Halloween Horror Challenge Movie #4 - HAUNTED (1977)

HAUNTED (1977)
D. Michael G. Degeatano

CODE RED DVD

This older drive-in style potboiler is one of the releases from Code Red that features ex-wrestler Maria as a host. Seems that most of the movies she hosts are really bad. Some so bad they are great like NIGHT OF THE DEMON or MARDI GRAS MASSACRE, but others like this one leave you wondering why they bothered to put it out at all. Even she comments after the movie on how futile and pointless it all was.

The story begins promisingly enough with a very well acted prologue. An Indian maiden is stripped bare and set off on her horse to die. Turns out the soldiers and townsfolk all conspired to kill her and lied about the charges she was sentenced over. Cut to modern day and the town has become a dilapidated tourist trap. Resided over by an old man (Aldo Ray) his psychotic wife (Virginia Mayo) and his two sons. Seems the lady of the house never got over an affair she had with old Aldo's brother when they were all much younger and has driven herself insane with the good memories of loving this man. This man she can never have because he up and vanished one day. The kids hate their father and disrespect him at every turn. Into this mess comes a young woman (Ann Michelle) who sets the delicate balance of the house askew. The eldest son decides to put mom into a nursing home and sell the land. Meanwhile mysteriously a phone booth has been installed in the cemetery next door. A phone-line to talk to the dead.

The problem with HAUNTED is that it is slow. People talk a lot, and the town has a weird atmosphere to it. But as for action, there literally is none. Nothing scary happens until well past the one hour mark and then it is so little that you are shocked when the movie is over.

Review © Andrew Copp

HALLOWEEN Horror Challenge Oct 02nd Pt 2: HUMAN EXPERIMENTS

HUMAN EXPERIMENTS (1980) AKA - BEYOND THE GATE

D. Gregory Goodell
VHS (Supposedly Coming on DVD From Code Red - Some day)






Linda Haynes plays a country western singer who ends up running afoul in a small redneck town and gets blamed for a particularly savage multiple murder. Because of this she ends up doing a life sentence in a women's prison slash sanitarium where the warden is doing bazaar behavior modification experiments using the inmates.


After a truly gripping opening ten minutes where Haynes stumbles on the house filled with fresh dead bodies and a teen boy waiting with a shotgun that she is forced to kill in self defense, the movie slows down and changes gears. There is some really unsettling scenes when we first get into the prison establishing how far degenerated several of the clearly experimented on inmates are as well as a humiliating bit of preparation by the guards and nurses. But after that it is really dull going for a looooong stretch of time. Nothing scary happens, and nothing sleazy really happens either for a good half hour, making this neither work as a horror film or a women in prison flick. Not until a prisoner hangs themselves at the 45 minute mark and then Haynes masturbates with her own tears about ten minutes later does the movie hit any kind of peak. After about the hour mark that great low budget bugaboo the crappy performing band makes an appearance, this time no name band called SATAN AND THE LUCIFERS! I also forgot to mention the creepster opening moment when bar owner Aldo Ray tries to get her to make it with him and she refuses and he calls her a cunt. Super classy guy.

A lot does need to be said for Linda Haynes performance though as she is quite good with the limited material going for the slow burn breakdown. Geoffrey Lewis is creepy as shit as the doctor running the joint too, with lots of scenes of his eyes filling the frame as he looks through the metal slats that peek into the doors on the solitary confinement rooms or or as he talks about his entomology hobbies.

Unfortunately the movie feels endlessly padded with lots of scenes of the women eating in the mess hall, or working in the fields, or sleeping. Yes we get it, they are in prison but the movie needs to get on with the storyline , not lingering around waiting for something to happen.


Finally in the last fifteen to twenty minutes the movie takes off and begins to move along and take shape. As Haynes character attempts to escape the prison, the film turns inside out and literally becomes a vivid horror film. She begins to find bodies of other inmates who have been part of the experiments and hallucinate her worst fears. By the end we realize the full extent o the awful things the doctor is doing to his patients and with the full cooperation of the other inmates.

By no means a successful film, but there is a mean streak throughout HUMAN EXPERIMENTS that makes it fascinating, and there is certainly pieces and parts that are undeniably effective. Too bad this is a movie that is not as strong as a whole as it is in parts. If only that midsection could be tightened up this could be a really good movie. The opening is great and the last twenty minutes are solid. But the midsection is very hard to get through.


Review © Andrew Copp