The Ugly File (2009)

When a woman becomes pregnant, isn’t it always her and the father’s greatest fear that the child will come out abnormal or deformed? What would you do if you learned that your unborn child was going to be mentally retarded or be physically deformed so that they could never have a normal life?

The short film The Ugly File, director Mark Steensland most recent film, deals with this very subject, but in a disturbingly skewed way that creates a heartbreakingly horrific film.

Photographer Roy Hubbard (Mike Lechner) visits a woman’s home to take pictures of her baby girl…except there is something terribly wrong with the baby. Back at the studio, Roy adds the photographs to his “ugly file” and delivers said package to a rich man on the outskirts of town who has his own sadly disturbing use for the photographs.

The Ugly File is a subtle film that has a heavy, sad feeling throughout the proceedings. Based on the story by Ed Gorman with a screenplay by Rick Hautala, The Ugly File is a subdued, downbeat horror film that’ll leave you counting your blessings…and your toes!

This 10 minute short starts with a feeling of dread as the photographer drives under overcast skies to a woman’s home to take pictures of her baby, which she says most people can’t even look at. We never see the baby, as Steensland uses clever camera angles to obscure its face, but this only heightens the tension and makes the final “reveal” in the film that much more shocking. The special FX at the end are pretty horrific, even with the limited budget the film was made on. Special FX makeup artist Mark Kosobucki did a fantastic job with creating the look of the baby. I was also surprised to learn that the story by Ed Gorman is actually based on a woman’s true story, which just makes the film even more tragic and horrifying.

The Ugly File works on subtle suspense and pronounced creepiness, so there isn’t any blood or gore contained within the short, but the overall dark atmosphere of the film is what really sells the film. The fear of having a child born with deformities will resonate with many people, even if they don’t have kids of their own (like myself), so check The Ugly File out when it comes to a film festival near you!

Visit Mark Steensland’s Official Site!

Peekers (2008)

Filmmakers often rely on short films as a jumping off point before they go on to make longer, feature-length films. Short films allow them to “test the waters” and gain hands-on experience with filmmaking without having to break the bank. For other filmmakers, though, the short film is an art form and much of their careers are spent crafting precise and effective shorts.

I believe that shorts have a very important place in the film business, not just for showcasing what a filmmaker can do or for a filmmaker to gain experience, but as an effective, bite-sized piece of entertainment. When done effectively, short films can pack quite the punch!

Case in point is director Mark Steensland’s (Dead @ 17 and the Beyond the Pale short film collection) short Peekers, based on the story by Kealan Patrick Burke and written by Rick Hautala. This 8-minute film may not be that long, but, boy, did it ever rock the socks off of me! It is a suburban nightmare, beginning with the seemingly mundane task of our main character, Larry Morgan (Mike Lechner), making breakfast. Just as he sits down to eat, he is interrupted by a knock at the door by his neighbor, the elderly Zach (Albert Braun), who pleads with Larry to come check something out at his house. What follows is the creepiest of scenes and a finale that will leave you shaken for days! You’ll never be the same after you hear “Play with me” from one of the characters!

Peekers is an extremely effective short that definitely left me with a case of the heebie jeebies. In addition to its lasting impact, it is also precisely constructed and well-acted. The pacing is perfect, accompanied by a wonderful soundtrack that starts off on a light note before delving into darker territory to mirror the mounting dread of the film. I also have to note that for a short film it has a remarkable high production value to it. Each shot is carefully composed and in no way does it feel like an amateur undertaking like some short films do. Of course, director Mark Steensland has been in the business for quite some time and really excels at creating taut short films (see our reviews of his earlier works above).

I absolutely love the creepy visuals that will cause you to do a double take and give the film its title. There is no violence, blood or gore, but the pervading creepiness of the film will put you off your rocker for sure. The menacing “peekers” are a sight to behold and their pleas to play with them are even more disturbing.

Peekers is a short film that just MUST be seen! In our busy world, short films will soon play an important, bigger role in entertainment. We will be watching them even more on our phones, in between meetings at the office, online and many other places. Peekers is a prime example of what high quality, well-constructed short films SHOULD look like! Mark Steensland continues to treat the short film genre as an art form, not just as the first step on the road to feature filmmaking. In doing so, he has creating a hauntingly memorable short with Peekers!

Visit Mark Steensland’s Official Site!

The Unseen (1980)

You know the feeling you get when you discover a hidden gem of a movie? When you are incredulous that it never garnered that much attention and want to yell from the rooftops about the underappreciated genius of the film?! Well, I had never heard of the 1980 film The Unseen before and the premise made it sound exactly like a diamond in the rough whose virtues I could extol to the masses…errrr, well, it didn’t exactly turn out that way, but at the same time I still kind of liked the film!

The Unseen starts with a reporter named Jennifer (Barbara Bach) storming out of the Los Angeles apartment she shares with her injured ex-football star boyfriend Tony (Douglas Barr). It seems that Tony’s unrealistic drive to get back into football after a knee injury is driving Jennifer batty. She leaves on assignment and heads to north to Solvang with her camera woman Karen (Karen Lamm) and gal pal Vicki (Lois Young) to cover the Dutch settlement’s annual parade. The hotel apparently lost their reservation and since all the other hotels in town are booked, they are forced to look for lodging a tiny city 30 or so miles from Solvang. A seemingly kind museum owner, Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick) offers them rooms in his large home, where they meet his “wife”, the nerve-wracked Virginia (Lelia Goldoni). After getting settled, Jennifer and Karen head back into town to cover the parade while an ill Vicki stays at the Keller’s to rest up. Unfortunately for her, something or someone that lives in the basement crawls up through the heating vents and tries to drag her down to “play”…but her head gets crushed in the process.

Meanwhile, Tony has followed Jennifer to Solvang, intent on resolving their issues. As they hash it out over dinner, Karen heads back to the Keller house and ends up much like Vicki did before her. We also learn about Ernest’s upbringing and that he takes “keeping it all in the family” a little too literally. By the time Jennifer arrives back at the Keller’s, they are more than ready for her to meet little Junior (Stephen Furst) in the basement.

The Unseen started out on a positive note, with three gung-ho, smart and likable ladies who will stop at nothing to get the story of the century about the little Dutch settlement that could! The first half of the film moves at a quick clip, with likable characters and their unfortunate decision to stay with the creepy Keller’s. There is a sense of unease around the couple, their home and what lurks in the basement. The first “kill” scene is entertaining, if a little over-the-top in how Vicki wildly reacts as she desperately tries to claw her way to safety as “something” drags her down an old-fashioned heating grate. The second kill is even better, as it involves a scarf tantalizingly dangling over another heating grate, just waiting for someone from below to grab hold of it and yank. Be warned, though, there is hardly any bloodshed and a very paltry body count, so don’t go looking for a gorefest with this one or you’ll be sorely disappointed.

While the first half of the film has an excellent set-up, the second half just doesn’t pack the same punch. By the time Jennifer arrives back to find a seemingly empty Keller house, the pacing starts to slow down and the last half of the film feels dragged out. It’s like they only had 10 minutes worth of story but dragged it out to 40 minutes. These last 40 minutes are spent in the basement while our heroine is lorded over by the overgrown, inbred lovechild of the Keller family. Of those 40 minutes, at least 15 are spent on showing the man-child gleefully clapping his hands and stuffing his teddybear down his soiled and no longer tight or white tighty-whities, all the while his chubby man-boobs peak through the remains of a tattered T-shirt. You gotta wonder how the heck he actually fit into the heating ducts in the first place! I also didn’t like the fact that he lost all scariness as soon as they decided to show him. It’s like all of a sudden, despite the fact that he’s already killed two people, we are supposed to feel sorry for the “special” guy. From then on the movie looses any momentum and tension it might have had as it presents its most menacing foe to be the tubby man of the house, Ernest. Plus, I can’t really feel sorry for the Final Girl because upon escaping the basement she didn’t even bother to lock the loony family in with the huge padlock that was hanging by the door. Instead, she went and hid in the chicken coop!! Obviously, she’s not the brightest bulb in the bunch…

The best scenes in the film featured the disturbing interactions between Ernest and Virginia. Right off the bat you know something ain’t right with the pair…and in a creepy scene featuring Ernest and the disembodied voice of his dead father you learn why. From then on it is just uncomfortable to watch the two together! The acting by Sydney Lassick as the over-eager Ernest and Lelia Goldoni as the unstable Virginia was certainly the best in the film. They played extremely well off one another and really made you squirm in your seat!

I wouldn’t call The Unseen a “gem” of a horror film, but despite its flaws it is still a neat little film that horror fans may enjoy. One the plus side, the presentation of the taboo subjects of incest and inbreeding is downright creepy, but on the negative side the tame killer and kills are mediocre and drag the film down. Overall, though, I’d say The Unseen is at least worth a rental!

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Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Released two years after Maniac Cop, the second installment ups the ante with a higher body count, more explosions, more crashes and even more killers. It’s bigger, it’s badder, but is it better than the first Maniac Cop?

Maniac Cop 2 starts off exactly where Maniac Cop left us hanging…after a spectacular crash into the harbor, undead police officer Matt Cordell is still at large. A few weeks later, Officers Forrest (Bruce Campbell) and Malloy (Laurene Landon) are still trying to convince those in charge that Cordell is not dead. Unfortunately, he gets to them before long, and it’s up to Lieutenant Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) and police psychologist Officer Susan Riley, to try and find out the truth about Cordell and the new rash of killings that have been occurring.

Meanwhile, the disfigured Cordell is befriended by New York City’s serial killer of the week, Turkell (Leo Rossi), who is being hunted by the police for killing strippers.

Can Lieutenant McKinney and Riley stop both Cordell and Turkell as well as getting to the bottom of why Cordell is so intent on revenge?

Writer/producer Larry Cohen and director William Lustig return again to bring fans Maniac Cop 2, the sequel to 1988’s Maniac Cop. Instead of the genre-bender that the first film was, part two takes things in a more straightforward “crime-thriller” direction. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we loose some of the levity and humor from the first film by doing this. In return though, we get the action turned up to 11! Car chases, explosions, people on fire and 10 more deaths than the last film are what round out Maniac Cop 2!

While the kill scenes aren’t nearly as gory as the first film, there are still some pretty sweet ones in there, including an epic scene where Cordell breaks into the station and bloodily guns down a bunch of cops in order to break Turkell out of jail. The jail-break scene is probably the most memorable and bad-ass in Maniac Cop 2, with good reason! There is also a breaking into prison scene where Cordell gets revenge on the prisoners that originally killed him…as he is on fire! There’s still some of that silly tone from the first film to be found as well, including a scene where Cordell handcuffs Riley to a steering wheel of a car, while she is still outside of the car, and puts the car in drive as Riley dodges oncoming cars, walls and traffic cones! Maybe this scene wasn’t exactly meant to be funny, but I found it hilarious!

The only thing that didn’t really feel right within the film was the subplot of Turkell, the stripper strangler. While it certainly made the story more interesting and it was fun to watch the crazy character, it just felt out of place. You’re never quite sure why Cordell befriends the killer as well – does he really need his help? Is he just lonely? Does he relate to another serial killer? I was just never quite sure about that part of the script, which isn’t even really focused on until the last half of the movie.

Other than that, though, Maniac Cop 2 is an action-packed spectacle that really must be seen to be believed! It may sacrifice many of its horror elements for a more straightforward action flick, but the result is well worth it! You get more of everything – explosions, car chases, shoot-outs, people on fire, run-away cars and so on! If you are looking for a film that packs a punch, take a gander at Maniac Cop 2! Just make sure you’ve seen the equally excellent Maniac Cop first!

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Maniac Cop (1988)

With one of the best taglines ever committed to a film (“You have the right to remain silent…FOREVER”), Maniac Cop is one of those action-packed popcorn flicks that are always a pleasure to watch when you need to shut your brain off for a bit. Written and produced by Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, God Told Me To, etc.) and directed by William Lustig (Maniac), Maniac Cop is one of those movies that unfortunately not too many people know about, but those that are in the know can’t stop (maniacally) singing its praises.

In New York City, innocent people are being brutally butchered by a hulking man dressed as a cop. Lieutenant Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins) is on the case and evidence soon suggests that the killer is one of the police’s own. When philandering Officer Jack Forrest’s (Bruce Campbell) wife is found dead in a hotel room, he is fingered as who the media have dubbed the “Maniac Cop”. His girlfriend, Theresa Mallory (Laurene Landon) who is also a cop, must convince Lieutenant McCrae that Jack didn’t commit the crimes, and together they must find out who the real killer is…before it’s too late.

Maniac Cop is a mish-mash of B-movie genres, spanning horror, action and cop-thriller to create an all-around entertaining film! You’ve got car chases, great action sequences, a solid mystery as to who the killer is and why he’s killing, a good smattering of gore as the “Maniac Cop” dispatches his victims and plenty of smart-ass cop-talk (“Whole city’s goin’ to hell. You can’t take a pee anywhere anymore.”).

Maniac Cop’s ability to encompass several different genres and make it all work is what really sells the flick for me. As mentioned earlier, this genre-bender takes an action-packed cop film, throws in a bit of mystery and intrigue along with a whiff of the supernatural, and blends it all with horror, all the while never taking itself too seriously. Things never get too heavy and things are kept light by the characters’ tossing about classic lines like, “Look at the size of those hematomas!” or “You always take a leak with a gun in your hand? That’s a good way to blow your balls off!”

The film also has an amazing cast. Besides the obvious bad-ass contribution of Tom Atkins, we also get Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree, as grumpy Commissioner Pike and Robert Z’Dar as the title character, whose chin rivals that of the film’s other star, Bruce Campbell. Campbell does a great job as well as the wrongly convicted cop – this film is a definite must-see for all Campbell fans! I also enjoyed performances from Laurene Landon as the tough female cop and Sheree North as the cop with something to hide.

The direction by Lustig features New York at its grittiest and dirtiest – similar to what we saw in his Maniac. The city has a grimy feel to it, from oil-slick puddles to dim streetlights, lurking hoodlums, discarded trash and dingy neon signs. This is the sleazy New York when 42^nd street was king of grindhouse and exploitation films, before Time Squares was deemed “family friendly” and overrun by MTV tween fans. This is the perfect setting in which to imagine Cohen’s rogue cop creation murdering innocent people in dark alleys while neighbors shut their windows to the screams! The nitty-gritty atmosphere of the flick just fits so well and I really couldn’t imagine any other place where the story could have been set.

Maniac Cop is something of a cult favorite, but I’m not sure why it hasn’t quite broken out of its shell and garnered a wider audience. Its mix of cop-thriller, horror and action seems like it would catch on with a variety of movie fans, but I find it surprising how few people have checked out (or even heard of) this film! If you haven’t checked this film out yet, what are you waiting for?! Maniac Cop orders you out of the house with your hands up…to go grab a copy of this classic flick now!

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Nature's Grave (2009)

Australia has always captivated me. “The land down under” just seems so wild, untamed and dangerous, featuring some of the world’s most venomous/poisonous animals, insects, reptiles and plants known to man. I’ve always wanted to visit there, but the thought of adding to the destruction of its unique ecosystem just turns my stomach. I don’t want to be just another one of those disrespectful tourists that go tramping through nature, spoiling the region’s natural beauty and tranquility! Not to mention that I might come face to face with some of its more deadly inhabitants!

So, when I received the film Nature’s Grave (releasing August 4th, 2009 from Screen Media Films), which just so happens to be set in breathtaking Australia and shows how Mother Nature can strike back against careless humans, I was eager to check it out! The film opens right away on some jaw-droppingly beautiful shots of Australia’s north coast before cutting to bickering couple Peter (James Caviezel) and Carla (Claudia Karvan), who are taking a long weekend and leaving on a camping trip to try to patch up their disintegrating marriage. Of course, some stormy weather keeps them on the road longer than they expected, so they don’t arrive to the isolated, hidden beach they are planning to camp on until very late at night. Right away Carla gets a strange feeling about the place, but stubborn Peter seems more interested in getting drunk, going surfing and spending time with his dog, Cricket, than working through any of their problems (one of which is that he is a selfish prick).

The couple is supposed to meet some friends there, but they never show. As Peter kills and terrorizes the local wildlife, throws beer bottles into the ocean, hacks away at trees and Carla sprays bug spray over everything and tries to spend most of the time as far away from nature as possible, the surrounding wilderness takes on an ominous feeling. It seems that Mother Nature isn’t taking too kindly to their intrusion. They hear strange crying noises at night, Peter is attacked by an eagle, animals break into their food and something very large lurks in the water just off shore. Carla insists they leave, but Peter can’t be bothered by her warnings and just wants to stick it out.

When they realize just how much danger they are in, it’s already too late and it’s time for Mother Nature to get even…

I wasn’t aware of this before watching Nature’s Grave, but it is actually a remake of a 1978 Australian film titled Long Weekend. From what I hear it has a bit of a cult following and is definitely worth a look. As for Nature’s Grave…eh, not so much, I’m afraid. It is supposedly a shot-for-shot remake of Long Weekend, but I’m guessing it is missing A LOT of the previous film’s subtleties and nuances.

Nature’s Grave is directed by Jamie Blank, who directed the awful Storm Warning and the mediocre Valentine and Urban Legend. Often times the film feels flat, and feels like it’s missing any kind of emotional connection with the audience. There are some beautiful shots of the Australian wilderness and wildlife, but at times it just didn’t feel like there was enough. I also thought the film’s creepy moments lacked punch and could have used with a few more scares.

The story, written by Everett De Roche (he also wrote the original Long Weekend), moves at a slow-but-sure pace, and I actually enjoyed the slowly-building dread. However, the characters are highly unlikable, with an over-the-top performance by Caviezel that feels like he’s never taking his character seriously to Karvan’s strangely reserved character that doesn’t even fight back when her husband tells her to “go fuck yourself”. Neither character is interesting and you don’t want to root for either, which kills any kind of tension that De Roche tried to build in his story. Without anyone to root for to survive, I found myself waiting for Mother Nature to extract her revenge on these two characters.

Though there are a few creepy scenes – one where something is lurking in the ocean’s crystal blue waters, another where a dead animal is seemingly moving of its own accord and, towards the end, another where Peter finds some other “campers”, most of the “revenge” that happens occurs because of the two characters’ doing. In the end, it’s really their own stupidity that catches up with them as opposed to Mother Nature. This really is a pity, because I was really hoping to see the characters ripped apart by animals or plants after how disrespectfully they treated nature.

Nature’s Grave isn’t that memorable of an affair. Though it has a few spooky scenes, the performances of the two actors and the way their characters are written are just grating and make the film hard to sit through. And when their final curtain finally comes, it just doesn’t feel vicious enough for what you’ve had to put up with the last hour and a half. My advice? Seek the original Long Weekend out…it has to be infinitely better than its remake, Nature’s Grave.

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Frightmare (1983)

Not to be confused with the 1974 English cannibal film of the same name, Frightmare (aka The Horror Star) is the story of recently deceased horror veteran Conrad Radzoff (Ferdinand Mayne) who claims that death will be his best performance yet! The night after he is entombed into his specially constructed mausoleum (complete with a blinking neon star), a group of drama students break into the crypt and decide to take old Conrad back to their place for some partying! After a creepy dinner with the diners all wearing masks, they each take turns dancing with the corpse and one girl even goes to far as to smooch him! They put Conrad back into his coffin, but are too tuckered out to take him back to his final resting place, so they just put him in their attic and call it a night.

The next morning the cops discover Conrad is missing from the mausoleum and his widow enlists the help of a psychic medium to find out where he is. Turns out he’s in hell, but is hellbent on returning and getting revenge on the young whippersnappers that disturbed his slumber. His widow heartily agrees, saying, “Burn them! Burn them! BURN THEM!”

Having been summoned, Conrad rises from the dead and stalks the kids in the house, killing them one by one.

What is so interesting about Frightmare is that it tries to bridge the gap from Gothic-tinged Hammer horror (think fog-shrouded cemeteries, genteel-looking old men in Dracula capes, damsels in distress) with the kids-being-stalked-by-an-unstoppable-killer slasher formula. I liked the “classic horror” atmosphere of the film, but the slasher aspect felt a bit off. The story had some holes (a cop, who looks more like a mafia don, keeps popping up but doesn’t add anything to the story), pacing problems, awful dialogue (“We did something BAD!”) and the kills left a lot to be desired. Even though the result is a mixed bag, this seemingly strange combination of old and new horror styles makes Frightmare worth a look anyway.

The film was written and directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane and one good thing about his script is that he spent more time developing the character of Conrad Ragzoff than he did the kids’ characters. I felt much more empathy for Conrad than I did any of the annoying college kids, who exist mostly to get picked off. Conrad is one of the best things about the film, and the character is obviously an homage to Christopher Lee. Actor Ferdinand Mayne even resembles Lee and has the same kind of aristocratic air as he does.

Speaking of Mayne, he was truly a joy to watch in this role, especially in the opening scenes when he is still alive and in the videos he leaves behind for the funeral and those that appear to greet visitors to his crypt. Another actor to note in the film is Jeffrey Combs, who plays one of the clueless kids in one of his earlier roles. Most of the actors who play the college drama students don’t have much to do, but they all do a pretty good job of playing stupid and dying horribly. Even the “Final Girl”, just sits around and whimpers and only survives because she faints dead away at the sight of the resurrected Conrad.

As for the deaths, Conrad kills most of the kids with telekinetic powers rather than with his bare hands. One girl spontaneously combusts into a fireball, another girl gets squashed by a flying coffin, a guy gets locked in Conrad’s crypt as it fills with poisonous gas, another guy gets decapitated by a flying sword, and so on. The only “hands-on” deaths occur when a guy gets his tongue/jaw ripped out and then strangled, a woman gets her mouth stuffed with a wad of cash and another guy gets stuffed into a coffin and burnt alive in the crematorium. It was disappointing that the deaths weren’t at all gory (especially since at least half of the film was trying for that slasher vibe), but it wasn’t a deal-breaker. Instead, the film treated the deaths in the more restrained, classic horror tradition instead of going all-out like a slasher flick.

Still, there are some pretty silly scenes throughout the film besides the previously mentioned death scenes. One was the partying scene where the kids pass around Conrad’s corpse like he’s a party favor, which is so disturbing it borders on ludicrous! Another more “laugh-out-loud” scene is the over-the-top séance scene where Conrad’s widow and psychic medium are trying to contact the dead Conrad. The ladies put on such hysterical performances here that I dare you not to laugh! The film also features some god-awful music and sound effects that sound just like one of those cheap Halloween party CD’s, complete with howling and growling.

Frightmare has a lot of issues and I think it would have a lot of problems connecting with horror fans today. Still, it is an interesting little movie that tries to combine old-school horror with the slasher formula. Sometimes it doesn’t succeed, but it is still interesting enough to check out, especially if you love Gothic-tinged horror movies. Though Frightmare isn’t a “must-see” for all horror fans, those that appreciate both the old and new aspects of horror filmmaking may just find themselves enjoying it like I did!

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