A vastly underrated black comedy, the finest in a series of grand guignol movies to follow 'Baby Jane'. Reynolds and Winters are mothers of young convicted murderers (a nod to 'Compulsion') who run away to hide in Hollywood. They run a school for would-be movie tots, a bunch of hilariously untalented kids attended by awful stage moms. Debbie, in her blonde wig ('I'm a Harlow, you're more a Marion Davies' she tells Winters) leads the tots at their concert and wins a rich dad, Weaver. She also does a deliciously funny tango and, over all, gives an outstanding performance, unlike anything she'd done before. The atmosphere is a fine mix of comic and eerie. It looks wonderful with great period detail (30's). Lots of lovely swipes at Hollywood and the terrifying movie tot. Micheal MacLiammoir has a ball as the drama coach: 'Hamilton Starr', he purrs, 'two r's but prophetic nonetheless'. See it and love it.

Lordi was a major hype and revelation in 2007 because they won the Eurovision Song Contest with a (not-so-heavy) metal song called "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and appeared on stage dressed like hideous monsters. But, let's face it, their victory most likely had very little to do with their great musical talents. The Eurovision contest gradually turned into one big political circus over the years and Lordi probably just won because their song finally brought a little change and  even more importantly - because their whole act sort of ingeniously spoofed the whole annual event. The absolute last thing Lordi's first (and hopefully last) horror film brings is change and ingenuity. "Dark Floors", based on an idea of the lead singer and starring the rest of the band in supportive roles, is a truly unimaginative and hopeless accumulation of clichés. The immense budget ("Dark Floors" supposedly is the most expensive Finnish film ever) definitely assures greatly macabre set pieces and impressive make-up art, but what's the point where there's no story that is worth telling? The film takes is set in a busy hospital where a bunch of people, among them a father and his young daughter with an unidentifiable illness, become trapped in the elevator during a power breakdown. When the doors open again, the floors are empty and it looks as if the hospital lies abandoned since many years already. Trying to reach the exit, the group stumbles upon several morbid and inexplicable obstacles, like eyeless corpses, screaming ghosts and Heavy Metal monsters emerging from the floors. The only three points I'm handing out to "Dark Floors" are exclusively intended for the scenery and the adequate tension building during the first half of the film. For as long as the sinister events don't require an explanation, the atmosphere is quite creepy, but as soon as you realize the explanation will a) be very stupid or b) never come, the wholesome just collapses like an unstable house of cards. Lordi's costumes never really were scary to begin with (except maybe to traditional Eurovision fans) and, in combination with a story more reminiscent to Asian ghost-horror, they just look downright pathetic and misfit. With all the national myths and truly unique exterior filming locations, I personally always presumed Finland  The Land of a Thousand Lakes  would be the ideal breeding ground for potentially horrific horror tales, but I guess that's another disillusion on my account.