Goliath Awaits (1981) – Review

There are many movies about ocean-going disasters, from depictions of the sinking of the legendary Titanic to Irwin Allen’s disaster classic The Poseidon Adventure, but in 1981 a made-for-television production tried to make a “Prime Time Event” about an ocean liner that was sunk during WWII and the surprising events surrounding the wreck’s discovery in the present day, but what is more surprising is what Network executives thought could pass for a movie.

In 1998, at the MTV Movie Awards, Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn performed a comedic bit where they pitched to James Cameron a sequel to his blockbuster Titanic, with the idea that Leo’s character, along with hundreds of other passengers, somehow survived the sinking and now lived in an "undersea utopia" called Titani, the last letter of the boat’s name having been rusted off, now, even though that skit pitched an absolutely ludicrous premise would it surprise you to know that seventeen years earlier ABC aired a movie with almost that exact same premise?

 

Christopher Lee as an insane undersea captain is a bonus here.

Forty years after the sinking of the Goliath, a research ship looking for manganese discovers the wreck lying upright in 1,000 feet of water, and while exploring the outside of the sunken wreck oceanographer Peter Cabot (Mark Harmon) hears systematic banging and music coming from inside the ship, but he is even more shocked to see the face of a beautiful young woman (Emma Samms) peering out of a porthole. Needless to say, upon returning to the surface Cabot’s claims are chalked up to poor oxygen mixture and he's quickly rushed to a hospital, where he eventually gets a meeting with Admiral Wiley Sloan (Eddie Albert), who pretends to consider Cabot’s insane story and orders Cmdr. Jeff Selkirk (Robert Forster) to contact a British salvage company to check out Cabot’s claim.  The twist here is that the idea of finding a pretty girl on a sunken ship was not the reason behind this mission being greenlit, turns out that onboard the Goliath were documents forged by Nazi spies and if these papers were to ever see the light of day they could destroy NATO, so a joint American/British military team is sent by the Admiral to retrieve and destroy those documents.

Note: A year earlier saw the release of Raise the Titanic, a film based on the Clive Cussler novel where a secret agenda in “Raising the Titanic” had to do with an extremely rare mineral called Byzanium that was rumoured to be on board the Titanic, which the U.S. Government needed for a new defence program.

When they take a submersible back down to the Goliath all doubts surrounding Cabot’s story are put aside when they hear a message in Morris Code from inside the sunken ship, stating, “Goliath. Onboard, 337. Danger. Air toxic. Beware, McKenzie” and with that startling and cryptic message the plot of Goliath Awaits is finally underway.  We soon learn that back in 1939, while the ship was sinking, John McKenzie (Christopher Lee) and the crew were able to get the pressure inside Goliath equalized with that of the pressure on the outside while it sank, so that the water was held back, and then a shipment of barrel lime was spread around to soak up the carbon dioxide which would allow the survivors to breathe until they could later construct a more permanent air scrubbing system. Now, if that sounds like utter nonsense that's because it is, even if all of that had worked, which it wouldn’t have, forty years of saltwater would have eventually rusted portions of the ship away and the ocean would have flooded in and drowned everyone onboard, but this is the bold and idiotic premise of this movie and I do give credit to the actors for delivering such ridiculous dialogue with at least a modicum of seriousness.

 

Who could doubt this group?

Things are quickly revealed to be not all that peachy keen aboard the Goliath, being underwater for forty years that is to be expected, but Cabot and company, which includes Selkirk, Dr. Sam Marlowe (Alex Cord), and engineer Bill Sweeney (John Ratzenberger), soon discover that there are factions aboard the Goliath, some of which who want to overthrow the dictatorship regime of McKenzie and escape to the surface, while others seem more than happy to remain at the bottom of the ocean under McKenzie’s brutal hand. An even darker cloud is revealed when Cabot learns that McKenzie and his “Number One Guy” Dan Wesker (Frank Gorshin) have been keeping the population of the Goliath under control via mandatory contraception, euthanasia, and outright murder disguised as a mysterious ailment called Palmer's Disease when rescue threatens McKenzie’s “Utopia” and his position as “God-King. ” He does his best to stop his people from listening to Cabot and Selkirk and things reach a boiling point when McKenzie informs Wesker that “We've created a very special world down here, you and I, and I don't intend to let it die.” Needless to say, things go badly from there and it’s up to our heroes to rescue as many people as possible.

 

“I’ve fought a giant alligator once, I can handle one Christopher Lee and a Frank Gorshin.”

Stray Observations:

• Upon seeing a sonar image of the sunken ship, Peter Cabot remarks, “Damn, she’s at least as big as the Queen Mary” in fact, the filmmakers used the actual Queen Mary to double for much of Goliath’s interiors.
• If you find Christopher Lee at the bottom of the ocean, alive when he should be dead, you should put a stake right through his heart, just to play it safe.
• Aboard Goliath they have a movie night where they screen a film supposedly starring John Carradine’s character, but it’s actually The Black Night starring Christopher Lee’s old friend Peter Cushing.
• Robert Forster had already dealt with a crazed ship commander a few years earlier in Disney’s space adventure film The Black Hole.
• The Goliath derives its power from a pair of Scotch Boilers, and we are told that they are fueled by oil when in fact they actually ran on coal, but regardless of the type of fuel used that either one would last forty years is rather absurd.
• Clothing in the late 30s must have been made of incredible material because the outfits worn by the Goliath passengers didn’t seem to wear or fade even after forty years of constant use.
• If McKenzie and Wesker have implemented some kind of euthanasia plan to remove “non-essential personal” from Goliath, in the form of a mysterious ailment called Palmer’s Disease, it’s odd that there are so many elderly people still alive.

 

“My essential service is being bloody John Carradine!”

These kinds of films do require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief but Goliath Awaits will put even the most open-minded person to the test by its sheer absurdity, and not even the supplied love story between Mark Harmon’s character and the pretty daughter of Christopher Lee’s Captain Ahab wannabe can distract one from just how utterly nonsensical the entire plot is, which sinks faster than a torpedoed ocean liner, but we at least have fun performances by Christopher Lee and Frank Gorshin to entertain us, unfortunately, as this movie is over three hours in length even those legends weren’t able to provide enough heavy lifting to keep this thing afloat.

 

“Riddle me this, Batman, what sits at the bottom of the ocean and sucks?”

The liberal use of stock footage from various ocean disaster movies, and a budget that strained itself in creating this undersea utopia, resulted in a world that didn’t look all that convincing, and then there is the subplot dealing with those forged WWII documents that wasn’t so much implausible as it was completely unnecessary and basically forgotten about half-way through – we do get some bullshit from Christopher Lee about its existence proving that the upper world isn’t worth living in but it makes about as much sense as him ignoring the fact that his ship only has a month or so left of power but he still doesn't want his people rescued – and thus when the film reaches its “exciting” conclusion we don’t really care about any of these people, most who are too stupid to live. In conclusion, Goliath Awaits was one of those made-for-television events that are only memorable due to the absurdity of its premise and for its noteworthy cast, and not for being especially good.

Disney’s Tower of Terror (1997) – Review

When you think about it, turning a theme park attraction into a motion picture is a pretty strange idea, as most rides only last a few minutes it would seem hard to stretch that into a feature film, but back in 2003 Disney took one of their most popular rides and turned it into the feature film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which grossed over $650 million dollars and launched a franchise, one that they would quickly run into the ground, but The Pirates of the Caribbean was not the first Disney attraction to become a feature film, that honour would go to a Twilight Zone inspired free-fall ride that would launch its own guests up and down an elevator shaft that would echo with screams of terror and delight, a ride that three years later would be adapted into a made-for-television movie for The Wonderful World of Disney.

The year is 1939 and a gala party is being held at the famous Hollywood Tower Hotel when five hotel guests, consisting of singer Carolyn Crosson (Melora Hardin), actor Gilbert London (Alastair Duncan), beloved child star Sally Shine (Lindsay Ridgeway), her nanny Emeline Partridge (Wendy Worthington), and bellhop Dewey Todd (John Franklin), mysteriously disappeared after entering the hotel's main elevator and it being struck by lightning, while on their way up to a party at the hotel's Tip Top Club. Six decades later and the events of that Halloween night still remains a mystery but an elderly woman named Abigail Gregory (Amzie Strickland), who was a witness to the original tragedy, seeks out journalist Buzzy Crocker (Steve Guttenberg), a writer for a supermarket tabloid who was a once-respected journalist but due to his publishing of a fake news story he now relies on manufacturing stories about alien abduction and ghosts, but Abigail believes he is just the man she needs to uncover the truth.

 

Personally, I wouldn’t rely on this guy to find a missing sock.

Abigail declares that the nanny, Emeline, was a bitter witch who tried to put a curse on Sally, only for the curse to misfire due to her only having an item belonging to Sally for the spell but nothing from the other four people in the elevator, so instead of sending Sally to the underworld for an “eternity of torment” all five passengers were trapped in a state of limbo, and now they haunt the hotel as a ghostly quintet. Abigail then explains that if items belonging to the other passengers can be found they will be able to replicate the spell and break the curse. Buzzy enlists the help of his young niece Anna Peterson (Kirsten Dunst), who he would often use to pose as a ghost or an alien for his articles, and he hopes to do the same here with her posing as the ghostly Sally Shine, but it becomes quickly apparent that the Hollywood Tower Hotel is actually haunted, and he starts seeing this as his big chance to repair his damaged reputation and get his old job back.

 

This looks like a job for the Scooby gang.

Buzzy and Anna recruit the help of Chris "Q" Todd (Michael McShane), the hotel caretaker and grandson of Dewey Todd, to help with their investigation but Q is very reluctant, having never set foot inside the place due to his fear of ghosts, but he decides to help his deceased grandfather and the four guests because as he stands to inherit the hotel if an explanation to the 1939 event is revealed, which was a strange clause that his great grandfather had put in his will after closing the hotel after the events of that fateful Halloween. The ghosts appear and repeatedly attempt to frighten off Buzzy and Anna but when Anna bravely offers to help the ghosts escape the curse they soon learn that the nanny deeply loves her young charge and was not responsible for the curse. Enter editor Jill Perry (Nia Peeples) Buzzy’s old flame, who doesn’t believe in ghosts, and kicks Buzzy out of her office and forbids him from ever returning, but this doesn't stop her from looking into this Abigail person and she soon discovers that Abigail is the sister of Sally Shine and was secretly jealous of her younger sister's talents and fame, to the point of having a hidden chest full of marked-up photos that would make any serial killer proud.  It becomes quite clear that it was Abigail who cast the spell and she has been manipulating Buzzy so that she can get another “ring at the bell” when it comes to sending her darling sister to Hell.

 

“I thought of a poisoned apple first, but banishing her to Hell seemed like more fun.”

Unfortunately, the film’s third act brings up a terrible manufactured conflict that is insanely lame, with Buzzy about to abandon the idea of helping the ghosts for the chance of getting back his old job at the Banner and Jill’s idiotic dismissal of the idea of waiting “One bloody day” is especially ridiculous. This is the resolution of a decade-old mystery, we’re not talking breaking news here so I don’t see any pressing need to write the story that very night, and this pretty much derails any sympathy the film had managed to build for Buzzy. One minute he cares more about rebuilding his career than that of the troubles of a bunch of “mouldy ghosts” but in the next, he’s all about helping the ghosts, that is until Jill shows up with a paper-thin offer for his old job and he’s back to being a selfish prick. If anyone deserves to be cursed and forced to haunt an abandoned hotel it’s Buzzy Crocker, a self-serving jerk who basically gets his redemption by default.  This whole plot detour is pretty much a waste of time because, of course, he eventually makes the right decision and races back to the hotel to help save the day.

 

“I just need to write one or two more scenes to pad this thing out.”

Stray Observations:

• After writing a fake news story for a reputable newspaper, Buzzy Crocker is forced to work for a disreputable tabloid paper, but why couldn’t he have just gotten a job at Fox News? That cable network had just started, so I’m sure Rupert Murdoch was hiring.
• Hotel curator Chris "Q" Todd is the sole heir to the Hollywood Tower Hotel, but he refuses to step foot into its haunted halls and could be considered a precursor to Chris Kattan’s character from the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill.
• Jill discovers that Abigail has been in a sanitarium ever since that fateful night six decades ago, but who commits a ten-year-old to a sanitarium? Did she axe murder a few guests as well?
• I’m not sure what most ten-year-old kids were doing to amuse themselves back in the late 1930s but practicing dark magic was not something that I ever imagined them doing.
• The film climaxes with a young Abigail arriving at her birthday party, where she embraces her sister after decades of separation and the two of them are whisked off to heaven, but that means that old Abigail must have just died yet no one seems to remark on this development or even look for her body.
• Why were the ghosts going all “Beetlejuice” on Buzzy and Anna, conjuring up terrifying images of phantoms dancing in the rain and headless figures wielding meat cleavers, when their only chance of freedom was in someone solving the mystery?

 

“I’d ask for help but I’ve lost my head.”

What should be noted is that Disney’s Tower of Terror is still the most faithful adaptation of a Disney ride, not that the original ride had much of an intricate plot in the first place. The whole curse and mystery were fabricated for the movie but when compared to the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise it’s a spot-on masterpiece of an adaptation. Where those films simply took the genre the rides were based on, and then went off and did their own thing, the Tower of Terror took the simple premise of that ride and fleshed it out with a fairly cool and interesting mystery, and sure, most adults will see the solution coming from a mile away but I doubt many younger viewers would.  The film also has some decidedly creepy moments and it doesn’t have anything as traumatizing as the zombies found in Disney’s 2003 release of The Haunted Mansion so I’d call this one more family-friendly. Overall, this entry in Disney’s tiny horror canon is surprisingly good and while its low budget resulted in less-than-spectacular ghost effects it's still worth checking out by fans of both Disney and ghostly mysteries.

Note: Of all the ride-based movies that Disney has produced over the years this is the only one to actually utilize the ride itself as part of the production.

The Deadly Spawn (1983) – Review

If cinema has taught us anything it’s that meteors are nothing but trouble, they either wipe out cities ala Deep Impact or they'll bring nasty alien creatures like The Blob to eat the locals, and today we will be looking at writer/director Douglas McKeown’s The Deadly Spawn, a film that falls in that second category with a particular nasty visitor from the dark reaches of space, one that seems to have an endless hunger for Earthlings.

The story unfolds like your standard science fiction/horror flick, with a meteorite impacting in a forest and unleashing hungry alien species that makes quick work of two curious campers before moving on to invade the nearby home to broaden its menu. The cast of characters that make up this rather limited menu consists of young Charles (Charles George Hildebrandt), a lover of monsters movies and special effects, and his older brother Pete (Tom DeFranco) who is a science major but is torn between his love of the “scientific theory” and his attraction to classmates Ellen (Jean Tafler), who may or may not be dating Pete’s best friend Frankie (Richard Lee Porter), and this high school drama goes on for quite a while, taking us away from the invading monsters who we see devour Pete and Charlie’s parents, and it’s this aspect of the film that drags everything down.

 

“I vote that we all sacrifice ourselves to our alien overlords.”

At a meagre 71-minutes in length, it’s surprising how lethargic and listless the film manages to become and that there isn’t one single character to rise above one dimensionality is a key factor in keeping us from ever becoming fully engaged. We don’t get to learn much about the parents before they wander off to the cellar to get eaten, and then there is Aunt Millie (Ethel Michelson) and Uncle Herb (John Schmerling) who picked the wrong time and place to visit their relatives, with Herb taking some time off to psychoanalyze Charles before getting his eyes eaten out by the “Deadly Spawn” while Millie goes off to her mother’s (Judith Mayes) for a luncheon with the local women’s group, and when the alien invaders crash the party it’s about as abrupt and uninteresting as everything we’ve seen up to that point.

 

This is still clearly more enjoyable than your average Tupperware party.

When things finally begin to go crazy, with Charles finding the alien horde munching on his mother and a visiting electrician while Peter’s study party is interrupted by an alien autopsy followed by an alien invasion, one would assume that the proceedings would start to get good, but you’d be wrong. We do get a lot of gore but primarily the film’s last act is full of people screaming and slamming doors on the encroaching alien monsters, with a fourth study buddy Kathy (Karen Tighe) showing up to maybe add some tension. Still, her arrival is far too late for that, and she simply brings a new set of screams to a home that is already overloaded with much of the same. As to be expected, it is Charles who inexplicably comes up with a plan to defeat the “Mother Spawn” and to call his plan ill-prepared and highly implausible is being generous and the film is only able to pull up from this complete crash and burn of an ending by giving us a cool “Gotcha!” moment with the hill by the house suddenly lifting up and revealing a fully-grown spawn of colossal size.

 

If this was a kaiju movie this wouldn't be the ending, it'd be the halfway point.

Stray Observations:

• People who investigate a meteor strike have a very low survivability rate, just ask the old dude from The Blob or poor lonesome Jordy Verrill in Romero’s Creepshow.
• Charles is one of those kids who is a monster fan, which is a quick and easy shortcut to give us an “outsider” we can relate to and is a “trope character” that has popped up in such films as Salem’s Lot and Friday the 13th the Final Chapter.
• Uncle Herb, who is a trained psychologist, attempts to psychoanalyze his nephew under false pretenses and for that alone, he pretty much earns his death.
• The little tadpole-like offspring give off a definite Cronenberg vibe from his 1975 horror classic Shivers.
• The slow speed at which the “Deadly Spawn” moves about puts it on par with The Creeping Terror for monsters than can be easily avoided by walking away at a brisk pace.
• I’m not sure if the non-reaction we get from Charles when he first sees the monster is due to catatonia, bad acting or poor direction, regardless of all that what we still must ask is why the creature didn’t immediately devour the kid like it did the three previous visitors to the cellar.

 

Either this kid has insane levels of plot armour or aliens must not like eating children.

Douglas McKeown’s The Deadly Spawn has managed to achieve some level of cult status over the years, an achievement of sorts to be sure but it doesn’t make this film any easier to recommend to anyone but hardcore horror fans of cheap gore and goofy monsters, which is really the only reason to watch this film. As to the movie’s title monster, well, I’ll grant it that special effects man John Dods did a pretty good job with his creation, considering the budget and constraints he was working under, but for a monster to fully work it must face off against some good protagonists and in the case of this movie that is decidedly lacking here as what we see on display barely achieves community theatre levels acting, and watching these “actors” walk tediously around a damp basement fails to deliver any real suspense and that is the kiss of death to a horror film.

 

“Give me a little sugar, baby!”

While The Deadly Spawn fails to be scary or even remotely suspenseful, unless you are under the age of seven, there is an element of quaint charm that many of these low-budget horror films of the 80s often achieve, which is mostly due to the amount of heart and effort the filmmakers put into these creations, despite the lack of actual talent behind or in front of the camera, and so a little forgiveness can go along way towards appreciating these horror gems and while this particular entry doesn’t quite fit into the “So bad it’s good” category there is still a bit of fun to be had if you go into it with the right frame of mind.

Phenomena (1985) – Review

What do you get when you mix a psychic teen’s ability to control insects with that of a serial killer stalking the students of an all-girls boarding school, a straight-razor-wielding chimp and Donald Pleasence? If you’ve come up with the answer “A Dario Argento film” then you are clearly a student of Italian Giallo and the works of one of its most preeminent directors, a man who can’t say no to a little bit of gruesomeness, especially if it’s a beautifully shot. This brings us to the film we will be looking at today, Phenomena, an Italian Giallo/ supernatural horror film that looks like it was created via a dark evening spent playing Mad Libs.

How well can you appreciate maggots? The answer to that question will be key in factoring one’s enjoyment of Dario Argento’s Phenomena, a film whose lead protagonist has a decidedly interesting relationship with the creepy crawlies of the world. Considered by many to be a “lower-tier Giallo” from Argento and while this particular entry offers much of the dark and murderous elements of the Giallo genre it also adds a supernatural hook that puts it closer to his earlier Suspiria, that both these films deal with an all-girls boarding school makes one question his view on such establishments, and though influences by American horror films rear their head quite prominently this film is still a very Argento offering, with all the weirdness that entails.

 

“There is a chimpanzee behind me, isn’t there?”

The movie opens like your standard slasher film with a young girl (Fiore Argento) missing her bus and while looking for assistance falls victim to the killer, who cuts her head off with a pair of scissors, and this brutal attack sets up the tone of the film as well as the mystery – who owns the house that the poor girl wandered into and who or what was chained up there – but after that exciting opening we are introduced to the film’s chief protagonists, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly), an American teenager who was been sent to live at the Richard Wagner School for Girls in Switzerland by her famous father, who is off filming a movie in the Philippines. Right away we learn that Jennifer is not your average teenager as she seems to have a rather strong affinity for insects, quite empathetic and loving, and this trait will come in handy when tracking down a killer, but it does tend to make her less than compassionate classmates take a rather strong dislike to her. That she can call forth a swarm of flies as if she was Moses bringing down the wrath of God does not help her win any friends either.

Note: This movie engages the standard trope of displaying a girl's psychic powers by having the wind suddenly come out of nowhere to tussle her hair.

Of course, dealing with the scorn of the resident “mean girls” is the least of Jennifer’s problems because not only can she communicate telepathically with insects, but she also has a penchant for sleepwalking, and this leads to her “witnessing” the murder of one of her fellow students and becoming a target of this film’s killer. On the plus side, her somnambulism does result in an encounter with a wayward chimpanzee and a trip to meet her master, forensic entomologist John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), who the local police have solicited his aid regarding the series of murders that have occurred throughout the countryside, that this place is also known as Swiss Transylvania makes you wonder if this kind of thing is not routine it’s at least expected. When McGregor discovers Jennifer’s unique affinity for insects, he suggests that they use a Great Sarcophagus fly, an insect that is drawn to decaying human flesh and thus could lead her to the killer’s lair, and before you can say “Child endangerment” fourteen-year-old Jennifer is traipsing across the countryside looking for corpses.

 

“If anyone asks, just tell them you’re doing this for extra credit.”

To say that Argento’s Phenomena is a little on the weird side would be a massive understatement, fans of Argento pretty much expect the weird and the off-putting when sitting down to watch one of his films, and while the plot mechanics may often defy logic or even basic sensibilities it’s the fantastical look and cinematography that he brings to a project that makes his film stand out, wonderfully provided her by cinematographer Romano Albino, and reason may take a back seat in this outing, make no mistake, gore and horror will not. Special makeup effects artists M. Garrone and Pierantonio Mecacci provide some truly gruesome moments and with each victim’s untimely death the horror and terror really begin to mount. But who is behind these brutal killings? Is it the school’s Headmistress (Dalila Di Lazzaro), a stern and unsympathetic woman who thinks Jennifer belongs in a mental hospital? Could it be the school nurse (Francesca Ottaviani) who is convinced that Jennifer is "diabolic" and possibly responsible for the killings? Then there is Frau Brückner (Daria Nicolodi) who has a dark and horrifying secret that she will do anything to protect, so yeah, it’s not much of a mystery.

 

A face only a mother could love, and also kill for.

Stray Observations:

• The film’s first victim literally calls out “I’m a foreigner and I’m lost” as if she were intentionally taunting a serial killer to come after her.
• If one were to go by the films of Dario Argento, I’d say it’s best to never send your daughter to a European boarding school as the odds of her surviving are not all that good.
• Whenever someone said the name “Frau Brückner” I kept expecting to hear a horse outside loudly whinnying in fright.
• Watching Donald Pleasence playing a forensic entomologist in this movie has me bemoaning the fact that we never got CSI: Haddonfield or at least a guest appearance on Bones for him.
• Apparently, Swiss boarding schools have a low tolerance for sleepwalking as they immediately call in a doctor to attach electrodes to the poor girl’s head. Why a boarding school would even have such a set-up is a question best not asked.
• Jennifer Connelly falls into a pool of rotting bodies, something poor JoBeth Williams also had to endure a couple of years earlier in Poltergeist.

Question: Just how much money does a teacher at a private school actually make? Not only does Frau Brückner have a secret lair under her house, fully equipped with a corpse pool, but the upstairs has quick-activating steel shutters, and is that in case a SWAT team arrives?

While I do agree this is not one of Dario Argento’s best films I still quite enjoyed it, especially in the case of Donald Pleasence as the caring father figure who provides both warmth and understanding to our beleaguered heroine, even though he sends her on the trail of a serial killer, and then matching the wonderful visuals we get a beautiful score by Simon Boswell and Goblin, on the hand, with Jennifer Connelly it’s more a mixed bag because Argento is notorious for not being an “actor’s director” and a young Connelly was often left to flounder without support from her director, not to mention having to fend off an angry chimp co-star. That Connelly didn’t end up needing therapy after this film wrapped is a miracle in itself.

 

“We suggest, for your next film, you team up with David Bowie and some Muppets.”

Overall, Phenomena is a bizarre yet darkly whimsical fantasy film that engages in moments of bizarre whimsy that are then almost immediately shifted to horror and repulsion, the aforementioned maggots being a key element there, and it’s clear Argento tried to borrow elements from such American films as The Fury and Friday the 13th, and while these disparate parts did combine to make a dreamy if incredibly violent outing, did it all work? Not exactly, style over substance is a dangerous road to travel and while Dario Argento is a master of horror this particular entry is not his best but there is still much to offer fans of the genre.

 

Spider Baby (1967) – Review

If ever there was a film more aptly subtitled “The Maddest Story Ever Told” than Jack Hill's Spider Baby I’m not unaware of it, and to be sure, there are many crazy movies out there but with this entry, Jack Hill brought to the screen a collection of wonderful oddball characters in a story that only he could tell and in a fashion that was so off-the-wonderful that it has to be admired if not applauded, so sit back and take a fun journey to a little out of the way place that is just down the lane.

This is a story about unconditional love, which may seem odd for a movie subtitled “The Maddest Story Ever Told” but at its center is a theme of unconditional love as writer/director Jack Hill's Spider Baby is a film about one man’s unwavering love for his charges and as bizarre and outlandish as things get along the way it never strays from that simple truth. And exactly who is being loved in this film? The basic premise of Spider Baby surrounds a family that suffers from something called the "Merrye Syndrome" which is a genetic affliction unique to members of the Merrye family that starting in late childhood causes them to regress down the evolutionary ladder mentally, socially, and physically. Living within the decaying rural Merrye House we find three children of the Merrye family, sisters Virginia (Jill Banner) and Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) as well as their older brother Ralph (Sid Haig) but when intruders from the "normal world" collide with that of the Merryes, well, think the Addams Family only vastly more disturbing and even weirder.

 

“They're creepy and they're kooky. Mysterious and spooky. They're all together ooky. The Merrye Family"

Their guardian, protector and chauffeur is the long-suffering Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.) whose pledge to his deceased master is the crux of the story, him trying to keep the three Merrye children safe from the world and the world safe from them, and all three “children” exhibit playful innocence mixed with brutality and feral madness.  With Ralph being the oldest he has regressed further and become a mentally deficient simpleton, who uses the dumbwaiter to travel through the house, but more disturbing is the fact that his childlike behaviour is a weird counterpoint to his sexual proclivities and when new females are entered into the mix things quickly advance from leering to abduction and rape.

 

Did I mention this was a dark comedy?

The youngest member of the family is Virginia, who is known as "Spider Baby" because of her obsession with spiders, and she is our introduction to this homicidal family as she murders a poor delivery man (Mantan Moreland) who had the misfortune of sticking his neck into her web and paid the ultimate price. Her older but equally vicious sister, Elizabeth, is more manic and gleeful in her actions and she is often the one to goad her younger sister into action, that is not that Virginia needs much goading. Things come to a head when two distant relatives, Peter Howe (Quinn Redeker) and his sister Emily (Carol Ohmart), arrive followed by their lawyer Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his secretary Ann Morris (Mary Mitchel) in order to examine and claim the property as rightful heirs. Needless to say, Bruno is quite uncomfortable with these visitors as he knows exactly what his charges are capable of doing. What makes things even more interesting is that “Uncle Peter” is such a nice and affable guy, to the point of being so completely oblivious to the danger that one has to wonder about his sanity, but somehow this innocence within allows him to survive, even after allowing himself to be tied to a rocking chair, so that Virginia can play her “Spider” game with him, he somehow comes out alright.

 

50 Shades of Incest.

On the other hand, we have his shrewish sister Emily who, along with her scheming lawyer, only sees dollar signs when they look upon the Merrye House and it's their own blindness to the true nature of their surroundings that leads their fates to a less than pleasant outcome, with Emily being stalked and raped by Ralph while Schlocker’s nocturnal explorations of the house lead him to a fatal encounter with the two sisters. This is where Jack Hill’s film is at its best with its oddball dark humour and hilarious dialogue, such as Schocket’s attempt at talking his way out of getting murdered, “Now see here. This won’t do. This has gone quite far enough. This has gone well beyond the boundaries of prudence and good taste.”

 

Negotiations broke down rather quickly after that.

Stray Observations:

• The film was originally titled "Cannibal Orgy" but while there is an allusion to cannibalism in this movie there are definitely no orgies depicted on screen, maybe we would have gotten them in the proposed sequel “Vampire Orgy” but sadly, that sequel never happened.
• The wonderfully goofy title sequence was by E.I.P. who also did Corman’s titles for Little Shop of Horrors, and it along with Lon Chaney Jr. singing the title song perfectly set the tone for this dark comedy.
• With all the stuffed birds mounted all over the house one must wonder if the place was decorated by Norman Bates.
• Carol Ohmart starred in the Vincent Price classic House on Haunted Hill, so you’d think she’d know how to behave when occupying a house full of murder.
• To that last point, maybe dancing around in sexy lingerie is not the best idea when you’re staying overnight at a house full of weirdos, especially if one of them is being played by Sid Haig.

 

We all go a little crazy sometimes.

As bizarre and “out there” as the premise of this movie is, and it really is bizarre, it’s the performances by this very talented cast that is able to ground the film and allows you to actually sympathize with this odd and demented collection of crazies; from Sid Haig’s infantile animalistic Ralph, to Beverly Washburn’s precociously sadistic Elizabeth and Jill Banner as her delightfully playful and murderous sister Virginia, it’s these characterizations that both solidifies the film's core while also giving it an almost surreal nightmare quality to it all, one that takes hold of you and never let's go, of course, the true anchor of Spider Baby is Lon Chaney Jr. as his performance as Bruno is not only the heart of the film but he also showed the world what a deft hand he had at comedy.

 

Where is Lon Chaney Jr.’s Oscar?

Jack Hill’s Spider Baby is one of those films that fell through the cinemagoing cracks at the time of its release but since then it has developed quite the cult following and viewers today are often surprised at just how well-crafted this low-budget flick is because along with that insanely talented cast, who can somehow make you cry over doomed cannibal murderers, but it also sported top-notch cinematographer Alfred Taylor and provided a wonderful haunting score by composer Ronald Stein. Overall, this dark comedy delivered way more than could be expected and is an entry into the horror genre that really needs to be experienced by more people so if you are one who likes a walk on the dark side check out Spider Baby.

Note: This film could be considered the ancestor of such films as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses, which also starred Sid Haig.

Beginning of the End (1957) – Review

How will our world come to its inevitable end? Will it be from an asteroid similar to the one that killed the dinosaurs? Could a manmade plague wipe out all of humanity? Or will our end come from gigantic rampaging mutant locusts? In 1957 Republic Pictures and producer/director Bert I. Gordon would bring to fruition the depiction of this third alternative and would also pit Peter Graves against these giant grasshoppers.

During the 1950s “boom years” of science fiction films, where space adventures or rampaging monsters were all the rage, it was American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres (AB-PT), a merger of studios with the simple goal of producing low-budget features, and they tapped up-and-coming filmmaker Bert I. Gordon to make a film that would capitalize on the success of the Warner Brothers giant ant film Them! As for Gordon, he had only one feature film under his belt, King Dinosaur, a movie that can most generously be called “silly fun” but as he had shot that movie in seven days with borrowed equipment and a cast willing to work for deferred salaries, it was clear to the studio that Bert I. Gordon was the perfect man to helm a discount big bug feature film.

 

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it.”

The Beginning of the End wastes no time in getting to the meat of things, even before the opening credits roll we find a young couple making out in a parked car that is quickly attacked by “something” and when their wrecked car is discovered by the police this leads to the revelation that the nearby town of Ludlow has been completely destroyed and all 150 residents are missing and presumed dead. Audrey Aimes (Peggie Castle), a photojournalist for a national wire service, stumbles upon this amazing story and despite the government's clampdown on the “event” she continues to investigate, with her first theory having to do with a nuclear accident, but as the only nuclear facility in the area is a United States Agricultural experimental farm this seems highly unlikely. And while the connection between a destroyed town and a lab experimenting with radiation seems far-fetched, Audrey does enlist the aid of the projects head, Dr. Ed Wainwright (Peter Graves), in checking out a warehouse, which had been destroyed much in the same way that Ludlow was, only three months earlier. A visit to the demolished warehouse finally reveals what actually caused the town of Ludlow to be wiped out, it was giant locusts.

 

“Jiminy Crickets, that thing is huge!”

And just how did these bugs get to be so large? Turns out that Wainwright’s project dealt with the use of radiation as a means of growing gigantic fruits and vegetables in the hope of ending world hunger, a noble pursuit but in these kinds of movies it’s never going to end well, and in this case, the local population of locusts managed to eat some of the radioactive plants and then moved over to where the wheat was stored and while there they grew to the size of a city bus, of course, the real threat isn’t so much the giant locusts but the idiots in the military. Colonel Tom Sturgeon (Thomas Browne Henry), the head of the local National Guard, first dismisses the ridiculous idea of their being giant locusts, stating that Audrey and Wainwright were probably seeing things due to stress, and later when he sees these giant creatures for himself he ignores Wainwright’s advice that the Army should be called in, believing his men should have no problem with a bunch of big bugs, decrying “Where do I get off asking the Regular Army for help with a bunch of oversize grasshoppers? Why they’d Section Eight me right out of the service.”

 

“Can someone head back to base and bring us a giant can of Raid?”

With Wainwright's concerns about what the locusts could, pondering “We may be witnessing the beginning of an era that may mean the complete annihilation of man. The beginning of the end” he and Audrey then head to Washington to hopefully enlist the aid of the army, but the Army Brass are just as cynically when considering the threat of giant locusts and confirm their faith in the Illinois National Guard taking care of this pest problem. Funnily enough, just as the meeting is breaking up reports come in that the giant locuss have broken through and are marching toward a nearby town.  Now, it’s not unusual for films to depict the government and military as less than intelligent as this allows the hero to step in and save the day, and in this case, when the government decides to nuke Chicago it’s Peter Graves who comes up with the plan to lure the locusts into the ocean. What is ridiculous is that it’s not until an atomic bomb is going to be dropped before the word “evacuate” is mentioned, so one can only imagine the number of people in Chicago and the neighbour towns who were devoured by the giant bugs because the government failed to give them a heads up, we actually see people picnicking in the park as the giant locusts' attack and one woman calmly brushing her hair after taking a relaxing shower.

 

Who knew locusts were such peeping Toms?

Stray Observations:

• Some elements of this movie’s plot bear a striking resemblance to that of the 1904 H. G. Wells novel “The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth,” a source material that Bert I. Gordon would return to two more times, with Village of the Giants (1968) and Food of the Gods (1976).
• We see both the cop who first discovered the destroyed town of Ludlow, and later Audrey Aimes, looking off camera at the destroyed town because showing the audience the actual destruction would cost money. Now, later we do see a bit of that destruction but it’s just actress Peggy Castle being driven in front of stock footage of the aftermath of a tornado.
• The mystery behind the town’s destruction goes on for almost half of the film’s 73-minute running time, which is surprising considering the fact that you’d think people would notice something like a swarm of gigantic mutant locusts rampaging across the countryside. Are these gigantic mutant locusts of some sort of stealth variant?
• Unable to afford stop-animated locusts or even decent model buildings for the real things to climb, Bert I. Gordon was reduced to having them crawl up photographs. To say that this wasn’t all that effective is a bit of an understatement.

 

“King Kong ain’t got nothing on us!”

The only real saving grace this film has is in its cast, with Peter Graves perfect in the role of "science exposition machine" while Peggie Castle provides us with a strong and compelling female lead who never falls into the “Damsel in Distress” category, but as this film is about giant locusts one must look at how effective the filmmakers were in that area and it's here that they failed miserably. Not only are the special effects not effective, created by Bert I. Gordon and his wife Flora, but these rampaging monsters are often ghostly transparent due to bad optical compositing, and the film also doesn’t manage to make the idea of rampaging locusts seem like much of a real threat, this is mostly due to the destruction and death toll caused by the mutant locusts having to take place off camera as it would be too expensive to show the audience and this is an unforgivable offence to any fan of the giant monster genre. Overall, if seeing Peter Graves blasting away at badly composited grasshoppers with a Tommy gun is enough entertainment value for you, then this film may be considered passable, if not, then gives this monster movie a hard pass.

Jaws of Satan (1982) – Review

When it comes to horror films the “Nature Attacks” subgenre is rife with both good and bad examples, from Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jaws to Irwin Allen’s hilariously bad The Swarm, but in 1982 director Bob Claver helmed a little gem called Jaws of Satan, where druids and curses were brought into the mix to add a little supernatural twist to things, which resulted in a film that, if anything else, cannot be considered dull.

I will admit that Jaws of Satan, or King Cobra as it was also known, does have a rather interesting start, with a king cobra using its telekinetic powers to escape a carnival train, but after that, the film rapidly goes downhill as the filmmakers never seem to come up with a cohesive plot for us to get invested in. We have the town librarian and local witch Evelyn Downs (Diana Douglas) foretelling that some great evil is after the soul of the town's Roman Catholic priest, the Reverend Tom Farrow (Fritz Weaver), which he blows off as being nothing more than silly superstition, but Farrow isn’t the only one in danger as the Satanic king cobra is marshalling its forces and unleashing the local rattlesnake population to do his bidding. Dr. Maggie Sheridan (Gretchen Corbett) is concerned that not all of these attacks are the result of your average snake bite but the local coroner (Mark Richards), who is in the pocket of Mayor Grady Thorpe (Jack Gordon), has the bodies cremated before Maggie can bring in herpetologist Dr. Paul Hendricks (Jon Korkes) to verifying her suspicions. Lucky for Maggie, Evelyn shows up dead with the same strange snake bite and Hendricks is quick to point out that this is like no snake attack he’s ever seen.

 

“Clearly, this was no boating accident.”

And just why is Mayor Thorpe so concerned with a potential snake threat that he resorts to covering up snake attacks? Simply put, this film is attempting to be a Jaw rip-off and thus we get a subplot about Thorpe and real estate developer Matt Perry (Bob Hannah) opening a dog track in their town and they can’t have panic over snake attacks endangering their grand opening, basically, we swap out “We can’t close the beaches, it’s the Fourth of July” for “We can’t postpone the dog track opening, we could lose investors” so yeah, this is pretty sad and makes no bloody sense. At one point Perry even explains his reasoning to his wife about the dog track, declaring that “This is the biggest thing to ever happen to this state” but is it really? Is the state of Alabama so lame that something like a dog track would make headlines and boost the economy? That the Mayor and Perry threaten jail time if Maggie or Hendricks cause any trouble that could jeopardize the opening is simply hilarious.

 

“The first person to mention snakes gets a $50 dollar fine.”

But this film isn’t just attempting to rip off Jaws we also have the supernatural element to contend with, and for that, we get The Monsignor (Norman Lloyd) informing Farrow that back in the day one of his great ancestors really pissed off some Druids, burning down their shrines and the like will do that, so the druid high priest cursed him and his descendants, all the way down to Farrow and his father, but this brings up the question "Why exactly is a druidic curse using a satanic snake as its weapon?" Druids were known to perform human sacrifices but they were a pagan religion and had nothing to do with Satan or his snake-like familiars, thus this back story makes about as much sense as corrupt politicians worrying about the success of something as stupid as a dog track.

 

“This ancient tome states that the Druids hated people who gambled on dogs.”

Stray Observations:

• I guy playing craps rolls “Snake Eyes” while transporting a king cobra to a carnival and is then attacked by the snake, and that’s what I call on-the-nose foreshadowing.
• Evelyn reads the coffee grounds of Father Farrow and foresees evil coming to take his soul, and that’s why I stick to tea leaves, they tend to give less threatening foretellings.
• This film keeps alive the standard trope that all coroners are quirky individuals who constantly eat while examining bodies.
• When Dr. Paul Hendricks arrives to meet Dr. Sheridan, he assumes Maggie was sent to bring him to the meeting because who would believe Maggie could be a doctor? This sexist “meet cute” lasted way too long in movies.
• A rattlesnake crawls onto Maggie’s bed and her first thought is to call Hendricks at his motel, hoping he’d get there in time to save her, as opposed to maybe throwing a pillow at the snake and saving herself.
• The mayor hires a biker to get rid of Maggie, who runs her off the road and proceeds to sexually assault her, but the rape is interrupted by the king cobra, and I’m left pondering “What the fuck is going on, did the Devil just prevent a rape?”
• Fritz Weaver fleeing the king cobra and running straight into an open grave, in broad daylight, is probably one of the dumbest things to ever appear in a horror film. The snake doesn’t finish off Farrow here, probably because it's too embarrassed to kill such an inept priest.

 

"I've fallen in a grave and I can't get up."

The key failure here is that the filmmakers didn’t quite have a handle on what kind of movie they were trying to make because neither the “Nature Attack” element nor the “Evil Curse” subplot works well together, it’s like someone took the script of a Jaws rip-off, mixed it with the script of an Exorcist knock-off and then called it a day, not worrying if any of it made a lick of sense. I was also put off by the Satanic king cobra out-sourcing his kills to the local snakes, if you've got supernatural powers why rely on a bunch of random rattlers to get it done for you? Now, one could let the nonsensical premise of this movie slide if we got some cool horror moments but there is not one single frame of this film that generates a modicum of tension or scares, the snake attacks were so poorly choreographed as to be laughable, basically, Jaws of Satan provided us with a ludicrous premise that was then crippled by a complete lack of scares and is mostly guilty of being a little boring.

Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! (2022) – Review

What kind of Halloween is it without a new Scooby-Doo seasonal mystery to enjoy? In this outing, the Scooby gang uncover a startling revelation that throws all their past mysteries in a new light and could possibly lead to a new and even more dangerous threat to Mystery Incorporated.

When the Scooby gang thwarts the Cat-Creature of Katmandu, exposing the creature to be another human in a silly costume, they rush back to the Mystery Machine with a whisker from the costume to see if a theory they have been pondering is correct, and after a quick computer scan of the fake cat whisker Fred (Frank Welker) reveals “Just as I suspected, the materials used to make the cat man suit are identical to every other costume from the criminals we’ve captured” and now with the knowledge that this all dates back to their very first mystery, involving the Black Knight, the gang find themselves in mystery/conspiracy of epic proportions. Daphne (Grey Griffen) comments that “I always thought it was a strange coincidence that all our cases involved some supernatural creature” with Velma (Kate Micucci) concluding “But it wasn’t a coincidence, these costumes were created by one person, a secret mastermind hiding behind the curtain and pulling the strings all this time.”

 

“Jinkies, we’ve been played for fools for decades!”

And just who is this criminal master behind this costume malfeasance, well, thanks to the Mystery Machine’s computer, and the limitations of a straight-to-video running time, the gang learns that the one responsible for all their headaches is none other than Coco Diablo (Myrna Velasco) the owner of the most famous Halloween costume facility in the world, but a quick sting operation utilizing Shaggy (Mathew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker), in disguise as a prospective clients for a shady real estate scheme, it’s revealed that she is “The mastermind behind one of the most notorious costume crime syndicates in the world” – this implies that there may be more than one costume crime syndicate, which is a little unnerving – but now with Coco Diablo safely behind bars the Scooby gang find themselves engaged in mysteries that become less and less intriguing, dealing with such mundane problems as finding a lost sock or getting a cat out of a tree, then and after a year of nothing but humdrum cases Fred comes up with the “brilliant” plan of setting up a Mystery Incorporated booth at the Coolsville Halloween Festival.

 

Fred really needs to work on his presentation because if it’s not van related, he sucks.

But before you can say “Meddling kids” a glowing green ghoul appears at the festival, one who looks to be targeting the Scooby gang personally and with the creature's motivation seeming to be nothing more than “Destroy Mystery Incorporated” they have to solve this mystery fast, and when Daphne points out that “A ghost with a grudge attacking us on Halloween, there is only one person who could behind this. I think it’s time we paid a visit to our old pal Coco Diablo” and thus the gang make a quick exit and an even quicker trip to Coolsville Penitentiary to find out if their former nemesis is up to her old antics. When Coco denies her involvement, claiming that it’s more likely that this a copycat criminal behind these attacks, she offers her services in the investigation, which an obviously enamoured Velma is more than happy about.

 

There are definitely reasons for her attraction.

Much is being made about Velma’s sexual orientation in this movie, some pointing out that in previous incarnations she has shown a definite interest in the male anatomy, even including Shaggy's in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and that her being gay here flies in the face of those other shows, but as the multiple different runs of the franchise and various movies over the years have had no actual rock-solid continuity her being gay in this particular movie has no bearing on her being straight in others, sadly, this movie doesn’t really have much time to explore Velma’s sexual orientation and while it’s nice to see Daphne and the gang completely cool with her “crushing hard” on a woman, even if that woman is a villain, what we don’t get is anything more than lip service to this part of her character and not even much of that as Velma and Coco don’t even get to share a kiss. This lack of commitment by the screenwriters could almost be overlooked if the mystery itself had a bit more heft to it, which it does not, because any fan of the show will guess the culprit pretty much right away.

Note: The backstory given to this particular “supernatural” threat deals with a group of immortals who must commit acts of evil to balance out the good in the world, which is a rather interesting premise and it really belongs in a better outing than this

Who could be responsible for implementing such a dastardly scheme? Could it be that Coco Diablo is manipulating the Scooby-gang to get out of prison? What about Coco’s former employee Trevor Glume (Anthony Carrigan), could his Dracula obsession stem from a darker place or it is revenge on his imprisoned boss's behalf? Then there is Warden Collins (David Lodge) who is a Mystery Incorporated superfan and has the technological know-how to create and execute these apparent supernatural monsters, not to mention his strange willingness to let a convicted felon out of prison and into the custody of a bunch of teenagers and their dog, so yeah, the mystery in Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! is less than engaging and fairly obvious to even the youngest of viewers, but even more disappointing is that after the “big reveal” the movie isn’t quite over as we are then subjected to a mass prison break that unleashes all of the old Scooby-Doo villains back into the world. Oh no, what dastardly plans do these bitter and vengeful criminals have in store for the hapless citizens of Coolsville?

 

What, they’re going to literally steal candy from children?

Yes, this group of recently escaped convicts don’t go into hiding, which would make sense as it would give them time to formulate a plan of revenge, instead, they run around Coolsville and steal candy from the neighbourhood trick or treaters, seriously, the classic villains have resorted to stealing candy from a baby, how lame is that? But what can our intrepid band of heroes do to stop such a terrifying array of villains? And by terrifying, I mean a bunch of middle-aged men in prison jumpsuits who look like they belong on Jerry Springer and not on the FBI's most-wanted list, and how exactly are they a threat to anybody?  Lucky for the Scooby gang, Coco Diablo steps in and once again offers her services and provides them with the old costumes she’d designed for the Spooky Space Kook, the Black Knight, Captain Cutler, Ghost Clown and even the cat-creature costume from this movie’s opening mystery, and I’ll admit it was kind of nice to see our heroes get a little karmic payback against their old foes but as the mystery itself had already been solved this seemed more like an extended epilogue and not at all necessary.

 

I will say this, Daphne does make for an amazing Spooky Space Kook.

Stray Observations:

• The pre-credit opening mystery takes place in Katmandu, which is surrounded by the Himalayan mountains, so it seems like a missed opportunity for a cameo by Flim Flam from The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
• The cat-creature of Katmandu is thwarted by the ganging using a large laser pointer to distract the monster, with cats being known for chasing such red dots this makes some sense, but as this is actually a person in a cat suit it makes absolutely no sense.
• Coco Diablo has a trapdoor to an alligator pit as a way to motivate her staff, which is proof that her company’s HR department is not doing its job.
• When Fred outlays what each member of the gang did to uncover Coco Diablo’s nefarious plot he can’t come up with anything Daphne did to contribute to solving the case, even worse, Daphne herself realizes that “Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what I did, or what I ever do” which is a cheap shot by the writers because over the years Daphne has grown far past her original “girl hostage” role in the original series and has become a badass in her own right.
• When the gang goes to consult with Coco Diablo at the Coolsville Penitentiary they find her cell located down a dark corridor and behind a thick plexiglass wall, which is a very nice homage to Hannibal Lector’s cell in Silence of the Lambs.
• Coolsville Library has a large “Spooky Section” complete with bats, cobwebs and burning wall sconces, because of course it does.
• The idea of past villains teaming up to get revenge on the Scooby gang was handled much better in Frankencreepy.
• The Mystery Machine gets a very goth upgrade, after being destroyed by Count Nefario’s firebomb, by Coco Diablo’s assistant Trevor Glume which has a distinct Munster vibe to it.

 

Definitely more Munster Coach than Mystery Machine.

While the mystery provided by Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! is on the distinctly feeble side of things there is still much to enjoy, this is the first direct-to-video outing that has used the animation style found in Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? and for the most part it really looks good and while the ghoulish phantoms that plague our heroes weren’t particularly inspiring, other than being zombie version of the Scooby gang they didn’t have much to do, but the general aesthetic of the movie was solid and there were even some nice meta jokes thrown in to give older fans of the franchise a little chuckle now and then.  As for the humour on display here, this entry doesn’t go as broad or crazy as we've seen in such outings as Be Cool, Scooby-Doo but it’s a definite step up from such offerings as Return to Zombie Island and Curse of the 13th Ghost which seemed hellbent on undermining the goodwill of Scooby-Doo fans, at least this time out we don’t get Velma constantly denying previous events from other movies.

The writers here do show a lot of love towards the long history of Scooby-Doo and it was nice to see every member of the Scooby gang getting their time to shine, and while the Velma lesbian aspect of the movie was well handled, the way the group was so nonchalant about her crush on "bad girl" Coco Diablo was kind of sweet, it would have been nice if it had actually been allowed to go anywhere, but I guess we will have to wait for new HBO Max Velma series to see if that aspect of her character is going to be allowed to grow beyond gay coding. Overall, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo is a fun and frivolous outing with our favourite mystery solvers engaged in typical "supernatural" hijinks, and while the plot was a little weak on the mystery side of things the animation looks great and the jokes mostly landed, and I do hope the character of Coco Diablo is allowed to return.