SATAN'S PIT

Last night's viewing. Thanks to film historian and writer Tim Lucas for alerting me to this wonderful film with one of his posts yesterday. HOUSE OF TERRORS is a 1965 Japanese film (originally titled KAIDAN SEMUSHI OTOKO) that has been dubbed into Italian with English subtitles added. The result is a surreal melding of Japanese gothic and Eurohorror, the beautiful B&W photography dripping atmosphere like stalactites. The film starts with a young woman losing her husband after a long and painful mental illness, after which she learns she has inherited the deed to an old property he owned, a mansion invitingly called "Satan's Pit", a place haunted by the ghosts of its previous inhabitants and looked over by a hunchbacked caretaker. The fun starts from the moment it begins and rarely lets up, there's some moments of genuine creepiness and scares and the magnificent spooky sounds and ambient music sounds like it could have come straight off one of those GHOSTLY SOUNDS record LPs later put out by Power Records in the early-70s.

Highly recommended and definitely worth a watch, I don't think the film has been officially released on disc but it can be found on You Tube (apparently the Italian-dubbed print is the only one known to be floating around).

DEATH WISH REDUX

Decided on whatever whim I was having late last night to check out Eli Roth's contentious 2018 remake of Michael's Winner's 1974 revenge thriller DEATH WISH. I didn't hate it but it is certainly a pointless remake that amps up the violence porn but completely dumbs down just about everything else. Bruce Willis has been a great action hero over the years but he is somnambulistic here as Paul Kersey, taking over the role made iconic by Charles Bronson in the original and subsequent films. It's hard to buy Willis as a supposed brilliant surgeon, I think they changed his profession from the original architect purely for plot convenience (ie - to provide the excuse for a drawn-out scene where Kersey uses his medical knowledge to inflict painful torture on a crim to get information out of him, a scene reminiscent of a much more effective one involving Dustin Hoffman's tooth in MARATHON MAN).

AQUA-FUN

I had a lot of fun with James Wan's AQUAMAN, which was pretty much all I went in looking for. In that respect, it certainly delivered. I was particularly taken by Rupert Gregson-Williams's score, one of the film's most pleasant surprises for me. I don't know why they had to change Aquaman's look into that of a scruffy biker and barroom brawler, but thankfully this movie has a big sense of adventure and creates enough stunning underwater vistas (and creatures) to carve out its own place amongst the comic book glut. Elements of BATMAN BEGINS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and THOR RAGNAROK are clearly there, but thankfully there is much less AVATAR and much more FLASH GORDON to be found, and Wan's horror roots make themselves particularly known during the film's final act (the appearance of a bunch of scary and scaly critters known as The Trench had me thinking I was watching a remake of Sergio Martino's ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN for a moment). A lot of the costume and character designs were also visually cool and paid tribute to the comic book's roots - i.e., Altanteans riding giant seahorses, Black Manta having his big, bulbous helmet, etc. Enjoyed it enough to consider a second theatrical screening, this time in 3D.

PLAYING AROUND IN THE HARRY NOVAK TOY BOX

To get myself into the Christmas spirit this year, I have contributed an essay on several early-70s toy-themed exploitation films gifted to us from master producer/distributor Harry Novak, which has been posted over on the Diabolique website and can be read by clicking on the link below.

Harry Novak's Toy Box Is Not For Children!

R.I. P. SONDRA LOCKE

Was asked by FILMINK to write an obit for Sondra Locke, which has now been posted over on their website. Click on the link below to check it out.

Sondra Locke Obituary

THE ART OF THE HORROR AD MAT

Have written a review of Michael Gingold's excellent book on 1980s horror movie ad mats AD NAUSEAM, which is posted over at the Diabolique website at the link below.

AD NAUSEAM Book Review