Unseen Terror 2022: Day 3

It's no secret that I'm a pretty diehard "kaiju eiga" fanatic, which stems back to when I saw my first Godzilla films around the time that I was entering second grade. In the three decades that have followed, I've been able to witness the genre twist and turn into all sorts of directions while still retaining some of its utter majesty and, well, coolness. As technology advances forward (with the likes of The Big G and King Kong themselves being entirely digitally rendered now), a motion picture like 2019's Howl from Beyond the Fog is a welcome throwback to a time when these features were doing what they could with what they had in terms of financial backing (if any at all). In this case, Howl is a beautifully done low budget short film featuring a cast comprised of nothing but puppets.

No, you certainly didn't read that wrong. Remember what I said yesterday?

The story is set during Japan's Meiji era, which ran for close to sixty years back in the 1860s. A young man named Eiji returns to Kyushu to meet his mother but when he arrives, he is startled to meet a blind woman named Takiri living with her, who instructs him to never speak of their encounter because according to her she's "supposed to be dead." One evening he spots Takiri near a lake. She hums softly and summons a giant creature from the water. Initially frightened, Eiji flees, but soon discovers through Takiri that this monster (named "Nebula") is quite misunderstood. Around this same time, developers are attempting to convince Eiji's mother to sell her land to facilitate the construction of a dam. Without going too much into spoilers, things...don't go well.

What makes Howl feel like a such a special little piece isn't just its aforementioned filmmaking choice, but how much they're able to accomplish by nearly make you forget that you're staring at primarily stone-faced marionettes and dolls. It also has remarkably good atmosphere in utilizing fog and water effects without it looking very jarring or the contrast being too noticeable. The score is also artistically orchestrated but not overpowering. I suppose that if I were to have any complaints (other than wishing this was a full-length feature and not a short film) it would be that the voice acting is a bit on the hit-or-miss side. Eiji and Takiri's performers are very good, but the film's primary antagonists sound very static or unenthusiastic rather than menacing or cruel. Those are very minor complaints though, as the positives far outweigh the negatives here.

I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but Howl from Beyond the Fog is an essential watch for those who are searching for something that is a love letter to the kaiju genre that doesn't seem like pandering. It's a beautiful passion project made by and for fans who yearn for something a little different but not distinctly alien. Currently, it's streaming on both Amazon Prime and Tubi. The actual movie itself runs for about thirty minutes, and the second half of its "runtime" is a behind-the-scenes look at its inception and creation. Pretty sweet.

Oh, I didn't mention that Nebula is cool, did I? Because Nebula totally is.

Tomorrow, we're ditching class and elegance and going back to Italy for some BRAAAAIIIIINNSSS.

Unseen Terror 2014: Day 15

The townsfolk of Antonio Island, Oregon are on the verge of unveiling a set of new town statues, honoring the men who helped found their town in 1871. One of the gentlemen's descendants, fishing vessel owner Nick Castle, has recently welcomed back his girlfriend Elizabeth to the island after a six month absence. Everything seems fine at first, until a series of bizarre incidents start to occur, including a series of gruesome murders. Coupled with these is the presence of a mysterious, eerie fog. After discovering an old journal, Elizabeth begins to connect the events together, realizing that perhaps the Island's own forefathers may have returned, seeking vengeance for then-unknown reasons.

By the year 2005, horror icon John Carpenter had taken a small hiatus from filmmaking after his 2001 Science Fiction picture Ghosts of Mars bombed critically and financially. Though the man was not exactly done with involvement in the film industry, sticking with producing and/or writing credits on the likes of Halloween: Resurrection and a sequel to 1998's Vampires, the middle of the decade saw Carpenter-approved remakes of two of his lesser-known projects: The Fog and Assault of Precinct 13. Though the original 1980 version of the former had its fair share of fans, and is widely considered to be an overlooked movie in his own catalogue, the director was always vocally critical of the final product. So, in somewhat of a surprise, Carpenter and original Fog co-writer Debra Hill attached themselves to this re-imagining by overseeing, co-writing, and producing the whole ordeal while letting Stigmata main man Rupert Wainwright supervise and take a seat in the director's chair.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't think that the original version of The Fog is a masterpiece whatsoever, but it is pretty darn good considering that it was the man's project that followed up his masterpiece Halloween. So I hit play on this, skeptical beyond belief, but like most remakes I see these days, somewhat willing to give it a chance.

Three minutes in, a Fall Out Boy song begins to play and we get two young men with "cool" and "fresh" dialogue.

Jesus jumped up christ, if this is what John Carpenter had originally envisioned and felt was ultimately what he wanted out of his original product, then that is the scariest part of all and makes me question his level of sanity. Speaking of Fall Out Boy, the soundtrack to 2005's version of The Fog, which also consists of artists like Petey Pablo and OK Go (yeah, those will sure help set a mood and build tension), along with hit-or-miss composer Graeme Revell, is the least of this flick's problems. For starters, there's the cast. At the risk of angering some of my friends, Maggie Grace just isn't a good substitute for Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, she's just downright awful in most pictures that she's attached to, and certainly not powerful or skilled enough to carry anything of this caliber. Smallville alumni Tom Welling is absolutely wasted too, and is clearly there to collect a paycheck during his downtime of portraying Superman on the WB. The recasting that I was most optimistic for was Selma Blair, taking over the role of Adrienne Barbeau's disc jockey from the original. She does a somewhat okay job with what she has to work with, but portrays the role of Stevie with too much dryness for the most part, and doesn't carry the same weight or distinctive voice that the former 1980s sex symbol possessed. After the cast, another problem is the pacing and just plain inactiveness of Hill, Carpenter, and relative unknown Cooper Layne's (whose only other screenwriting is noted dud The Core) new screenplay. Though they're trying to flesh out the story more as opposed to the original, they forget to pack in the scares, so we're left to rely upon cheap jump scare after cheap jump scare. Again, this fails to help set a spooky tone, resulting in a motion picture that feels more like a cure for insomnia or a modern throwaway theatrical release rather than an effective, chilling ghost story. Basically, it's incredibly, agonizingly boring.

There is absolutely nothing worth praising or recommending here. Not even a brief scene of Selma Blair in her panties cleaning a brush in the sink. This is the absolute definition of a colossal misfire, and all too deserving of the 4% that it currently holds on pages such as Rottentomatoes.com (and it sits in the bottom one hundred on that website). I counted a whopping six times that I was ever so close to stopping this and just deciding to skip ahead to tomorrow's pick instead. Don't waste your time, don't even bat an eye at it, and just forget that it exists.

No, seriously, don't bother. It even doesn't deserve a clever outro.

Tomorrow, the director of Versus and Godzilla: Final Wars attempts to lift my spirits with The Midnight Meat Train!

Unseen Terror 2012: Day 14

On the eve of its one hundredth birthday, a town is overtaken by a mysterious fog that envelops nearly the entire area, and endangers all citizens in its path.


How the hell did it take me this long to see this one?! The Fog was director John Carpenter's first theatrical release following the surprise success of Halloween two years prior. Both films share some aspects with one another, including the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis and a seemingly unstoppable evil out to kill everyone in its path. That seems to be where the similarities end though.

I was surprised to see just how many familiar faces of 80s horror were present throughout its ninety minute running time (though this might be the quickest ninety minutes I've ever sat through). We've got Adrienne Barbeau (Creepshow, Swamp Thing), Tom Atkins (Maniac Cop, Nights of the Creeps), the aforementioned Curtis, Hal Holbrook (Creepshow, Wall Street), and Janet Leigh (Psycho) in the cast, so either Carpenter did his homework or just has a knack for good casting.

The film also certainly FEELS like a John Carpenter flick, with JC composing the score himself, building tension at just the right time, and making it feel almost like a classic mystery rather than a horror film. I'm aware that JC has gone on the record about his displeasure with the film's budget and reshoots, but I don't see why. Like Halloween, the budget for The Fog was considerably low, but that's never seemed to stop the man from doing what he can with what he has. The lighting effects on the fog itself is pretty chilling, and the kills, though rather bloodless, are gruesome and horrific.

I've heard for years that this was one of the more underrated horror films from the early 80s, and I would definitely agree. Good tension, good atmosphere, good use of its budget, and just a pretty good time overall.

A priest invites an old friend of his, a professor, to an abandoned church in Los Angeles. The professor brings along multiple colleagues, who discover a mysterious cylinder containing moving, green liquid. What the liquid embodies though, is far beyond that of what science can understand, and this liquid could very well bring about the end times.


This is John Carpenter's second entry in what he calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy," which also includes the rightly beloved The Thing and the vastly underrated In the Mouth of Madness. One of several questions entered my mind upon starting Prince of Darkness: does it deserve the flack that it so often gets? In my opinion, well, yes. Does that make it a bad film though? I would have to say that it doesn't.

For one thing, the film has way too many characters to keep track of, to the point where there's even a scene where the other characters forget who one certain person is. The ones that we are assigned to pay the closest attention to are decently well-rounded, but certainly not perfect. It was nice to see Victor Wong (Tremors, 3 Ninjas) play someone who you could constitute as noble and remarkably intelligent.  Though he received top billing, I kind of wish they had done a little bit more with Donald Pleasence, who just felt like a typical worried priest. There's also a comedic relief character played by Dennis Dun, and even though I did find him to be a bit annoying, he did provide a bit of heart that was sorely needed at times.

Like almost all of Carpenter's horror works, this was is also fairly quiet in nature, and the heavy emphasis on scientific conversations might also lull some less patient viewers to sleep. And like Carpenter's work on The Thing, there are quite a few visual spots that will stick with you for some time (one particular scene involving beetles was quite the sight to behold). The ending is also deliberately ambiguous, opening up a whole new can of worms for the viewer.

Those who are interested in "satanic horror" will have some fun with this one, but it can be a chore to sit through until about the half way point. I'd personally recommend it, but with some hesitation.


Tomorrow, we take a trip to Tromaville with the much delayed POULTRYGEIST.