drfreex

[drfreex]

N: Nightshot (2018)

About a third of the way through Nightshot, my son looked into my office and commented, “That looks terrifying.” My response was “Does, doesn’t it?” and the rest was… Hm. Nightshot purports to be an urbex video (that’s urban exploration for all us oldsters), where our host (Nathalie Couturier) leads her cameraman through an expansive, abandoned hospital while talking about the history of the…

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M: Maybe Next Year (2023)

I’m actually surprised I managed to get this far. I’m still the only guy doing what I do at work (I have announced I am no longer interested in auditioning for the role of Superman, with my supervisor’s full support), I’ve been freed from the onus of most of the City meetings this month, and it still hasn’t been enough. As a brief interruption several hours later, the various paperwork snafus…

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L: Last Radio Call (2022)

Sarah Serling (Sarah Froelich) is on a mission: in 2018, her husband, police officer David Serling answered a call to an abandoend hospital, and disappeared. Only his damaged body camera was recovered, and ever since, no one has been able to help her, especially the police. Sarah’s hired a filmmaker to document her search, so there’s your found footage explanation right there. After she has…

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K: Kadaicha (1988)

A group of Australian teens have a problem; they are each having the same dream about a tunnel leading to a torchlit chamber covered in aboriginal markings, where a tall figure is chanting. The figure turns, revealing it is a rotting corpse, and it forces something into their hand before they wake in fright. Upon awakening, they find a kadaicha, a crystal inscribed with, again, aboriginal…

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J: Jack the Ripper (1976)

Klaus Kinski is a deviant weirdo who is a caring doctor by day and a murdering psycho rapist at night. No, that’s the character he plays, but I can see where the confusion lies. Jack the Ripper is a Swiss/German film directed and partially written by Jess Franco. The poster proclaims “Only NOW Can It Be Shown Like THIS!“, meaning that Kinksi can now rip off all an actress’ clothes before raping…

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I: If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971)

It may not be the classic definition of a Hubrisween movie, but If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? is a prime example of a conservative horror story. Of course, Stephen King has already posited that all horror stories are ultimately conservative, but this is a horror movie designed to strike fear in a certain demographic. This is the title of a sermon delivered by Mississippi Baptist…

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H: House by the Cemetery (1981)

I have questions. It’s tempting to just let that be the review, but where’s the fun in that? And that’s what we’re here for, right? Fun. About that. I saw House by the Cemetery back when it was released on VHS. Didn’t think much of it. Years later, I would find out that transfer had the reels out of order. Ah. No wonder. Though I assigned re-watching it in its intended order a very low priority,…

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G: The Great Buddha Arrival (2015)

This is a curious movie. It is based on a 1934 movie of the same name, which is presumed lost in the bombings of World War II. It featured a giant Buddha statue standing up and walking around Japan. Yoshiro Edamasa, the director, used trick photography to get the images, and produced not the first kaiju flick, but almost certainly the first tokusatsu movie. A video editor working on a program…

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F: Feed the Light (2014)

Sara (Lina Sundén) is a desperate woman who breaks into the Malmö Institute armed only with a knife and a set of lockpicks. She’s looking for her daughter, whom her recently-divorced husband has taken into the nondescript building. When the Chief (Jenny Lampa) mistakes her for a new hire, Sara finds that Malmo is much weirder than she thought; her job is to sweep up the sparkling dust that drops…

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E: Eerie Tales (1919)

Richard Oswald’s Eerie Tales is that most venerable of horror movie formats, the anthology, made long before Amicus claimed it as their territory. The original negative is considered lost, and what we are watching today is a restoration performed by the Cinémathéque Francais, which, according to the credits, is some 100 meters shorter than the original. Our framing device takes place in a rare…

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D: Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

Dracula is doing Dracula stuff so Dr. Seward stakes him in his vampire basement lair, turning the Count into a dead bat. Soon after, Frankenstein moves in, finds the bat, and revives Dracula with blood. Frankenstein seems to hope to somehow parlay his new vampire toys into his ultimate goal, a perfect being, which probably thrills the Monster to no end. After the Monster tries to kill Seward, the…

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C: Count Dracula's Great Love (1973)

Dracula (Paul Naschy) moves into a deserted castle and immediately starts making vampires. He is aided in this by by a carriage-load of young hotties suddenly stranded by an accident and the death of their driver. Vampire stuff ensues. Count Dracula’s Great Love is a quite unusual vampire story; although the setup above points toward a typical Hammer-style gothic tale, it quickly unwinds into…

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B: Blair Witch (2016)

Which reminds me, one of these days I’ve got to watch Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows before the DVD rots in its case. So it’s 15 years since those three intrepid student filmmakers went into the woods and disappeared, but now a memory card has been found in those woods and the hectic surviving footage seems to take place in that strange deserted house in the end of that movie. Heather’s brother…

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A: All Eyes (2022)

Allen (Jasper Hammer) has a top rated radio show/podcast called “UN/Sane” which seems to be mainly exploiting people with paranormal experiences, sort of a combination of Art Bell and Alex Jones. A returning video caller who in a previous episode claimed to be followed by “shadow people” now claims to have caught one. When he points his phone at a locked door, we hear the voice of a woman…

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Life's Rich Pageant (moan, groan)

There is so much I want and need to say and precious little time in which to do it. It’s been quite a summer, yes sir, and I would heartily endorse the idea of everything just slowing the fuck down. Yeah, it won’t. There is a bizarre confluence of fate at work here, as somehow it has transpired that I’m the only guy in my part of the organization. Temporary, to be sure, but I’m not comfortable…

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The Return of Crapfest

The Return of Crapfest

And hopefully me. Who knows? I’ve started this post a hundred times or more in my head. Here’s hoping that actually sitting down and typing achieves something. Making that particular set of things occur have been difficult of late. Cast your mind back to 2020 and the week that the COVID Lockdown officially happened – now consider all the plans you’d made for that week. That is what happened to…

[drfreex]

Well, then, they're fuggin' idiots, now, aren't they?

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

- Dorothy Parker