Voodoo Dolls (1990)

... aka: School, The

Directed by:
Andrée Pelletier

How's this for a frightful proposition: a Canadian cheapie directed by one of the victims from NAKED MASSACRE (1976), co-written by the director of the bad movie classic Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972) and produced by the same guy who backed NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER (1990), an insufferable slasher spoof so bad it went unreleased for nearly 20 years. Yikes. Filmed entirely at College St-Laurent in Quebec, Canada, this very low-budget effort didn't receive much of a release in the U.S. (the VHS I watched was on the obscure Astral video label). In the black-and-white prologue set in 1951 at the Hanley School for Girls in Louisiana, troubled young student Lisa King (Flavia Carrozzi) stumbles upon the object of her desire in bed with not one but two different ladies. Enraged, she grabs a knife and proceeds to slash them all to death in bed. Cut to current day as pretty, shy new transfer student Vanessa Forbes (Grace Phillips), who's just lost her father, arrives from Beverly Hills with her snobby mother to enroll in the same school's drama program. The hunky, skirt-chasing dean, Matthew Hanley (Howard Balaban), promptly tells them a little about the history of the place: something about the school being built upon supposedly cursed land where no crops would ever grow. Nevertheless, Vanessa decides this is the school for her.

As soon as our heroine settles into her room, things begin to move around all on their own, which is blamed on the floors being uneven. She's befriended by the outspoken Ingrid (Nathalie Gauthier) and "quirky" closet lesbian Rickie (Beth Lachance) and meets her roommate; loud, obnoxious party girl Laura (Maria Stanton), who tells her the blood-soaked history of the school and brands the dean a pervert; claiming he tries to get into all of the students' pants (and yet, she still wants to be his newest conquest). Lots of extremely strange things soon begin happening. Vanessa starts having visions; the murderess Lisa (who committed suicide shortly after the original murders) standing in the hallway holding a red ball, worms on her dinner plate, etc. And she's not the only one who seems to be affected by the school. Drama teacher Miss Sayers (Nicole Jacqueline) stumbles upon a play written by Lisa in the school's basement and seems to become possessed. She insists the students put on this play - which is re-titled and said to be anonymously written at the dean's request - instead of the planned Twelfth Night.

Holy convoluted storytelling, Batman! This thing's all over the freakin' place. There's a monotone black handyman (Graham Chambers) with a pet tarantula who is frequently seen in brief flashes painted up in white beating drums, dancing and chanting, a nosy cook (Jessica Dublin, later a Troma regular) lurking around acting weird and a retarded voyeur janitor (Daniel Varga) who sits around reading skin mags and watches girls in the locker room through a peephole while drooling all over the place before eventually wandering downstairs into the boiler room where he's eaten alive by a bunch of tiny reanimated voodoo dolls! The lesbian character slashes her wrists in the bathroom after being rejected by a female peer, mirrors crack all by themselves, zombies appear in the swimming pool, a shower sprays blood, a heart is removed during the WTF climactic voodoo ritual and the music score fluctuates between wholly inappropriate generic blues-rock and Caribbean-flavored island music to bell chimes.

Though I cannot recommend this to those looking for a good horror film, I can recommend it to people who love inept, weird, obscure films. It's a huge mess with an unfocused, schizophrenic story line that never can decide what it wants to be, but there's always something bizarre and entertaining going on to keep your attention. Performances range from faintly adequate to comically wooden. Lead Phillips is not only a real stunner with extremely striking blue eyes, but also a decent enough actress (no surprise she moved on to bigger and better things). Writers Ed Kelleher and Harriette Vidal (who adapted their own novel "The School") also scripted the Roberta Findlay films LURKERS and Prime Evil (both 1988). Director Pelletier was an actress who racked up four Canadian Genie nods through the 80s before becoming a writer and director. She hasn't worked on a film since 2003.

Though IMDb lists this as having been filmed in 1989 and released in 1991, the VHS says 1990 and the only date found in the end credits actually says 1984.

★1/2  SBIG

Silent Snow, Secret Snow (1966)

... aka: Silent Snow, Secret Snow by Conrad Aiken

Directed by:
Gene R. Kearney

The short story "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" is perhaps the best-known work of American poet and writer Conrad Aiken. It was written in 1934 and is often included in classic fantasy and horror anthologies. Aiken was a celebrated writer during his day, winning a PSA Shelley Memorial Award in 1929, a Pulitzer Prize in 1930 and numerous other prestigious awards; eventually ending up as Poetry Consultant of the Library of Congress and earning the title of Poet Laureate. To get some insight into the author's work, which is heavily symbolic and psychological, one only has to only take a brief look at Aiken's biography. When he was just 11-years-old, his father - a wealthy, respected brain surgeon in Savannah, Georgia - suddenly and without warning or provocation, went crazy and murdered his wife before turning a gun on himself. Aiken had heard the gunshot and discovered both bodies. It was one of those inexplicable tragedies that sometimes occur in life and there were no clear cut answers to why it occurred. Afterward, Aiken went to live with an aunt in Massachusetts, but the incident clearly shaped him as both a human being and as a writer.

This long-forgotten attempt to visualize the story (directed, shot, edited and co-written by Kearney) is also full psychological vagaries and elements of the unexplained. It involves a young boy named Paul (Simon Gerard) who begins to change for the worse; suddenly losing complete track of time and becoming withdrawn from the world around him. He can no longer pay attention in school (except for in geography class when the North and South Poles are discussed) and is often caught daydreaming and staring out into space. He shrugs off playing with friends and becomes distant and eventually hostile toward his parents, especially after they have a doctor come to check in on him (all "hostile presences" to him). All Paul can seem to think about is snow; a secret world of snow, and that world (and the voice he hears within) preoccupies all of his thoughts. Paul awakens every morning listening to the mailman's footsteps outside and hopes to one day no longer hear those steps clicking across the sidewalk...

Just like with the story, one can make what they want of out of all this. I've seen interpretations as varied as the boy simply and consciously rejecting the cruel world around him ("Snow growing heavier each day, muffling the world, hiding the ugly...") or, because of the voice he hears, that he suffers from a mental disorder (namely schizophrenia). Others have tried to find the meaning behind all of the snow, or just the color white (Paul becomes just as entranced by a crystal chandelier and a glass of milk), that seems to give Paul solace and peace. Either way, the boy clearly is internally retreating from the world at large for one reason or another.

This 17-minute short was filmed in black-and-white on a very low budget, but it's a noble, effective attempt at the story. There's an eerie score from George Kleinsinger, with lots of out-of-tune string plucking, and though the acting is pretty amateurish, Michael Keene does an excellent job narrating (basically a read-through of the story). Director Kearney cut his teeth producing the nudie movie The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964) and went on to pen scripts for Games (1967), the giant bunny camp-fest Night of the Lepus (1972) and the TV movies The Invasion of Carol Enders (1973) and Crime Club (1975). He received an Emmy nomination as writer of the series Kojak (1974-78) and also adapted Silent Snow again in 1971 for the TV series Night Gallery. That version was narrated by Orson Welles.

★★★

Norliss Tapes, The (1973) (TV)

Directed by:
Dan Curtis

The Norliss Tapes was the feature-length pilot episode for a proposed TV series that was never picked up by original broadcaster NBC. I have no clue why this never made it to series (the premise is certainly promising enough), but it probably just boiled down to poor or mediocre Nielsen ratings. After all, this was released not long after the Curtis-produced THE NIGHT STALKER (1972) made history as the highest-rated TV movie of all time and its follow-up, the Curtis-directed THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973), likewise pulled in impressive enough numbers to prompt the short-lived series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75). Roy Thinnes, who appeared in made-for-TV terror flicks THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET (1973) and Satan's School for Girls (1973) the same year, stars as eccentric writer David Norliss. A year prior to when the story begins, he was given an advance by his publisher, Sanford Evans (Don Porter), to write a book about the commercial aspects of spiritualism and the occult. In other words, he set out to debunk the supernatural and expose phonies who bilk millions of dollars from naive suckers each year in various scams. During a brief phone conversation, David informs Sanford that his research has taken a dangerous and unexpected turn. He claims he can no longer write the book but has recorded some of his findings onto audio tapes. After David doesn't show up for a business lunch and isn't heard from in a week, Sanford goes to his home only to find the door wide open and David nowhere in sight. He has, however, left behind a series of tapes. Sanford grabs one labeled "1" and pops it in for a listen, which is the story that makes up the bulk of this movie. Thinnes stars in and narrates the tale, and one would assume the series would continue along these lines with tapes 2, 3, 4, etc. telling new supernatural horror stories if it had been picked up.

On Tape #1 is a case concerning recent widow Ellen Sterns Cort (Angie Dickinson), who's just inherited a sizable fortune from her recently-deceased husband Jim (Nick Dimitri); a famous, reclusive sculptor stricken with crippling Pick's Disease. Late one night while investigating a noise, Ellen makes a shocking discovery in her late husband's studio: him. Now sporting a grey-blue face, blue-and-yellow eyes and exceptional strength, Jim kills their dog with his bare hands before Ellen shoots him with a rifle. She's flees and calls the police. When they show up, they find the dog but no husband. Naturally, no one believes her story about what really went down, especially when it's discovered that Jim's body in still at rest inside his crypt. Ellen's sister Marsha (Michele Carey), an associate of David's, has him investigate the claims. David meets up with Ellen and learns that Jim had become interested in the occult shortly before his death. In fact, he made some kind of deal with antique gallery owner Madame Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee) in exchange for a valuable Egyptian scarab ring somehow tied to Osiris; the God of Immortality. An ancient demon called Sargoth may also be involved. Meanwhile, Sheriff Tom Hartley (Claude Akins) is investigating a string of murders where each victim is drained completely of blood.

This modest production has some very good elements, as well as some not-so-stellar ones. The pacing is a real Catch 22. It frequently seems rushed; not surprising since this covers a lot of ground in a brief period of time, but it also moves along briskly enough to keep it from dragging. Some of the overly-descriptive voice-overs, attempting to capture the essence of a writer, are a bit corny, as well. You know, an overcast day turns into "a curtain of cold rain fell from a gun metal grey sky;" forests turn into "acres of lush cypress and tall pine." etc. Neither the characterizations nor the plot are much above passable and, since this was intended as a continuing series, we're not given adequate closure about the fate of David (though this perhaps works in an unintended ambiguous way). On the plus side, nice use is made of rainy Northern California coastal locations, the eye contacts / makeup design on the resurrected killer are pretty neat and, best of all, director Curtis manages to stage several highly-effective scare scenes; at least one of which is guaranteed to make most viewers jump out of their seats. So while not up to Night Stalker standards, this is still worth a look.

Next to impossible to find for the longest time, this is now available on DVD from Anchor Bay. The cast also includes Hurd Hatfield as an art gallery owner who unwisely attempts to steal the ring, Bryan O'Byrne as a goofy motel manager, George DiCenzo and Patrick Wright. William F. Nolan scripted from a story by Fred Mustard Stewart. Thinnes would later become one of the stars of Curtis' short-lived Dark Shadows reprisal in 1991.

★★1/2