Category: Horror films

Really Awful Movies: Ep 319 – Zombie aka Zombi 2

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Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, aka Zombi 2 (and a whole whack of other things) is a 1979 Italian zombie film adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as some kind of sequel to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), though it strays pretty far from that source material.

Zombie stars Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, and Richard Johnson, and features a score by frequent Fulci collaborator and dynamite horror scorer Fabio Frizzi.

The film features a boat mysteriously abandoned and drifting around lower Manhattan. When NYPD tries to board, they’re met with a disgusting, desiccated undead thing.

How that thing got there, is how McCulloch gets involved, portraying journalist Peter West.

The vessel is registered to a guy traced back to the island of Matul, somewhere in the Caribbean.

What was he doing there? What nefarious goings on were taking place? How did that gross creature end up in New York? These and a whole host of other questions are answered this week, as the Really Awful Movies Podcast takes you to Italian horror territory and this classic gut-muncher, Zombi 2.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 318 – Haunt

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Haunt is a 2019 American slasher film written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writing duo behind A Quiet Place.

It’s set in one of those haunted house Halloween attractions. And surprisingly, this is one of the better films set on Halloween, along with John Carpenter’s Halloween, House of 1,000 Corpses, Sinister, and Murder Party, which we podcasted not long ago.

The premise: a bunch of college co-eds are out and about in small town Illinois, a bit like the Michael Myers classic. They’re bar-hopping, and after growing weary of it, hop in their vehicle in search of one of those spooky haunted houses.

They drive up to what is not so much a house, but more of a haunted warehouse. And the doorman is a creepy clown, holding out two hands to choose their own adventure inside, in a way.

Haunt is creepy as hell. There are two extraordinarily intense scenes, and it’s quiet, eschewing cheap jump scares.

The performances are dynamite too, and there’s some nice backstory for the lead.

In the podcast, contextualizing the Halloween haunted house experience, Tobe Hooper’s Funhouse, Hell Fest, and Toronto’s Casa Loma Halloween experience.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 317 – Sleep Tight

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Sleep Tight aka Mientras duermes is a 2011 Spanish psychological thriller directed by REC director, Jaume Balagueró.

REC is a handheld/found footage film that’s one of the best of its type, and Sleep Tight, while a different style of filmmaking, brings the chills as well.

Cesar is a building concierge/superintendent tasked to do repairs, maintenance in a Barcelona building. And he’s consumed with one of the tenants, Clara, sending her gross texts and letters and even sneaking into her unit, making excuses for extra repairs that need to be done there.

Sleep Tight is a, well…”tight” little horror film. There are a few definite surprises and the performances are top-notch. And the cast of characters in the building helps build atmosphere and intrigue, particularly the little girl who is on to Cesar.

On this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, maintenance man horror movies put in context, with references to the Val Kilmer vehicle, The Super, but also the slasher series, 13 Cameras. Also, the Spanish horror scene and how there was a period in North American where horror filmmakers dropped the ball, only to be picked up again abroad.