Worth Mentioning - Night Breeds Mischief

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Cody needs a host's help to get through a movie, writes things for ArrowintheHead.com, and gets too scared to scream.

Commander USA's Groovie Movies - TRICK OR TREATS (1982)

Horror fans who haven't already seen writer/director Gary Graver's film will probably excitedly seek it out when they hear there's a little known 1982 Halloween slasher to be seen - but if those fans are anything like me, they'll be disappointed when they see how this '82 Halloween slasher plays out. Trick or Treats is a rough movie to sit through as far as I'm concerned, worth seeing if you're fascinated by this kind of stuff, but not a very good movie. However, there is a way to watch it online that's more entertaining than watching it on its own. On YouTube, there's a version of Trick or Treats that's hosted by Commander USA.

Commander USA was a movie host on USA Network through the second half of the '80s, a retired superhero who showed movies in his lair beneath a shopping mall. Although Trick or Treats is set on Halloween, Commander USA showed it the week before Christmas in 1988, and watching the recording of that show on YouTube really pressed the nostalgia buttons for me. I was five years old when this particular episode aired, so I would have been a little kid who was super-hyped for the upcoming holiday as people were sitting in front of their TVs watching Trick or Treats. Making the recording even better is the fact that the uploader included all of the vintage commercials that were shown between blocks of the movie. There are multiple commercials from Commander USA's sponsor, America's Dairy Farmers; there's some Coca-Cola classic ads; the Energizer bunny shows up; there are commercials for a video store where the recent hit rentals were Dirty Dancing, Platoon, and Hoosiers; and there's a Clorox 2 ad with a jingle that mentally transported me back to those days as soon as it started. There are also ads for Dianetics, the promise being that reading the book would improve people's lives in 1989. Unfortunately, '89 wasn't destined to be a winner for Commander USA, because that's the year his show went off the air.

In his hosting segments, Commander USA offers some last minute gift ideas, like a surprisingly gross "Doctor Autopsy Kit", he banters with his pal Lefty (a face drawn on his right palm), he hangs out with a character called Nurse Nancy, he talks about a babysitter who was a fan of a story called the Princess and the Peabrain, he makes a headcheese float, he cracks jokes about the movie, he reads fan mail, and he tries to sell viewers on paper plates with images of him and Lefty drawn on them.

Made for a low budget and shot primarily in the home of cast member Carrie Snodgress, Trick or Treats is a really weird movie that begins with Peter Jason chewing the scenery for several minutes. His character Malcolm O'Keefe is married to Snodgress's Joan, and the couple are sharing the meal and Malcolm is reading the newspaper when their pleasant day is disrupted by the arrival of two mental hospital orderlies who have come to take Malcolm away at Joan's request. Malcolm tussles with the orderlies while screaming for help, and Graver keeps this scene going on and on.

The film eventually jumps forward several years to find that Joan is now married to a creep named Richard (David Carradine), who blatantly tries to seduce babysitter / aspiring actress Linda (Jacqueline Giroux) when she comes over to babysit Joan and Malcolm's young son Christopher (Chris Graver - as Commander USA says, it's a "strange coincidence" that this kid has the same last name as the director) while he and Joan go off to a Halloween party. The majority of the film's 91 minute running time centers on the interaction between Linda and Christopher, and it's something of an endurance challenge for both Linda and the viewer. Giroux's acting isn't very good, while Christopher is a nightmare child, a little magician who acts inappropriately toward Linda and subjects her to a non-stop barrage of stupid pranks.

This movie has been considered a slasher, but even though it lifts some story basics right out of Halloween, not much slashing happens when Malcolm escapes from the mental hospital and makes his way home to get revenge on Joan for having him locked up. The scenes in the mental hospital (where a nurse is played by Twin Peaks' Log Lady Catherine Coulson) are played for laughs, making a mockery of Malcolm's fellow patients. That sort of stuff is painful to watch. A lot of movies are like that (I recently wrote about the same thing happening in Splatter University), and it never works for me.

It takes a long time for anything interesting to happen in Trick or Treats, so the movie feels like a slog if you don't have Commander USA and vintage commercials to break it up now and then. The best thing about the movie is the old school Halloween decorations that are on display, decorations I remember from my childhood.

LET'S SCARE JULIE (2020) 

Let's Scare Julie is a film that was shot entirely in one continuous take, making it quite an impressive achievement for the cast and crew. The crew kept the production running smoothly and had everything in place so the whole movie could be shot in an 85 minute take, while the cast were able to fully inhabit their characters, deliver their dialogue, and reach (and sustain) heightened states of emotion without stopping. Writer/director Jud Cremata made his feature debut with this film, but he has been racking up credits in the entertainment industry for over thirty years at this point, and those decades of experience were surely a great benefit when he dove into this project. 

However, the finished 83 minute film is not presented as being one continuous take. There are several clear edit points, including one shot that was either an insert filmed later or an image that was zoomed in on in post. It's unfortunate that the decision was made to make some cuts after the fact, because it takes away from the achievement a bit. Yes, the cast and crew did still manage to pull this off, that's awesome, but the cuts will cause some viewers to doubt that the movie really was completely shot in one take. Apparently it was actually filmed four times, with cast and crew reporting to set and knocking out the full feature on four separate nights. 

The ambitious choice to shoot the film in one take is the main selling point, and the dedication and proficiency displayed by everyone involved as they made a one-take movie happen is mainly what makes it worth checking out. Even if it turned out poorly, this sort of thing would be worth watching just as a curiosity. But thankfully, Cremata and his collaborators used the one take gimmick to bring us a decent movie.

The story centers on a group of teenage girls; Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson as recently orphaned outsider Emma, Isabel May as Emma's cousin Taylor, and Odessa Adlon/A'zion, Brooke Sorenson, and Jessica Sarah Flaum as Taylor's prank-loving, troublemaking friends Madison, Jess, and Paige. Emma's seven-year-old sister Lilly (Dakota Baccelli) also gets mixed up in the mess that the teens end up causing. Every member of the cast does well in bringing their characters to life, and there was clearly a lot of improv in the scenes of the teens interacting with each other. It certainly makes those moments feel authentic. Johnson proves to be a good heroine type, and basically carries the film on her shoulders because the camera is anchored to Emma for the duration. Each cast member makes an impression, but the standout among Emma's peers may be A'zion, mainly because she is clearly putting a lot of effort into making Madison stand out. She attacks every moment with a lot of energy, always bouncing around, being a pain, and putting on goofy voices.

The night these girls spend together begins to fall apart when Madison, Jess, and Paige learn that a teenage girl has just moved into the house across the street from Taylor's place - and that the neighbor's house used to be home to a reclusive old lady who may have been into the supernatural. An acquaintance of Taylor's even disappeared after getting a look at the old lady one day. Taylor and her pals decide to welcome this new girl - the Julie of the title - to the neighborhood by putting on masks, going across the street, entering Julie's house with the use of a key that happens to be in their possession, and scaring the hell out of the poor girl. You may be wondering, "How could a plan to enter someone's home without permission while wearing masks possibly go wrong?", but things do indeed go very wrong.

When it comes to action, Let's Scare Julie was held back by the shooting style. There's a lot of hearing about scary things without actually being shown these things, because what we don't see is supposed to be more unnerving than if we did see it. There's a great deal of build-up without much in the way of payoff, which is always unfortunate, and there's an odd moment with Emma's uncle / Taylor's dad that didn't feel entirely necessary. Still, I was on board with what the movie was showing me for the most part and I was invested in seeing how it was all going to play out.

Let's Scare Julie is a fine way to spend 83 minutes. Viewers likely to get the most out of sitting through it would be those who are interested in seeing how the one take approach worked, and young adults in the same age range as the characters.

The review of Let's Scare Julie originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

NIGHT FARE (2015)

Director Julien Seri's Night Fare is a difficult film to discuss without giving away spoilers. After someone watches it, one of the main things they'll want to discuss is the twist that comes in the final minutes and completely alters your perception of what came before... But that's not something that should be detailed in a recommendation, because it's something that needs to be experienced during a first viewing. The only thing a person should know about the plot before that first viewing is that Seri and his collaborators Cyril Ferment, Pascal Sid, and Tarubi were drawing inspiration from the Steven Spielberg classic Duel when they were crafting the story for this film.

Instead of a mysterious truck driver stalking Dennis Weaver for no apparent reason, here we have a mysterious taxi driver (played by former MMA fighter Jess Liaudin) who relentlessly pursues local Luc (Jonathan Demurger) and his English friend Chris (Jonathan Howard) through the streets of a city in France after Luc decides not to pay their cab fare, despite having plenty of money in his pockets. As Luc and Chris seek shelter and help, the driver follows them and brutally takes down several of the shady characters Luc is associated with.

Adding drama in the mix is the past Luc and Chris share, which includes an incident that caused Chris to leave France two years earlier without giving his girlfriend Ludivine (Fanny Valette) an explanation or a word of warning. Ludivine is now dating Luc... and she will meet the driver, too.

Night Fare is a really cool movie with some excellent stalking scenes and explosions of violence that are fun to see, even though they have CGI blood flying around. The twist that comes late in the game is probably a "make or break" moment for a lot of viewers, some may not like the direction the story goes in, but I felt that the twist boosted the film up to a higher level. If you'd like to hear a more in-depth recommendation, check out the Night Fare: The Best Horror Movie You Never Saw video I wrote for ArrowintheHead.com.

TOO SCARED TO SCREAM (1984)

Looking over the cast list, you'd think director Tony Lo Bianco's Too Scared to Scream would be a well known film that's widely regarded as one of the most prestigious entries in the slasher sub-genre, but somehow this one has had a rough time despite boasting a cast that includes Mike Connors, Anne Archer, Ian McShane, John Heard, Murray Hamilton, and Maureen O'Sullivan. Filmed in 1982, it didn't make its way to a wide release until 1985, at which time it seemed to come and go without many people noticing. That's a shame, because it's actually a solid flick.

The primary setting is the Royal Arms apartment building in New York City, a building populated by some oddball characters described as "artists and professionals". The most prominent character at the Royal Arms is doorman Vincent Hardwick (McShane), a classy gentleman who likes to cake on the theatrical makeup and quote Shakespeare. When tenants start getting slashed up one-by-one, Lieutenant Alex Dinardo (Connors) takes on the case with the assistance of younger officer Kate Bridges (Archer). The bodies continue piling up, and eventually Bridges has to go undercover - which in this case means moving into an apartment that belonged to one of the victims in an attempt to lure out the killer.

That killer bumps off young women, scared old ladies, and in one standout sequence even stops a tryst that was set up between a middle-aged man and a model he met at a fashion show run by Carrie Nye from Creepshow. 

Too Scared to Scream does focus more on the police investigation of the murders than the average slasher does, showing interrogations, a suspect foot chase, a search of a house (after a warrant is obtained), and of course the undercover stuff with Bridges. During our time spent with the police, we see that these are some of the most hapless cops to appear in a non-comedy film. It's amusing to watch them mess up, but even more amusing are the scenes in which Bridges is seen exercising, like when she does a seemingly endless number of stretches in front of Hardwick and later decides she needs to dance off the pasta she had for dinner.

This movie is a good time, and most genre fans have missed out on it up to this point.