The 1980s Canadian family movie The Peanut Butter Solution remains one of the weirdest films I watched as a kid, and one of my all-time favorites to this day. If you have not heard about it, here is a good summary and review:
Category: movie
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Horror Cinema Trivia: Wrong Turn 4
Did you know that Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings is the first movie in the series in which nobody survives the cannibals?
My favourite of the series! More facts about this prequel at IMDb Trivia: Wrong Turn 4.
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Miniature Humanoids
“You think I’m mad. Perhaps I am. But listen, Henry Frankenstein. While you were digging in your graves, piecing together dead tissues, I, my dear pupil, went for my materials to the source of life. I grew my creatures like cultures, grew them as nature does, from seed.” – Dr. Septimus Pretorius, Bride of Frankenstein
The Homunculi are miniature humanoids artificially created by Dr. Septimus Pretorius. Unlike Frankenstein’s Monster, the Homunculi are grown from organic seeds and kept in jars to prevent them from escaping.
The six known Homunculi created by Pretorius are a Queen, an Archbishop, a Priest, a Devil, a Ballerina (who won’t dance to anything but Mendelssohn’s “Spring Song”) and a Mermaid (described as the result of an experiment with seaweed).
The tiny mermaid in Dr. Pretorius’ bottle was Josephine McKim, a member of the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Women’s Olympic Swim Teams and one of the four members of that team to win the 1928 gold medal in the 400-Meter Freestyle Relay.
Information from Fandom: Homunculi (Bride of Frankenstein) and IMDb Trivia: Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
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Horror Comedy Trivia: Beetlejuice
The studio originally wanted to call Beetlejuice “House Ghosts.” As a joke, Tim Burton suggested the name “Scared Sheetless” and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it.
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Horror Cinema: Into the Mirror (2003)
When I discover a horror movie that is a remake of another version, I make sure that I have seen the original before I watch the latest production. I learned about Mirrors that was made in 2008 and featured Kiefer Sutherland and was based on the South Korean 2003 movie Into the Mirror.
Into the Mirror had many satisfying spooky scenes where what was seen in the mirror was not what was happening in front of it.
The film’s premise was interesting, although I found that the narrative got a little wandering near the end when it was trying to make the spiritual horror make sense, which I did not think was completely necessary. Nevertheless, the movie had a good share of scary moments, and I would recommend it.
Sung-ho, Kim. Into the Mirror, Cinema Service, 2003.
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Horror Cinema Trivia: Doctor Sleep
Did you know that Danny Lloyd, who played the character Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, made a cameo in Doctor Sleep at the baseball game and is listed in the credits as “Spectator”?
More behind-the-scene facts can be found at IMDb Trivia: Doctor Sleep (2019).
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IG Spotlight: Terror Detective
My favorite Instagram account these days is Terror Detective. It features reviews and recommendations on gory horror movies. At least once a week, I learn about a new movie that I promptly watch.
This week, I watched Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness (1979). I was intrigued by this comment on a post by Terror Detective about this movie: “Joe rode the wave of sleazy gorefests that flooded Italian cinema from the late 70s to mid 80s. This Italian Gothic flick was intentionally made with lots of gore to make people sick. D’Amato didn’t consider himself very good at creating suspense, so he figured he would go for the gross.”
There was certainly lots of gross, from bizarre sexual relations to an embalming to the chopping up of a body and putting it into an acid bath. From beginning to end, it was a bizarre movie, but, I’m glad for having watched it. For all the years of horror movies I’ve seen, I like that I am still discovering more!
The Devil's Muse 