Summer of Slash: Hitcher in the Dark

Wow,what a movie! Umberto Lenzi directing under his “Oh boy are these American movies I’m making terrible” pseudonym (Humphrey Humbert) that he used for other “stellar” horror films such as Welcome to Spring Break returns with this 80 minute Ray-Bans and Winnebago commercial. Yes, this entire film consist of a creepo in a Winnebago who may or may not pick up hitchhikers on a regular basis (we only see him pick up one, the rest of the film he simply stalks a girl and kidnaps her) and kills them. Basic slasher premise, right? In the words of John Matrix, “WRONG!” Nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. The guy drives around wearing his Ray-Bans, kidnaps a girl and cuts her hair so that she looks like his former girlfriend (Lenzi trying to make his Vertigo, no doubt), while the girl's doofus boyfriend drives around in his Suzuki jeep looking for her…you know what, the whole film can be summed up by this compilation. Enjoy (WARNING: this is definitely NSFW).

God bless you, Lenzi!

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Italian Horror Blog-a-thon: Links (Updated 10/31)

[Here's what other people have contributed so far to the Italian Horror Blog-a-thon. Keep 'em coming...you can submit a piece anytime you'd like during the blog-a-thon's run. I will continue to update this on a daily basis so that it will be easy to find who has contributed and where you can find it. Everything will be in this one post organized by date. I will try to keep this updated at the top of the blog. All reviews written by me can be found below this post. Enjoy.]

Updated links after the jump...

Update: I have class from 8:30 until 3:45 today so if you send me a link to your post during that time trust that I'm not ignoring you...I will link to your review when I get home. However, my Oregon Ducks have a huge game against USC today at 5:00 (meaning I won't peel myself away from the television) and then I have a Halloween party at 7:30...sooo again, I promise I will post links when I get back from that. I just want to quickly say (and I'll wax poetic in a longer post) that I have been thrilled with the results of this blog-a-thon. It's been great to meet new lovers of the genre and have old friends contribute. I'll definitely be doing this again next year. Happy Halloween everyone!

Update #2: Check out the newly updated links below! Thanks for these amazing last minute entries, guys.


10/31

Jamie Uhler, one of this blogs nicest followers, has a wonderful post on Torso that is being featured and the equally wonderful Sam Juliano hosted Wonders in the Dark blog. Check it out.

Elgringo, author of the fabulous He Shot Cyrus blog, chimes in with some thoughts on Zombi 2.

And last but certainly not least is Dennis Cozzalio author of the amazing (and influential) blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule pens an exemplary essay on Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling, and some of the baggage that comes with a Fulci film.

Reviews are still coming in...I expect a few more updates today so keep checking back. A couple early one's for you, though. Chris Voss of the wonderful Celluloid Moon takes a look at one of my favorite Argetno films, Tenebre.

Also Jandy Stone of Rowthree.com checks in with her first attempts at the genre. I'm thrilled that so many people are introducing themselves to Italian horror because of this blog-a-thon. Jandy has some great thoughts up on Argento's Suspiria and Bava's The Mask of Satan. Check it out.


10/30

With just one day left in the blog-a-thon there are still some entries trickling in. Alec Pridgen (who has a picture of Reb Brown on his blog, so he's alright in my book) of the Mondo Bizarro blog has reviews up for Soavi's The Church and Argento's Phantom of the Opera.

Goregirl chimes in with some great thoughts on the classically named Black Belly of the Tarantula.

Samuel Wilson of the wonderful Mondo 70 blog (one of my favorites) gives his thoughts on the kinda-Italian horror/sleaze picture Delirium.

And finally my brother Troy is back from Italy and was inspired enough to write about the least Italian of Italian horror movies: Welcome to Spring Break by Umberto Lenzi. You have to check this review out...Troy has compiled some great stills and clips from the movie that will surely make you want to run out and get this movie. Plus it has Italian horror staple John Saxon! What more do you need? Get on over there and read about this so-bad-it's-good classic.


10/28

Roderick Heath co-contributor of one of my favorite daily stops, Ferdy on Films, contributes a fantastic review on Argento's brilliant Deep Red. Roderick and I share the same opinion on this particular Argento: it's his best film.

Another one of my favorite blogs is Antagony & Ecstasy, and if you've visited Tim's blog you know how prolific he is; but, what's even more impressive than the amount of work he produces is that there is an obvious care and craft that goes into each essay. Tim offers up his thoughts on what is considered the first (and most influential) horror film, I Vampiri. Check it out.

And finally today previous contributor Evil Dead Junkie has some thoughts on Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much.


10/27

Bob Turnbull of the extremely good Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind blog chimes in with some great capsule reviews.

Samuel Wilson of the fantastically entertaining Mondo 70 blog submits a piece on Pupi Avati's masterful and criminally underrated The House With Laughing Windows...easily one of the best Italian horror movies I've seen.

And thanks to my brother Troy there is a Youtube clip of Willy, the crazy caretaker of the sound stage in the movie Stage Fright. I mentioned in my review last Monday that you didn't want to miss Willy's delivery of the line "right between the eyes", and now it's online thanks to my brother. Check it out...it's pretty funny.

10/23

Neil of Agitation of the Mind makes it a hat trick as he covers the giallo The Case of the Bloody Iris.

Francisco Gonzalez chimes in with reviews for Soavi's Cemetery Man, Fulci's 8 1/2-esque A Cat in the Brain, and the famous Italian version of The Exorcist entitled Beyond the Door.

Jacob Burton of the B Movies Forever blog covers a couple of classics by also throwing his hat in the ring for The Case of the Bloody Iris, and Jacob also has some thoughts on Argento's seminal supernatural horror film Suspiria.


10/22

One of my favorite blogs The Basement of Ghoulish Decadence has a great entry up on Fulci's City of the Living Dead (a popular choice for this blog-a-thon).

And Michael Parent is back with some thoughts on Zombi 2.


10/21

Evil Dead Junkie, author of the wonderfully titled blog Things That Don't Suck, has a great review up for Fulci's gore classic City of the Living Dead.

One of my favorite blogs (maybe because Troll 2 is referenced in their banner) belongs to Tower Farm Reviews...two brothers who review horror movies (naturally Troy and I are trying to copy them with our blog Garbage Day), and back in September the brothers reviewed Lamerto Bava's bizarre horror film entitled Delirium. You have to check out the pics...just crazy.

Hans A. has been a good friend to this blog, and over at his site, Quiet Cool, he takes a look at an Exorcist rip off entitled Cries and Shadows. It wasn't uncommon at all for the Italian horror industry to latch onto whatever was trendy at the time. It's what killed Mario Bava's career. Check out Hans' submission.

Neil over at The Agitation of the Mind is back with another stellar contribution...this time it's for Fulci's A Lizard in a Woman's Skin. Great stuff, Neil.

And last but not least today is Starmummy, author of the B Movies and Beyond blog...here are two links where you can find all of his wonderful and succinct reviews for Fulci and Argento. Enjoy.


10/20

J.D. of the always enjoyable Radiator Heaven tackles one of my favorite Italian zombie films, Michele Soavi's Cemetery Man.

Neil Fulwood author of The Agitation of the Mind gives Fulci's giallo Don't Torture a Ducking a look.

Erich Kuersten of Acidmeic Film has a wonderful piece on the style and allure we Italian fans love so much in a piece that looks to be a part of series entitled Bad Acid 70's-80's. Make sure to check it out.

Michael Parent of Le Mot du Cinephiliaque offers up his take on Argento's Suspiria.

Will Errickson author of Panic on the 4th of July has a post up on one of the seminal Italian horror films (and the one film that a lot people think was the catalyst for Italian horror becoming a pop culture phenomenon), Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters).

Chris Voss of Celluloid Moon has a write-up on Mario Bava's extremely influential Bay of Blood, which introduced to horror world to one of its favorite tropes: the dead teenager film.

Last but certainly not least is Samuel Wilson, a good friend to this blog, author of the always fascinating Mondo 70 film blog. He covers Lucio Fulci's finale to his Gates of Hell trilogy The House by the Cemetery. Check it out.


That's it for now. Keep the reviews coming, though. If you talked to me via email a few backs back I am still interested in you posting something for this. Just email it to me or leave the link here in the comments and I will make sure to link it up. I will continue to update this post.

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Italian Horror Blog-a-thon: Nightmare City (aka City of the Walking Dead, aka Invasion of the Atomic Zombies)

[Dusting off another old review for today. If you've never had the pleasure of seeing an Umberto Lenzi movie...this is one to see. I'll update the links later today as I had two wonderful submissions sent to me yesterday, one from Tim of Antagony & Ecstasy and the other by Roderick Heath of Ferdy on Films...if you're familiar with either of those blogs than you know the quality of those submissions is going to be at a high level. Enjoy.]

Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City is a masterpiece. No seriously, hear me out. The film is the Italian horror equivalent of the greatest of all 1980’s so-bad-it’s-good-movies, Commando. It is one of those films that is so awful in every aspect that the more you watch it, the more you appreciate every frame of the film. Not only is the film awesomely awful, but it inspired Robert Rodriguez’ Planet Terror and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. Lenzi’s film contains a plethora of 1980’s European horror film clichés. It’s the classic example of Italy churning out whatever was popular at the time and employing a hack director to just make sure the film makes money (this happened with cannibal films which stole from the Mondo films, and it happened with supernatural films like The Exorcist rip off Beyond the Door, etc. – basically they knew they were going to make a profit before the movie was even released, so they didn’t care about the quality). The result of all this is Lenzi and co. creating one of the funniest horror films ever made, and one of the truly great grindhouse experiences you are likely to have.


The film opens with Hugo Stiglitz as Dean Miller (great generic American name), a reporter who is headed to an airstrip to meet with a prominent scientist for an interview. However, an unmarked military plane lands on the airstrip and as Miller instructs his cameraman to shoot the action, nothing can prepare our hero for what he is about to see: oatmeal-faced, turtleneck/sports coat wearing zombies who rush off the plane and partake in an orgy of stabbing, biting, drinking blood, and missing a lot of their cues from Lenzi. These aren’t your ordinary zombies, though. In fact, they are more like what we’re used to seeing in American zombie films today; as Miller’s wife the good doctor Anna explains, they’re “infected.” Hmm, sound familiar?

The infected run around the city killing lots of people (looking suave while doing it), and in a surreal scene at the television station that Miller is employed by, the zombies rush in on what appears to be a daytime disco/aerobics show. If you have ever been curious as to why it is I love Italian zombie films so much, this scene helps explain a lot. They proceed to eat up all the dancers (some dancers, ever the performers, keep dancing while the mayhem ensues), and look to take over the station. Miller is at the station desperately trying to get a message out to the people about the infected…but his boss says no dice. A disgusted Miller retreats to his office, but he’s intercepted by a horde of infected trying to kill him. This is great because it causes Hugo Stiglitz to overact (like only Hugo can) and show just how wimpy he is as he resorts to throwing monitors and other various office supplies at the zombies as they try to break into his office and kill him. One monitor even explodes as cheesy looking sparks and smoke bomb effects go off. God bless you, Lenzi.

The rest of the film is some nonsense about how the zombies are not undead, but they are infected from a radiation spill and how they need blood to survive. The hospital where Anna works gets overrun soon enough (with a wonderful scene by a doctor who is performing surgery, and without hesitation when one of the infected walk in, he throws his scalpel at him, and of course does nothing to prevent the inevitable), but luckily our hero Hugo is there to rescue his wife and get her the hell out of there.

There’s also some stuff about how there is a national emergency and some military people have to figure out how they want to handle the situation. Miller and wife try to warn people about what is happening, but that crusty old veteran General Murchison (ably played by Mel Ferrer) won’t allow it to happen. Damn him! There must be something else to why this plane was allowed to land? Ah, but Lenzi is not interested in an even more convoluted storyline involving military conspiracy; no, he’d rather focus on bad make-up, inane goings-on like a lawnmower that pushes itself across the lawn of the good General’s wife, or the sculpture she is working on that randomly breaks and drips blood, which of course leads to her death (how these things are relevant to the film, I still haven’t figured out – it’s as if Lenzi was desperate to mix in some Beyond-esque supernatural weirdness).

The film ends with a showdown in an amusement park where the Miller’s climb a Ferris wheel to load a helicopter, but then…bad things happen including a nasty fall by Anna. But who cares, right? I mean look at Hugo with the gun! He just mows down the infected looking as wimpy as someone can holding a gigantic automatic weapon like that. Then the film does something way ahead of its time. Circular plot, baby! Just when we think the film is over as Dean is in trouble and his wife has just died Lenzi hits us with this…


Brilliant! Brilliant, I say!

Nightmare City is a film that even the most casual of horror fans would enjoy. It’s campy enough to be entertaining and has the so-bad-it’s-good quality that makes for a good party movie. It’s also fun to see zombies that aren’t boring. These zombies are fast (and dress nicely), and it’s fun to watch the film and see its imprint on tongue-in-cheek fair like Planet Terror (which lifted the entire hospital scene from Nightmare City) to better and more eerie horror films like 28 Days Later. At one point in Nightmare City one of the zombies picks up a gun and uses it…if you ask me this shows that Lenzi was way ahead of his time and a true auteur of the zombie genre, preceding Romero’s Land of the Dead (where zombies also use guns). Okay, Lenzi isn’t an auteur at all, but it is fun to watch him hack his way through this material and supply enough originality to the genre to keep us entertained, while also supplying enough crap that will make you laugh out loud and want to hit the rewind button.

I mentioned Commando at the beginning of this review, and although Nightmare City is not as quotable (“Let off some steam, Bennett”) it is just as memorable as far as awful 80’s movies go. The wonderful Italian touches separate it from a purely American film like Commando, which is why I love Nightmare City so much more than other “good” bad movies. I have an unabashed love for all things Italian horror and the weird nonsensical things these filmmakers add to their films (also kick ass synth soundtracks). It is because of these things that Nightmare City stands shoulders above all other bad Italian zombie movies, even the soundtrack and classic Italian horror motifs are horribly ripped off here. Everything in the film is a failure, which more often than not in this subgenre means the film is a success in being a guilty pleasure.

Compared to a good zombie movie, Nightmare City is a joke, but isn’t that really the point. No one rents a film like this expecting something good. The wardrobe and the make-up and the nonsensical storyline easily make this one of the most enjoyable pieces of crap to come out of the 1980’s Italian horror era. Lenzi would go on and do what most Italian hack directors do: rip off more material. His next film Cannibal Feroux was just a rehashing of the cannibal genre’s most influential film Cannibal Holocaust, and the films that preceded Nightmare City were just the same old tired gialli; however, with Nightmare City and its oatmeal covered, sport coat wearing zombies (and of course Hugo Stiglitz) I always find myself smiling at this wonderfully awful and hilarious Italian horror film that should be atop every horror buffs must see list.

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Blog Alert! Check it out...

Dear readers I have an announcement to make. I'm a papa! Okay...not really, but my brother is (he and his wife just got the final thumbs up a week ago from the adoption agency they were looking into in China...so I'm going to be an Uncle!)...but really that doesn't compare to the news I have today. My brother, author of the wonderfully irreverent Elusive as Robert Denby, and I have started a new blog called It's Garbage Day! (Kudos to those of you you can spot the reference), and beginning tomorrow we will have our first post up. We've blatantly ripped off the idea of a "conversations" (ahem sorry Ed and Jason) piece for all the movies we will discuss...which, in case you couldn't tell, will most likely be bad movies. However, we don't want to bore anyone with conversations about bad movies...no these are bad movies that say something. You will not want to miss our conversation on Neil Labute's The Wicker Man.

This blog also gives me an outlet to talk more about bad, or just so-so, horror movies. I don't really like writing "reviews" for them, and since I owe much of my horror knowledge to my brother, I figured a better avenue for that type of discourse would be on another blog where he and I share writing duties.

I hope you'll join us tomorrow at It's Garbage Day! for our first conversation (I'll leave you in suspense as to what it is we're talking about)...it's going to be a good one. Of course, the reason I am telling you all this and pimping the blog on here is that I want all of you (especially you horror buffs...there's going to be a lot of horror and 70's B-movie conversations that'll cover everything from Alienator to Malone starring Burt Reynolds to some of our favorite Italian hacks like Umberto Lenzi...and of course the films of John Saxon), my dear and faithful readers, to stop by and follow the blog if you think it's worth your time. We'd love to have these conversations with everyone, not just each other...because quite honestly we talk about this stuff every time we see each other (and our friends just roll their eyes).

So I hope I'll see you all tomorrow at the new blog...which in no way will take away from this blog -- hopefully it'll add to it and make me a better writer.

See ya!

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MapQuesting a Meme

Rick Olson of the superb Coosa Creek Cinema has tagged me for a meme. Here's the Q 'n D of it all:

1.) Think of a place (real or fictional) and time (past, present, future) portrayed in a movie (or a few) that you would love to visit.
2.) List the setting, period, applicable movie, and year of the applicable movie’s release (for reference).
3.) Explain why, however you’d like (bullet points, list, essay form, screenshots, etc.). If this is a time and place that you have intimate knowledge of, feel free to describe what was done well and what wasn’t done well in portraying it.
4.) If possible, list and provide links to any related movies, websites, books, and/or articles that relate to your choice (s).
5.) Modify Rules #1-4 to your liking. And come up with a better name for this meme.
6.) Link back to this Getafilm post in your post, please.
7.) Tag at least five others to participate!

That's from the GetaFilm site hosted by Daniel Getahun who is the originator of this meme. I had to think about this for a little bit. I don't mind the whole meme thing, it's just sometimes it's hard for me to follow the rules. So I'll do my best. I started thinking about what places I would like to visit and oddly enough almost all of my conclusions came to some form of a director's alternate universe. These films, with the exception of one title, exist in the years they were released. As is the case with any of these lists, this is in no way a definitive culmination of my brainstorming...but it's the best I could come up with for now, so let's get to it...


I'm going to do this by chronological order of when the film came out (Oh, and all of my DVD's are boxed up in storage right now, so all screen caps are coming from the net and some of them aren't as specific as I would be had I access to my own collection):


Duck Soup (1933, directed by Leo McCarey)

Ah yes, what a maddening euphoria it would have been to exist in Freedonia. Duck Soup is a film that takes place in an alternate universe, sure, but it seems eerily absurd like The United States of America. There are a lot of parallels to Freedonia's problems and the problems we face in America today, so how great would it be to have lived in Freedonia with a president who (gasps) tells the truth. Oh how we could have used someone like Rufus T. Firefly in our previous administration to just tell it like it is...if only there was a song...

"If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited! I'll put my foot down, so shall it be... this is the land of the free! The last man nearly ruined this place he didn't know what to do with it. If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it! The country's taxes must be fixed, and I know what to do with it. If you think you're paying too much now, just wait till I get through with it!"

Anyway, that's just part of the fun of this film. It's one of the all time great comedies, and I think it would have been a hell of a ride going through what we went through for eight years (and are still feeling the effects of) with someone as blunt and rudely honest as Firefly. Hey, at least we would get the truth.



The Alternate Universe that is 1970's Italian Horror (1970's, directors: Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, and Dario Argento)

Whenever I talk about Italian Horror on this blog I almost always throw around the word ethereal. These films displace the viewer creating alternate realities that are unlike anything in the genre. Sometimes that's a good thing, but more often than not it's a bad thing. Take for instance the place I would love to visit from all of these 1970 Italian Horror films: "New York City". This "NYC" is actually Rome posing as the Big Apple (except for a few of the exteriors in Fulci's Zombi 2), and often times (like Kubrick's "New York" in Eyes Wide Shut) it does create an eerie feeling (usually if in the hands of Argento or a motivated Fulci, not hacks like Lenzi) that displaces the viewer. It's also the backdrop for what are some of the craziest goings-on I've seen in any horror film. The "city" is also often the catalyst for sending our protagonists in jungles of the Amazon where they are killed by cannibals. I think I'd like to go there to tell these characters that you don't have to stand there and watch them eat your friend...you can run and get the hell out of there!


More than anything the "New York" and other alternate realities of Italian Horror (especially "Louisiana" from Fulci's The Beyond) are home to sport coat wearing zombies; killer spiders (some real, some not so much) that hiss like snakes, and chew off people's faces; and among other things, an all Jazzercise channel that gets interrupted by tons of infected, blood-thirsty scientists. Come on! Who wouldn't want to be a part of that swingin' "city".



The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, directed by Anthony Minghella)

The Rome of Minghella's masterpiece (I must really want to visit Italy) is the most realistic out of all of these places that compile this list. The Rome I want to visit exists in the 1950's, specifically the Rome as experience by rich, easy-going playboy Dickie Greenleaf, his fiance Marge, and a mysterious "friend", Tom Ripley. Before the horrifying events unfold that really set this brilliant film in motion, the viewer is treated to a bevy of luscious scenery and stunning on-location cinematography that made me want to, for the only time in my life, wish I were rich. To be rich and to be in Dickie's position -- to drive around Rome on a Vespa with a beautiful woman, drink expensive alcohol while laying on the beach, sitting in cafes all day, have no responsibilities -- and to have it all in beautiful 1950's Rome...well sign me up. I could live there forever. Especially when Tom and Dickie go out on the boat and are surrounded by nothing but beauty and an eerie silence, a man could definitely be inspired there. Well until...you know...that thing happens...



American Movie (1999, directed by Chris Smith)

You can kind of call this an alternate reality because really I don't think amateur horror filmmaker Mark Borchardt has any idea what reality means. But man is he passionate about getting his film made, and that passion is infectious. The specific place I would want to be is in Milwaukee with Mark, all the time, talking about horror film (it's no secret what a fan I am of the genre), and hoping that just maybe, someday, I could be as passionate about something as he is about getting his film Coven made. The specific scene I'm thinking of is when he's editing late into the night at the local university, splicing together scenes at the last second, mulling over every decision like Scorsese would with his films. It's a scene that shows the drive (even though often he appears to have no drive) this man has. It's kind of like the Coens' Fargo: these people are etched out of a specific geography, and I wouldn't mind being there, because really, there's a character on every corner.



Apatown, U.S.A. (2000's, directors: Judd Apatow, Greg Mottola, and Akiva Schaffer)

This is another one of the alternate realities that I would love to live in where guys like Steve Carrell, Jonah Hill, and Seth Rogen are hooking up with beautiful women. I'm like those guys...and I guess this alternate universe isn't so far fetched since I am getting married this summer to a beautiful woman...so hey, us nerds do get lucky sometimes (for the record I don't know how I fooled my fiance...). Films like Superbad and The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up exist in that bizarre Apatow realm where geek is chic and it doesn't matter what you look like, what your social status is, or any of that crap: it's your individuality (and weirdness...or read: geekiness) that sets apart from everyone else and makes you attractive.


I threw Akiva Schaffer's name on there, too, because he's obviously indebted to Apatow's style, plus I've been obsessed with Hot Rod lately: it's a brisk 80 minute comedy starring Andy Samberg that also exists in the same retro, thrift store habilimented (thank you Thesauras iPhone app!) universe where the dork gets the extremely beautiful girl (Isla Fisher) because they don't change who they are. By the way, the movie actually is pretty funny and I can't convince myself to stop watching whenever I come across it on Direct TV.


Well, there ya have it. I proabbly flubbed the rules a bit, but these are the places in film I would most like to visit. So...it's taggin' time:

Troy, Sam, Ed, Andrew, and Ali.

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