Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You (2012)

After three years, Neil comes back to town and runs into his ex fiancé who left him at the alter.  Neil hopes he can get her back, but she’s engaged to Danny, who punches Neil in the face and laughs at him.  

Neil left town because the newspaper and townsfolk were laughing at him after he reported there was a riverbeast.  While his friends are glad to see him back, the Sheriff, Sparky the reporter, his ex fiancé, her new fiancé, and most of the town still think he’s either crazy or bad news. Unfortunately for the town, there is a riverbeast and he’s going to start killing.  

Neil gets a new job tutoring a girl who’s been kicked out of every school around. But Neil is the best tutor in town and doesn’t stand for any nonsense.  He also gets his band back together, hires someone to hunt the riverbeast, and keeps trying to convince the town that the riverbeast is real.  As in most monster movies, no one listens until it’s too late.

The movie is a horror comedy which uses a gimmick like something out of the 1950/60s by William Castle. The movie starts with a man explaining that before the riverbeast appears you’ll see two flashes of red. This way if you’re too scared to watch, you can cover your eyes.

A lot of the soundtrack sounds like it was made on a Casio keyboard and like video game music.  The riverbeast costume is primitive but cool. The long claws are amazing.  It’s a low budget movie made in New Hampshire.  While it was a little too long, overall I enjoyed it. 

Amusing dialogue:

I ought to break your poetry loving face.

Newspaper headline - Disgraced Tutor Returns to Town

One doesn’t share butternut squash. It’s too difficult to share.

There goes the greatest tutor this town has ever seen.

We’re going to be moving in a month and I’m going to be a mother to his son from another marriage.

I’m Frank Stone, former professional athlete. Get ready for the beat down of your life.

The press is out to humiliate Neil for his belief in a river beast.

The band is back together. Neil works the crowd down in the yard.

The river beast and his crazy claws

They actually painted him to look like a statue.

This was filmed in New England. There are leaves on the
ground. That water must be freezing.

Danny punches Neil, he hits the pavement and we see this shot

Demonstrating what to do when you see the two red
flashes to signal the river beast will appear

Children of the Living Dead (2001)

It was reported that the body of serial killer Abbott Hayes disappeared from the prison morgue. People in town reported they’ve seen him walking around.  A group of college kids drive out to the abandoned Hayes property and party in the family cemetery, which is literally only Hayes mothers grave.  Things do not end well for them. 

Matthew buys the Hayes property with plans to open a large car dealership. When the construction crew try to relocate coffins which are on land the city has been using for a burial ground, they find the coffins are empty.  They’re told to keep quiet since the police  don’t want to upset the town folks.  

Soon Abbott Hayes and his zombie followers show up to stop the construction on his property. Later they head over to the diner.  While you can’t expect people to think it’s zombies that are after them, they look weird and act weird. So saying things like, “hey you kids, get out of here. This is private property”  is not useful.

When the zombies attack the diner, the people inside have a good game plan, but their execution is poor.  They run out screaming and shooting, and some of them end up wrestling zombies. Good god man, why are you touching them rather than shooting them?

Also what is Abbott Hayes end game? How does he control the dead?  Is he just trying to keep his home? And how does he think that’s going to work?  And why do we need to see those strands of spit in Abbotts mouth? Is that something to do with the makeup or is the actor just one of those guys?  And why did they gives Hayes monster hands? This is not a good look for a zombie leader. And why does he wear saddle shoes and spats?

And the most important questions, why did they have five funerals for five different kids at the same time?   Who was supposed to bury them? And why does the girl start bleeding when Hayes bites her corpse? There is no blood in dead bodies.

This movie is not good and if you look at IMDB, there is some interesting trivia about issues on the set. This was basically a vanity project which explains a lot.

Ridiculous dialogue:

Abbot Hayes would roll over in his grave if he saw us partying on his dead mother.

This is plot 429.  A Miss Candy Denisee was buried here. According to the site map here, there should be one body in this here coffin. And this here coffin should be buried in this here grave.

The raging party at the grave of Hayes mother.

I think they’re supposed to be the same age, but this
shot makes them look like mother and son

Cool orange VW Van and the massive Hayes barn

It’s that silly looking Abbott Hayes

The only thing weirder than five funerals for
five different families at the same time?….

… not burying the caskets and leaving them overnight

So did his fingers double in length because he’s a zombie?

The Hole in the Ground (2019)

Sarah and her son Chris move into a home near the woods.  One day Chris disappears. When Sarah goes to look for him, she finds a massive hole in the ground.  When Chris suddenly shows up, Sarah is relieved but as the days go by she wonders if he’s okay since his behavior has changed.

One day on the way home from school, their neighbor is standing in the road. When Sarah gets out to help her,  the woman tells Sarah Chris is not her son. He may look like him, but he’s been replaced.  While Sarah doesn’t believe her, Chris’s odd behavior and strange noises in the house at night make her start questioning what is going on.  He looks like her son, but he doesn’t act like her son  and doesn’t recognize their little rituals. 

This is a decent flick that uses atmosphere rather than gore.  Although I will never understand why you would tell the thing that replaced your son that you know he’s not your son. That is just asking for trouble.  Also I found the most horrifying thing about the movie that she’s trying to remove the wall paper with a metal spatula.

Blame (2021)

A group of five annoying friends head out for a weekend in a cabin. Douche Blake is cheating on his girlfriend Andi with her friend Mia.  Blakes friend Logan is unhappy because Andi has become his stepsister. Then there’s Ella, who we are frequently reminded is a model.

On the drive Blake goes on a rant about how no one talks anymore because they’re too busy with social media or their cell phones. He insists everyone put their phones in a bag for the weekend so they can concentrate on each other.  When they stop at a welcome center on the highway they ask which exit to take for their destination.  The worker isn’t sure, but warns them to be careful because there is a storm coming. The kids are not concerned.

Later that night Blake hits a branch in the road which cracks the windshield and shatters the passenger window.  They stop at what appears to be an abandoned school to get shelter and hopefully find a working phone.  While Blake breaks the glass to get in, the girls whine about how they’re cold, they want to go to a hotel, and they’re hungry.  The whole situation seems to have gone over their heads.

Once inside they split up to try to find food and a phone, while Blake and Ella go back to the car to get blankets and the cells phones. Then Ella makes a weird move by going behind the school for bathroom purposes, rather than finding one in the building.  It’s a school. There’s going to be tons of them.

When Andi is found lying on the floor in a puddle of blood, Logan insists he saw a shadow leaving the room before he found her. The others are skeptical, which is odd since it is a large building and there could be a janitor or security, or perhaps an intruder like them.

The group immediately starts to disintegrate as they accuse each other of killing Andi.  It’s unclear why this would be their first reaction. Usually friends would be the last people you’d suspect, unless they have a history of violence, which is never implied.

In another awkward move, they decide the best place to be is in the gym, which is in the basement. There they sit in the dark, in the middle of a room, looking at a camp light. It’s the most unsafe thing I can think of since their backs are totally exposed and the light will make them blind if they attempt to look into the dark.

There are just bad moves all around. They’ve contaminated the scene of death by everyone coming into it, picking up the hammer which they think is the murder weapon, and moving her body to a different location.  Also they keep splitting up and when they’re not doing that, they’re fighting with each other. And don’t even get me started on the police who have evidence markers at the scene and pick up a bow and arrow in their bare hands, thus contaminating the evidence.

The movie is told in flashback through police interviews with the survivors at the school, which has surveillance cameras so that everything can be tidily explained in the last act. If only they’d known that before they lied to the police.

The Devil’s Ground (2009)

Daryl Hannah? Why?  What are you doing in this movie?  And why does the cover give you a moon face?  It’s very disconcerting.

Daryl plays Carrie, a woman retracing the steps of her missing boyfriend who was taking the backroads across the country to Bangor, Maine.  On an isolated, one lane, dirt road in the middle of nowhere - which is a ridiculous choice for traveling cross country - Carrie almost runs into Amy, who is traumatized and standing in the road. Amy begs for help because someone is after her. Eventually Carrie lets her in the car.

The story is Amy and four other students where doing research for an environmental studies course. The professor provided info on an area that could be a potential Indian burial ground. The land is designated for a coal mining operation so if they find remains, they can stop the mine.

It’s not clear how they got grouped together on this project. Amy and Mike seem nice, but the two other girls are mean girls, and Greg is a grade A douche.  The area had a huge mining accident at one point and over 100 miners died. Greg says the worlds economy runs on fuel so if miners die, they are collateral damage. No big deal. Why is he in environmental studies?

The group stop for gas and meet Billy, who has no hands and warns them not to go to Arrowhead. But do they listen? Of course not! Also they broke the rule where you should never announce where you’re going to a creepy hillbilly. 

The group parks the RV for the night and the next day heads into the woods and finds bones.  They are unearthing bones in an Indian graveyard on sacred land. That isn’t good. To make things worse, in another area, they unearth a jaw bone with gold fillings and an arm bone with a watch.  Do they immediately go get the police? No, they keep digging and contaminating a potential crime scene. At the very least they are destroying evidence and putting their own finger prints all over the keepsakes buried with the bones.

When they finally go back to the RV so they can contact the police, they find someone is already in it. As it starts towards them, they are unable to figure out that RV’s don’t have much of a turning radius and the best way to avoid getting hits is to step aside. After the first death, the rest run into the woods and the hunt is on.

While Amy is likable enough, she doesn’t make great decisions. She’s terrible at hiding and her running is really awkward - and she runs a lot. Also for Billy being a handless hillbilly who works at a garage and fixes cars using his plier hands, he’s incredibly clean.  There’s no dirt or oil on his face or anywhere else. And don’t even get me started on the killer who looks like Dumb Donald from the Fat Albert show.

Dialogue that should never be said to a hillbilly when you’ve wandered behind his garage and find a heavy chain going into the barn that is attached to something or someone: 

Amy (annoyed) - what are you doing sneaking up on me like that?

Billy  - what are you doing back here anyway?

Amy -  what’s in your barn?

Billy - Just my dog. Mangy thing lives there.

Amy (clueless and indignant) - It doesn’t sound like a dog.

In case you miss the highway sign,
Bangor is over 700 miles away

Billy and his plier hands

Are we really supposed to believe plier hands could maintain
their grip on a machete if it hit something?  Then we’ve got the guy
in the back. His hat has eye holes and is pulled down
over his face, looking like Dumb Donald from Fat Albert

Not everyone in the group understands when you unearth
an arm with a watch, it is not a Native American burial plot.

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 (2021)

Picking up right after the end of the first movie, our final girl is safe in the police station. The police captain tells the rookie cop the girl claimed she killed the killers, but he’s got them in another cell and they’re still breathing.  

When they take the girl back to the murderers home to go over her story, things go horribly wrong in a way I didn’t expect.  So I give them credit for mixing it up. I can’t remember a sequel that took a jarring left turn out of nowhere like this one did.

Our fearful rookie cop is back, with a soft spot for the final girl. He still has the fear that makes him put self preservation way above the duties of his job.  Also we end up with more mutants due to that stupid meteor that’s still under the bed.

The sequel takes the interesting tact of concentrating on the new mutants and their story. However I wasn’t that interested in it.  Part of the problem is they are disgusting looking so I didn’t want to look at them.  Some interesting ideas, but I didn’t enjoy how they played out.

Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight (2020)

 A group of teens addicted to technology are sent to a camp where they must turn in their electronic devices and spend their time in nature.  They are put in small groups and one group heads off into the woods on a three day hike.

After finding a deer carcass, the group is nervous that there may be a predator around. But the counselor says no worries and they’ll set up camp for the night. This is unfortunate since there is someone in the woods who means to do them harm.

When one of the kids disappears and they figure out there is a problem, they split up.  A couple of the kids stay at the camp and the others go for help.  Since it’s a horror film, you know it’s likely that wherever they go for help, may be the source of the problem.

There is a small town nearby with a police force of three, one of whom is a rookie who wants to wait for reinforcement when there is trouble. Holy cow man, you’re the police and you’re supposed to help people, not hide.

This is a Polish slasher. The mutant twin make up is gross. It was good enough to make me watch the sequel. Also not sure if I’ve seen another Polish horror film and I’m always curious about foreign horror.

As Night Falls (2010)

 Elizabeth wants a quiet evening at home with her boyfriend Otto, who just got back from being on tour with his band. But their douchebag friends decide to throw a party at her house, which we come to find out is actually her mothers house.  I’ve never understood why someone in Elizabeth’s position would go along with this. Just don’t let them in.

In a scene full of exposition, we discover that her parents bought this house for retirement. But then her dad died from a mystery heart attack. Now her mom has to work double shifts to be able to afford it.  So does that mean Elizabeth is living there for free? And why doesn’t mom sell the house rather than work 16 hour days? She’s always working so she can never spend anytime there. Also it’s haunted and the ghosts are going to kill anyone they can get their hands on.

This is one of those movies where you ask, am I supposed to like any of these people?  Otto, Elizabeth, and her younger sister Holly are nice enough, but are annoying to be likable. The other people are jerks that you’d never want to know, particularly pseudo punk Pennywise.  

Three questions about this movie. First, how were her parents planning on paying for this house?  Her dad retired so he wasn’t going to be bringing in any income.  Did he have an amazing pension that disappeared when he died? Second, why would anyone install a bathtub perpendicular to the wall? It’s awkward and impractical.  Third, if you’re going to say goodbye to a ghost girl who warned you’d be murdered, why would you stand on the site of her death where an evil spirit has been known to drag people to hell?  Nothing good can come from that.  

Studded collar? Check. Sex Pistols logo safety pinned to shirt? Check.
Stupid name? Check. Well I guess that means Pennywise is a punk.

Ghost girls eyeball is the best effect in the movie.

Paranormal Xperience (2011)

A bunch of college students agree to take part in a psychology experiment run by their weirdo professor because he said he’ll excuse them from the final exam. They meet up in a creepy, isolated room where he straps them to chairs, says the mind is powerful and proceeds to cut one of the students arteries while telling him to stop the blood flow with his mind.   Hurrah, our professor is a lunatic!

After the mind experiment is over, the professor reveals that he’s not going to excuse them from the exam unless they take on a research project.  They should determine if the cursed town of Susurro is actually haunted.  There was a mine which reopened in the 1960s. After a few months people started leaving town because the mine wasn’t producing enough ore.  Rumor has it the town doctor was a serial killer who was locked in the mine as punishment, and even after his death he kept killing.  No worries there for our young intrepid students.

The group heads out to the mine to investigate. Angela is a skeptic, but her sister Diana (who loaned them her van) can see spirits. When Diana hears a scream in the mine, no one believes her. But when they listen to the tape, the scream is there.  From this point on, the spirit of the killer doctor is looking for victims and since they’re the only ones in town, well let’s just say things don’t go well for them.

Why is the abandoned town so clean?

Let the trance begin.

Nobody wants to be in legal shit creek.

Never let your professor strap your wrists and ankles to a chair

Final Exam (1990)

A parapsychology class professor offers his students a class project instead of a final exam. They are to go to the old Nostrand  house, where the family was murdered and the father disappeared. The bank seized the home but no one will stay there.  In an odd move, the government has asked the university to investigate.

The professor proposes the students stay in the house over the weekend to see if they can find evidence of supernatural activity.  There needs to be a minimum of six students who volunteer for the project.  If they participate, they can get their names in the trade journals - for what is never clearly explained.

Ten students volunteer  and drive out to the house, which is in the middle of nowhere. The house still has electricity and running water. The kids bring a camp stove, but forget the butane. A couple head out to the nearest store which is forty miles away.  This is confusing since they brought a can of kerosene. What was that for if not the stove? We never find out.

The group explores the house, sets up cameras and tape recorders, and then go to sleep. The next day they arise to eat breakfast which consists of Hostess products and Pepsi.  When reviewing the tapes, they see a weird ghostly figure and hear noises which they determine came from the basement. 

Later they realize two of the students are missing, and a couple the students see horrible apparitions of the father murdering his family.  Everyone wants to leave except Dave who says damn it, he came here to investigate and he’s going to do it even if he’s all alone.  The others decide a few people will go for help while the others stay with Dave.  Things go off the rails at this point.

This is a regional horror movie which would benefit by editing to decrease the run time. It was shot in 1985 but not released until 1990.  I definitely have a soft spot for regional 1980s horror and while nothing happens in the most of the movie, I still liked it. The sleeveless tshirts, huge station wagons, Hostess cupcakes and a character who has a yo-yo but isn’t considered a dork.  If only he’d used the yo-yo as a weapon.

Dave’s hair does not meet continuity requirements.
The second day, all of a sudden his hair gets short…

…when this is what his hair looks like most of the movie.  
Dave’s love of Pepsi is apparent.

The clue to where to look, but should you?

Yo-yo out the back window while driving? Yep.

He has multiple sleeveless t-shirts.

The insane painting found in the house.

Reading a tiny book from the dollhouse.

The crack parapsychology class

The murder house

Just a typical day at college

Duhrrrrr

Footage on the video tape from overnight

Detail of the painting

Deadly Manor (1990)

A group of friends head to the lake to camp for the weekend, but get lost on the way.  When they see a guy by the side of the road, they ask if he can knows the way.  When he says yes, they ask him to hop in.  After driving awhile, they ask if they are close and he says no, it’s still a couple hours away.  No one is concerned as to why someone would get in their car to give directions, especially when it’s hours to the location.  

When it starts getting dark, they randomly drive down a dirt road to find a place to camp for the night. The road leads to a huge house which appears to be abandoned, causing the driver to be extremely pleased with himself.

Across the yard, there is a crashed car that appears to be part of a monument. As if that isn’t creepy enough, Helen sees someone close one window. The rest of the group is skeptical and decide to check it out.  It’s getting dark and everyone wants to stay except Helen, because she gets it. But no one will believe her and her boyfriend is unconcerned about her distress. So she heads back to town which is miles away while everyone else goes inside.

In the basement under the barn, they find some coffins. And in the house, they find the walls plastered with pictures of a woman. They also find scalps in a hidden room…. And they decide to stay. You’d think all of this, combined with the car crash monument and Helen seeing the window shut, would send them fleeing. 

Horror movies have a surprisingly large number of people who believe that entering a house they don’t own is fine if they need somewhere to spend the night.  And that’s where the trouble starts since the home owners or weirdos who hang out in abandoned places think it’s okay to kill trespassers. Watch for the scene near the end of the film where the character meets the killer upstairs but once she runs downstairs it’s daylight. That is one long staircase.

Dialogue from the boyfriend who doesn’t care about your feelings:

• Helen - This house scares me. I mean, just look at this place. Somethings wrong with it. Can’t you feel it? We can’t stay here. We just can’t stay here.
• Tony - Helen, you’re not making any sense.

Our intrepid campers and the potentially dangerous hitchhiker 

Let’s randomly drive into the woods to find a place to camp

Our campers

If you see this in someone’s yard, run away

Creep point of view

The cool abandoned house