Mulberry Street (2006)

There are a lot of rats in New York City (though not as many as commonly believed), so a spate of attacks on humans by aggressive rodents attracts some news coverage, but is not immediately seen as the start of a major disaster.

But this is an October review, so of course Bad Things are about to ensue.  The rats, it seems, carry a pathogen of some kind which infects anyone they bite, turning them (slowly or quickly, depending on partly on how badly they were bitten and partly on narrative needs) into ravening, mutated monsters that want nothing more than to attack and feed on any humans they see.  Soon the uninfected find themselves hunted in the streets or under siege in their own homes.

So what we have here is a zombie movie in all respects except the actual presence of zombies - which come to think of it was also basically the situation in writer Nick Damici's later film Stake Land, though the specifics of the two films are very different.

And a pretty good zombie movie it is, even without any undead monsters.  The cast aren't well known names or faces, but they do a solid job.  The movie's financial assets don't always stretch to the most convincing of special effects, but the film-makers are smart enough to minimise the impacts of that weakness.  And lastly there's a pretty solid script, creating a set of characters who are reasonably likeable and then putting them through hell.  Probably the only narrative misstep - at least for my tastes - came right at the end; which is an unfortunately impactful place to go wrong, of course.

I originally had another movie slated for review on Halloween but it was such a damp squib of a film that I decided to sneak in a watch Mulberry Street as well, and I am glad I did.  If you've enjoyed zombie fare in the past, then even though it's not technically got any zombies in it, you should find this an engaging watch.

Splinter (2008)

Polly and Seth had planned a nice anniversary camping trip.  So when they accidentally break their tent, and then get carjacked while searching for a motel, they probably think their day has hit rock bottom.

Unfortunately for them, they are in a horror movie, and things can still get considerably worse; as the attendant at the gas station they are about to pull into recently found out ...

Splinter is a low budget but by no means low effort monster movie.  It has a solid cast; decent, mostly practical, effects - which the director protects from too much exposure with some occasionally annoying rapidly shifting camera work; and at a lean 82 minutes it maintains momentum and engagement.

The movie I kept thinking of while watching Splinter is John Carpenter's The Thing.  The details are very different, mind you, and the tone is much less one of paranoia and much more about direct action.  But the basic situation - a small group who distrust each other in an isolated location, under threat from a creature that can warp human flesh - certainly contains a strong echo.

I'm pleased that this is not a slavish homage like say Harbinger Down was, though.  Splinter reminded me of The Thing without feeling like a lesser echo of it.  It's a film with its own sense of identity and a reasonably consistent and coherent narrative, provided one accepts the core conceit of the monster.

If you like monster movies, and particularly if you liked The Thing, this movie is worth your time.

Creepshow (1982)

An irate and aggressive father confiscates his son's "Creepshow" horror comic book, ranting as he does so about how it is puerile and stupid.  When his son protests, the older man strikes the boy, then carries the comic book out to the trash.

Not a very nice man.  But we're more interested than the book than we are in him, at least for now.  Creepshow, you see, is an anthology film of five (six, if you count this framing sequence) stories.  That lets the show pack in a bunch of different horror staples: murder, zombies, monsters, mutation, bugs, voodoo: we got it all!

None of this wealth of content matters if the movie's not good, of course.  Fortunately, Creepshow is a fun film.  Not in any way a scary one, I feel I must point out.  Like the 1950s comic books on which it is modelled, the aim here is gonzo, gleeful gross-out, with a side order of awful fates for its often equally awful characters.  This is not a subtle or nuanced film, is what I'm saying.  But it's not trying to be.

At 120 minutes, Creepshow does perhaps slightly outstay its welcome.  And it's tempting to wish that when George Romero and Stephen King decided to collaborate, they tried to stretch themselves more than this.  But at the end of the day, the movie they did decide to make is a solid example of its type.  So if it sounds like your thing, you should check it out.

The Crazies (1973)

A young girl getting a late night drink is teased by her brother.  Their incipient argument is short-circuited by their father going on a berserk rampage that sees their mother murdered and their home in flames.

Neighbours raise the alarm over the fire, and among the first people contacted are a young couple named Judy and David.  David's a volunteer firefighter called to help battle the blaze.  Judy is a nurse summoned to help look after the injured children.  By the time she gets to the clinic, however, she finds it occupied by the US army.  There's been an accident with some dangerous bio-weapons, you see, and the residents of the town may all have been exposed to a bio-agent that causes either death or a homicidal frenzy in all of its victims.

Now Judy and David and the other folk of the town - as well as the basically well-intentioned but completely out of their depth and overwhelmed members of the military - must try to survive an ever spiraling cycle of suspicion and violence.

The Crazies is written and directed by George Romero of Night of the Living Dead fame, and it shares a fair few similarities with his most famous film.  You've got an outbreak of violence behaviour, a group of ordinary people trying to survive it, and growing tensions among said group as their situation becomes more difficult.  You can also see some of the themes of his later zombie films getting an early work-out here, e.g. the authorities flailing ineffectually to contain the situation, and frequently make things worse as half-trained and barely-informed soldiers are sent to do a dangerous and difficult job with inevitably tragic results.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that old George made a movie about dangerous military chemicals/bio-weapons just a year or two after the US discontinued use of Agent Orange.

I would describe this film as more entertaining than it is good.  Romero was not a subtle film-maker, and this is not a subtle or nuanced film, with performances to match.  It's also afflicted or blessed (depending on your perspective) with an incongruously chirpy soundtrack.  On the other hand, it moves briskly and I was never bored.  If you liked Night of the Living Dead, it's worth checking out what Romero was up to before he finally pulled the trigger on a sequel to that film.

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

American executive Linda Westinghouse finds herself experiencing recurring erotic dreams about a beautiful brunette.  It's probably no surprise that when her work takes her to the remote home of Countess Nadine Carody, the Countess turns out to be the brunette in question.

The two women immediately become lovers, but of course Nadine is actually more interested in Linda's blood than she is in rest of her body, what with that whole "being a vampire" thing she has going on.  She's not your common sunlight-fearing bloodsucker though, as she emphatically proves by gambolling naked on the beach with Linda.

Despite the passion she feels for Nadine, Linda finds herself unnerved about their relationship, especially when she meets a Doctor who warns her of the Countess's true nature.  Will she succumb to the vampire's sensual charms?  Will she survive if she denies them?

Vampyros Lesbos basically steals the plot of Dracula, but combines the Mina and Jonathon Harker roles together, with lashings of nudity on top of it.  I actually rather like the idea of a Dracula adaptation where Mina Harker is more than just a victim to be rescued, and would be keen to see someone seriously take that approach on.  Alas, writer/director Jesus Franco is most definitely not the man to do that, as he's an unabashed exploitation-based film-maker.  Bare bosoms and bottoms (and the occasional artsy bit of shotwork) are his stock in trade, and the story takes a very secondary role to the titillation.

The House on Sorority Row (1983)

Seven members of a sorority plan a graduation party, despite the objections of their domineering house mother, Mrs Slater.  When the older woman demands they cancel the party and take down all the decorations, they plan to prank her in revenge.  Alas, things get out of control, and the repercussions could well be deadly ...

The House on Sorority Row (AKA House of Evil or Seven Sisters) is a fairly formulaic slasher coming from toward the end of the genre's roughly five year 'golden age' between Halloween and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.  Despite the provocative title and cover image, the film's pretty tame in terms of both sex and violence.  Particularly violence, really.  There's a fair bit of "here are the shadows of someone being murdered" rather than "here is someone being murdered".  This was possibly partly due to the then current furore about "video nasties", but I suspect a bigger driver was probably just that it's a lot cheaper to film shadows than a convincing on-camera 'kill scene'.

The problem with this (presumed) cost-cutting measure is that it needs a quality director to keep up the tension and creepiness in the face of the lack of "payoff" (because let's face it, the kill scenes are a key draw for slasher movies).  This movie would need someone like John Carpenter at the helm to really make it work, and well ... it doesn't.  The script doesn't do itself many favours in the tension stakes by making the 'final girl' so transparently obvious from the start (and also by failing to actually establish discernible characters for five of the seven young women at all).

This is only for slasher fanatics, and even they are unlikely to find a whole lot to really enthuse about, here.

Murderdrome (2013)

Cherry Skye just wants to play roller derby and maybe date this guy named Brad.  Quite what's so appealing about Brad is a mystery to me, but apparently Cherry's not the only one to see it.  His ex, despite being the one who ended their relationship, is determined to prevent anything happening between him and Cherry.

Naturally, said ex is also a roller derby rival of Cherry's, and somehow their romantic and professional rivalry attracts the attention of a demonic spirit that's determined to snare Cherry's soul ... though not before murdering everyone else who has appeared in the film.

I very much enjoyed writer-director Daniel Armstrong's Sheborg Massacre, and picked up this earlier effort off the back of that enjoyment.  Alas, Murderdrome is a much less effective film.  The script's a muddle, the characters paper thin, and the acting generally is merely bad, as opposed to the deliberately bombastic and over the top performances of the more recent film.  Heck, even on a technical level it's wanting: this has the worst audio I've (not) heard on a film since Invasion of the Pod People.

At the end of the day, this just doesn't have the energy or anarchic sense of fun that it really needed.  Fortunately, Mr Armstrong seems to have got better at capturing those qualities since this was made, so I am still interested to see his next effort.