Gory greetings! Welcome to another edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, an exciting column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the good folks at horroryearbook decide to throw my way. Anchor Bay Entertainment was nice enough to recently send along a double feature of their latest dvd offerings and they wound up in my mailbox. LET THE BLOODSHED BEGIN!

THE ALPHABET KILLER is a police thriller from director Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn). The inspiration for the story came from a real life series of unsolved murders that plagued Rochester, New York in the early 70’s. Writer Tom Malloy has updated the story of “the crimes that terrified a nation” to modern times and added a hallucinatory supernatural twist.

A ten year old girl named Carla Castillo is raped and murdered, and her dead body is then dumped in a small Rochester suburb called Churchville. A seasoned police detective named Megan Paige (inexplicably played by the fresh faced Eliza Dushku) becomes convinced that the three C’s are no coincidence and quickly becomes obsessed with the case. Things take a turn for the worse when Megan succumbs to an adult onset of schizophrenia and begins having morbid visions of Carla Castillo’s corpse. Megan eventually has a mental breakdown and is pulled from the case and forced to go on medical leave until she recovers.

Two years later, the “alphabet killer” strikes again and kills another young girl with matching initials. Megan convinces her Captain (and former lover, played by Cary Elwes) to allow her to return to the investigation as an advisor. Bill “Chop-Top” Moseley makes a brief appearance as a suspect and the one and only Michael Ironside plays a pig headed police officer who tries to solve the case by any means necessary. As Megan struggles to prove a connection between the cases and find the killer she once again begins to have horrific hallucinations of the victims. Can Megan hang on to her sanity long enough to catch a psychopath?

My biggest problem with this movie was Eliza Dushku. Dushku is not a bad actress, but she is absolutely miscast here and totally unconvincing as a police detective. Her performance in this flick is the weakest on display, which is really unfortunate because she is the star of the film. I’m guessing that her past connection to Schmidt (she starred in Wrong Turn) and her associate producer credit likely explains her participation in this film. The internet has been buzzing at the prospect of finally seeing Eliza’s Dushkus, but hardcore geeks looking for some “Buffy” beat off material will be sorely disappointed with her topless scene here. It’s really short and you don’t even get to see her nipples.

I also wasn’t impressed with the supernatural elements of the story. On the commentary track, Rob Schmidt called this film a “supernatural thriller.” The problem with that is the fact the the so-called supernatural aspect of the film is negated by the fact that the lead character is schizophrenic. It doesn’t help that the ghosts are the type of generic looking wet haired little scamps that you’ve already seen in a hundred other horror flicks. This thriller is not particularly thrilling either. For an R rated film there is a disappointing lack of blood or violence, and the 98 minute running time makes it feel tedious. This flick plays out like a Lifetime movie that would air around Halloween.

If the film focused more on the actual case (which is interesting stuff) and less on the ghosts and hallucinations it might have been a winner. On the positive side of things, the performances from Cary Elwes, Bill Moseley, Micheal Ironside, and Timothy Hutton are all solid. The director of photography Joesph Desalvo did a nice job primarily using hand held cameras and the film has a bleak, almost colorless look which made the scenes shot outdoors interesting to look at. Some of the darker scenes are a bit murky looking, but that may be a result of the video transfer. There’s definitely some talent on display here but I found the end result less than satisfying. I wouldn’t go as far as saying this flick sucked, but I can’t give it the Brain Hammer seal of approval either. If Eliza had been a sport and gave us some full frontal nudity, that might have changed my mind.

THE ALPHABET KILLER is currently available on dvd from Anchor Bay Entertainment. The bonus features include two different commentary tracks, some behind the scenes footage, and an alternate opening scene.

RED MIST (aka Freakdog) is an Irish horror epic from director Paddy Breathnach (Shrooms). This one begins with a little kid hiding in a closet and getting an eye full of his prostitute mother being stabbed to death by one of her johns. We then flash forward several years and find little Kenneth as a full grown stuttering retard working as a janitor in a hospital. Kenny is also an epileptic who enjoys taking photos of naked female cadavers with his cell phone.

One night Kenneth follows his love interest Catherine and a group of her fellow medical students to a bar. After several hours of watching her from a distance he finally works up the nerve to ask if he can walk her home. When Catherine’s mean spirited friends begin picking on Kenny he threatens to reveal that they have been stealing meds from the pharmacy. As Kenny storms off the leader of the pack cooks up a scheme to shut his mouth for good. Using the cock teasing Catherine as bait, they lure Kenneth back into the bar and jam a funnel full of vodka and prescription drugs down his gullet.

The plan to humiliate Kenneth backfires in a big way when he overdoses and begins puking up blood. The medical students fear more for their futures than Kenny’s life and decide to leave him for dead outside of the emergency room. Kenny is eventually found by paramedics, but his brain has been starved for oxygen and he slips into a long term coma. The gang is relieved to know that Kenneth will never be able to tell the authorities what happened, and even more happy to find out that the hospital will pull the plug on his life support once his insurance runs out.

Catherine is torn apart by guilt because of what she has done. Instead of doing the logical thing and confessing to police, she decides to take matters into her own hands and begins injecting Kenneth with a cocktail of experimental drugs in an effort to revive him. The drugs cause his dormant brainwaves to reactivate and release his malevolent inner spirit from his body. The evil power of Kenneth’s brainwaves then possess the minds of other people in the hospital and cause them to kill the kids that put him in a coma. Many violent deaths are unleashed and Catherine has to try to convince the others of what is happening before she becomes the next pawn in Kenny’s deadly game of revenge.

I enjoyed RED MIST quite a bit. The concept of a comatose killer has been done before (Patrick, Patrick Still Lives, Appointment With Fear, Psychic Killer) but this flick has more than enough energy to avoid feeling like a cheap retread. The screenplay from Spencer Wright is full of interesting twists that help the film have its own identity. My only real complaint about the story is the nosebleed plot device, which first appeared in Alone In The Dark and was later ripped off in Valentine.

The setup might seem a bit familiar, but the only thing that should really matter to horror fans are the death scenes. I was impressed with the brutality of the kills which include a head being slammed into a car door, a juicy throat stabbing, and a great scene where a dude is forced to swallow a funnel full of acid. Overall, I thought this was a cool, creepy horror flick and I’m giving it the Brain Hammer seal of approval. RED MIST will be available on dvd 02/10/09 from Anchor Bay Entertainment.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!