Home Grown Horrors: Volume One (1988-1992) - Vinegar Syndrome

[checkerboard]

yeah, I really want this for Winterbeast and Beyond Dream's Door.

[The_Chex]

A mustached park ranger walks into a room. Have you heard this one before? Not like this you haven’t. Ranger Bill (Tim R. Morgan) notices his pal Tello (David Mica) sitting quietly in the shadows and asks if he’s ok. Tello responds with a comforting “sure” and begins to laugh. I’m glad because I was getting worried about these characters I just met. As Tello giggles and rocks back and forth, it’s apparent that his face has been severely burned and he has a gaping hole in his abdomen. Suddenly, a skeleton-blob creature stop-motions its way into the frame. Tello isn’t worried as he begins to rip apart pieces of flesh and waves them into the air. Bill shrieks until he wakes up in the safety of his bed.

Before this can all be processed, we jump cut to Tello in the woods as he lets loose a bloodcurdling scream. Giving birth to a skull-monster as it bursts from your chest will do that. Elsewhere, a woman struggles to remove her shirt while a tree monster, looking suspiciously like one of the Guardians of the Galaxy, materializes right outsider her window. Her final accomplishment in life was disrobing before being grabbed by a giant Groot and smashed against the side of a house. I’m confused, bewildered, and laughing all at once. I need more of this wonderful drug called Winterbeast!

[Show spoiler]If you can't tell from the microcosm described above, Winterbeast is brilliantly inept in every conceivable way. Story structure, logic, and continuity? Winterbeast shoves that to the side as it gives the finger while tossing stop-motion aliens at you. It doesn’t take long before my brain can’t keep up with the weirdness. Key story details are missing, making the plot feel as detailed as a blurb on the back of a VHS box. Characters wander from scene to scene, seemingly with no recollection of past events. The best is when Bill and his Native-American-lore-expert and ladies’ man, Charlie (Charles Majka), discover several rotting corpses and witness a man spontaneously combust in front of their eyes. The following scene is of them on the phone the next day, talking about the drudgery that comes from working their boring jobs on a typical Wednesday morning. It would be too simple to write this off by saying the reels are out of order. I need to believe in a higher power, that it’s deliberate madness. Then there’s Shades. Let me just say---he’s a big fan of Corey Hart. I wish I didn’t waste that reference on my Fatal Exam write up.

If you think the charming clumsiness doesn’t lend itself to the technical side, then you seriously underestimate power of this delightful and distinctive experience. Mustaches grow and change in shape; hair goes from a mullet to short back to mullet length; clothing changes. Not just from scene to scene but within the same sequence. Actors stand comically in front of each other to fit into the frame. Stop-motion entities mostly dance and flail their arms as if they’re hearing the beats to some magical rave in the far-off distance. A giant banner that reads “Fall Foliage Festival”. Let me point to the title of the movie. Each scene contains several nuggets of entertainment for a variety of reasons.

There’s a wonderful documentary called The Sci-Fi Boys. It’s comprised of numerous recollections of filmmakers and genre enthusiasts who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s on horror, science fiction, and fantasy films. This love for the wildly imaginative stories spurned many to make their own creature features with homemade effects. Director / writer Christopher Thies has that passion. He’s managed to combine both the appeal of Ray Harryhausen stop-motion creatures with the campy, schlocky, no-budget 80’s style filmmaking into something magically befuddling in the purest form. Also, there’s a dick in a box.

[sb5]

In retrospect, I wish I picked this up during VS's sale. I caught Winterbeast a few days back and thought it was ridiculous and entertaining, and Beyond Dream's Door sounds up my alley as well. And Final Exam...is there as well.

[The_Chex]

My hands are shaking. Covered in sweat, they're trembling fiercely. Something something mom’s spaghetti. I drop the box of staples onto the ground. They scatter all over the floor. I’m forced to carefully pick up each staple one at a time. Time is running out. The stapler needs to be replenished! I wish my dreams were exciting. No monstrous demons tormenting me---just mundane work stuff. Psychology student Ben (Nick Baldasare – Road Meat) has better nightmares involving ringing telephones, a lady undressing herself, and a bunch of hands reaching up from a concrete bunker. Did I mention the naked woman? The dilemma in my nightmare was failing to reload a stapler. Ben awakens to find unfinished calculus homework and a little brother begging him to play hide-and-seek. This kid is a little snot, proclaiming himself the greatest player of the world’s oldest game. Despite Ben’s mediocre skills at hiding, the game turns deadly when he realizes he doesn’t have a brother and a demonic creature tries to give him a neck smooch. Worse yet, he didn’t have calculus homework either. Ben jolts back to reality. Forget the monster---bratty brothers and calculus is pure nightmare fuel!

Ben’s problems are more complicated than the average teenaged resident of Elm Street. His dreams are linked, causing him to start where they left off previously. As the psychology department learn of his bizarre condition, they’re “infected” and targeted by the demon. Reality and dreams begin to merge. Tormented apparitions forced to wear black sweaters appear. Blood-filled balloons explode. Heads are torn off. Skin is peeled from bodies. Headless women seduce men. Fully loaded staplers. A janitor with no hands. The Necronomicon’s cousin makes an appearance. Even scarier---Ben only received an A- on his psychology paper.

[Show spoiler]Beyond Dream’s Door is a nexus between arthouse cinema and student film in the best of ways. Ambitious in scope far past its meager budget and charged with a frenzied pace, it manages to sustain a relentless weight of dread. This is a herculean feat given the typical challenges of zero money and bad acting that come with most regional horror films. More impressive is the quality of skill behind the camera. Beyond Dream’s Door isn’t the shoot-only-medium-shots visual style of something like Fatal Exam but leans more towards a restrained Sam Raimi approach. One of the more chilling moments is monster-free. Ben has a vision of a woman needing his help. He doesn’t know where she lives. She may already be dead and it’s a trap. As he drives, she repeatedly appears in brief snippets to point the way through the fog-shrouded streets. Eerie, simple, and totally effective.

For every obvious rubber demon arm we see, Beyond Dream’s Door delivers in horrifyingly savage, existential punishments. This demonic beast is vicious in every sense. Fingers chewed off, bodies decapitated, the souls become damned, forced to serve as puppets for the creature’s mind games before sentenced to spending eternity in a hellish afterlife. Those unfortunate prey have their very existence erased from the world, made to appear as if they never lived. The kids on Elm Street had it so good in comparison.

Beyond Dream’s Door is the best kind of regional, low-budget filmmaking. It overcomes its monetary constraints and takes chances, succeeding through raw skill and talent to produce an persisting, off kilter, surreal experience.

[The_Chex]

Originally Posted by sb5

In retrospect, I wish I picked this up during VS's sale. I caught Winterbeast a few days back and thought it was ridiculous and entertaining, and Beyond Dream's Door sounds up my alley as well. And Final Exam...is there as well.

If you're interested in regional filmmaking, the commentaries, making of features, deleted scenes, etc are worth it. Fatal Exam's behind-the-scenes talk is more entertaining than the movie, for example. Each film is loaded with material as well, sometimes with additional versions of the movies themselves.

For myself, the set is worth it just for Winterbeast alone. That Beyond Dream's Door is a surprisingly well-crafted, ambitious horror movie that nails it on so many levels is even better.

[Werdsniper2]

Just watched Winterbeast.

I really need to stop blind buying so often.

[RevolverOcelScott]

Originally Posted by Werdsniper2

Just watched Winterbeast.

I really need to stop blind buying so often.

haha well Winterbeast is the best title in that box, so if you started with that....

[CoronetBlue]

Originally Posted by RevolverOcelScott

haha well Winterbeast is the best title in that box, so if you started with that....

If you’re strictly looking for goofy fun, WINTERBEAST wins by a mile. But for the more serious-minded, BEYOND DREAMS DOOR rules this set.

[Nosferatu31]

Originally Posted by Werdsniper2

Just watched Winterbeast.

I really need to stop blind buying so often.

I'm starting to cut back on my VS blind buys and selling quite a bit. I had around 200 titles at one point and i'm now down to 138. Still have more to watch and most likely sell.