John Carpenter's Body Bags

John Carpenter’s Body Bags (1993)

Dir. John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper

Written by Dan Angel, Billy Brown

With … deep breath … JohnCarpenterTobeHooperTomArnoldAlexDatcherRobertCarradineDavidNaughtonSamRaimiWesCravenStaceyKeatchSheenaEastonDavidWarnerDebbieHarryMarkHamillTwiggyRogerCormanCharlesNapier

So, sometime in the 90’s, John Carpenter of “Being John Fucking Carpenter” fame decided to pitch Showtime network the idea for a horror anthology series, kind of his take on Tales From The Crypt. Each segment would begin with Carpenter himself (in full-on fright wig and teeth) as a morgue worker/crypt keeper who would make some jokes and tell the story of how his most recent “guests” came to end up at the business end of a body bag. Showtime thought that sounded a little too much like something that would lead to a happier world, but they did allow three episodes to be produced, which then got stitched together into a thoroughly entertaining horror anthology film. I was worried that the early-90s TV production credit would blunt Carpenter’s usual command of cinema, but no, this looks pretty good, maybe even more expensive-looking than your typical episodic anthology horror effort. Combined with a veritable who’s who list of actors you want to see in horror movies and an avalanche of amusing cameos, it seems completely inexplicable to me that this one isn’t better-remembered. Oh well, more for me to love.

The first segment here involves a young lady (Alex Datcher) working her first shift at her new job as a gas station attendant in killer-ridden Haddonfield, Illinois. It’s a night shift, and AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and SLEEPING CAR alumni David Naughton is a flirtatious customer, so it begins with kind of a low-key, slacker comedy vibe and a series of funny cameos (Wes Craven as “Pasty-faced Man”). But gradually, a quiet tension starts to build, as Carpenter (who directed the first two segments) allows the silent, isolated atmosphere of working in a tiny lighted box in the middle of a vast darkness to sink in. Also, there may be a killer loose, should have mentioned that before.

This segment feels like classic Carpenter, with a confident pace, subtly menacing cinematography, and murmuring electronic score. But I like it most because it has a distinct and unusual working-class charm that you don’t get to see in many movies. How many times does a (female!) gas-station attendant get to be the star? Too rarely, I think. It helps that Alex Datcher has a genuine charm to her that helps you forget that she’s way too pretty to be working this job. Guess she didn’t go on to many more good roles like this (she’s 11th-billed in JURY DUTY, after a chihuahua named “Gizmo”) but between Carpenter’s expert direction and her immensely likable performance, this segment really shines.

Datcher, suddenly coming to the horrible realization that she'll be in a Paulie Shore movie by the decade's end.

Another thing that shines? Stacy Keach’s noggin, through his thinning hairline. This is a problem for the insecure businessman played by Keach in the second segment, which starts out as mere annoyance and gradually becomes an obsession. Even though his girlfriend Megan (Sheena Easton, Scottish pop star and female vocalist for Prince’s “You U Got the Look”) isn’t concerned about his burgeoning testosterone-induced chrome dome, he decides to seek the assistance of sinister hair-transplant magnate David Warner and his creepy nurse, Debbie Harry. 

This is still Carpenter directing, but the broad comedy of this premise requires a different approach from the first segment, something with a cheekier tone and a more exotic hook. Fortunately, everyone is up to the task; Keach manages the rare feat of making an insecure character funny and appealing, Carpenter gives us stop-motion (SPOILER) miniature alien snakes that live in your hair, David Warner and Blondie are memorable villains, we get to find out how Stacy Keach would have looked if he’d been cast as Chewbacca, and the whole thing is cheerfully strange and funny. I was a little disappointed to find that it is not (as I first surmised) the genesis of the Simpson’s Halloween segment Hell Toupee, but oh well, maybe they can do a parody of this one some other year. Good stuff.

Wikipedia describes this as a "...stallion-style full set of hair"

Unfortunately, Tobe Hooper --significantly past his prime and just a few years away from unapologetic crap like THE MANGLER-- finishes things off with his underwhelming possessed-eyeball segment (hey, now that I think about it maybe Hell Toupee is based on this one!). It’s not a complete loss, though, and I’ll tell you why using only two words: Mark Hamill. Yes kids, Cocknocker from JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK is here, still under the mistaken impression that he’s an actor who could do something like play a mustachio’d baseball player with a thick Southern accent, which is, indeed, what he tries to do. I love Mark Hamill and would happily watch him play any part he desires, but wow, the ridiculousness of this performance is matched only by how hard he’s trying. His accent is reasonably consistent, but unfortunately it sounds like the only Southern accent he’s ever heard is Blanche Dubois. Meaning that at no time is he ever anything less than absolutely howlingly funny.

Still better than he got in THE GUYVER

That would be a good thing if this segment felt even a little intentionally campy and ironic, but unfortunately unlike the other two segments this one is depressingly cheerless about it’s aspirations to a dark, disturbing tone that just absolutely is not happening. Hamill is a minor league star scouted by the pros, but just as his dreams are coming true an auto accident costs him his eye, and, likely, his career. He falls into despair, until Dr. Roger Corman offers him a chance to implant a new eye -- one which came from a diabolical serial killer! Predictably, Hamill (who now has one brown eye) starts getting some decidedly Dark Jedi urges, starts to see dead people. You know the routine. In fact, you know it well enough that this segment feels pretty empty except for Hamill’s ludicrously intense gay Southern Mario Brother performance. They want you to take this seriously, but there’s just nothing to see; every single beat is exactly what you expect from the “possessed [blank] takes over your mind” genre. No new angles whatsoever, no new gimmicks, nothing even mildly imaginative. And because it’s so grim about everything there isn’t much else to be enjoyed in a non-ironic way. Then again, surely they had to know that casting Twiggy as Hamill’s wife is at least a little funny. Oh yeah, did I mention a sex scene? Full on Hamill ass? In my opinion, there are not too many movies where a fully naked Mark Hamill with different-colored eyes, a mustache, and a gay Southern drawl that would make Tennessee Williams blush gets possessed by a serial killer after Roger Corman gives him a new eye and makes violent, above-the-covers love to 60’s fashion icon Twiggy. So you gotta be greatful for that, at least.

OK, so the last segment’s a little clunky, but the surprising thing about this anthology is that the best part may be Carpenter’s interludes as the Coroner/Host. It’s by far the most acting I’ve ever seen the guy do, and you know, it turns out he’s really good. In contrast to his somewhat staid real-life persona, he’s all wild-eyed mania in this role, selling it with enough energy and character that you don’t mind its derivative nature and goofy puns. It really makes you wish this concept had gotten picked up as a series, and you could look forward to seeing John Carpenter with crazy eyes and bad teeth telling even worse jokes every week. I think it’s not unreasonable to suggest that had this happened, we could easily have generated sufficient goodwill among mankind to completely avoid the entire Bush presidency, and possibly even the Twilight sequels. So let’s not make that mistake again, America: go out and watch BODY BAGS, for the good of the future.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No, you know it's coming though.
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No, he died in 1994.
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Mark Hamill, Debbie Harry, Twiggy
• BOOBIES: No, don't think so.
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: Yes, a funny bit of severed heads, also an eye.
• ENTRAILS? Yes, in the morgue
• CULTISTS: No
• ZOMBIES: No
• VAMPIRES: No
• SLASHERS: No
• CURSES: No, no I guess not.
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? No dolls
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: High, I think, out of print and seemingly little remembered.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Came in halfway through, said "I puked in the neighbor's yard" and passed out. I think she saw Mark Hamill, though.

Eyeball

Eyeball (1975) aka The Secret Killer, aka Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro

Dir. Umberto Lenzi

Written by Umberto Lenzi, Felix Tussel

Starring Martine Brochard, John Richardson, Ines Pellegrini

I felt like the look on the lady's face here justifies a closer look at the poster.

Somebody on a tour group in Spain is bumping off his or her fellow passengers by gouging out one of their eyes. The eyeball is removed, this is the manner of death. The movie’s name is EYEBALL. I guess that makes sense. If google translate is correct, the Italian title is RED CATS IN A MAZE OF GLASS, which is a little harder to explain, given the notable absence of cats, mazes, glass, etc. Another thing that’s hard to explain? That the tour group keeps going, touring new places and getting involved in various tedious subplots despite the fact that they are being murdered one by one and the killer is someone in the group (but who could it be?!). That’s the kind of enjoyably daffy thinking which makes giallos so endearing.

This particular giallo is an enjoyable but not especially memorable one, amiably convoluted and ridiculous but a bit light on clever gimmicks or notable setpieces. Even the eyeball gouging thing doesn’t really get as much mileage as you expect. It’s mostly a travelogue whodunnit with an occasional eyeball-stabbing or lesbian sex scene, heavy on dull dialogue scenes and not imaginatively sleazy enough to stand out from the giallo pack. But it has its moments. There’s a nice kill scene in a carnival house of horror, just like the end of CHILD’S PLAY 3 but cheaper and crappier. There’s a couple bloody eyeball-related fatalities, and one person who gets eaten alive by pigs. Plus a killer with a red raincoat, just like DON’T LOOK NOW which completely coincidentally came out only two years earlier, that’s a nice touch. I appreciate this kind of thing.

These things are just too damn slippery.

Mostly, though, this one is pretty plotty and perhaps overly confident that you’ll care enough about who the real killer is to follow a million minor red herring subplots about every annoying character before they’re killed off. Was it the irritating old coot? The creepy priest? The annoying daughter? The abrasive but frequently naked lesbian? The other abrasive but frequently naked lesbian*? The obvious person that all evidence points to? Who can say? But also, who really cares? This sort of whodunnit premise loses a lot of its appeal when you don’t really give a shit about any of them but the movie keeps insisting that everyone needs a bunch of grating dialogue scenes, 99% of which end up being completely extraneous misdirection. The person who ends up being the killer does a good job, and the twist is appreciably outrageous, but we’re not engaged enough in the story for the twist itself to be reward enough.

This isn’t a bad giallo, but it’s not one that’s likely to be anyone’s favorite, either. Lenzi is capable of things both a lot crazier and a lot more stylish, and both could have helped this effort to distinguish itself a little more. Giallos are so patently absurd already that your best bet is to avoid anything remotely resembling character development and just go all out to try and entertain. This one is only sporadically interested in shocking and titillating you, and, predictably, everything else doesn’t hold up too well. Still, no harm in trying. I hear Lenzi’s SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS is much better. I’ll keep a...heh… eye out for it.

*To the movie's credit, the lesbians are annoyed and/or murdered, but otherwise the movie treats them with at least as much dignity as any of the other annoying assholes in the cast. For 1975, that’s pretty progressive, even if it's just an excuse for a bunch of leering nude scenes with no men to keep awkwardly clothed.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: Yessir, although set in Spain for some reason. Maybe they're trying to address all those Spanish horror films set in Portugal or France or something during the Franco era?
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None
• BOOBIES: Yes, quite a few.
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: Eyeball removal, that counts.
• ENTRAILS? No
• CULTISTS: No
• ZOMBIES: No
• VAMPIRES: No
• SLASHERS: Yeah, good classic example of a giallo slasher.
• CURSES: No
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? No dolls
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Pretty high, out of print now and not even really a cult favorite
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: "Did you watch that giallo with me about the killer who gouges out eyeballs?" "No, I don't think I watched that."

Believe it or not, there are a number of female characters who talk about various thing not male-related, including shoes.

The Devil's Pass

The Devil’s Pass (2013) aka The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Dir. Renny Harlin

Written by Vikram Weet

Starring Holly Goss, Matt Stokoe, Luke Albright

What we got here is a cheerfully absurd, unselfconsciously idiotic little found-footage clusterfuck from Renny Harlin*, the Finnish madman who taught us that although it’s rare, sharks can and do sometimes explode. As you know, I’m none too keen on this sort of found footage debacle, but when I heard that Harlin was taking the helm, I knew I had no choice but to watch it. After all, this is the guy who broke Christian Slater in half in MINDHUNTERS. The guy who demonstrated that L. L. Cool Jay is too tough (literally) to be eaten, even by superintelligent exploding sharks. The man who felt that “DIE HARDER” was an appropriate subtitle. How the fuck is he gonna do the found footage thing?

Well, I’m happy to report that Harlin understands the concept of “found footage” no better than he understands the concept of “physics does not allow for that snowmobile to leap over huge explosions,” so he makes it about equally ridiculous to all his other films, just a bit uglier because the cameras are cheaper. He doesn’t seem to quite understand that “found footage” is trying to imitate reality, or, more likely, he doesn’t understand what reality is anyway. But he does understand that when he makes a movie, he likes to point his camera at cool things when they’re happening, and so that’s what he does here, in defiance of all logic, science, and philosophy. If you are the type of person who would ever yell, or has ever considered yelling, or has ever thought “why the fuck does that guy keep filming instead of dropping the camera and running away,” you’re gonna have to either quietly turn this movie off and go do your taxes or something, or just flip that part of your brain firmly to the “off” position and just enjoy this phenomenally silly ride with a big dumb grin on your face and a bunch of drunk people around you.

In Russia, even snow angels are way more intense.

OK, so this is not a movie which can genuinely be enjoyed on its own merits, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good premise. Actually it has kind of a great premise: the real life extremely creepy incident in which nine experienced Russian hikers fled their camp in various states of undress to die in the cold, motivated by what the official documents refer to as “a compelling unknown force.” This is really true, it really happened, so it is a great premise for a movie, and arguably even a found footage movie. This movie isn’t really about that, though, instead it’s about a group of cheerfully moronic American college youths who hike up to the Dylatov Pass in modern times to try and figure out what became of their 1959 counterparts. Which it turns out had to do with government conspiracies, time travel, zombie alien wallcrawlers, and, what the hell, the Philadelphia Experiment, because in a movie like this you’ve got to go Harlin or go home.

It’s kind of a shame to waste this perfectly fine premise on a movie this ridiculous, but it’s not a total loss. The movie’s biggest weakness is that as a found footage clusterfuck, it’s constitutionally precluded from having any clever dialogue or interesting characters, and without Harlin’s usual flashy camerawork, this means that the first half of the film is pretty dull. These characters are not as aggressively unlikable as lots of found footage victims are, but they’re completely forgettable and their incessant prattle gets tiresome during the unforgivably long time we have to wait for anything to happen.

I'm not sure what that bloody thing on the floor is, if it IS a dick like it sure appears to be, I definitely don't think it belongs to this guy. But to be fair I was pretty drunk when I watched this.

Once it does start happening, though, the movie begins to get pretty entertaining, and pleasingly escalates exponentially in absurdity as things go along. Harlin simply can’t live without framing shots properly, and if that means someone has to apparently be holding a camera steady while climbing the side of a mountain, so be it. It’s uglier than his other films, but it’s significantly less of an eyesore than this genre typically seems to aspire to. That also means, shockingly, that once we come across some monsters with a pretty cool design, we can actually, you know, get a look at ‘em! Imagine that! Directors pointing cameras at things we would want to see, huh? What a concept!

The movie’s 96 minutes probably contain slightly too much fatty setup, but I gotta say, the final 30 minutes are absurd, action packed, and even a little creepy in such a way that you can’t help but walk away from the experience with a smile. Since it barely even pretends to emulate anything vaguely resembling plausibility, it’s less grim than your typical found footage affair, and everything feels playful and stupid rather than gritty and disturbing. I still got no use for this kind of filmmaking, especially since this one seems to succeed most by ignoring the first-person gimmick as much as it’s able to rather than utilizing it to try different things, but at least I’m able to report that Renny Harlin’s essential Renny Harlin-ness is more powerful than any stupid trendy gimmick. Obviously I’d prefer that he stick to better movies --or at least movies that look like real movies-- from now on, but even if that’s too much to ask, it’s at least good to know that this kind of goofball enthusiasm is enough to show you a good time. In his own word: “I don't want accidents, I want disasters. I don't want dirt, I want filth. I don't want a storm, I want a hurricane. I don't want fear, I want panic. I don't want suspense, I want terror. I don't want humor, I want hysteria.” Harlin’s a guy who genuinely believed that more is always more, and as long as he keeps shooting for that goal I’m gonna be happy. Let’s get moving on CUTTHROAT ISLAND 2: CUTTHROATIER ISLAND!**  

* The poster mentions DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER and CLIFFHANGER, they don’t mention CUTTHROAT ISLAND though.

** Alas, not sure that’s gonna happen because this film didn’t seem to really catch on. They claim it was released in August this year, but I can find no evidence that it ever played in US theaters and there’s no record of it on boxofficemojo. It doesn’t even have a wikipedia page! Even RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD has a wikipedia page! I may have to get on this one myself.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: Ha.
• SEQUEL: No.
• REMAKE: No.
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No.
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No.
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No.
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None.
• BOOBIES: No.
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: No, don't think so.
• ENTRAILS? ...I honestly don't remember. Don't think so.
• CULTISTS: No.
• ZOMBIES: Uh, definitely some kind of zombie type thing, yeah...
• VAMPIRES: No.
• SLASHERS: No.
• CURSES: No.
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? A rare case where there is a literal valley, but no dolls.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Uh, don't know, gonna say medium? Didn't get much of a release, if any, but come on, Renny Harlin!
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A.

This probably deserves closer to a three, but I honestly enjoyed it for what it was and I'm feeling generous towards it. Don't go in thinking it's gonna be legitimately good, though; this is an ideal stupid one to watch with friends and alcohol.

S&man

S&man (2006)

Dir. J. T. Petty

Written by J.T. Petty

Starring Carol J. Clover, Debbie D, Bill Zebub, Erik Marcisak

     This nifty little oddity from direct J.T. Petty (the pretty good BURROWERS) weaves together genuine interviews on the subject of voyeurism and sadistic cinema with social critics, psychologists, z-grade horror directors, and an assortment of others but also injects fictional elements which slowly push the whole enterprise into the territory of genuine horror. It’s an exceedingly clever premise, because it allows Petty to take a close look at the concept of voyeuristic violence while allowing the viewer to question the voyeuristic violence that they’re actually watching in real time. We’re assumed to be on the side of, or at least sympathetic to, the (real life) z-grade shock-horror directors Fred Vogel and "Bill Zebub" who are interviewed here; after all, we’re watching a damn horror movie right now. Even if we may not be too into a film called JESUS CHRIST: SERIAL RAPIST, we probably at least defend the concept of boundary-pushing, violent cinema and can’t reasonably claim that normal horror is fine but this stuff somehow goes “too far” and becomes inappropriate or dangerous.

     But things get a little more uncomfortable when a third “underground horror filmmaker” named Eric Rost shows Petty his “S&man” series of stalker/murder videos. Even though he assures the crew that they’re faked, he’s a creepy weirdo and it sure looks real. He clearly is genuinely stalking real women, regardless of whether or not he’s murdering them. Have they found a genuine snuff filmmaker? If so, we’re gonna be pretty horrified, but of course, it’s hard to tell. It looks real, but lots of horror movies look real, and there’s nothing about these films which is any more or less depraved than the more obviously fictional films by Vogel and Zebub. If we can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s faked on camera, what does that mean about our acceptance of openly fictitious snuff trash like the work of the other interviewed directors? All the sudden all kinds of questions about how we determine what’s real and what isn’t start cropping up. We’re assuming that Eric Rost is a fictional person since he’s the crux of the drama here, but then again, what makes us think that any of these people being interviewed are real? In the camera’s eye, it’s all true.

Oh, you guys like Hannah? The new stuff is OK I guess. I was into it back at the beginning with Bridgette, before they sold out and started going mainstream.

     So, it’s a clever premise, perhaps too clever for it’s own good. It has a great setup and asks some genuinely interesting and tough questions in a unique way, but it’s also a little amateurish and a bit too coyly postmodern to be very satisfying. It’s a great idea to ask us to question why we enjoy violent, sadistic movies while at the same time actually letting us watch one, but it also means we have to suffer through a not-especially convincing fictional horror sideshow. I’m not sure, maybe if I went into this film not knowing that it had fictional elements, I might have believed it more. But as it is, nothing about the Eric Rost sequences had the vitality and the believability of the real interviews. It’s that old problem with these “found footage” films (though this isn’t precisely the same thing) where when you actually see real reality, almost any fiction, no matter how well done, is gonna seem chintzy in comparison. It’s a big problem, because this juxtaposition is the whole point of the film, but it also seems sort of perfunctory.

     On the other hand, though, I have no doubt that Rost (played by comedian Erik Marcisak) could and did successfully pass himself off as a genuine director at the horror/snuff convention Petty attends early on to meet some of his subjects. If people like his movies and identify with his motives (especially the barely concealed thread of misogyny which runs through this kind of horror), what makes them any better than him? And for that matter, what makes us any better than him? Granted, most of us don’t watch (or enjoy, anyway) stuff quite as gratuitously vicious and degrading as the underground horror stuff they show here, but what, it’s OK to like violence just because it’s not directed at women? They show a brief clip of Carol J. Clover, author of Men, Women and Chainsaws, reacting in bemused shock to one of these films, which is understandable, they’re pretty fucked up. But then again, lady, you wrote an entire book about horror movies, and specifically name-check a number of them including TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. That one is at least as depraved (and far more imaginatively so) as anything we see in these fictional snuff films, but you’re going to tell me it’s no problem to watch a movie which is explicitly about this stuff as long as the camera shyly cuts away from the violence instead of lingering on it?

One of these things is not like the others. 

     That’s not to pick on Clover, who’s absolutely delightful here even though I have some serious problems with her take on the subject. It’s just that I actually think horror aficionados are too infrequently asked tough questions about this subject. Is it really a great thing that we celebrate sadistic violence (particularly against women) in this way? Are we really so much better than Eric Rost because we enjoy watching violence, but don’t want to physically participate in it? It takes our usual discomfort on the subject of voyeurism (we're repulsed by voyeurs and yet enjoy watching them in the movies) and adds a particularly aggressive, violent element to mull over. These are tough questions to answer, but they deserve to be answered, and S&MAN forces us to confront them head-on in a way that I don’t think any other film really could.

     That said, it’s more a film full of interesting questions than it is actually, you know, an interesting film. And in fact, its best bits are only tangentially related to the topic at hand: the sex therapist/ psychologist married couple who call to mind a sexually liberated, postmodern American Gothic; Professor Clover chuckling over the kids these days and their nu horror; Bill Zebub suddenly turning adorably shy and self-conscious on the set of one of his horror movies with someone filming him; Fred Vogel discussing the awkwardness of acting in a rape scene with a buddy’s girlfriend. These moments aren’t about horror, they’re about people, in the way the best documentaries are. How is poor fictional Eric Rost supposed to compete with such vivid, colorful, conflicted characters? Maybe the next step in this found footage movement ought to be away from fiction entirely.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Carol Clover, author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.
• BOOBIES: Yeah, quite a few, although you're not gonna love the context.
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: ...Although there's a lotta blood on display, I don't think these guys have the money to make real prop severed limbs.
• ENTRAILS? Gonna say yes, lots of stabbing.
• CULTISTS: No
• ZOMBIES: No
• VAMPIRES: No
• SLASHERS: Yeah, I'd say this one counts as a slasher.
• CURSES: No
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? No
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid-High, low-budget with no theatrical release.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A