Category: Sunday Streaming

Hey, let's say we all watch the TV movie classic WHEN MICHAEL CALLS! I'm not sure if it's scary but it's definitely creepy and sometimes I think creepy is better than scary because it lasts so much longer. I mean, there's just some sort of feeling or tone to this movie that gets to me every time- ya know? Well, it was filmed in Canada in the early seventies and that certainly helps give it some legitimate horror cred. It's even got Mrs. Mac (MARIAN WALDMAN) from BLACK CHRISTMAS in it and we all know she rules. Sure, it's a little dated as it comes from that time period when everybody thought it was perfectly acceptable for a grown woman to impersonate a young boy by utilizing a Rocket J. Squirrel voice but in same ways that just makes it more surreal and weirdly off-putting. In any case, you can't beat the cast; when you're cooking with the likes of ELIZABETH ASHLEY, BEN GAZZARA and MICHAEL DOUGLAS how can you possibly go wrong? Trust me, if WHEN MICHAEL CALLS isn't perfect for a mid January Sunday afternoon, I don't know what is! Plus it's got murder by bees! I love me some murder by bees! How did I not mention the score? Listen to this opening theme…

Back in the day, one of the scariest movies you could crash into while driving down the UHF highway was the drive-in classic THE LEGEND OF BOOGGY CREEK. It didn't matter what time of day it was, something about this flick could make you feel like it was the dead of night. Based on so-called actual events and starring real witnesses in reenactments, THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK may be the first faux-documentary horror film ever conceived. With all the polish of a high school Science Ed film, it spins the tale of a town called Fouke terrorized by a hairy Big Foot-type monster. Big Foot or "Sasquatch" carries little weight in the national psyche these days, but once upon a time he was the physical embodiment of the wilderness's last stand against mankind's complete appropriation of nature.

The movie itself is a time capsule showcasing a world that no longer exists both within the film (the technology-free town) and without (the film's identity as drive-in fare). Many scenes are laughable by today's standards, thanks to sub-par acting and the obvious limitations of an ape suit, but BOGGY CREEK still has its own quiet power. This is campfire story material and the viewer surely has to be in the right mood to be effected by its vague G-rated violence. The sad fact is, with psychopaths and terrorism lurking about in the real world, it may be difficult for modern audiences to empathize with the fear of the wild. Whatever is coming to get us, we can pretty much assume it's not coming from the woods. In fact, at this point nature certainly has more to fear from us. Still, maybe there's something ancient in our DNA that fearfully relates…

Kindertraumatically, at the end of the film the narrator returns to the location of his early childhood fears and he surprises himself by actually longing to hear the howl that once terrified him, "Just to be a reminder that there is still a wilderness left." Sadly, I'd venture that there's probably a Starbucks in that space today. BOGGY can still be a lot of fun and its influence is ever reaching (BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY et al.), but it's hard to be truly scared of a monster you mostly feel sorry for. That being said, I'm happy to report that sightings of the Fouke monster continue on. Maybe there's still a little kick in the old boy after all. Take that Starbucks (P.S. this is a re-vamping of an old review. I plagiarized myself)!

Even though the super suspenseful mid-eighties cable staple FORTRESS (1985) isn't exactly a Christmas movie, there's no denying that if features one of the scariest Santa Claus masks of all time! Don't believe me? Check out the images above and below and click HERE to read a classic traumafession on the matter! Better yet, watch the movie below before it's swiped off the YouTubes! Heck, it even stars your favorite human RACHEL WARD of NIGHT SCHOOL (1981) and THE FINAL TERROR (1983) fame! How can you go wrong? You can't!

For the past five or so years Mexico's CEMETERY OF TERROR (1985, aka Cementerio del terror) has been an important part of my Halloween diet. Director RUBEN GALINDO Jr. (DON'T PANIC) deliciously mixes up sweet and seasonal graveyard hijinks (sort of like ABC's fellow THRILLER-wannabe of the same year, THE MIDIGHT HOUR) with some sharp and salty supernatural stalking (sort of like Italy's more gritty and gruesome HALLOWEEEN cousin, JOE D'AMATO's faux GRIM REAPER (aka ANTHROPOPHAGUS) follow up, ABSURD (1981)). If you are looking for something more meaty than me trying desperately to fill out a paragraph with things I'm picking straight off the IMDB tree, jump over to my original slobbering review way beck HERE (Hey, don't judge; it's Sunday, the KT gold bar is serving Narragansett, I just got my record player fixed and I gotta get my MISSING PERSONS on). The important thing is, you can sample out CEMETERY OF TERROR below and if you dig it, buy the DVD so that you can happily watch it every year forever as I do.

Hey, it's high time for another installment of Sunday Streaming! I don't exactly recommend today's pick because it's mostly aggravating and generally tedious but I'm going to spotlight it here anyway so that I know where to find it! Ya see, just about every year, at around this time, I wonder to myself what is the name of that movie that begins at the Halloween party with the father trying to drown his son while he's bobbing for apples? And it takes me forever to remember. No, it's not INCIDENT AT RAVEN'S GATE and no, it's not the Horshack-starring HELLGATE, it's HOLLOW GATE! HOLLOW, HOLLOW, HOLLOW GATE! Now it is forever carved into my pumpkin head. I hope.

Picture this, Philadelphia in the late eighties and a young bright eyed and bushy-tailed Unk with a rolled up issue of GORE ZONE magazine in the back pocket of his overalls, searches the city for horror-themed entertainment! Back then there was not only a movie theater on every corner but also a video store too! Why, they rented videos in the drug stores back then! The oddest video store I recall was on the bottom floor of a nearby office building. It had one door to the sidewalk, one door that lead into the building and was smaller than a school bus inside. It had the tiniest selection and yet that selection consisted of hard to find titles I rarely bumped into anywhere else. They even had the notorious 555 (also 1988) in its bright pink florescent box! Working nights at the time, I would day-rent there; CHILLERS (1987), THE UNNAMABLE (1988), THE VIDEO DEAD and eventually, THE DEAD PIT with its blinking eyes!

Anyway, I rented HOLLOW GATE at that joint and I had the highest hopes for it because it took place on Halloween but it totally let me down. To be fair, there is one scene involving characters having to flee across an open field at night that has a somewhat eerie, nonsensical nightmare quality to it but in general, this flick will try your patience. Then again, in the right mood, the killer's snippy lead balloon one-liners and the teen victims barely intelligible histrionics can be borderline hilarious. I guess it all depends on how much you enjoy not-so-great HALLOWEEN rip-offs. It looks like these days, HOLLOW GATE has found itself under the caring wing of the fine folks at TROMA and that information may be more telling than anything I can offer. More importantly, when someone asks you to list films that take place on Halloween (and they will) this film's title is a legitimate response! That is, as long as you can remember what the title is. That title is HOLLOW GATE and you can watch it below! I apologize in advance that it features killer Golden Retrievers…

Hey, STARSHIP TROOPERS is free to view on CRACKLE (HERE)! What's that? You don't think of STARSHIP TROOPERS as having anything to do with horror? I'll be sure to tell that luckless soldier whose decapitated head is flying in the opposite direction of his severed torso that you feel that way. I'm sure he'll find your assessment comforting when his intestines fall like ribbon confetti all over his frozen in mid-scream face.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I find STARSHIP TROOPERS to be a non-stop hurricane of creepy-crawly monstrous entertainment. Why, I came across it the other night flipping channels and regardless of how late it was, I could not turn the darn thing off! When it first came out (way back in ‘97), I naturally dug the goopy effects but felt the storyline was over the top hokey and way too rah-rah action figure oriented. Well guess what, I was a real dope because that off-putting, nationalistic, hurray for blondes, xenophobic, militaristic vibe was part of it its not- so- subtle in hindsight, elbowing point. It's so ahead of its time. I can't even call it satire because it's basically just reality sprinkled with giant bugs.

Blah, I should probably stay away from the political because, first of all, I'm too sheltered/ignorant and second of all, that's the most boring way to approach a piece of art that features the fantasy acting trio of CLANCY BROWN, MICHAEL IRONSIDE and RUE McCLANAHAN. If those three aren't enough to crack your toes, there are spaceships exploding everywhere and stampede after stampede of marauding alien insects. How can you go wrong? This is the type of movie that if it senses you are loosing interest, it will mercilessly whip CASPER VAN DIEN! Word on the street is that STARSHIP TROOPERS is PAUL VERHOEVEN's favorite film that he ever directed and I'm suddenly inclined to agree with him. It's just so fantastic and epic and gleefully indulgent and brilliantly subversive and slyly progressive and gorgeously ugly and somehow equally sharp and squishy and like all great underappreciated movies, it further solidifies and simply gets better by the day. Plus, it's basically SAVED BY THE BELL meets ROBOCOP and ain't nothing wrong with that.