Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 25: Sugar Hill (1974)

Sugar Hill is a blaxploitation horror movie that's better than Blacula. Yeah, I said it!

Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marki Bey) hires a voodoo queen (Zara Cully) to help avenge the death of her boyfriend Langston (Larry D. Johnson) after he is murdered by the mob. The Lord of the Dead thusly springs to action, along with his army of zombies, who are actually the preserved bodies of slaves brought over from Guinea in the 1800's. Don't know how they were preserved! Don't wanna know! I do know they walk around encased in cobwebs, with bulbous silver eyes, and are genuinely creepy looking.

Sugar Hill is a Black heroine up there with Coffy and Foxy Brown, taking no shit from nobody. I mean, how can you not love a leading lady who says things like, "Hey whitey! You and your punk friends killed my man!" and, "I'm not accusing you, Honk. I'm passing sentence!" She's also got a lot of groovy costume changes and several wigs in rotation. Perfect.

In short, I highly recommend Sugar Hill, which can be viewed (with ads) via YouTube here.

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 24: You Should Have Left (2020)

You Should Have Left was one of those movies that was originally supposed to be a theatrical release, but due to the pandemic, was released as an on-demand rental instead, and I think it did pretty well. Probably better than it would have done had it been released in theaters, because it's not very good, and also because I bet a lot of the reviews would have used the sentence "you should have left the theater."

National treasure Amanda Seyfried stars as Susanna, a movie actress married to an older man, retired banker Theodore (Kevin Bacon). They have a young daughter, Ella (Avery Essex). It's a second marriage for Theodore, and there is some initial mystery surrounding how that first marriage ended. When the family takes a vacation to Wales, nightmares and weird goings on begin to haunt Theodore..

 

Seyfried and Bacon are engaging enough actors that I did find myself enjoying a lot of the movie. It's got some spooky moments in their vacation home, which reveals itself to be, literally, more than meets the eye. The scenery surrounding the home is also beautiful. But the ending gets a little muddled, with some aspects being painfully obvious, and others puzzling head-scratchers. I ultimately came away from it a little annoyed.

 

I watched You Should Have Left on Peacock. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 23: Embryo (1976)

First off, when I say I watched the movie Embryo, I use the term "watched" loosely. The only version streaming online appears to be a 10th generation (at least) dupe of a VHS copy, possibly filmed while projected onto a sheet. But this is the movie my random watchlist selection told me to watch, so this is the movie I (tried) to watch!

It starts off rough, with Rock Hudson hitting a doberman whilst driving a dark road during a rain storm. At least I think that's what happens. I heard brakes screeching, and a dog whimpering, so assumed that's what led Hudson, who is playing a doctor, to bring a dog into his home lab and attempt to save its life.

The dog turns out to be pregnant, so Dr. Rock experiments with the fetuses, which turn into puppies seemingly overnight. Of course, the next logical step is to perform the same experiment on a pregnant woman who has conveniently died via suicide.

From there the movie basically turns into a Frankenstein story, with the baby rapidly growing up to be Barbara Carrera. Her only teacher is the doctor, and yet she learns to speak with an indeterminate accent that is definitely not Rock Hudson American. That the doctor also has sex with this surrogate daughter is a huge ick, but let's just say they don't live happily ever after.

Diane Ladd, Roddy McDowell, and Dr. Joyce Brothers (!) are also featured in some smaller roles. Definitely NOT worth watching in the form that's currently available to stream, and I have no idea if its sole DVD release was any better. 

Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 22: Appendage (2023)

Appendage is like Basket Case meets Project Runway, with a dash of It's Alive, and a sprinkling of Rosemary's Baby. And a little bit of The Brood, to boot.

I guess what I'm saying is, Appendage is not the most original movie you will ever see, but it's got some fun moments in it.

Hadley Robinson stars as Hannah, a fashion designer's apprentice who one day finds a lump on her side that turns out to be a small monster - a small monster who's a total asshole, giving voice to all the insecurities in her head. Eventually she learns she's not the only person with such a monster, and they have an actual support group...

At first, because the tiny monster is such a dick, and pretty amateurish looking in its design, I figured this would end up being a full-fledged comedy. And while it definitely is funny at times, after a few twists, eventually it reveals itself to be a little more dramatic in nature. And when that happened, I began to miss the comedy. Still, I did find it enjoyable, and especially liked Emily Hampshire as Claudia, the friend (or is she?) Hannah makes in the support group.

Appendage is streaming on Hulu. 

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.