HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021: Evil Dead Trap (1988)

And here we are at the end of another Halloween Horrorfest.  I will share some final thoughts on this year's gauntlet after talking about tonight's feature.  As is his wont, my Patreon Sean Foster (Domicile of Dread Patreons get a free slot in this and other events as well as early access to select podcasts and podcasts exclusives--plus I will get to those commentaries I promised before I die!  So maybe you'd like to join up?) bought a second slot through my Ko-Fi and asked me to watch as my last hurrah this year 1988's Japanese horror Evil Dead Trap.

Now I know I'm not the only one who loves horror but has certain...I wouldn't call them 'triggers' as much as signifiers that you try to keep away from.  One of the reasons I sat out most of the so-called 'torture porn' wave of the '00s (sorry for using that term, Luke) is because I am incredibly uncomfortable with a certain kind of aesthetic that those films played right into.  I also get extremely wigged out by what I have jokingly referred to as 'the injury to the eye motif'--not a sudden death where something goes through someone's eye, but a lingering set piece that draws out the pain of the person it's being inflicted on.  As much as I may appreciate Lucio Fulci's work, there are some scenes I have never seen in its entirety because I could not watch, say, Tisha Farrow's eye being slowly lowered onto a jagged splinter of wood.

I say that to explain why this film was such a rough watch for me.  This film has both that aesthetic to the point where I think someone who pioneered the sadism films of the 00's must've watched this film, an injury to the eye scene...and a uncomfortable rape scene and a snuff film aspect to it, which also makes me uncomfortable*.  So take that in mind when reading what follows.

Nami (Miyuki One) hosts Late, Late Night, an after hours television show that accepts viewer submissions...and one of those submissions is a tape that seems to be a travelogue until it turns into a snuff film with the aforementioned injury to the eyes motif.  Ratings are down, so Nami is eager to find out if this tape is real.  So her all-female crew save for the assistant director use the clues in the tape to locate a falling apart military base...where a figure in a camo mask and a rain poncho is waiting to kill them and get Nami to accept a position of some significance to them.  And yes...I intentionally said 'them.'

Most accounts of this film refer to it as a slasher...and yet, it's fairly obvious to me that director Toshiharu Ikeda has his mind elsewhere.  One has only to look at Ikeda's use of color and composition, as well as the very Goblin-esque score to realize that he's very consciously paying homage to Dario Argento's film--especially Deep Red and Suspiria, as there are scenes that are remarkably close to some set pieces from those movies.  Once I locked in on this, it made the transition the film makes from being just a giallo into something more fantastical late in the second act easier.  Like Argento during his early period--you know, his great period--Ikeda and scriptwriter Takashii Ishi are telling their story with a dream logic perspective.  Narrative coherence doesn't matter as much as catching the feeling of disorientation you get from a nightmare.  While I don't think it is as successful as the films that inspire it, there are moments where that feeling is achieved.

I've gotta think, incidentally, that James Wan must've saw this film...not just because the abandoned-and-decaying-industrial look of this film seems like an inspiration for the look of Saw (and thus all the much, much lesser films that tried to emulate it--including the sequels to Saw), but there is a plot twist in the third act that may have inspired another, more recent, film of his.  It's definitely a precursor to that style that dominated horror cinema both just before and well after the turn of the century.

I will say that the third act seems...a little longer than it should be, especially when it comes to the final sting in the tale, which takes five minutes to get to something that could've been gotten to in one.

Did I enjoy this film?  Not really, because it was pressing so many of my 'do not want' buttons.  Do I think you might enjoy this film?  I do, especially from a historical perspective, as it may very well be a bridge between 1970's Italy and 2000's America when it comes to popular horror genres.

AAAAaaaaaaaand We're Done!

You and I have made it through another Halloween Horrorfest.  It wasn't as successful as last year's gauntlet...but then that gauntlet raised far more money for various charities than I expected it to.  In retrospect, I think the impulsive decision to devote such a large portion of this year's event to a theme was a mistake; the back half of the schedule began to wear on me a lot quicker, and it brought in more films of substandard means and intentions.  I don't think I will do a festival-in-a-festival again, although I am open to suggestions.

Thanks, as always, to my Patreons, my various celebrity guests who I still can't believe actively participate, and you for sticking around.  I can now go back to watching and talking about what I want and striving to make good on promises I have made, starting with that episode of Don't Call It A... featuring me and Michael Bailey talking about the very 70's team comic The Champions, a little morsel I've teased called I Bought That For A Dollar!, and an essay entitled 'The Joy of Finiteness.'  I hope you will stick around, and I hope I will be back to being more prolific.  See you soon!

*--Yes, I know one of the stories in V/H/S/94 has a snuff film component, but it's introduced so late in the day that I didn't have the impact that the one in this film did.  Also...watching the final product makes my imagination go to darker places than watching a product being made, if that makes sense.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT NINETEEN: V/H/S/94 (2021)

I'm calling it--this is the last night of Ratapalooza.  When my Patreon Sean Foster sent me a Ko-Fi for the last spot, I begged him not to choose a rat movie.  You can say I am ratted out.  And thankfully this last movie is only 20% rat related, as it's another anthology...in this case, the brand new entry in the V/H/S series, V/H/S 94.

As with Nightmares, we'll get to the rat-related segment, 'Storm Drain,' after we check in with the other segments...and address something right up front.

As with the other films in the franchise, V/H/S 94 is not just an anthology--a format I love--but an anthology of found footage stories.  I loathe found footage, finding it in many, many cases an easy crutch to cover up a low budget, not realizing how constricting the format is.  And credit where credit is due, there are some stories that actually turn those constrictions into a benefit.  But there are moments in other stories where you're wondering where the camera angle is coming from at certain moments...and there are moments where the overriding conceit of all of these stories as taking place in 1994 breaks down.

The framing sequence, which turns into the final story is written and directed by Jennifer Reeder and entitled 'Holy Hell' (although the closing credits list it as 'Holly Hell,' which is...confusing for reasons you'll discover below).  It's about a SWAT team raiding a warehouse that is home to a strange cult that has pulled a Heaven's Gate involving some sort of weird goop.  It's...okay, definitely competent if sometimes confusing and ends up with a twist that seems to throw out the goop stuff, which is made out to be highly significant in the first couple of sequences.  It doesn't help that two other stories also involve weird goop that is dangerous to us humans, as there's a maybe unintentional implication that all these goops are the same.

'The Empty Wake,' written and directed by Simon Barrett, is the weakest of all the stories.  It focuses on Emily (Kyal Legend) supervising a wake on behalf of her employers which is seriously underattended...and maybe with good reason.  This is the one where the 'who the Hell is filming from this angle?' feeling nagged at me--in one case, a couple of shots are shot from Emily's point of view, but Barrett doesn't explain that the employers left a handycam behind until late in the tale.  The bulk of this tale is watching Legend just hanging around, and she's a decent enough actress...but I kept getting the sense that there were a number of things Barrett wanted to let us in on that he couldn't figure out how.  There is a big ass jumpscare followed by a couple of smaller jumpscares that don't land, but the overall impression I got is that this was a collection of bits rather than a story.

'The Subject,' written and directed by Timo Tjahjanto, is my favorite story for a number of reasons.  It's about a mad scientist (Buddy Ross) with a real cyborg obsession who is kidnapping people and trying to 'enhance' them on the day that the Jakartan police find him.  The tale is told mostly through the video camera-enhanced...eye?..of Number 99, the first of his successes.  What, to me, makes this one work so well is that Tjahjanto takes full advantage of the video camera gimmick and creates a ticking clock element with it.  The first person perspective is novel, and manages to give the monstrous Number 99 a great deal of humanity; when we get the reveal halfway through of what she looks like, the reaction is not repulsion but sympathy and maybe a little pity.  Unlike with 'The Empty Wake,' there is a strong sense of who is shooting what, which I greatly appreciated.  And the ending implies...a little hope for our main character?

Finally, we get 'Terror' written and directed by Ryan Prows, which I think was meant to be blackly comic.  It's about an alt-right militia planning a terrorist attack on a government building in Detroit utilizing some goop it gets from a drifter they kill every night who turns out to be...a vampire?  This is the other one besides 'Sewer Drain' where the setting felt more like a roleplay scenario than a setting.  The militia members themselves are cartoons and, one sequence involving a rabbit to the contrary, are not as funny or chilling as Prows thinks they are.  The vampire's final incarnation sure is different, seemingly inspired by one too many viewings of Blade Two.  It's definitely a lower tier tale.

So now I can tell you about 'Storm Drain,' written and directed by Chloe Okuno, which is the first tale before you realize 'Holy Hell' was not just the wrap-around.  It's about local Ohio newswoman Holly (Anna Hopkins) and her cameraman investigating the local legend of 'The Ratman,' a creature who lives in the sewers.  Spurred on by compassion--and maybe a bit of glory-hunting--Holly decides to go deep into the sewer systems to report on the homeless who live there...and, not surprisingly, it goes pear shape as she discovers these homeless people are part of a cult that worships 'Ratma,' who is indeed some form of rat demon.  I liked this one quite a bit in spite of some of the anachronisms in the script (at one point Holly tells a militia man guarding the storm drain 'Thank you for your service,' which didn't become common parlance until after 9/11) and enjoyed the final bit, which achieves the blackly comic moment that 'Terror' thinks it does.

Now that we've talked about all the stories, I'd like to point out one thing that bugged me....namely, that three of these stories seem to put all their eggs in the 'freaky monster reveal' basket.  With the exception of 'The Subject'--which uses the freaky monster reveal trope to elicit an emotional response--and 'Holy Hell,' which seems to promise monsters but instead goes for something else, there's a sameness to the beats of these stories that only pointed out the artificiality of the found footage genre.  It's a little niggle, but it did interfere with my overall appreciation.  As a whole...I'm going to give this one a mild recommend as it did keep my interest even though I was highly resistant to the subgenre as a whole.

Thanks to Patreon Sean Foster, we're out of slots...and we reach the end of this year's gauntlet with his choice of 1988's Evil Dead Trap, which is a film from Japan that some describe as a slasher, but I suspect harkens back to an older horror subgenre...while also predicting a future subgenre.  See you at the finish line.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT EIGHTTEEN: Big Freaking Rat (2020)

After experiencing the crapitude that was Rat Scratch Fever, I approached today's feature with a load of trepidation.  After all, the title seemed to indicate that it was cut from the same cloth as that misbegotten movie, and the plot summary seemed to hint that it was one of those 'people wander around the woods' epics that a lot of low budget filmmakers resort to to avoid having to construct actual sets.  And when I saw the grade school CGI titles of Big Freaking Rat, my hopes got a lot lower for it to be of value.

Happily for my sanity, it's flawed and overall mediocre, but it has some things going for it.

Let's get The Ratapalooza Checklist out of the way...

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This was shot in Acton, California.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  No.  There is only one rat in this film and it's way too ginormous to throw at somebody.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  The giant rat prosthetic is pretty phony looking but has its charms.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE? No, but there is a discourse on the sizes of various rat species.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS: No, thankfully.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  Yes...until he becomes the hero?

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? No.  This rat comes about due to toxic waste dumping and no research is involved.

Cousins Dylan (Caleb Thomas) and Naomi (CeCe Kelly) are spending the summer with Dylan's dad Brody (Scott C. Roe).  Brody's a park ranger, and he's made it his personal project to reclaim some abandoned park lands and transform it into a campground.  Unfortunately, those abandoned park lands were used by unspecified companies to dump toxic waste, and a rat got into some of that waste...and now a Big Freaking Rat is living in the mine tunnels under the grounds, intending to chow down on as many campers as possible.

You can see why I was so wary of this film...and to be fair, writer/director Thomas J. Churchill isn't really planning on giving us a story with any nuance here.  And the flaws I found in this film stem primarily from his efforts.  For a straightforward monster movie, Churchill has a weird stutter-step style in both writing and directing; one of the reasons I almost bailed before the film won me over in because the first ten minutes contains some tedious and meant-to-be-funny-but-isn't banter between characters.  There are some scenes where Churchill makes choices, especially in regards to those involving Dem Komedy Gangsters (we'll get to them in a moment), in terms of choosing shots that take me out of the film whole.  And the choice Churchill makes to Janet Leigh his main characters well into the third act in favor of making the comic relief exterminator the Bruce Campbell-esque hero is...odd.

But...

...those missteps are outweighed but what the film gets right.  For one thing, there are actual characters in this movie to care about that are sketchily scripted out but are brought to life by some likeable actors.  Once I got past the rough introductory scene between Brody and Dylan, I quickly learned to like Brody thanks to an earnest, genuine performance by Roe.  I was impressed at how Roe never loses Brody's humanity even during the few moments that could have been problematic.  And the characters at the ranger station who surround Brody are pleasant and given a nice liveliness by their actors.*  I was particularly impressed by the one and only Felissa Rose (who I've always thought was a decent actor) as Brody's fellow ranger and live-in girlfriend Maxine, as the loving chemistry between her and Roe is palatable.  If we were just dealing with this group of characters, I suspect I would have liked this film even more.

On the other hand, we have a trio of Dem Komedy Gangsters who are trying to interrogate someone they're convinced sold them out.  They are here literally to introduce and set up a gag concerning very Noo Yawk exterminator Lenny (Dave Sheridan), and their two scenes are not only interminable but very oddly shot.  In the first scene involving this trio, one is almost exclusively shot in close-up while another is just hovering around the scene.  These scenes are overlong and unfunny, and could easily have benefited from another pass in the script phase...even with one of the pay-offs being Lenny's evocation of the title in the third act.

I was grateful that after the really awkward CGI title sequence (which was unnecessary, as the title flashes a second time after the scene that follows directly) the special effects were all practical.  More importantly, they were silly without being 'ironically' laughable.  I didn't believe the creature was credible, but I did accept it in the context of this film's style and it doesn't overwhelm the scenes in which it appears.  It's cheesy, but it's meant to be.

Churchill's cv indicates he has about sixteen directorial credits to his name and eight projects in various stages of production.  I won't say that I am anxiously anticipating what he does next--one of those projects, entitled Thomas J. Churchill's M, fills me with dread--but I will say that he did a film that is enjoyable enough during its viewing time.  I actually think I'm going to mildly recommend this, as it could be a fine movie to have on in the background during your holiday party.

Tomorrow...well, it turns out that a brand new film that dropped on Shudder has approximately 20% rat content so I am going to sit down with V/H/S/94.  Hail Ratma.

There are presently three 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.

*--I wanted to single out the actor who play's Brody's horse-riding deputy ranger, but neither IMdB nor the Movie Database listed the character in its cast list...so whoever you are, I salute you, because you were great!

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT SEVENTEEN: Rat Scratch Fever (2011)

...sigh...

I have been doing the Halloween Horrorfest for four years now.  The first year I did it out of boredom.  The three years since I've done it as a way to raise money for good causes, to shed light on causes people might not think about and, yeah, to raise some money for myself.  But there's also, for me, the sense of discovery.  By using sponsors, celebrity guests and the Randomizer, I usually end up experiencing films I would not otherwise experience.  The joy of telling people about watching fare such as Onibaba or All About Evil in the hopes of getting others turned on to these gems is what keeps me going.

But there's always that one moment in every Horrorfest, that moment where I start questioning the validity of hosting this month-long event every year...and start questioning my life choices as well.  Those are the moments where my despair overwhelms me, where I feel that what I am doing is futile.  It's the moment where I almost give in to the deepest depression my mental illness can serve up.

Rat Scratch Fever is that moment for me in the Year of Our Lord 2021.

I guess we should go through The Ratapalooza Checklist....

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This was shot in L.A.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  No.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  I don't know if everyone will find these Rat Phink-esque puppets cute, but I do...plus we have some rat plushies playing giant rats.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE? No, actually.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS? Yes.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  No.

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? The research of this is more about space exploration than medical concerns.

Sonja (Tasha Tacosa) is the only survivor of a space mission to 'Planet X' on behalf of the Steele Space Corporation, and she's not herself.  It seems that Planet X was full of giant rats, and some of those rats not only snuck on board the spaceship, but entered Sonja through her naughty bits and turned her into a Queen Rat Zombie.  She then proceeds to do...stuff...as Dr. Steele (Randel Malone) tries to hunt her down and kill her.  Unfortunately for us, Dr. Steele doesn't succeed thanks to Sonja's boyfriend Jake (Ford Austin), who unwittingly gives her shelter while she continues to prey on guys for their blood...which I guess makes her a Queen Rat Zombie Vampire.  And then giant rats descend from Griffith Park and there's an...apocalypse, I guess?

This is the misbegotten child of one Jeff Leroy, who wrote and directed this.  An examination of Mr. Leroy's cv reveals that he also directed such films as Giantess Attack, Werewolf In A Woman's Prison, Frankenstein In a Woman's Prison and Giantess Attack vs. Mecha Fembot.  But even before seeing these titles, I knew what this guy is all about.  This is one of these guys who writes and directs inept and sloppy films where the concept is more important than the plot or the acting or the look of the film because he can pass these films off as 'fun throwbacks to the grindhouse era.'

Fuck guys like Jeff Leroy, and fuck other 'neo-grindhouse' hacks like him.  They think that intentionally making things inept and acknowledging it (there's a mock production stamp that proclaims itself 'Low Grade Productions' in the tradition of Lord Lew Grade's ITV television network) frees them from actually having to try, which is an insult to genuine grindhouse films.  The thing that Leroy doesn't realize is that grindhouse films were low budget and frequently inept because these people didn't have money--but they had enthusiasm and drive that sometimes made up for the lack of finance.  Leroy is insulting people who made vintage grindhouse films sincerely by using the tradition they created to cover up his lack of imagination and willingness to spend money.

There wasn't a moment while I was watching this film where I was engaged or amused or entertained.  The film drags at a glacial pace, which is something impressive given that it is edited like an 80's music video.  There are moments that you know Leroy is assuming will be big moments--a couple of action film-esque one-liners, a couple of 'shocking' gore effects--but they fail to land completely.  It's filled with the kinds of actors who only get parts in student films and similarly low rent epics like this (I should point out that I recognized Malone from another lazy crapfest familiar to viewers of Red Letter Media and Possum Reviews, The Amazing Bulk).  It's incoherent in the way people like him believe is incoherent, when it's all too obvious what is going on.

I know there are going to be people who will mock me for taking this too seriously, or who will admonish me to 'turn off my brain and enjoy.'  I like movies that engage my brain, thank you very much, and also movies that are not calculated in their ineptness under the guise of a 'fun throwback.'  Say what you'd like about Ray Dennis Steckler or Andy Milligan--but they wanted to make good movies and tried to do so; that they failed so spectacularly is why those guys will be remembered long after Jeff Leroy has melted away into obscurity.

Fuck this movie.  It's worthless. I deserve Hazard Pay for putting up with this.

Tomorrow...well, I'm running out of films, which means I am going to be stuck with 2020's Big Freaking Rat.  I can only hope it's better than this turd.

There are presently four 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 SIXTEEN: Nightmares (1983)

As we roar into the final lap of this rodent-laden festival of fear, The Ratapalooza Randomizer has blessed me with a true oddity.  Tonight's film, 1983's Nightmares, was originally intended as a TV pilot for a proposed horror anthology.  When the network it was made for, NBC, passed, Universal Pictures decided to release it theatrically...where it made six and a half million dollars.  Wikipedia (and we all know how reliable they are) claims the film had a budget of nine million, but I suspect that's exaggerated....either way, it didn't make enough money until it was released on VHS.

I had originally seen this on VHS, when I wrote about it for my old fanzine, Sticky Carpet Digest.  I remember thinking it was okay, if a bit chintzy.  But at that time I did not know about its made for TV origins.  Looking at it now, with that knowledge, I understand why it was chintzy.  It's a film made for NBC in the 80's and designed to be split into four individual episodes if the series ran long enough that it could be sold to syndication.  That explains the rather lengthy animated sequence before the credits--you just know producer Christopher Crowe was planning on there being some kick-ass narration by a horror legend over the primitive computer-generated landscape--and the overall flat lighting and basic shots.

We'll get to the Ratapalooza Checklist Shortly....but let's briefly touch upon the first three stories.

'Chapter One' is entitled 'Terror In Topanga,' and it's as bland as it sounds.  It's literally a retelling of 'The Killer In The Backseat' urban legend without any embellishment or twist to justify its existence.  There is a slightly gory attack at the top of the story which may have been added later to get the film its R rating, but it's otherwise thoroughly forgettable.

'Chapter Two' is the one everyone remembers, and not just because it stars Emilio Estevez, 'The Bishop of Battle.'  Estevez is JJ, who we know is a punk rocker by all the vintage Fear and X tracks on his Walkman.  He's obsessed with getting to the twelfth level of the titular video game, to the point where he's letting his grades slide, ignoring Moon Zappa's come-ons and hustling inner city gangbangers to finance his crusade.  One night he breaks into the arcade and does reach that twelfth level...and things go pear shape.  It's very on-rails, and it ends up exactly where you think it does.  Much props for that soundtrack, though, which is the liveliest the score gets.

'Chapter Three' is 'The Benediction,' which features Lance Henrickson as a priest who has lost his way crossing path with an ominous black Chevy truck who has it in for him.  Almost every time I hear people mention this story calls it a rip-off of Duel, but this viewing I was reminded more of The Car...only it doesn't have that film's nuance or depth.  Henrickson is really good, but you can see the ending coming a mile away.

And now we come to the reason I'm writing about this film, and you know what that means--The Ratapalooza Checklist!

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This was shot in California.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  No.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  At times.  Most of the time, director Joe Sargent resorts to Bert I. Gordon-style optical effects.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE? Kinda.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS? Yes.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  There is an exterminator, but he is more of a...Van Helsing figure?

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? No research is involved; supernatural origins are teased but the veracity of said origins is ambiguous.

In 'Night of The Rat,' Richard Mazur is a Businessman Who Cares Only About Business and won't let his wife Veronica Cartwright pay for an exterminator when they experience rat trouble.  His attempts at rat killing seem successful until what may be a German Rat Demon that preys upon mean humans takes to terrorizing the family.

Like with the other segments, this is flatly shot with no real 'stamp' of the director.  Mazur and Cartwright, being acting veterans, do well bringing their underwritten characters to some semblance of life...but the most interesting character in the story, and the film, lies with Albert Hague's Mel Keefer, the exterminator who apparently is knowledgeable about demonology.  After sitting through a parade of goofy exterminators giving us heel promos on behalf of the rats all this month, Hague chooses a different tack.  He talks about rats in a reverent, respectful way, and his generally quiet performance is in excellent contrast to the broad 'callow yuppie' that Mazur is doing.  I think the segment might've been better if it continued along the lines that character was hinting at instead of going for a more conventional resolution that muddies the water rather than clears it up.

I can see why the television series wasn't picked up; most of these stories are derivative, and there is a lack of depth to the characterization.  I wonder if Crowe had come up with a host segment to introduce each story if it might've found its place on NBC's schedule.  As a movie however, its segments just put out there for our examination, it's not very good.

Tomorrow...well, it was inevitable, I guess, that I'd eventually hit upon a film about evil rats from space.  That'll be 2011's Rat Scratch Fever.  

There are presently five 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 FIFTEEN: Killer Rats (a.k.a. Rats 2003)

So The Ratapalooza Randomizer must've talked to last year's Randomizer.

You see, last year I ended up reviewing Mansquito, a made-for-cable monsta movie that was directed by Tibor Takacs.  I was a big fan of Takacs' second film, I, Madman, so I was excited to view this...and was a little disappointed.  Imagine my surprise when tonight I was presented with another Takacs film, one that bluntly lets us know what we're in for with the title, Killer Rats.

Let's start with The Ratapalooza Checklist!

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This was shot in Bulgaria, but it's trying to sell us on this being Philadelphia because a second unit shot the skyline of that city and used that shot twice.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  Nope, but there is a delightful Shower O' Rats.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  No.  The rats are mostly very dicey CGI with some strategic use of live rats CGI'd up with red eyes.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE?: There is the start of one twice, but both times the speakers are cut off.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS? No, but there is a cat victimization moment referred to in dialogue.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  There are two exterminators who had the potential to be comic relief, but they're not around for very long.

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? No reason for what the research that made the rats aggressive and telepathic (and in one case, really big) is given.

Samantha (Sara Dowling) has been sent to the Brookdale Institute (A Modern Care Provider Corproation!) to deal with her illegal-substance-related suicide attempt.  The Institute's head Dr. William Winslow (Ron Perlman) assures her the staff is all here to help her...but the place is run down, the miniscule staff is overworked, there might be some malfeasance involved....and, ummm, there's this weird CGI mutant rat leading the rat population in hunting and eating the population..and has its own Renfield in the facility's ropey custodian (Michael Zelniker).  Can Samantha--who is really Jennifer, an undercover reporter, escape this oncoming scaley-tailed apocalypse?

Now, it seems like this is another Takacs film, much like Mansquito, which was filmed with an eye towards selling it to SyFy (The Veneral Disease Pop Culture Network!)...and just like Mansquito it's not very good.  In fact, I would venture to say that it's worse because we don't get the engaging practical effects of Manquito's first half.  But this is a case where I would not lay the blame at Takacs' feet, but at producer/story provider Boaz Davidson.

You may be familiar with Mr. Davidson for producing such things as The Expendables, the two more recent Rambo films (with Rambo: New Blood on the way!), and the ________ Has Fallen franchise.  But he's also produced a metric ton of these Syfy original cheapies, coming up with the story for many of them and even writing some of them.  Thankfully, he gave up directing in the 90's.  While a portion of the problems with this film come from the ropey CGI and the lackluster cast--I'm willing to bet a large portion of the film's budget went to Ron Perlman and Sara Dowling, who we're reminded by all the publicity stuff was in Never Been Kissed--, the real sucking chest wounds that sinks this film lies in its script.  It is very confused, with a lot not explained and things explained that maybe shouldn't have been and characters who are little more than placeholders for scenes between rat nom noms.  Yeah, I know that the script is credited to Jace Anderson and Adam Geirasch, but dammit, Davidson told them what to write about.

The only moments where I was not just passively observing this thing were the moments where I could check a box off the Ratapalooza Checklist.  The monster rat, which in other features would be a payoff in the third act, is shown in the first act and...is really awful looking.  More effective were the moments where we see a giant scaly tail sliding in under vents and such.  The rules of the monsters are confusing and vague (Why do the bites from the big rat confer telepathy onto humans?) and the gore effects are...well, there.  It's not the worst film so far--The Mutation still holds that title due to its sheer ineptness--but it may very be the laziest.  There are moments where I could see how a decision here and there could have improved this film, but at every turn it takes the path of least effort, and that results in something that's not scary, not aggravating...it's...just Not.  Needless to say, this is not recommended.

We're down to the home stretch of Ratapalooza, and the Randomizer has given me something pretty interesting--namely, a failed pilot for a horror anthology show that was released theatrically and features as one of its four stories something called 'Night of The Rat.'  Join me back in the hazy year of 1983 for Nightmares!

There are presently six 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.

*--I should mention that I presently have only four rat movies left, which means there will be two slots that anyone who wants to contribute can force me to watch whatever they want!

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2021/RATAPALOOZA NIGHT THIRTEEN: The Piper (a.k.a. The Guest, Somnim,2015)

So after that deluge of mediocre to terrible in the last few nights of Ratapalooza, I needed to get a refresher of sorts...you know, something that didn't fill me with ennui.  Given my love of Asian cinema and television, I turned to the 2015 Korean film The Piper...and man, that was the ticket.

First off, The Ratapalooza Checklist!

1) IS CANADA SUBBING FOR AMERICA?  No.  This film is set in a small village in Korea after The Korean War.

2) DOES SOMEONE OFFSCREEN THROWS A RAT AT SOMEONE TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE IT'S ATTACKING HIM?  If it happened, I did not see it.

3) ARE THERE CUTE RAT PUPPETS?  No.  The rats are portrayed by a combination of live rats and CGI of varying effectiveness.

4) IS THERE A SPEECH ABOUT HOW BAD-ASS RATS ARE? No.

5) IS A CAT VICTIMIZED BY RATS? Yes, although mercifully we're only shown the aftermath and not the actual attack.

6) IS THERE AN EXTERMINATOR CHARACTER, AND IS HE COMIC RELIEF?  Technically, the titular Piper is the exterminator character...and trust me, even though he wears a clown nose at times, you won't be thinking of him as comic relief.

7) DOES THE RESEARCH RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RAT CATASTROPHE MENTION CANCER? No.  This film is a classic 'Karma Revenge' situation, so there's no scientific mischief involved.

Woo-Ryong (Ryu Seung-Ryong) is a piper who is traveling with his sick son to Seoul.  They come across a relatively untouched village that has been plagued by rats after the death of a colony of lepers and their shaman.  Woo-Ryung, who has an uncanny ability to lead animals with his piping, offers to clear out the rats and succeeds while also entering into a romance with Mi Sook (Chun Woo-hee), who has been proclaimed the new shaman by the Village Chief (Lee Song-min).  However, in an effort to keep a terrible secret...well, secret, the Chief frames the piper as a communist spy and leads the village in mutilating and beating him.  The developments before and during this act, including a suicide, a poisoning and the death of his child, push Woo-Ryung to enact a horrible revenge in the name of scores being settled.

The reviews I've seen of this film always call it a 'fantasy horror,' but I really don't see the fantasy part.  Yes, the piper claims to be able to charm animals with his music--but we also learn that Woo-Ryong is a bit of a con man and does his work through his knowledge of pharmacology more than anything else.  I'm sort of glad they only touched upon his dishonesty lightly, though, because a heavier emphasis might have blurred the 'more sinned against' line the story walks.  You never question who's in the wrong here, even if we didn't learn of the secret this village holds, which reminded me a bit of The Fog.

I really liked how the cinematography by Hong Jae-sik keys into Woo-Ryong's emotional state.  In the first half the shots are gorgeous, colorful and bright...but as the village conspires against him, the color palette gets duller and darker until it's a grim, hazy, dark tableau when it comes time for Woo-Ryong to get his revenge.  And the film is refreshingly free of jump scares, choosing to save its entropic imagery for moments of atmosphere or--in one striking case, when Woo-Ryong accepts his son's death, a little bit of poetic magic realism.  Unlike other films which try to use such moments we've seen previously in this year's Horrorfest, those moments are earned.

You know what else is earned?  The run time, which is almost two hours.  Writer/director Kim Gwang-tae skillfully paces this so that I was able to watch it in one sitting without getting antsy and checking the clock.  While I certainly believe films, especially horror films, should be shorter and punchier, I am very pleased when a movie like this doesn't fill its long running time with filler.

The Piper was an overall satisfying entry.  Yes, it's subtitled (and to be fair, not subtitled very well--it could have benefited from the color of the text being changed to yellow so it wouldn't blend into some of the characters' clothing), and yes, it foreign...but if you're not willing to venture outside your box, you're missing out.  I highly recommend it!

Tomorrow, The Ratapalooza Randomizer brings me down to earth with yet another film from the dark days of the career of Tibor Takacs.  I thought The Gate was okay, I loved I, Madman...but will I like2003's Killer Rats, or will it disappoint me like Mansquito did last year?  Only one way to find out...

There are presently seven 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.