Bezenby
Aldo Ray's gorra problem, and that is that some crazy maniac carved up a kid and dump the corpse on his turf. He's also got the problem of a crazy resident who insists that the local bad boy is putting the moves on her while having serious religious issues. Then there's the booze problem.Luckily he's not the main focus of the film! That'll be the religious lady who keeps having constant flashbacks, thinks God will sort everything out and can't stand people touching her. She's also being stalked by the guy who killed the girl at the start of the film. Or is she? Maybe her Uncle Cameron Mitchell can explain things? It would be unfair to go on with the plot. I thought this one would be crap but in fact it played out a lot like a giallo, what with the plot zigging and zagging all over the place and the possibility of the viewer being fed misinformation. It's a slow film, but I enjoyed it and the appearance of two b-movie icons in Ray and Mitchell really helps.
punishmentpark
'Haunts' has some terrific dramatic material to offer, which the viewer gradually begins to understand through the haphazard memories that haunt our leading lady Ingrid, a farm girl with Swedish roots, a dark past (I suspected incest, murder, but in the end it all turned out a dream, coinciding with a killer on the loose - as best as I could tell), a yearning for religious completion, and, as we eventually learn, heavily psychotic tendencies. The flashbacks and the latter part where things twist and turn like crazy, are my favorite elements. The acting is rather so-so, the dialogues more than often fail and the whole story is way too confusing (and in the end somewhat disappointing, if I understand it correctly) to take seriously. I mean, the only option in the end is that Ingrid imagined the attacks, right? But then, the ending of her appearing in the mirror before uncle Carl, seemed a little ambiguous, as did some memories. I was expecting Carl to be a possible bad guy, and even Ingrid, as well... like I said, way too confusing, but still interesting.The backdrop of the rural village, farms, roads and off-roads (I would have guessed somewhere in Wisconsin, but it was shot in California, so...?) is beautiful, but its inhabitants struggling with day to day life turned upside down by a vicious killer could / should have been so much better.An interesting flick, very much, but not really a good one, all things considered. 5 out of 10.
Zeegrade
This was a real chore to watch. I'm not exaggerating when I say that at least thirty minutes can be cut off this clunker without missing any plot lines whatsoever. May Britt plays Ingrid, the most unlikeable main character in movie history. Not only is she the coldest fish on earth but she's also a fierce man-hater. The small town she lives in has been plagued with murders committed by a scissor wielding madman. This makes Ingrid even more unbearable to be around as every breathing man she comes into contact with is automatically trying to rape her. Number one on her list is the town rowdy Frankie who also works as the butcher in the local market when he's not having a very inappropriate relationship with the sheriff's seventeen year old daughter. This would be fine had the man playing Frankie not appear to be in his late thirties at least. What's more absurd is that Ingrid constantly refers to him as "that boy". Ingrid lives alone (no surprise there) on a farm but is helped on occasion by her Uncle Carl played by B-movie king Cameron Mitchell. Did I mention that she also has hallucinations too? Usually the incoherent flashbacks come over her every few seconds. Rubbing a goat, flashback, feeling a bed sheet, flashback, someone closes a door, flashback. Ingrid comes upon a corpse left on her property and that pushes her off the mental edge she was teetering on to begin with. The ending is quite bizarre as Ingrid's fate as well as the relationship between her uncle and her mother are slapped across you face like a dead salmon.I couldn't care less what happened to Ingrid because her performance was as dead as the person she portrays. We are lead to believe that she was raised in this small California coastal town yet her thick accent begs to differ. This is explained near the end as the time she spent at "a European school up the coast". What? Did they suck the life force from her too? Let's hope Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory is better.
Hitchcoc
This has a Bergmanesque spareness to it that is at times OK. The plot is terribly convoluted and confusing. I don't even know if we have closure at the end. Just what does it all mean? I remember May Britt being married to Sammy Davis, Jr. She of the Scandanavian roots and the freckles. In here she is a virgin queen. She is so frumpy and cold, it's hard to feel for her. Obviously, she deserves to live as she wishes, but she has been so traumatized that we can't get close to her. In repulsion, we can't take our eyes off the girl. When Britt leaves a scene, she is pretty forgettable. There is a pretty good give and take. Aldo Ray is pretty believable in his intense wishes to solve the case. He has feelings for this woman and wants to help her out. She, like so many in horror movies, feels she can be hysterical one moment and totally independent in the next. There are lots of layers and that's fun. I didn't move away from this movie. I have the same collection mentioned by other reviewers. If they had a psychological drama box, this might fit in nicely. Anyway, as a make my way through these B and C movies, I don't see them as a total waste of time. I had never seen May Britt act before. She had some talent, but it wasn't exposed here.