Among the curated horror movies currently available on SHUDDER is the mid-70s ‘erotic’ (read, naked women) horror flick Vampyres.

Hailing from the UK, Vampyres centers on a pair of lesbian vampires living in a dilapidated country manor, the same used for the exterior shots of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and many Hammer productions, where, with carnal seduction, they lure unsuspecting victims.

One weeknight after I have finished my writing for the evening, I usually like to relax by watching videos before bed and I have watched at least the first act of Vampyres and witnessed perhaps the worst serious sex scene committed to celluloid. I literally laughed out loud when the couple began ‘making out’ because it looked so clumsy, so fumbling that I was immediately remined of the comedic version of the scene in Syfy’s series Resident Alien, and yet this was supposed to be titillating rather than laughable.

What is crystal clear is that the film has no characters. Oh, actors come in, deliver lines, and fumble at each other nude bodies, they do not portray any sort of actual person. “Ted” in the first act picks up one of the vampires, Fran, while she pretends to be hitchhiking. We are supposed to believe that she seduces him but without any convincing dialog it’s just two people who decide to go to her house and screw. Ted has no motivation beyond his supposed attraction to Fran. He wasn’t coming from anywhere, or going to any place on his drive, he exists only to have scenes with a vampire. Scene after scene is devoid of any motivation on the character’s part. People do things to achieve goal that serve their needs the exterior reflecting the interior here they just get wine glasses, drink, and screw without anything beyond the walls of the set existing.

I can see why I have never heard of this movie.

As part of the Ozploitation cycle of cinema 1979’s Thirst is low on budget but big on concept.

The film centers on Kate Davis (Chantal Contouri) a successful businesswoman about of take a several week vacation but instead is kidnapped by a mysterious cult-like organization, The Brotherhood, taking advantage of her expected absence to indoctrinate her into their lifestyle of modern vampirism.

The Brotherhood is riven by factions, all who wants Kate to fully embrace their lifestyles, but who differ in what methods that consider acceptable with Dr. Fraser (David Hemmings) more reverential of Kate’s ancestry while Dr Gauss (Henry Silva) and others are willing to using dangerous conditioning methods even if Kate’s sanity shatters.

Directed by Rod Hardy and photographed by Vince Morton Thirstis competently made and achieves quite a bit on tis limited budgets. It never answers the question of The Brotherhood are gaining actual benefits from their dietary choices or if they are simply mad as such considerations are actual incidental to the thrust of the story and Kate’s struggle to retain her agency and identity. It is a pleasure that unlike several other films of the cycle there was no attempt to disguise the characters or the setting as American but instead the film is presented as natively Australian.

With an extended dream/nightmare sequence dominating the film’s second act Thirst is not a horror movie that relies upon ‘kills’ or ‘jump scare’ to provoke a reaction from its audience. Its sedate pace and its emphasis psychological threats over physical ones means it is not a film for everyone but its thematic treatment of industrialization and the wealthy literally cannibalizing the lower classes make this a very interesting movie that will have strong appeal to some.

I have now added to my ever-growing Blu-ray and DVD collection David Lynch’s 2001 protean production Mulholland Dr and it has been considering the nature of logical order in film and fiction.

Fiction generally behaves in accordance with its own internal and decipherable narrative logic that allows the reader or audience to suspend disbelief and accept the characters and events are credible representations of some reality. This spans the gauntlet from grounded ‘realistic’ dramas such as The Remains of the Day to fantastic and physics defying spectacles like Avengers: Endgame. The cause-and-effect logic of the story dictates the progression of the characters actions, emotions, and growth with a clear and understanding relationship between event and outcome.

Mulholland Dr abandons all sense of narrative logic in favor of dream logic. The audience is denied a firm, clear, foundation of logical rules by which the film operates leaving them swept by the currents of imagery, raw emotion, and sound into a whirlpool that each individual is solely responsible for interpreting. The film is most often compared directly to a dream where major events and sequences have only the barest of connecting narratives flowing freely from one to another with a logic that feels present but is forever just beyond discovery.

I cannot tell you what Mulholland Dr is about. I cannot give to you a definitive interpretation on what maybe reality and what may be dream if such a distinction even exists within its narrative. It is like Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey but with is cold clinical style replaced by one that is unsettling, disturbing, and even horrifying.

I have seen this film called the best horror movie of the early 2000s and it is hard to argue with that assessment. Horror works best when not only the characters but the audience is forced to face threatening events that defy understanding. The dead do not rise and feed upon the living, magical beasts do not prowl the night, and science has not produced monstrosities savaging the countryside. But eventually in horror films and fiction the new rules are discovered, the vampire must rest on earth from its grave, the uncompleted tasked finished so the spirits my rest, the nature of the beast is understood and through that defeated returning the world to an order that again rational. Mulholland Drnever resolves its internal logical, the world unbalanced is never again rational, and the unsettled horror of a cold uncaring universe that beyond understanding remains, haunting the audience far beyond the film’s 146-minute running time.

I do not pretend to understand Lynch’s vision but I do feel it and that I think that was his intent all along.

The 80s were a good time and a bad time for horror films. The monumental success in the late 70s of Halloween inspired innumerable low budget film makers and studios that a cheap slasher was the sure path to box office riches producing a crop of under-funded knockoffs that possessed none of the style of the films they were following. 1980 brought the rip-off production Prom Nightwhich had the benefit of starring Jamie Lee Curtis who had starred Halloween but other than that had precious little to offer.

Six years later a wholly different production under the title The Haunting of Hamilton High retooled and retitled itself in Hello Mary Lou; Prom Night 2 a story without any connection to the first Prom Night save that take place in the same high school. Both films are Canadian productions that attempt to present their locals as standard Americana but I could swear that in Prom Night 2 when money is flashed it has a clearly Canadian appearance.

The plot of Prom Night 2 is fairly straight forward, Mary Lou Maloney, an enthusiastic sinner of a high school girl, is killed in an accident on Prom night 1957 before she can be crown as prom queen and 30 years later her vengeful and still sinful spirit descends on the high school thirsting for sex, violence, and her crown.

This is film is a mess.

It rips off so many themes and shots and concepts from other movies that there is scarcely anything in it which it can claim as its own. Trying to merge ideas from The Exorcist, Carrie, and Nightmare on Elm Street proved to be a fool’s errand and aside from Lisa Schrage as Mary Lou and perhaps Michael Ironside there is little to praise in the acting presented to us. The lines are delivered without conviction or credibility while being shot in a flat over-lit video style. There is nothing to recommend this film and its gratuitous use of female nudity reveals not only the actresses but the production desperate attempt to drawn in an audience as low class as the production itself.

Hello Mary Lou; Prom Night 2 is currently streaming on Shudder.

With Saint Patrick’s Day fast approaching I was in the mood for some Irish themed horror and something a little more authentic that any film of the Leprechaun franchise. Sunday night I treated myself the 2017’s Irish Gothic horror The Lodgers.

Set in the Irish countryside following World War I the story centers on fraternal twins Rachel and Edward who live in an isolated and decaying manor trapped by a family superstition or curse that compels them to always be in their beds by midnight, never admit a stranger to the home, and never abandon one another. The film opens on their 18th birthday and an unrevealed expectation that is linked to their coming of age. Into this creepy atmospheric situation comes Sean recently returned home from the war facing the dual challenges of having lost a leg and being seen as a traitor for her service to the hated English. Rachel’s blossoming sexual desires, Edward’s terror of leaving the house day or night, the family’s non-existent finances, and Sean’s attraction to Rachel combine for an explosive mixture that threatens the twins with the exposure of their actual natures.

There are many styles of horror films, rampaging monsters, murderous masked killers, and the slow burn mood piece of which The Lodgers falls neatly into. The film is not one with an exaggerated body county and the effects are there to create unsettling imagery rather than memorable kills. It is a film that unwinds with its characters and as each secret is pulled unwillingly from them. Directed by Brian O’Malley The Lodgers takes it’s time in revealing its truths trusting that the audience will be intrigued by the mystery and the dreamlike haunting imagery beautifully photographed by cinematographer Richard Kendrick. The performances by Charlotte Vega and Bill Milner are suitably internalized, matching the gothic nature of the story’s themes of isolation, both physical and social, and repressed nature of the characters.

With a brief running time of 92 minutes The Lodgers does not overstay its welcome nor needlessly meander but rather tells its tale with clean plotting that doesn’t disrupt its sedate pacing. While some reviewers have complained that the films has few ‘scares’ I enjoy a film that expects moods to carry more than a suddenly startling image or sound.

The Lodgers is not for everyone. If your tastes in horror expects more excitement than slow tension it is likely not to your taste but for people who enjoyed Robert Wise’s The Haunting this may be more to their liking.

Update: The Lodger is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.