She Demons (1958)
Directed by Richard E. Cunha
Written by H.E. Barrie and Richard E. Cunha
Starring Rudolph Anders, Irish McCalla, Tod Griffin, Leni Tana, Victor Sen Yung, Gene Roth, and Charles Opunui
The English language is cluttered with phrases like “too much of a good thing” and “everything but the kitchen sink”. These perfectly describe why I love She Demons, because if it wasn’t so over-stuffed with cliches that pay it probably wouldn’t be interesting all. It’s as though the creators couldn’t decide what story to tell and went with everything.
Zinda Laash (1967)
aka Dracula in Pakistan
Directed by Khwaja Sarfraz
Written by Naseem Rizwani
Based on Dracula by Bram Stoker
Starring Rehan, Habibur Rehman, Deeba Begum, Allauddin, Yasmeen Shaukat, Sheela, Baby Najmi, Asad Bukhari, and Nasreen
I can’t seem to escape vampires this year. Ganja & Hess, Kiss of the Damned, Near Dark, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Trouble Every Day, and arguably Veerana — nearly a quarter of the films I’ve covered this HubrisWeen have been blood-suckers. So it’s perhaps fitting that I close out the event with one more. Known hereabouts as Dracula in Pakistan, it’s the boundary-pushing Zinda Laash (literally “The Living Corpse”).
Yeogo Geodam (1998)
aka Whispering Corridors
Directed by Ki-hyeong Park
Written by Jung-Ok In and Ki-hyeong Park
Starring Kang-hee Choi, Gyu-ri Kim, Min-jung Kim, Roe-ha Kim, Yu-Sook Kim, Mi-yeon Lee, Jin-hee Park, and Ji-hye Yun
A teacher is strangled and strung up to look like she committed suicide. There’s a long history of vengeful spirits in books and movies, but what we get in the Korean film Yeogo Goedam is something rather different. The ghost that haunts the girls’ school has anger issues, but mostly it wants to be a normal student. Murder is just something unpleasant that she engages in from time to time.
Xtinction: Predator X (2014)
aka Alligator X
Directed by Amir Valinia
Written by George Michael Kostuch, Cameron Larson, Caleb Michaelson, and Claire Sanchez
Starring Lochlyn Munro, Mark Sheppard, Elena Lyons, Paul Wall, Caleb Michaelson, Ricky Wayne, and Scott L. Schwartz
It used to be that prehistoric critters would turn up in lost worlds, places that were isolated and difficult to access. Sometimes a natural disaster, like an earthquake or hurricane, would release them on an unsuspecting modern world. After Jurassic Park, of course, those pesky scientists kept bringing them back to life. Xtinction: Predator X mixes and matches a few of the prehistoric origins to create something remarkably uninteresting.
Veerana (1988)
Directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay
Written by J.K. Ahuja, Shyam Ramsay, Omar Khayyam Saharanpuri, and Safi Ur-Rahman
Starring Jasmin, Hemant Birje, Sahila Chaddha, Kulphushan Kharbanda, Satish Shah, Rajesh Vivek, Roy Kamal, Vijayendra Ghatge, and Gulshan Grover
Reviewing movies from unfamiliar cultures can be challenging. I’ve been watching Japanese movies and shows for long enough that I have at least some context for films like Organ. India is a large country with many distinct and separate regions, and watching only a small number of Indian movies in no way provided me context for Veerana. Therefore, for this review I will assume that anything I find weird, confusing, or off-putting is a result of my own ignorance.
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Directed by Claire Denis
Written by Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau
Starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle, Alex Descas, and Florence Loiret Caille
I’m generally willing to meet a film at least half way. A slowly paced story with lengthy silences isn’t a deal-breaker for me, and the horror of the human condition is my kind of thing. English, French, Japanese, Hindi — the language doesn’t matter as long as I can follow along with subtitles. But at the end of the journey, I need to have felt something more than tedium. Trouble Every Day only added irritation for me.
Ravenous (1999)
Directed by Antonia Bird
Written by Ted Griffin
Starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones, Stephen Spinella, Jeremy Davies, Neal McDonough, David Arquette, and Joseph Runningfox
Cannibals are one of the lesser horror monsters. Since 1977 they’ve primarily been mutants, hillbillies, or mutant hillbillies, but throughout the history of film they’ve been refined gourmets, restauranteurs, ghouls, zombies, and even middle-class Americans. One seldom-used take is based on the Algonquian legend of the wendigo, a powerful being may once have been human. An interpretation of this creature is the basis for Antonia Bird’s remarkable horror movie Ravenous.
Pathogen (2006)
Written and directed by Emily Hagins
Starring Rose Kent-McGlew, Alec Herskowitz, Tiger Darrow, Tony Vespe, and Rebecca Elliot
When she was 12 years old Emily Hagins started filming Pathogen with the help and support of her parents. Due to school commitments and inexperience it took over a year to get the film completed and ready to show. (It played at the Alamo Drafthouse, which the Hagins frequented.) While I’m easily swayed by creativity and effort, I’m not always kind in my reviews. This movie has me in a sort of critical form of double vision because I don’t want to crap on the creative efforts of a tween, but it’s really not very good.
Organ (1996)
Written and Directed by Kei Fujiwara
Starring Kei Fujiwara, Kimihiko Hasegawa, Yosiaki Maekawa, and Kenji Nasa
I like being surprised by movies, and sometimes the most effective surprises come after completely breaking down my faith in the filmmakers. Videodrome, Brand Upon the Brain, Holy Mountain — these are a few of the movies that have challenged me to alter how I approach a narrative. It’s thanks to those that I was able to even follow Organ, let alone enjoy it.
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Written by Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red
Starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Tim Thomerson, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, and Jenette Goldstein
Vampires are predatory. We all know that. Yet ever since they became lead characters, every effort has been made to reduce or excuse their feeding habits. They only take a little blood, or that of animals, or eat bad people, or use a synthetic material — anything to get around the basic fact about vampires; they are the bad guys. So whenever I get too sick of all this glamorization, I like to watch a film that remembers they’re monsters. Something like Near Dark.
Web of the Big Damn Spider 
