The Legend of Hell House

1973 ghost story

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A husband-wife physicist team and a psychic agree to spend a few nights in the titular haunted house with the lone survivor of an earlier visit. There's some haunting.

I wanted to watch something penned by the great Richard Matheson after his passing last week, and this was available. The horrors are effective enough, at least psychologically, and I like that the movie doesn't depend on gimmicks. They're the kind of scares that get under your skin a little bit. The story and its little twist are as cool as you'd expect from something that came from the mind of Matheson. The dialogue's not always great, but I like the conflict between scientific thought and supernatural beliefs. And you have to appreciate when writers can throw in phrases like "ectoplasmic stalk." There's also one of the most arousing come-on lines in the history of horror cinema in this when the hornily-possessed spouse of the scientist says, "You...me...naked...that girl...together...clutching..scratching...biting," before dropping her nightgown. Hot! Oh, and there's ghost sex, something that makes my head hurt now as I try to think of some clever way to reference ectoplasm. This feels a little stuffy at times, but it's got some style. The soundtrack, with its rumbling unidentifiable wind instruments, works well, and there are all these weird close-ups of people's faces or times when their faces move into a shot that I liked. And there's a stuffed cat attack which is nothing short of amazing. I liked Roddy McDowall in this, and one moment where he freaks out--all shrieking and contorting--is probably one of the highlights of his career. Near the end, he engages in a little paranormal trash talk. "What size were you, Belasco?" "Funny little dried-up bastard!" Great stuff. Roland Culver is also really good in a very small role.

Ju-On: The Grudge

2002 J-Horror movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Ghastly shenanigans in an apparently haunted house.

No, I have not seen the American remake of this or one of the other Ju-on movies. I didn't know this was a sequel until after I watched it. I'm not sure what I'm missing (if anything) by not watching the first two. This is six connected short stories that aren't even displayed in chronological order. I'm not sure why movie makers do that. I consider myself of average intelligence with maybe a slightly above-average movie IQ, and I had trouble making connections between the stories. I had trouble remembering who each character was supposed to be though, and that probably has more to do with being American than anything else. I mean, if Kirk Cameron was in this, I would be able to recognize and remember him and know how he was attached to other characters in this thing. I ended up liking the structure even if I didn't know why it was necessary. I think it added a little mystery to the proceedings, and a bit of mystery injected into this kind of creepiness was a natural fit. This movie--and again, it might be because I didn't watch the other Ju-on movies--kind of leaves you hanging about what is going on and what has previously gone on, adding to this chilly, semi-surreal flavor. The imagery's enough to grab you, but there are more than enough effective jump-out-and-scare-you moments. Sound effects are also used effectively. I may have thought this was scarier than it was because of the use of kitties. I think I prefer my horror movies to end completely hopelessly. Who wants a happy ending for a horror movie? This one definitely ends bleakly enough, probably so they can make a dozen more of them. And like all good horror movies, this is one that scares you on levels you don't even understand.

Hillbillys in a Haunted House

1967 horror comedy country western musical

Rating: 3/20

Plot: The titular hillbillys [sic] have car problems on the way to something called a jamboree and have to stay the night in the titular haunted house. Songs are performed. Spies and a gorilla harsh their mellow.

So in the first shot, they're traveling in Boss Hogg's car with slightly more ornamentation, and they're singing a song about being "on [our] way to Nashville, Tennessee." I should have taken it as a warning, ejected the dvd, and hurled it at a chicken. If you like bland old-timey country and western music, you're in for a treat. There's really about 30 minutes of movie here, and the rest of it consists of musical performances. In fact, the final 20 minutes of the movie is the jamboree, so it's just a series of songs that have nothing to do with the haunted house. You get to hear Ferlin Husky, the guy who plays Woody, sing "Livin' in a Trance," a song which sounds like it was recorded in a cave or something but is at least more awkward than it is terrible. Some random people then show up to tell the hillbillys [sic] that they never come near the house even though they are standing inside the house while saying that, and they perform a couple impromptu songs because the movie's plot wasn't quite ready to get started. They do "The Cat Came Back" which features two gitfiddles, a couple guys just standing around, invisible drums, and a guy hitting a small shovel with a brush before complying with the woman's request for a love song, a song that has her twitching in a way that made me wonder if she was reaching orgasm. That gal--Boots, played by a very fetching Joi Lansing--gets her own random song later during a fantasy dream sequence. "Gowns, Gowns, Beautiful Gowns" might be the most pointless things I've ever seen. Later, a character watches television, and Merle Haggard gets a song. There are probably over 15 songs in this motherfucker! And if you don't like country and western music or don't enjoy laughing at terrible film-making, there's nothing for you to see here. I've seen this on a couple "Worst Movie Ever" lists, and it probably deserves to be in consideration. It's very poorly written. I believe this chunk of dialogue is supposed to be humorous:

Woody: Where are we?
Gas station guy: Sleepy Junction.
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Where are we?
Woody: Sleepy Junction.
Boots: Oh.
Jeepers: Hey, Woody, we're in Sleepy Junction.

Jeepers is an actual name of a hillbilly, and he's played by Don Bowman who was the host of some country music countdown show. His only other acting credit is the movie this is apparently a sequel for--The Las Vegas Hillbillys. He plays "Don Bowman" in that though, and not Jeepers. As Jeepers, he gives a performance that manages to still seem like one of the worst performances ever even though the movie is a complete disaster anyway. That first shot with the hillbillys [sic] singing in the car? He isn't singing, merely sitting in the back in what seems to be an illegal way. And he can't even get "just sitting there" right! He looks bored. That's actually the best he gets in this movie, too. Most of the time, he looks like he's got ADD or is some kind of tweaker. He spends most of the movie twitching and squinting, but he does get a moment to shine when he starts yelping about seeing a "weirdwolf" in the closet. Oh, and he does get his own song during the jamboree--"Wrong House Last Night" and it is a thing of beauty, one of those things that has to be heard to be believed. Bowman can't even sit still during a fifteen or so minute scene where he just needs to watch television. That, by the way, is one of those "What the hell?" moments as the country music he's watching is interrupted by the faces of Carradine, Chaney Jr., Rathbone, and Ho--the four bad guys. Why their faces start appearing on the television screen to stare at Jeepers is beyond me. Speaking of those guys. You would probably never expect Lon Chaney Jr. to be any good, and he isn't. Neither is Basil Rathbone, though he's the best of the bunch. John Carradine might be the worst of them all, but somebody named Linda Ho isn't far behind. Her acting consists of reading lines phonetically. I did like this conversation:

Woody: We're entertainers.
Ho: What kind of entertaining do you do?
Woody: I sing and pick a guitar.
Ho: How nice. (With this absolutely disgusted look on her face that I'm not sure was supposed to be there.)

The best performance is by George Barrows as Aniatole the monkey. John Carradine's character really hated that gorilla. It was never actually explained why these spies traveled with a gorilla, but I've never been a spy and don't know much about how these people operate. I guess having a gorilla around would make perfect sense. Anyway, George Barrows is the guy who plays one of my favorite movie monsters of all time--Ro-Man in The Robot Monster. Ro-Man is a gorilla suit from the next down and a deep sea diver's helmet for a head. Barrows has one of those acting careers I love looking at. He acted in 108 titles, and he played 16 gorillas. At least! Some of his roles were just names, and those might be gorillas, too. He also played Monstro in a movie and Slouchy McGoo in the Adventures of Superman television series. And he played "henchman" a lot. Barrows and his suit (I'm going to go ahead and assume he owned his own gorilla suit) are actually the best special effect in the movie. Some wobbling skeletons, bats on strings, and the "weirdwolf" mask are nothing short of embarrassing. There are also some lightning effects in a night sky when the action is clearly taking place in daylight and a couple visible boom mics, but if you have problems with that, you're nitpicking. I almost feel bad criticizing something that I'm sure was made by very nice people for very nice families to sit around and enjoy, but it's one of those works of art where everything just came together so imperfectly to make something so magical and deserves to be seen by connoisseurs of crappy movies, even those who don't like gorillas or country and western music.

The Frighteners

1996 horror-comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Frank Bannister uses his ability to communicate with ghosts to con people. One cloaked ghost is flying around making numbers on people's heads and killing them, however, and Frank has to find a way to stop him before he's put away for the crimes.

I was trying to describe this movie to somebody I work with. I couldn't really articulate what was good about it, and I couldn't really articulate what was bad about it. It's enormously entertaining though. It's that manic sort of entertainment, the kind that can only be created by a charged and creative and loopily unpredictable mind like Peter Jackson's. The Peter Jackson who directed this--as opposed to the one who created the boring King Kong remake or all those really long movies about little people walking around New Zealand--is the same Peter Jackson who directed Dead Alive, Bad Taste, and Meet the Feebles. Here, he gets a little star power in Michael J. Fox who is every bit as likable as he is in every single other thing he's done, even when he's not surfing on top of a van. It's a little hard to buy Fox as any kind of a bad guy. He's sort of an anti-hero here, a guy who is playfully conning but nevertheless conning a community out of money by taking advantage of a gift he received in an accident that took his wife's life. Right off the bat, Jackson's asking you to root for a rather unscrupulous guy. But that guy gets to run around on those little feet of his and make big eyes and say, "Whoa!" a lot, so you end up rooting for him. That, by the way, is what Michael J. Fox does best. He'll be remembered as the guy who could run around and say, "Whoa!" I wonder if Jackson would have made Fox a hobbit? I guess we'll never know. Also really fun to watch is an unhinged performance by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame. The character doesn't make a lick of sense, but he's hilariously portrayed and as eccentric as any character you're likely to see. I was really impressed with the special effects team behind this. The ghosts were cartoonishly goofy, almost like something you'd see sitting next to you at the end of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, but it was fun watching them splash through walls, manipulate the settings, and suffer disfigurements. The Reaper-esque bad ghoul is effectively sinister and visually cool whether he's rubberizing the carpet or wallpaper (not sure how he makes the setting elastic like that) or floating around as a Cape Monster. There are a lot of fun periphery characters including John Astin's ghostly The Judge and a character played by the son of last year's Torgo Award winner, Jake Busey, a guy who almost won his own Torgo in 2011. A lot of the movie really shouldn't work. Or maybe I should say that a lot more of it shouldn't work because there is quite a bit that seems a little too messy. Peter Jackson spills his soup quite a bit with this thing. Still, it entertains from beginning to end with a strange energy and creative story and was really hard not to like.

Barry recommended this just about two years ago.

John Dies at the End

2012 horror comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A pair of slackers get involved with a drug called "soy sauce" which causes them to drift between two dimensions. They have to save their world from something named Korrok.

What a mess! It's almost a delightful mess, but it's unfortunately just a little too much. I applaud its creative spirit and unique vision. The story and director Don Coscarelli take chances, but the budget's neither tiny enough or large enough to make it work and this desire to be 21st Century and hip gets old after the first, mostly fresh, twenty minutes or so. A lot of me wants to just appreciate the craziness of all this--animated meat that seem straight from Jan Svankmajer, a dog driving a truck, insects that would make Cronenberg giggle, exploding Robert Marleys, a creepster who'd be right at home in a David Lynch movie putting some giant insect thing down a guy's shirt, a punk song about a "Camel Holocaust," bare-breasted people from another dimension, and Paul Giamatti. The movie seems to get more coherent as it goes, but when you really think about it, it's just a movie that is pretending to be coherent and not doing a very good job at it. It also gets more and more frustrating as it goes, building to something that is so poorly realized with computer effects that you end up caring about what happens less than you care about the characters. And you didn't really care about any of that unlikable lot anyway with the exception of a dog. There's enough here to probably make this a cult classic, but I can't think of any reason why I would watch it again. Cool poster though.

Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins

2009 television movie

Rating: 10/20 (Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Details the origin of the Mystery Inc. as the gang get together for the first time to solve a mystery at their high school and clear their names.

This might be a little better than the theatrical movies. I also might not have paid that much attention to it. The real mysteries: Why does Fred a brunette sans ascot? Why is Velma Asian? How much money did they spend animating that dog? The dog looks pretty good for a television movie, but if you're going to animate the titular dog in something like this, you might as well animate everything else. And you know what? They did that several years ago, retelling the same story again and again and sometimes adding Don Knotts to the equation. There's really no reason for this to exist. Well, unless they want to add a CGI Don Knotts, and I'm all for that.

The biggest problem with this is the MacGuffin. It would be completely worthless, so the antagonist going to all the trouble he does in the movie to get his hands on it makes almost no sense.

Keyhole

2011 Guy Maddin movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Gangster Ulysses Pick and his gang take refuge in Pick's home. The police have the place surrounded. Accompanying Pick are a tied-up and gagged young man and a drowned woman. While his men bicker, Pick and the two companions venture through the house in search of his wife. They talk to some ghosts and see a penis or two.

Even a bad Guy Maddin film is going to have enough originality and cool visuals to make it worth the time. This is a clash of all kinds of ideas, but it never feels very complete or even all that coherent. It's more like thumbing through Maddin's notepad which is fun in spots and frustrating in others. It's definitely a weird movie although Maddin claimed it was his effort to make "pure narrative." The nods to silent cinema are still present, but this is shot more traditionally and has a lot of dialogue. I think the less dialogue in Maddin's movies, the better. Anyway, there's a ton going on--a noirish gangster tale, a ghost story, a psychological investigation, a surreal dream playground, light science fiction, and maybe the retelling of a myth. It's a lot to take in, and most people are going to think it's just a little too pretentious. But it's a silly pretentious, not a stuffy pretentious with Maddin his usual playful self. In this, you get naked old guy genitalia, backwards talking, weird moving lights, characters speaking to each other in different languages, undergarments with phallic doodles, wallpapering, symbolic green bowls, a bicycle-powered electric chair, a crowded tub, secret tunnels with a "Cyclops ahead" warning turning out to be a glory hole, old man stump licking, weird antique toys, wallpaper love, Mexican banditos, Kids in the Hall alum Kevin McDonald attempting to sodomize a ghost, and a narrator who says cool things like "You don't even recognize your own son, Ned--Milk-drinking Ned." Oh, and a guy in a closet who plays Yahtzee. A lot of the dreamlike visuals are really cool, but that can only take you so far and this ends up dragging a little and frustrating a lot. It's not where I'd start with Guy Maddin's work if I were you.

The Phantom Carriage

1921 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: According to legend, the last person who dies during a calendar year is required to drive the titular carriage to pick up dead souls for the next calendar year. That person looks to be David Holm, a drunken jackass who, for reasons that aren't explained immediately, a dying Salvation Army soldier is asking to see. Holm's old friend, the current phantom carriage driver, takes his disembodied soul on a journey through his sins.

A bit A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, this funky little tale of regret and redemption was hugely influential on fellow Swede Ingmar Bergman who was quoted as saying "The Phantom Carriage is the best motherfucking movie I've ever seen. It's my generation's The Bad News Bears." Some of it just looks like a slow silent drama, and I don't really like my silent films this "talky" with a dependency on title cards to tell the story. Like most silent movies, this one is most effective when the visuals are allowed to tell the whole story. However, the imagery and special effects, eerie double exposure shots, make this a haunting and, by the end, emotional experience. I really liked the acting. The guy who played Holm overdid it at times with some exaggerated laughing or arm-flailing, but for the most part, this didn't look like 1920's silent melodrama acting at all. And the story telling seemed really ahead of its time with its use of flashbacks and even flashbacks-within-flashbacks that had me scrambling for a plot synopsis to make sure I was keeping up. I've read that people hate some of the music in different releases of this, but I liked the music in this--all scratchy violins and ambient noises. And if you like movies where crazy guys are killing doors with axes like Jack in The Shining, this might have the first on-screen ax-to-door scene in movie history.

The little kid inside me loves that Swedish films end with the word slut.

Ghostbusters

2004 ghost comedy

Rating: 15/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 17/20)

Plot: A trio of paranormal psychologists open up a ghost extermination business after getting kicked off the university campus in which they research. They become a phenomenon as ghost encounters in Manhattan grow with the impending arrival of some devil thing.

Silliness abounds in this picture that adeptly combines comedy and horror in a very mainstream way. The special effects range from very good (the ghost in the hotel, the stuff in the library, the climactic arrival of the marshmallow man) to "How the heck did anybody think that looked good enough to be in a movie?" (the dog chasing Rick Moranis around). More subtle effects would have worked better for some of the monsters or the big castle thing, too. The story and comedy ranges from clever, especially when things are subtle, to just a little too much. Bill Murray is perfectly funny, and like a lot of his stuff, you really have to pay attention to his face even when he's not the one delivering the lines that are supposed to be funny. A Ghostbusters 3 just wouldn't work without him, and they should abandon the project immediately. The other guys are funny as well, and Sigourney Weaver maybe never looked better. Neither has the ultra-sexy Rick Moranis who also looks like a comedic genius here. And my argument hasn't changed much from when I first saw this in a theater: There's nothing more exhilarating than seeing that grinning marshmallow man. It's impossible not to see that monstrosity and laugh, isn't it?

I think I caught the sequel to this but remember nothing about it. Worth my time?

A Christmas Carol

2009 Christmas horror movie

Rating: 11/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: dnf; Emma: dnf; Abbey: too terrified to finish)

Plot: An old guy mixes up his medication again and has a series of fever dreams and hallucinations that end with his obsessing over a crippled little boy. Merry Christmas!

I don't think Robert Zemeckis has a clue who his audience is. This isn't as terrifying as the ultra-creepy Polar Express movie (Shane trivia: That's the only movie that, since I was watching it on a plane, made me wish for a plane crash.) which is odd since this one has a lot of scenes that are supposed to be terrifying. It is scary though, so much that there's no way this would appeal to children. And it's a cartoon, a genre that a lot of adults have no interest in, so it's not really for adults either. So who's the audience for this thing? Speaking of the cartoonishness, I don't care for this kind of animation at all. I don't like the unnatural way the characters move while they have such a realistic look to them. I think it's that clash that makes this feel so cold and stiff and creepy. I did like how the camera moves, and being able to zoom beneath character's legs or through wreaths is almost enough reason for this story to be told yet again. The animated telling of the story allows for some different perspectives at least, and there's a liveliness to this version that only gets old at about the 2/3 mark. Zemeckis does a great job creating an animated London that effectively sets the mood for Scrooge's story, and the ghosts look pretty good. Well, Marley looks ghastly cool. The Ghost of Christmas Past is the wrong kind of creepy, and the Present one looks like it could be a Will Ferrell character. Dug the shadowy final ghost though. Overall, this just seems loud and extraneous, and far from the new Christmas classic I think Zemeckis is trying to make, it's not even one that I'll likely ever revisit again. Unlike Polar Express which I do periodically revisit in my darkest of nightmares.

13 Ghosts

1960 horror-comedy with really hard-to-see ghosts

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A family inherits a haunted house with 12 of the titular 13 ghosts. Luckily for them, they also inherited some special glasses that will allow them to see the ghosts. Then, Scooby Doo comes along and eats everything!

I wish William Castle was my grandpa. I don't even know why I want him to be my grandpa, but I do. 13 Ghosts starts with some of his goofball narration about the whole ghost-viewer gimmick, Illusion-O or whatever it's called. It's these glasses things where you use the red part to see the ghosts or the blue part to make the ghosts disappear. Or vice versa. I didn't pay much attention because I didn't have a ghost viewer. And that made it annoying when the words "Use Viewer" or "Remove Viewer" flashed on the screen. I could sort of see the ghosts at that time, but I had to squint, and I really only like squinting when I'm watching Clint Eastwood movies. I could hear the ghosts a little, too, despite any special ghost hearing aides. They sounded like cartoon chipmunks. The opening of this movie starts promising enough with some splashy paint effects and a picture that looks a little like Voldemort. The best part of the movie is about seven minutes in when a telegram guy (David Hoffman) slides on screen. It's easily the creepiest part of the movie. The housekeeper is played by the Wicked Witch herself, Margaret Hamilton, and although she's got the ears for the part, she looks bored out of her mind here. I did get to learn all about the Ouija Board in this. Yes, it's got one of those cliched Ouija Board (here pronounced Wee-Juh; have I been pronouncing it wrong all this time? It's not Wee-Gee?) scenes. Anyway, I did get to learn the etymology of Wee-Juh and the rule that it won't answer if you ask it a silly question. As a whole, this thing is weak on plot and gimmick and isn't successfully funny or scary.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

1966 Don Knotts funk

Rating: 16/20 (Dad: 18/20; Dylan: 14/20)

Plot: Don Knotts isn't asking for a lot in life. He wants to make it as a newspaper reporter. He wants the pretty girl. He wants a little respect. He gets his chance on the twentieth anniversary of the crime that made the local "murder house" infamous when he agrees to spend the night in the supposedly haunted abode and write about his experiences. Some creepy things happen during his stay, and once his ghost-written article is published, he becomes an overnight sensation. But when the owner of the house threatens his story's authenticity and sues him for libel, he's forced to fight to protect his reputation.

Had to entertain my step-father while the women folk went to the ballet, and this was about all I had that would interest him, a fan of the oeuvre of one Jim Varney. And the inimitable Don Knotts did not disappoint. From his first moment on the screen in this, he's funny. His mannerisms and his goofy deliver in a lovable loser role are pitch perfect. Knotts was born to play these sorts of roles (and Mr. Furley, of course), and everything he does in this is hilarious. It's a simple appropriate-for-families tale, one that wouldn't have made Disney execs uncomfortable. And it's filmed pretty much exactly like one of those wacky, dated Disney comedies, too. No, this isn't the most intelligently written comedy. Any movie with a tag line that starts with stuttering ("G-G-Guaranteed") and ends with a promise that you'll "be scared until you laugh yourself silly" isn't going to be. But there's something hilarious about watching Don Knotts practice his karate moves, moves that like Indiana Jones with his whip or Luke Skywalker with his lightsaber were impossible for me not to imitate, and say more than once that his "entire body is a weapon." And a repeated gag, an offscreen "Attaboy," starts funny, gets old, makes you groan, and then becomes side-splittingly funny once again. Delightful fun!

One of my goals for 2011, by the way, is to found a religion based on the worship of Don Knotts. Who's in?

Ugetsu

1953 Japanese ghost story

Rating: 18/20

Plot: There's a civil war going down, but this doesn't affect a pair of peasant couples as they dream of riches and heroic deeds. Genjuro travels to the big city to make his fortunes selling pottery while neighbor Tobei longs to be a samurai despite his lack of sword and armor. Their greed and delusions of grandeur threaten to mess everything up.

A very-Japanese movie all about dichotomies. I think. Male and female. War and peace. Self and the selfless. The living and the dead. Delicately spiritual, this breezes along yet manages to make every minute detail seem like it's the most important detail that's ever appeared on film. The camera work is masterful, swirling this way and that way and back to this way, flowing and stumbling through a black and white world right along with the lost characters. The supernatural elements in here are almost fragile and help give the entire film this hypnotic, dreamlike quality. There's depth here but it's a liquidy depth that you might drown in if you don't wear a life preserver while watching. This says stuff, not obviously or in a preachy way, and is a very rewarding experience. I was really tired after watching this movie, and I'm not sure if it's because the movie drained me or I'm just really tired.

The Screaming Skull

1958 horror movie

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Eric remarries following the accidental but suspicious skull-bashing and drowning death of his wife. He removes the furniture from the home, I think because it reminds him of his first wife, but leaves a painting of her and builds an elaborately silly grave for her. And he keeps the peacocks. Oh, and he apparently keeps his wife's skull. He also keeps the gardener, Mickey, who was great friends with the first wife. Once new spouse Jenni moves in, she starts getting creeped out by disappearing peacocks, spontaneously appearing skulls, limping gardeners, and scary sound effects. Has the ghost of the first wife come to haunt the newlyweds or is something more sinister going on? Only the peacocks know the truth.

This opens with a narrator audaciously promising a free casket to anybody who dies of fright while watching The Screaming Skull. Although there's one scene that does effectively create adequate suspense with little more than weird lighting and well-utilized sound effects, there's not much in here that will likely scare anybody to death. The producers probably should have offered a free coffin to anybody who was bored to death instead. There are parts of this that reminded me of Manos which, depending on your taste for movies that are both terrible and entertaining, could be both a good and bad thing. The music is similar to Manos, the plot makes about as much sense, and you get the impression that this might have been made by somebody with mental problems. There's also the character of the Mickey the halfwit gardener played by the director Alex Nichol in a performance that can only be described as Torgo-esque. It's a great character and a terrific performance. Goofiness abounds as a multitude of skulls float around and attack characters during an exciting denouement. There's also a ridiculous ghost that falls apart after it's hit by a thrown chair. It was terrifying. In fact, I think I almost died during that scene.

Empire of Passion

1978 ghost story

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The wife of a rickshaw driver begins an affair with a younger man. Together, they decide that the husband needs to be out of the way, so they get him drunk, strangle him, and throw him in a well. But then there's nobody to drive the rickshaw! Oh, snap! The townspeople start gossiping about the woman and her disappearing husband. To make matters worse, the woman begins seeing her husbands ghost all over the place, and this really throws off her concentration when she's trying to have sex.

I thought there was something stale about this one. The ghost was creepy, and the sex scenes were erotic , but there was just something missing that was apparently needed in order for me to feel the story. Something stifled. Maybe the problem was that it was just a little creepy and a little erotic? The movie seemed a lot longer than it was, and the actions of the characters didn't always make complete sense to me. I really think I would have liked this movie a lot more if everything wasn't so literal. There were some nice moments (the opening scene of a foreshadowing spinning wheel and shots from within the well) that make me think Nagisa Oshima, a director I'm not familiar with, is worth checking out, but the movie as a whole did not impress.