The Countdown to Halloween Day 22 The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)

 

 

We go back inside the beautiful yet very twisted mind of Mike Flanagan once again.  This time we explore his interpretation on The Fall of the House of Usher, a horror miniseries from 2023.  Once again, the list of starring actors in both The Haunting of Bly Manor as well as Hill House, stars as Verna, a mysterious woman from the Usher’s past.  Bruce Greenwood plays Roderick Usher and while not in anything else I’ve written about this month he has been in other Flanagan films.  Both Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game (both adapted from Stephen King novels) also finds Flanagan directing with Greenwood starring.

 

 

Roderick’s twin sister Madeline Usher is portrayed by Mary McDonnell who you might also have seen in Donnie Darko or Independence Day.  Henry Thomas, who has been in just about everything Flanagan has directed (Bly Manor, Hill House, Midnight Mass, Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game and there’s even more than that) as well as E.T., is Roderick’s oldest son Frederick Usher.  But wait, there’s more; we also have Kate Siegel who aside from being married to Flannagan she has also been in Hill House, Gerald’s Game, Midnight Mass, Hush, and Oculus.  Even the last two are from Flanagan.  Siegel plays Camille Roderick’s illegitimate daughter.

 

 

Another of Roderick’s illegitimate children is Rahul Kohli as Napoleon or Leo as he is also known as.  Kohli has also appeared in many of Flanagan’s films including Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Life of Chuck which is another Flanagan film that came out earlier this.  Coincidentally, it was also originally a Stephen King story.  Now before I bore you with any other people appearing in FOTHOU (yeah, I ain’t spelling it all out every time), because there are many more let’s talk about the plot a little.  The miniseries is all based on Edgar Allan Poe stories.  Like for instance, Verna in an anagram of “raven”.  Roderick and his twin sister and their family are all the owners of a pharmaceutical company named Fortunato.  That is of course from The Cask of Amontillado.

 

 

Frederick’s name is taken from Metzengerstein a short story by Poe.  And so on.  Every episode is also named after a work by Poe.  The second episodes title is The Masque of the Red Death and the third is titled Murders in the Rue Morgue for just two examples.  While other episodes take their names from some of the more quotable lines that Poe has written.  For instance, the very first episode is titled A Midnight Dreary which we all know from The Raven.  Or should know, because if you don’t know, do you even know horror, bro?  Now what is the show about I hear you asking.  Well, read on as I told you all of that so I could tell you this –

 

 

Roderick and his sister Madeline are the CEO and COO respectively of their pharmaceutical company.  They are both a little corrupt (maybe more than a little) and the story takes place over seventy years.  The main idea of the story is that Roderick’s children, all six of them, die under mysterious circumstances all within two weeks of each other.  After the final child dies, Roderick invites C. August Dupin over to his house.  Dupin is an assistant prosecutor who has been trying to expose Roderick’s shady business dealings.  Roderick, through the course of the series, tells Dupin all he wanted to know and more.  All the family secrets are exposed.

 

 

I almost buried the lead here, one of the big names attached to FOTHOU is none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.  Hamill plays the Usher families attorney.  He is also “the fixer” for the family.  During the eight episodes, we also see how each of Roderick’s children meets their untimely end.  The series is dark, gruesome, fast paced, and enjoyable.  Each episode is almost like part of an anthology where Roderick and Dupin’s scenes acting as the wrap around story.  Aside from the children’s stories we also get some backstory into how the Usher twins created their empire.  Each episode’s title gives a little glimpse (if you are familiar with the Poe story they are named after that is) into what you will see in each episode.

 

 

The show was well received and got great ratings for Netflix.  Hamill received a Saturn award for his work in the series while several others were nominated for other various awards.  I gotta tell you in the last year or so I have seen a lot of Flanagan’s work, and I have yet to be disappointed.  OK, I lied a little, I didn’t really like Gerald’s Game very much but to be honest I didn’t care for the book very much either.  The Fall of the House of Usher may be my favorite of all the Flannagan miniseries.  Roderick’s house looks so creepy and Gothic that I want to live there.  

 

 

Most of the stories about how the Usher kids are killed (I say kids, but they are all adults), I couldn’t care less that they were going to meet their doom.  Maybe one or two of them I didn’t want to see die but I knew what I was in for, so I tried not to get too attached.  While all the episodes are around the one hour mark, they never feel long or drawn out.  Each story is loaded with information that helps paint the big picture.  Man o’ man are some of those scenes out there and like I said if you are familiar, you know what’s coming.  Sort of.

 

 

 

There are some moments when I was watching and thinking “Well how are they going to work that into the story?” and they certainly do.  Usually with me commenting “Oh no!” or “Oh shit!” or something of that nature because even though I knew what was coming I didn’t know it was coming like THAT!  Of all of Flanagan’s work this might be my favorite so far.  I’ll go four and a half (and I was leaning towards a full five) Goldbugs for this nearly perfect masterpiece.

 

 

 

 

The Countdown to Halloween Day 21 Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

 

Sometime around 1990 my darling doddily doo Cerpts and I went to the local Blockbuster (which was just across the street from where we lived of course that "street" was a four lane highway but you get the idea) and we were introduced to Full Moon Productions.  Full Moon Features, as it is known today, was founded by Charles Band.  Uncle Charley is responsible for bringing us the first Puppet Master film and we both loved it.  Since then, there has been a total of fifteen Puppet Master films in the series.  I have seen every one of them except The Littlest Reich.

 

 

Lookit that, another Nazi movie.  Thank the movie gods for Mike Flanagan and all the movies I have watched that he directed this October.  I say that because without him I would look like a Nazi sympathizer with all the Nazi themed films I watched so far this Halloween season.  And yes, truth be told I am part German.  But let’s talk about this Puppet Master film.  Starring is Thomas Lennon, yes, that Thomas Lennon from TVs Reno 911 and A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.  Lennon portrays Edgar who owns a comic book story and is a comic book artist.  Edgar has moved back in with his parents after a divorce.

 

 

In his deceased brother’s closet, he finds a puppet.  Anyone who knows the Puppet Master films recognizes the puppet as Blade, the leader of the band of reanimated killers.  Along with his girlfriend Ashley, Edgar decides he wants to sell the puppet because it can fetch a pretty penny at an auction.  At the hotel where the auction is being held an odd force wakes up some of Andre Toulon’s puppets and we know what that means.  The usual carnage that comes with the puppets is about to start.  Starring as Detective Brown is Michael Pare who I just saw in 9 Windows.  He’s also starred in Streets of Fire and The Virgin Suicides.  Pare, who was well behaved in 9 Windows is his usual over the top self here.

 

 

Horror legend Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, Castle Freak, and From Beyond) stars as former police officer turned security guard Carol Doreski who knows more about the puppets than most people due to a run in years ago with Andre Toulon himself.  Speaking of Toulon, he is played by Udo Kier (Blade and Brawl in Cell Block 99) and here he is an evil German who was working for the Third Reich unlike he is shown in the original puppet master films.  And here is where they start to lose me.  OK, I’ll nutshell what happened: somehow Fangoria magazine began making their own films and this is one of them  This was made as a reboot for the series of films and while it was entertaining and had some very impressive kills, I still felt something was missing.

 

 

The first and most glaring thing is the inclusion of only three puppets that have appeared in previous films.  Only Blade, Tunneler, and Pinhead are here.  Oh, there’s other puppets, but none I have ever seen before.  Where’s Leech Woman, Six Shooter, and Jester?  Nowhere to be found.  Some of the new puppets are weird and sort of stupid but some are OK and boarder on good.  I still miss the originals though.  I also dislike how they present Andre Toulon here.  I liked the sympathetic Andre Toulon that we met in the very first Puppet Master film played by William Hickey (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Nightmare Before Christmas) and later in a different incarnation played by Guy Rolfe who has also appeared in Dolls and Mr. Sardonicus.

 

I don’t know maybe I’m just too much of a traditionalist or too old school, but it did cause me to like the movie a little less.  Saving the movie was some of the effects especially when it came to the kills.  One of the new puppets wears the corpse of a character and pretends to still be that person.  Directing here is the duo of Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund who have also directed Wither and Mystery Box together.  Another one of the kills I want to mention is when one character enters the bathroom to relieve himself and has his “frank and beans” cut off.

 

 

Even more penis chopping this month!  It’s a gory and gross scene but even after the guy’s junk is removed he still is shown urinating the same way.  I’m not a doctor but I don’t think that is medically correct.  Ah, what does it matter it’s a damn film about a bunch of homicidal puppets.  What’s not to like?  Well, a lot but I’ll take out my personal feelings and only rate this on merit.  I will give this a modest three Cuddly Bears out of five.  I don’t know what I’m complaining about this is better than Puppet Master: Legacy which Uncle Charley Band directed so maybe I’m complaining about nothing.

 

 

The Countdown to Halloween Day 20 Prevenge (2016)

 

 

I cannot believe the month of October is two thirds of the way over.  Only 11 days left until the clock strikes midnight.  No time to waste, let's get to our next film.  Prevenge is a British comedy/horror/slasher film written, directed, and starring Alice Lowe who has also appeared in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Sightseers which she also wrote.  Alice plays Ruth a pregnant woman who goes on a spree of revenge kills after her husband dies in a mountain climbing accident.  Lowe was eight months pregnant while making the film and her newborn daughter, just ten days old, made an appearance in the film as Ruth’s newborn baby.

 

 

The film also stars Jo Hartley (This Is England and Eddie the Eagle) as Ruth’s midwife.  Also starring is Kayvan Novak, who played the vampire Nandor on FX’x What We Do in the Shadows, but here he plays Tom.  Tom is one of the people Ruth blames for her husband’s death.  Also co-starring is Katie Dickie (The Witch and The Green Knight), Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones and Emma), and Eileen Davies who has appeared in both British soap operas Coronation Street and Eastenders.

 

 

The main inspiration for the film is the unborn child who tells Ruth what to do.  That usually includes murder.  There are lots of kills here and lots of blood; especially in the scene where a guy gets his schween chopped off.  *shiver*  Originally over two hours (this version was never released to my knowledge) Lowe eventually edited it down to under 90 minutes.  Prevenge was a pleasant surprise that I didn’t have very high expectations for.  I was happy to be wrong here and for that I am pleased to give this three and a half emergency c-sections out of five.

 

 

The Countdown To Halloween Day 19 Nazis At the Center of the Earth (2012)

 

 

When people think about Indie Horror companies they usually go to A24 (Midsommar and Hereditary) or Blumhouse (The Purge and Insidious) for some of the more popular films.  Then there are the next step-down companies like Troma (The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke ‘Em High) and Dark Sky Films (The Innkeepers and Starry Eyes).  The Asylum I would consider to be even a step down from those.  Nazis At the Center of the Earth, a sci-fi comedy horror, come to us from The Asylum.  I’m not saying they are bad at making horror films, I mean they gave us all the Sharknado films and like them or not, they have left their mark on the horror genre.

 

 

Good or bad; The Asylum makes a lot of independent horror films, and they deserve to be supported whenever we can.  NATCOTE (the full title is way too much to type out repeatedly) is about a group of researchers in Antarctica who are attacked by a bunch of Nazi soldiers and taken to a secret bunker deep in the center of the Earth.  It’s like the area we see Kong living in the new movies of that series.  Soon after they are abducted, they meet Dr. Josef Mengele who is still alive and along with a large group of Nazi soldiers is planning an invasion of Earth.  Their goal is to create the Fourth Reich.

 

 

Dominique Swain (Lolita and Face/Off) stars as Dr. Paige Morgan and Jake Busey (Starship Troopers and The Frighteners) is Dr. Adrien Reistad.  NATCOTE was filmed in 12 days and cost less than 200 grand to make.  So yeah, low budget for sure.  The story is so off the wall that it makes the film interesting.  Some of the effects are very well done too.  The film came close to setting a record for most visual effects in a film produced by The Asylum.  Other than the two I’ve mentioned, the rest of the cast are names I’ve never heard of before.  Doesn’t mean they can’t act just that I’m not listing them here.

 

 

Clocking in at around 90 minutes, the film never drags but some of the acting leaves something to be desired.  I mean Jake Busey, who has been in nearly 100 films, still needs to polish his craft.  Directing here is Joseph J. Lawson.  Now the main reason I mentioned him is so I can also mention that he has also directed Bone Alone.  Bone Alone is the dog version of Home Alone.  Paul Bales  (the COO of The Asylum) wrote NATCOTE and was one of the producers of the film but he usually does that.  The producing part I mean and for the most part he IS The Asylum.  Now thankfully I have all the Mike Flanagan films in the countdown this year because if not, this is the second Nazi film I’ve reviewed this year.  We don’t want that to be this years theme!

 

 

Most people hate NATCOTE while a few have called it the Citizen Kane of films from The Asylum.  I will say it’s not for everyone (obviously not for kids) and has some really disturbing scenes but nothing I haven’t seen before.  I don’t know if it’s the best film from The Asylum but it’s certainly on the same level as any of the Sharknado films so that’s saying something.  Most of the Sharknado films I rated somewhere around two stars (give or take a half a star) so I will give this a strong two and a half gas masks out of five.

     

The Countdown To Halloween Day 18 Stitches (2012)

 

 

Stitches is an Irish Film Board (mostly) sponsored horror comedy about a clown who is killed at a child’s birthday party.  Stitches, the name of the clown, is played by Ross Noble a stand-up comic better known in Europe than in the states and can also be seen in The Circle.  Stitches is a discount clown who performs at birthday parties and shows up drunk at his latest job.  The kids at this party are all different levels of d-bags.  Through a series of pranks set up by the kids Stitches ends up dying.  Six years later little Tommy is now almost an adult and decides to have another birthday party.

 

 

Stitches rises from the grave seeking revenge on Tommy and his group of friends.  Tommy is played by Tommy Knight who co-starred in the Doctor Who spin off show The Sarah Jane Adventures.  Playing Tommy’s friend Kate is Gemma- Leah Devereux who played Liza Minelli in Judy.  I will say this about Stitches; there are some original kills in this one.  So over the top that I found myself laughing hysterically a few times.  I know it was a low budget film, so I give them extra credit for making their limited funds go farther than humanly expected.  Even when it looks ridiculously cheap it’s so humorous that you forgive the low budget.

 

 

Every kill is presented with buckets of blood and plenty of gore.  It’s not all just dead clown back from the grave killing spree stuff there is also an interesting side story that involves a secret sect of clowns.  They prove what we always suspected:  Clowns Are Creepy.  Speaking of which, this isn’t a clown back from the dead like we think of with Pennywise in It, this is totally different.  Noble is funny enough as Stitches and Tommy is almost a sympathetic character but I kept thinking that all the kids sort of deserved what they got.  I mean they killed him first.  All the kids, both teenagers and when they are young, are all fairly unlikable.  Aside from Tommy and Kate that is, I guess.

 

 

Stitches is entertaining but I will say due to the strong accents of the actors sometimes the film is hard to understand.  I needed the subtitles a time or two just so I knew what the characters were talking about.  I’m not sure how many dollars were spent making this, but they made the most out of each and every one of them.  When the secret clown organization is thrown into the story it adds another layer I wasn’t expecting.  I will give Stitches three and a half ice cream scoopers out of five as I’m sure it will make everybody happy.

 

  
 

The Countdown to Halloween Day 17 The Scribbler (2014)

 

 

The Scribbler is yet another one of those films that I’m not sure when or where I picked it up.  I have a lot of those films (not as many as my friend Cerpts who I mentioned in the first post of the month) that are put aside in “The Pile”.  Movies that I will watch sometime is what they really are.  So that means I knew nothing about The Scribbler when I started watching it.  I was surprised that the first thing I learned is that this is based on a graphic novel.  The movie, like the graphic novel, is written by Daniel Schaffer.  The film is about a woman who has split personality disorder and is in a mental institute.

 

 

 

The woman, Suki, is deemed cured enough that she can move into this weird hotel that serves as a sort of halfway house for mental patients cured enough to be allowed out of the asylum.  Starring as Suki is Katie Cassidy who I know as Black Canary in the Arrowverse but she has also starred in the remakes of both Black Christmas and Nightmare on Elm Street.  Also living in Juniper Tower is Suki’s friend (with benefits) Hogan.  Hogan, played by Garrett Dillahunt who has starred in TVs Fear the Walking Dead and No Country For Old Men, is the only male resident and fakes his mental illness in order to stay in Juniper Towers so he can enjoy the fruits of being the only man around.

 

 

The building is home to some really strange people.  Also starring as Alice is (in her final film role) Michelle Trachtenberg.  Michelle also starred as the little sister to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was also in the Black Christmas remake.  There appears to be a serial killer living amongst the residents.  One by one women keep getting killed at Juniper Towers.  Suki is questioned about the murders by Detective Moss.  Moss, played by Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos and Goodfellas), is helped in the investigation by Dr. Silk, a criminal psychologist.  Silk is played by Eliza Dushku who you might know from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show or maybe you’ve seen her in Wrong Turn.

 

I wanna say something about Suki and Kate Cassidy playing her; Cassidy doesn’t look anything like she normally does here.  The entire time I’m watching the film getting Elisha Cuthbert vibes.  That’s who she looks exactly like.  To me at least.  But I digress.  One of Suki’s other personalities is The Scribble who is a superhero who only communicates with Suki by writing backwards.  Basically “scribbling” words backwards everywhere someone could write.  It’s up to Suki to figure out who the murderer in the building is.  Even if the murderer might be one of her other personalities.

 

While not a great movie, The Scribbler is able to set itself apart from just about every other movie simply by being weird.  This is one of the oddest films you will watch and although not really a film about a superhero it’s a film with a superhero in it.  I hope that makes sense because I have a hard time doing that sometimes.  So it’s an interesting film with lots of odd characters in a very murky story.  I found myself asking “WTF?” several times and then having to rewind so I knew what I just watched.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the film is directed by John Suits who has mostly directed poorly rated science fiction action flicks like Breach and 3022.  I guess you can call this a step up for him as I found it different enough while still being entertaining.  I will give this three and a half talking dogs out of five.  It’s a head scratcher but not in a bad way.