First Impressions On Heart Eyes (2025)

 

By Joe Gibson

 

I am aware that 8 months after release is a little late for some “First Impressions”, but, as it is the Halloween season, I am not exactly sure I want to go through the effort of a more in depth close-read review when I could otherwise watch a lot more horror films this month (and select for review from there). And that’s really it. I don’t want to call this a review for pedantic reasons, but I still want to share my thoughts on the film. 

 

Opening in theaters February 7th of 2025, a movie equal parts romantic comedy and slasher film would have been an ideal date night scenario (for whatever reason, it underperformed with couples and did not exactly break-even), but I did not elect to see it at that time. Actually, looking over the early to mid-2025 film releases, I’m pretty sure I didn’t even go to the theater until July this year. In any case, I was excited to watch Heart Eyes. I liked Mason Gooding from his role in the Scream movies, and, back when I was in the target audience, I enjoyed I Didn’t Do It, a Disney Channel show starring Olivia Holt (the other lead of this film). I liked that show because I was a dumb kid, but for what it is worth, I Didn’t Do It was the closest thing Disney Channel had to complex metatextual storytelling in those days because each episode started in medias res and then filled in the context with semi reliable narrators, ending with a plot twist.

 

The film features Christopher Landon as producer with a writing credit, but Josh Ruben directed the movie. Landon is behind a lot of recent slasher hits and almost directed Scream 7, but Josh Ruben seems to be a lot less accomplished. Still, he also directed Werewolves Within, a film that I have not seen yet but have been wanting to for a little while and will eventually get to. Philip Murphy and Michael Kennedy also possess writing credits on this film, and the latter is a frequent collaborator of Landon’s.

 

Olivia Holt plays the main character of this movie, but the end credits use the same billing trick as the television show Bones, having Mason Gooding, the male love interest, to the right and above her name, with hers at the bottom left. (That way, if you read left to right or up to down, they're both first billing and whatever.) But yeah this is a romantic comedy slasher horror movie relying on meshing the disparate elements and also shared tropes into a cohesive product, a challenge to be sure but not an insurmountable one. It wears this inspiration on its chest when it has the romantic comedy beats positioned in between slasher bits where there is the opening kill and then a meet cute or intimate confession of backstory between the leads and then back to slashing and then seemingly defeating the slasher right into chasing down the lover at the airport. A character even refers to the main relationship in this story as "crazy stupid love, actually” within a monologue listing off the names of other romcoms, so the meta references popularized by Scream remain intact.

 

 

Heart Eyes or The Heart Eyes Killer (HEK) wears some kind of leather mask that reminds me of Jason Voorhees' mask even though that was a hockey mask (I think the resemblance for me comes from the brow crease on HEK’s mask or, looking at it now, maybe just the nose bump). Notably, the mask has red night vision Heart Eyes, hence the name. Heart Eyes hunts lovers on Valentine's Day in a different city every time, employing the use of hunting knives, throwing knives and a crossbow to knock out their intended prey and whoever gets in their way. Consequently, the movie has a high kill count, but the heroes also survive really long against a person who can shoot a crossbow very precisely. (It is not impossible to make it work, but I appreciate the comparative restraint of Scream where Ghostface usually only gets a gun in the third act to raise the stakes or in Scream VI where he gets it for one tense scene and then the third act.) 

There are some genuinely interesting shots (shifting perspective and focus mid action scene or using Heart Eye’s vision gimmick in certain scenes), and the director does a good job at eliciting actor performances to serve the tonal balance of absolute contrived romantic sap and tense slasher storytelling. Notably, compared to his Scream character, Mason Gooding is a lot more vulnerable to taking damage in realistic ways here.

 

I was kind of able to figure out the twist in this movie, and part of this blog post will go over my thought process and the clues or red herrings I noticed on a first pass. However, this was difficult because, as I realized watching this, I understand now at least some of the tropes and shortcuts Scream will use in its mysteries but not for other derivative franchises. The first I Know What You Did Last Summer film caught me off guard for not committing to the same type of killer reveal as Scream, and based on the spoilers I have for the film Thanksgiving, it is also possible for these films to just have a solution that does not add up logically (unless the sequels start retconning accomplices like the Saw films). So I did not know going in to err on the side of Scream or IKWYDLS or even Thanksgiving. I will say though, as a hint for any Scream movies if you want to guess them, across all 6 mainline installments, the most surefire method for that is ignoring whatever red herrings the film throws at you and just doing a head count of who is accounted for during every scene.

 

I found it very interesting how, during the opening scene, Heart Eyes killed the couple in a way that inverted the genital symbolism. In art but especially slasher art, penetrative killings are leveraged as phallic imagery, and, as the majority of slasher villains are men but slasher heroes are women, it becomes a way to explore brutal and visceral power dynamics often through knives or machetes or blade hands, all of which penetrate to kill. Heart Eyes uses their blades and arrows to kill the three men in the opening scene. But when the final girl of the opening escapes them by crawling into a wet cylinder, the walls close in on her, crushing her to death. (Incidentally, that cylinder was an industrial wine press.) That is already pretty blatant yonic imagery, but then the red water starts gushing out of vents or holes in the bottom of the machinery, putting a menstrual spin on the death. I have not seen as many slasher films as I would like to, but this seems atypical to me. 

Anyway, when the main detectives stumble upon this crime scene, the dialogue of this murder mystery also frames each of them as suspects but in the reverse way I would expect. The man says “it was probably my incel archetype that did this,” and the woman says “but what if it was a woman like me,” which is really weird because most films would just have them accuse the other person to get this point across efficiently.

 

It is ironic that the film underperformed because one of the romcom elements framing this whole thing is that both of the leads work in marketing for a jewelry company, and Olivia Holt’s character Ally made an advertisement mixing romance with death that bombed and pretty much cost her  job. Life imitating art imitating life, and all that. Through that introduction, the film does weave a compelling story for the heroine with a through line about her fears of intimacy and blood contrasted against her love interest, Mason Gooding’s Jay, who, true to the romcom genre is a bizarre mix of red and green flags because he is clearly analyzing her in every scene and very active in pursuing her (also incidentally a freelancer that was on site for each of Heart Eye’s previous sprees) but also very chivalrous and charismatic.

 

Alright so yeah, in a way that kind of tests your patience in a similar way to IKWYDLS, one of the main cogent suspects for the killer is the love interest (this is Jay, like Ray in IKWYDLS). Jay is not ultimately the killer, and I do not feel bad spoiling that because neither the trailer nor the film felt like pretending he could be. Of the rest of the cast, Ally has a friend named Monica who has a mysterious boyfriend Ally has not met, and Ally’s boss is a Kentucky Fried Tulsi Gabbard looking character with a horde of other employees, and there are five notable characters within a police department as well as Ally’s ex boyfriend and his new girlfriend who have ties to the opening kill victims. 

 

 

Going in, there were a few characters I exonerated for having their motives or introductions revealed too late to be cathartic, and actually I was kind of sort of wrong about one of those (but the strategy overall helped me sift through the red herrings and side characters). The motive is part of the reveal though, so more than that, it was about means and opportunity, and hilariously, though this movie has multiple killers, one of my suspects based on availability still ended up being one of them. (The utility behind having multiple killers is clearing guilty suspects and then prompting fan discussion on which one was in the mask during ambiguous scenes; it is really funny to me that not only could the character that ended up being Heart Eyes have done it alone, but dialogue also tells us exactly who did each scene.)

 

Though the ultimate killer reveal helped some staging inconsistencies (it strains credibility that Heart Eyes could have teleported into Ally’s closet unless there were at least two and one of them had the resources to find out her address quickly), it also creates a contrivance in how a wedding band that has the killer’s initials is important to the investigation into the only other character with those initials (Jay). The killers even reveal that they did not intentionally target Jay from the outset though as turns out to be lucky for them, he was in the same city as each of their previous sprees. Also, pending a rewatch to see if there was better foreshadowing, the film just kind of lies to us about the killers’ motivations until the end, making the motive almost unpredictable. (Obviously, you cannot give away the motive that early one, but the mystery genre is basically just literary Deconstruction in action, and for that to work, there has to be a misspeak in the text that points you to reversing your assumptions about the innocent/guilty binaries in the story, however subtle it is.)

 

I would recommend the movie all in all. Though it is not cleverer or more inspiring than the original Scream, this is a good movie, and it is good in both of the desired genres (which already makes it a better slasher than Scream 3). My main issues with it come from the logistical issues of some plot beats, but those exist in the base genres as well, so making the movie adhere to logic actually risks disrupting those tones. 

 

If I ever actually re-view this movie through an analytical lens, the yonic vs phallic nature of those opening scene deaths would be a good start (in which case I’d probably have to use Freud…who would actually enjoy the part of the movie where one pathetic character calls their lover mommy). I will say though that the film bookends the opening scene in the mid credits scene. In both circumstances, one far off character films two others in a wedding proposal (though I would not call this exactly sequel baiting). Despite some very inventive kills, the gore is rather tame COMPARED to other slasher movies. There is a fair bit of blood shown from minor injuries for realism but also to tie into Ally’s arc. It is rated R and so has the obligatory amount of F bombs. I have no idea if this film will get a sequel, but watch it if you like slashers or romcoms or if you hate both and have a morbidly romantic curiosity.

 

Curse of the Swamp Creature – One of Larry Buchanan's Best Films

 

The films of Texas filmmaker Larry Buchanan have really grown on me over the years. I place Buchanan in the top five of my favorite cult film directors. After reading author Rob Craig's excellent book – The Films of Larry Buchanan: A Critical Examination (McFarland 2007), I have an even greater respect for Buchanan's films. Craig gives the reader great insight into the mind and films of Buchanan. Buchanan directed six made for television films for American International Television under the Azalea company title. One of these Azalea films is the 1968 science fiction thriller – Curse of The Swamp Creature, starring John Agar.

In Curse of the Swamp Creature, oil surveyor Driscoll West (Bill Thurman) arrives at the Fly-N-Fish Motel and sits down at the bar for a drink. A beautiful raven-haired woman named Brenda Simmons (Shirley McLine) sits down at the bar next to West and begins to flirt with him. Simmons pumps West for information about oil surveying in the local area, but West refuses to answer her questions and decides to go back to his hotel room.

West returns to his motel room to find young Ritchie (Cal Duggan) going through his personal belongings in the motel room. The two men fight, punching and wrestling each other to the ground. Ritchie stabs West in the stomach with a knife, killing him. The motel manager named Frenchie (Roger Ready) and Simmons enter the room and plot how to get rid of West's body. They decide to put West's body through a swamp-cutting machine.

Before West's death, he was scheduled to meet with geologist Barry Rogers (John Agar) at the hotel for a trip to survey the local swamp. Simmons comes up with the idea that when Rogers arrives, she will simply tell him that West could not attend the meeting and that she is West's wife sent to fill in for him. Rogers arrives at the Fly-N-Fish motel and is greatly puzzled by Simmons' news that West will not be joining them. Nevertheless, Rogers, Simmons and a swamp guide named Rabbit embark on a trip through the local swamp the next morning.

Meanwhile, Dr. Simon Trent (Jeff Alexander) is conducting bizarre experiments at a nearby swamp plantation not far from the Fly-N-Fish Motel. A scaly hand of a monster similar to the Gill Man in Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) emerges from a vat of mist in Trent's laboratory. He yells at the creature to “Breathe! Breathe! Live!” Unfortunately the creature dies, and Trent wraps him up in a white blanket and throws him to the alligators who happen to dwell in his backyard pool.

Dr. Trent tells his assistants, Valjean and Tracker, that he expects them to keep close eyes on the plantation and not to allow any intruders near the plantation so that no one will interfere with his work. Local natives suspect that Trent is conducting evil experiments on the natives. Both Valjean and Tracker appear to be incompetent at their jobs because the natives have come near the plantation many times looking for lost family members. Trent tells them that he will not tolerate any more incompetence if they continue to allow natives near the plantation.

Rogers, Simmons, Ritchie and Rabbit eventually arrive near Dr. Trent's plantation. Instead of hiding from the group, Dr. Trent orders Tracker to bring them to the plantation mansion so he can offer them hospitality. The group meets in Trent's home and he discusses with them some of his experiments and research. Trent's wife Pat (Francine York) is excited to meet the group because she has not seen other people in over a year. The group is offered to stay the night at Trent's home. Trent keeps Pat locked up in a room and secluded from the rest of the world.

Tracker is persuaded by Pat to release her from her locked room. She wanders into her husband's laboratory and finds Dr. Trent's assistant – Tom (Enrique Touceda III – billed as “Anthony Huston”) floating in the lab tank with wiring attached all over his body. She flees the room, screaming and hysterical. Dr. Trent catches her and tries to assure her that Tom is not dead, and that Tom volunteered for the experiment. Mrs. Trent of course does not believe him. Tom questioned Trent's work, so he was drugged and placed in the tank for experimentation. Trent later wraps Tom up in a white sheet and dumps him into the alligator pool. Another failed experiment. The alligators feast on Tom's body.

After his failed experiment with Tom's body, Dr. Trent uses Brenda Simmon's body as his next experiment. She quickly evolves into a masculine looking green monster with bulging eyes. Dr. Trent orders the creature to kill the natives that have come to his home to confront him. The Simmons creature disobeys Trent and instead picks up Trent and throws him into the pool of alligators. Simmons then offers herself as a sacrifice by plunging off the dive board of the pool into the alligators.

One very strange aspect of this film is when Dr. Trent places his assistant Tom in the vat for experimentation. After placing Tom in the vat, he never fully evolves into a creature. Even after the camera shows him in a number of scenes in the vat, he remains in human form unchanged. However, when Dr. Trent places Brenda Simmons' body into the vat, she immediately evolves into a green masculine creature. It's as if experimenting on a woman achieves immediate results in contrast to experimenting on a male subject. Why is this? The viewer is left puzzled by this (at least I was).

At the time actor John Agar was cast in Curse of The Swamp Creature, he was battling a lifetime of alcoholism, which negatively impacted his acting career and ended his earlier marriage to actress Shirley Temple. Agar spent the decade of the 1960s being cast in a number of low-budget features, including another Buchanan Azalea TV film – Zontar – The Thing From Venus (1967), and Night Fright (1967), Journey To The Seventh Planet (1962), Women of The Prehistoric Planet (1966), and many others.

As mentioned at the beginning of this writing, Buchanan made a total of six made-for-TV films for American International Television under the Azalea company title. The five other Azalea films are: Zontar – The Thing From Venus (1967), Mars Needs Women (1968), The Eye Creatures (1965), In The Year 2889 (1969) and Creature of Destruction (1967). Stay tuned for other articles on Plan 9 Crunch about these Buchanan films produced by Azalea. Happy viewing.

- Steve D. Stones

David Skal's Fright Favorites -- 31 spooky films for Halloween season.

Review by Doug Gibson

David J. Skal has a long resume of writing genre-intensive books on the horror genre. I'm sure many readers have enjoyed his film, etc., critiques in The Monster Show and Hollywood Gothic. And his biography of Bram Stoker, Something in the Blood, was an informative, provocative read, one of my favorite birthday gifts.

Just a few days ago, Skal's new book, "Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond," arrived at book stores and online retailers. It has a 2020 copyright from Turner Classic Movies and is published by Running Press, of Hachette Book Group, New York City. Amazon sells Fright Favorites. I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy.  Here is the link to Running Press. And also, here is Skal's Amazon page.

Although veteran genre fans will enjoy this book (I sure did), it's just as much geared toward the casual viewer of horror films; those ones who draw a blank when "Nosferatu" or "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1932) are mentioned. Skal provides a brief history of Hollywood horror of the past 98 years, and even longer if you read his introduction on film culture's long, evolving relationship with October's spooky season.

I really enjoyed learning a little more about the backstory of a film. Skal offers tidbits from a featured film that you might not have known. Myself, for example, never knew that early plans for the giant ants attack film "Them" originally planned to have the ants invade the New York City subway system. Instead, the budget dictated that the ants visit the cheaper-to-film Los Angeles storm drains.

Another thing learned was that William Castle, director of tongue-in-cheek horrors, was the initial driving force to bring "Rosemary's Baby" to the screen. He did not direct it, of course. Paramount did not want a gimmicky adaptation along the lines of a "13 Ghosts." Castle took on the role of producer.

The wonderful films discussed include. "Nosferatu," "Dracula," "Frankenstein," "The Mummy," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," (1932), "The Wolf Man." Universal of course dominates the early offerings, the aforementioned "... Wax Museum" and "... Jekyll and ... Hyde" are from other studios.

I enjoyed seeing RKO's "Cat People" getting an inclusion, as well as Allied Artists "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Hammer Films get its due with "The Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula." Offbeat imports from greats such as Mario Bava are included, as are films indicative of the switch to gore, very dark comedy and downbeat endings, such as "Night of the Living Dead," and Rosemary's Baby." In fact, the final of the 31 films is 2017's "Get Out."

Film directors/producers such as Roger Corman, with his Poe films, and William Castle, are included. Other appropriate inclusions are "The Exorcist" and Mel Brooks' perfect spoof/homage "Young Frankenstein."

Your reviewer was born in 1963, and he appreciates Skal including the films I saw faithfully (to a fault), such as John Carpenter's "Halloween," "Nightmare on Elm Street," and the delightfully dark, infamous "Friday the 13th."

I mention "Friday the 13th"  because it's included with 30 other films in the "If you've enjoyed ...., you might also like" section of the book. So there are really 62 films to sample in this book. Some of these runner-ups -- with large-capsule summaries -- include "The Black Cat," (with Karloff and Lugosi), Dario Argento's classic "Suspiria," (1977), the recent horror flick "The Conjuring,"' and James Whale's great dark horror comedy "The Old Dark House." (1932), once lost for decades.

To be even more precise, there are likely closer to 90 films discussed as Skal frequently offers his comments on sequels to the 31 main films noted, including the Universals and Hammers.

The 31 chapters on the featured horror films have summaries and analysis which are neither too long or too short. The casual fan, just learning about the horror film genre, would likely get bored if the chapters were the length of, say a Midnight Marquee Press book, or one of Danny Peary's books on cult films. (Both MMP and Peary are valuable reads, by the way). But these chapters are roughly 5- to 10-minute reads and will whet an appetite to see a film profiled. I cite myself as an example: I have never seen two comedy offerings, "Hocus Pocus" and "Beetlejuice,"' but plan to see both -- in October, of course. 

If you buy the dead-tree edition, "Fright Favorites" is a slightly oversized book -- with an abundance of photos -- perfectly appropriate to sit on your coffee table, to be read in an easy chair or couch, at your leisure. It would be so cool for Turner Classic Movies to show these films, all 31, from Oct. 31 to Halloween.

Maybe that will happen one day. But until then, just about all are easily accessible via streaming. So one could indeed watch one a day this Halloween season. 

Three cheers for traditional horror, boo to torture porn

This column by Doug Gibson was originally published in the Aug. 1, 2007 Standard-Examiner. It includes a plug for Ed Wood's 1955 wonderfully creaky mad scientist seeks revenge shocker, "Bride of the Monster," starring Bela Lugosi, in his final substantive role. It also starred Tor Johnson, a Wood regular. Ed co-wrote, produced and directed "Bride." It was sneaked, incredibly, with Deborah Kerr's "The End of the Affair!" (At left, Tor Johnson menaces Loretta King in "Bride.")


Dump the 'torture porn' and enjoy an old 'chiller'

by Doug Gibson


Scary cinema is fad-based. We had the creature-features of 60 and 70 years ago ("Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Wolf Man"), then the atomic, science fiction thrillers ("The Thing," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"). Alfred Hitchcock was a genre himself in the 1960s and early '70s with "Psycho," "The Birds" and "Frenzy."

Gore films were the fad as I grew up. It started with George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," gained momentum with Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and sort of peaked with Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," a clever satire of consumerism.

When I was a teen, John Carpenter's very scary, and slyly amusing, "Halloween" kicked off the "slasher film" fad. "Nightmare on Elm Street" kept that going, and the dreadful "Friday the 13th" started a string of even worse summer camp slasher movies — anyone remember "Sleepaway Camp" or "The Dorm that Dripped Blood?" Unfortunately, I do.

I stopped watching new horror films in the early 1990s. The movies stopped being original to me, although — hate to say this, maybe I just got tired of blood and guts. Today, if I want to see a scary movie, I choose a spooky ghost story, such as "The Others" or "The Sixth Sense" or "Haunted," a low-budget 1995 chiller.

Regarding today's fad — torture porn, such as "Saw" and "Hostel": Not only do I avoid that junk, I'm already planning strategies so my children will spurn it. In my 40s now, I find myself enjoying old, forgotten films, tiny-budget cheapies from the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s. I saw these titles in the 1970s' TV Guide, listed after midnight on Los Angeles' several independent TV stations.

A few I got to watch; most I missed. But I never forgot them: "The Ape Man," "Bowery at Midnight," "Scared to Death," "Murder By Television," "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "Carnival of Souls," "The Man with Nine Lives," "King of the Zombies." The studios that made these films — Republic, Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation, Golden Gate Pictures, Lasky-Monka — they're long gone.

The films have ceased their ubiquitous presence on late-night TV, except rare dates with Turner Classic Movies and UEN's local Sci-Fi Friday movies. But you can buy them all on DVD now — some for a buck. (NEW ADDITION ... a lot of them are on Blu Ray.)

Still, it's sort of sad. As I explain to my skeptical wife, there is a sense of community watching one of these old movies on TV. We're an audience — unseen and far apart — but nevertheless, fans sharing a great film. You don't get that feeling when you watch a film on disc or tape.

For what it's worth, a few recommendations — by decade — of these old chillers. Are they scary? Most, frankly, no. But they are original, with ambitious plots that go as far as a small budget allows.

The 1930s "White Zombie" — This 1932 film stars Bela Lugosi as "Murder Legendre," an evil sorcerer who helps a rich, selfish young man lure a young couple to an island. The selfish man loves the woman, but his plan to win her backfires when the woman is turned into a zombie by Legendre. The film's chills still hold up, particularly the scene of zombies toiling in a sugar mill and the atmospheric castle against a cliff.

The 1940s "Strangler of the Swamp" — Made in 1948, this atmospheric thriller involves a man, hanged for a murder he didn't commit, who returns as a ghost and assumes the role of ferryman at the swamp. Instead of ferrying passengers, he strangles locals in revenge. Finally, a young woman (Rosemary LaPlanche) prepares to offer herself as a sacrifice to get the ghost to leave. The strangler (Charles Middleton) was "Emperor Ming" in the old "Flash Gordon" serials.

The 1950s "Bride of the Monster" — This 1955 film is probably the best Ed Wood directed. Sure, that's not saying much, but an emaciated, drug-addicted Bela Lugosi is still good as embittered, exiled mad scientist Eric Vornoff, who "vill perfect ... a race of atomic supermen vich vill conquer the vorld!" Wood staple Tor Johnson, a 400-pound wrestler, is also in the movie. The low budget includes a photo enlarger as an atomic energizer and a rubber octopus as the monster of the marsh.

The 1960s "Spider Baby: Or the Maddest Story Ever Told" — This comedy/horror is creepy. It stars a very old Lon Chaney Jr. as the caretaker for an insane family. They suffer from a syndrome that causes them to degenerate into children, then babies, then prehuman savages. Relatives come to the house to institutionalize the family. It proves to be a long, horrific night. "Spider Baby" was filmed in 1964 but not released until 1968. Chaney Jr., who could barely talk due to his advanced alcoholism, actually sings the title song.

Gibson is the Standard-Examiner's assistant editorial page editor. He can be reached at dgibson@standard.net.

Up with traditional horror cinema and down with torture porn

This column by Doug Gibson was originally published in the Aug. 1, 2007 Standard-Examiner. It includes a plug for Ed Wood's 1955 wonderfully creaky mad scientist seeks revenge shocker, "Bride of the Monster," starring Bela Lugosi, in his final substantive role. It also starred Tor Johnson, a Wood regular. Ed co-wrote, produced and directed "Bride." It was sneaked, incredibly, with Deborah Kerr's "The End of the Affair!" (At left, Tor Johnson menaces Loretta King in "Bride.")


Dump the 'torture porn' and enjoy an old 'chiller'
by Doug Gibson

Scary cinema is fad-based. We had the creature-features of 60 and 70 years ago ("Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Wolf Man"), then the atomic, science fiction thrillers ("The Thing," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"). Alfred Hitchcock was a genre himself in the 1960s and early '70s with "Psycho," "The Birds" and "Frenzy."

Gore films were the fad as I grew up. It started with George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," gained momentum with Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and sort of peaked with Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," a clever satire of consumerism.

When I was a teen, John Carpenter's very scary, and slyly amusing, "Halloween" kicked off the "slasher film" fad. "Nightmare on Elm Street" kept that going, and the dreadful "Friday the 13th" started a string of even worse summer camp slasher movies — anyone remember "Sleepaway Camp" or "The Dorm that Dripped Blood?" Unfortunately, I do.

I stopped watching new horror films in the early 1990s. The movies stopped being original to me, although — hate to say this, maybe I just got tired of blood and guts. Today, if I want to see a scary movie, I choose a spooky ghost story, such as "The Others" or "The Sixth Sense" or "Haunted," a low-budget 1995 chiller.

Regarding today's fad — torture porn, such as "Saw" and "Hostel": Not only do I avoid that junk, I'm already planning strategies so my children will spurn it. In my 40s now, I find myself enjoying old, forgotten films, tiny-budget cheapies from the '30s, '40s, '50s and '60s. I saw these titles in the 1970s' TV Guide, listed after midnight on Los Angeles' several independent TV stations.

A few I got to watch; most I missed. But I never forgot them: "The Ape Man," "Bowery at Midnight," "Scared to Death," "Murder By Television," "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "Carnival of Souls," "The Man with Nine Lives," "King of the Zombies." The studios that made these films — Republic, Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation, Golden Gate Pictures, Lasky-Monka — they're long gone.

The films have ceased their ubiquitous presence on late-night TV, except rare dates with Turner Classic Movies and UEN's local Sci-Fi Friday movies. But you can buy them all on DVD now — some for a buck.

Still, it's sort of sad. As I explain to my skeptical wife, there is a sense of community watching one of these old movies on TV. We're an audience — unseen and far apart — but nevertheless, fans sharing a great film. You don't get that feeling when you watch a film on disc or tape.

For what it's worth, a few recommendations — by decade — of these old chillers. Are they scary? Most, frankly, no. But they are original, with ambitious plots that go as far as a small budget allows.

The 1930s "White Zombie" — This 1932 film stars Bela Lugosi as "Murder Legendre," an evil sorcerer who helps a rich, selfish young man lure a young couple to an island. The selfish man loves the woman, but his plan to win her backfires when the woman is turned into a zombie by Legendre. The film's chills still hold up, particularly the scene of zombies toiling in a sugar mill and the atmospheric castle against a cliff.

The 1940s "Strangler of the Swamp" — Made in 1948, this atmospheric thriller involves a man, hanged for a murder he didn't commit, who returns as a ghost and assumes the role of ferryman at the swamp. Instead of ferrying passengers, he strangles locals in revenge. Finally, a young woman (Rosemary LaPlanche) prepares to offer herself as a sacrifice to get the ghost to leave. The strangler (Charles Middleton) was "Emperor Ming" in the old "Flash Gordon" serials.
The 1950s "Bride of the Monster" — This 1955 film is probably the best Ed Wood directed. Sure, that's not saying much, but an emaciated, drug-addicted Bela Lugosi is still good as embittered, exiled mad scientist Eric Vornoff, who "vill perfect ... a race of atomic supermen vich vill conquer the vorld!" Wood staple Tor Johnson, a 400-pound wrestler, is also in the movie. The low budget includes a photo enlarger as an atomic energizer and a rubber octopus as the monster of the marsh.

The 1960s "Spider Baby: Or the Maddest Story Ever Told" — This comedy/horror is creepy. It stars a very old Lon Chaney Jr. as the caretaker for an insane family. They suffer from a syndrome that causes them to degenerate into children, then babies, then prehuman savages. Relatives come to the house to institutionalize the family. It proves to be a long, horrific night. "Spider Baby" was filmed in 1964 but not released until 1968. Chaney Jr., who could barely talk due to his advanced alcoholism, actually sings the title song.

Gibson is the Standard-Examiner's assistant editorial page editor. He can be reached at dgibson@standard.net.

Regional Horror Films book offers interesting interviews and long list of films

By Doug Gibson

If you're a cult- or alternative-film fan/geek like I am, and I assume most of our readers are, then Brian Albright has provided a great service with his latest McFarland Publishers book, "Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990: A State-by-State Guide with Interviews." (here) The book is comprised in two parts: a series of interviews with directors or persons otherwise associated with regional horror films; and a lengthy, fairly complete listing, state-by-state, of regional, ultra low-budget horrors for the 32 years covered.

Albright correctly describes a regional film as shot outside of the entertainment industry, or southern California, and not associated with a major, or even minor, studio. In many cases, these were labors of love, or hobbies that turned into several-year projects, punctuated by stubborn persistence by the filmmakers to get the thing done. What's fairly consistent through the interviews that Albright gathered -- probably over several years since some of the essays are from 2008 -- is that the filmmakers saw little, or no money, from their endeavors. Distributors took all the cash, the films were pirated and sold throughout the nation and world, the made-for-video market collapsed in the late 1980s ... survivors of the original filmmaker sold the film for a quick buck, and so on. (It would be interesting for McFalarland to publish a book on the many ways ways small-time, regional filmmakers were shut out of whatever cash flow came from their films.)

It's wise that Albright resists the urge to provide interviews involving regional films that hit it big and spawned imitators, such as "The Evil Dead" or "Night of the Living Dead." While their stories are fascinating, there is more than enough articles and books out there for fans to go to. Instead, Albright picks an eclectic group to interview. I particularly enjoy the interview with Robert Burrill, the man behind "The Milpitas Monster." Although previously published in FilmFax, the story of how a school and a small city banded together to make an ecological monster film, partially as a protest against a larger city critic's slamming of said city, is interesting. What started out as a short literally grew, like a monster, into a finished film.

In fact, future filmmakers can learn from some of the stories, including Donald Barton of Florida, who cobbled together investors willing to put in almost $100,000 to make "Zaat," a story about a scientist who turns himself into a catfish monster. (Barton even got a local Baptist church to help out!) After seeing "Zaat" falter and even be turned into other titles by distribution deals that yielded no money, Barton shelved his movie for 30 years before fans convinced him to publicize it on the Web, show it -- to a big crowd -- at an locla theater, and (later) move it back into DVD distribution. Amazingly, I watched "Zaat" recently on Turner Classic Movies' TCM Underground series; a similar "distinction" was awarded another Florida regional film listed in the compendium, "Carnival Magic," directed by the late Al Adamson. (It was also fascinating to learn that regional horror films were easier to make due to tax write offs that were unfortunately eliminated by Congress, strangling the genre by the latter half of the 1980s.)

It'd be nice to see a TCM Underground showing for regional director, J.R. Bookwalter, who is interviewed by Albright, mostly about "The Dead Next Door," his homage to Romero's zombie movies that for a while, received some support from "The Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi. Bookwalter eventually moved into low-budget producing and distribution, and it's facinating to read about the details of that industry. It may be the only viable way for most talented micro-budget regional horror filmmakers to make some bucks.

I also enjoyed the interview with the eccentric Milton Moses Ginsberg, who crafted the bizarre monster/political film, "The Werewolf of Washington," a staple today for horror movie hosts looking to cheaply lampoon public domain films. Ginsberg, who admits to being most horrified by "The Wolfman" as a youngster, created in the early 1970s what seems like a natural take off on the Watergate ... except that the film was hatched and created prior to the Watergate scandal breaking. In any event, it's a prescient regional film, and (of course) died quickly at the box office, before being pirated to the VHS and DVD market.

As mentioned, the compendium is fairly complete, and includes at least a paragraph, and most often more, on the hundreds of regional films included. A lot of low-budget cult figures are covered pretty well in the list, including Andy Milligan and Bill Rebane. The video nasty Utah regional horror, "Don't Go In the Woods ... Alone," is included, as well as the interesting, Texas regional from the 1960s, "The Black Cat." The pre-porno adult regional filmmakers are mentioned from time to time, including the late Barry Mahon's "The Sex Killer," which captures many bleak late-1960s shots of the New York City business districts.

A lot of the films mentioned in this book, including "Black Cat" and Milligan's "Torture Dungeon," would be great picks for future TCM Underground selections. Let's hope the brains behind that series is reading Albright's book..

Ten preferred horror films, from Doug Gibson and Steve D. Stones

(I hold these films in high esteem for many reasons. Don’t assume the first I mention is the most frightening I have ever seen. Today that honor goes to the original Halloween, but tomorrow it may be the original Psycho, and the next day it might be the original The Haunting. … Note the inclusion of “the original,” which tells us something about the ubiquity of crappy remakes out here.) And as the viewer can clearly see above, there has never been a monster as scary as Lon Chaney's Phantom!

-- Doug Gibson

      Frankenstein, 1931: Boris Karloff’s portrayal of the monster produced sympathy from audiences. After he left the series, the monster turned into a stumbling, grunting animal.

      Dracula, 1931: Bela Lugosi’s portrayal forever defines how a vampire should behave. Dark, aristocratic courtesy, slow, deliberate movements and speech, befit a creature who has existed for almost an eternity.

      Phantom of the Opera, 1925: Lon Chaney created the most repulsive, horrifying monster ever.

    Night of the Living Dead, 1968: George A. Romero’s decision to turn the dead into flesh-eating zombies created a thriving horror genre that has yet to reach its peak.

5     The Haunting, 1963: The best of the haunted house horror films. This Robert Wise film scares the hell out of viewers with atmosphere, imagination and a few knocks on a door.

      The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974: This film merits inclusion because it spawned a genre that has yet to abate – the “slasher” genre of nihilistic, giggling, drooling maniacs. Watching this film is akin to screaming for an entire day.

     Psycho, 1960: A classic of suspense, and one of the first films to provide a shock ending most audiences won’t see coming.

     Halloween, 1978: John Carpenter’s masterpiece is perhaps the scariest film ever. He takes the time to develop characters the audience cares about, and then has them dispatched in suspenseful scenes involving the now-stereotypical soulless killer. Carpenter also heightens the terror with skillful use of foreground shots.

      The Blair Witch Project, 1999: This film launched the genre of horror films that are comprised of found video or experienced in a secondary medium. The Paranormal series is an example. “Blair Witch…” is also very scary, claustrophobic, and unsettling with its jerky cinematography.

    The Sadist, 1963: This film represents the ignored low-budget film that is so good that it slowly merits attention and gains acclaim. Arch W. Hall Jr. is frightening as a merciless teen psychopath, accompanied by a moronic girlfriend, who terrifies some teachers at an abandoned roadside inn just outside Los Angeles.  The chatter of the Dodger pre-game show on the car radio as the horror ensues is unsettling.

       Honorable mention: Them, 1954: The post-World War II and Cold War era moved viewers from traditional monsters to new, nuclear-initiated monsters and mutations at home and in outer space. My favorite is this tale of mutant ants that need to be stopped before they realize they can take over the world.

My Top 10 horror films, By Steve D. Stones

1)      Dawn of the Dead (1978 version)

2)      Nosferatu (1921 version)

3)      The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919 silent)

4)      Hellraiser (1987)

5)      Night of the Living Dead (1968 version)

6)      The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 version, not that crappy 2003 version)

7)      Black Sunday (1960 Mario Bava film, not the 1970s football movie)

8)      Carnival of Souls (1962 version)

9)      The Evil Dead (1983)

10)   Shock Waves (1976)

So here are our Plan 9 Crunch favorite horror films, courtesy of Doug and Steve. Most, if not all, are reviewed on this site. Read the reviews, watch all 19 mentioned. We’ve seen them all, more than once.