Direct-to-Video Horrors: The Best and Worst of 1999

Most were mediocre at best, but there were a few diamonds in the rough.

By John Thonen     January 07, 2000

I've been doing this annual survey of the best and worst of Direct To Video (DTV) for a well-known genre magazine, since 1993. While I'm happy to bring the column to the World Wide Web, I feel I should spend a few words on just what the column is about. I classify DTV as being any film--whether initially produced for home video, network or cable TV-- that has had little, or no, U.S. theatrical play. It is my goal, frequently in vain, to bring a measure of respect to the much maligned DTV world.

Since the birth of home video, the format has become the new home of 'B' movies and exploitation fare. While most of this product is mediocre at best, there are diamonds in the rough. I break DTV into several categories because even the best suffer from their budgetary restraints, so I try to place them in an 'apples to apples' competition that emphasizes their strengths. I also generally offer both best and worst titles in each category, because some years, if it weren't for the bad films, this column would be barely a paragraph long. .

BEST SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY

Having established my guidelines, let me start off by breaking them. If I were playing entirely by my own rules, PROGENY (Trimark), Brian Yuzna's creepy tale of alien abduction and impregnation would grab top honors. However, good as PROGENY was, I'm reaching back to include a late 1998 film that couldn't be considered at the time due to the advance preparation time needed for this column's former home.

PHOTOGRAPHING FAIRIES (Polygram) isn't just the best DTV of the past 13 months; it's one of that period's best films from any source. Inspired by the real life Coittingley Fairies hoax of 1917 (also the source for the theatrically released, but much inferior, FAIRY TALE: A TRUE STORY), the film deals with a photographer, circa 1912, who, following the tragic death of his wife, becomes obsessed with debunking the supposedly supernatural photographs so prevalent in that era. Instead, he finds two young girls whose fairy photo is all too real, and they provide him a link to a power that may offer him a chance to communicate with his wife. Director and co-writer Nick Willing has crafted a film that is winningly acted and well mounted, offering subtle special effects that manage to be magical rather than overpowering. While frequently melancholy, the film is ultimately wonderfully romantic. A triumph.

WORST SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY

There's always fierce competition for the ignominy of this title, but with the release of FUTURE FEAR, Roger Corman's video outlet, New Horizons, claims a clear-cut win. Giving all evidence of being someone else's uncompleted disaster, the film is padded by New Horizon with stock footage, repeated scenes, tacky postproduction footage and an incomprehensible 'plot.' This patchwork product constantly threatens to collapse into a random compilation of film clips, and might have been better if it had.

BEST HORROR

Having just slammed New Horizon a release, kudos are due their KNOCKING ON DEATH'S DOOR, a solid, if flawed, little ghost tale that uses its budgetary limitations to its advantage. The film deals with a recently married pair of university paranormal researchers who spend their honeymoon in a haunted house. This being a Corman production, sex plays an important part, but it ultimately makes sense within the story rather than being pure exploitation. There's even a hint of the kind of emotional resonance that made THE SIXTH SENSE a runaway sleeper hit. While some of the ghostly manifestations are hackneyed (the piano that plays itself), director Mitch Marcus gets a lot of effective mileage out of a simple yet spooky effect where a piece of chalk invisibly scrawls a message from the house's childlike entity. Marcus relies on suggestion, subtlety, and a small but capable cast instead of wretched CGI excesses and 'where's my paycheck' box office names. Too bad he wasn't offered THE HAUTNING remake instead of Jan DeBont. It might have actually been watchable.

WORST HORROR

No horror film in recent memory so deserves to have all tapes bulk erased and the original film burned, than does the wretched remake of CARNIVAL OF SOULS, from Trimark. Professional in almost every way, but devoid of heart, soul, intelligence or value, the saddest element of the production isn't how bad it is, but rather the above-the-title involvement of executive producer Wes Craven. If you haven't seen the 1962 original (available in a restored version from Englewood Entertainment) do yourself a favor and catch it as soon as you can. Then start a petition to have this felonious remake pulled from video store shelves.

BEST BAND/CORMAN

The DTV arena has no more important luminaries than Full Moon Video's Charlie Band and New Horizon's legendary Roger Corman. For better or worse, these two men virtually built the DTV industry and thus, merit their own category.

It's no surprise that Band chose Ted Nicolaou to helm RAGDOLL, which launches Full Moon's new, black-audience-oriented Alchemy label. The veteran craftsman (he handled sound on TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) has helmed over a dozen films for Band and has been responsible for some of their best offerings. RAGDOLL features an all-black cast in a tale of would-be rap stars, crooked agents, slimy gangsters and a viciously mobile voodoo doll. The music and cast are strong, particularly '60s songstress Freda (Band of Gold) Payne as a kindly grandmother with more than a few voodoo tricks up her sleeve, and Nicolaou manages to convey the atmosphere of the film's New Orleans setting. While this lily white writer may not be best one to judge, the film's black aspects seem pretty authentic and are refreshingly respectful in a genre that not long ago only put blacks in a film to serve as professional victims.

WORST BAND/CORMAN

If not for CARNIVAL OF SOULS, this would be the worst professional film I've seen this year. Cheap, cheesy and childish, yet more than a little perverse, KILLER EYE can't even be saved by the presence of Full Moon sexiest and most fascinating starlet, Jacqueline Lovell--an accomplishment I would have thought impossible. Not even worth a gamble on '2 for 1' night.

BEST SEQUEL

OK. Out of a sense of obligation to have a winner in every category, the very ordinary ARRIVAL 2 (Artisan) gets the nod here. Basically just a retread of the original, with Patrick Muldoon playing the brother of original star, Charlie Sheen, it's competent and professional, but woefully uninspired. Still, the sequel arena, a backbone of the DTV business for years, has worse to offer. Take for instance...

WORST SEQUEL

... the following, seemingly endless stream of profit motivated sequels. 1999 saw long running series gain pointless continuation in the likes of CHILDREN OF THE CORN 666, NEMESIS 4: CRY OF ANGELS, WARLOCK 3: END OF INNOCENCE, and WITCHCRAFT 10: MISTRESS OF THE CRAP (sorry, CRAFT). New franchises were born, but these succeeded only in making a good case for cinematic abortion by offering the likes of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 2: BROTHERS IN ARMS and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 3: UNFINISHED BUSINESS (as well as the lame WIWSHMASTER 2 and the lamer DUSK 'TIL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to turn a profit, but when that is your only motivation for making a film, the results are certain to suffer.

BEST OUTLAW MOVIE

This category probably merits a little explanation. 'Outlaw Movie' is my designation for films made outside the professional film industry. They can range from backyard, shot-on-video efforts, to largely professional-appearing offerings produced on film or video. While Hollywood would like to have you believe the Sundance Festival represents the indie-auteur world, it's really just a spin-off of the film industry, with lots of money and hype leading the way. The 'Outlaw Movie makers' working with little more than blood, sweat and passion, are the real independents.

The top 'Outlaw' title for 1999 is a sometimes rough-around-the-edges offering called, THE DIVIDING HOUR, from Albedo Distribution. While technically uneven, Mike Prosser, acting as both director and star (a common credit in Outlaw films) manages to wring genuine suspense from his TWILIGHT ZONE-styled tale of four slacker bank robbers whose escape goes more than a little awry. While sometimes talky and a little overlong, Prosser's film has a final 20 minutes that are a triumph of imagination on a near non-existent ($7,000) budget. This may not be available at your local video store, but check out the film's website (www.dolphinative.com/dividinghour/index.html) for a chance to pick up a copy for yourself.

WORST OUTLAW

In the early days of the 'Outlaw Movie' phenomena, the results were so consistently bad that one ended up thrilled with anything that just managed to have a beginning, middle and end, a soundtrack that could be understood, and evidence that the filmmakers realized that lighting was a good idea. These movies were generally the efforts of lonely, gore-obsessed types whose passion for blood, bare breasts, and dismembered body parts probably made their neighbors more than a little queasy. While this category has come far since those days, those qualities still resurface on occasion. Case in point: SCHIZOPHRENIAC. Misogynistic, demented and repulsive, director-star Ron Atkins once again proves that the ability to operate a camcorder does not make you a filmmaker.