Sock Babies. The Terror is Real!

I got a message the other day from Travis Kurtz telling me to watch his short film or he would order the execution of four South Vietnamese intelligence agents whom he suspects are double agents for the Viet Cong, and then resign his commission.  It's possible I made part of that up.  It's also possible that I've seen Apocalypse Now too many times.

Anyhoo, check out the horrifying origin of the white cotton terror that lurks under your bed.  When you jizz in your sock, evil is born.  The horror!  The horror!

Girls of Grindhouse: Claudia Jennings

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The Forest (1982)

I'm sick and lazy and I don't want to do anything but sleep.  So, I'm going to expand on a post I did a while back and make it into a review, although it will be a half-assed one as all my reviews are.  I'll have another another addition to the Girls of Grindhouse for you tomorrow.

Daddy's Gone A Hunting.

The Forest

This is one of those movies that traumatized the hell out of me when I was a kid.  I couldn't remember what it was called so it took me forever to track it down.  I finally found it and watched it again about a year ago and... well... it's definitely better left remembered.   This one my friends, is a hard one to get through.  It's pretty much a train wreck from beginning to end. The violence is minimal compared to other slasher films, and the boobies are nonexistent.  In fact, if you can make it all the way through the trailer, I salute you.  Now imagine 85 minutes of that...

There's a sad, old cannibal in the woods.  He kills and eats campers.  There's your plot.

Four city slickers from Los Angeles decide to get away from the congestion and rat race of city life for a weekend of camping in the mountains.  The two girls are eager to prove that they're just as competent as their men, and leave for the woods early to set up camp.  A wise Forest Ranger warns the girls to be careful because some people have disappeared in the woods over the years and their bodies have never been recovered.  I know he's wise because he has a mustache.

Times had been tough for Will Forte.

The two men finally arrive at the forest but can't find the campsite and wander around until it gets dark.  Meanwhile, the girls are attacked by some psycho with a bowie knife and a greasy hat and one of them has her throat cut.  Later, the two men stumble upon a cave and decide to take shelter until dawn.  However, there is a strange, slovenly, old man and his creepy, pale children in the cave already.  It seems this is their home.  The old man offers the two strangers some meat from his fire and one of them accepts.  Guess what it is?!  Anyway, the sad, old cannibal tells his sad, old tale of how his wife cheated on him and how he fled to the forest with his kids to get away from it all.  Of course, he leaves out some crucial details... like how he killed his kids and the fact that the creepy, pale children in the cave are actually their ghosts.

And so, the men leave in the morning to find the girls but discover that their campsite is deserted.  As they search for their missing wives, everybody who is still alive eventually gets hunted by the sad, old cannibal who lives in the forest.  The end.

This one is really only for masochists or slasher film aficionados... or maybe if you're drunk and want a few laughs.

Violence Rating/Index: 3 out of 5

Booby Rating/Index: 1 out of 5 which translates to "no nudity, maybe some cleavage or a bikini here and there" according to the Rating System.

Get The Forest at TLACult.com

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)

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The House That Screamed (1969)

The Suspense is Sheer Torture in ... "The House That Screamed"

The House That Screamed

The House That Screamed or La Residencia is a gothic-y Spanish horror film by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, the same guy who directed Who Can Kill a Child?.  It's frequently compared to Italian supernatural horror/giallo master Dario Argento's Suspiria and I guess the two films have similarities in that they both take place at all-girls schools and have abusive headmistresses, but never once was I reminded of the Italian classic while watching this film.  The House That Screamed does have a Hammer horror feel to it though because of the dark, gothic atmosphere.

It's certainly not a bad film but it drags at times and doesn't really stand out as anything special among the many other dark, gothic, evil governess/headmistress films out there.  It has a few things going for it that make it worth watching, however.  The acting is great, and the sets and gloomy, claustrophobic atmosphere are really the heart and soul of this film, but it's the ending that I liked the best and I'm sure it shocked the hell out of  audiences back in 1969.  It's similar to Lucky McKee's May which came out 33 years later and if you've seen that movie I guess I've just ruined the ending of The House That Screamed for you.  My bad.  "So many pretty parts and no pretty wholes."

"Nice bloomers, bitch."

Teresa, a young woman with a sordid past, is brought to a finishing school where she is to be taught the skills crucial to landing and keeping a husband. The girls are all pretty much bitches and the headmistress is the bitchiest of them all.  Girls who do not adhere to the strict rules imposed at this school are sent to the "discipline chamber" where their attitudes are adjusted to the conformity desired by the bitchy headmistress.  There's also a lot of sexual tension and sometimes encounters amongst the girls and any man who is lucky enough to penetrate the walls of the school.  This includes the deliveryman and the headmistress's handsome but mentally slow son.  The creepy, overprotective mother won't let her precious son have anything to do with the girls at the school because they aren't good enough for him like mommy is.  She and her mentally incompetent boy also have some sort of incestuous thing going on which is never explicitly shown, but is obvious... and gross.   He has flings with the girls at the boarding school anyway including Teresa, and these girls start to get murdered one by one.  And just like the tagline of this film says, "only the killer knows why and how and who is next!"

It's a decent film, kinda slow but it has a good ending.


Violence Rating/Index: 2.5 out of 5
Booby Rating/Index: 1.5 out of 5

Get The House That Screamed 
as part of the  
Maneater of Hydra & The House That Screamed 
double feature at TLACult.com

Arrow Video to Release Tobe Hooper's Funhouse on July 18th

Arrow Films is set to release another grindhouse, well "classic" doesn't seem right so I'm going to use the word "film" on Blu-ray and it has some swanky special features.  Some people think I was too hard on Tobe Hooper in my half-assed review of The Funhouse, but those people can eat a bag of dicks.  I'm just kidding!  I love you all.  You can read the review HERE if you're bored. 


The Funhouse (1981)

Starring: Elizabeth Berridge, Miles Chapin, Shawn Carson
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
Duration: 95 mins

Overview: Something is alive in The Funhouse!

The carnival is a place for fun and laughter, but not for Amy and her friends. When their childish dare to stay all night in the spooky funhouse backfires, it leaves a trail of dismembered teenagers a mile long in Tobe Hooper’s classic video nasty era slasher.

Will anyone escape the clutches of the stumbling madman that stalks to sideshow? Is there no end to the carnival barkers chilling sadism? The only way to find out is ascend into the funhouse, where the games have no rules and the only prize on offer is a grisly demise.

Join us in The Funhouse. So much fun that you’ll never leave...Alive!

THIS BLU-RAY EDITION CONTAINS:
- Brand new transfer of the film in glorious High Definition (1080p)
- 4 panel reversible sleeve options with original and newly commissioned artwork
- Double-sided fold-out artwork poster
- Collector’s booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by critic and author Kim Newman.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Audio commentary with The Funhouse S/FX wizard Craig Reardon and Jeffrey Reddick (creator of The Final Destination series)
- Audio commentary with producer Derek Power and genre scholar Howard S. Berger
- Audio commentary with Justin Kerswell, author of ‘Teenage Wasteland’ and host of the slasher cinema website Hysteria Lives, and author Calum Waddell
- Carnage at the Carnival: Tobe Hooper Remembers ‘The Funhouse’
- Miles of Mayhem: Acting in Tobe’s Funhouse with star Miles Chapin
- A Trilogy of Terror: The Make-up Madness of Craig Reardon, the S/FX wizard recollects his collaborations with Tobe Hooper; ‘Eaten Alive’, ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘The Funhouse’
- Master Class of Horror: Mick Garris, the director of Sleepwalkers and The Shining reflects on the crimson-covered career of his longtime colleague Tobe Hooper
- Live Q&A with Tobe Hooper from San Francisco
- Never before seen behind the scenes photographs from the collection of Craig Reardon
- Trailer

Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 (16x9)
Optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired

Release Date:  18 July 2011