31 Horror Films in 31 Days. #2: Monster Dog (1984)

From the director of the overwhelming cinematic achievement that was Troll 2, comes the low-budget bargain bin creature feature...

Yes, that's the same Alice Cooper metal fans know and love for his macabre rock music.  And if you have no idea what Troll 2 is, it has nothing to do with the film Troll and its director has everything to do with what he believes American cinema should be.  Director Claudio Fragasso, AKA Claude Fragass, AKA Claudio Sansevero, AKA Clyde Anderson, AKA Werner Knox, has been prominently brought to fame because of the latent cult success that arose from Troll 2's camp factor for fans of low budget horror films.  While Monster Dog is decidedly, and fortunately, a film to be kept at the back of the bad movie bus, it has its painfully great moments, of which I'll share with you now.

Being a fan of the cheese, I couldn't resist seeing a movie directed by such a well-known camp director that starred an old music favorite of mine in the lead roll.  Also, nothing says "now that's cheap" like the poorest excuse for a werewolf title like "Monster Dog."

Rocker Vince Raven (Cooper), is with his girlfriend and film crew to go shoot a new music video for his next big hit at his old childhood estate.  Meanwhile, dangerous packs of wild German Sheppards and Irish Blue Terriers (I guess wolves were too expensive to rent), just so happen to be slaughtering the locals.  The movie opens up with Alice Cooper performing one of his character's songs, "Identity Crisis" which is mildly catchy, if not a bit simple and repetitive.  What might throw off most Cooper fans is that he begins wearing no makeup and his hair is cropped short, a look he is otherwise not known for in his rocker persona.

After this little video interlude, we open to the crew talking inside an van. The dubbing for the audio is a second off and away from making you want to take a bite of lead salad.  But wait, it gets better.  After a tired string of dialog from authorities telling the "kids" that it's dangerous in these parts and they should be careful, the gang end up hitting a dog and feel bad about it.  Then, they're harrassed by Old Man McCreeperson, who shows up out of the darkness covered in blood and tells them they'll all die, repeating himself like he either has Alzheimers or they are all hard of hearing.  They ignore said creepy guy and continue on, and find out that the butler is nowhere to be seen.  Cue poor cuts from exploring the house to them suddenly being asleep to one of the film crew ladies having an extended nightmare sequence featuring everyone's favorite old perve, McCreeperson.  He goes on a bit more about how they're all going to die and then he tries to tear her clothes off and chases after her, laughing maniacally, almost like he can hear the audience getting irritated that he's teasing them with the prospect of random boob shots that never make it from a shirt that refuses to up the film's rating.

The girl mentioned above, named Angela, runs in to find Vincent alone in a rocking chair, rocking it like the granny from your worst nightmare, and is then confronted by him a la Wolfman style (bearded man monster), and then she awakes.  She gets teased by the others, like they're all teenagers in a sleepover, and there's this great shot of Alice Cooper just looking at all of them like he's thinking, "Shit, I really am the oldest one here."  Which he was, being 36 at the time, while the rest of the actors were near a decade below him.  Moving right along, his character's girlfriend then later finds him brooding over a book.  One look over his shoulder reveals a big large volume with a full page shot of Lon Chaney Sr. as the Wolfman (I shit you not).  After he closes the book, the title reads "Myths, Legends, and Scientific Realities." Sounds like a book I wrote when I was ten.  He goes on to explain his tragic story of his father who was afflicted with lycanthropy and how it really warped him as a kid.  While this is supposed to reveal interesting details about the character, all I could honestly think about was how long before we see Cooper turn into a werewolf.

Before that idea could really take form, the film does a rough transition into an extended montage of the gang enjoying the scenery and figuring out what and where to film for their music video.  Then we get to see Vincent apply his eyeliner, and Cooper finally starts to look like the man we all know and love him for in real life.  And then this happened:

Obviously, Alice Cooper wasn't the mastermind behind this lyrical stretch of torture, or, if he was, he really didn't give a damn about what he was writing, and in fact was probably doing something else while his hand just sort of scrawled down half-assed ideas stringing from the same thought pattern. Yes, this is about the highest in quality that the film gets, save for, you guessed it, a werewolf transformation that gets good and weird and slimy.

From the consistently mind-numbing bad dubbing of the audio to the staggered acting and the jump cuts and extended montage scenes, this movie had some definite prime cheese points, but they were honestly far and few between to really keep it afloat.

Should you feel so inclined to give it a spin, thank Youtube for having it uploaded in full, glorious VHS-ripped quality.

Monster Dog gets one and a half Jacks.

31 Horror Films in 31 Days. #1: The Screaming Skull (1958)

Last year, a good friend of mine went on a mission to watch 31 horror films he had never seen before in the month of October.  Needless to say, life has a nasty habit of getting in the way, and he was not able to complete the task, so he's giving it a go again this time around.  I was inspired by his efforts, so why the hell not jump on the band wagon?  While our styles differ, his leanings forming from the technical realm of film and mine in more of the emotional arena, the adventure in experiencing fresh media is equally apparent in our writing.  I recommend you check him out, and maybe you'll find something there not found here that you'll like.

Anyhow, on with the review of the first film of the month!

In my local area, we have a movie theater that has a regular sci-fi night that shows old, camp science fiction and horror films.  You can eat pizza, drink beer, and socialize, if the mood strikes you.  You also get to warm the cheesy cinema meter in your brain by getting to watch a string of bizarre clips from the internet, public library archives, and sometimes the local filmmaker community.  With the ushering in of October made readily apparent in the weather, balmy with a touch of windchill, tonight's showing of a movie about a skull so terrifying that it has the potential to murder its audience seemed like a perfect kick-off to the challenge I've imposed upon myself.

As with most older films that are both black and white and have significantly less in-your-face moments from start to finish, this one delivered its "absolute terror" with grave patience, pun intended.  My capacity for the pacing in older films is always maximized by environment, and having some pizza and beer with a crowd accompaniment certainly kept me excited.  I could also make many observations about the steely awkwardness of the characters and their actions, which I feel always makes for a more engaging premise.

To put it simply; dude brings his new wife to his old house, where his first wife 'mysteriously' died, and unthinking, tells his new lady how much the last one loved him, and how much he loves his new wife and wants to make her feel at home. They meet the gardener (played by the director, Alex Nicol), who was like a confused brother-lover to the last wife, and is just a little "off" in the head.  Silent, confused staring commences. With shots of peacocks appearing and disappearing in the yard. The tone of the film builds on this level of subdued tension, getting you really curious as to the death of the last wife, and immediately to the grounds of the property.  The first wife was super into gardening, so is the gardener, and he has since kept it up in her stead, and talks to her as if she isn't really dead, like ya do, when your only friend was a lady who died in your favorite place.

The focus is simple and the film isn't bogged down by too many filler characters, nor is it aesthetically cheap looking in the face of a modest budget.  There are in fact only five physical characters in the entire film, and the house on the large property is vacant of most furniture or other decoration, save for two cots, an empty wardrobe, and a creepy painting of the ex wife that's just leaning against a wall.  What this does could either appear like they had no budget to work with and went scant on details, or, and in this case I believe it is the latter option, it creates the perfect, eerie atmosphere without being a cop-out.  There's nothing in the house because it was all the ex wife's, and the man hadn't lived there in two years, so everything got taken down and sold.  Good reason.  There's only so many characters in the movie because that's all you need to carry the story, any more and it could have made the film too long and decidedly winded.

The emptiness of the house creates a cold and vacant impression that leaves one guessing to the mysteries surrounding the dead wife.  The large, extremely well kept garden shows the devotion the gardener had, and gives the feel that the entire property itself is one huge memorial to the woman, basically making the whole place a single-plot grave.  There is a gravestone in the garden for her as well. A creepy pyramid obelisk with the woman's face carved right into the stone, floating outward just a bit, like she's two steps away from escaping the Underworld to return to the living.  It was weird.

So what does any of this have to do with a "screaming skull"?  If you haven't guessed it already, the skull that is "terrorizing those that dare to love" is the skull of the dead wife.  She wishes to send a message of the truth of her death to the living, in the most obtuse and cryptic bullshit way that ghosts always seem to have a bad habit of doing in movies.  Nothing can ever be straightforward with ghosts, it always has to end in screams of terror and blood-curdling confusion.  Yes, that's what I said.  Because ghosts will befuddle the living daylights out of you with their abstract actions of rattling your windows and rolling their body parts down the stairs like they still own the joint.  And somehow that's supposed to tell you that they were wronged and need your help to make things right.

All that aside, the movie is decent, kinda slow, but builds its creepy tension appropriately well, and with very good light and shadow usage.  In fact, the film's cinematographer was Floyd Crosby, who won an Oscar for his work on the F.W. Murnau film Tabu.  To be perfectly candid, the real hook to this film, as with most horror films of its era in the 50's and early 60's, was it's fantastic, over the top trailer.  Nothing says, "I'm Sold!" like a film that threatens your untimely death by fright, and free burial services to go hand in hand with that popcorn you paid for, all explained by a narrator, who's voice holds about as much enthusiasm as Orson Welles in a cramped waiting room.

To be an unabashed copycat to my friend, who has been rating his October features with skulls, I'll change it up a bit and do mine in honor of the holiday month, and use Jack o'lanterns.

I give the Screaming Skull two and a half Jacks.