Fantasia ’19: Critters Attack!

How could a franchise so rich in history go twenty-seven years without a new film? Remember, it was Critters 3 that made a star out of a sickly-looking teen named Leonardo DiCaprio—and his career has been going down hill ever since. Happily, the Krites (a.k.a. Critters) are still going strong, having roared back first with a Shudder reboot series and now a new installment in the original film series. The alien fur balls return to chow down on earthlings in Bobby Miller’s Critters Attack!, which had its world premiere at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Alas, poor Drea has had a hard time of it. Ever since her mother died in a traffic accident, she and her little brother Phillip (an alien invasion-conspiracy theory monger) have had to live with their uncle Lewis Haines, a well-meaning but often drunken sheriff. She pines to matriculate at nearby Leroy College, the elite school her late mom briefly attended, but she lacks the necessary connections. Reluctantly, she agrees to baby sit for a natural history professor, hoping she can call in the favor next time she applies. Of course, she will take the neurotic Lacy siblings, Trissy  and Jake, to the park just when the Critters start attacking.

Since Phillip had long carried a torch for Trissy Lacy, he happily came along with Drea. Maybe it is just as well, because he is better able to recognize an alien invasion when one happens, even if it is conducted by round balls of hair and teeth, greatly resembling Animal from The Muppet Show. However, his judgement is somewhat clouded by Trissy’s presence, especially when the precocious pre-teen insists on taking home an injured white Krite, whom she dubs “Bianca.”

Have no fear franchise followers—the Krites attack early and often. Although the latest Critters movie is set in our day and age, it definitely has a late-1980s-early-1990s vibe going on. It is definitely true to the spirit of the original, especially given Dee Wallace’s return the franchise, as “Aunt Dee,” for the first time since starring in Critters Numero Uno.

For fans, it will be great fun watching Wallace in an Ellen Ripley-esque role. However, it is rather surprising how earnest and appealing Tashiana Washington, Jaeden Noel, and Stephen Jennings are as Drea, Phillip, and Uncle Lewis, respectively. Their family drama and dynamics actually play out well on-screen.

Of course, the Critters are just a blast of furry madness. Clearly, everyone involved had great affection for the original films, including raising genre talents Miller (who previously directed The Cleanse), screenwriter Scott Lobdell (best known for penning Happy Death Day), and editor Mike Mendez (director of The Last Heist and Don’t Kill It).

Sure, it looks somewhat low budget, but that is part of its charm. This Critters is all very old school and nostalgic, in the right ways. Highly recommended for fans Critters and hirsute creatures in general, Critters Attack! had its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia, ahead of its July 23^rd DVD release.

Death House: The Cast is Killer, but the Movie is Dead

Abandon all hope, because you are in for some half-baked Nietzschean platitudes. It is not the Nazi and Satanist mass murderers who are the real bad guys in this subterranean super-max prison. It is the lab coats who want to move humanity beyond good and evil. Alas, this film makes you wish you could materialize Nietzsche out of thin air to tell the filmmakers what a hash they have made of his philosophy, like Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall. For some reason, a who’s who of horror also parades through B. Harrison Smith’s enormously problematic Death House (trailer here), which releases today on VOD.

Toria Boon and Jae Novak are FBI special agents who have just apprehended two of the most notorious terrorists at-large (foreign in his case, but she collared Sieg, a home-grown Neo-National Socialist), or so they have been told. However, they quickly start to suspect they have experienced Death House’s brain-scrambling technology first-hand before. They both committed horrible crimes to accomplish their objectives, but Doctors Eileen Fletcher and Karen Redmane assure them they shouldn’t concern themselves over the eggs they had to break to cook up a tasty law & order omelet.

It turns out Boon and Novak chose the wrong day to get brainwashed at Death House, because a full-scale escape attempt will trigger a complete lock-down. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as locked down as it should be. This puts the bargain-basement Mulder and Sculley in an awkward position, but instead of making a break for the surface, they head towards the “Five Evils” housed in the bottom-most level.

So, basically, Harrison builds towards a climax wherein the Rudolf Hess-like Giger, the Elizabeth Bathory clone, Balthoria, and Crau, a freak who looks like Michael Berryman from The Hills Have Eyes, because he is played by Michael Berryman, help regulate the world, because you can’t good without their borderline supernatural manifestations of evil. Blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Indeed, Death House is so well-stocked with horror-specializing character actors, it is trying to get other people to call it the Expendables of horror. However, the film scandalously squanders much of their talents. Dee Wallace and Barbara Crampton have some moments as Fletcher and Redmane. Sid Haig chews plenty of scenery as the Icicle Killer, but his character conveniently disappears after his big scene. There is also Tony Todd playing a serial killing farmer in utterly baffling, completely unrelated wrap-around segments.

Frankly, Tiffany Shepis and Debbie Rochon have such inconsequential cameos, the film’s marketing does not even bother to mention them. On the other hand, prominent use is made of Adrienne Barbeau’s name, yet her only participation is narrating a training video Boon and Novak watch. At least the great Kane Hodder tries to give fans their money’s worth as Sieg.

For what its worth, Cortney Palm and Cody Longo are reliably bland as Boon and Novak. This film just craters so thoroughly, not even Hodder can save it. It is all just rather messy and eh. Not recommended, Death House releases today (11/6) on VOD.

Kew Gardens ’18: Horror Movie

Abortion. Psycho villains with Down Syndrome. Frankly, the only thing missing in Craig Anderson’s Red Christmas is a musical number for Adolf Hitler. Believe it or not, this was a hard film for the first-time Australian director to make. As you might expect, the behind-the-scenes mayhem is more entertaining than the heavy-handed gore fest on-screen. Even viewers who had no patience with the resulting film will be transfixed train-wreck style by Gary Doust’s Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.

The Anderson Doust captures on film is such an earnest, likable chap, who has so much adversity thrown at him, we feel rather bad about panning Red Christmas back to the Stone Age, but its just bad, dude. Regardless, the blood, sweat, tears, and toil that went into its making were absolutely epic. Anderson dedicates every cent he has to the production, yet he is still short about one-hundred grand Australian a week before shooting starts. On the plus side, he has Dee Wallace from Cujo and The Howling signed as his lead—or so he thinks. It turns out SAG-AFTA will brazenly demand a pay-off before sanctioning her appearance.

That is before Anderson even starts rolling, which starts off disastrously. Nevertheless, Anderson is such a deer-in-the-headlights underdog, the cast and crew gamely rally behind him. It is downright inspiring to see the film come together, albeit in a somewhat perverse way, given how terrible it is. The [mis]adventures naturally continue through post, but at this point, Doust’s doc becomes a rather instructive lesson in how to secure distribution for a genre film.

Watching Horror Movie after Red Christmas is indeed a weird experience. You have to respect Anderson’s scrappiness and his friendship with a featured actor who really has Down Syndrome in real-life is genuinely endearing. Fans will also be happy to see Wallace comes across as quite a jolly good sport, who pushes Anderson to make a better film, in the right, non-diva-ish kind of way.

Presumably, you can enjoy Horror Movie without having seen Red Christmas first. At least, that is what we strongly suggest. After all, you don’t need to see Coven to understand American Movie, which is a rather apt comparison film. Recommended for cult movie fans, Horror Movie screens this Sunday (8/5), as part of the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.

Red Christmas: Bah Humbug

There is something sinfully transgressive about Christmas horror movies, such as Silent Night, Bloody Night; Silent Night, Deadly Night; and Silent Night, Zombie Night, but they are maybe not so brilliantly original when it comes to titles. In any case, it is weirdly compelling to watch slasher violence during what is supposed to be a family holiday. Unfortunately, Craig Anderson does not know when to stop. Instead of mere yuletide gore, he delivers an absolutist pro-abortion access message early and often in Red Christmas (trailer here), which opens tonight in New York.

Apparently, this film is set in Mississippi, New South Wales, where twentysome years ago, there was a nasty bombing at an abortion clinic. As fate would have it, the recently widowed Diane had just finished her procedure when the bomb went off, resulting in utter bedlam. However, it turns out her fetus-baby-lump of tissue-sacred human life was not sufficiently aborted. The mad bomber would adopt the woeful Cletus, who will come looking for his birth mother after the death of his surrogate father.

Naturally, Cletus turns up just as Diane is about to open presents with her stoner second husband Joe and her obnoxious, entitled grown children. The Bible-thumping, cloak-wearing Cletus is out for either revenge and/or acceptance from his mother. Frankly, he is probably has grounds to feel resentful, given the presumed effects of the procedure on his long-term development, but he is a fundamentalist, so that is evil enough for Anderson.

Have you ever been to a Christmas party where some loudmouth won’t shut up about Trump, Obama, W., or whoever? You know how everyone just agrees with him hoping he’ll let it rest, but he can tell it isn’t sincere, so he gets even more belligerent? This film is that guy. Seriously, just by making a Christmas slasher movie, you’re already sort of desecrating one of the most sacred days in the Christian calendar. To then proceed to imply all Evangelicals are deformed homicidal maniacs is just kind of rude. It also interrupts the tension and jump scares for countless interludes of eye-rolling.

Despite all that, it is always nice to see Dee Wallace [Stone] back in another horror movie. She is terrific as the no-nonsense Diane, but it doesn’t make sense that she would have raised such self-centered, un-self-aware children. Regardless, she develops some likably lived-in chemistry with Geoff Morrell as the wryly laidback Joe.

Just on a purely logical level, it makes no sense Diane’s entire assembled family cannot overwhelm the admittedly large-of-frame Cletus, especially considering he is supposedly living with Down Syndrome (yet another icky plot point). Compared to this film, the Natasha Henstridge horror flick The Black Room is model of subtlety and restraint. Not recommended, Red Christmas screens tonight and tomorrow night (8/25 & 8/26) in New York, at the IFC Center.