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Goth Chick News Reviews: The Invitation

Goth Chick News Reviews: The Invitation

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First, everything you’re about to read contains spoiler after spoiler. So, if you’re planning on seeing the new vampire flick, The Invitation, stop now – then again, maybe you should actually keep reading.

I pretty much love any story containing a vampire, so it was with a huge amount of anticipation that I first told you about The Invitation back at the beginning of August. All the better that I hadn’t heard of the stars or the director as it didn’t require me to suspend any disbelief about the characters. Though the trailer took some flack on the horror forums, I thought it looked fabulous. Sony Pictures clearly didn’t skimp on the production values. And yes, it was rated PG-13, but as a fan of classic horror films, I personally don’t think an R-rated blood bath equals a fabulous movie. So off I went to see The Invitation on the night it opened. I was even excited enough to drop some coin to see it in a swanky theater with waiter service, reclining lounge seats and craft cocktails.

If you’re still reading and haven’t seen it, here’s a quick synopsis.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Mondo Mifune

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Mondo Mifune

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Vendetta of a Samurai (Japan, 1952)

If American and European film fans recognize only one Japanese actor, it’s the great Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997), who came to prominence in the west for his collaborations with director Akira Kurosawa — not just the historical films such as Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), and Yojimbo (1961), but also Kurosawa’s acclaimed crime movies such as The Bad Sleep Well (1960) and High and Low (1963).

Mifune had a broad range, with the ability to inhabit a wide variety of characters of all sorts, though he had the kind of classically handsome face with regular features that often limit actors to matinee idol roles. A broadly physical actor when the role required, at need he could convey deep emotion by subtle changes of facial expression. Mifune was an ambitious actor who acknowledged few limitations, and he worked with many other leading directors other than Kurosawa, often co-producing on projects he felt strongly about. This week we’re taking a look at three of his lesser known features, movies that exhibit considerable diversity just in the genre of chambara swordplay films.

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Goth Chick New: A Grady Hendrix Novel (Finally) Makes It to Film

Goth Chick New: A Grady Hendrix Novel (Finally) Makes It to Film

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In April 2016 my strange and unusual friends over at Quirk Books introduced me to one of their newly signed authors via a copy of his first book Quirk Books publication, and a pre-publication copy of his next one. At that time, Grady Hendrix already had four novels under his belt, including his first with Quirk, Horrorstör, a horror novel which takes place in an Ikea-like establishment and is documented inside an Ikea-like catalog. And though Hendrix already had a following due to his very unique approach to storytelling, Quirk was certain that his next novel with them was going to be the one that made him literary famous. The name of that novel was My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which was released in May 2016.

Grady released two more books with Quirk before decamping in 2020, but his book sales have continued to climb until his 2021 release which premiered on the New York Times best seller list, The Final Girl Support Group. I found a statistic stating only .0001% of all published books become movies, and those that do take an average of 10 years to get to the screen. With that in mind, Hendrix has bucked the odds on both accounts.

A movie adaptation of My Best Friend’s Exorcism is on the way, debuting on Amazon Prime Video on September 30, 2022.4

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Goth Chick News Interviews: Stephen Tramontana, Writer/Director of Killer Piñata and Bride of the Killer Piñata

Goth Chick News Interviews: Stephen Tramontana, Writer/Director of Killer Piñata and Bride of the Killer Piñata

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As someone who loves indie film makers, I’ve sat through a lot of independent films. And though I admire the tenacious, passionate and fearless way all of these artists approach their craft, the outcomes, as you would expect, display varying degrees of talent. The films which stood out in some way, at least to me, I have shared with you here. But honestly, most of the time because I can’t honestly say something nice, I just don’t say anything.

So, when a friend excitedly told me her nephew had starred in an indie horror film and that it would be a perfect topic for GCN, I received the news with some trepidation. I mean, if the movie was good, no issues; but if it wasn’t…?

When I was presented with Killer Piñata, the name alone seemed promising. Clearly this was going to be humorous horror that didn’t take itself seriously. What I discovered was an absurdly funny, low-tech story that put me in the mind of Second City TV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater; totally entertaining in an “omg I can’t believe they actually did that,” kind of way. When I then discovered a sequel, Bride of Killer Piñata, was in the works, it was time to track down the person from whose mind this all came.

Enter writer, director and producer Stephen Tramontana. As I have so many questions, let’s jump right in…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: They Might Be Giants

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: They Might Be Giants

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The Giant of Marathon (Italy/France, 1959)

When you think of Italian cinema, probably the first thing that comes to mind are its great dramatic directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Federico Fellini. But you wouldn’t be reading this fine website devoted to genre fiction if the second thing wasn’t Italy’s action films, the Spaghetti Westerns, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from the decade of 1964-74, and the historical epics from the decade before that, the so-called peplum or sword-and-sandal adventures. The latter movies, with their sword-swinging action heroes, fall inside the ambit of this article series, where we frequently try to draw you attention to them, little known as many of them are to American or British film fans. Here we are again this week, with three more you ought to know about.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: The Murdering Spinsters

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: The Murdering Spinsters

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

In Brooklyn during World War II, a pair of black widows were luring men to their deaths. They preyed upon older, lonely men without family or close friends. With a “Room for rent” sign hanging in the front window of their idyllic-looking home, they fed arsenic-laced wine to their victims. A male relative who lived with them buried the bodies in the basement, with no one the wiser. The women were in fact little old ladies: think Aunt Bee as a serial killer.

But a nephew came over and found a body in window seat – the thirteenth victim. He slowly realized that his two loveable old aunts were killers. Then, his brother, a murderer on the lam from the police, showed up with his lackey in tow. It’s a hardboiled, true crime story that curiously, is largely forgotten today.

Just kidding! It’s actually Arsenic and Old Lace, a smash stage play that became a popular movie starring Cary Grant, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre. The play ran on Broadway for 1,444 performances and is still in wide use today.

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Goth Chick News: Get Ready Vampire Fans, this is Our Year

Goth Chick News: Get Ready Vampire Fans, this is Our Year

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It might be due to this being the 125th anniversary of Dracula, written by Bram Stoker and published in 1897. Or, it could be because it has taken 10 years to fully cleanse our collective pallets of emo, flannel-wearing vampires following the movie version of Stephanie Meyers’ Breaking Dawn (Part 2) hitting theaters in 2012. Whatever the reason, the second half of 2022 is about to play host to a plethora of traditional vampire entertainment; meaning if you’re a fan of vampires actually doing vampy things like sucking blood and dressing well, then readers – this is our year.

Below are the three offerings I’m most excited about. This would also have included a theatrical remake of Salem’s Lot had production delays not bumped it to April 2023. Still I’m quivering beneath my bodice and the thought of all the vampire goodness we have to look forward to.

Check it.

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Goth Chick News: X Marks the Spot for Another Entertaining Outing from Ti West and A24

Goth Chick News: X Marks the Spot for Another Entertaining Outing from Ti West and A24

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In March of this year, I told you about what was the latest offering from A24 entitled X. Though I love Ti West as a director/writer, I honestly wasn’t expecting too much from this film; after all, the movie title said it all. X combined the cheesy porn movie scene of the late 70’s with the hack-and-slash of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Not precisely a description that would normally get me to the theater.

But color me shocked when I walked out thinking about how entertaining X turned out to be. West did a masterful job telling a story that had humor, characters that I actually cared about, and a nice level of knuckle-biting suspense. It also wasn’t the senseless bloodbath I completely expected and this was thanks to the unconventional character who turned out to be the killer. Which brings me to the prequel I’m about to tell you about.

**Note: If you haven’t seen X and want to be surprised, stop reading now as I’m about to drop some serious spoilers…

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Boarding Party Bingo

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Boarding Party Bingo

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Captain Horatio Hornblower (USA, 1951)

The Age of Sail lasted almost three millennia until wind power was replaced by steam in the late 1800s — a time that, in the mid-twentieth century, was still within living memory. Swashbuckling sea stories are still with us, but as a subject for big-budget movies, they peaked in the early Fifties. Like Westerns, many of these sea stories followed formula, and while some were great, most were considerably less than that. Let’s look at three cutlass-swinging adventures from 1951-52, two of which are worth watching even seventy years later. Out swords and pistols, me lads, and prepare to board!
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Goth Chick News: Halloween Ends Is Likely Not the End

Goth Chick News: Halloween Ends Is Likely Not the End

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Last week I dropped a little truth on how box office take determines which movies and movie makers continue to get funded, or not. Using the example of Rob Zombie’s forthcoming The Munsters movie, I laid out the financial equation which allows films such as this to be foisted on an unsuspecting audience, whether the audience wants it or not. Now, keep that in mind while we examine this phenomenon from a different angle.

The very lucrative Halloween franchise, birthed by John Carpenter in 1978, has since had many foster parents, including Rob Zombie who cranked out two Halloween movies of his own in 2007 and 2009. Perhaps it is no coincidence that after those two efforts, death-defying slasher Michael Myers had the longest hiatus of his bloody career, as it would be nine years before anyone took another stab at a Halloween movie.

Enter GCN favorite Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions. Blumhouse, who has been the driving force behind quite a few horror movie successes, partnered with Malek Akkad, the son of the late Moustapha Akkad, executive producer of the original Halloween franchise. In theory, their goal was to produce a 3-movie bookend to the franchise by bringing back scream queen extraordinaire Jamie Lee Curtis to reprise her role as Laurie Strode, the quintessential “final girl” from five of the prior films. This partnership gave us Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills (2021), returning 17x and 6.5x profit to operating budget respectively, virtually ensuring Blumhouse would get another $20M to create the final film in his trilogy.

Which brings us to the thirteenth installment of the Halloween film franchise, Halloween Ends, whose first-look trailer was released this week.

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