Third Saturday in October (2022)

Serial killer Jack Harding is scheduled to be executed on the third Saturday in October. Ricky and Vicki, relatives of two of his victims,  attend the execution.  But when they arrive at the cemetery to make sure he’s put to rest, they discover something’s gone wrong. Jack is out of his coffin and on the loose.

Ricky and Vicki head towards town hoping they can get the police to stop Jack before he kills again. But Jack is ahead of them and who’s going to believe that a dead man’s come back from the grave?

Meanwhile we’ve got more potential victims at the local restaurant, along with the small group of friends partying at some old guys place. Was he an uncle or were they friends of his young girlfriend? I can’t remember.

The movie is put forth as a lost slasher of the 70s that’s recently been discovered and was part of a franchise.  There is a second film called Part V, but there is no part II, III or IV. It’s meant to feel like when there were video stores and you had the pick of what wasn’t already rented. So you go in to rent part two, but all copies are already rented and the only one is stock is part five. There is a continuing thread in this film and the Part V about the restaurant Catfish Cabin and a 27 year old cat named Glamourpuss.

The sets are well done and captures the seventies feel with the bright colors in the restaurant, the fabric and wallpaper patterns, and wood paneling. Although the haircut on the teen waitress would be more comfortable in late 60s than the late 70s. 

Teardrop (2022)

Teachers Chris and Rebecca take three students on a weekend field trip to the ghost town of Teardrop. When they talk to bartender Denver about staying in town, they’re told there is one room in the hotel and a cabin. Everything else is booked, which is odd considering there are no other cars and no people to be seen.  Chris says he would have called but couldn’t find any advertisements or listing for Teardrop. Denver says that’s to avoid being a tourist trap.  No one is suspicious of this, even though Denver is very odd.

Chris is working on a new book. He previously published a book on a frontier ghost town and feels drawn to Teardrop but isn’t sure why.  Rebecca is along for the ride because Chris likes her and he needed a second teacher in order to do the field trip.  The students are stereotypes: Ross the white rapper who hits on chicks; Teala the studious Asian who is worried about getting into college; and Josie who used to using her looks to get what she wants and is obviously trying to seduce Chris.  

The students are members of the Young Writer’s Club, which is later called the Young Author’s Club.  Yet none of them seem to have any interest in writing. There is no direction as to the purpose of this field trip or any tasks for them to complete. They aren’t even helping Chris look into the history of the town.  But he’s mostly doing this by talking to Denver. Did Chris do any research prior to coming to town?  Has he any primary sources which would be required for his book to be taken seriously, or is he relying on rumor and legend?

Denver tells them the town was named after a strange girl who never cried, no matter what the other kids did to her or how badly they bullied her. What a great reason to name a town.  She was the hanging judges daughter and everyone feared him. I wondered why everyone would bully the daughter of the most feared man in town who hanged people on a whim. Then Denver tells us the judge killed his own daughter. Wow so everyone hated this poor girl. What a downer.

The movie set up is odd and the plot points obvious.  Why did Chris bring the students on the trip when he could have done research on his own? Why are they in a writers club when they don’t seem to care about writing?  Are we not supposed to know Chris has a connection to the ghost town and the hanging judge? Denver tells him he looks familiar and thinks he’s been there before.  The hanging judges face is always blurred in photos and in flashbacks his face is hidden. The foreshadowing is like a shovel to the head.

Shout out to the prop department for actually making a newspaper with an article that deals with the hanging judge.  So many prop newspapers are either nonsense words or a photo pasted into an article about something completely unrelated.

Ridiculous dialogue

We don’t allow photos.

This vase must have blown off the dresser from the wind.

Be dumb and stupid for a change. All those bad thoughts will go away. [about suicidal thoughts]

I’ll be waiting on baited breath.

Why didn’t he just drive around them?

Does he always bring a typewriter with him?

The newspaper with the blurry close up photo 

Killer Book Club (2023)

Eight friends who have a book club decide to teach their English professor a lesson after he tries to assault Angela in his office, even after she rebuffs his advances.  He threatens to destroy her future career as a writer if she tells anyone. The group figures he’s probably done this to other women and want pay back.

After Angels says she’s changed her mind and sets up a time to meet with the professor after hours, the group dresses as clowns and arm themselves with pickaxes.  Deadly weapons don’t seem like a good idea for pranks, but I guess it’s one way to ensure he’s scared. 

When the professor accidentally falls over the railing and is killed, the group swears to keep their involvement quiet and the death is deemed an accidental fall. However the next day, they all receive a text that someone named Mad Clown has joined their book club as an administrator. He releases the first chapter of his book, which is about eight friends who kill a professor while doing a prank.

The book states the participants deserve to die and each chapter will detail a members death. Angela starts seeing clowns around campus. The group also starts suspecting each other because who else would know what they did. Then Koldo, the club member who’s an influencer with a vlog about books, live streams about the Mad Clown chapters. So even though he’s on the death list, he’s asking people to read the chapters and help choose the next victim. Koldo isn’t very bright.

The movie is okay. I probably give foreign movies more leeway than US movies. Maybe because subtitles require more concentration.  What drove me nuts about this film is the group talks a lot about what they did while in public.  If you agreed to hide you were part of a prank that killed a professor, would you talk about what happened in the college library? Or in the class that your dead professor taught?  And look at the messages from the Mad Clown on your phone in the dark during class? Way to make sure anyone else sitting near you can see them.

Also if you’re doing a prank, why do you have pickaxes?  Sure it’s going to inspire fear, but you could also accidentally injure someone. Or the victim could grab the weapon and attack you.  I’m still not sure how the professor managed to go over the railing.  The way it was shot it wasn’t clear. 

Lastly the professor mentioned he got an email from Angela.  She says she thought she didn’t hit send on the email.  I know she’s traumatized after his attempted assault, but she never picks up on that discrepancy. She says she sent two chapters of a book and he has no idea what she’s talking about. So obviously something weird is going on.

Also I’m not sure if the killer was obvious to anyone watching or just I’ve seen so many horror movies I can pick out the patterns.

Demon’s Rook (2013)

Roscoe is drawing demons and tells his parents about the friend who visits him in the night. His mother thinks it’s an imaginary friend so she’s fine with it. Unfortunately that’s not the case and his parents are fried in their bed, while Roscoe goes down into a hole in the middle of the woods.

Thirty years later, Roscoe comes out of the hole after releasing a few demons in error. For years the old caretaker had been training him to take over as the keeper of the vessels. But now he’s messed up and  the demons are released on Earth.

Meanwhile his childhood friend Ava manages to escape the zombies who killed her father and almost runs Roscoe down while driving for safety. The two head to an abandoned cabin Roscoe slept in and he tells her the story of where he’s been for thirty years.  At this point, it’s forty seven minutes into the film and there are fifty five minutes left. Good god.

This movie is supposed to be styled as a throw back to older movies. They raised money to fund it, used  practical effects, and it looks good especially for a low budget film.  However an almost two hour running time is way too long.  Plus about a third of the movie doesn’t have dialogue.

Ridiculous dialogue

You and your bear are so ugly.

We’re gonna cause a real rubble ruckus.

Good idea not to let Roscoe taking drawing
lessons from the neighbor

She’s running from zombies but all I can think is
what the hell is that bear on the left?

Her glasses take up a third of her face

The practical effects in this movie are really nice

It’s totally normal when you see your boyfriend ahead 
to stop your car fifty feet away and walk up to him
rather than drive up and saying hello.

Death by Dialogue (1988)

Cary and his friends head out to stay at his Uncle Ive’s farm.  His uncle is in a wheelchair and his caretaker Mrs. Camden is overbearing and a bit dismissive, considering Cary is his nephew.

Uncle tells Cary he and his friends can stay on the movie set nearby. While in the uncle’s basement, Kelly finds a script called Victim 67 and brings it with her.  After reading it for awhile, she put it down. But later she swears previously blank pages now have writing and the number in the title has changed.  

When several of their friends disappear, Kelly tells the Sheriff she thinks the script seems to be mirroring what is happening. What she doesn’t know is the script is evil.

Uncle and Mrs. Camden are alarmed when they discover she has the script. It was supposed to be hidden in a trunk so no one would find it.  The story behind it is a tribe killed a journalist after his insistence on taking photos, which they believed was the cause of bad luck. They put his remains in an urn, which uncle brought back to the states.  Later when Mrs. Camden was cleaning the urn, she accidentally released the spirit and it went into the script, whose number updates with the death of each victim. So… yeah that’s pretty weird.

So we’ve got an inanimate object which holds a spirit who murders and paralyses people. I’m not sure why they don’t burn it or stuff it back in the urn. At the beginning of the movie, worker Thorn steals the script, god knows why, and Mrs. Camden catches him in the basement.  As he wanders through the movie set, a woman in a long flowing robe surrounded by fog and lights comes towards him. Even though she is half the age of Mrs. Camden and dressed totally differently, he believes it’s the modestly dressed spinster.  Sigh.

Ridiculous dialogue

Kelly: What’s in this display, Mr. Jefferson?

Uncle: They’re pre-war Colombian artifacts, Kelly.

Kelly: Well where did they come from?

The script is killing everybody!

How can a script kill someone?

My paralysis is the result of our last attempt to contain it.

He looks like the Greatest American Hero

Music montage playing soccer and flying a kite
in the ghost town movie set

Mrs. Camden seems a bit extreme

Out of nowhere, there’s a metal band

Practical effects for an exploding head

Oh no. this just won’t do

Night Train to Terror (1985)

Night Train to Terror is an anthology with three stories held together with a wrap around involving a conversation on a train between God and Satan, while a band plays in another car.

God and Satan tell stories of individuals and debate whether the people should go to heaven or hell.  The segments are:

1. An asylum kidnaps wayward travelers and victims of car accidents to supplement their organ selling business.
2. A young musician working in a carnival dates a man who introduces her to being an actress in adult films to support her piano playing. Later she gets involved with a group that plays Russian roulette using lethal means other than guns.
3. A Nobel prize winner writes a book called God Is Dead, his wife has nightmares about Nazi’s and a stranger named Papini says weirdo Oliver was in WWII even though he’s not old enough to have fought in the war.

The train conductor is privy to God and Satan’s conversations. Only the three of them know the train is going to crash. But until that happens, the band is going to sing the same song in each section and dance poorly.  I thought the drummer had no idea how to play based on how she was hanging over the drums, but then she twirled the stick like a pro.  Did they teach her this or was she a drummer who can’t act like a drummer?

I hate this movie.  Maybe it’s the crappy band and dancing, or maybe it’s because it was cobbled together with each section being a truncated version of an individual film.  Why? It seems pointless.

Ridiculous chorus lyrics repeated ad nauseam 

Everybody's got something to do, everybody but you.

The drummer who can twirl a stick but
can’t convince you she’s drumming

God and Satan

Oh the 80s - sleeveless shirts, one lone glove, new wave makeup,
and lots of scarfs tied on the waist

The Nazi vampire version of David Cassidy

He’s still singing and they’re still dancing

Why hasn’t the band noticed this is not a normal track?

She Came From the Woods (2022)

 On the last day of summer camp at Briarbrook, the kids perform in a play, which seems weird since wouldn’t the last day be spent ensuring everyone was packed and ready to go home?  After the kids are put on the bus, the counselors pick up the camp and spend the final night around the campfire.  Peter, whose family owns the camp, peer pressures everyone into doing a ritual where they prick their fingers and invoke Agatha. Legend has it she was a camp nurse who was turned out to be a witch and met a bad fate in the woods.

Peters brother Sean is driving the kids home but the bus breaks down. While he tries to fix it, the kids disappear and then attack him. He calls his family to tell them he warned Peter not to do the ritual.  At this point the counselors are under attack from Agatha and the possessed children are heading to camp to wreak havoc.

This is set in the 80s so there are no cell phones.  I’m not sure how Derek keeps this job since he’s a violent hothead, No one would want this guy around their kids. But then again it’s the 80s, he’s got a mullet and he harasses women so maybe he’s supposed to be the cool guy personality. 

For some reason, the parents of the missing children have not called the cops to ask where their kids are.  We also have the trope where an explanation is not offered which causes drama due to a misunderstanding.  When they know people are dying, they announce over the PA that Ben and Ashley should come to the mess hall. But they don’t say it’s an emergency or they’re in danger until much later.  

The Bloodlines (2011)

 Aka The Passing

At the reading of their grandmothers will, her grandchildren discover she’s left the majority of her estate to them. But in order to get it, they need to spend the weekend in the house.  Their father is concerned about Elizabeth being there without him, but the lawyer advises the will specifically stipulates only the children can stay.  

The lawyer gives Elizabeth the key to a carved box her grandmother insisted she have.  When asked where it is, he says she needs to find it. Unlike real life where someone could search a mansion for weeks and never find it, she chances upon it the first day.  In it is a cryptic message from grandmother which says since she’s not there to teach her, she’ll have to discover what to do.  Couldn’t she maybe have left a clue in the note?

Jack and Ray see this weekend as an opportunity to party and invite some people over.   When the couples go off on their own, Cindy starts wearing some of grandmothers jewelry.  Josh says they should get rid of grandma’s voodoo stuff and jewelry since Mandy wants it out of there.  It’s unclear why Mandy is upset since she’s not related to grandmother.

Weird things start happening in the mansion.  Glimpses of people who aren’t in the room appear in mirrors.  Something unseen tries to drown Josh, and a weirdo chases one couple through the yard.  Mandy decides this is the perfect time to take a shower.

After two of the women disappear, Josh wants to call the cops, but Jake angrily refuses. It’s not clear why but you just know things are going to get worse. The weirdo outside turns out to be a slightly mutated relative named Billy who is being semi-cared for by the caretaker. The movie is told by Elizabeth in flashback while being interviewed by the cops the next day.  The main detective is played by Paul Gleason, best known for being the principle in The Breakfast Club. 

The movie is confusing.  Why didn’t grandma leave the estate to Billy or to Elizabeth with the stipulation that she care for Billy? What is the purpose in requiring the grandchildren stay for the weekend? Shouldn’t there have been a way to get Elizabeth involved without murdering other people and getting on the police’s radar? Why does the lawyer think he and Elizabeth have more than a lawyer/client relationship when they have literally only seen each other once at the reading of the will? And what sort of egomaniac thinks a woman is flirting and inviting him to stay when she literally says don’t ever come here again, only contact me via letter, and then disappears as he’s packing up?

Elizabeth’s deer in the headlights face

The door to the bathtub in the mirrored bathroom

Continuity alert - he answers the phone on the left side of the bed

But later in the call, he’s on the right side of the bed

Ghosts of Amityville (2022)

Olivia misses her mom who died a couple months ago in an accident. While she and her dad are heading to visit a relative, she falls asleep and has nightmares about a killer clown, who she is convinced killed her mom. 

The movie gets convoluted about ten minutes in when they arrive at a cabin by the lake and dad is called in to work. He tells his young daughter he’ll be gone for a few hours at work.  The clown shows up shortly after this. As she runs away, it’s day, then night, then day. Has dad been gone overnight?  

Just when the clown is about to catch her as she’s running through the woods, she wakes up in bed in the cabin.  What?  Has it been a dream this whole time?  Now she’s in a hotel. Is this still a dream? She calls her dad’s work but he’s not there. Inexplicably the boss demands she put her dad on the phone.

Thirty one minutes in and now we’re back in the car with dad. Screw you movie.

This is essentially a short film padded to full length.  The majority of the movie has no dialogue.  When there is dialogue, it doesn’t provide much information.  There are long scenes of driving where the camera is just shooting out the front windshield. At one point as they pulled back on the road, I started a stop watch. For four minutes the only dialogue was the father telling Olivia to go to sleep. Two of those minutes were shots out the front windshield in silence.

If you take a drink every time Olivia says dad or daddy, you’d probably die from alcohol poisoning. Also there’s a scene where the clown is after them and they can’t get the car started. It’s not clear why since they’ve had no car issues, but something that’s going to make it worse is them keeping the dome light on. It’s also going to light them up like a beacon in the darkness for the clown. Then the next day at a strategic moment, the car starts no problem. That’s not how cars work.

Ridiculous dialogue

Boss: Princess, where is your dad?

Olivia: I don’t know where my dad is.

Boss: Would you put your dad on the phone for me please?

Shining vibes

They’re both smoking but the vaper is being condescending

Okay we know what it looks like from the
back seat, but how does it look from the front?

The not so different view from the front of the car.

A crazy clown is after them, the car won’t start
but they keep their dome light on

Amityville Island (2020)

Kelly Jo stops at a yard sale and buys everything.  She loads the clothing into a box without looking at the condition, style or sizes.  She says she can’t be picky since she’s a single mom with four kids, but maybe she should check to see if it’s actually children’s clothing. Because some of that stuff looks huge.

When she gets home, she unpacks the box and is possessed by a doll full of evil. Then she murders her children and is sentenced to death. 

The warden has a fight club that he live streams to paying customers. Women fight in a utility corridor under the prison. The winner goes back to her cell and the loser is sent away. So no one notices there are women disappearing from the prison? 

Kelly Jo and her opponent Renata make the warden angry and are both sent to the island. Here they are injected with a tracking device. Not only doe it track their location if they try to run away, but it can also can shock them or release poison when remotely activated.

A doctor on the island is doing experiments which don’t seem to be going well since there are a couple of zombies walking the property.  The most interesting one has a bad wig and you can see where they forgot to tuck the bottom of his mask into his shirt.

This is not enjoyable in anyway. It’s tedious and hard to get through.  Why did I keep watching this? It made Amityville Exorcism look better by comparison, and that wasn’t good either. I was lured in by watching Polonia’s previous movie Amityville in Space which was ridiculous and amusing.  But maybe I’ll learn a lesson from these last two that it’s not worth it.

Why would the realtor handle a yard sale? How does an evil spirt jump from a person into a bear? Why was the shark the focus of the cover when it’s only in the movie for maybe a minute? How did the shark get possessed? Did I miss it or was it never explained? Does the reporter do anything other than sit at his kitchen table drinking and calling the prison wanting to interview Kelly Jo?

Ridiculous dialogue

Kelly Jo: Wish I knew this house was for sale before I moved here.

Realtor: Is that supposed to be a joke?

Indisposed? She’s been on death row for over a year. What could she possibly be doing?

At least the house has Amityville windows

The real estate agent doing a yard sale. Also there was
snow in the shot of the house, but no snow here

Reusing the costume from Amityville Exorcism

Glowing eyes is never a good sign

The warden and his crack staff at the prison fight club

I think the board falling on his neck was an accident since it
happened when he did a roll and kicked the shelf.
It looks like heavy plywood that would have hurt..

Well apparently spirits can transfer from humans to bears.

The zombie with normal hands.  Check out the edge of his mask.

The Mylar background was also used in Amityville in Space

Amityville Exorcism (2017)

A carpenter on death row confesses he stole wood from a job at the Amityville house and something evil came with it. He asks Father Benna to check on his customers to see if they need help. 

Cut to a couple arguing because Jeremy doesn’t like Amy going out with a male friend.  The casting is in question when it’s revealed this is not a couple, but a father and daughter.   Dad is an alcoholic who tries to forget that he killed Amy’s mother by drunk driving. Surprisingly this doesn’t come into play other than when Amy is possessed by the evil residing in the lumber in their basement.

Father Benna comes along just at the right time and begins an exorcism.  He also fights off five old dolls.  It’s pretty ridiculous seeing a grown man rolling around on the floor holding dolls as if he’s fighting with them and they’re able to move.

Questions abound.  Why did the burglar wear a ski mask to break in, but then pull it up to reveal his face once inside? Why did the carpenter wait until the day before his execution to try to help his customers? How much lumber did he steal that he could use it on multiple jobs? Why are there four plates and drinks at the bbq when there are only three people there? Why is there a pot of pasta on the table and pasta on their plates when Jeremy was cooking hotdogs? Why would they cook nine hotdogs for three people and have ten more sitting in a pack beside the grill? And why did Mark Polonia build his pool so close to the road? 

Ridiculous dialogue

Someone has to do something

Who is down here? I can’t see you.. but I can hear you.

This wood. This lumber. Where did it come from?

That’s enough blood to fill six rats.

Oh the framing of this shot

Husband and wife? Or father and daughter?

There is a fourth plate and drink. Also Dad was cooking
hotdogs on the grill, but everyone is eating pasta

The non-moving dolls

Okay

How much lumber did this guy steal from the Amityville job?

Why is the pool so close to the road? And
why do they have nineteen hotdogs for three people?

Plenty of land to put the pool away from the road