Brian Krause – Podcasting Them Softly

Be Afraid is a big, bold title for a horror film and despite it being a relatively low budget effort that skirts the boundaries of outright B grade quality, there were a few moments that did come very close to being truly, impressively scary. The story sees the residents of a sleepy rural county in Pennsylvania preyed upon by some sort of either supernatural or extraterrestrial beings that dwell in a cave deep in the woods. The county doctor (Brian Krause, Charmed, Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers) does his best to uncover what’s going on while dealing with family issues, an uncooperative sheriff (Louis Herthum), ghosts from the past and the fact that both his young son and he himself are having terrifying nocturnal visions of these strange humanoid horrors walking right into their bedrooms and standing over them. Now, the film never outright tells you what these things are but the ringleader of them appears to wear a top hat which in my book rules out aliens and feels more akin to something earthly, elemental and folk-horror oriented but it’s really anyones guess. The film almost has a Signs vibe, what with all the rural farms and quaint, small town feel pervaded upon by threatening figures on the edge of the landscape. There are nice forest shots and they seem to have filmed this in Fall, so the seasonal vibes are there as well. I can’t quite call it a great film because it just feels like a DTV outing half the time, but on those terms it’s certainly not a bad one at all, one that genuinely tries to do something cool with capable actors, tangible atmosphere and discernible style to it. Originally titled “Within The Dark”, it can be found streaming on Prime at least here in Canada anyways, and is a nice lazy afternoon watch for spooky season.

-Nate Hill

Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers has a reputation as one of the lesser quality adaptations of his work, which led me to put off watching it for years. Well I don’t know what film the critics saw, cause the one I watched was wicked good. Nestled in that perfect area of 80’s horror where the blood was corn syrup, the flesh was latex, there wasn’t a pixel or rendering in sight and atmospherics mattered more than excessive violence, this is one serious piece of horrific eye candy with the backbone of King’s wicked imagination to hold it steady. The story tells of a small Midwestern town (is there any other kind in the man’s work?) That falls prey to a pair of vampire werewolf hybrid creatures who subside off the blood of virgins and morph into slimy behemoths that conveniently show off the impressive prosthetics. Brian Krause is one of said creatures, drifting into town with his creepy mother (the wonderful Alice Krige) and setting his sights on severely virginal schoolgirl Madchen Amick, by dialing up the charm past eleven. People and animals start to die all over town and the suspicions arise, but the pair are cunning and have most likely been doing this for centuries almost unnoticed. It’s nothing too unique as far as the concept goes, but the fun of it lies in the gooey special effects and one demon of a performance from Krige, a veteran stage actress. She is one part beautiful seductress (even to her son, in one unsettling scene) and one part volatile banshee, setting your nerves on edge time and time again throughout the film. Krause does the demonic James Dean thing nicely and Amick shows blossoming reilience beneath the required mantle of terrified cream queen. The three of them run amok in a beautifully realized fever dream of psycho sexualized terror, small town atmospherics and a classic old school horror climate. This film loves it’s cameos, so watch for Clive Barker, Ron Perlman as a grouchy state trooper and King himself as the world’s dumbest graveyard caretaker. Baffles me why this was panned upon release. It’s actually one of the best films I’ve seen based on King’s horror work, and there’s a lot to compete with.