Review: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden

Budget: Unknown

Directed By: Travis Stevens

Wow what can I say, I short Jakob's Wife is about marital problems exacerbated by vampiric infection.

Star long time scream queen Barbara Crampton, who like a vampire never seems to age. If there's one thing I can still say about her in this film is that the woman is still smoking hot with everything still able to back that up too!

But there's a lot more to her and the film than that.

The acting from nearly everyone is brilliantly on par with anything these veteran actors have been in before. Both Babs and Larry knock it out of the park with performances their performances.

Larry a slightly overbearing pastor husband Jakob to Babs slightly downtrodden wife Anne.

When Anne is bitten and transformed into a half vampire she starts to lose all the tendencies that made her subservient to Jakob.

We then get some amusing scenes later where they are trying to work things out between them as Anne starts to feel more empowered by the change.

Jakob soon learns that Anne is infected and seeks to cure it, Anne on the other hand, along with whispers of 'the master' (the vampire who turned her) is unsure if she wants to go back to being normal her. She does however seem to really love Jakob as she saves him and resists feeding on him a few times out of her feeling for him.

The ending was a little weak who it kind of boils down to a bit of misogyny on the master vampires part. True if she's really old then yes her times would have indeed been bad for her and Babs former life was as I stated quite downtrodden. But that's the thing these days and something the movie does show at points too, it's all about sitting down and talking. Though judging by the ending I don't know how well that went!

Some other good points the soundtrack is awesome, really reminded me of older horror films with the plinky plonky of pianos to the dun dun dun dun of something like the beginning of The Thing. The effects were great, realistic blood no CGI shit, as far as I could tell. The masters effects were very nosferatu vampiresque again a nice throwback.

Some minus points, the film can be slow in certain acts, seeming a little over stuffed with nothing going on or just things that weren't really needed. The pacing and theme were also a little off, with somethings moving at bullet speed to others just taking it's time. The theme was horror and the musical score solidified that mostly, but there was strange moments of comedy and satire that didn't gell well with the rest of the movie, they just stood out more due to this.

Overall though I really did enjoy this and most things the Babs is in gets high praise, Jakob's wife is no different, though not just for her but also some stellar supporting cast. THN awards Jakob's Wife (2021)

A solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)

Stars: Micheal Ironside, Lisa Schrage

Budget: $2.5 million CA

Directed By: Bruce Pittman

Wow this film was totally out of the blue, it is a bizarre sequel to the original Prom Night film. It very little to do with it in sequel terms though.
Taking cues from later additions to slasher flicks such as magical or other worldly forces, Prom Night 2 is straight up supernatural horror.
Taking cues from everything in that genre, from Evil Dead camera rushes and even sound effects in the score too. Too almost dream like killings and an end sequence that is ripped almost from Carrie.

The film Stars a slightly younger looking Micheal Ironside, though i'm sure the guys had the same amount of hair and scar tissue face since an infant. He puts in a great performance in here as a man with secrets (from everyone else not the viewer)
The films not rocket science and is cratered with plotholes the size of the moon. With said plot being about as thin on the ground as you could possibly get.

Having said that theres a weird kind of charm and all of the rest of the cast seem to be having a great time acting out their part. Nearly everyone is a dick in some way or another though and you don't really route for anyone other than may be feel a bit sorry for the main protagonist and her boyfriend, oh and possibly her bewildered father. There's some very graphical frontal nudity in a locker room scene too, my does Vicki have a banging body.

So we join Mary Lou after she mocks a priest in a confessional stand. Yeah she's a doozy this girl about as likable as triple bypass surgery. It's 1957 and she's had one guy take her to the prom but she cheats on him with another guy. She of course very pretty which nets her the prom queen status. Jealous the spurned boyfriend uses a prank smell bomb to get her back.
It goes wrong however and Mary Lou goes up like a dry xmas tree. Everyone just kind of watches screaming or crying rather than trying to help her. So Crispy Lou dies there ablaze on the stage.

Cut to the same school now in 1987, that's right its a roaring 80's baby. Vicki a student living with a over repressive god bod mother asks for some money to get a prom dress. Her nice father asks how much but her mother refuses as that's what holier than thou mothers do in these films.
So she looks in the school cellar? below ground storage room?
Whatever she somehow finds Mary Lou's shawl and bang that starts with her slowly getting taken over by a now demonic miss Lou. Her attitude slowly begins to change from sweet innocent girl to slutty killer. Slowly all her friends and acquaintances start falling prey to her evil side.
Somewhere in between she goes to see the new priest at the church, twist it was the boy who Mary Lou cheated with. Another twist! Is that Vicki's Boyfriends dad was the spurned lover, somehow friends the priest comes to warn him that he think's Mary Lou's soul has possessed someone and will try to kill them.

That's the main premise it plays out as predictable as expected but I liked it, it wasn't great and stole a lot from other things. It was ultimately fun though. There is a 3rd movie seems hard to get hold of though, will review it once I can!

THN awards HML: Prom Night 2 a strong 3 stars, watch it if you have the spare 95 or so minutes