Just a quick reminder that we’ve launched our companion podcast/newsletter, “Classics Weekly,” a brand-new Podcast/Newsletter devoted to classic films. Our second episode, devoted to “Singin’ in the Rain,” launched this week. It’s very similar in format to Horror Weekly, but since it’s only one film each week, we can go more in-depth with trivia and commentary. The third episode, “The Jazz Singer (1929),” comes out next week, with many more to follow, Sign up for the newsletter or subscribe to the podcast at
https://www.classicsweekly.com
In addition, the latest issue of Horror Monthly is now on sale. Check out
https://horrormonthly.com
for links to pick it up in print or as an eBook. This month includes all the usual reviews, 37 films’ worth, as well as a retrospective on the five original “Planet of the Apes” films PLUS a short story!
But this week, we’ll watch another batch of all-new films. We’ll start with the latest entry in the VHS anthology series, “VHS Beyond.” We’ll get all sexy with “Strange Darling,” get pregnant with “Apartment 7A,” and then avoid the kids in “Children of the Pines.” Lastly, we’ll have a fun little road trip with “Blood Star.” Of course, we’ll also squeeze in a few short films.
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Indie Films:
Blood Star (2024)
● Directed by Lawrence Jacomelli
● Written by Lawrence Jacomelli, George Kelly, Victoria Hinks Taylor
● Stars Britni Camacho, John Schwab, Sydney Brumfield
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Between the hints in the trailer, poster, and opening scene, we had a general idea where things were going to go. But we didn’t know how it was going to go, and the ride along the way was a wild one. This was really well made with a well-written suspenseful and script interesting characters. We liked it a lot.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman staggers down the desert road, bleeding and crying as the car slowly approaches her from behind. A man we don’t see gets out of the car, and the girl is clearly terrified of him. He drops a gun and one bullet, then goes back to the car. She ineffectively shoots at him as he runs her over. Credits roll.
Bobbie drives down the empty desert highway and gets a phone call from her sister, warning her not to go home to her abusive guy. She stops in at a “last chance” gas station for a refill. The sheriff overhears her arguing on the phone and strikes up a conversation about the call. He points out that her tires are worn out; he’s a little creepy, but she deals with it.
Back on the road, Bobbie takes another call from her sister, and she gets a little upset and floors it. There’s a speed trap, and she zooms right past it. The cop who pulls her over is the same guy as before. This time, she flirts with him; he accuses her of throwing something out of her window that smashed his light bar. He gives her a ticket for $1000, which she cannot afford. He wants $300 to make it go away, which she can afford, sorta, but she needs to go back to the gas station ATM. He wants to hold on to her phone to make sure she follows through.
The gas station doesn’t have a working ATM after all. Her credit card is overdrawn; her boyfriend has cleaned out her account. Blake, the gas station guy, hints that Sheriff Bilstein does this kind of thing all the time. She decides to drive on without her phone.
Meanwhile, the sheriff has Bobbie’s phone, which just keeps ringing. He turns it off and throws it in a box with a bunch of others. He gets out a sniper rifle and shoots out Bobbie’s brake light. He then chases her down and arrests her. He lets her go and mentions an ATM at the diner down the street. This time, he also keeps her license. As she drives away, he shoots out her tire, and she crashes.
When the sheriff drives the opposite direction, Bobbie makes a run for it down the road. She soon learns why they call it “the desert”: It’s hot, sunny, and no one else is there. She eventually makes it ten miles to the diner. She calls her boyfriend, Rhett, who accuses her of flirting with the cop in the first place, because the sheriff answered her phone. She hangs up on him.
As Bobbie waits for a coffee at the diner, the sheriff pulls up out front. He’s had her car towed, and he’s standing right next to it. She calls 911 and reports that the gas station up the road is being robbed. The sheriff gets notified on the police radio, since he is 911, and has no choice but to follow up on the call.
She goes out to the car, but it’s got a new tire and brake light. The sheriff returns, oddly nice this time, and gives her her keys and phone back. He’s clearly playing some kind of game with her, but she gets back in the car and drives off.
While in the diner, Bobbie stole some guy’s change, and Amy the waitress gets fired for it. Bobbie offers Amy a ride home. Amy talks about her childhood as a heroin addict; and they bond over their abusive lives. Bobbie realizes her sister was protecting her from her abusive father for years growing up, and she hadn’t realized until hearing Amy’s story. Bobbie tells her what the sheriff did, and none of it surprises Amy. Suddenly, Amy’s head explodes; she’s been shot.
Sheriff Bilstein rear-ends her car. She stops and enlists a truck driver for help, but the sheriff shoots the guy. Bobbie drives off again, but as night falls, her car overheats. She hides her car at the junkyard and waits. Ed, the simple-minded guy who works there, finds her and seems to befriend her. He’s going to call his boss. Who turns out to be the sheriff. This is where the sheriff hides the cars of his victims, and there’s a whole wall of license plates and driver’s licenses. Ed knocks her out.
Bobbie wakes up tied to a chair. Ed and the sheriff tell their story; they’re just one step removed from the Texas Chainsaw family. They are brothers, their mom was awful, and the sheriff has some serious issues with women. They cut out her tongue, and she passes out again.
When she wakes up, Bobbie’s untied and finds a knife in the sink. She runs outside, but it’s clear that Ed and the sheriff were expecting it; that’s part of their game.
Just like in the opening sequence, Bobbie staggers down the desert road, bleeding and crying as the car slowly approaches her from behind. The sheriff gets out of the car, and Bobbie is clearly terrified of him. He drops a gun and one bullet, then goes back to the car…
She shoots herself in the head, which ruins his game. In the distance and the shadowy light, she managed to fake it, and when he approaches, she stabs him and steals his car. He catches her and starts to strangle her, but she whacks him and drives off. When he gets up, she turns the car around. He pulls out his pistol and the tables are turned as he shoots as she runs right into him.
She goes back to the junkyard to get her own car and goes inside, armed to deal with Ed. She retrieves her tongue and packs it in ice. She kills Ed without any challenge and then takes a pile of licenses as evidence. Her phone rings as she drives away, and it’s Rhett. She throws the phone out the window…
Brian’s Commentary
The moral seems to be “Don’t drive through the desert if you’re broke.” Or ever, if you can help it.
Everyone acts fairly logically for this situation. The sheriff is creepy, but he’s also interesting– why is he doing all this?
It’s a stalker/slasher, but this time, we get a lot of the sheriff, and he’s not stupid in any way; he’s got this regular thing that he does, and he’s mostly got the kinks worked out. Bobbie has lots of family issues, but she works them out on the road.
It’s good!
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked how the characters had some depth, it really helped in rooting for Bobbie and made the sheriff and Ed more interesting. Skillful writing and good acting combined in this one to elevate it above average in quality. The special effects were very realistic. I give it a big thumbs up.
2024 Children of the Pines
● Directed by Joshua Morgan
● Written by Joshua Morgan
● Stars Kelly Tappan, Danielle J. Bowman, Vas Provatakis
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
We thought the writing was stronger than the direction, both done by Joshua Morgan, but it wasn’t a failure of a movie. The script, cast, cinematography, and soundtrack make for an interesting film. It’s a frying pan full of family struggles and baggage simmering on a stove burner of horror underneath. It’s a slow but very interesting one.
Spoilery Synopsis
Riley and her mother, Kathy, hide from her abusive father as he rants. Credits roll as we get a voiceover about how depressing life is.
Several years pass. Leon, an old man, tells himself affirmations in the mirror about how he’s a “new man.” Lorelei, a woman with the fakest smile and laugh ever, comes to see Kathy as Kathy brings her husband, John, for treatment. They talk and record the “interview.” Lorelei and Leon have been doing “this” for 35 years. John has stopped drinking and is getting better, Kathy explains. The whole conversation is very awkward, and Kathy is clearly uncomfortable. Riley has gone away to school and doesn’t come home anymore because of John. Lorelei is vague, but it sounds like maybe they’re joining a cult…
We cut to an adult Riley, who returns to her hometown after many years away at college. She stops at a diner in town and Gordon the waiter, her high-school ex-boyfriend, stops to talk. She’s inspired him to apply for college as well. Gordon says he works for her dad now, which upsets her tremendously. He calls her parents “Mom and Dad” now, and she gets grumpy.
Arriving at the cabin, Riley talks to Kathy, her mother. They talk about good times and bad with her father, and they both get upset talking about it. Kathy mentions that her father, John, is off with “the kids,” but she won’t explain what that means.
We cut to Leon at the cult, and he watches a tape of Marie and Zoe, two children who killed their parents with a hammer. This tape appeared on his assistant’s desk, but he doesn’t want that tape shown. He talks to the group about what will happen to the audience at the end of their thirty days; they’ll get a certificate!
Riley talks to her father, and she notices that her parents have certificates hanging on the wall; it mentions “Wicca,” and John explains why they went through the process. She’s still annoyed that Gordon calls John “Dad” now. He’s also evasive about “The kids.” He gives in and introduces her to a young boy and girl, Kathy and John, and they’re both… weird.
Gordon comes over to help John with the garden as Kathy explains the kids to Riley. Back in June, they went to “The Temple” for a month to learn about “tapping into a higher energy” and try to renew themselves.
We get a flashback to John and Kathy’s “graduation” at the cult. In the middle of the ceremony, a beat-up girl staggers into the room wanting to know what happened to her sister. Leon puts the ceremony on hold to deal with the interruption. She’s Zoe, and she sent that tape they played by accident. Leon and Lorelei discuss “ending it now.” Kathy is concerned about what’s going to happen to Zoe, who is tied up and blindfolded, but Lorelei says don’t worry about it and gives her a couple of young children. The old couple then talk to each other about the good old days and then give a hammer to Marie, Zoe’s murderous sister, who beats her to death.
Back in the present, Kathy explains that “The kids don’t have a human mother”; they come from inside her and John’s souls; they’re exact copies, so they can see their own flaws and get a second chance of living right. Riley asks if she’s serious. She is.
Kathy says they have a “gift” for Riley, and they pull hairs out of her and Gordon’s heads. They take the hairs upstairs, and there is much screaming. John and Kathy come back downstairs with two more children. These are young “Riley and Gordon,” and they’re even wearing identical clothing to their adult counterparts. “Hi Mommy,” says young Riley to older Riley. They’re identical clones of Riley and Gordon.
Riley packs her stuff to leave. John yells that if she doesn’t accept the kids, there will be repercussions. She tells Gordon that the whole thing is manipulative; he just wants a fresh start, but she says there are too many new starts. They all blame Riley for being the blind, stagnant one. Riley runs for the door, but Gordon tries to pull her back inside.
We cut to Lorelei and Leon, dead, as Marie has killed them with a hammer. The young children look for adult Kathy, Riley, and Gordon, but they can’t find them. Young John doesn’t go with the others, because he’s a little jerk like his older self.
Brian’s Commentary
The film seems to be saying that people can never change; can abusive people ever change themselves and be redeemed? Apparently not.
Much of the film feels more like a string of filmed dramatic conversations than a real movie. There are long, literary monologues explaining Riley’s feelings and memories between scenes of people explaining the current situation. It’s very… talky, as if they had a good script but poor direction. It’s an interesting story that comes off as very dull. Since it was written and directed by the same person, it’s pretty obvious where his talents do and don’t lie.
The acting, cinematography, and music are all very well done. The story itself has an interesting concept and is very, very weird.
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked this one overall because the story at the core was so weird and interesting. The weakest part was the direction, I thought, but the rest of the elements make up for it to combine into a movie that kept me interested throughout. I’d recommend it.
Mainstream Film:
V/H/S Beyond (2024)
● Directed by Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Christian Long
● Written by Evan Dickson, Jordan Downey, Mike Flanagan
● Stars Philip Andre Botello, Jolene Anderson, Tyler Anderson
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 54 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s an anthology of shorts, like the others in the series, and this one leans a lot more toward science fiction with bad aliens doing bad things, along with some other horrors of various types. It moves fast with some breathers in between from “experts” making documentary-style commentary. We thought it was quite good, if you’re a fan of the previous movies in the series, you should like this one too.
Spoilery Synopsis
As with the other films in the series, this is an anthology.
Segment: Abduction/Adduction
We’re told about an anonymous Redditor who bought a videotape with proof of aliens. We see some of that. We’re told about Farrington House, a place that has ties to alien life forms. This is going to be the wraparound/intermission story.
Segment: Stork
We cut to some cops, along with Segura, a new cop; they go to a meeting of officers talking about a baby kidnapper. They plan a raid, but it all looks a little sketchy and unofficial.
They arrive at a big, deserted-looking house and slowly go inside. Suddenly, they’re attacked by a horde of zombies! The heavily armed cops clear out a lot of the zombies, but Segura gets separated and chased by a zombie with a chainsaw. The house is soon cleared, but all the zombies have the same bandage and the same wound; a ritual?
They go upstairs and find a meteorite, or maybe an egg. They find one zombie who has literally no brain inside his head; then all the zombies get and up and try again. They make it up to the attic, where they find a zombie carrying around a baby. There’s a whole nursery full of cribs and weird alien-looking babies. Then they see it: a birdlike, storklike creature that feeds the babies. They shoot it about a zillion times, and it eventually falls down dead. The cops help Segura and tell him they do this sort of thing all the time…
We hear about a Chinese immigrant family who became wealthy and bought Farrington House. They owned the house until the 1990s when the eldest son vanished; he believed the house was haunted or getting “strange visitors.”
Segment: Dream Girl
We cut to Mumbai, where some photographers stalk celebrities. Arnab and Sono get injured as one girl drives away in her car. Their footage is awful. They get a call that “Dreamgirl Tara” is making an appearance, and they need to get there quickly. They’ve heard that Tara is into witchcraft and black magic, and that’s how she became a star. No one had ever heard of her until two years ago. They watch a bit of the movie being filmed.
It’s a typical Bollywood dance number, but it goes badly, and they leave before things get hostile. Arnab sneaks into Tara’s dressing room and hides in the closet. Tara and her manager come in, and he’s nasty enough to make her cry. Arnab looks to the side and sees a severed head in a bowl of goo; Tara catches him inside and asks if he wants a selfie. Arnab tells Tara that she doesn’t need that mean manager.
“I like your face,” she tells him. She pulls her own face off, “I will wear your face.” She then spits acid all over her manager, killing him. She walks through the building, sparking like a robot and everyone screams. She turns on the music and declares herself to be a goddess. She zaps the crowd with lightning, killing everyone, including Sonu and Arnab, who loses his own face. Tara, wearing Arnab’s bloody face, then goes outside and attacks the press.
Back in the documentary about aliens, we hear from eyewitnesses and abductees. Maybe aliens don’t wish us well.
Segment: Live and Let Dive
We cut to Zach’s birthday party in an airplane, as the whole group is going skydiving. The group is all excited to be there, but then there’s some crazy turbulence. Zach doesn’t really want to do this, but peer pressure is intense. Suddenly, they see a UFO out the window, and then they see jet fighters zoom by at high speed.
The plane shakes, and the pilot calls “Mayday.” There’s an alien on the outside of the plane; suddenly, the plane falls apart, and they’re all falling, including one guy who has lost a leg. As Zach falls, the alien falls right past him. His chute eventually deploys, and he hits the ground pretty hard. Not everyone’s chute opens, and bodies and airplane parts fall all around him. He unstraps himself from partner Logan, who has lost his head somehow.
He finds another survivor and they run through the orchard and find others. They soon learn that the alien has survived the fall and is hunting them down, one by one. Zach runs out of the orchard and climbs into a farmer’s truck, but the alien gets the farmer. Zach somehow survives the encounter and drives the truck, but then the whole truck gets abducted, with him inside.
The documentary guys babble on about alien encounters and unknown tech. We meet some visual effects artists who talk about UFO footage and explain them all.
Segment: Fur Babies
We cut to Becky doing a commercial for “Doggy Dreamhouse,” an animal obedience school with several taxidermized dogs in the background. She’s the target of some kind of sting operation by an animal rights group. Miles, the leader, has Stuart and Angela go undercover to board their dog with Becky, the owner of the service.
Becky talks about her stuffed fur babies, who have died and been taxidermized. One of them, Gary, isn’t in his spot on the mantle, and Becky says she’s doing something special with him. Stuart and Angela talk about “mutilating” the bodies, and Becky soon figures out that they’re here on false pretenses.
She takes them to the basement and shows them her training area and the “naughty area” where she keeps nosy people like them. Becky has a human-dog hybrid thing down there, and she soon knocks out Stuart and Angela and “liberates" Pickles the dog.
Miles calls, looking for his missing people. Becky makes a tape, where she’s been taking her dead dogs and merging them with living humans. We see Angela and Stuart in cages, halfway modified into dogs.
Outside, Miles and his friends arrive and break into the place. They come downstairs and find everything, but then Becky comes in and releases her earlier experiments, a pair of man-dog hybrids. She gives “Gary” a treat afterward. Sometime later, Gary eats a porch pirate.
We hear some history about UFO sightings and hoaxes.
Segment: Stowaway
Halley records herself in the Mojave, talking about extraterrestrials and alien abductions. She’s not good at this and she does several takes on her video. She interviews several men who saw the lights in the sky, and they tell what they saw. The witnesses don’t seem terribly reliable. She continues her narration sitting by a campfire that night and then she sees the lights in the sky. As she futzes with the camera, she sees that she’s taped over her daughter’s birthday party video.
The lights return, and she follows them. One of the lights came down to the ground, and she goes to it. The blurry ball of a spaceship opens up, and she goes inside. It’s all biological inside, with no controls or technology visible. She cuts her hand, and the ship sends out little nanotech particles to heal her. Then she sees an alien in the room with her, and she hides.
She finds the controls of the shop but they’re sharp wires that cut her when she touches them; the nanites fix her right up afterward. She then finds spiders and various animals in storage; the aliens have been collecting samples. The lights start to pulse, but the door is gone.
The ship lifts off with her inside. It’s a rough takeoff, but the nanites keep her alive. She wakes up in orbit; the pilot and samples are all in some kind of protective stasis, but she isn’t - this is gonna hurt. The chunks of what’s left of her float in the zero-g space, but the nanites put her back together– incorrectly. We see her alive and misshapen, begging them to stop as they keep healing her.
Segment: Abduction/Adduction– Conclusion
Back with the documentary, we hear that the adult son vanished, and the house was sold at an auction. They show the video footage from what happened. There’s an alien in the man’s bedroom, ala “Paranormal Activity.”
Brian’s Commentary
The budget for the segments have clearly gotten much higher with the success of the series. The creature designs in Stork and Live and Let Dive were really well done, as were the visual effects. The dog-things in “Fur Babies” were a little weak, but in a funny way.
The wraparound story was essentially useless fluff. I thought “Dream Girl” was the weakest of the entries, but all of them were good. I think “Stork” and “Live and Let Dive” were the best of the bunch, but all were tolerable.
If you liked the previous films in the series, this is as good as any of them.
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked all of the individual stories in this one, and I thought the wraparound was the weakest link. But even that was pretty good. The slant toward aliens this time around was cool. This might be my favorite in the series.
Strange Darling (2024)
● Directed by JT Mollner
● Written by JT Mollner
● Stars Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Madison Beaty
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a good script made even more interesting by chapters that are given to us out of order. Right off the bat, you see that things are a little strange. We gradually figure out what’s going on, and it all comes together in the end. We both really liked this one and would highly recommend.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman asks the man if he’s a serial killer. Apparently, he is. Credits roll as we hear about this being the true story of a serial killer’s final days– told in six chapters. We watch a crying woman running across a field.
We cut to the same woman, now in a car, driving fast to get away from the serial killer man, who is in a truck behind her. We’re told this is “Chapter 3,” letting us know this isn’t the beginning of her story. He stops, gets out, and shoots her car, which flips and rolls.
She gets out and runs through the forest on foot, with him not far behind. She finds a campsite and steals a bottle of alcohol. She pulls off a bandage, and we see that her left ear is gone– she pours some of the alcohol on the wound and tries hard not to scream. Then she lights a cigarette (which seems like a really bad idea), has a couple puffs, and moves on.
She comes to a farmhouse and asks the people inside for help. This is now Chapter 5. The killer is inside the old people’s farmhouse. As he goes room to room, we see the old man is already dead and the woman is hiding in a freezer. He finds the woman hiding.
Chapter 1. The woman and the man are on a date, and they kiss. They have a really mundane conversation, and she ends up talking about the risks women take when meeting up with men for hookups.
She jokingly asks the man if he’s a serial killer, and he says “No.” We cut to them in the motel room, with him choking her… “Harder,” she says. He’s not very good at it, and she’s not happy. He’s eager to move on to sex, but she’s getting annoyed with him. He cuffs her again, hits her, and forces things. While he was awkward before, now, he’s violent and very sure of himself. Then she says the safeword, “Mr. Snuffalupagus!” It was all still part of the game.
We cut back to them in the car planning the violent sex roleplay game. She asked specifically for what we just saw. Back in the hotel room after the game, she’s really turned on.
Chapter 4. At the old people’s house, Frederick and Genevieve have coffee and an amazing, excessive-looking breakfast. Then they do a competitive jigsaw puzzle. The woman comes beating on the door, and they let her in. They ask if she was attacked by the sasquatch. They don’t have any guns. When Frederick goes to call the police, she stabs him. Genevieve runs off into the woods as the man approaches the house. She climbs into the freezer to hide. We've already seen how that works out, but now we see that she’s prepared for him.
Chapter 2. Back in the motel room, after weird foreplay, the couple talks. She’s got cocaine, but he hasn’t done that in a long time. She talks him into it. She’s giving him all kinds of mixed signals, and he’s ready to be done and leave. She pulls a knife and Taser out of her bag, but she doesn’t need it since he’s zonked out on the ketamine she switched out for his cocaine.
He’s basically paralyzed, so she stuffs a sock in his mouth and tortures him. Afterward, she cleans out his wallet and throws his phone in the sink– oh, and she learns that he’s a cop. She’s cut her initials in his chest. She goes back to kill him off, but in the meantime, he’s found his gun and shoots her ear off. She runs out the door to the motel office, where she stabs a clerk and gets the other woman there to bandage her ear, give her her clothes and car keys. She’s now in the Pinto, which is where we came in.
Chapter 6. He’s got the drop on her as she hides in the freezer. Except she’s passed out, so he doesn’t shoot her again. He cuffs her to the freezer and calls someone on the phone to assist.
She wakes up and says she’d rather go to prison than die. It’s all very calm, until she shoots him with bear spray and bites him in the neck. He falls over, apparently dead, and she pulls his body over to reach his gun.
A pair of cops arrive, they’re the ones the man called earlier. They find him dead and her cuffed to the freezer with her pants pulled down. They assume he tried to rape her and she defended herself. The woman cop unlocks the woman, but the other cop wants to call it in and wait for backup. They argue about what to do with the woman and the crime scene.
The two cops load the woman into the car, but then Genevieve from the farmhouse flags them down on the road. The woman shoots the old lady and then tells the cops what to do. She admits that she’s “The Electric Lady,” and makes the woman cop get out of the car.
Epilogue. The woman and the male cop talk in the car. She explains that sometimes, she doesn’t see humans, she sees devils. Then she shoots the cop and then walks off down the road, flagging down a passing truck. When she pulls out her gun, the woman in the truck shoots her. We watch as she slowly dies on the drive to the hospital.
Brian’s Commentary
The soundtrack really stands out in this one. I liked it a lot. The sets, colors, and cinematography are really good as well. The actions of both main characters are a little off because they’re both a little crazy.
We guessed early on that everything wasn’t exactly as it appeared, and we were right, but there was a lot that we didn’t predict. Putting the chapters out of order isn’t a new idea, but doing it so explicitly, with chapter numbers, makes it far more obvious as to what’s happening, and when.
I really liked this one!
Kevin’s Commentary
This was great in every way. The two leads really pulled it off, I liked how it was presented out of order to keep us guessing and hide the surprises. Big thumbs up from me.
Apartment 7A (2024)
● Directed by Natalie Erika James
● Written by Natalie Erika James, Christopher White, Skylar James
● Stars Julia Garner, Dianne Wiest, Kevin McNally
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Everything about this is good. It’s just that it’s unnecessary. It’s a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, and if you’ve seen that, you know how this is going to end. It was enjoyable to watch, but it didn’t add much of anything to the series.
Spoilery Synopsis
Terry goes out on stage to perform in a musical, and she does, in fact, “break a leg.” She passes out, surrounded by surgeons. Credits roll.
Sometime later, she limps down the street, and we see that she’s got abundant pain medication. She still auditions, but her ankle isn’t healing completely, so that goes badly. “You’re infamous,” says one casting director. She might not be able to continue her dancing career, no matter how determined she is. Alan Marchand, one director, instructs her to humiliate herself acting as a pig, and she refuses. He appears to appreciate that.
Her friend and roommate, Annie, warns her not to overdo those pain pills. She also suggests that Terry go back home to Nebraska. She goes to see Marchand at his apartment, but Leo the doorman thinks she’s on drugs, which she is. On the way out, she runs into an old couple, Roman and Minnie Castavet, who take her home and help her sober up.
The next morning, the pushy Minnie makes Terry eat breakfast. They’re very nice and offer to let her live in the apartment next door– for free. Terry is eager to get away from Annie’s place, so she takes them up on their offer.
While unpacking, she finds Joan Cebulski’s shoe in the apartment. She still thinks that by living there in the same building, she’s got an “in” with Marchand. Due to a “scheduling issue,” she ends up having drinks alone with Marchand in his apartment. Naturally, he drugs her, and she passes out, which leads to a drug-induced musical number where she ends up in a big production. Or maybe she’s being raped by Satan– she’s not quite sure which.
In the morning, she wakes up to him making her an espresso and talking about him having a wonderful time last night. She doesn’t remember. He says she’s got a part in the latest show he’s producing. At rehearsal, the other dancers make it clear that they know she slept her way into the part. Later, she notices really odd-shaped bruises on her body.
Minnie introduces Terry to Lily, a new-age doctor. Lily puts some kind of special ointment that she made on Terry’s ankle. She starts having nightmares not long afterward, but she soon finds that her ankle is as good as new.
The Castavets throw a costume Christmas party, and she meets Dr. Sapirstein, an obstetrician. Everyone is very friendly, and no, that’s not the devil in the back bedroom. The old people get Terry an expensive fur coat and 300-year-old locket with “tannis root” inside.
Not long after, Terry figures out that she’s pregnant. Annie knows where she can get an abortion, and Terry considers it. The nasty dancer, Vera, plays a practical joke on Terry, and Marchand makes her pay for it. He knows about the baby, everyone seems to know, and he wants her to keep it. He says he sees great things in her future.
That evening, Minnie and Roman want to talk about the baby, which she still hasn’t decided to keep. They’ve already got a crib she can use; they offer to adopt the baby if she doesn’t want it. They have connections and hint that they can make her a big star if she plays ball.
Lily, the healing doctor who lives in the building, attacks Terry one night. “I have to stop it!” In the middle of the attack, the old woman gets a heart attack. Terry then finds a secret door that leads into Lily’s next-door apartment. She finds Satanic books inside.
On stage the next day, Vera has some kind of physical spasm attack strong enough that it breaks bones, and she’s out of the show– Terry will be the new star of the show. What an odd coincidence of timing!
Terry gets strange pains and calls Dr. Sapirstein, who wants to examine her, but he’s very weird and implies that she may have to be hospitalized for being hysterical. She continues to read Lily’s book, and more and more starts to recognize her situation. She checks out “Joan Cebulski’s” previous life and finds that Joan’s situation was a lot like hers.
Terry goes to church, and the nun tells her about a bunch of Satan worshippers who lived in her building. The nun knows about Joan, who fled in the middle of the night and was hit by a bus. The nun says that Terry reallyneeds to lose that baby, so she does go for an abortion. As they begin, the abortionist has a seizure and stops. Terry thinks she knows what’s going on now, but what else can she do?
Terry goes to the building’s basement and finds a whole Satanic church down there. Marchand is there, and he explains that this was where she was impregnated by Satan. “There were so many tries before you. You were different.” She ends up stabbing him, and he seems strangely pleased, almost honored, asking her if she feels strong now before keeling over. She can’t get out of the building and goes back to her apartment, where she finds Minnie. Terry tries to stab herself, but something won’t let her do it. Minnie admonishes her saying the baby won’t allow it.
Minnie and Roman spell it all out for Terry in full detail. She gives up and goes along with it, meeting the whole coven. “Hail Satan!” she shouts before dancing for the entire party. “It’s the role of a lifetime,” she says to Minnie– and then jumps out the window to her death.
Brian’s Commentary
This is a prequel to 1968’s “Rosemary’s Baby.” In that film, we see what happens to Terry, so that’s already spoiled for us. This is essentially the same plot, so we know the baddie’s intentions and even their modus operandi, so that’s spoiled too. This is just a new victim. Due to all this, there’s no real suspense or mystery– we know everything that’s going to happen already.
It’s well made, well acted, and nicely paced. The problem here is that it was completely unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to the original.
Kevin’s Commentary
I don’t regret seeing it, but I don’t think it will be the classic that “Rosemary’s Baby” is considered to be. It’s well made, but it didn’t need to be made. After this one, they could also make the prequel of the prequel if they wanted, and we would know how that one ends too.
Short Films:
Short Film: The Curse of Dracular (2024)
● Directed by Jack Paterson
● Written by Jack Paterson
● Stars Claymation animation
● Run Time: 7:16
● Watch it:
What Happens
We watch as claymation versions of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee do a very abbreviated version of the Hammer-style Dracula movies. The dialog is awkward and basically atrocious, but it was written by a nine-year-old.
Dracula attacks Cushing’s daughter but is driven off. The townspeople gang up on Dracula, and he’s eventually killed by a five-year-old who throws a stake at him.
Commentary
The creator explains that this student film was based on a short story his father wrote when he was a child, and the young child spelled Dracula wrong in the title, so that is where the name comes from. He used the dialog and script 100% accurate to the original story his father wrote, which is why this one is so odd.
The Claymation is really very well done. It’s gory and brutal but in a childish way. If I were a nine-year-old writing a horror story, this is about what I’d have done as well.
Those old Hammer films don’t get much airtime anymore, but things like this demonstrate just how influential those old films were on the psyche of that generation.
Short Film: Copy (2024)
● Directed by Cameron Gallagher
● Written by Jeremiah Lewis
● Stars Heather Frederick, Hunter Frederick
● Run Time: 8:36
● Watch it:
What Happens
A woman talks about her fear of becoming a mother as she complains about her own mother to her sister. She’s making the call while making copies on the copy machine after hours. She’s concerned about snapping the way her own mother did. “What if I can’t handle it?”
She finishes her call and then finds out that she’s not alone in the building after all.
Commentary
Childhood trauma and abuse have its own legacy, but this might be taking it a bit far. Who knew copiers could be so terrifying?
It looks good, although it’s very dark in the middle, but that’s part of the story– she can’t see what’s in there with her. The makeup effects are good, and the sound is very well done as well.
Short Film: The Shutterbug Man (2014)
● Directed by Chris Walsh
● Written by Chris Walsh
● Stars: Animated. Narrated by Barbara Steele
● Run Time: 4:13
● Watch it:
What Happens
It’s a stop-motion short about a man who is obsessed with his camera, photographing only nasty, scary, gross things. Then, his insanity kicks in, and he stabs out his own eyeballs. What’s he going to do now? He has a plan!
Commentary
The narration is excellent, and the visuals are really nightmare material. It’s all black-and-white and grainy, and the ambient music makes it all seem like a twisted fairy tale. Very nice!
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