Sex, Vampires, and Rock & Roll - Suck (2009) Monday Macabre #1

Horror comedies aren't plentiful, but they are out there. And who doesn't need a laugh on a Monday? So Mondays will be Monday Macabre from now one and will feature funny flicks with a horror bent. We will start it off with possibly my favorite horror comedy of all time, Suck from 2009.

Suck is not just a horror comedy, it is a ROCK horror comedy. It tells the tale of a struggling band called the Winners that is on its last legs. Touring clubs in Canada and the U.S., the band is so down on its luck that their alcoholic manager (played by the wonderful Dave Foley from The Kids In The Hall) tells frontman Joey that the band should fire him. It is at this low point in the Winners career that things get really weird.

Bassist Jennifer hooks up with really creepy vampire Queenie (played by Burning Brides frontman Dimitri Coates) who turns her. Vampire Jennifer turns out to be very popular with the crowds, and the band starts climbing to success. Of course, along with success comes tragedy as Jennifer slowly converts the band to bloodsuckers.

The Winners are played by Paul Anthony (A Gun To The Head), Mike Lobel (Degrassi:The Next Generation), Chris Ratz (Bitten), Jessica Pare' (Hot Tub Time Machine), and Rob Stefaniuk (Superstar), who also wrote and directed. The movie also features Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as vampire hunter Eddie Van Helsing and Nicole de Boer (Star Trek: Deep Space 9).

Rockers will love all the cameos from folks like Alice Cooper, Moby, Iggy Pop, Alex Lifeson, and Henry Rollins. If you ARE a rocker, you will also love the great music in this film, both the music from The Winners, and music from some great stars such as Burning Brides, David Bowie, Robert Johnson, Alice, Iggy Pop & The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, and tons more. You will probably want to invest in the soundtrack. Another fun part of the movie is all the Easter eggs of classic album covers. I won't detail those here. It is more fun to find them yourself.

Not to be confused with the movie Vampires Suck, Suck is actually pretty great. There tons of genuinely funny scenes, including a scene in a convenience store that made me laugh out loud. Tie this all together with a great story, great music, and a true rock & roll sensibility, and you have a film you will want to watch again and again. I first saw this back when it was released on DVD and got it from Netflix. I watched it, then immediately watched it again. I have lost track of how many times I have watched it since then. Check out Suck as quick as you can. I mean, you can't go wrong with any movie that has Malcolm McDowell, Alice Cooper, and Iggy Pop, right?

The Power Is In The Blood - Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

Posting a bit late on a Sunday night and I just found this flick a few days ago. I watched it. I want my time back. Honestly, after watching, I am still not 100% sure what this movie is about. Is it a slasher flick? Is it a movie about about a Satanic cult? Is is a movie about a demonically possessed serial killer? Apparently, yes.

Apparently, in a small rural town, there is a Satanic cult presided over by creepy Grandpa whose grandson is supposed to take over the cult, but must prove himself on Halloween by killing someone. There are scenes of hooded cultists chanting, lots of gratuitous T&A (porn actress Jeanna Fine appears), gore, a masked killer who slays using gardening implements, and incestuous innuendo. Oh, and let's not forget, a hair metal music video nightmare sequence. Yeah, this one has it all, folks. 

Let's take this in small doses, or you might get dizzy. Grandpa, played by Hy Pyke (Blade Runner *yes, really!*) is just a horrible human being running a Satanic coven in his barn where he brands women's butts with pentagrams. Just a few minutes in, there is an exchange with his daughter that makes you wonder if he might really be Tommy's father instead of grandfather. Gross. Gregory Scott Cummins (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) is Tommy, the chosen one who is apparently supposed to replace Grandpa as the All High Muckety Muck of the coven. Tommy also has a sister and brother who are NOT part of the coven. Tommy's mother is semi insane because of Tommy, and probably being diddled by Grandpa. Just thinking about THAT made me throw up in my mouth a little. Even worse, Grandpa appears to be hitting on his granddaughter at one point, too! Anyway, there is a Halloween dance, lots of people getting murdered by a killer in a demon mask, and more nonsense than you can imagine.

As I previously mentioned there is a lot of boobs and blood to be found here. The masked killer seems to be enamored of farm implements for his murders. 

Fair warning, here! This film was so desperate to make money, that it was retitled to Death Mask and Halloween Night in the U.S. and The Damning in the U.K. Other titles were used around the world.

Of course, what slasher flick from the 80s would be complete without hair metal music? I blame Dokken. Tommy's weird music video dream sequence is a howler. 

Really, dear readers, just avoid this one. This one is so bad, you will wonder how it ever got made. IMDB says the budget for this was $5.5 million. I can't imagine A.) Why anyone would have put up that kind of money for this and B.) Where the heck did that money go? There are times when you want to laugh at this movie, but it never reaches that level of "it's so bad it's good" that would redeem it, to some degree. There is something of a cult following for this movie, apparently, but this is one I just can't see watching again.

Data incomplete... Human blood required. Thus spake the computer. - Evilspeak (1981)

Back in 1981, home computers were very expensive and far from ubiquitous. Heck, you were lucky if your school had even one. Evilspeak takes the idea of a computer to levels of terror (for the 80s) that were unknown at the time. We all know that you can unearth plenty of personal demons on the internet these days, but the internet was not even a thing in 1981. What if you could use a computer to summon REAL demons? 

Evilspeak starts of with a scene of a priest named Father Esteban (Richard Moll, famous as Bull on Night Court) being defrocked for his Satanism, and he and his followers being banished. Then they perform a ritual where a girl is beheaded. Jump to 1981 and we meet Stanley Coopersmith. Stanley is the gawky orphan kid that is the subject of bullying at his military school, brought to life by the legendary Clint Howard. Clint, of course, is Ron Howard's brother and has appeared in too many movies and TV shows to list. This may be his only starring role, but he has more credits as an actor than his brother. 

Anyway, as previously mentioned, Stanley is the target of much abuse and humiliation by his classmates, teachers, and staff at West Andover Academy. He is often assigned the worst tasks such as kitchen duty, feeding the hogs, and cleaning the basement. It is while he is working in the basement that he finds a grimoire written by Father Esteban. Fascinated, he uses the school's apple II computer to translate. Being drawn into the book's evil, Stanley begins to gather the materials to summon demons. When his classmates go a step too far over the line (think John Wick), Stanley finally snaps goes completely Carrie on the school. Plenty of death and gore ensues.

 There is so much gore in this flick that it originally made the infamous Video Nasty list in the UK, and was banned there. Clint Howard and director  Eric Weston both have said there were a lot of things cut from the movie to get it to an "R" rating instead of an "X" for American release. Much was restored for the uncut DVD release, but they said more is probably lost forever. 

There some character actors you will easily recognize other than Clint Howard. R.G. Armstrong (Friday The 13th: The Series, Race with The Devil) as Sarge is probably the one that will jump out at you. But, we also get performances from Claude Earl Jones (Bride Of The Re-Animator), Don Stark (That 70s Show), Charles Tyner (Cool Hand Luke) and Hamilton Camp (S.O.B. and TONS of voiceovers). 

Now, folks, let's be honest here:M This is not a classic. The script is a mess. Somehow this tome written by Father Esteban made its way from Spain to America several hundred years later, and ends up in the basement of a military academy? What? The acting is marginal at the best of times. The special effects are dated as hell. Even the makeup is laughable. 

There are several reasons to watch this though. For one, Clint Howard. Who doesn't love him? Seeing him as a star of a movie is just a hoot. All those character actors I mentioned are also a blast to see. This is a couple of years before Richard Moll finally made it into the spotlight on Night Court, but he had done a number of horror and sword & sorcery flicks previously to that. I love seeing him in these early roles, always as the bad guy.  

And, while there is gore aplenty, the effects are so wonderfully bad, that it will make you grin. I do have to say the bathtub death scene IS wonderfully original. The last 30 minutes or so of the movie is the best part.

That, dear readers, is the very best reason to watch Evilspeak: originality. While the idea of using technology for evil is nothing new in the 21st century, it was a fresh idea in 1981. Although I cannot give this movie a hearty thumbs up, it is a movie you should take a look at. Even if just to see how 1981 envisioned binary black magic. Oh, and I don't know what it's final gross totals were, but this film cost $900,00 to make and pulled in $400, 000 in its first week while only playing in L.A. and New York. I think this might have been a minor hit. Go figure.

They came. They shopped. They saved the world! - Night of the Comet (1984) Freakish Friday Favorite #1

In November of this year, many horror fans will be celebrating the 35th anniversary of the release of the beloved film, Night Of The Comet. Made for just $700,000 and grossing more than $14 million in the US alone, Night Of The Comet is one of those huge hits that very few people seem to know about. But, those of us are fans of the film are very passionate about it. I can talk your ear off about it! Recently, it was announced that a remake of the movie is in the works, and I find myself torn on the issue. Why remake something so brilliant? Can the magic that the original film was be captured a second time? I guess we will have to wait and see. No matter what happens down the road, NOTC will remain a classic that I watch at least once a year. For those who have not seen it, NOTC is about family and perseverance in a harsh world overrun by zombie-like killers and mad scientists. Okay, maybe that makes it sound a little more high-falutin' than it actually is, but, really, that IS the basics. 

Night Of The Comet tells the story of the aftermath of a near miss by a comet right before Christmas, the closest since the end of the dinosaurs, according to the narrator at the beginner. Obviously, people are excited about this comet, and comet parties to view it are happening all over the world. The downside is, everyone who isn't inside a place with steel shielding when the comet passes overhead either gets turned to red dust immediately, or is doing it more slowly while becoming a maniacal killer with bad skin. Our heroes are two teenage sisters, Regina and Samantha Belmont, played by Catherine Mary Stewart (The Last Starfighter) and Kelli Maroney (Chopping Mall)who find they are the only survivors in L.A. The movie also stars Robert Beltran (Star Trek Voyager) as a truck driver named Hector Gomez, Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000) and Geoffrey Lewis (Salem's Lot) as scientists Audrey White and Dr. Carter who work for a secret government think tank with a dark agenda, and Sharon Farrell (Sweet Sixteen) as Regina and Samantha's wicked stepmother Doris. NOTC is actually the second film with Beltran and Woronov after Eating Raoul and they would go on to appear together in Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly Hills. Woronov and Kelli Maroney also both appeared in Chopping Mall. 

The film follows the Belmont sisters as they try to find other survivors and avoid being killed by the killer mutants (the original title of the film was to be Teenage Comet Zombies, which is also a  line Samantha uses while on the radio) or the think tank scientists. Regina and Samantha's father is a Marine who has taught the sisters how to handle themselves, as well as how to fire military weapons like MAC 10s.

One of the most memorable scenes in NOTC shows Samantha in her cheerleader costume target shooting at a car with a MAC 10. The weapon misfires several times, and Samantha says  "See that's the problem with these things, Daddy would have gotten us UZI's."  Kelli Maroney says writer/director Thom Eberhardt actually wanted UZIs for the scene and complained that the MAC 10s would jam and mess up the takes. Of course, they did jam multiple times, and Thom told Kelli to just keep the scene going if it happened again. Kelli asked him what she could say if it did, and Thom gave her the line on the spot. And so, a classic quote was born!

There are a lot of great scenes in NOTC. My favorite is the "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" montage scene as Regina and Samantha go "shopping". It is a great light moment between the sisters, who are very different. Regina is the older and more serious sister, while Samantha appears to be the frivolous dumb blonde cheerleader. But, we get plenty of scenes that show us our first impressions of both characters are very wrong, as we see some silliness from Regina, and serious emotional depth and intelligence from Samantha as she copes with the deaths of everyone she knows. You definitely get the idea that the Samantha we think we know from the start of the film is nothing more than an act she has contrived. We also get a great scene as Hector goes home to see if his family survived to give a little more foundation to his character. Geoffrey Lewis is great as the evil Dr. Carter, as well.

One of the best character arcs in the movie is actually Mary Woronov's. Woronov had spent most of her acting career to this point playing scheming, manipulative, or just downright mean characters. Audrey is different. It seems like she is playing another character who has gone to the dark side, but she shows you far more in the long run. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but I loved her part in NOTC, and think it is one of the best of her career.

Night Of The Comet could not have been an easy film to make, just logistically. Many scenes had to be shot quickly, because L.A. traffic was being held up offscreen to simulate a deserted L.A. Other scenes, like the one in the mall, had to be shot at night. Kudos have to go out to the production staff who made this happen and the editors who were able to piece all this together to make a seamless looking film.

Thom Eberhardt wrote a great script and directed Night Of The Comet with what was obviously a lot of love. NOTC is one of those rare films that straddles the line between drama, comedy, horror, and sci fi successfully. That is why it is a true classic and one that people revisit often. A round of applause to everyone involved. Add Night Of The Comic to your film rotation for multiple viewings. I have watched literally dozens of times, and still run across things I either hadn't noticed before, or forgotten. 

The story of the strangest Passion the world has ever known! - Dracula (1931) Throwback Thursday #1

Throwback Thursday is a thing. Since it is, my Thursday blog posts will be about true classics, like today's entry, 1931's Dracula from Universal pictures. Arguably, the film that started the era of the great monster movies on the Silver Screen, and definitely the one that started the Universal Monsters legacy that continues to this day. After over 80 years, the Universal Monsters still resonate with audiences and the images made immortal in those early films are still the images people's minds bring to the fore when names such as Dracula are mentioned. My first four Throwback Thursday posts will be in homage to those films and the Big Four: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Mummy. As Universal begins to create a new Universal Monsters film universe, it seems only fitting to look back to these original classics.

A few years ago, I read an article about the most popular characters who have been adapted from literary source for movies. If I am recalling correctly, Sherlock Holmes was the most popular, with the first filmed version of the character being in a 1900 adaptation, a 30 second short called Sherlock Holmes Baffled by Georges Méliès.  Not surprisingly, the sanguinary count created by Bram Stoker was in second place. Both characters have spawned over 200 filmed versions over the decades. Both continue to remain hugely popular in the world today, as well. 

The purported first version of Dracula was a 1920 Russian film called Drakula. However; no copy of this film remains, nor do productions stills, script, etc. It is widely believed this film never existed. Another lost film, 1921's Hungarian title Dracula's Death is likely the first adaptation. Of course, most readers here will know the first true adaptation of the novel was 1922's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror by F.W. Murnau starring Max Shreck as Count Orlock. The adaptation was unauthorized, though, and Stoker's estate sued to have all copies of the film destroyed. Luckily for the horror fans of the world, a few copies survived and have since entered the public domain. So, the film we are reviewing today is the first authorized version of the film, and first that had sound.

Although adaptations have often diverged from Stoker's novel in many ways, the basic plot usually remains the same. A young Englishman named Jonathan Harker (in this version, the character is Renfield) travels to Transylvania to meet with Count Dracula to finalize a real estate for an English property. The young Harker falls prey to Dracula and his vampiric brides. After the deal is completed, Harker is left to confinement in Dracula's castle while the Count travels to England. Once Dracula arrives in England, he starts to spread his curse of vampirism, and it is the close friends and loved ones who take to the hunt for Dracula, led by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. After a long pursuit that leads back to Transylvania, and the Count is destroyed. That's the basic gist of the novel, and Tod Browning's movie adaptation follows it pretty closely. There a few changes, but they are minor in the overall story. 

Browning's version of Dracula was based on the stage play from 1927, which was authorized by Stoker's estate. Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderstone wrote the play, which was very popular onstage. Both Bela Lugosi as Dracula, and Edward Van Sloane as Van Helsing had starred in the play, and were brought into the film. Helen Chandler was cast as Mina and Dwight Frye brought to life the part of Renfield. 

Some may not know that there was a second version of the film that was shot using the same sets in Spanish. In that version, Carlos Villarias played the Count, Lupita Tovar as Eva (Mina), and Eduardo Arozamena as Van Helsing. The George Melford directed Spanish version actually had a couple of extra scenes that American censors wouldn't pass. The Spanish language version is available with several DVD and BluRay releases of Dracula from Universal. Another thing many people may not have noticed is the lack of music in Dracula. Other than the opening and closing credits, plus a scene at an opera, there is no musical score. It wasn't until 1999 that a score was commissioned for the film, written by Phillip Glass. Originally available on VHS, the score is also on the digital releases.

Dracula made a star of Bela Lugosi (born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Lugos, Kingdom Of Hungary in 1882) and is the role he is most associated with. Ironically, he only played Dracula twice, and the other time was in Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein. Dracula wasn't even billed in the title! And that is kind of the story of Bela's carer. After Dracula, his roles actually got smaller, and he was often cast alongside Boris Karloff. He rarely got first billing, even getting second billing in their co-starring roles in The Raven, even though Bela was the lead. The parts became fewer and farther between, and, after developing sciatic neuritis, Lugosi became addicted to morphine and methadone. His downward spiral due to the drugs led to Ed Wood Jr. being the only person who would cast him. The universally panned Plan 9 From Outer Space became his last film. Bela Lugosi passed away on August 16, 1956 at the age of 73. At the time of his death, Bela had been acting in motion pictures for nearly 40 years, having appeared in The Colonel in 1917 (Az eredes). He had been appearing on stage for more than a decade in Hungary before his first film role, having dropped out of school at the age of 12. Lugosi himself would make a great subject for a bio-pic.

Dracula's director found a great team in van Sloane and Lugosi, but other actors DID audition for the parts before they decided on the two who made the roles famous. Browning himself had started out in silent films, acting in over 50 films, and started directing while acting. He then was involved in a car accident, receiving serious injuries. While recovering, he started writing scripts. After recovering, he went back to acting, directing and producing. Browning eventually was introduced to Lon Chaney by Irving Thalberg, and they made the first of ten films together in 1919, The Wicked Darling. Two of the films they made together went on to be famous, The Unholy Three (1925) and London After Midnight (1927). The Unholy Three was so popular that it was remade in 1930 and was Lon Chaney's final film and only talkie before his death. Sadly, London After Midnight is a lost film, with the only known remaining copy destroyed in a fire at MGM in 1967. Another collaboration between Chaney and Browning was The Unknown in 1927. That film foreshadows Browning's Freaks (1932) in that it features Chaney as an armless knife thrower (or is he?), a carnival girl played by Joan Crawford, and Norman Kerry as the strongman Malabar in a love triangle. Browning's first talkie was The Thirteenth Chair featuring Bela Lugosi as a police inspector. 

Even though Browning had worked with Lugosi, and Lugosi had played the Count numerous times onstage, Lugosi was not his first choice for Dracula. Browning wanted to find an unknown European actor who play the Count and be played mostly offscreen. Browning's vision was not shared by the studio, though, and they insisted on Dracula being pretty much a remake of the play. And, so, a legendary film was born. 

In many ways, Dracula is a film of amazing simplicity. The sets are gorgeous, even in black and white, the actors have a great background to work against. The dialogue, while somewhat stilted in Lugosi's English-as-a-second-language, is a master class in dialogue that sound almost poetic. Some of the lines have become some of the most quoted in movie history. Just look at some of these:

Van Helsing: The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.

Dracula-"Listen to them. Children of the night. what music they make. The spider spinning his web for the unwary fly. The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield."

Lucy- "Lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter as though the dead were there... Quaff a cup to the dead already, hooray for the next to die!"

Mina-"I heard dogs howling. And when the dream came, it seemed the whole room was filled with mist. It was so thick, I could just see the lamp by the bed, a tiny spark in the fog. And then I saw two red eyes glaring at me. And a white livid face came down out of the mist. It came closer and closer. I felt its breath on my face and then its lips... oh!"

Oh, I could go on an on. I could talk about how Browning used light and shadow to set the mood perfectly. I could talk about the actors all seemed to be perfectly cast for their roles. Dwight Frye's Renfield is probably just as famous as Lugosi's Dracula. His insane laugh is chilling. And he gets awesome dialogue, too.  

Renfield: He came and stood below my window in the moonlight. And he promised me things, not in words, but by doing them.

Van Helsing: Doing them?


Renfield: By making them happen. A red mist spread over the lawn, coming on like a flame of fire! And then he parted it, and I could see that there were thousands of rats, with their eyes blazing red,l ike his, only smaller. Then he held up his hand, and they all stopped, and I thought he seemed to be saying: "Rats! Rats! Rats! Thousands! Millions of them! All red-blood! All these will I give you! If you will obey me!"

Dracula is just one of those films I have watched so many times I know it by heart. If you haven't seen it, I have to ask, what is wrong with you! This is a film that was groundbreaking and became iconic in so many ways. I think I will go watch it again right now.

Do you hate spiders? Do you really hate spiders? Well they don't like you either. - Eight Legged Freaks (2002)

Ah, the good old days of giant bug movies in the 1950s. I truly love those old flicks like Them!, The Deadly Mantis, Tarantula, and Beginning Of The End. These were Saturday afternoon fare on local TV station horror shows when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, and I devoured them. When Eight Legged Freaks came out in 2002, I knew this was going to be one of those movies I would re-watch over and over. Starring Kari Wuhrer and David Arquette, this flick lived up to all my expectations.

Eight Legged Freaks is a loving, and often hilarious (the cat in the walls! LOL), tribute to the big bug movies of yesteryear. It pulls out all the stops and hits every giant insect trope you can think of. Is it set in a small desert town? Check. Is there a toxic chemical spill that causes mutations? Check. (Of course, that latter is interchanged with the radioactivity from atomic testing that was seemingly the cause of all the mutated creepy crawlies of the 50s. It WAS the Cold War, after all, when "duck & cover" was on every schoolkids' lips.) Is there a precocious kid who knows the truth but can't get the adults to believe him? Check. Is there a sleazy politician who wants to make a ton of money who wants to cover up the town's problem with colossal spiders? Check. Is there a local crazy predicting the end of the world? Check. Of course there is also the budding romance between the town's sheriff and a local who has just returned to town. In this instance, the gender roles are reversed. Oh, this film definitely tries to get everything crammed into it that made those 50s movies so popular. In fact, there are dozens of references to those old flicks, and other pop culture Easter Eggs. See if you can spot them.

The plot is simple and doesn't require any overthinking. A small accident involving toxic waste in a pond leads to contaminated crickets being fed to a variety of arachnids at a local spider farm. The spiders mutate after eating the crickets, escape from the farm, and start overrunning the town. The townspeople all band together to fight off the "arac attack". "Arac Attack" was actually the original title of the film until David Arquette improvised a line about "eight legged freaks" The scene made the cut, and the title of the movie was changed, although it DID get some theatrical releases overseas under the original title. I think we can all agree "Eight Legged Freaks" is a much more fun, kitschy,  and evocative title.

The aforementioned Wuhrer and Arquette are Sheriff Samantha Parker and prodigal son Chris McCormick, whose father owned a local mining company. But, there are plenty of other faces you will recognize as well, including Tom Noonan, Rick Overton, Doug E. Doug, Leon Rippy, and a teenaged Scarlett Johansson filling out the cast. Sheriff Parker's young geeky son Mike is played by Scott Terra, whom some may recognize as young Matt Murdock in the 2003 version of Daredevil, and Johansson is her rebellious daughter Ashley. I have to say, the cast is awesome. Never do they make you feel like they know they are in a ludicrous film about mass attacks by giant spiders. They play it mostly straight, and it makes the movie work.

Now, before I go any further, I have to admit that I have had a HUGE crush on Kari Wuhrer since her days on the TV series Swamp Thing, so that could have colored my judgement of this movie. However; I honestly do not think so There is just too much about this movie that makes it a carnival ride of action and laughs. It is over the top, but not in a The Last Sharknado:It's About Time way.

One of the reasons I think Eight Legged Freaks plays so well is that it doesn't stick to just one type of spider, or spider attack. Because the spiders come from a spider farm, there are multiple species of spiders involved in the attacks, and this leads to a huge variety of ways for the spiders to kill. We see everything from enormous tarantulas, orb weavers, trapdoor spiders, black widows, and jumping spiders. Two of my favorite scenes are when the jumping spiders attack a group of teens riding motocross bikes and the attack by the trapdoor spiders. The final showdown between the town and the arachnids is magnificent.

Eight Legged Freaks was in pre-production for 7 months to allow the effects department to do justice to the spiders, and they accomplished that. Fully 1/3rd of the $30 million budget was spent on the effects. They obviously used every penny of that money. Sadly, the film only grossed $45 million, which makes it somewhat of a flop. Once you figure in marketing and distributing cost, a film needs to gross at least twice its budget these days to be a success. But, the film has fairly solid midrange critical reviews, and is another movie that has gained something of a cult following since it went to home video. Currently, you can find it on Netflix if you have never seen it. Another thing I have to admit to is being arachnophobic, and even I love this movie. Once again, I say grab your popcorn and settle in for a night of mutant spiders overrunning a small town. It is like being back in the 50s, but in color!

This Is Not Child's Play. - The Doll (2017)

Imagine being a 20 something guy with a truly obnoxious roommate who brings home strippers to play with him in the hot tub. While trying to get rid of said strippers, they start coming on to you. Of course, this is when your girlfriend walks in. The girlfriend dumps you and moves out. Obviously, the roommate says, this is when you send out for a hooker. The call girl shows up, and is beautiful, but very odd. Make that "ODD" in all caps. Because, what you and your roomie don't know is this prostitute is not even a real human being, but a doll who has been constructed by a shaman/mad scientist for only one purpose: MURDER!!!! 

Yep, that is the plot of the 2017 feature The Doll. Our protagonist Eddie is played by Anthony Del Negro and the incredibly annoying roommate Chris is played by Christopher Lenk. On IMDB, porn legend Ron Jeremy is given top billing playing a pimp who shows up for about 2 minutes. Natasha, the call girl, is played by Valeria Lukyanova, known the world over as "The Human Barbie".

I have to say, Lukyanova is probably the best casting in the movie. Well, other than Ron Jeremy as a pimp. Lukyanova is beautiful, but in a creepy, I-really-look-like-I-am-made-from-plastic way. You might think this is just great makeup, but it isn't This picture is her in real life. Not to sound mean, but she makes my skin crawl. So, yeah, casting director, well done! 

Honestly, that is really the only good thing I can say about The Doll. The plot is ludicrous. The lighting is poor. The acting is either way over the top or totally flat. There are no characters in the film that have any likeability, and you do not have any sympathy for them. You kind of root for all of them to die. The early scene with the strippers borders on softcore porn (at least there is no gratuitous nudity), and might make adolescent boys hit the pause button a few times. Of course, you add up all the negatives this film has, and a sequel is surely on the way. *sigh*

Let's face it, dolls are creepy. There have been dozens of films featuring possessed dolls. But, for every Child's Play, Annabelle, or Dolly Dearest, there are probably four movies like The Doll. This is obviously a cash grab flick trying to capitalize on the success of films like Annabelle and Valeria Lukyanova's 15 minutes of internet fame. Pass on this one, folks. Throw on The Stepford Wives instead. No, not the remake, the original.