Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s your good friend Kyle Krueger, the bastard grandson of a hundred maniacs, bringing you another discarded wonder. And it goes by the name “The Gathering”.

Christina Ricci plays Cassie, a drifter who is hit by a car while walking to the town of Ashby Wake, somewhere in the UK. The woman who hit her, Marion, invites her to stay with her as well as her archeologist husband Simon and his children, Emma and Michael. Simon has been asked to help discover the meaning behind a carving of people watching the crucifixion of Christ that was found in a buried church, and you’ll be shocked (not really) by what he discovers.

This was an odd film for two reasons. One is that I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it, which I normally never do. In true SHT fashion, this movie was handed down to me from my friend AJ, only the disc came with it. No cover art, no synopsis. I was driving blind. The other odd thing is that even though the movie is paint by numbers predictable, I was still drawn into the story. Not to mention that there is an international cut available in other countries that fix all of the plot holes that we have stateside. The supporting cast left much to be desired; we are dealing with a cast of relative unknowns, minus Ricci and Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four). However, that doesn’t mean the performances were bad. It just feels like most of the people in the movie were there to fill in the gaps while the story wasn’t moving.

Continue reading ‘Secondhand Terror: The Gathering (2002)’

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s your good friend Kyle Krueger, the bastard grandson of a hundred maniacs, bringing you another discarded wonder. Today we’re looking at John Carpenter’s Body Bags.

The year is 1993. Four years after HBO began “Tales from the Crypt”, the people at Showtime wanted something terrifying to bring in viewers. Before he brought Cigarette Burns to the infamous “Masters of Horror” anthology in 2005, Showtime asked John Carpenter to shoot a pilot for a rival anthology series. He gave them “Body Bags”, featuring three thirty minute stories that had scares and laughs alike. Unfortunately, Showtime pulled the plug before it could ever air, so Carpenter released it as a stand alone “Creepshow” type film.