#the four skulls of johnathon drake

[petty-crush]

Notes on the New Bev Horror a thon 2024

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Before the night started, I meet a woman who had been to every iteration of this annual Halloween marathon. Her joy was still that of someone first entering a new world. I second that emotion.

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This was an especially strong and highly competitive collection

1-Out of the Dark (Michael Schroeder 1988)

2-The Four Skulls of Johnathon Drake (Edward L Cahn 1959)

3-The Rift (Juan Piquer Simon 1990)

4-Rituals (Peter Carter 1977)

5-The Breed (Nicholas Mastandrea 2006)

6-Eyes of a Stranger (Ken Wiederhorn 1981)

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All of these films were first time watches. All of them had an audience giddy with anticipation.

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“Out of the Dark” left a furious impact, a rip roaring opening film.

The cast for this film is pretty incredible: Divine, Karen Black, Paul Bartel, Tab Hunter, Geoffrey Lewis, Bud Cort, Tracey Walker and so forth.

Each of the names got big cheers.

The late 80s horror era can be ether highly saccharine or wonderfully sleazy. Definitely the latter here.

A masked killer in a clown mask stalks girls from a phone sex (oh, pardon me, phone fantasy) company.

Murder at 4 dollars a minute.

The kills are quite good, but the film largely wins with moments of character interactions.

Karen Black has a nice scene with her on screen child daughter, sympathetically but honestly telling her that “daddy isn’t here because sometimes people need to go away”. It’s rather charming.

She has a more reserved, no nonsense but still caring attitude towards her work daughters.

Paul Bartel has great fun fussing with a wig as he tries to scope out why someone is trying to stay all night in a sex motel.

Divine’s moment (and sly fake mustache) is short but cutting, noting that his rival cop “couldn’t find his pecker in his pocket”.

I think this is the largest role, certainly the most action packed, I’ve seen for actor Tracey Walker. His moments of snooping while trying to avoid bullshit are delightful.

I really can’t think of anything I didn’t like about this film. It is a middleweight class, but does everything with verve. A fun party.

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Equally lovely was “The Rift”, and while “Dark” was cult actors enlivening potentially stock characters with their outward charm, this film has R Lee Ermey fleshing out his acting range, clinically dissecting his character and his chain of command relation with his other actors.

This film is not above noting his ultra famous role in “Full Metal Jacket”: someone does indeed repeat the notion of a golf ball going through a garden house.

[an aside; reels 2 and 3 were originally switched. The film was restarted with a correct running order, but not before a few minutes into the third reel. Thus, the unusual sight of seeing that line murder the audience the first time, and then smirking appreciation the second time]

Helping smooth the reference is the deft timing by actor John Toles Bey as officer Skeets. This is the rare (intentionally meant) comedy character that is truly funny, as opposed to fucking annoying.

Bey somehow manages to make lines like “you’re my kind of white boy” and moments such as using magnifying glasses to stare at an ample female ass charming in their ornery way.

I like a good underwater film, especially in a submarine, and even more so when shooting a squad of penis shaped monsters. Win win win.

What exactly they are researching under the sea is a mystery, but actor Ray Wise has good moments of misdirecting weasel ness.

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This is first time in several years where the film did not end on a mid 90s and beyond (later 2000s these last few years) film. Instead it was the second to last.

“The Breed” has the amusing goal of making teens scared of and battling genetically altered dogs.

Now, I can see why a casual cinema goer may have recoiled at this idea and its execution. People generally don’t like thinking dogs will harm humans and they really don’t like seeing dogs get killed.

However, this is a horror film, and this is a screening for mega hyped cinema enthusiasts, so of course all the canine deaths and attacks were met with wild applause.

Another case of an audience at the right place ramping it up.

Speaking of, that arrow in the leg scene..ouch!

Michelle Rodriguez is the most accomplished actor here, although the most dramatic meat is between two in character brothers and how they learn to trust each other despite seeing the sibling as a fuck up.

Rodriguez is the current lover of one and the former of another, to really drive home the awkwardness.

I gleefully admit, seeing two rabid dogs chilling on the airplane wing then diving in the water to murder the male lead is pretty funny. Has a “oh, are we on camera now?!?” vibe.

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The black and white classic horror spot was “Four Skulls” this year, and it hit that spot firmly if not vividly.

The finger prints that are shaped like tiny skulls result had the audience giggling.

What a strange notion to have a white head sewn onto an Indian body. Brown…chest? (As opposed to brown face).

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I’m really torn on “Rituals”. On one hand it clearly had the best acting of the night(by Hal Holbrook & Lawrence Dane), at other times it greatly meandered, not helped by the outdoor night photography being too dark to see at times.

I had a pretty good chuckle at a character thinking his life is over because he’s “38, drunk and my last boyfriend who wasn’t in an asylum was five years ago”.

Who considers 38 old, the middle schoolers who will never watch this film?

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“Eyes of a Stranger” is also an example of a good film at maybe not the best place.

It’s a slow burn that really explodes at the end, but putting it last doesn’t do it any favors. The first five films felt of a unity, but this has an ever so soft aroma of stapled to the rest.

It’s my only real critique of the night, albeit in hindsight.

“Breed” wasn’t a better film but it was snappier paced, and a worthier stinger to end the night on.

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An interlude

It occurs to me now how each half of the marathon had two similar bookends separated by a palette change.

“Skulls” was a leisure 50s ride sandwiched between two goofy and highly entertaining late 80s/early 90s schlock fests.

Meanwhile, “Breed” was a teen romp n stomp between two very deep dive atmospheric moody tales from the late 70s/early 80s.

Amusing.

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Anywho, back to “Eyes”.

It actually really surprised me that it’s from the beginning of the decade of greed. I would have guessed 1973 at most before knowing the true answer.

It certainly doesn’t feel like a film that was post John Carpenter’s “Halloween” and its codification of the slasher genre. Very “let’s heat up the ‘Psycho’ leftovers one more time with salt” vibe.

There is a child character that is dealing with lack of seeing and hearing after a traumatic rape. She’s not an object of pity (clearly her big sister character is more shamed than her) and this is a fine line confidently walked by a young Jennifer Jason Leigh.

She really had the stuff even at an early age. What a casting coup.

The fact that the main killer looks like Peter griffin from “family guy” doesn’t even matter. It’s all expertly and grisly directed.

The aforementioned big sister character feels like she really let her younger sibling down by her being abducted by a stranger in a car. This is a good dramatic angle for her to relentlessly pursue this murderer far beyond the normal. It’s personal and aided by guilt.

The scenes of her clinging to the balcony of an apartment, hoping dually she won’t get caught or fall to her death, are excellent.

But the real fireworks come at the end. The killer taunts the blind n deaf girl in her apartment (rented with her sis but she’s out) by moving knives, plates, and other objects she knows she just put there.

There is no sound during this sequence, only eerily silence.

The kid catches on, runs around the apartment, is chased into master bedroom, and hit repeatedly. The shock is almost overwhelming.

And then she starts to see.

Fuzzy at first, shapes and colors come into play (we see from her POV) then she hits her 2nd attacker and wanders to the dresser where the gun is.

She shoots him.

Her clothes torn, her breath short, she wanders into the bathroom and starts to see more.

For the first time, she sees her teenage self

The camera lingers on her. It is a generally moving scene.

The killer lunges from off camera.

Finally the big sister returns. Grabs the gun. Shoots in the head. Crying. Stops at the young girl talking for the first time in years. A tender embrace.

Emotionally devastating, and richly rewarding after wandering with the film at a post midnight hour.

It all comes together.

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On the way out of the theatre I received my “I survived the whole night” gift; a sweet patch to sew on.

With or without it, the memories from tonight will remain. The sharp sense of triumphant joy and oooing outlines of shock.

Like any festival, of any art, it varies from year to year. But the accumulated effect, the greatest highs, remain.

I actually, overall, liked this one better than last year. And that was also a good one.

Like the woman who has seen all these nights of horror mystery, I add it to the deep treasures of my experiences. I am open to new things, and I am rewarded for that.

Can’t ask for anything more satisfying.