TWIN TALES OF TAGALOG TERROR, 2020 EDITION

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Kulay Dugo ang Gabi (1694 ) -  Released as The Blood Drinkers (USA) or The Vampire People (USA)

Staring: Ronald Remy, Amalia Fuentes, Eddie Fernandez, Eva Montes
Produced: Cirio H. Santiago, Premiere Studios in Manila, dist by Hemisphere Pictures in US
Written: Cesar Amigo (screenplay), Rico Bello Omagap (story)
Directed: Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero

Brides of Blood (1968)
Staring: Kent Taylor, Beverly Powers (as Beverly Hills), John Ashley,Eva Darren
Produced:Kane W. Lynn (Hemisphere Pictures)
Written: Cesar Amigo
Directed: Gerardo de Leon, Eddie Romero

I am grateful to have a group of friends who love unusual movies. We often have movie nights to watch some pretty far out films like Liquid Sky, I Drink Your Blood, and recently, we had an unplanned Russ Meyer double feature - Faster PussyCat and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. One of my favorite movie nights was a double bill of The Blood Drinkers (1964) and Brides of Blood (1969), two Filipino horror films we dubbed as TWIN TALES OF TAGALOG TERROR! These movies shown together tell a story about the influence of not just the political climate in the Philippine Island in the 1960s  but also how American filmmakers radically changed the industry in both countries. Together they represent the calm before a giant typhoon that would sweep back across the Pacific Ocean to the drive-ins and grindhouse theaters of The United States.

MONSTROUS FEMALE FEAR : THE POWER OF SADY BOYLE'S 'DEAD BLONDES' AND DAVID CRONENBERG'S 'RABID'

I am a horror film fanatic. I love how they are both exciting and thought-provoking, as well as their capacity to be so weird! Having spent so much of my life watching, enjoying, analyzing, and discussing horror films, my worldview has been undeniably influenced by them. Last year, I set myself to the task of reading more, not only to broaden my understanding of the world I live in, but also to seek understanding of the world through the eyes of others. So, when the Faculty of Horror podcast recommended Sady Doyle’s Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, my interest was piqued.

VINEGAR SYNDROME’S BLOOD MANIA AND POINT OF TERROR SET RIPS THE SCREAMS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR THROAT!

Maria De Aragon

VINEGAR SYNDROME’S BLOOD MANIA AND POINT OF TERROR SET RIPS THE SCREAMS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR THROAT!

BLOOD MANIA / POINT OF TERROR

Blood Mania

Starring: Peter Carpenter, Maria De Aragon, Vicki Peters, Alex Rocco, Leslie Simms
Written by: Peter Carpenter, Tony Crechales, Toby Sacher
Directed by: Robert Vincent O’Neil

Point of Terror

Starring: Peter Carpenter, Dyanne Thorne, Lory Hansen, Leslie Simms, Joel Martson
Written by: Peter Carpenter, Ernest A. Charles, Tony Crechales, Chris Marconi
Directed by: Alex Nicol

“We’re very young souls. Very young and evil.”
“Yes, very evil…You’ll probably live to be a hundred and ten.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Only the good die young.”

Currently, going to the movies is a single-film event but it was not always that way. My dad told me that when he was a kid during the Depression (I am that old), going to a picture show meant featurettes, a newsreel, and two movies, sometimes even singing, all for a dime! When I was a child in the 1960s and 1970s, that sort of thing was long gone. But drive-ins will always have double bills where a current feature is coupled with the return of something from last year or the year before, that were thematically linked (Stallone/Schwarzenegger pairing of Raw Deal and Cobra in 1986 taught me everything I needed to know about being a man.). Sometimes they were odd pairings, such as the Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein and psychological slasher Toolbox Murders double feature that I convinced a friend from church to get his dad to take us to see. Mr. D. lasted about 7 minutes into the The Toolbox Murders before pulling the plug on the evening.

Sometime during the mid 1970s, a horror triple feature of Blood Mania (1970), Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972), and the 1974 Vincent Price meta-horror film Madhouse made the drive-in rounds. I was around ten or 11 at that time, so there was no way to see it. But the TV spot was filled with enough weirdness to fuel my imagination for decades. Replete with the most brain bending bizarre images: undead monks crawling from graves, frightening monsters gathered in a living room, and all the distorted shadows and shapes that can be derived from descending a spiral staircase in the dark, I felt a need to go to those places and explore their environments. While Tombs of the Blind Dead and Madhouse are better known, it was Blood Mania that packed the most punch.

VOLITION(2019) ASKS HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO TO CHANGE THE FUTURE?

VOLITION (2019)

Director: Tony Dean Smith
Writers: Tony Dean Smith, Ryan W. Smith
Stars: Adrian Glynn McMorran, Magda Apanowicz, John Cassini,Frank Cassini, Aleks Paunovic, Bill Marchant
"Our choices don't matter, life happens beyond our control."
Volition-the faculty or power of using one's will.

I give most of my movie attention to films that fall under the “blood soaked orgy of terror” category. But I love a well written, fast paced story with great characters and plenty of action plus interesting ideas to play with. The trailer for director and writers siblings Tony Dean Smith and Ryan W. Smith, aka The Smith Brothers, for Volition(2020) promised all that and I had to check it out.

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019) RUINS CHRISTMAS IN JUST THE RIGHT WAY

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2019) RUINS CHRISTMAS IN JUST THE RIGHT WAY

Starring: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady, Caleb Eberhardt, Cary Elwes
Written by: Sophia Takal, April Wolfe
Directed by: Sophia Takal

<SPOILERS AHEAD>

For my 55th birthday, I went to see one of the most divisive horror films since 2015’s It Follows. The division falls sharply along gender lines as the male viewers search for new ways to express their displeasure and the females champion its clear-eyed take on the difficulties of modern life. What has created this intense, boys versus girls shouting match on social media? It is director-writer Sophia Takal & co-screenwriter April Wolfe’s reimagining the 1974 slasher film Black Christmas as a polemic on toxic masculinity and female oppression. Due to its transgressive nature and unsubtle/over-the-top presentation, Black Christmas has ruined Christmas for many horror fans!