Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 21: The Night Walker (1964)

The Night Walker is another one of William Castle's movies that did not include any kind of associated gimmick, unless you consider Barbara Stanwyck's insane screaming to be a gimmick. Lady had some pipes on her!

Stanwyck stars as Irene Trent, the unhappy wife to a blind, rich asshole who is convinced she is having an affair because she keeps moaning about another man in her sleep. When her husband is conveniently killed in a lab explosion, Irene continues having dreams about another man, and can't determine if they're actually real, or in fact just dreams. Robert Taylor - Stanwyck's real-life ex-husband at the time - is her husband's one-time lawyer, who promises to help her figure out what's really going on.

And what's really going ends up being pretty ridiculous, even by the standards of screenwriter Robert Bloch. Expect some revelations that make you go, "you're kidding, right?"

Really, the best part of the entire movie is the surreal opening montage, especially if you are a fan of the "Haunted Mansion" at Disneyland. That scene is included in the video below if you don't want to bother watching the entire movie (which is available to rent online, though I watched it on a DVD from my library).

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 20: Slash/Back (2022)

Watching Slash/Back immediately brought to mind Attack the Block, as it is also a movie about a group of marginalized kids fighting an alien attack, and John Carpenter's The Thing, because it's an alien attack movie set in a snowy area. And also because the characters in the movie talk about The Thing directly. Director Nyla Innuksuk is for sure not hiding that film's influence.

The director is Inuit, and majority of the young cast of amateur actors were found primarily in the Inuit community of Pangnirtung, near where it was filmed. That's the film's greatest strength, and also at times it's biggest weakness. Getting a glimpse into a community that does not get a lot of cinematic representation is a treat. And for the most part, the young cast is pretty good. But there are times where their lack of experience definitely comes across in some line readings and stiffness.

I also really loved how the aliens are depicted wearing what are essentially the skins of its victims. What was probably a pretty cheap effect to pull off ends up being both gross and at times, pretty funny.

I watched Slash/Back on Shudder.

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 19: Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

At the beginning of this countdown I mentioned that the majority of the movies I would be watching would be selected randomly by setting my Letterboxd Watchlist to shuffle, and the genre to horror, and then watching whatever shows up first (and is currently available to watch in some form). But I think this is the first movie that's a miss, because Five Dolls for an August Moon really isn't a horror film. It's more of a murder mystery, and not truly a giallo mystery either, even though it was directed by Mario Bava.

Loosely based on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, it also of course brought to mind Glass Onion, though unlike that one, this one does not have a detective on the case, just a murderer, who is picking off the guests on a private island one by one. 

Despite some really groovy interiors, costumes, and, on the women, hair, I found this to be a total snooze. I kept hoping it might get garish when the murders started, but those were pretty boring too. Alas. 

And maybe if I wasn't wanting and expecting a horror movie, I would have felt different. But I kept waiting for it to turn into the kind of movie I expect from Mario Bava, and it never did. So, the first complete miss on this countdown, in my opinion.

I watched Five Dolls for an August Moon on Kanopy. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 18: Azrael (2024)

Are Samara Weaving movies a genre unto themselves? That genre being a movie where Samara Weaving is fighting for her life through the entire film and eventually ends up covered in blood? Because Azrael definitely fits into that genre.

And sure some of that genre has been good. And I'm usually also a sucker for the other genre this falls into: post-apocalyptic horror. But this one just didn't do it for me. I'll give it credit for originality in one respect though: it is practically dialogue free. 

The set up is, the Rapture has taken the majority of humans from Earth. Some of those remaining now live in a cult that believes speech is a sin, and have removed their vocal chords to prevent speaking. Weaving plays a woman who has escaped the cult with her lover - and that cult wants them back.

Oh, and there's also a band of burnt-to-a crisp, flesh-eating demons running around trying to eat these mute cultists, and when they do find them, ooof. It's pretty grisly.

When the movie began, I was kind of digging it. It takes place in some beautiful woods, and the cinematography is gorgeous. But then it just becomes a series of fights and flights, flights and fights, with Weaving ending up covered in blood, as that genre requires. The very, very ending, seems to throw a bit of a twist into the mix, though I'm not sure I really understood it. But also, I didn't really care. 

I watched Azrael on Shudder. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 17: Monster In the Closet (1986)

Monster In the Closet is another horror movie partially set in San Francisco, though the majority takes place in a fictional town that is clearly Los Angeles. I will give the movie props for its finale, which does indeed take place on the streets of San Francisco, in and around North Beach and the Transamerica building.

I'll be blunt and tell you that Monster In the Closet is a really stupid movie, but intentionally so. It was distributed by Troma Entertainment, definitely not a company known for hits highbrow taste, and it is literally about a monster (a pretty well designed one, for how cheap the movie is), that hides in closets, attacking and killing people, and somehow its lone existence is enough to set the entire planet into a panic over the end of the world.

But for such a stupid movie, it has an insanely stacked cast full of basically a who's who of 1970's and 1980's character actors, including Henry Gibson, Paul Dooley, Donald Moffat, Claude Atkins, John Carradine, and (a topless!) Stella Stevens. 

Horror comedies can be pretty bleak, and Monster In the Closet is no exception. But! I did laugh a handful of times, and the ending is just so silly, I couldn't help but kinda love this dumb movie.

It's streaming free on various platforms, and I'm pretty sure all the copies are crappy VHS transfers. When are we getting a remastered Blu-ray release??

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 16: Starve Acre (2023)

Starve Acre is an intriguing bit of British folk horror that's also a bit of a downer, as it centers on the death of a child, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark star as a couple living on the moors in what appears to be the late 1960's or early 1970's. They have a young, asthmatic son who says he has been hearing the voice of someone named Jack Grey when he sleeps. After he's involved in a violent incident at a local fair, his parents take him to a psychiatrist who runs tests, and finds nothing unusual. Then tragedy strikes. 

Gradually the husband's work as an archeology professor begins to meld with scary folk tales from his past, and when a mysterious hare makes its way into their home, things get really weird.

I do have a soft spot for folky horror, and liked a lot of this. The hare is both cute and creepy (though I wish they'd made its eyes more realistic), and there are a few surprising developments near the end. But it's also a pretty slow burn, and I did find my mind wandering a few times. So, not a crowd pleaser, but definitely interesting.

Starve Acre is streaming on Shudder. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 15: Night School (1980)

I think the only reason I thought Night School might be worth a watch is because it was the film debut of Rachel Ward, an actress I always liked back in the 1980's, primarily in the miniseries The Thorn Birds, but also in the movies Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and Against All Odds. And for a first film, she does give a pretty good performance, even if the movie isn't that great. And gosh, just look at her. Is she pretty or what?

Night School is basically a slasher film, though it could be argued it's actually a giallo, especially since one of the film's other stars is Leonard Mann, who appeared in a few Italian giallos (and spaghetti westerns). He plays the detective on the hunt for a black leather-clad, motorcycle-helmeted killer who decapitates victims and then submerges their heads in water, to be discovered later. When it turns out two of the victims were students of the same anthropology professor at a local all girls college, suspicion falls on him. His being a serial philanderer doesn't help his case with the police, or the latest research assistant he's having an affair with (played by Ward).

Having the detective be the center of the story also makes it sound like a giallo, and some of the kills - or at least, discovery of those kills, especially a morbidly hilarious discovery in a restaurant - are lurid. But a sex scene involving red paint in a shower (!) is the most colorful thing in the movie, and the ultimate whodunit reveal is not nearly convoluted enough by giallo standards. So it probably falls more accurately into the realm of mediocre 80's slashers.

Night School is available to rent online, but I watched it on a Blu-ray from my local library. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 14: Mother of Flies (2025)

The latest movie by the Adams family of filmmakers came out earlier this year, but I decided to put off watching it until this countdown because it's been a bit of a tradition to try and include their films each year. (You can see past entries here, here, here, and here.)

Mother of Flies is a bit more of a return to the stories and style of movie they started out making, after last year's period piece Where the Devil Roams, and 2024's bigger budgeted and effects heavy Hell Hole. And I think they really do their best work when they're working on these simpler tales, closer to home, as I like this one a lot more than those last two.

The story, about a teenage girl with terminal cancer (Zelda Adams), who decides to see a witch (Toby Poser), as a last ditch effort at healing, and her skeptical father (John Adams), who does his best to support this plan, also hits close to home, as both Toby Poser and John Adams have dealt with their own cancer diagnoses in the past, and Zelda is dealing with the genetic implications of that.

And while I am not sure I entirely understand how the story ultimately plays out (the ending is a tad confusing), I really thought the cinematography was beautifully shot, and could feel the more personal aspects of the story play out in the dialogue and performances. 

I don't always love the movies the Adams family makes, but I will always absolutely love that they continue to make them. 

Mother of Flies is streaming on Shudder. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 13: The Children (1980)

I think I've mentioned before how I wish Letterboxd had some kind of note or tag you could easily add to a film when you add it to your watchlist, because a lot of the time I have no idea why the hell I felt like a movie ever deserved to be added.

So, I really have no idea how or why The Children ended up on my list. But I'm not mad about it! This movie is nuts! A school bus drives through a toxic cloud, turning the kids into zombies with black fingernails. The kids wander around with their arms outstretched, looking for hugs, but lo, pity the fool who falls into their toxic embrace, as they will surely meet their doom.

I think the movie is trying to make some kind of commentary on irresponsible parenting since it's filled with parents getting stoned during the day, smoking while pregnant, or just generally ignoring their kids. Though really, wasn't that just standard parenting in the 1970's??

It's extremely low budget (though it stars Martin Shaker, an actor probably best known for his role as John Travolta's brother the priest in Saturday Night Fever), but was released on Blu-ray in 2018 by Vinegar Syndrome. I assume the print I watched on Prime is that print, but it's weird how some of the scenes look very faded and rough, while other scenes look absolutely pristine. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 12: Infested (2023)

Infested is a French flick you definitely shouldn't see if you have a thing about spiders. Because if it had me - someone who's not particularly scared of them - cringing, squirming, and occasionally screaming, it just may kill you.

Set primarily in a Paris apartment building, it plays a bit like a virus horror film, with the characters being told not to leave the building, as they desperately try to avoid an infection, although this time the infection is actually an infestation.

Black market sneakers dealer Kaleb (Théo Christine) purchases an exotic spider, brings it back to his apartment, and soon finds it's gotten loose. Of course that spider was no ordinary creepy as hell spider. The breed is deadly, multiples seemingly instantaneously, and can grow up to 100 times its original size.

There are a lot of scenes of the characters having to traverse dark hallways and enter creepy rooms, as the building quickly fills with webs and giant spiders. So while there's nothing particularly original about that set-up, it's done well, and kept me pretty squirmy the while time.

Infested is available to rent online, and is also streaming on Shudder.