Halloween Movie Fest, Pt. 3

Blood Sucking Freaks

This movie was completely not what I was expecting. I had heard of this movie before but I didn’t know anything about it other than the title. Also, I apparently read the Netflix description but didn’t REALLY read it, because the description is pretty accurate. This movie isn’t really about any blood sucking freaks at all (according to Wikipedia, that wasn’t the original title, so that explains that). It really is a combination of an old-school version of Hostel and a soft-core porn. I don’t think more than 2 minutes passed at any time without someone being naked onscreen. Like most of the current crop of the so-called “torture porn” movies out there (like Hostel, Saw, etc.), Blood Sucking Freaks doesn’t really set out to scare you – it just wants to disturb and revolt the hell out of you. Most films try and do that by turning up the gore factor and seeing how grossed out they can make you. Not this one. There was not a whole lot of blood used. Instead, this flick attempts to disturb you by abusing women and treating them like objects (literally, as in one scene the main antagonist uses a woman as a foot stool), while at the same time weaving a black humor throughout that instead of being funny, really adds to the depravity. Movies involving abuse and torture are disturbing enough on their own, but, by throwing in attempts at humor, this movie seems to be saying “Sure, we just cut that woman’s fingers off, but look! We are using them to bet at backgammon. Isn’t that funny? Torturing women is fun!” That, at least for me, made the movie all that more creepy (and not in the way that I normally look for in a horror movie) and uncomfortable.


The Old Dark House

This is a classic horror film from the original Universal horror heyday. It was the next release by the same team that made Frankenstein. That includes Boris Karloff (I love Karloff, but I can’t ever hear his name now without thinking of this great line by Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood” – “Karloff? Sidekick? FUCK YOU! Karloff did not deserve to smell my shit! That limey cocksucker can rot in Hell for all I care!”) as a hulking, mute butler. The story involves some travelers who, while searching for a place to escape the storm, come across a creepy old mansion inhabited by a family that acts weird the whole time. That’s really about the extent of the plot. Reading that, you would think this was a boring movie, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is something about old black and white horror films, set in musty, ill-lit gothic mansions that can convey a sense of tension and foreboding that keeps you locked into the film no matter what is happing with the characters. Fortunately, the characters who reside in the house are odd and creepy enough that, even if they are just sitting around, talking and acting weird and suspicious, it adds to the overall atmosphere of the movie. This is the type of movie that couldn’t be made effectively today – our modern, slick way of filmmaking would just make this film boring.


13 Ghosts

This is one of those types of movies to which Popcorn (from my last post) was paying tribute. During its original release, moviegoers were given special glasses which allowed them to see the ghosts in color (the film was black and white) if they looked through 1 lens or not see the ghosts at all if they looked through the other lens. Maybe if it was 1960 again, and I saw the movie with that gimmick, maybe I would have liked it more (although probably not). It just sort of fell flat with me. The story is about a down on his luck family man who inherits a house from his uncle that turns out to be haunted (and also his uncle hid money in the house somewhere). The film couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be spooky, somewhat campy, or (as I saw someone comment on IMDB) an episode of Scooby-Doo. Or maybe they tried to be all those things at once. I don’t know. All I know is that it resulted in a movie that was just there. I didn’t hate it, nor did I love it.