The Tell-Tale Heart (2020)

(Written by Jason Manriquez, Assistant Editor/Paddy Jack Press)

McClain Lindquist's short-film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's classic, The Tell-Tale Heart, is a moody, well-photographed ode to that particular strain of gothic theatricality that marries old-world airs to a distinctively American strain of macabre depravity and violence. There is no skimping of blood in any ill-conceived attempt to make this more acceptable to the tea and crumpet circles. Nope. This is a horror short with a vision, and it stays true to that vision throughout its modest 22-minute runtime. The Narrator, played by Sonny Grimsley, remains the one fixed constant throughout a series of vignettes meant to tease and discombobulate the audience. Time and space itself are continually made questionable, with clocks running backward, and the various scenes shifting locales, never quite sure if what’s happening is taking place at the home of the Old Man (James C Morris), or at some police station, or who-knows-where. Officer Sharpe, played by the wonderfully assertive Mikah Olsen, and Detective Tucker, portrayed by Teren Turner, appear as archetypal law enforcement from divergent eras, further heightening the spatio-temporal confusion. Officer Sharpe looks as though she was culled from an 80’s police drama, while the Detective looks like someone pulled from a pulpy Mickey Spillane novel. The auteur's commitment to Poe’s literary vernacular is clearly meant to create tension within the viewer habituated to a uniform vernacular. All the characters speak from a distinct place, almost as if they all existed in separate worlds. Regardless, the film does a great job drawing the viewer in for a closer look at the simmering surface of an unhinged mind.

To learn more about this film, visit www.telltalemovie.com

Underwater (2020)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

I was really, really excited about this one. I've always had an affinity for anything that happens underwater, and I've always had a slightly paralyzing fear of the open ocean. But The Abyss is one of the best films I've ever seen, and I generally enjoy Kristen Stewart's performances, so I couldn't wait to see what Underwater had to offer. Don't worry, I won't spoil it. Read on...

THE PROS

• The cinematography was beautiful. It looked like water. It looked like metal. It looked like two things that don't belong together: humans with their concrete, glass, and steel structures, and the wild, deep, serene, natural ocean. I thought it was confining and claustrophobic and dirty and fantastic. Right from the get-go you're struck with the feeling that people don't belong down there, and for a horror flick that's set underwater, that's a great place to start. 
• K-Stew. I like her. Yeah, fuck you, I said it. I LIKE HER! She might always be singing the same note no matter what movie she's in, but it's a note that I enjoy listening to. And, yeah, she's beautiful, but not in the same way her Hollywood peers are. There's something different and special about her. And there's always a fragility and vulnerability to her that charges her characters with a weird, spastic energy that I love. To me, it makes her feel more "real." She was great in this. She gave a solid performance and I applaud her work. 
• The monsters are really damn scary. I've seen so many horror films, it's hard to get me to jump. I always joke that "I can't get got," but the first jump scare in this film (there are several) sent my arms flailing and I did an audible squeal. That's saying something. That's high praise! 
• The sound editing was spot-on! Every little creak and glass-crack was nerve-wracking perfection. 
• The opening credits music was fantastic. 

THE CONS

Kristen Stewart in Underwater (2020)

• Underwater is a terrible title. 
• If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I canNOT stand when a woman is wearing makeup during parts of a film where she would absolutely not be wearing makeup. Kristen manages to keep the perfect smoky eye shadow and mascara going through the whole thing, no matter how bloody or wet she gets. She even gets cleaned up after some pretty harrowing action scenes and still has makeup on. Why?! Did she re-apply it after she took a shower? It's so insulting. Seriously, I had to stop watching Fear the Walking Dead because it drove me absolutely nuts that the teen girl in it always had the perfect blow-out and makeup on. She might have slept in the desert for two straight weeks, but that hair was always loose and shiny and perfectly, professionally blown-out. No. No. No. So dumb. Directors, women are allowed to get marred, okay? They can be without makeup for a scene or two. Stop this madness!



Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in The Abyss (1989)

• There is absolutely ZERO character development in this film. The action starts almost immediately. Like, way too soon. When you want an example of how to perfectly pace an underwater action film, look no further than The Abyss. Before anything action-y happened, we knew those characters, we understood their lives and their motivations, and we cared about them. We even cared about the bitch, who later became the heroine (who, by the way, is not wearing makeup, or at least a very minimal amount, if any). We get some haphazard character cards placed hither and thither throughout Underwater, but they feel pointless and silly by the time you see them. And, since those characters were never developed initially, you don't really care. 
• The character played by TJ Miller wasn't necessary and felt disingenuous, like forced comic relief. I hope there's a DVD cut that leaves his character out of the film entirely.   

The film felt rushed and unfinished for me. It felt like a short film. The special effects were fantastic, but I needed more character development and I needed it to be a bit longer, with more life stuff happening outside of the action. I didn't find myself caring when a character died, or when a character lived because I didn't know them. That said, however, I can honestly proclaim that I enjoyed the film. There wasn't much of a story, which is a shame. It could have been loads better with a longer, more fleshed-out script. But, for what it was, it's worth seeing. I also want to support any original film that puts in an honest effort, even if it's not perfect. I'm so damn sick of remakes.

In conclusion, go see it and be sure you see it in a theater. The sound editing alone will jangle your nerves enough to make you enjoy it. And go support some original film-making. They're not all going to be Jaws or The Abyss, but that doesn't mean they're not going to be fun. Well... except the sequel to 47 Meters Down. That was a piece of shit.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

A spoiler-free review!

I enjoyed The Other so much, I thought I would do an entire retro series on "killer kids." Everything I can find from the 80s and before. So, here we go with Bloody Birthday. It’s a 1981 horror flick that combines Village of the Damned with Day of the Triffids. There’s an eclipse, and the three babies born in this one hospital, in this one city, during this freaky eclipse, become killers right before they turn 10. Why? Who knows? It’s a mind-numbingly flimsy premise, but it’s easy to shrug off because the film is just so much fun! 

We start with the kids just a few days before their tenth birthday, which they all celebrate together every year for some reason. Much like the kids in Village of the Damned, they seem unusually bonded, always around each other, always traveling in a pack. They aren’t family, but to an outsider they seem like they are. They can communicate with each other using only nods and glances. And, while there’s no indication that they are communicating telepathically, they always seem to know what the others are doing or planning. 

The kinder-killer trio consists of two boys, Steven and Curtis, and one girl, Debbie. Steven is blond and is several times seen wearing a denim vest and jeans get-up that transports me right back to my elementary school yearbook, where that same outfit can be seen ad nauseum. He’s a little blond terror, who doesn’t say much, but seems to act as more of a henchman, leaving the clever strategizing up to Debbie and Curtis. 

Speaking of Curtis, Curtis wears glasses. That’s how you know he can figure out anything having to do with electronics. They’re those fake glasses from old movies with the flat lens in them, which I’ve always found really distracting, but I get it. How else would I know that he’s smart if he wasn’t wearing them?

And that brings us to Debbie. Debbie’s my favorite of the three. First of all, my mom’s name is Debbie. Secondly, Debbie has fluffy blond ponytails and a face full of freckles, which are both flawlessly tied together by her cute, little upturned nose. She’s a darling kid, but the eyes. She has dark, beady eyes that she can squint together to make her entire countenance change from “cute kid” to “evil kid” in a nanosecond. Debbie is clearly the ringleader of the crew. She rarely gets her hands dirty. She lets the boys do most of the work, and when they get caught, she starts yelling, “Stop! Stop!” Debbie is an evil mastermind.

I watched this movie on the Shudder channel and was a touch hesitant when the description stated that the film “contains violence and gore.” I’m a huge horror fan, but believe or not, I tend to eschew gore. It’s not my favorite thing. I can handle the average smattering of blood and guts, but I hate that torture-y stuff. So, I was admittedly a touch nervous. But it turns out the “violence” and the “gore” are nothing more gruesome than what you might see on an episode of Knot’s Landing. What the description should have said is, “contains lots and lots of titties.” So many boobs in this movie. And butts. And even some frontsies. There’s a lot of making out, with closeups on nipples. And, everytime you see this, one of the kids is watching! Debbie likes to charge a quarter to let the boys watch her sister (played by 80s-icon, Julie Brown) undress. The “undressing,” however, turns out to be more of a striptease, wherein Julie slowly takes off her underwear while dancing around her bedroom, then inexplicably puts on pants and a shirt, with no underwear, afterward. To quote the musical, Bye Bye Birdie, “KIDS! I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today.”

In addition to Julie Brown, I recognized a handful of other faces as well. Curtis is played by Billy Jacoby, whom 80s kids might remember as the perverted younger brother of cross-dressing-for-equal-rights Terry in Just One of the Guys. The older sister of one of the trio’s playmates (a kid named Timmy that they’re always trying to murder) also played the doomed older sister in The Day After. Remember the gal who runs out of her family’s bunker and goes skipping through the fallout screaming that it’s a beautiful day, gets chased down by Steve Guttenberg, and later dies from radiation poisoning? Yeah, that’s her. Her name is Lori Lethin, and IMDB said she did all of her own stunts in Bloody Birthday, but there are a couple of shots where a car is chasing her through a junkyard that I’m pretty sure weren’t her. The linebacker-shoulders and the bad wig kind of gave it away. Timmy is played by K.C. Martel, whom you might remember as Eddie, from the comedy duo of “Eddie and Boner,” on Growing Pains. 

There are some genuine cringe-worthy moments in this flick, especially if you were a kid in the 80s. Remember the "Refrigerator Scare?" It was an urban legend about a kid hiding in an old refrigerator and not being able to get out. So, that’s how we all knew never to shut ourselves into a refrigerator. This was a genuine fear that each and every one of us had back then! Bloody Birthday played on that fear by locking a kid in a refrigerator. This scene probably doesn’t play as particularly scary to modern audiences, but the 80s-kid in me clinched up her butthole real tight. Ack!

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. It’s got a handful of cringe-y moments and a heaping helping of 80s kitsch. Plus, if this interests you, a lot of boobies. I’ll definitely watch it again, and I sincerely hope Joe Bob Briggs will include it in a future episode of The Last Drive-In on the Shudder channel. Go watch it!

The Other (1972)

Written by Jennifer Manriquez, Editor-In-Chief, Paddy Jack Press

A spoiler-free review!

The Other was released theatrically in 1972, which is strange because it has the well-established patina of a 70s-era made-for-TV movie. After watching it, I was surprised that it had a theatrical presence at all. Visually, it looks like an episode of Little House on the Prairie. It’s a fairly slow-moving, but well-written and well-acted film, with one twist that is broadcast from the very beginning (it may have surprised audiences in the 1970s, but it will surprise no-one in the early 2000s) and another that even seasoned horror buffs won’t see coming. To put it simply, I watch horror films day and night, and very little surprises me, but something happened in this film that made me gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. Sometimes it’s the little things that get you. 

The boys who play the twins (real-life twins, Chris and Martin Udvarnoky) are boyishly cute, with chubby legs and chili bowl haircuts, which serve to leave the audience conflicted about their true intentions. They do a great job of conveying their inherent evil and their complete naivete toward it, leaving us wondering what fate they truly deserve. They’re only children, after all. 

The very well-known stage actress, and winner of multiple Tony awards, Uta Hagen, stars as the boys’ grandmother, Ada. There is a distinct difference in Uta Hagen’s acting style compared to everyone else in the film. The other actors act, Uta Hagen ACTS HER ASS OFF. She chews the scenery like a starving person who just happened upon a church barbecue. She pours a palatable wash of emotions into every word she speaks. Every part of her face says the words with her. Her hands say the words, her posture says the words. She is a force to be reckoned with, and the audience knows they can trust her. Her love for the boys is evident in every move she makes, every glance at them speaks of her neverending devotion to them. If nothing else, watch the film for her performance. 

Also, in a don’t-blink-or-you’ll miss it appearance, you can spot the late, great John Ritter in one of his first film roles. 

There is a sense of unrealness to this film, the bright but somehow muted colors making it feel dreamlike. As I watched it, I kept wondering if the whole thing might turn out to be a dream in the end (which it, thankfully, doesn’t). The setting is Connecticut in the summer of 1935, and the freedom experienced by these kids evokes love for the summers of my youth (I grew up in the 70s and 80s). We weren’t put into summer camps to keep us busy and out of trouble all day. No sir. We got on our bikes as soon as we finished breakfast and we did whatever we pleased, with total freedom, until dinnertime. “Home by dinner” was the rule for all the kids in my neighborhood. Watching the twins, Niles and Holland, running around in nature completely unsupervised reminded me of those days long ago. Kids today will never know that level of freedom. My own daughter, who’s in a theatre camp as I type this, will never know that level of freedom. Stealing pickles from an old lady’s garage, wandering a wooded area and watching the little critters scurry and fly around, finding a secret entrance to the basement you’ve been warned away from. These are all things the twins get into during the film, and all things I could easily tie to my own past, which is why I think I was able to sympathize with these characters so well. They’re just boys. Let them have their fun. They won’t hurt anyone… until they do. 

I’ve been told that I give these older films more credit than I should, but I disagree. I’ll admit that I have a special, nostalgic sort of love regarding made-for-TV films. And, while I know this had a quiet theatrical run first, I also know that it was aired quite a bit on television in the late 70s and early 80s, with a slightly different ending tailored to TV audiences. That makes it enough of a made-for-TV film for me. I honestly don’t know what I like most about 70s made-for-TV horror. Is it the pancake makeup, the fact that almost nobody plays their age, or is it the silly anachronisms and low-budget special effects? I can’t put my finger on it, but that’s okay because I love it all. Despite their flaws, some of these films are truly very frightening and can easily stand the test of time. This is one of them. I recommend watching it on a warm summer night, with a glass of lemonade and a plate of cookies. Pull out your grandmother’s old lace shawl and wrap yourself in it. Turn off your phone and put it away. Immerse yourself in the colors, the performances, and the story. I think you might just be surprised where it takes you.