Trash or Treasure Thursday

The Clown at Midnight (1998)

"A clown may be amusing in a circus ring, but what would be your reaction to opening you door and finding that same clown on your front step at midnight?"

Creeped out to say the least. A character in the film says this to explain what makes clowns scary.

I saw the beginning of The Clown at Midnight a long time ago but then I fell asleep. And I never knew what it was called so I never got to see the ending. Until it was on T.V. last week.

In The Clown at Midnight, a group of teenagers is restoring an old opera house. One girl's mother was an opera singer who was killed years earlier by a clown. As the legend goes, the clown fled the country and was never caught. But when the teens are picked off one by one, they start to think maybe the clown is still around.

This is one of the better low-budget slasher movies featuring a killer clown that I've seen (never EVER watch Mr. Jingles).

It had an interesting plot, different from other evil clown films where a clown goes around killing teens for no reason. And even though it starts off slow, the story was compelling enough to keep me watching. The ending also surprised me. I thought I had it figured out for sure, but I wasn't even close. There were a few creepy scenes and some gory deaths.

The dialogue was pretty good, being funny at times and poking fun at horror films like in Scream. Here's an example:

"I felt like a bimbo in a slasher movie screaming like that."

But at times the film was so corny I couldn't stand it. Especially the cornball ending. I don't want to spoil anything, but that would never happen after all of your friends were brutally murdered. You would be calling the cops.

The acting wasn't bad. A couple of the teens were pretty awful, but they're not in the film for long. It stars Tatyana Ali (from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), Margot Kidder and Christopher Plummer, but the latter two were barely in it.

Overall, I would say The Clown at Midnight was not bad for a low-budget slasher, but it's a bit too corny. And it would've been better if Margot Kidder had a bigger role and lasted more than a half hour.

Rating: 3/5

Trash or Treasure Thursday

Kaw (2007)

I hate birds. They swoop at your head, have long, pointy beaks and poop everywhere. Yep, I'm afraid of birds. So, last week when I was flipping through the channels and came across a movie called Kaw, I figured it might scare me. It was kind of creepy.

It stars Sean Patrick Flanery as the town sheriff...and that chick from The Secret Life of the American Teenager...and that chick from Privileged.

Kaw is about intelligent meat-eating ravens with a taste for human flesh terrorizing a small town. Hm, that one sentence pretty much sums up the whole plot. I don't want to give the ending away, so you'll just have to watch to see what made the ravens go nuts and start eating people.

It was sort of creepy how intelligent the ravens were, but not that creepy when you think of how impossible it is. I mean, they used a child as bait so that when a bunch of adults came to save him, the ravens could kill and eat them instead (more meat I guess). Having crazy meat-eating ravens is one thing, claiming that they're super-intelligent and can plan ways to kill people is another. Having the killer ravens be smart made the movie stupid.

But there was lots of gore. Like a bunch of ravens killing a dog and watching them pull it to pieces with their beaks, and such. The deaths by ravens were all pretty good and gory.

There were a lot of characters in the movie. A bus driver who first discovered the ravens but no one believed him. The strange Mennonite family and their secret, which was another spooky part of Kaw. The annoying, bitchy teenage girls who I was hoping the ravens would get, but never happened. Kaw definitely loses points for that.

Overall, I would say Kaw was entertaining, and pretty good for a Sci Fi Channel movie. It would make an okay rental.

Rating: 3/5

Trash or Treasure Thursday

Trick or Treat (1986)

Acquired at: Giant Tiger
Cost: $4.99

When I saw this movie for $4.99, I was like "Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons? Score!" But they're barely in the movie. Ozzy is a minister against rock music and it only shows him in a brief clip where he's interviewed on T.V. Gene is DJ at the local radio station. It's unfair that they put both of them on the cover to sell more DVDs, but I guess it works.

Trick or Treat is about a high school outcast, Eddie, who loves metal music, especially Sammi Curr. When his idol dies in a hotel fire, Eddie is devastated and goes to his friend Nuke (Gene Simmons), the local DJ, for comfort. Nuke gives him the only copy of Sammi Curr's last, unreleased album. When the record starts skipping, he notices something strange about the words. Eddie plays it backwards and Sammi Curr speaks to him from beyond the grave, telling him how to get even with some bullies. When Sammi's plans turn sour, Eddie wants to stop talking to him. But when he spills his pop on the record, an electrical surge brings him back to life - sort of. He can only travel through electronics. When Sammi travels to the school's Halloween dance, it's up to Eddie to stop him.

This movie wasn't scary at all, but it wasn't bad enough to be so-bad-it's-good either. It was interesting up until the point where he came back to life. After he started jumping around through electronics it became stupid and boring. The premise was so good: playing a record backwards to raise your favourite dead rock star from the dead to help you get revenge on your enemies. Sounds interesting, but the execution was disappointing.

I give this movie a 3/5. It's not an amazing treasure, but I wouldn't call it trash either.

Rating: 3/5

Trash or Treasure Thursday

C.H.U.D. (1984)

Acquired at: HMV
Cost: $6.99

Actually the first time I saw C.H.U.D. was on T.V. awhile back. All I remembered about it was that I liked it. So I was excited when I found it in the cheap bin at HMV for $6.99.

C.H.U.D. stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. They're humans who were mutated into monsters by toxic waste and live underground, feasting on the homeless. When they run out of people to eat underground, they're forced to surface through manholes to get their fix. A cop (Christopher Curry) investigating the disappearances of C.H.U.D.'s victims, a soup kitchen worker (Daniel Stern) who wants to know what happened to his clientele, and a photographer (John Heard) working on a project taking pictures of the homeless, get to the bottom of what is really going on.

I watched this DVD as soon as I got it home, and it was just as good as I remembered. It's genuinely creepy, especially the shower scene. I even jumped a couple of times when the C.H.U.D. grabbed people. It was really effective how they mostly only showed its claws or pointy teeth or glowing eyes. The mystery makes them even creepier.

The plot is interesting and not that far-fetched. We don't know what toxic waste can do to people. It probably can't turn people into cannibalistic monsters, but you never know. There's a subplot about the photographer's girlfriend being pregnant which drags at times. And a lot of the film focuses on a government cover-up, which slows down the story. The acting is great, not at all what you would expect from an 80's B horror movie. John Heard and Daniel Stern also star together in another movie I love, Home Alone.

I give C.H.U.D. a 4/5, making it a treasure.

Rating: 4/5

Trash or Treasure Thursday

Wendigo (2001)

Acquired at: Blockbuster
Cost: $1.99

I shouldn't be reviewing this because I fell asleep halfway through. But I couldn't force myself to watch the rest of it.

I bought this movie way back when Blockbuster sold VHS movies. It was in a bin for $1.99 and I went a little overboard and bought a bunch of movies that I didn't really need.

The movie begins with a Deliverance-like scene. A family (Jake Weber, Patricia Clarkson, Erik Per Sullivan) driving up to their cottage hit a deer, which was a group of hunters' prey. They're angry that the deer has been killed and confront the family. The rest of the movie (or at least what I saw) one of the creepy hunters lurks outside their cabin, watches them making love, etc.

About a half hour/ hour into the movie, the Wendigo is finally mentioned. At a small shop, the boy is given a Wendigo figurine from the aboriginal shopkeeper. He tells him about the legend of the Wendigo, a cannibalistic beast that is half-man, half-deer.

That's pretty much all that happened before I fell asleep. This film was so dull. I'm surprised I made it halfway through before falling asleep. I was struggling to keep my eyes open the whole time. Nothing remotely scary happens, at least of what I saw.

I know I should watch the whole movie before reviewing it, but I can't bring myself to. It's painfully boring. The Wendigo isn't even mentioned until halfway into the movie. And when it's supposed to be creepy, for instance the scenes with the hunters, it fails miserably. So, I give Wendigo 1/5, making it trash. I'm warning you, don't watch it.

Rating: 1/5

Trash or Treasure Thursday

The Babysitter by Daniel Ransom

Acquired at: The Salvation Army Thrift Store
Cost: $1.00

I hate to admit it, but the cover of this book is what drew me to it. I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but sometimes I do. On the cover a creepy-looking babysitter stands with two children. It reminds me of R.L. Stine's Babysitter series, which I loved when I was younger.

Then I noticed the blurb from Dean Koontz on the cover.

"Ransom's writing is strong, fast and sleek as a bullet. He's one of the best." - Dean R. Koontz

Intrigued, I opened the cover and saw the dedication.

From one crazed Irishman to another - This is for Richard Laymon.

Anyone who likes Richard Laymon is okay in my book. At this point, I definitely wanted the book. Well it was only $1.00, so why not? The description on the back of the book sounded promising too.

The Babysitter is about Jody, a woman who returns to her hometown to take care of her drug addict daughter and her granddaughter. Jody's granddaughter has been acting out lately, as have many children in the town. The children have one thing in common: they've been babysat by the same young woman. Maybe it has something to do with the horror Jody witnessed when she was 13.

I was drawn in from the beginning. There's action right from the start. What Jody sees (I don't want to give anything away) is like something out of a B horror flick and made me keep reading to see the connection.

It's only 214 pages long, so the plot moves along quickly. I read it in one sitting. I actually wish it was longer because I was enjoying it so much. The ending felt a little rushed. All of a sudden the end came out of nowhere. The end was kind of a letdown. I felt it didn't really do the book justice.

The characters were realistic and interesting. I could relate to Jody, especially the part where she was 13, thinking about the boy she had a crush on.

I even laughed a few times while reading. I think it would have been better if it was a few chapters longer. But I was still throughly entertained with The Babysitter. So, I would give it a 4, making it a treasure.

Rating: 4/5