-By  Will, on October 16, 2019, 7:00 am  Witchouse: Blood Coven (2000)
AKA Witchouse 2
Starring Ariauna Albright, Elizabeth Hobgood, Nicholas Lanier, Kaycee Shank, Alexandru Dragoi, Adriana Butoi, Andrew Prine, Serban Celea, Claudiu Trandafir, Jeff Burr, Dave Parker
Directed by J.R. Bookwalter
Expectations: Not much, but hopefully fun like the first one.
On the general scale:
On the B-movie scale:
There’s a general assumption that sequels go down in quality from the original, and that is probably especially true in low-budget horror films. Witchouse: Blood Coven actually steps it up from the first film, with a much more fleshed-out script that delivers an actual story along with its low-budget thrills. The characters aren’t as unique and memorable as the first film, but they feel more realistic. Witchouse: Blood Coven has more in common with a traditional film that its cheapo predecessor, and so your enjoyment of it will depend on your particular leanings. For me, I appreciated the effort made, and I think it’s a better film than Witchouse, but I still think the first film wins in terms of overall entertainment.
The story of Witchouse: Blood Coven is not directly related to the first Witchouse, and that’s as it should be. I like the idea of similarly themed films grouped by an overarching title, and with the thin story running through Witchouse, it seems like a natural fit here. Anyway, Witchouse: Blood Coven takes place in Covington, Massachusetts, and it follows a university professor (Ariauna Albright) and her team of students as they investigate four unmarked graves unearthed during construction of a shopping mall. Something tells me this town has a few secrets…
Continue reading Witchouse: Blood Coven (2000) →
-By Will, on October 14, 2019, 7:00 am  This week on the Silver Emulsion Podcast, Stephen and I talk about the 1988 killer-doll classic: Child’s Play, directed by Tom Holland! Will you be our friend to the end and enjoy? 🙂
Watch Child’s Play along with us on Blu-ray, DVD, iTunes, or Amazon Prime!
Also: the show is on iTunes! So if you feel like subscribing there, or rating/reviewing the show, feel free to share your thoughts!
Music Notes
Intro:
- Whitesnake – Children of the Night
Outro:
- Chuck Berry – O Rangutang
- Nadine / O Rangutang 45RPM Single (Discogs)
- St. Louis To Liverpool Bonus Track (iTunes, Amazon)
If you’ve got feedback, throw it into the comments below or email it to me via the contact page! We’ll include it in a future show!
The podcast is embedded directly below this, or you can go directly to Podbean (or use their app) to listen. If you want to subscribe, paste http://silveremulsion.podbean.com/feed/ into whatever reader you’re using.
-By Will, on October 11, 2019, 7:00 am  The Siamese Twins [連體] (1984)
Starring Ida Chan Yuk-Lin, Michael Tong Chun-Chung, Tanny Tien Ni, Margaret Lee Din-Long, Robert Mak Tak-Law, Yueh Hua, Kwan Hoi-San, Leung Jun-Git, Fei Pak
Directed by Angela Mak Leng-Chi
Expectations: Moderate. Don’t really know whatto expect.
The Siamese Twins tells the story of a college student, Po-Erh (Ida Chan Yuk-Lin), who returns to Hong Kong from Canada, and finds her mother less than satisfied at her return. It is implied that Po-Erh has been in Canada for quite a while (like more than just for college), but this is never explicitly stated. She has clearly never been close with her mother, though, and she doesn’t know where simple things like the telephone are located in her childhood home. Her old room is still set up with a crib and a bed for a young child, so I would guess that she left home sometime early during her elementary school years.
Why do I focus so much on her age when she left her parents? Well… because the movie asks us to believe that Po-Erh was born conjoined with her twin Bei-Erh, but has absolutely no memory of it at all. No brain damage is mentioned or anything that might explain memory loss, other than that the twins were connected at the head. I suppose it’s plausible that someone might forget the first few years of their memory after such a surgery, and I’m usually fine with suspending my disbelief for stuff like this, but as it was presented here it just seemed too far a stretch.
Continue reading The Siamese Twins (1984) →
-By Will, on October 9, 2019, 7:00 am  Starring Aaron Jaeger, Tyson Breech, Bryan McMullin, Sasha Formoso, Burke Carter, Dominick Monteleone, James Preston, Josh Yeo, Austen Dean Jesse, Jeremy Ray Simpson, Rebecca Zoe Leigh, Arthur Roberts
Directed by David DeCoteau
Expectations: Fingers crossed it’s one of the good Brotherhoods.
On the general scale:
On the B-movie scale:
The Brotherhood VI: Initiation is the (so far) final entry in David DeCoteau’s Brotherhood series, and he really pulled out all the stops. The heartbeat is on the soundtrack, there’s a lumberjack killer, and nearly the entire cast spends most of the movie in their underwear! The film doesn’t take place in one of his trademark thunderstorms, but DeCoteau makes up for this by hosing down his underwear-clad actors, all in the name of fraternity initiation. Do real fraternities do these sorts of homoerotic initiations? They do in the DeCoteau-verse!
Depending on your tolerance for DeCoteau films, this either sounds like a good time or your worst nightmare. My love of DeCoteau’s unique brand of filmmaking is well documented here, so, of course, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It definitely isn’t a movie I’d want to explain to someone who walked in and saw everyone getting hosed down in their underwear, but it has a charm and a feel unique to horror movies. I will always value unique expression to cookie-cutter, corporate filmmaking, no matter what the state of undress the main characters are in. Besides, most reviewers wouldn’t bat an eye if the cast was female, so I don’t feel like it should matter.
Continue reading The Brotherhood VI: Initiation (2009) →
-By Will, on October 7, 2019, 7:00 am  This week on the Silver Emulsion Podcast, Stephen and I talk about the zombie classic Dawn of the Dead, directed by George A. Romero! Eat some flesh and enjoy! 🙂
Watch Dawn of the Dead along with us on Blu-ray or DVD (which are both out of print and ridiculously expensive 🙁 )!
Also: the show is on iTunes! So if you feel like subscribing there, or rating/reviewing the show, feel free to share your thoughts!
Music Notes
Intro:
- Goblin – L’alba Dei Morti Viventi
Outro:
- Herbert Chappell – The Gonk
If you’ve got feedback, throw it into the comments below or email it to me via the contact page! We’ll include it in a future show!
The podcast is embedded directly below this, or you can go directly to Podbean (or use their app) to listen. If you want to subscribe, paste http://silveremulsion.podbean.com/feed/ into whatever reader you’re using.
-By Will, on October 4, 2019, 7:00 am  The Enchanting Shadow [倩女幽魂] (1960)
Starring Chao Lei, Betty Loh Tih, Tong Yeuk-Ching, Yang Chi-Ching, Su Hsiang, Lee Kwan, Li Kuo-Hua, Lok Kei, Hao Li-Jen, Wong Yuet-Ting
Directed by Li Han-Hsiang
Expectations: I have high hopes.
The Enchanting Shadow is one of the true classics in Hong Kong horror, elevating the genre and inspiring filmmakers for years to come. It competed in the 1960 Cannes Film Festival — Fellini’s La Dolce Vita won that year — and it was submitted as Hong Kong’s entry for Best Foreign Film at the 33rd Academy Awards — it was not nominated and Bergman’s The Virgin Spring ultimately won. Li Han-Hsiang was a well-established director at this point in his career; the previous year his film The Kingdom and the Beauty was an award-winning success that remains one of the best Huangmei operas to be produced by the Shaw Studio. From what I could tell from HKMDB, The Enchanting Shadow was his first foray into the horror genre, and while it isn’t exactly what American audiences would recognize as a horror film, it is most certainly typical of the genre in Hong Kong.
The Enchanting Shadow is based on the story Nie Xiaoqian from Pu Songling’s classic 18th Century collection, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The same story — along with The Enchanting Shadow itself — served as the basis for the ’80s classic A Chinese Ghost Story. Like many of the stories in Pu’s collection, it is a tale of a scholar who gets involved with a ghost. In this particular case, Ning Caichen (Chao Lei) is a tax collector who needs a place to stay. All the inns are full, but he hears of Jinhua Temple, 10 miles north of town, and decides to stay there. He is warned that the temple is haunted, but he ignores this and stays there anyway. There he meets Yan Chixia (Yang Chi-Ching), a Taoist swordsman staying there, who lends some credence to the rumors of spirits haunting the temple.
Continue reading The Enchanting Shadow (1960) →
-By Will, on October 2, 2019, 7:00 am  Starring Matt Raftery, Monica Serene Garnich, Brooke Mueller, Ashley McKinney Taylor, Dave Oren Ward, Ryan Scott Greene, Marissa Tait, Dane Northcutt, Kimberly Pullis, Jason Faunt, Ariauna Albright
Directed by David DeCoteau
Expectations: I feel like this is going to be rough.
On the general scale:
On the B-movie scale:
Witchouse is just like any number of Full Moon movies. It’s directed by David DeCoteau, it’s relatively short, and it carries a lighter tone than your average horror film. Where the conflict arises is that DeCoteau’s style has really settled into my heart over the course of writing about all these Full Moon films. Witchouse isn’t a great example of a DeCoteau film — it actually feels like his heart wasn’t in this one (even if his trademark “heartbeat on the soundtrack” is 🙂 — but regardless, I had a very fun time watching it.
Elizabeth (Ashley McKinney Taylor) lives in the Gothic mansion her family has inhabited for hundreds of years, and she’s throwing a party for her old school friends. The first couple to arrive, Bob & Margaret, find the mansion deserted, though. Like all good horror movie characters, they decide to check out the basement and fornicate, and wouldn’t you know it, they’re savagely murdered by a shadowy figure. And now, the party can begin…
Continue reading Witchouse (1999) →
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