The Tingler, Starring Vincent Price

Like a pool hustler carrying his own cue, Vincent Price should have had his own specially tailored lab coat. Usually, he portrayed mad doctors conducting evil experiments. However, Dr. Warren Chapin is a more ambiguous researcher, who is working on some real science. It is crazy, but his discovery, a parasitic creature brought out by fear, nicely complimented showman-director William Castle’s “Percepto” gimmick. Scream for your life Castle advises viewers in his signature campy introduction to The Tingler, which airs Friday night on TCM.

Fear is Dr. Chapin’s specialty, as he explains to nebbish Ollie Higgins, who is exercising his court-mandated right to observe the autopsy of his freshly executed brother-in-law. It turns out his homicidal brother really died of fright from the anticipated voltage of the electric chair. That gets Chapin to thinking about his own emerging theories regarding the physical effects of fear.

When he scares the wits out of his unfaithful wife Isabel, he manages to x-ray the centipede-like “Tingler” on her spine. After conducting a sort of controlled experiment on himself, by dropping acid, Chapin develops a hypothesis that Tinglers feed off human fear, until the noise of their hosts’ screams forces them to break contact. That’s the theory, but what happens when someone can’t scream, like Higgins’ deaf-mute wife, Martha?

The Tingler is notorious for Castle’s Percepto stunt. According to urban legend, he rigged select theater seats to give patrons electric shocks, but other sources say he merely hooked them up to buzzers. He also hired fainting shills and posted phony nurses in theater lobbies. In fact, The Tingler is probably more responsible for Castle’s huckster reputation than any other film.

Yet, the film never really gets credit for a pretty original concept. Frankly, Castle was arguably punching above his weight with his rather distinctive and even stylish execution. Dr. Chapin’s acid trip nightmare is creepy, but Martha Higgins’ freak-out sequence is truly surreal and sinister, inventively integrating the bright crimson red color of blood into the film’s shadowy black-and-white (despite his shticky rep, Castle was quite familiar with European art cinema and you can see the influence here).

Plus, Robb White’s screenplay pulls of some surprisingly clever misdirection. Admittedly, the dark sequences in which Price warns the audience to scream their lungs out because the Tingler is loose in their theater (or drive-in, according to alternate version) are definitely Castle-corny, but that is all part of the film’s charm.

Fear No Evil: Introducing Dr. David Sorrell

He came before Carl Kolchak and Fox Mulder, but Dr. David Sorrell was successful in his chosen field and widely respected by his peers. He also tried to maintain a degree of scientific skepticism, but when he encountered patients troubled by the supernatural, he did what needed to be done to ease their torment. He nearly had his own series, to have been titled Bedeviled, but fate and the network had other ideas. At least we have two vintage TV movies, including Paul Wendkos’s Fear No Evil, which Kino Lorber Studio Classics has collected on a one-disk set with Ritual of Evil, releasing tomorrow.

Paul Varney is not in the right state of mind to buy antiques when he pushes his way into a small shop, but he has cash in hand. Varney writes it off as a case of drunk antiquing when he finds the conspicuously evil looking mirror in his flat. Unfortunately, he wasn’t really drunk. He will not have to live with it very long either, because after attending a party at Sorrell’s apartment, he is killed in a freak accident (that viewers can plainly tell was supernaturally induced).

Sorrell did not know Sorrell or his fiancé, Barbara Anholt, before his party (they were friends of his mentor, Dr. Harry Snowden), but he takes a special interest in her recovery. She has the support of her would-have-been mother-in-law, who reconciles with Anholt, in their shared grief. However, Sorrell is concerned by her obsession with the sinister mirror, through which she believes she can still maintain a sexual connection to Varney. It seems to be depleting her vital energy, so Sorrell retraces Varney’s steps before purchasing it, which leads him to a weird esoteric “study group.”

Frankly, Louis Jourdan ought to be more widely recognized as a great horror thesp. He played Dracula and the villainous Dr. Anton Arcane in the Swamp Thing movies, but he was also a terrific genre hero in the Sorrell movies. He sounds completely credible and rather soothing when treating his patients, so it is easy to buy into his success as a head-shrinker. It is also fun to watch him talking spooky stuff with the great Wilfrid Hyde-White, who looks like he had great fun playing Snowden, the more prone to accept the supernatural.

Darkness: Those Who Kill, on Acorn TV

Scandinavians are still largely seen as polite and friendly people in America, even though the region has become a leading exporter of serial killer thrillers. This time, it is a provincial Danish police force that must sleuth out and apprehend a particularly nasty predator. Of course, they initially only thought they were dealing with a single abduction (and presumed homicide), but a little detective work uncovers links to horrifying past crimes in creator Ina Bruhn’s 8-part Darkness: Those Who Kill, directed by Carsten Myllerup, which premieres tomorrow on Acorn TV.

Local police detective Jan Michelsen is not dealing well with the stress of the Julie Vinding kidnapping. He promised her parents he would find her, but after six fruitless months, his boss has down-graded the investigation’s priority. His wife left him and his career is hanging by a thread. Yet, when Michelsen tries to establish a connection to a ten-year-old cold case, he manages to find one, as well as the long-missing body. Then the unknown serial killer abducts Emma Holst, who is the exact same physical type as Vinding.

Suddenly, the case is hot again, so Michelsen’s boss brings in Louise Bergstein, a semi-retired profiler, currently working as a women’s shelter counselor. Like Michelsen, she also feels the need for redemption, but their strong personalities will frequently clash. Michelsen’s prickliness certainly does not help, but they each appreciate the other’s intelligence and dedication.

In many ways, Darkness is a conventional, but very well executed serial killer thriller. However, there is a big game-changing revelation around the third episode that makes it difficult to review the series without being spoilery. Let’s just say Signe Egholm Olsen is terrific as Stine Velin, a woman who has a mysterious connection to the serial killer, Anders Kjeldsen.

A Moment of Silence: For Bolivian Election Day

In the current polarized political climate, it is important to clarify: replacing one over-reaching leader with another is not a revolution—it’s a coup d’état—especially when the new autocrat has even greater centralized authority. Likewise, when a problematic democratic is bested by an aspiring tyrant, it is not good for democracy, even if it is the result of the popular vote. Such was the case when Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia. Tomorrow, Bolivians go to the polls and our election is in less than three weeks (in case you missed intrusive barrage of PSA’s). That makes this the perfect time to watch Ferdinando Vicentini Orgnani’s A Moment of Silence (Un Minuto de Silencio), which recently released on VOD platforms.

Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada, the president whose administration was toppled by the movement Morales commandeered, actually did great things for Bolivia. He curbed hyper-inflation relatively quickly and coupled privatization with increased social welfare systems. Yet, he failed to understand the coordinated guerilla campaign orchestrated against him, until it was too late. Frankly, we can see echoes of our own recent national experiences in the way Bolivian Chavists provoked Goni’s government with a blockade of La Paz and an ambush of a fuel convoy’s military escort, subsequently exploiting the collateral damage from their response to stoke public outrage.

Nevertheless, many Bolivians had high hopes when Morales came to power, especially the indigenous population, but also including the urban middle class. Tragically for the nation, those hopes were dashed. True to the example of his mentor, Hugo Chavez, Morales soon started imprisoning opposition leaders. Vicentini Orgnani’s own camera captures one such dissenting politician as Morales’ soldiers take him into custody.

Eventually, many of Morales core constituencies turned against him when he decided to blaze an expressway through the TIPNIS state park and indigenous territory, to serve his real masters, the cocoa growers (Vicentini Orgnani’s talking heads telling point out throughout his terms in office, Morales also held the presidency of the Bolivian cocoa growers’ federation). The local, less politically indigenous peoples started a massive protest march that provoked a swift and violent response from Morales (who used Venezuelan troops to do his dirty work, according to one survivor).

Don’t Look Back: Karma Kills

In horror movies, what comes around, always goes around. Karma kills. In fact, karma itself becomes a malevolent agent of scares in this horror movie. It might also get some help from an angry grudge-holding spirit, but whatever the forces at work, the implications are dire for Caitlin Kramer in director-screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick’s Don’t Look Back, which releases today on demand.

Some might think of this as the horror movie take on the infamous Kitty Genovese case, but it really isn’t. Her brother William Genovese pretty thoroughly debunks the alleged case of witness indifference, concluding The New York Times exaggerated it to the point of fabrication in the documentary, The Witness. Regardless, Kramer and five other bystanders stood by gawking while Douglas Helton was bashed to death by a thug. Kramer shouldn’t be judged as harshly as the others, because the incident induced flashbacks to the brutal home invasion she barely survived, but that will not matter to the media and the victim’s brother.

Already wracked with guilt, Kramer starts seeing visions of the murdered man. Much to her boyfriend’s frustration, she becomes obsessed with notions of karma and angry ghosts, but she really starts to freak when she happens to see one of her fellow witnesses leap to his death, with what looks like a shadowy figure hovering behind him. He will not be the last of them to meet an untimely demise.

Don’t Look Back (not to be confused with D.A. Pennebaker’s Bob Dylan doc) shares a structural-thematic kinship with the Final Destination franchise, which makes sense, since Reddick wrote the first two movies. Both focus on characters caught up in sinister cosmic dynamic beyond their control, but in the case of the new film, most of the by-standers sort of have themselves to blame.

Tales from the Hood 3, on Syfy

Can a horror anthology series maintain its identity without its iconic host? Is it still Tales from the Crypt without the Cryptkeeper? Is it still Creepshow without the Creep? Frankly, most fans probably do not have the same level of nostalgia for Mr. Simms, the creepy undertaker who spun the yarns in the prior two installments in the Tales from the Hood franchise. The 1995 original, starring Clarence Williams III has a strong cult following, but the 2018 sequel, with Keith David assuming the mantle of Mr. Simms, mostly underwhelmed fans and critics. Instead of Mr. Simms, this time we get the great Tony Todd providing the framing, but it is the little girl with him who will tell the tales of terror (we hope) in alternating writer-directors Rusty Cundieff & Darin Scott’s Tales from the Hood 3 (with Spike Lee still on-board as an executive producer), which premieres this Saturday on Syfy.

If you are not deeply invested in Mr. Simms, Cundieff’s “The Mouths of Babes and Demons,” the connective sequences featuring Todd, are indeed quite eerie. He plays a grandfatherly figure, who is desperately fleeing a pack of hooded ghouls with six-year-old-ish Brooklyn. However, as he listens to her sinister stories, we get a sense that there could be any even darker dynamic at play. Frankly, these are the only bits most viewers will want to re-watch, because they build up to a real “huh-what” climax and they are driven by vintage Tony Todd.

The first Tale from the Hood is also sturdily serviceable, following squarely in the EC Comics tradition. Scott’s “Ruby Gates” takes its name from the apartment building David Burr hopes to renovate and gentrify. He stands to make a small fortune is he can convince the last tenants holding out to vacate. Logically, he hires his go-to arsonist to start a small grease fire in their kitchen, because what could go wrong? It all proceeds in an orderly, by-the-numbers horror movie fashion but Scott’s execution is tight and effective.

Without question, Cundieff’s “The Bunker” is the low point of the film and maybe the last ten years of anthology films. It isn’t really even horror, but rather an attempt at an ironic Outer Limits-style tale with a twist, focusing on a ranting and raving racist survivalist. Unfortunately, it is really more of an exercise in projection that sacrifices narrative and character development to ideological point-scoring. It is also marred by some really gross sexual references.

The sequel rebounds somewhat with Scott’s “Operatic,” starring Lynn Whitfield (the second most recognizable name attached to Tales 3) as Marie Benoit, a Norma Desmond-ish opera diva, who hires Chela Simpson, an aspiring R&B vocalist to be her companion. Inevitably, Simpson and her lover start conspiring to murder the rich and demanding Benoit. Right, good luck with that. Again, we’ve seen these elements many times before (for instance, there are a number of similarities with Twilight Zone’s “Queen of the Nile” episode), but Scott cranks up the sexuality and the creepy imagery, so it is still fun to watch.

Shudder: The Mortuary Collection

The overwhelming majority of anthology films must be horror movies. Yet, they rarely get many scares out of their framing sequences—even though those are the parts we most remember. Let’s put it this way, when you hear the title Tales from the Crypt, do you think of a particular story or the ghoulish Cryptkeeper host? In this case, we have a worthy storyteller. His name is Montgomery Dark, a mortician by training, who tells a young woman about how some of the most interesting bodies came to his funeral parlor in Ryan Spindell’s The Mortuary Collection, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

Dark looks like he could be related to Angus Scrimm, but his wardrobe and the mortuary’s décor are wonderfully old world, in the style of the great Amicus horror anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s. Sam is a bratty snooper, who is obviously up to no good, but when she inquires about the help wanted sign, Dark is only too willing to interview her. It seems like the Raven’s End Mortuary doesn’t get a lot of applicants. Yet, as their discussion progresses, Sam convinces him to tell her about some of the most unusual bodies he worked on.

Essentially, Dark starts with a Lovecraftian warm-up joke. It is very funny, but lightweight, which she calls him out for. She much more approves of his following yarn, wherein a sexually irresponsible frat boy gets an unlikely taste of his own medicine. It features some wicked body horror, but it tries too hard to be woke (but yes, Sam appreciates that).

The third (or second proper) tale is surprisingly poignant. Wendell Owens is a decent fellow, who still earnestly loves his wife, but the burden of caring for her in her locked-in catatonic state has left him exhausted and desperate. He finally resorts to euthanasia, but his attempt takes a strange, fateful twist. This is a shockingly poignant story, with Barak Hardley’s heartfelt performance inspiring pathos and sympathy rather than scares.

By far, the strongest constituent story is the final one, which Sam tells herself—but the wrap-around narrative, which does indeed build towards something, is the best part of the film. Her anecdote starts off as a stylish homage to Halloween and the entire babysitter-slasher sub-genre, but it takes a mordantly ironic twist. It is a wild ride that directly leads into the sinister conclusion of her interview with Mr. Dark.

Nightstream ’20: Landgraves (short)

Is there a more instantly sympathetic occupation for a protagonist than that of music critic (or journalist)? Everyone is with me on this, right? Be that as it may, Jeremie, a young French-Canadian music writer’s latest assignment is a bit of a double-edged sword. It is a high-profile gig, but the titular heavy metal duo is not exactly media-friendly in Jean-Francois Leblanc’s short film, Landgraves, which screens on-demand as part of the Head Trip shorts block during the online genre festival Nightstream.

Fans are excited that Landgraves are finally making music again, after their release from prison. Technically, they were convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, but the details are murky. They tell Jeremie they do not want to talk about it, but of course they do. They just want to tell it in their own time.

Kieler Street, on MHz

It isn't witness protection, because nobody who avails themselves of Omega's shadowy "relocation" services ever talks about their past. Jonas Schulman (as he is now known) was once a hardened criminal, but he spent all of his big score to restart his life in the quiet Norwegian town of Slusvik. He never looked back until forced by a nosy neighbor. Consequently, "Schulman" starts to suspect he is not the only client they relocated to Slusvik and some of them might be rather dangerous. The paranoia brews slowly, Scandinavian-style in Kieler Street, a 10-part series created and written by Stig Frode Henriksen, Jesper Sundnes & Patrik Syversen, which premieres today on MHz.

Since moving to Slusvik, Schulman married Elin and developed a positive step-parenting relationship with her daughter Sophie, but neither knows anything about his true past. Nobody does, until his neighbor and AA-partner Geir confronts him with research exposing the gaps in his legal record. It isn’t just Schulman. Half the neighborhood is in Geir’s potential blackmail file. Although Geir offers to bring Schulman in on his scheme, the former criminal is not about to take any chances, so he resorts to his old ways to solve the problem.

Of course, that just raises further issues, like body disposal and the like. Unfortunately, Sophie’s beloved cat Kaspar will be lost (presumably fatally) during the chaotic, extemporized process, which leads to no end of headaches for Schulman. Frankly, most viewers will be even more annoyed by all the whining over poor dear Kaspar than he is. Ironically, just when he assumes his crime has been exposed, it turns out the police actually discovered another body—that of a fifteen-year-old girl, presumably in Slusvik for a summer concert. Schulman also assumes the killer is a former shady criminal type like himself, who bought a new life in the formerly peaceful village.

Kieler Street is a slow-brooder, with a little too much emphasis on the “slow.” Arguably, the series could have benefited by being condensed to an eight- or even six-episode run. Nevertheless, it excels at creating a paranoid vibe and a general sense of unease. Schulman (and viewers) are keenly aware nobody might be whom they present themselves to be, because knows full well that he is not. The writer-creators consistently spring wicked new complications for Schulman, while skewering the provincialism of Slusvik (especially the busy-body denial of their mayor and the dark legacy of the turn-of-the-Century founder, Haakon Walter).

Nightstream ’20: An Unquiet Grave

Forget Kubler-Ross. Jamie is in the sixth, horror movie stage of grief: resurrection. It is tricky business—more so than he lets on with his late wife Julie’s identical twin sister Ava. These things never proceed according to plan do they? Yet, in this case, his attempts to reincarnate his beloved wife take a decidedly dark turn in Terence Krey’s An Unquiet Grave, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Ava took her sister’s death nearly as hard as her husband did, so she agrees to help his radical esoteric plan to bring her back. It will not be easy though, because it requires them to conduct the ritual at the very spot where she was thrown from Jamie’s car and died. As the blood relative, Ava must also conduct it personally, without Jamie watching, like an occult corporate team-building exercise. However, everything is not as it seems.

The first two thirds of Unquiet Grave serves as a terrific example of character-driver minimalist horror. There are practically no special effects per se, but the vibe is profoundly unsettling and the sense of foreboding keeps viewers on pins-and-needles. Unfortunately, it all dissipates during the third act, wherein the film veers into symbolism, depleting the accrued tension and undermining the narrative drive. It is like the film literally deflates itself.

Still, at least it had all that atmosphere and suspense to fritter away. The overwhelming majority of horror movies end disappointingly. Unquiet Grave just does so earlier than most. Regardless, many genre fans will be impressed with what Krey and company achieve in the first fifty minutes or so.

Nightstream ’20: The Doorman

It is a pre-war building with a battle-tested doorman. Sgt. Ali Orski was decorated for valor, but the ambassador she was protecting was still assassinated during a terrorist attack. It really wasn’t her fault, but she is still tormented by guilt and flashbacks. Fate will give her a chance for redemption, but the stakes will be higher, because her family will be directly in harms way during Ryuhei Kitamura’s Die Hard-style The Doorman, which releases on DVD tomorrow, following its premiere on the opening day of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

After her return, Orski wanted to keep to herself, but she can’t totally ghost her Uncle Pat when he reaches out. Needing a job, she also lets him refer her for doorman gig at a tony Central Park apartment building, but she soon realizes she has been played. That happens to be where her late sister’s husband and children live. It has been a while, but they recognize her—and young Lily Stanton is especially keen to have her for holiday dinner, before the family leaves for an extended stay in England.

It turns out, the Stantons are one of only two tenants still in the building during its scheduled renovations. Frankly, there were not supposed to be there—just the elderly German husband and wife on the ground floor. Victor Dubois certainly was expecting them or a resourceful loose cannon like Orski. He carefully planned to take the old couple hostage to steal the art the now senile old man plundered from the Stasi’s secret archives during the waning days of the GDR. Unfortunately, he stashed the trove of paintings somewhere in their old flat, which is now occupied by the Stantons.

You get the idea, right? Yet somehow, this Die Hard-style movie carries four writing credits: Lior Chefetz and Joe Swanson for the screenplay, as well as Greg Williams Matt McAllester for the story. Regardless, they manage to use old Manhattan in creative ways, devising secret doors, dumb waiters, and a hidden speakeasy for Orski and her surly teen nephew Max to sneak through in their attempts to evade Dubois’s hired guns.

Ruby Rose is no Cynthia Rothrock or Michelle Yeoh, but she is still a pretty solid action lead playing Orski. In fact, she has a convincing “cool aunt” thing going on when protecting Lily and Max. However, Rupert Evans’ charisma-challenged portrayal of their dad, Jon Stanton, makes it dashed hard to believe she could ever have had an illicit affair with her snotty, pasty-white brother-in-law. Not surprisingly, the kids are completely annoying, but Philip Whitchurch has some fine moments as grizzled Uncle Pat.

Twice-Told Tales, Starring Vincent Price

Hawthorne and Poe were both born in Massachusetts, but the former was widely seen as an upright New Englander of letters, while Poe was the disreputable Southerner, who dropped out of UVA and drunk himself to death in Baltimore. Yet, Poe inspired all the good horror movies, even though Hawthorne penned plenty of Gothic tales ripe with Puritanical hypocrisy. While Vincent Price was starring in Roger Corman’s classic Poe films, he also helped give Hawthorne similar treatment in Sidney Salkow’s under-appreciated anthology, Twice Told Tales, which airs this Friday on TCM.

Yes, these are stories of the macabre, but they are directly address the power of love, both to save and to destroy. For the opener, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” it will definitely be the latter case. The elderly scientist is enjoying a bittersweet birthday dinner with his old friend Alex Medbourne. Decades have passed since Heidegger’s fiancée Sylvia Ward tragically died on their wedding day, leaving him so heartbroken, he never loved again. In contrast, Medbourne romanced every woman he could—of course he would be the one played by Price (who appears in all three stories).

Heidegger expects to soon reunite with his beloved in death, but fate seems to present a tantalizing alternative. A freak storm releases a mysterious stream of water that apparently offers the power to restore youth and even renew life itself. Naturally, Heidegger duly revives Ward’s desiccated body, after rejuvenating himself and Medbourne, but the darkly O.Henry-esque reunion is not what he expects.

The “Heidegger” twist is very much akin to what you might expect from a Twilight Zone episode, but the anguished emotion is quite surprising. Both Price and Sebastian Cabot (in the sub-titular role) are genuinely heart-breaking, offering proof that you really can find excellent dramatic work in these great old films that never got the critical love they deserve.

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” is a weirdly sunny story, largely taking place in a Padua garden, but what a garden it is. Giovanni Guasconti falls in love with the beautiful Beatrice Rappaccini from his garret window, but her mad scientist father Giacomo has taken extreme measures to protect her from the advances of adventurers. Yes, that would be Price again. Brett Halsey is a bit too shallow and bow-dried for the Old World setting, but Abraham Sofaer sounds convincingly wise and humanistic as Guasconti’s mentor, Prof. Baglioni.

Somewhat ironically, the concluding adaptation of Hawthorne’s novel, The House of the Seven Gables could be considered more faithful than the previous feature-length take, which also starred Price, if you disregard the way producer-screenwriter Robert E. Kent pumped-up and augmented the supernatural elements. Regardless, the original Pycheon patriarch definitely did wrong by Matthew Maulle, well-earning the curse the condemned man allegedly leveled on him. Generations later, the Pyncheon’s are still haunted by the curse, as well as the legend that old man Maulle secretly stashed a great fortune in the grand house he was gallingly commissioned to build for his enemies.

Nightstream ’20: Bloody Hell

Much to Rex Coen's disappointment, Alia’s rustic Finnish family will not be serving him sauteed reindeer with lingonberry sauce. Instead, they will be serving Coen. However, the Scandinavian cannibals are about to learn the American is unusually hard to kill, thanks to his personified survival instinct. Coen’s snarky interior monologue helped him survive Afghanistan and a violent bank robbery, but they must face a truly monstrous family in Alister Grierson’s Bloody Hell, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Most people think Coen is a hero for giving a gang of armed bank-robbers the Charles Bronson treatment, but some people blamed him for a tragic mishap that will eventually be revealed in flashbacks. Unfortunately, that included the DA, who forced Coen to accept an 8-year plea deal. After his release, the controversial Coen wanted to get away from it all, so he booked a vacation to Finland. As a pariah loner, he looked like perfect prey to Alia’s psycho family, but Coen has skills and his alter-ego projection, who refuses to let him give-up.

Coen might also have an ally in Alia, who has always been horrified by her family’s crimes. Nevertheless, it will be difficult for the long-tormented young woman to decisively turn against her abusive family. Coen will soon discover she has good reason to be so fearful when he comes to, hanging from a hook in their rural basement with one foot amputated. He will have to give himself some serious pep talks to get through this one.

Bloody Hell isn’t just a title Grierson and screenwriter Robert Benjamin picked out of a hat. It is brutally violent, but also often wickedly droll. It is probably the funniest cannibal horror comedy since Danny Mulheron’s Fresh Meat, but the tension is higher, because the stakes are greater and more realistic. There is considerable gore, but we pull for Coen all the way.

Nightstream ’20: Anything for Jackson

Satanists get old and have families just like the rest of us. However, when misfortune befalls their loved ones, they might appeal to their dark lord. You know him, Donald Trump. This is a rather fraught process that entails a considerable downside, but Henry and Audrey Walsh are willing pay any price (risks be damned, since they are already) to bring back their grandson in Justin G. Dyck’s Anything for Jackson, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

As an OB-GYN, Dr. Walsh has an advantage when it comes to finding a single pregnant woman, who might be considered a little unstable. Becker seems to fit the bill perfectly. He and his wife Audrey also procured (at great cost) the ancient demonic text that explains how they are supposed to use her to bring the spirit of their beloved grandson Jackson back from purgatory. At first, they elderly couple are acting totally on their own, with no involvement from their Satanic circle. However, when their initial rituals attract a host of angry ghosts, they reach out to their hardcore circle-mate, Ian, who is dangerously disenfranchised.

Keith Cooper’s wickedly clever script consistently subverts stereotypes and expectations, while constantly springing one literally damned thing after another. It is probably the freshest satanic or demonic horror movie since A Dark Song (which was a doozey).

Nightstream ’20: Shock Value How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror

Everyone associates the USC film school with George Lucas--and that's probably just fine with the admissions officer. The film program played a pivotal role facilitating late 20th Century sf cinema, thanks to THX 1138, which led to Star Wars. However, USC alumni were also instrumental in the development of contemporary horror, particularly John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon (who wrote Alien and directed the cult classic Return of the Living Dead). Inspired by Jason Zinoman’s book, Dino Everett assembled five short student films helmed by O’Bannon, Carpenter, and their USC colleagues (as well as some tantalizing audio fragments from a lost Carpenter film) in the program Shock Value: How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Logically, Shock Value starts with O’Bannon, but some might not consider Blood Bath exactly horror per se, even though it definitely has its grisly parts. The crimson-tinged tale of suicide motivated by boredom and accidentally executed through negligence is mostly memorable for O’Bannon’s muttering voice-over dialog. It is easy to see why his classmates would have loved it, but it feels like a one-off joke in retrospect.

However, it is followed by one Shock Value’s major revelations. Charles Adair’s The Demon is most definitely a horror film, but viewers could argue which subgenre. Helen Stone has just moved to an isolated farm house with her husband John, who seems to be gas-lighting her. Yet, there really seems to be an ominous “Demon” watching her. Whether he is a psycho or a zombie or whatever hardly matters.

Maurishka’s performance as the terrified Stone is truly haunting, something like a somewhat more resilient Barbara from Night of the Living Dead. Despite the minimal budget, The Demon is further distinguished by its stylishly surreal look. Frankly, the way Adair masterly instills a sense of evil foreboding suggest he might just be a terribly overlooked horror auteur.

O’Bannon’s Good Morning Dan is an unusually eccentric dystopian film, in which the title character is forced by Big Brother to reminisce over some incredibly awkward moments from his life feels very much like a product of its trippy time. However, the music composed by Ben Model (in 1968) and Frank Meyer (in 2006) is distinctively funky.

Expectations might be high for John Carpenter’s Captain Voyeur (from 1969), but it is really more of a quick and twisted gag film. Yet, there are scenes of skulking through alleys and around houses, from the titular perv-perp’s POV, that foreshadows his classic Halloween. (We can only guess what Lady Madonna could have been, but the religious themes hinted at in the surviving audio extracts make us what to revisit Prince of Darkness.)

However, Shock Value’s second great revelation is considered a direct and formative influence on Carpenter’s breakout slasher. By now, the story of Terence Winkless & Alec Lorimore’s Judson’s Release (produced in 1971) sounds quite familiar. A psycho fresh out of an institution (played by O’Bannon) fixates on Julie, a teenager babysitting alone. Nevertheless, this is a tense film that looks terrifyingly realistic. While it is widely thought to have influenced Halloween, it also predates When a Stranger Calls, both the short film and feature, which “shares” a key twist with Winkless & Lorimore’s film—you know, where the calls are coming from.

Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., Starring Peter Cushing

Sure, there were creepy aliens inside those tin cans, but before Next Gen gave us the Borg, nothing better represented our fears of technology’s dehumanizing influence than the Daleks. Fortunately, Doctor Who was there to stop their ambitions for galactic domination, even when he wasn’t strictly speaking Gallifreyan. Evidently, the two mid-1960s Doctor Who movies have been somehow retconned into the extended universe, but they have always been considered canonically suspect, since their Doctor is an Earthling who actually calls himself “Dr. Who.” On the plus side, he was played by Peter Cushing and he reliably foiled the Daleks. Both Amicus Doctor Who films air tonight on TCM, but the second, Gordon Flemyng’s Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. is by far the superior film.

After saving a foreign planet from the Daleks in the first film, the Doctor touches down in Swinging Sixties London just long enough to pick up police constable Tom Campbell after he is knocked cold by a gang of armed robbers. When he comes too, the Tardis has traveled forward to the year 2150, which much to the Doctor’s distress, Earth has been temporarily been conquered by the very same Daleks.

It takes some doing, but the Doctor’s niece Louise and his granddaughter Susan convince the copper they really have traveled forward in time. Of course, the metal megalomaniacal Daleks are quite persuasive. Unfortunately, the travelers become barricaded from the Tardis during a scouting trip, forcing them to take refuge with the underground human resistance. After the Doctor and Campbell are captured and escape, the time-travelers will be forced by circumstances to split up, but all roads seem to lead to a mysterious mine, where the Daleks are implementing their evil planetary scheme.

The first Peter Cushing Doctor Who (Doctors Who and the Daleks) movie is jokier and skews much younger as a result. However, the visual impact of bombed out London in Earth 2150 is quite striking. Clearly, the look of the post-apocalyptic city was inspired by scenes of destruction wrought by the Blitz during the Battle of London, memories of which would have still been vivid for many viewers in 1966.

The narrative is also more effectively structured, breaking apart the Doctor and his companions. The paring of the protective Wyler, a crusty old resistance activist, with young Susan is especially effective. Ironically, this is something of a case of necessity being the mother of invention, since illness forced Cushing to curtail his work on Earth 2150.

Yellow Rose: As Country As It Gets

Rose Garcia sounds pretty Texan and loves country music, but she originally hails from the Philippines. She mostly grew up in the Lone Star State, but she is an immigrant—the undocumented kind. This inconvenient fact will cause her considerable hardship, but that in turn will be fodder for some legit old school country songs in director-screenwriter-producer Diane Paragas’s Yellow Rose, which opens in physical theaters tomorrow.

Garcia has been self-conscious about performing ever since some knuckle-dragging students called her “Yellow Rose” during a school talent show. Yet, she kept working on songs. That is how she caught the eye of Elliott Blatnik, an open-minded music store clerk. Unfortunately, Garcia must de-prioritize their budding romance when her mother is apprehended by the dreaded ICE and held for likely deportation.

At this point, Garcia feels culturally at-home in Texas, so she intends to stay, but it will not be easy. Since the native-born husband of her aunt Gail makes it disgustingly obvious she is not welcome, Garcia finds shelter in the back room of Jolene’s small but authentic Austin club instead. However, when the club is raided by those dastardly ICE agents, Garcia starts crashing in country hipster Dale Watson’s Airstream trailer. The old cat is not about to pull any funny business, but he could become an unlikely mentor to Garcia.

Pretty much everything in Yellow Rose proceeds according to the standard underdog-chasing-her-dreams formula, but the cast is so earnest, they make it work anyway. Broadway star Eva Noblezada easily transitions to the screen, doing some impressively expressive and engaging work as Garcia. She also develops some terrific protégé-teacher chemistry with Dale Watson (one of the stars of the Stephen King book musical, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County), essentially playing a boozily self-aware analog of himself. His earthy charisma really pops off the screen.

Woody Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York

Woody Allen is just as creepy now as he was when he won his fourth Oscar for Midnight in Paris. In recent years, he has been dogged by molestation accusations, but since Allen’s son Moses disputes his sister’s allegations and two investigations either found insufficient evidence for a charge or concluded the events in question did not happen, most sane people would be reluctant to offer an opinion of their own on such a murky, contested issue. However, these are not sane times. The truth is we have no idea whether Allen did what he is accused of and neither do you, (whereas we know with absolute certainty Polanski committed and pled guilty to the crime that made him a fugitive).

So, that’s all very awkward, but if you want to vent moral indignation, the concentration camps in Xinjiang or the abduction of the Hong Kong 12 are clear-cut targets of worthy outrage. Whereas, if you enjoyed Woody Allen films during less over-heated times, his long-delayed A Rainy Day in New York is pretty much like all the other ones. After his first distributor caved to mob-pressure, Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York finally opens this Friday in the U.S., but not in Allen’s beloved New York, because theaters are closed here, perhaps permanently.

Allen-surrogate Gatsby Welles is a bright young man, but he had to transfer to Yardley, a sheltered liberal arts college, because Ivy League schools were too unstructured for him. (I was going to joke Welles was originally called Orson Hemingway in an earlier draft, but that actually sounds less pretentious.) Welles still isn’t studying much, but he gets by academically and enjoys romancing his naïve girlfriend Asheigh Enright, from the wild backcountry of Tucson, Arizona (believe it or not, they have a symphony and an opera company there, but this film was intended for Manhattan snobs, so it doesn’t matter).

When the campus paper assigns Enright an interview with tormented indie director Roland Pollard, Welles tags along, to show her the City. Inevitably, Welles gets frustrated and jealous when the smitten Pollard stretches out the one-hour interview with a special screening and a supplemental interview with his equally neurotic screenwriter, Ted Davidoff. Instead, Welles spends the day, off-on-on, with Chan Tyrell, the whip-smart younger sister of his old girlfriend. All those romantic cliches he wanted to do with Enright he does with Tyrell—and its not bad.

Timothee Chalamet apologized to everyone in Hollywood for making this film, but he really should have apologized to Allen for being so shticky and affected playing Welles. This character is supposed to be a Ferris Bueller of Park Avenue, but he is never comfortable in Welles’ retro hipster skin—and his crooning voice is pathetic. Likewise, Elle Fanning is downright cringe-inducing as the air-headed Enright. On the other hand, Selena Gomez takes command of every scene she has as Tyrell, through the warmth of her charm and her intelligent good humor.

Liev Schreiber (the scourge of auto-correct features) is drolly amusing portraying Pollard, the anxiety-ridden, self-destructive but prolific filmmaker. You have to wonder who he could have looked to for inspiration while filming his scenes. Jude Law nicely plays against type as the nebbish Davidoff. Yet, it is Cherry Jones who steals the picture with her unforgettable third act scene portraying Welles’ surprisingly cool grand society mother.

To Your Last Death: Animated Horror on DVD

It is your basic feel-good Hallmark family movie, except a gaggle of cosmic gamblers keep rewinding the narrative to make it bloodier. It is also animated. Regardless, Miriam Dekalb and her grown siblings will have to work together to survive the death-traps prepared by their evil father, or maybe they will just turn on each other in Jason Axinn’s To Your Last Death, which releases today on BluRay.

Arms-dealer industrialist Cyrus Dekalb always made his children miserable, so they returned the favor when he was nominated for Vice-President. Their tell-all press conference was the last time they were together. Now that old man Dekalb is facing his mortality, he naturally wants his revenge, so he called the family together, to bump them off, in spectacularly gruesome fashion.

Only Miriam survived, but that wasn’t sufficiently interesting for the mysterious Gamemaster. She gives the Dekalb “final girl” the chance for a do-over, to save her siblings and get her awful father, once and for all. However, the otherworldly game facilitator reserves the right to intervene in any way she sees fit, to keep the action interesting. This was all Dekalb’s idea, but it suits the all-seeing gamblers’ purposes just fine.

The way screenwriters Jim Cirile & Tanya C. Klein have their characters embrace outright sadism is really rather depressing. This is an animated film, but what it says about the human condition is sadly discouraging. Given the animated format, there is an obvious temptation to be edgy and take things over-the-top, but To Your Last Death is just way too much at times. (As a point of reference, Joe Lynch managed to wring humor out of an office bloodbath in Mayhem without rubbing our noses in abject cruelty.)

Music + Film Brazil ’20: Beyond Ipanema

For a while, every desperate jazz A&R exec would force their artists to record a “with strings” album. Then the Bossa Nova record became the gimmick of choice. However, that opened up plenty of opportunities for Brazilian musicians and resulted in some truly classic records. The Brazilian Bossa wave helped revitalize jazz’s commercial viability, at least to an extent. Somewhat logically, it is through a Bossa Nova prism that Americans view Brazilian music (even non-jazz fans). Not surprisingly, Bossa anchors directors Guto Barra & Beco Dranoff’s survey of Brazilian music, as seen from abroad, but they widen the perspective to include other styles and genres during Beyond Ipanema, which screens for free today, as part of Cinema Tropical’s online 2020 edition of Music + Film: Brazil.

One of the coolest things about Beyond is the credit it bestows Carmen Miranda, for making it big in Hollywood, while staying true to her Brazilian roots. For a time, she was the highest compensated woman in America, so she had the clout to insist on real-deal samba and Portuguese lyrics in her studio films. It is indeed refreshing to see the likes of Caetano Veloso remind us of who she really is, correcting the media’s corny image of her.

Of course, a good deal of Beyond focuses on Bossa Nova, chronicling touchstone events, like the release of Black Orpheus and its smash hit soundtrack album, as well as the chaotic but groundbreaking 1962 Carnegie Hall all-star concert. Joao Gilberto is not inappropriately identified as the Bossa Nova pioneer, but viewers also hear from Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, and Oscar Castro Neves. We also get commentary from Bud Shank and Clare Fischer, legit jazz musicians who recorded legit Bossa Nova albums.

Strangely, Tropicalia and MPB are rather cursorily discussed, but Gilberto Gil and Marcos Valle have some screen time. Os Mutantes also get their due representing rock and funk. Many Brazilian music fans will be surprised how much time is granted to the sampling of Brazilian music, but it makes sense for Bebel Gilberto to serve as the face of this section.

Devils (Pilot)

We have a way of “loving to hate” villainous captains of finance like Gordon Gekko and Billions’ Bobby Axelrod so much, we actually start to dig them for real. That could be the case for Dominic Morgan. He talks a good game and he is a master manipulator. Massimo Ruggero should know. The head of the NYL investment house has a talent for “motivating” his protégé, but it still isn’t exactly a trusting relationship. Ruggero will have to look out for himself if he wants to get ahead, but safety really isn’t a concern for double-dealing schemers in the pilot episode of Devils, which premieres this Wednesday on the CW.

Ruggero was the only trader in London’s financial district smart enough to “short” Greece. He made NYL pots of money and should earn himself a plum promotion. Unfortunately, it is not entirely his mentor Morgan’s decision to make. As a striving immigrant from a hardscrabble Italian fishing village, Ruggero has the wrong background as far as the upper-crust directors are concerned. However, the blue-blooded faction is up to their necks in a deal with a considerable downside. It would definitely help Ruggero’s prospects if the deal went south, so maybe he will just help it along.

Presumably, the body we see plunging to its death in the flashforward prologue is somehow related to all this skullduggery. Naturally, there is a fair amount of expository business in the pilot, but intrigue holds plenty of promise. Plus, the clear implication that a Wikileaks-style group is just as morally compromised as the investment bankers opens up some very interesting dramatic avenues to explore. However, the emerging subplot involving Ruggero’s wayward ex-wife feels unrealistically contrived.

Ruggero’s informal kitchen cabinet includes two promising supporting characters, Wade, a professor at the London School of Economics, and Oliver Harris, his brilliant but financially-challenged student, who will be doing most of Ruggero’s off-the-books research and legwork.

Swamp Thing, Now on the CW

The battle of the comic book bayou beasts was really no contest. Marvel had Man-Thing, who is still best remembered as an associate of Howard the Duck. DC published The Swamp Thing, which was written for several years by a young Alan Moore and inspired Wes Craven’s cult-favorite film. A campy sequel and an early 1990s cable series eventually followed. Given DC’s current success with episodic television, it made sense for them to take another whack at the character for their streaming service, but they announced the first season would also be the last, shortly after its premiere. Yet, somewhat appropriately, Xi’s Covid epidemic prompted an opportunity for the mucky brooder to rise again, when the CW picked up the network broadcast rights to season one of Gary Dauberman & Mark Verheiden’s Swamp Thing, which premieres on free TV this Wednesday.

CDC field investigator Dr. Abby Arcane has returned to her hometown of Marais, LA, where some strange viral outbreak has rattled the community (can we relate?). Her teenaged years there were difficult, for tragic reasons we will soon discover, so she is less than thrilled to be back. However, the nature of the pestilence is so severe, she accepts the inevitable awkwardness. Consulting with Alec Holland, a talented but somewhat disreputable scientist hired by local big-wig Avery Sunderland, proves illuminating. He was hired to track the accelerated growth effects of a “mutagen” Sunderland’s business is developing, but he discovered illegal mega-dumpings of the serum have been systematically released into the swamp.

There seems to be a connection between the mutagen and the virus, but the nature of the latter remains unclear. Sadly, Holland winds up dead for his efforts, but not dead enough. Somehow, the mutagen transformed him into a big hulking plant creature—or something like that. His cellular structure is radically altered but he still has his memories and continues to carry a torch for Arcane, who in turn yearns to cure the man she was developing feelings for.

This review is based on the episodes that are available on DVD and VOD, which will be slightly edited for length and content when they air on the CW. That means they will be a bit shorter and slightly less fun, because one of the best aspects of this Swamp Thing are the macabre mutant-plant effects and the wild body horror they often produce.

Regardless, the way the latest Swamp Thing series embraces the horror elements of the franchise is quite effective (logically so, given James Wan’s executive producer imprimatur). The effects really do work and the Southern Gothic elements compliment the mad science quite nicely (from a fan’s perspective). Yet, one of the biggest discoveries is how cool the relatively minor DC Universe super-hero The Blue Devil turns out to be, when given an unexpected supporting role. We’d rather see a spin-off series for him, rather than a second season for Swampy.

Be that as it may, Dauberman & Verheiden’s Swamp Thing earns a lot of good will for showcasing some talented 80’s and 90’s-era character thesps, including 90210’s Ian Ziering, who constantly gives the show a jolt of energy as Daniel Cassidy, who is and will become the Blue Devil. Likewise, it is always entertaining to see Will Patton do what he does best as the villainous Sunderland. Virginia Madsen constantly forces viewers to re-evaluate their assumptions regarding Maria Sunderland, the evil big-shot’s profoundly grieving wife. Yet, it is Jennifer Beals who constantly surprises as the cynical and decidedly unpredictable Sheriff Lucilia Cable.

Crystal Reed manages to project all of Arcane’s guilt-ridden angst without taxing viewer patience, which really is quite an accomplishment. She also forges some genuinely credible chemistry with Andy Bean as the flesh-and-blood Holland and Derek Mears as his giant fungal analog.

For true-green fans, Mears has big, muddy shoes to fill, since the late Dick Durock portrayed the monstrous super-hero in both films and the previous TV series, but he really gives the show tortured soul, very much in the Universal monster tradition. However, there are times when Kevin Durand is maybe a little too campy as the arrogant and untrustworthy scientist, Dr. Jason Woodrue. In contrast, Macon Blair chews the scenery with just the right level of hamminess as the Phantom Stranger.

Reportedly, DC Universe cut their order from thirteen episodes to ten after production commences, so it only stands to reason that plenty of loose ends remain unresolved. Fans should know Anton Arcane, Louis Jordan’s character in the Craven film does not appear in the first and presumably only season, but Adrienne Barbeau chops poor Abby Arcane off at the knees in a special appearance as the CDC’s assistant director. The series gets that kind of fan service right and also offers up a lot of creepy ambiance and macabre imagery. Some of the conspiratorial themes are rather shopworn and conventional, but the supernatural and super-hero elements blend quite smoothly. Recommended as a horror show that carves out its own hybrid-space, Swamp Thing starts its broadcast TV run this Tuesday (10/6), on the CW.

COBRA, on PBS

It is a sad state of affairs when neither major party presidential candidate will condemn extremists on their sides of the political spectrum. Genuine moderates are rare these days, but there is still one in the UK. That would be fictional Prime Minister Robert Sutherland, a very David Cameron-esque Conservative. Frustratingly, extremist partisans on both sides will take advantage of a natural disaster to undermine his government in writer-creator Ben Richards’ six-part COBRA, which starts tomorrow night on PBS.

Technically, COBRA is not an acronym. It is really a bit of a misnomer for the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, but it is a catchy term. In any event, there will be a COBRA convened to prepare as best they can for a sudden solar event that could possibly wreak havoc on the power grid and communications network. At first, blowhard Brexit Home Secretary Archie Glover-Morgan is more concerned about his snake-in-the-grass protégé getting sacked, but things suddenly get serious when everyone realizes this disaster is actually happening.

It could have been worse. Four regional transformers were fried, but most of the nation still has power. The bad news is they only have three spare transformers available. As Fraser Walker, the administrator of their rough equivalent to FEMA explains, transformers are an industrial-sized item that you can’t just stash in a drawer for a rainy day. A fourth is quickly procured, but while it is in transit, one region must endure sustained darkness. Northumberland logically draws the short straw, because a jetliner crash on the highway has temporarily cut off ground transportation.

However, mounting frustration will give rise to a nativist militia uprising, who will challenge Chief Constable Stuart Collier’s efforts to maintain safety and stability. The resulting anarchy is also a golden opportunity for the Home Secretary to undermine Sutherland, which only gets riper when the PM’s daughter becomes embroiled in a tragic scandal.

Although Richards takes every cheap shot possible at Tory policies, COBRA inadvertently illustrates how the worst impulses of demagogues on both sides are cynically egged on by the media. Sutherland faces some agonizing choices, but he invariably makes the best possible decision, yet he is vilified in the press and opportunistic extremists, who use violent revolutionary rhetoric when calling for his ouster. The ironic parallels between the show’s riots and the chaos on the streets of Portland and Kenosha is awkwardly glaring. It probably wasn’t what Richards was intending, but it makes COBRA uncomfortably timely.

Of course, the site of Robert Carlyle in Number 10 will inevitably make viewers think: “no wonder there’s trouble, they elected Begbie from Trainspotting.” Nevertheless, he plays Sutherland with a steeliness that inspires confidence. When he vents, it is beautiful, but he also has some finely turned moments of compassion.

A Call to Spy: The Brave Women of Churchill’s SOE

One out of every three British SOE agents smuggled into France was killed by Germans or their Vichy collaborators. To reward them for their service, newly elected Labour PM Clement Atlee sacked the entire agency 48 hours after taking office. Women agents faired just about the same. 13 of Vera Atkins’ 39 “special recruits” never returned from occupied France either. Yet, their service and sacrifices were quite remarkable. The true stories of Atkins and her two most celebrated agents, Virginia Hall and Noor Inayat Khan are told in Lydia Dean Pilcher’s A Call to Spy, which opens today in select theaters and on VOD.

Clandestine warfare was going badly for Britain, like everything else during the early stages of WWII. It was the job of Col. Maurice Buckmaster and his civilian colleague, Vera Atkins, to change that. They were in charge of training and strategy for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Despite Atkins’ protests, they initially only recruited men, but their hidebound superiors relented as SOE casualties mounted. As a Romanian immigrant of Jewish descent, the war was particularly personal for Atkins, but it also made her a figure of suspicion for many of her less enlightened colleagues.

Hall and Khan had one advantage. Neither of them fit the profile of a likely spy. Hall was an American, who relied on a prosthetic leg. Khan was born in Russia to an Indian Muslim father, who was revered teacher of Sufism (which actually meant they were quite moderate and tolerant). Hall proved to be a gifted organizer, who built an extensive network throughout Vichy, whereas Khan had what was considered the most dangerous assignment in France. She was one of several “wireless” operators, who were constantly tracked and triangulated by the Gestapo—and also rather conspicuous, since they were tethered to their bulky radios.

If Noor Khan sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the PBS profile, An Enemy of the Reich, which aired six years ago. She was definitely a heroic woman, but there is more to Hall’s exploits, for unfortunate reasons you should be able to guess. In fact, it is truly criminal Hall is not widely celebrated in our history books. After the SOE extracted her from France, she returned with the American OSS and then served with Central Intelligence during the Cold War—so remember her service next time a Hollywood film denigrates the CIA.

Hosts: Horrible Christmas Horror

Body-snatching movies are particularly insidious, because they make us ask if our loved ones have been podded by an outside force or if they have just been corrupted by an evil ideology, like Communism. However, there is not a lot of ambiguity when the snatched bodies have glowing red eyes and they act like homicidal maniacs. Frankly, Michael shouldn’t have never let his Christmas Eve guests through the door, but he does and it turns out horrendously in screenwriter-director Adam Leader & Richard Oakes’ Hosts, which releases today on VOD.

Michael has befriended Jack and his girlfriend Lucy, because unbeknownst to them, he abandoned the former and his mother, shortly after his birth. Subsequently, Michael settled down with Cassie and had a family with her that he was more emotionally prepared to support. Part of Michael wanted to come clean with Jack during the holiday get-together, but that won’t be happening now. Quite unfortunately, Jack and Lucy are possessed by some sort of sinister agency before leaving for the dinner party, where they soon start committing acts of shocking violence.

Leader & Oakes leave the exact nature of the badness annoyingly vague. There are good reasons to think it is demonic, given the evil Lucy turns pictures of Jesus face-down. On the other hand, media reports drop ludicrous hints that this is all somehow related to fracking, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

In all fairness, Hosts probably works best as an in-person midnight movie, screening at a theater that serves beer—a whole lot of it. The whole film essentially hinges on an explosively brutal timing joke. Maybe it works in a theater full of drunk fans, but at home, it just seems cruelly unfair. Regardless, it certainly sets the tone for the rest of the picture. Honestly, most viewers will just feel relieved when it finally ends.

The Rising Hawk: Ukrainian Historical Action, with Robert Patrick

Back in the 13th Century, a hearty community of Ukrainians faced an invasion from the east. In this case, it was a Mongol army rather than the ununiformed troops of Putin’s moribund Russian regime, but the implications were pretty much the same for the invaded. However, the rough-hewn highlanders faced adversity before, so they are not afraid to fight for what’s theirs in John Wynn & co-director Akhtem Seitablaev’s The Rising Hawk, an English-language, Ukrainian-American co-production, which releases tomorrow on-demand.

Zakhar and Rada’s older son Ivan is the brawny one, but his younger brother Maksim is the really tough one. Zakhar understands how that works. He looks like an old farmer, but when outside forces threaten their peaceful valley, he will be the one to rally their defenses. In contrast, Tugar, the warlord who appointed himself “Boyar” of the region, will cave and capitulate when confronting Burunda Khan’s army. That is endlessly embarrassing for his crack archer daughter Myroslava, who is unambiguously encouraging Maksim’s romantic advances.

Things really come to a head when Maksim kills the Khan’s son while rescuing women abducted from the valley. Zakhar’s community will have to stand alone, along with two notable allies: Myroslava and Bohun, an unstable warrior Maksim also freed from the Mongols, who holds a deeply personal grudge against his former captors.

The first forty minutes or so are a bit slow, but Hawk gets pretty cool when the fighting starts for real. The hack-and-slash action is often brutally realistic, but also impressively cinematic. Wynn and Uzbek filmmaker Seitablaev give the film epic scope, capitalizing on the mountain vistas (the Carpathians, they’re not just for Dracula movies anymore), while keeping the action gritty and viscerally personal.