quality.

I am going to recommend this.  Even though I laughed at times, it was more with the film rather than at it.  And, like I said, it's short enough that it endears rather than vexes.

The Rat Fiesta Continues tomorrow as my podcast brother Des Reddick of the Dread Media podcast flings me into the far future--apparently I missed the end of the world via nuclear fire back in 2015--so I can give witness to a bunch of very 80's 'savages' scavenge for food they instantly waste loads of in Bruno Mattei's 1984 post-apocalyptic throwdown Rats: Night of Terror!

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT TWO: Willard (2003)

The Festival of The Rat Continues!  And our sponsor on this second day of Ratapalooza is my very own lab rat, Chris Honeywell!  You can hear Chris' monthly travails over at The Honeywell Experiment, where I force him to watch and discuss a different Grindhouse film.  Chris chose 2003's remake of one of the milestones in rodent cinema, Willard.

Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover) feels suffocated by his life.  Between caring for his aged mother (Jackie Burroughs) who may be suffering from dementia and being bullied by his boss Frank Morgan (the great R. Lee Ermey) who resents him but can't fire him due to the conditions in his agreement to buy out Willard's father, he lives a miserable, grey life.  His life takes a change when he bonds with the rats who live in his basement; before too long, he's adopted a white rat he names Socrates and has trained the rats to do some impressive things.  But things get darker when another rat he names Ben vies for supremacy while Morgan seems to scheme to finally push Willard out...needless to say, Willard is about to snap.

Our Sponsor

Since I took Of Unknown Origin to task for this, let me get it out of the way...Willard is obviously shot in Canada and trying to convince us this is New York City.  At first I assumed 'New York' meant Long Island (Morgan's address is supposedly in 'Irvington, NY), but there are references to the subway, the Yankees and Bellvue that makes it clear that generic Vancouver landscape is supposed to be my home town.  I call rat shit on that. 

Other than that...I really dug this film when I saw it at the Ridgewood Fiveplex, lured into the theater by the names of producer James Wong and writer/director Glen Morgan, and I still dig it today.  If you're unfamiliar with the team of Morgan and Wong, they were the team that breathed life into the first few years of The X-Files before striking out on their own and finding their way to a feature film career thanks to the success of Final Destination.  Of course, an argument can be made that this was the beginning of the end of their feature film career, as the success of this led directly to the two being offered the remake of Black Christmas...and the less said about this the better.  Morgan and Wong specialize in unorthodox, sometimes humorous storytelling and Willard shows their style clearly with callbacks to The X-Files (poor Scully The Cat) and the way the film 'casts' the original Willard Bruce Davison as Willard's father through photos and paintings.

Of course, Morgan and Wong recognized that they could have the best rat wranglers around, but the greatest special effect lay in who they cast as their Willard.  And Glover, who looks sort of rat-like to begin with, is more than up to the challenge.  It's a marvelous performance, which includes some great moments of physicality (compare Glover's business with the pillow to Rebecca DeMornay's in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and it's night and day).  Glover's true genius is in making it clear that Willard is already deeply on the spectrum while still allowing us to feel sympathy for him...making what would have been silly moments have gravitas.  Granted, he may be the shining light, but Glover's performance isn't the only one worth noting; I liked how R. Lee Ermey takes what could have been a cardboard monster and gives him some depth while still making sure we hate him.  Laura Herring, who should have had a bigger career, has a thankless role as a co-worker who sympathizes with Willard...and yet, manages to bounce off Glover well enough that we can see WIllard misinterpreting her attention without having it spelled out for us.

Poor, Poor Scully The Cat

The majority of the big rat stunts are done practically, although I certainly appreciate how they hid the few moments of CGI (and we couldn't have the stunning moment of an elevator of rats disembarking in waves to reveal a grinning Glover standing in the middle without CGI).  And the humor, one overlong sequence aside (poor Scully The Cat), manages to avoid the digging-the-elbow-in-the-ribs overstating of the jokes.  

While I don't know if it is necessarily better than the original, this is super-recommended as the last glimpse of what a Morgan and Wong film career could have been, and features a great eccentric performance by a great eccentric actor.

Ratapalooza Rolls On To Day Three, as Dread Media mainstay Rich 'The Monster Movie Kid' Chamberlain drops off a 1959 black and white saga of a bunch of people sitting around drinking martinis while cute doggies in rodent masks lay siege to the island hut.  Join me as I examine the case of The Killer Shrews

...look, the scientist guy in this film explains how shrews are close relations to rats, so I'm going to say it counts.  

Rich is representing The Mid America Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society!

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT ONE: Of Unknown Origin (1983)

 

Are you excited?  I'm excited.

Our sponsor for today is one of the two men who inspired me to call for this sub-festival in my monthly festival of the macabre celebrating the true creatures who own my hometown of New York City.  Greg Lamberson, the director responsible for bringing you Slime City, Johnny Gruesome and Widow's Point took time out from working on his next film, an action thriller called Guns of Eden to ask me to write about 1983's Of Unknown Origin.  Greg is representing the American Diabetes Association.

I saw this originally on VHS, and one scene stuck in my memory....but even that pales to watching the second season of Kids In The Hall and watching a sketch where Mark McKinney goes through the same disintegration the hero goes through.

Bart Hughes (Peter Weller) is an investment banker with a promising career, a gorgeous wife (Shannon Tweed), a cute kid and a grand old house he renovated himself.  While his family is on vacation, Bart discovers that a rat has made its home in his beloved house.  Bart is not going to stand for a four-footed intruder messing up his precious prized possession, and--goaded by the advice of the super of the building next door (Louis Del Grande)--takes steps to catch the rodent.  And when this rat does not prove ammedable to those steps, Bart starts unraveling until his campaign to kill his scaley-skinned nemesis becomes an Ahab-esque obsession.

Now let's get the problematic stuff out of the way--this is one of those films that asks you to believe that New York is in Canada.  It's a Canadian film shot in Montreal, and does not at all look like New York, especially the monstrous 'brownstone' that the bulk of the film takes place in.  And even if there was a sense of New York City-ness, which there isn't, the geography of the film belies it.  I think they're trying to say this takes place in Battery Park and the Financial District...but references to hockey and some of the Canadian accents continue to belie this.

Then there's the rat...

Do not get me wrong a'tall.  I genuinely like this film, and will recommend you see it.  But there seems to be a disconnect between what George P. Cosmatos wants to make a movie about and what the producers want to make a movie about.  The strength of this story lies in Peter Weller's performance and watching this entitled Yuppie asshat disintegrate into lunacy triggered by a simple rat going about its business.  I swore before watching this again that we almost never saw the rat, and there's a moment where an argument could be made that the third act is solely in our 'hero's' head. 

But in actuality, there is way too much rat in this rat movie.  We're presented with rat close-ups--sometimes of actual rats, sometimes of obvious rat puppets--constantly, which result in the film forcing us to accept that there is not only a rat, but a super rat who displays uncanny intelligence in waging war on Weller.  Seeing all these rat-shots makes me understand why The Kids In The Hall thought this film ripe for parody.  It lessen the ambiguity that Cosmatos could have taken advantage of and forces us to focus on this solely as an urban version of Jaws.  It makes the film so literal that when we do get a dream sequence that has Weller's family coming to grim fates because of the rat, it falls thoroughly flat.

Thank God Cosmatos (who I think does not deserve the rep he has garnered because of his work with Stallone as the 80's rolled along) has Weller in his corner.  Weller manages to go nuttier and nuttier without becoming movie nutty.  It helps that we have two great character actors in Le Grande and Kieth Knight to play Capital M Movie Nutty to contrast with Weller (leading to one of the best moments of the film, where a concerned Le Grande breaks into Weller's basement, comes across him decimating his work bench with a baseball bat festooned with nails and the jaws from heavy duty mouse traps, stares and promptly leaves as if to say, 'Nope, Not Going There With You.'), but Weller is wholly in command of this story.  My favorite moment of the film is not an action sequence or a scare moment, but a long monologue at a dinner party where Weller answers the question 'How's this project coming?' with a litany of facts and figures to justify his belief that rats are The Worst Things Ever.  Tweed is surprisingly good, especially since it was obvious she was hired solely to be eye candy, and there are a number of excellent Canadian actors like the great Maury Chaykin in supporting roles.

While this film has come down slightly--very slightly--in my estimation, Of Unknown Origin has quite a bit going for it.  If you selectively remove some of the rat shots and approach it as a film about a smug Yuppie getting his comeuppance, it is worth your time and then some.

Tomorrow we reach Ratapalooza Day Two with a film sponsored by my own personal lab rat, The Honeywell Experiment co-host Chris Honeywell.  Chris has chosen a remake of one of the great pillars of the rat horror genre, 2003's Willard.  Expect me to heap much praise not only on star Crispin Glover but on Glen Morgan and James Wong, who were the real reason The X-Files worked as well as it did.

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021: Silent Night, Bloody Night a.k.a. Death House, Night of The Full Dark Moon (1972)

Even though it's only the fourth day of October, our sponsor already has a white Christmas planned out in his mind.  Alonso Duralde is not only a top notch film West Coast film critic, he has established himself as an authority on Christmas films thanks to the essential tome Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas!  And this year Alonso is one of four co-writers for I'll Be Home For Christmas Movies, the unofficial guide to Hallmark Christmas Movies that also serves to help you throw your own holiday film watching party!  Alonso is representing The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank!

When I asked Alonso to formally join my murder's row of Horrorfest curators, he not surprisingly chose a horror movie with a Christmas theme to it--namely 1972's obscurity Silent Night, Bloody Night...

The Butler House has stood unoccupied but meticulously maintained since its builder, Wilfred Butler, accidentally burned himself to death twenty two years prior.  Jeffrey Butler (Nick Cave lookalike James Patterson, who died shortly after production was completed), Wilfred's grandson, wants to sell the estate to generate some quick cash, and sends his lawyer John Carter (top billed Patrick O' Neal) to close out the deal with the mayor of the town it sits in and the three people that serve as its unofficial chamber of commerce.  But some pretty horrific murders throws the town into a tizzy.  Does it have something to do with the mental patient that escaped from a nearby asylum...or from something the chamber of commerce has been covering up, something that ties into the fate of Wilfred's daughter Marianne?

Throughout previous Horrorfests and elsewhere, I've talked about the handful of films that provided a bridge between giallo and slasher films.  Here--a pretty much home-grown independent feature that was shot on Long Island even though the narration from female lead Diane (the enthralling national treasure that is Mary Woronov) places the goings on as taking place in Massachusetts--is one of those films that build that bridge, and one I don't understand why it's so obscure.  Director/co-writer Theodore Gershuny is obviously patterning this thing after giallo, but there are other elements that will become slasher mainstays...starting with the Janet Leighing of two characters we've been led to believe are the heroes and continuing with the killer POV tracking shots.

And speaking of those killer-cam sequences....there are strong echoes of Bob Clark's Black Christmas, even though this was made two years prior.  A large portion of the first act makes its scares work for the same reason Clark's film does--namely that we are aware of someone in Butler House while our two (at least in this act) leads go about things thoroughly unaware.  Plus there's the fact that the killer makes disturbing phone calls to our character and you wonder if Clark saw this film...

I rather liked the cast, which are pretty much local actors with some exceptions.  Outside of O'Neal, who was brought in as a ringer, and Woronov, who would not gain cult fame until later, the biggest name here is John Carradine, who plays a (mostly) mute newspaperman in a rather interesting turn.  There's also a number of actors from Andy Warhol's Factory, like Candy Darling and Odine, in smallish roles.  And to be totally honest, Gershuny manages a couple of striking sequences beginning right at the start with Wilford Butler bursting from his house on fire and sliding right on through to the sepia toned back story in the third act.  There are a number of low-budget and homegrown production goofs (the ADR is really obvious throughout), but this is really effective in its way.  I suspect the fact that it fell into public domain blunted its impact on the general public, but it I really feel it deserves a little more attention than it gets.  At the very least, it should be talked about when talking about other Christmas horrors.  If you have not seen this (and I don't see why you can't, as its public domain status means it's easily accessible on YouTube), I recommend that you do.

Tomorrow it's time to usher in Ratapalooza with our sponsor, who is a major figure in West New York filmmaking and has a new film, Guns of Eden, in post-production.  Join me and the one and only Greg Lamberson to witness the slow descent into insanity of proto-Yuppie Peter Weller as his big-ass-we-know-it's-supposed-to-be-New-York-but-it's-really-Toronto luxury house is invaded by a small, four footed, scaly-tailed intruder Of Unknown Origin!  Greg represents The American Diabetes Association.

There are presently fourteen open slots for this year's festival, and if you'd like to be included, there are four ways to get your share of the spotlight:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Queens Community House Covid-19 Relief and Recovery Campaign.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

It is not necessary to choose a rat-based horror film.  However, if you do, I will forward you a special Ratapalooza banner you can display on your website.