Of course, there are also those among us who begin stalking the surgeons who failed to save our loved ones, and in doing so discover that they actually lead a secret double life as sadistic serial killers. It’s really a very common part of the grieving process.

Don’t believe me? Ask recently widowed Angela (Simona Vannelli). Following the death of her husband and son due to injuries sustained in a car accident, she has become a broken shell of her former self. When she’s not locked up in her home sobbing over old family photos, she’s fantasizing about tracking down the doctor she blames for her family’s death and beating him to a bloody pulp with a hammer.

For his part, Doctor Max (director Lorenzo Lepori) appears to be a loving father and an upstanding member of the community. Appearances can be deceiving, though, as Angela learns when she follows Max on his weekend hunting trip. It seems the not-so-good doctor prefers to hunt “the most dangerous game.” Out in the secluded marshlands, he and his friends kidnap, torture, and kill women purely for sport. When Angela tries to interfere, she quickly becomes their latest target.

If you ask me, there’s always been something special about Italian horror movies. Recently released by Vipco, 2022’s Screams From The Swamp (AKA Grida Dalla Palude) proves that’s as true today as it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Despite working with a much lower budget than their predecessors enjoyed, Lepori (who also directed the berserk post-Covid chunkblower Flesh Contagium) and veteran screenwriter Antonio Tentori (who previously collaborated with Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Joe D’Amato, and Bruno Mattei, among others) manage to craft a grim, atmospheric film that balances copious amounts of violence and sleaze with an emotional and surprisingly layered narrative.

To wit, while Lepori portrays Angela’s experiences rather matter-of-factly, it’s impossible not to wonder how much of what we’re seeing is real and how much is in her head. Is Max really a homicidal maniac or has Angela’s unhinged mind fabricated this scenario to justify her own murderous fantasies? Who is the predator and who is the prey?

Things only get murkier when the occult comes into play and Angela performs a black-magic ritual to exact supernatural revenge on Max and his friends. Lepori’s directorial style shifts to incorporate more colorful lighting, warped angles, and heavy use of fog. Does this depict the encroachment of ancient eldritch forces on the natural world… or Angela’s complete divorce from rational reality?

On that front, Screams From The Swamp isn’t exactly forthcoming with answers. It is, however, perfectly happy to ladle on big, wet scoops of eye-gouging gore. Additionally, Alex Visani’s cinematography makes for some tasty eye candy while the throbbing synth score by TV Crimes creates a palpable air of menace.

Produced with minimal resources and presented with minimal dialogue, Screams From The Swamp is lean and moody, at times bordering on surrealism. It feels like a nightmare captured on video. Exactly the sort of thing that would make Fulci and Argento proud.

SCREAMS FROM THE SWAMP is out now on BLU-RAY (Region FREE) in the USA from VIPCO and BayView Entertainment.

Dr. Dobermind

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That’s more than Jane, the protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper, has.

Played by Alexandra Loreth (who also co-wrote the script with director K Pontuti), Jane is a woman in America during the 1800s, which means she’s basically a second-class citizen. She has, however, fulfilled her sole purpose in life, at least according to the patriarchal attitudes of the time: she’s given birth to a child.

Now, as a treatment for postpartum depression (once believed to be a byproduct of “female hysteria”), Jane is taken to a remote country manor to “rest.” In other words, she’s confined to a small bedroom with bars on the windows and furniture nailed to the floor. Actively deprived of stimulation by her domineering husband, she is forbidden to read, write, or exert herself in any way.

With nothing else to do, Jane spends her days staring at the hideous yellow wallpaper that decorates her homegrown prison cell. The longer she stares, the more she begins seeing things, glimpses of a woman trapped inside the wallpaper. She scrapes and claws, peeling it away in hopes of liberating the hostage bound by its flowery patterns, even as she herself slowly disintegrates in isolation.

Recently released to Blu-ray courtesy of BayView Entertainment, The Yellow Wallpaper is, of course, based on the 1892 short story of the same name by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was inspired by the author’s real-life experiences under the care of infamous physician Silas Weir Mitchell, whose so-called “rest cure” historically harmed more patients than it ever helped. Mitchell’s misogynist pseudoscience was likewise called out by Virginia Woolf in her 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway.

Today, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is considered to be both a pioneering work of feminist literature and an early example of weird fiction (H.P. Lovecraft himself called it “a most insidiously potent tale of the aura of madness”). Loreth and Pontuti’s film version hews close to the source material, often directly quoting Gilman’s words. Only in its very last moments does it substantially diverge, diminishing (though not quite eliminating) the original story’s ambiguity.

Though a bit stiff (especially early on), The Yellow Wallpaper is deliberately placed and carefully composed. It wants to draw you into Jane’s loneliness and boredom, into her ostracization and infantilization, and ultimately into her spiraling mental illness. To this end, Roger Coburn’s droning electronic score proves especially effective, calling to mind Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman’s work on 1999’s Ravenous.

As “quiet horror” goes, The Yellow Wallpaper may be too quiet for mainstream audiences. But for patient viewers who’ve survived mental illness, sexist oppression, or 19th Century English Lit homework, Loreth and Pontuti’s film has a certain power. Its bleak relatability does justice to Gilman’s harrowing vision.

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is out now on BLU-RAY (Region FREE) in the USA from BayView Entertainment.

Dr. Dobermind

www.instagram.com/dr.dobermind/

The post THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (2021) appeared first on Horror Asylum.

Once completed, the witch’s scarecrow stands vigil in its field, until a clash between an in-over-his-head lawman and a family of murderous moonshiners erupts into violence. That night, the scarecrow walks.

By morning, there’s no one left alive.

Sixty years later, Brett, who is the last descendant of that ill-fated family, returns to his ancestral homestead with a group of friends. Together they’re planning a raucous, alcohol-fueled weekend in the backwoods of Tennesee, but when Brett spills the blood of his girlfriend Ally during a heated argument, the sleeping scarecrow wakes… and walks again.

Soon, barnyard sex sessions are ending in gore-gushing sickle decapitations, corpses are turning up with their mouths sewn shut and their innards replaced by bundles of hay, and former friends are at each others’ throats over who’s to blame. Is there any way to stop the scarecrow’s rampage or has the fate of Brett and his friends been sealed by the sins of his forefathers?

Previously released direct to DVD by Lionsgate (who rebranded it as the third installment in their patchwork Dark Harvest franchise), 2004’s Skarecrow: A Curse Never Dies is the work of indie filmmaker Ben Dixon. In addition to directing, Dixon is well-known among Nashville natives for founding the long-running Full Moon Tattoo and Horror Festival.

Though Skarecrow has long fallen out of print, it has returned to DVD courtesy of VIPCO (yes, that VIPCO). Being Dixon’s first movie, it suffers from a lot of the same problems endemic to most no-budget horror flicks made by first-timers: muffled audio, choppy editing, amateur acting, and murky lighting. However, that last feature actually works to the film’s benefit at times, such as in the ominous, doom-laden prologue.

Indeed, Dixon seems to have consciously prioritized atmosphere over action here. The result is a slower, darker (both figuratively and literally), supernatural slasher that mixes together elements of folk horror and hillbilly horror. There’s a little bit of Pumpkinhead in Skarecrow’s DNA, a little bit of Evil Dead, and even a little bit of House of 1000 Corpses.

This is a lot cheaper and dirtier than any of those movies, mind you. If you dig DIY stalk-and-slash schlock in the vein of Brad Sykes’ Camp Blood or Dustin Ferguson’s Meat Hook Massacre, though, Skarecrow isn’t a bad way to kill 72 minutes. It’s cheesy and ramshackle, sure, but also refreshingly earnest. It makes no apologies for what it is, and it doesn’t let a lack of resources temper its ambitions.

SKARECROW: A CURSE NEVER DIES is out now on DVD in the USA from VIPCO and BayView Entertainment.

Dr. Dobermind

www.instagram.com/dr.dobermind/

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