Hello, and welcome to my 2021 April A to Z Blogging Challenge! This year, I am listing all the horror movies Alec and I have seen during the pandemic thus far, with notes. Just notes, not necessarily anything fancy.
My posts have been getting alarmingly long on me. Today, I only have two movies to talk about, and relatively little to say concerning either of them. If this post goes over 500 words, I am going to be slightly annoyed with myself. Brevity!
Without further ado…
Kill Baby…Kill! (Operazione paura) (1966)
Italy
Director: Mario Bava
This is a non-giallo horror picture, directed by Mario Bava. Bava has appeared on this list quite often. In fact, I wouldn’t be absolutely surprised if he is the most frequently-appearing director in my A to Z.
There are murders in a village. Some people come to investigate the deaths. They find that the whole place is consumed by fear, and that no-one will talk to them, except to tell them to go away and never come back. There are hints that the whole thing is supernatural, and that it has something to do with the family of the local Countess, from whose villa no-one returns, now. Not after the incident, all those years ago…
A good movie with bundles of atmosphere. Parts of it almost looked like a stage play, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. There was so much fog that I started looking for the fog machines, and I was seriously tempted to start taking notes for our Halloween yard haunt (which we’re hoping we’ll be able to do again this year; we missed it in 2020). The fog looked good, and was often lit an eerie green. In fact, eerie green lighting is perhaps the defining visual note of the movie.
Killer Party (1986)
Canada
Director: William Fruet
This movie opens with two different and distinct false openings. So, before the movie even properly begins, we’ve been deceived twice. What the movie is going to be about, who the characters are going to be: all lies. I think this is supposed to tie in with the fact that the movie itself is about pranks. The movie plays a prank on you, right at the beginning. Then, it does it again. This is fun. The opening stories are cool little horror vignettes, and they set a wacky tone.
It turns out, eventually, that the movie is about three sorority pledges. I forget exactly what the set-up is, but anyway, the sorority expects these girls to arrange some pranks for an April Fools’ Day party or something. One of the pledges, indeed, is told that the only reason they considered her application was her reputation as a skilled prankster.
All of this goes horribly wrong.
Killer Party was the source of my mystery picture! It shows one of the pledges with a prank-accessory. The man she is in the car with, by the way, is Ralph Seymour, who played “Toad Boy” in Ghoulies.
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That’s it for today! I’m only a little over 500 words. I’m going to quit while I’m ahead. Tomorrow, “L,” which stands in this case for “Longer List.” I have 8 titles for “L.”
Mystery Picture “L” (Identify it if you can!):
Lidded Lady of Lidsville?
Lids vs Frisbees?
Lady Cobra?
Look! My eyes are up here!?
Thems my guesses
Hm… 🙂
Oh! I know this one! (I think.) Lair of the White Worm is my guess.
Yippee! Ten points!
Your L movie is one of my favorites! Amanda Donohoe is just so fantastic in it.
Yay! I know, isn’t she wonderful?
It is my contention that a snake charmer has fallen in love with his cobra, to which she responds, Galatea-like, by turning into a woman. You can tell by the curl in the middle of her forrid that when she is good she is very very good, but when she is bad she is horrid. I respect the snake charmer (if that’s whose house she is in) for having a T rex sculpture on his mantelpiece.
forrid! Huzzah! And she sure is horrid when she is bad.
I like the T Rex aspect of this shot, too.