Expelled Grey Matter

Ginger Snaps was a strange, sometimes humorous werewolf film involving two outcast sisters trying to deal with one (Ginger, of course) becoming a werewolf.  It was written by Karen Walton and put a more allegorical twist on monthly cycles and changes in life in general.  There were the usual horror elements, but there was also the bond between sisters and a lot of references to what a woman goes through entering puberty.  I, obviously, have no point of reference for the latter, but the humor and the fact that this was a completely different take on the werewolf story got me liking it more than I thought I would.  It's also not a Canadian werewolf version of Twilight , which was a relief. The next movie didn't come out until four years later, and both the direct sequel and prequel were filmed at the same time, albeit with different directors.  Karen Walton also didn't continue on with the story, but instead Megan Martin was responsible for the second part which ...

Kevin S. Tenney wrote and directed the first two Witchboard movies based on research that he had done on Ouija boards and possession.  Although they had their flaws both of them were interesting horror films, quite different than a lot of the slasher films that were all the rage at the time.  However, Tenney committed a mortal sin with Witchboard 2 - at least in the eyes of the slimy old Weinstein-style producers that were funding his film.  To get more money for the sequel he made a deal with Republic Pictures, and they thought that what Witchboard 2 needed was a little nudity to help get people into the theater.  However, Ami Dolenz, the star, had a no-nudity clause in her contract.  Tenney was pressured to try to coerce Dolenz into getting her kit off and, thinking it morally wrong, refused.  This resulted in little to no promotion of Witchboard 2  as well as the third installment being taken away from him.  All he gets on this one is a writer...

Kevin S. Tenney, when he finally got down to making a sequel to his 1986 movie Witchboard , really didn't have to put that much effort into it if he didn't want to.  It was a sequel to a movie that horror fans knew about but not one of the big ones that everyone loved.  It had its moments, it had Tawny Kitaen at the height of her popularity and, unlike a lot of movies of its time, felt like a good old-fashioned horror story.  It had its flaws, but it also had its moments of brilliance. Tenney did a number of movies between the two films and, although the first one set up a sequel in rather cheesy fashion, the public wasn't exactly clamoring for another one.  Still, since it had its fans, a sequel was produced in partnership with Republic Pictures in 1993.  Originally called Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway , instead of a return of Malfador, the spirit that haunted both the board and residence in the first film, we get an entirely new ghost - even if the board i...

Honestly, the only reason most people are probably familiar with this low-budget '80s horror film is because Tawny Kitaen is in it.  The movie benefited from that bit of serendipity, as it came out the same time she was rolling around on a car in the video for Whitesnake's "Is This Love?"  She was already getting a bit of fame as a model and an actress, but the video became her claim to fame and it undoubtedly helped give a boost to this movie. It kind of needed it as this was well into that first bunch of slasher films that rode the coattails on Friday the 13th .  It is also getting into the point of the 1980s where horror films started moving beyond masked killers and got a bit stranger, thanks to A Nightmare on Elm Street  and The Evil Dead .  Witchboard has a bit of that later influence, but writer/director Kevin S. Tenney didn't have the same budget of Wes Craven had or the ingenuity of Sam Raimi  With his brother Dennis doing an electronic score and t...

If there was one thing Jigsaw did it was bring the Saw series to a satisfying end.  At the same time it showed that it didn't have to keep following the same pattern movie after movie.  Honestly, I don't think there was ever any intention on carrying on further with the story, as we learn about John Kramer's first test run and yet another unknown assistant, Logan Nelson, who is originally one of his intended players until Kramer has second thoughts and decides what he is doing to Nelson is too much like vengeance.  The story is basically about Nelson bringing down a Detective Halloran, who had let the murderer of Nelson's wife go free, and framing him as a Jigsaw copycat.  The film works as Nelson has just one goal.  He achieves it and, as far as is known, continues his work in the city's coroner office with no one the wiser.  Neither he, nor any of the other participants except Kramer are mentioned in Spiral as a new Jigsaw copycat emerges, this time targe...

The Saw series by this time should be played out.  Honestly, the first three were good, the fourth merely okay, and after that there was a brief return in the sixth to what made the series good before it gave us an underwhelming finale.  Instead of the two-parter that was promised it was basically a repeat of the mistakes of the fifth movie with unexplained time jumps and what should have been shocking revelations devolving into pointless cameos.  Yes, Dr. Lawrence Gordon was back, was revealed as being one of Jigsaw's accomplices, but beyond that it looked as if Cary Elwes had popped in between engagements to earn a little side money.  So, by the time the events in  Jigsaw happen, John Kramer as been dead for 11 years, no one knows what happened to (or even mentions) Mark Hoffmann and, because the killings stopped, Dr. Gordon is not even known to have had a role in the Jigsaw murders. The question then begins how to restart a series where it had fallen into a r...

I think it may be safe to say that Dario Argento is the Queensrÿche of horror directors.  There are many famous directors that, at some point, the quality just vanished.  John Carpenter comes to mind, but there was a glaring reason why his movies after In the Mouth of Madness were not as good: he got tired and wanted to quit, only he seems to have needed the paycheck that stuff like Vampires and Ghosts of Mars promised so he could go off and spend the latter part of his life enjoying making music.  Dario Argento, on the other hand, just seems to suddenly hit a wall, much like Queensrÿche, who were one of the biggest metal bands in the 1990s and almost managed to survive where grunge had killed the others off.   With Argento, ignoring his segment for Two Evil Eyes , he had released one of his best movies, Opera, in 1987.  He followed that up with Trauma in 1993 which, though not as good, still had all the elements that made him popular.  The Stendhal Sy...