https://www.filminquiry.com/next-of-kin-1982-review/

Prominent writer/director Paul Schrader was tasked with delivering this Exorcist prequel but studio executives were aghast at what they saw and shelved it. They brought in action director Renny Harlin, who re-shot it, and the released and renamed version was Exorcist: The Beginning. It flopped. Eventually, Schrader's version was released to little fanfare.

If you can forgive some horrid (unfinished?) special effects and the lack of overall horror, this story about the early life of Father Merrin is a thoughtful, interesting effort ,but it's also LACKING.

Russell Crowe adds some stature to this demonic possession film that ticks ALL the boxes. Everything you saw in The Exorcist and its sequels is here too, plus some Vatican intrigue. The sort of film you will enjoy if you accept it for what it is, rather than what it isn't.

You might just have fun with it.

A Haitian women, spurned by her lover, a white plantation owner, plots revenge against him and the new woman in his life. Very stodgy drama will be of most interest to those interested in the history of voodoo and zombies on screen. It has its moments.

Treasure hunters arrive on the coast of Africa but find that the treasure they seek is guarded by a group of zombies. There's mention of voodoo but we don't see much of it. It's set in Africa but the zombies aren't black. They are cursed white seamen, the treasure hunters who came before. A solid enough B-film and a curious film about the walking dead that seems to anticipate the tropes that would become standard when George Romero re-invented the zombie movie.

https://archive.org/details/Turning-the-Tables-361-Vincent-Price-6-Oct-14-2023

When Daddy dies, one sister plots against another, to get the full inheritance. Although it has "haunting" elements this is less a horror film, and more of a gothic melodrama (with arthouse camerawork) from Czechoslovakia. It's developed something of a cult reputation and the lead actress (in a dual role) is terrific. An odd one but worth a look.

The Morgiana of the title is a cat.

I'm not sure what that means.

This is an Australian horror anthology film notable in that all segments were directed by women.

After the death of her mother, a young woman discovers that she was gifted a book of strange stories. We're shown each story as she reads it.

Unfortunately, although there is a wide variety of subjects and styles, most of the stories fall a bit flat and the whole venture looks like a attempt to cobble together a bunch of final year film student projects. The story about the Meramaid works best.

Doomwatch, a scientific watchdog organisation, sends feisty Ian Bannen to a British coastal isle that has seen its inhabitants transformed by a chemical spill. Sci-Fi horror thriller harks back to to Quatermass and other stoic British gentlemen investigating mysterious phenomena. Minimal horror but not disappointing.

episode of Masters of Horror

Masters of Horror was an anthology series that allowed notable directors from the 70s and 80s to contribute a horror story to the series. Here, Stuart Gordon, best known for Re-Animator, updates a Lovecraft tale about witchcraft and sacrifice. Keen to see the rest of this series.

also known as Black Cat Mansion is a Japanese supernatural film in BW and colour. A married couple go to live in an old house, unaware that it is inhabited by spirit from the times of the samurai. Effective J-Horror demonstrates that ghostly revenge has been part of Japanese cinema long before the likes of The Ring and The Grudge. It's visuals foreshadow those in the later movies. Only a weak ending lessens its overall impact.

Members of a fashion house are brutally murdered by a killer dubbed The Wolf Man. Plenty of twists and turns in this complex crime thriller that plays out like an Italian giallo film, complete with masked killer and brutal murders

https://youtu.be/MbK07nn9NuA?feature=shared

Long before The Addams Family was Wednesday, the movies or the 1960s TV series, it was a series of cartoons by Chas Addams. So popular were they, that they were collected and published in paperback editions like this one. This collection features The Addams Family and an assortment of other delisciously morbid cartoons. Quite often the dark humour is subtle. You look at it and think - I don't know what's funny about this - and then you SEE it. Something fiendish in the corner that turns tne suburban very sinister.

John Astin (Gomez from the Addams Family) and several D-listers host this Halloween special that basically consists of showing old horror movie clips (from the public domain) and making jokes about them. Harmless fluff but also completely unnecessary. Oh look! Here comes Bobby "Boris" Pickett. I wonder what he is going to sing.

(on Youtube, if you must)

A group of vacationers on a yacht are stranded on a mysterious island. There they find another boat and wonder about the crew that abandoned it. Based on a William Hope Hodgson short story, this Japanese horror, was released as Attack of the Mushroom People in the US, which gives you some idea of where it's going. It is, however, better than you think with darker themes of addiction and deceit

In The Devil's Workshop, a wax sculptor is visited by a man with no face who insists he wants a face... the sculptor's face.

https://youtu.be/tJwFw1jJzfs?si=KgLD3Rm8TYENif20

Screened, in a special presentation at The Japanese Film Festival. A group of young developers are working on a cutting edge VR project, but their experiments cause the return of a vengeful spirit seeking revenge.

A rich horror narrative with a lot to commend it but this phase of J-horror films has been around for 25+ years and some of those tropes, that are still welcome, are getting very familiar.

The film was followed by a talk on J-Horror by an academic who spoke about the influence of folklore on ghostly tales such as this.

Somebody must have seen Freddy vs Jason and thought "Hey! we can do that!" and made this mash up of

Ju-on/The Grudge and Ringu/The Ring; bringing together the two vengeful spirits to place their curses on a new set of innocents. Both these franchises have been around the block several times and this one is for the popcorn crowd who've seen it all before but want this main event anyway.

They are on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/QOVBu3MuEuU?si=zAwe7rccIwjCJnLP

A new night security guy is hired to work in dilapidated 1980s fun parlour/ eatery but must contend with large animatronic toys who have come to life and want to kill him.

Didn't I just see this story in a film called Willy's Wonderland? Plots are pretty darn close and after seeing WW, FNatF is a bit underwhelming

I remember seeing the original Creepshow movie back in 1982. It paid homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s and produced a couple of lesser sequels. Watched a couple of eps of this series and it faithfully adopts the horror comic style of the first movie. Gray Matter and The House of the Head got the series off to a cracking good start. Keen to see the rest of it.

Animated feature film adventures of The Addams Family didn't get a lot of love from critics and audiences in 2019 but it made a lot of money. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. It was lively and spirited (no pun intended).

The Addams Family settle into their new home and are keen to become part of their new community but the townsfolk, lead by a reality show makeover guru, turns the town against them. Plenty of in-jokes for horror fans that would sail over the kiddies heads.

The Exorcist didn't need a sequel but its still getting them.

Boorman's bats%$# crazy Exorcist 2: The Heretic pleased no-one in 1976 but Exorcist III in 1990 fared a little better, even though it was re-shot and fiddled with to the dismay of Writer/Director William Peter Blatty.

Flash forward to 2016 and Blatty has compiled his director's cut with alternate and added footage to convey his original vision. The new cut follows the story of some of the E1 characters (not the MacNeils) and develops a low key but compelling storyline. Perhaps too talky and not viscerally visual enough for some but rewarding for the patient.

Volume up please!

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