The Official Splatter Movie Guide, Volumes I & II: 1963-1992
Author: John McCarty
Date: 2016-11-05 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: movie guide; Reviews
Description: Combining both volumes of the original print editions, The Official Splatter Movie Guide, Volumes I & II is a dream come true for splatter aficionados: a film-by-film guide to more than eight hundred masterworks of blood and gore. Each listing contains the film's movie studio, date of release, running time, director, producer, writer, and actors, along with a synopsis and review of the film.
Publisher: Crossroad Press

THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUMES I & II

1963-1992

Hundreds of the Goriest, Grossest, Most Outrageous Films Ever Made

Edited by John McCarty

A Macabre Ink Production

Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

Digital Edition Copyright © 2016 / John McCarty

LICENSE NOTES

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Meet the Editor

John McCarty is a full time author and filmmaker. His book Bullets over Hollywood: The American Gangster Picture from the Silents to “The Sopranos” (Da Capo Press, 2004), was produced as a major documentary by Hugh M.  Hefner's Alta Loma Entertainment, for the Starz/Encore cable network; it aired in 2005 and 2006 and has been released on DVD. Additionally, he is the co-producer, co-writer, and co-director of The Fearmakers: Masters of Classic Screen Terror and Suspense, a 13-episode documentary series profiling of some of the world's most influential makers of classic “fear films,” among them Tod Browning, Jack Arnold, Terence Fisher, Roman Polanski, Roger Corman, and Tobe Hooper. The series is based on his 1994 book of the same title published by St. Martin's Press, and now available as an e-book from Crossroad Press. The companion DVD is in release by Alpha Video (www.oldies.com). His 2009 film, Confinement, a modern re-telling of the classic feminist short story The Yellow Wallpaper, is currently in distribution by Films Media Group. His film The Man Who Pursued Rosebud, a documentary about the life of actor-producer-director William Alland, is available as a special feature on the exclusive Alpha Video DVD  release of Mr. Alland's controversial (and long unseen) 1960s classic Look in Any Window, starring Paul Anka. The author of more than 20 non-fiction books on film and  entertainment subjects, John has appeared in conjunction with his work  on such national media as the Wall St. Journal, the Sundance Film  Festival's online "Film Talks", Fox News Saturday, CNN.fn's mid-day  news, A&E's Biography, the Bravo network series “Backspin,” the ICONS  Radio Hour hosted by Stephen Bogart (son of screen icon Humphrey  Bogart), Neal Conan's "Talk of the Town" on National Public Radio,  Turner Classic Movies, and many other major market radio and cable TV  stations across the country. He created Leering Buzzard Pictures LLC in 2009 to produce his own films in collaboration with talented colleagues and students in his native upstate New York. Visit his website at www.leeringbuzzardpix.com.

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THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME I

THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME II

For Christopher and Jonathan—a book of your own; though it’s a strange one, I’ll admit.

—Dad

THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME I

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank the following individuals for their help in putting together this comprehensive peek into the cinematic world of no-holds barred blood and gore: my agent, Dominick Abel, for steering the book to publication; my editor, Stuart Moore, for steering the book through publication; my wife, Cheryl, for putting up with all that screaming that emanated over so many months from the VCR downstairs; the late Eric Caidin (1952-2015) for locating photos and filling me in on the background of some of the films; Gordon Van Gelder at St. Martin’s Press; and last, but far from least, John Brent, the late Ken Hanke (1954-2016), and Dan Krogh for tracking down, screening, and reviewing some new and obscure titles—thanks, guys, my sanity is in your debt.

INTRODUCTION

A number of years ago, I published a book called Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen. One of my purposes in writing the book was to give what I saw to be a clearly evolving genre an appropriate and definitive name that I and other critics could use so that we (and our readers) would all recognize what we were talking about—similar to film noir. Prior to the book’s appearance, no one (save George Romero, on one occasion) used the term. Today, everyone does—from the New York to Fangoria magazine, the splatter buff’s bible. Congratulations, John. Mission accomplished.

My larger aim, however, was to go beyond naming the genre and to actually define it—what it was, where it came from, what its appeal was (and to whom it appealed)—to place it within the context of film history at large, and to weigh the controversy surrounding it with a level head and an even hand. All of these things, but the last especially, no one else, again, had done.

My final aim was to paint a picture of what I felt the future held in store for the genre. Would audiences finally become surfeited by the endless array of bloody “film tricks” and tire of “splatter”? Would critical, parent group, and legislative crackdowns result in stricter censorship laws, posing a threat to “splatter’s” existence? Or would “splatter” expand beyond the horror film (a genre it had all but consumed) into other genres—the musical, the war film, the police thriller, etc.—to ensure its survival, at least for a time? My guess was the latter, which, in the years that have followed the book’s publication, is precisely what happened.

I wish I could say I was prescient, or that I had a crystal ball, but neither is the case. Based on some of the new directions “splatter” had already taken at the time I was writing the book, it simply seemed clear to me that the genre would continue regenerating itself by absorbing additional genres into its collective cinematic bloodstream—similar to what film noir did in the forties. I was right—today, without question, “splatter” continues to zoom ahead with a vengeance. It has become one of the most pervasive and popular—not to mention influential—genres in the history of the movies.

All of which suggested to me the need for another book on the subject. But not one that would be a mere repetition of, or expansion upon, the book that had preceded it. As a result, you will find no definitions here, no historical perspectives, no in-depth interviews, no heady discussions; for them, I refer you to Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen.

The Official Splatter Movie Guide is just what its name implies: not a study of the genre, but a comprehensive and critical look at the films themselves. The word official is used because it relates back to the themes and ideas set forth in my first book on the subject. The word comprehensive is also significant. After getting into the project, I quickly came to realize that no matter how hard I tried, reviewing every splatter movie ever made would prove impossible. In addition to time constraints (one has to do something besides watch movies all day—such as make a living), many films—particularly those made in other countries—were unavailable for screening and appraisal. So, what I decided to do instead was opt for comprehensiveness: to cover as many different types of splatter movies as possible; to give readers a broad view of the many different routes the genre has taken since its debut in 1963 with Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast. Perhaps in some future second volume, I’ll go back and pick up some of the odds and ends not included here and combine them with reviews of the hundreds of new splatter movies yet to come our way. Then again, perhaps not. For reviewing the 400-plus films that are included in this first volume has been a daunting task.

What has made it easier, though, is the invention of the VCR, the release of thousands upon thousands of movies (of all kinds) over the past few years, and ready access to them courtesy of video rental stores—which in the decade following this book’s initial publication proliferated throughout our society the way fast-food joints once did. In my small town alone, there were seven such stores.

This book is not a video guide per se, however. But the fact is, most of the films reviewed herein became available on videocassette and were screened for firsthand appraisal via that format. For film critics and historians in general, the videocassette (and later the DVD) has indeed become a valuable resource. For this film critic and historian in particular, though, it has proven invaluable if for no other reason than that video companies have seen fit over the years to release splatter movies on home video more quickly and in greater numbers than almost any other type of film. Not unexpectedly, however, this phenomenon has given rise to a second round of the controversy that greeted the arrival of splatter movies in the first place. This time, though, the controversy doesn’t center on the existence of the films but on their easy accessibility to anyone old enough to peek over the top of a counter and thrust out their mom and dad’s video-rental card. I’m speaking, of course, about kids—whose impressionable young minds, some parents and critics say, are in perilous danger of being permanently warped by these R or unrated films, which parents have termed “video nasties” or “violent videos.”

The debate has become so heated that groups such as (former Vice Presidential spouse) Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center, and others, began to fight for legislation curbing the release of splatter movies on home video—or, at the very least, coercing the video industry into adopting special ratings such as MMM (“extremely mature”) and special content labels such as EV (“extreme violence”) for parents to use as guidelines. The merits or demerits of this legislation do not fall within the province of this book. I will say, though, that I tend to agree with my friend Tony Timpone (editor emeritus of Fangoria magazine) that what parents protesting “violent videos” really seem to want is someone else to do their parenting for them. Agreed, no parent who’s not a film buff can know the content of every film well enough to make a decision as to its suitability for viewing by little Johnny or Janie. But the boxes of most theatrical films released on home video do carry the theatrical film’s MPAA rating. Even the least aware of parents should realize that those boxes rated R (or which carry no rating)—and which boast such buzzwords as Blood, Cannibal, Massacre, and so on in their titles—might not be proper fare (in their adult view, anyway) for the kiddies.

As I said before, The Official Splatter Movie Guide is not a video source book; but most of the films reviewed in it are or were available on home video. Therefore, for parents who are indeed concerned about what a given “video nasty” may or may not include, I would suggest tucking a copy of this book under their arm the next time they and their kids stop off at the local video emporium to pick up a flick or ten for the weekend. Because, in addition to offering critical appraisals of hundreds of available “nasties,” the book pulls no punches in describing precisely what to expect in the form of grisly content. There, I’ve done my bit!

One final note: To add a bit of variety to the book, and the opinions expressed herein, I’ve called upon three well-qualified connoisseurs of the genre to contribute some entries in support of my own. The names of these helpful gents are: John Brent, Ken Hanke, and Dan Krogh. Let me tell you a bit about each of them.

John Brent is a film buff (and filmmaker) who published a neat little fanzine called Phantasma. An ex-theater manager, John knows all about splatter movies, as the chain he once worked for, in his words, “… seemed to book every one of them that came out.” His magazine, however, was not devoted to splatter movies—a field that he feels is covered sufficiently by Fangoria and other magazines. Phantasma, instead, concentrated on less-well-known horror, SF, and fantasy films that are seldom written about (such as Lon Chaney’s The Unknown, for example). I heartily recommend the no longer published magazine if you cn find copies, suggest that readers of The Official Splatter Movie Guide look out for it—as it will give them an opportunity to expand upon their knowledge of genre filmmaking.

In addition to sharing an interest in the splatter movie genre, Ken Hanke and I harbor an absolute passion for the films of Ken Russell. Ken Hanke has extended his passion far beyond my own, however, by publishing a book about the great man’s work—Ken Russell’s Films (Scarecrow Press), which remains, in my view, the definitive, most insightful (and vastly readable) exploration of the Russell oeuvre as of this writing.

And finally, Dan Krogh. Dan is an award-winning filmmaker and author of The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis and His World of Exploitation Films (a book to which I contributed some editorial assistance). Dan was able to write that book because he knew Lewis and worked with him on several of the “Godfather of Gore’s” most celebrated splatter epics, such as The Wizard of Gore and The Gore Gore Girls. As a result, Dan brings a real insider’s knowledge to The Official Splatter Movie Guide. He knows whereof he writes because, unlike the rest of us couch potatoes, Dan has actually made some of the damn things.

Reviews range from the pithy to the lengthy. Regardless of length, all, I hope, are insightful—and, above all, amusing. Unlike mainstream observers of the splatter movie phenomenon, my goal is not simply to trash these films. That would be too easy—and, in the case of not a few splatter movies, completely unwarranted. Still, I don’t hesitate to call a spade a piece of junk; nor do my reviewer colleagues.

Beyond this, I’ve tried to have fun. Critics of splatter movies don’t seem to understand that neither the makers of these films nor the fans who enjoy them take the films’ graphic excesses seriously. Most, if not all, splatter movies, particularly those made since the mid-eighties, are intended exercises in outrageousness and absurdity. (For serious absurdity, one need look no further than the nightly news.) The worst of these films, one simply laughs at; the best of them, one can laugh with. Either way, laughter is a key common denominator in appreciating these films—even if, on some occasions, that laughter is of the nervous kind.

Alien

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1979; Color; 124 minutes

Director: Ridley Scott Producers: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill Writer: Dan O’Bannon With: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Veronica Cartwright, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton

O’Bannon (who wrote the story with Ronald Schusett) lifts the wildest elements from a whole range of B movies, from It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) to Cronenberg’s They Came from Within (1979), to tell this tale of an acid-bleeding creature that is taken on board a space-age scavenger vessel, the Nostromo. Immediately, the creature starts slaughtering the crew. Atmospheric and genuinely shocking, with a fine score by Jerry Goldsmith and a nice performance by Weaver as the put-upon but resourceful heroine. A scene in which Weaver comes upon the still-alive Skerritt, who has been coccooned by the alien for periodic snacks and other, nastier reasons, was cut prior to release, but has since been reinstated on home video. Followed in 1986 by a sequel, Aliens.

Alien Contamination

Cannon Films, 1981; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Luigi Cozzi Producer: Claudio Mancini Writer: Luigi Cozzi With: Ian McCulloch, Louise Monroe, Martin Mase, Lisa Hahn, Siegfried Rauch

Alien eggs are brought back to earth by a team of astronauts. The eggs hatch and the slaughter begins. Uninspired, Italian-made rip-off of Alien in which the eggs spew a deadly juice (rather than tentacles) that cause victims to explode. Atrociously acted (the English dubbing is even worse), but good special effects and a strong, pounding rock score by Dario Argento’s favorite band: Goblin.

Aliens

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1986; Color; 137 minutes

Director: James Cameron Producer: Gale Ann Hurd Writer: James Cameron With: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen

This sequel to Alien (1979) takes up right where the original left off, as lone survivor Ripley (Weaver) finds her way back to earth. Learning that colonists have since settled the demon planet during her space sleep, she returns—along with a company of foul-mouthed space-age marines—to warn them of the danger. Instead of one acid-bleeding alien, this time Ripley and her cohorts encounter dozens. Most found this splattery exercise in alien-blasting to be a thrilling rollercoaster ride. But after the third screeching alien had been obliterated across the wide screen, I frankly began looking at my watch. Too much of a good thing, I guess. The Oscar-winning effects are excellent, though.

Alone in the Dark

New Line Cinema, 1982; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Jack Sholder Producer: Bob Shaye Writer: Jack Sholder With: Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Dwight Schultz, Donald Pleasence, Erland Van Lidth

This variation on Poe’s “Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether” has the inmates not only taking over the asylum but much of the surrounding town when a power blackout throws the area into darkness. The gonzos hole up at the house of new therapist Schultz, who, they are convinced, murdered their former therapist. In Straw Dogs fashion, Schultz must take up arms to protect his life, his family, and his home. The bloody siege climaxes as the power comes on. When he sees his former therapist talking live on TV, surviving flake Palance realizes his mistake and heads for the nearest punk bar, where, to the music of the “Sick Fucks” and in the company of a girl who enjoys having him press his .45 Magnum against her forehead, he decides the world is just as crazy—perhaps even crazier—as he is. Palance, Landau, and Van Lidth have the time of their lives chewing up the scenery. Deranged, satiric fun.

Alucarda

See Sisters of Satan

American Gothic

Brent Walker PLC/Pinetalk Ltd., 1988; Color; 90 minutes

Director: John Hough Producers: John Quested, Christopher Harrop Writers: Burt Wetanson, Michael Vines With: Rod Steiger, Yvonne DeCarlo, Michael J. Pollard, Fiona Hutchison, Sara Torgov, Mark Lindsay Chapman

Bland, uninspired psycho thriller about some none-too-bright young folks who get stranded on a remote island when their plane breaks down. They stumble on a cabin in the woods, where elderly Pa (Steiger) and Ma (DeCarlo) live in a perpetual time warp with three middle-aged offspring who haven’t been allowed to grow up. Seems Ma and Pa are religious fanatics who rejected the world and its sinful ways fifty years ago. They don’t have a phone, a radio, or even a TV. The interlopers could easily die of boredom, but they’re variously stabbed, hurled off cliffs, and bludgeoned by a bathtub instead. One of the group turns out to be sicker than Ma and Pa and the clan, kills them, and takes up where they left off. Generally speaking, splatter movies don’t try to be credible, but this one includes a groaner where one of the stranded young folks finds an old dress and says, “It’s just like the one Mary Pickford wore in Little Annie Rooney.” Come on, folks, this bubblehead isn’t likely to recognize a picture of JFK, let alone Mary Pickford—let alone the dress she wore in a 1925 silent. An insult to film buffs everywhere!

An American Werewolf in London

Universal, 1981; Color; 97 minutes

Director: John Landis Producer: George Folsey, Jr. Writer: John Landis With: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne

Despite some marvelous werewolf transformation effects by Rick Baker (for which he received an Oscar), this schizoid mixture of humor, splatter, and rock ‘n’ roll is little more than a grade-B exploitation film dressed up in a $10 million budget. Some of the scares work; some of the jokes work—especially those involving Dunne, who is killed by a werewolf at the beginning of the film but resurfaces throughout in various states of decomposition to offer advice and counsel to Naughton (the werewolf of the title). The “moonstruck” score featuring the talents of Cat Stevens, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others certainly works. Overall, though, the film is rather hollow, somewhat pointless, and quite sleazy (which some might view as a plus).

The Amityville Horror

American-International, 1979; Color; 117 minutes

Director: Stuart Rosenberg Producers: Ronald Saland, Elliot Geisinger Writer: Sandor Stern With: James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger

A young couple, the Lutzes (Brolin and Kidder), move into an expensive Long Island home—where six people had been murdered six years earlier—and come face-to-face with something even more monstrous than their first mortgage payment. The house, you see, is “possessed.” After months of enduring attacks by flies, slime, and phantom pigs, the couple decide this is no place like home and split, leaving all their “possessions” behind. Spawned by The Exorcist, but based on a supposedly true story—as recounted by Jay Anson in his best-selling nonfiction book of the same title. Followed by two equally slime-ridden sequels: Amityville II: The Possession (1982) and Amityville 3-D (1983).

Amityville II: The Possession

Orion Pictures, 1982; Color; 105 minutes

Director: Damiano Damiani Producers: Ira N. Smith, Stephen R. Greenwald Writer: Tommy Lee Wallace With: James Olson, Rutanya Alda, Burt Young, Jack Magner

Instead of taking up where The Amityville Horror left off, this film returns to the story’s roots to tell how the house became demon-(or ghost-) ridden in the first place. We know from the first film that a man went on a rampage, killed his family and then himself. What was not explained was the man’s motivation. This film doesn’t explain it either, except to say that, as with Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the inherent evil of the place simply drove him (Young)—and everyone else—crazy. There are no phantom pigs this time around, but there is incest (of the brother and sister type) as well as a lot more blood as the family members start whittling each other down. Olson plays a priest who tries to exorcise the family’s demons, only to wind up getting possessed himself.

Amityville 3-D

Orion Pictures, 1983; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Richard Fleischer Producer: Stephen R. Kesten Writer: William Wales With: Tony Roberts, Tess Harper, Robert Joy, Candy Clark, Leora Dana, John Beal

Investigative reporter Roberts moves into Long Island’s most famous haunted house (the purchase price by now must be practically nil judging by the speed with which Roberts closes the deal) to debunk the place’s reputation for paranormal goings on. Clark is his photographer’s assistant, who signs on to capture snapshots of whatever is or is not present in the house. Not as gory as the second film, or as slimy as the first, but full of effects nonetheless—mostly of hideous demons leaping out of the screen, courtesy of 3-D. Without the 3-D, however, this last entry in the Amityville saga (thus far anyway) is a must-miss.

Andy Warhol’s Bad

New World Pictures, 1971; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Jed Johnson Producer: Jeff Tornberg Writers: Pat Hackett, George Abagnola With: Carroll Baker, Perry King, Susan Tyrell, Stefania Cassini

Outrageous, absurdist splatter/satire that gives John Waters a run for his money in the bad taste department. Baker plays an enterprising housewife who runs a combination hair-removal business and murder-for-hire racket that specializes in unwanted children and pets. She’s a sadistic, hardnosed exec who countenances little from her lay-about husband (she throws lit cigarettes at him) or her female assassins, whom she upbraids for letting their nose hair get too long and for not being quick enough on the job. (One frustrated and impatient customer hurls her tot out a multistory window when the gals fail to show, thus costing Baker money.) Eventually the walls of Baker’s empire start to crumble. Testy, she insults a cop who’s been on the take; he decides he’s had enough and drowns her in the kitchen sink. Full of “bad movie” in-jokes, including a thumb-cutting scene that recalls H. G. Lewis’s Blood Feast. Not for everyone, but in its own deranged way, frequently quite funny.

Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein

Bryanston Pictures, 1974; Color (3-D); 94 minutes

Director: Paul Morrissey Producer: Andrew Braunsberg Writer: Paul Morrissey With: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Monique Van Vooren, Arno Juerning, Srdjan Zelenovic

Paul Morrissey makes films that are not everyone’s cup of tea, but if your tastes happen to run to outrageous gore effects (some very realistic, others on the Monty Python level and below), campy humor, overt sexuality (usually of a depraved nature), inapt and non-sequitur-ridden dialogue (in a mishmash of accents ranging from Brooklynese to Mittel-European), and a strange fairy tale ambience, then his work is fresh and vital. Here, the Warhol student is working from a script (which he claims to have written daily on his ride to the studio!) for the first time, and the results are a demented delight. In Morrissey’s version, the Baron (Kier) is a deranged dilettante with delusions of Wagner (every time he waxes rhapsodic about breeding a master race of zombies, we hear the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” from Tann-hduserl), who is married to his own sister (Van Vooren), and gets his kicks deflowering his semi-comatose female zombie in the gall bladder (“Remember, Otto,” he tells his sex-crazed sidekick [Juerning], “to know death, you must fuck life in the gall bladder!”). Unfortunately, he has also appropriated the head of a would-be monk (Zelenovic) for his male zombie, making for a singularly unprepossessing stud. Strange and quite special in its own way, the film’s companion piece, Blood for Dracula is even better. It is aka Flesh for Frankenstein.

Angel Heart

Carolco, 1987; Color; 110 minutes

Director: Alan Parker Producers: Alan Marshall, Elliott Kastner Writer: Alan Parker With: Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling, Robert De Niro

Despite a somewhat transparent plot and a couple of unnecessary cheap-shot contact-lens effects, this is probably the best film ever made about Satanism, and is almost certainly the masterpiece of quirkily brilliant filmmaker Alan Parker. Adapted from a slightly silly and sophomoric novel, the film follows the basic plot of seedy private detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) trying to locate mysterious crooner Johnny Favorite at the request of creepily enigmatic Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). While no prizes are to be awarded to audience members arriving at the truth before Harry Angel does, the thrust of the film is an atmosphere so intense it seeps into your bones, a literate, intelligent script (quite unlike the novel), brilliant performances from Rourke and De Niro, moody photography, and one of the most creative sound tracks of recent vintage. Extremely bloody and graphic, the film succeeds primarily due to Parker’s trademarks—conviction, editing, mood, and symbolism—which come together here as never before. Cleverly, the film raises as many questions (what is the connection between Cyphre and fundamentalist religion, etc.?) as it answers, leaving the unsettled viewer much to chew on after the fact in a way ordinary splatter films don’t. The bloody lovemaking scene (slightly cut for theatrical release, but intact on video) is one of the strangest and most effective screen moments in living memory.

Angel of Vengeance

See Ms. 45

Anguish

SpectraFilm, 1987; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Bigas Luna Producer: Pepon Coromina Writer: Bigas Luna With: Zelda Rubinstein, Michael Lerner, Talia Paul, Angela Jove, Clara Pastor

Mom-dominated Lerner, who works for an eye doctor, revenges himself on a testy customer whose contacts don’t fit by gouging her eyes out. Then mom sends him out on an eye-gouging spree, which he carries out in a theater showing the 1925 Lost World of all things. Turns out Lerner’s escapades are really a movie being watched by two tremulous teens surrounded by an audience of suspicious-looking characters—one of whom, a mom-dominated psycho like Lerner, starts duplicating the onscreen slaughter. There are some interesting mirror image shots of the carnage in the “reel theater” paralleling what’s happening in the “real theater,” and vice versa—plus an obvious nod to Bogdanovich’s Targets, when the villain in the “real theater” takes a shot at Lerner’s gigantic big-screen image. There’s also an amusing scene where the two teens recite the splatter buffs credo. One says nervously, “This is going to be too much”; to which the other replies, “Good. That’s what we’re here for.”

The Annihilators

New World Pictures, 1986; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr. Producers: Allan C. Pedersen, Thomas C. Chapman Writer: Brian Russell With: Christopher Stone, Andy Wood, Paul Koslo, Gerrit Graham

The title promises a lot more excitement and suspense than this leaden potboiler delivers—though there’s one inventive sequence that gives new meaning to the term “pencil-necked geek.” Stone and his buddies (all Vietnam vets) come to the aid of a murdered comrade’s dad who lives in a run-down Atlanta neighborhood preyed on by drug-dealing youth gangs. Similar to Kurosawa’s seven samurai (reduced to four) crossed with “The A-Team,” the combative vets train the intimidated neighbors to defend themselves and take on the punks, who are led by wild-eyed Roy Boy (Paul Koslo, who overacts shamelessly). Hammers, knives, meat cleavers, and mucho firepower provide the means. Roy Boy tries to neutralize the townies by hijacking a busload of school kids (he must have seen Dirty Harry), but the ploy doesn’t work and all ends well for the kids and the neighborhood—though not for Roy Boy.

April Fool’s Day

Paramount Pictures, 1986; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Fred Walton Producer: Frank Mancuso, Jr. Writer: Danilo Bach With: Jay Baker, Deborah Foreman, Deborah Goodrich, Ken Olandt, Griffin O’Neal, Amy Steel

This one’s what you might call a splattery shaggy dog tale. Foreman invites a disparate group of college chums to her island home for a weekend of partying. The unnerving tone of the weekend is set on the ferryboat ride over, when a couple of her male guests pull an April Fool’s joke that results in one of the crew members getting his face crushed. More April Fool’s pranks ensue as the weekend wears on, then things turn really serious as, one by one, the college chums get knocked off in typical Friday the 13th fashion: throat slashings, decapitations, castration, etc. Seems Foreman has a demented twin who escaped from a looney bin to take her place for the weekend. Or did she? Perhaps everything’s just an elaborate April Fool’s joke. Or is it? I won’t tell. Cleverly directed and well (and amusingly) acted by its youthful ensemble cast, April Fool’s Day definitely isn’t great, but it does have its moments.

Assault on Precinct 13

Turtle Releasing Corporation, 1976; Color; 91 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: J. S. Kaplan Writer: John Carpenter With: Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer

Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo (1959) meets George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) in this tense tale about a group of punks who lay siege to a soon-to-be-closed police station in the slums of Los Angeles. The acting ranges from mediocre to horrible, and the character motivation is negligible, but the film works! Suspenseful, unpredictable, and sometimes shocking—such as the scene where a little girl with an ice cream cone is mercilessly shot down by one of the punks. Not as high-tech as some of Carpenter’s efforts in the splatter arena—but in many ways it’s still his best.

Autopsy

Joseph Brenner, 1978; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Armando Crispini Producer: Leonardo Pescarolo Writers: Armando Crispini, Lucio Battisrada With: Mimsy Farmer, Barry Primus, Ray Lovelock, Angela Goodwin

Murder mystery about a sexually alluring but sexually repressed young woman (Farmer) who has a bad effect on all the men attracted to her—they wind up dead. Not just dead, of course, but horribly mutilated. Could the victims all have committed suicide after being spurned? Did she do it? Or is there some kind of moon madness at work? Who cares! The film’s major exploitative ingredient is a much touted hospital autopsy scene, which is often cut from theatrical prints but appears in the video version. Overlong. Good score by Ennio Morricone, though.

The Awakening

Warner Brothers, 1979; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Mike Newell Producers: Robert Solo, Andrew Scheinman, Martin Shafer Writers: Allan Scott, Chris Bryant, Clive Exton With: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Stephanie Zimbalist, Jill Townsend

You know you’re in trouble when one director is pitted against three producers and three writers. How’s this for an original concept? An Egyptologist (Heston) defies a fearful curse and releases the imprisoned spirit of a monstrous Queen of the Nile (no, not the Queen of the Nile) to walk again among the living. Includes some diverting “creative deaths” in the tradition of The Omen (1976)—most notably York’s demise in a shower of broken glass. Despite its title, a real “sleeper”—in the worst sense of the word. Based on Bram (Dracula) Stoker’s novel Jewel of the Seven Stars—filmed once before (and better) by England’s Hammer Films as Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972).

The Axe

Distributor unknown, 1973; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Frederick Freidel Producer: J.G. Patterson Jr. Writer: Frederick Freidel With: Leslie Lee, Ray Green, Frederick Freidel, Jack Canon

Three murderous thugs hide out in a farmhouse owned by Lee and her infirm grandfather to wait out a police dragnet. They quickly find themselves up to their old tricks, however, terrorizing grandpa and raping the girl. The old man’s too sick to strike back, but the girl uses her experience slaughtering chickens and other livestock on the farm and rises to the occasion—slicing up one thug with a razor and beheading the other with an axe. The third is shot down by police. Appropriately nasty Last House on the Left clone. It is aka The Axe Murders.

The Axe Murders

See The Axe

The Baby

Scotia International, 1974; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Ted Post Producers: Milton Polsky, Abe Polsky Writer: Abe Polsky With: Anjanette Comer, Ruth Roman, Marianna Hill, Suzanne Zenor, David Manzy, Michael Pataki

This is a great sick film about the malevolent side of the maternal instinct. Ruth Roman plays the ultimate castrating mother figure who has, with the help of her two nasty daughters, kept her full-grown son in a state of perpetual infancy. They torture “Baby” with an electric cattle prod and beat up a female babysitter who encourages his sexuality. Then Anjanette Comer comes along as a strong willed child-welfare worker who is bound and determined to save “Baby” from the clutches of mama and the girls. When official methods fail, Comer takes matters into her own hands, and the situation escalates into a murderous conflict in which the female is, indeed, deadlier than the male. Comer’s character, aided by her mother-in-law, kills the daughters by slitting their throats and then engages Roman in a battle to the death with an axe, fireplace poker, and knife as weapons. If you want to find out who wins “Baby,” why they want him, and is he better off, see this chilling film. You won’t regret it.

Bad Dreams

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1988; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Andrew Fleming Producer: Gale Anne Hurd Writers: Andrew Fleming, Steven De Souza With: Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, Richard Lynch, Susan Ruttan

Some decent performances. Some offbeat humor. Some startling gore effects. In spite of these good points, Bad Dreams just doesn’t work. The film lacks a strong central character with whom the viewer can identify. The unfortunate young girl (Rubin) who is the focus of the story just doesn’t have it together enough to elicit much sympathy. One minute she seems normal, but a short time later she’s going to pieces and, more importantly, has lost the will to fight. (We later learn an unscrupulous doctor has been giving her drugs, but this knowledge doesn’t make her a stronger character.) The young psychiatrist (Abbott) who falls in love with her is also weakly written. It isn’t very believable that he would fall in love with the girl so quickly. Aside from professional ethics, she’s just too uninteresting. If bad dreams are your preference, keep your nightmares on Elm Street.

Barn of the Naked Dead

Distributor unknown, 1973; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Alan Rudolph Producer: Gerald Cormier Writer: Roman Valenti With: Andrew Prine, Manuella Thiess, Sherry Alberoni, Gil Lamb

Prine’s mom abandoned the family when he was very young, thus driving him over the edge. To get even for the desertion, he kidnaps young women, strips them and chains them up in his barn, where he proceeds to starve them and beat them into submission. His goal: to turn them into performing “beasts” for a bizarre circus act he plans to take on the road. As if all this wasn’t enough evening’s dementia, Prine’s dad, who has always stuck by his boy, has gone crazy from spending too much time in the desert, where he’s overdosed on radiation poisoning from the local H-bomb tests. He still helps out, though. When torture and other incentives fail to work on his “performers,” Prine trots out mad dad, whom he keeps locked in an outhouse. Dad finally breaks loose on his own, though, to help generate most of the film’s gore. It is aka Terror Circus. Rudolph worked as an assistant to Robert Altman on Nashville and other films and has since eschewed the splatter genre to become the director of such popular, offbeat cult films as Choose Me, starring Keith Carradine.

Baron Blood

American-International, 1972; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Mario Bava Producer: Alfred Leone Writers: Mario Bava, Vincent Forte, William A. Bairn With: Joseph Cotten, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti

Typical Bava shock movie with gothic overtones and a haphazard plot coupled with a propensity for zooming the camera that rivals the zoom-happy Jesus Franco for annoying overindulgence. Cotten plays a centuries-dead but now revivified devil worshiper (nicknamed Baron Blood on account of his sadistic Gilles de Rais-style love of torturing and butchering people) who buys back his sixteenth-century chateau, now a hotel, reopens the torture chamber therein, and gets back up to his old tricks—subjecting innocents to the rack and the spike. This time he doesn’t get away with it, though—his victims, no less able to return from the dead than he, rise up and destroy him. Easily one of Bava’s worst films. Poor Joe Cotten—what a comedown from Citizen Kane!

Basket Case

Analysis Films, 1982; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Frank Henenlotter Producer: Edgar Levins Writer: Frank Henenlotter With: Kevin Van Hentenryck, Terri Susan Smith, Beverly Bonner, Diana Browne

Van Hentenryck moves into an apartment in Times Square with his deformed and telepathic Siamese brother (they were surgically separated) whom he carries around in a basket. He and his bro (named “Belial”) are determined to kill their father, who sanctioned the operation and then consigned “Belial” to the garbage can, as well as the doctors who performed it. “Belial” is a nasty little tyke, so the revenge murders he spurs on are appropriately gruesome and disgusting. First time director Henenlotter’s canny eye for the absurdities inherent in the splatter genre transforms this low-budget gorefest into a nice surprise. It’s as funny as it is gross, and vice versa. The film is dedicated to Herschell Gordon Lewis.

The Beast Within

United Artists, 1982; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Philippe Mora Producers: Harvey Bernhard, Gabriel Katzka Writer: Tom Holland With: Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, Don Gordon, L. Q. Jones

Raped by a swamp monster (nope, not kidding, folks!), Besch gives birth to Clemens, who grows up to be a screwed-up teenager slowly metamorphosing into a murderous, blood-drinking insect. Tom Burman created the wild transformation effects and the numerous “creative deaths,” which co-producer Bernhard (of The Omen fame) apparently feels none of his films can do without.

Berserker

Paradise Filmworks, 1987; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Jef Richard Producer: Jules Rivera Writer: Jef Richard With: Joseph Alan Johnson, Valerie Sheldon, Greg Dawson, Rodney Montague, Beth Toussaint

Some vacationing teens install themselves at the Rainbow Valley campgrounds and fall prey to the possessed descendant of an ancient race of Viking were-bear warriors called The Berserkers—humans with claws and flesh-rending bear snouts. It’s not hard to figure out who the possessed descendant is, however, because there’s only one suspect! The FX consist mostly of bear paws groping victims’ faces and smearing them with red jelly. To pad out the running time, there’s also a ponderous fight between the were-bear and a real bear. The scenery is nice, though, and the opening scene, an amusing parody of On Golden Pond in which the Fonda/Hepburn-styled characters get lost in the woods and are offed by the were-bear, is moderately clever. Otherwise, this is just another pitifully made dead teenager movie.

The Beyond

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Fabrizio de Angelis Writers: Giorgio Mariuzzo, Dardano Sacchetti With: David Warbeck, Katherine MacColl, Sarah Keller

Warm-up for Gates of Hell by the prolific, though far from original, director of Zombie and many another cannibal/walking dead movie. Here, a decaying southern hotel (the film takes place in America) serves as a gateway to hell—a portal through which the vicious undead can return to the land of the living and raise a little hell of their own. MacColl is the hotel’s new owner, who must fend off the flesh-craving creatures and send them back where they belong before they destroy her not exactly thriving business. Cowriter Dardano Sacchetti, whose American screen credits often read “Danny” Sacchetti is apparently the Italian cinema’s reigning expert on cannibals and zombies. His name appears as writer or cowriter on almost every film made in the genre throughout the eighties by Lucio Fulci and other maestros of spaghetti splatter.

Beyond the Door

Film Ventures, 1975; Color, 109 minutes

Director: Oliver Heilman (Sonia Assonitis) Producer: Edward L. Montoro Writer: Richard Barrett (R. D’E Piazzoli) With: Juliet Mills, Richard Johnson, David Colin, Jr.

Italian-made entry in the post-Exorcist sweepstakes involving attractive, pregnant wife Mills, who is suddenly possessed by the devil and turns into a revolting, puke-spewing slob. Do we detect an antifeminist message here? Or a plea for planned parenthood?

Beyond the Door II

Distributor unknown, 1979; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Mario Bava Producer: Turi Vasile Writers: Lamberto Bava, Francesco Barbieri, Paolo Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti With: Dario Nicolodi, David Colin, Jr., John Steiner, Ivan Rassimov

Promoted as a sequel to Oliver Heilman’s successful Exorcist rip-off, Bava’s last theatrical feature has very little to do with the earlier film—except for the presence of Colin, Jr., here playing the possessed son of Nicolodi (in Heilman’s film, it was mom [Juliette Mills] who was possessed). Nicolodi has remarried and devilish junior wants no part of his new stepdad. He’s got an unresolved Oedipus complex to beat the band and wants mom all to himself even if he has to kill her to get his way. So, he proceeds to terrorize his parents to death. Bava doles out the gore—especially at the bloody climax, where junior finally dispatches mom and stepdad—but he also strives for some nerve-rattling shocks, and delivers them. Though far superior to Beyond the Door, the film was not as successful at the box office and, at least in America, was quickly consigned to distribution oblivion. It’s worth seeing, though—if you can find it. It is aka Shock—a far more appropriate title.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1970; Color; 109 minutes

Director: Russ Meyer Producer: Russ Meyer Writers: Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert With: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, Michael Blodgett, Edy Williams, Erica Gavin

Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll rule the day as an all-girl rock combo struggles to attain stardom in Tinseltown. What makes it a horror movie—or, more precisely, a splatter movie—is the gruesome and graphic orgy of violence that climaxes the film in true Meyer fashion. Written by the late film critic and anti-splatter crusader Roger Ebert, who publicly expressed much dismay over gory exploitation films such as this one—but not this one. Wonder why? Blodgett, who loses his head in the movie—literally—eventually gave up acting and turned to writing gory, exploitative novels.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

U.M. Distributors, 1969; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Salvatore Argento Writer: Dario Argento With: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Eva Renzi, Mario Adorf

Violent psychodrama about an American writer (Musante) living in Rome who witnesses an attempted murder and is subsequently pursued by the would-be assassin himself. This was cult splatter director Argento’s feature-film debut. Visually quite stylish (in the Argento tradition) but full of narrative lapses (again in the Argento tradition).

The Blade in the Body

See The Murder Clinic

A Blade in the Dark

Distributor unknown, 1983; Color; 110 minutes

Director: Lamberto Bava Producer: Lamberto Bava Writers: Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti With: Andrea Occhipinti, Lara Naszinski, Fabiola Toledo

Searching for the proper seclusion and ambience in which to churn out a score for a high-octane Italian horror film, a composer moves into one of those sinister old dark houses to which only people in movies seem to be drawn. The composer’s concentration is interrupted when a girl is brutally murdered on the property by a phantom mad slasher—and then her body vanishes. The knife blade flashes again and again, the gore murders somewhat paralleling events in the film being scored. As illusion and reality blur, the composer thinks he’s going mad. Typical Italian psycho-shocker (in Italy, the genre is termed gialli)—short on sense and long on style.

Blade Runner

Warner Brothers, 1982; Color; 114 minutes

Director: Ridley Scott Producer: Michael Deeley Writers: Hampton Fancher, David Peoples With: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Darryl Hannah

Futuristic hard-boiled detective yarn with Ford miscast as the world-weary film noir hero whose job is to smoke out replicants (androids) that have infiltrated the world of humans. Director Scott creates a powerful vision of Los Angeles circa 2019, but fails to provide much of a story to go along with it. Visually compelling but disappointing nonetheless. Nine minutes of splattery footage excised from the theatrical release were reinserted into the home video version. They don’t help. Based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.

The Blob

Tri-Star Pictures, 1988; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Chuck Russell Producers: Jack H. Harris, Elliott Kastner Writers: Chuck Russell, Frank Darabont With: Kevin Dillon, Shawnee Smith, Donovan Leitch, Jeffrey DeMunn, Candy Clark

Thoroughly entertaining, ultrasplattery—and ultraslimy—remake of the Jack H. Harris/Steve McQueen chestnut that retains quite a bit of the earlier film’s 1950s feel. The FX (by Lyle Conway and many, many others) are high-tech and mostly top-notch; some of the stop-motion and back-projection work does look like early Harryhausen, but that only adds to the charm. As in the original, a meteor lands and oozes forth a gelatinous creature that gobbles up its victims and grows to the size of a house. This time, though, the meteor isn’t from outer space; it’s a U.S. space capsule containing an experimental germ to be used for biological warfare. Dillon plays the McQueen part, a rebellious teen who’s always in trouble with the law, but who, with plucky girlfriend Smith, finally saves the day by freezing the creature into immobility. Fans of Aliens and John Carpenter’s The Thing will especially like it as this Blob is cut from the same mold.

Blood

Bryanston Pictures, 1974; Color; 74 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: Walter Kent Writer: Andy Milligan With: Allen Berendt, Hope Stansbury, Eve Crosby, Pamela Adams

Low camp, lowbrow and, for the most part, low gore “epic” from the fertile mind of prolific Staten Island movie mogul Andy Milligan. It’s an epic because it’s Milligan’s most expensive film to date—an apparent shot at mainstream distribution, which most of Milligan’s films have not received. This one didn’t get much either, and so it marked Milligan’s swan song in the horror/splatter genre. The plot has Larry Talbot, Jr. (the son of the wolfman for you non-aficionados) marrying Dracula’s daughter so that they can settle down to a life of connubial bliss (on scenic Staten Island, of course) raising man-eating, blood-craving plants.

Blood and Lace

Allied Artists, 1964; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Mario Bava Producers: Masimo Patrizi, Alfred Mirabel Writers: Mario Bava, Marcello Fondato, Giuseppe Barilla With: Eva Bartok, Cameron Mitchell, Thomas Reiner, Harriet White

Looking like a fugitive from the silent versions of The Cat and the Canary or The Bat, a masked killer in a floppy hat and flowing dark coat carves up a model from Bartok and Mitchell’s fancy fashion salon. When it turns out the victim had written a diary containing clues to her killer’s identity and the diary falls into the hands of the other models, the killer strikes again, and again. The police think the killings are the work of a sex maniac, but we know better, don’t we? First of the Italian-made gialli horror films and Bava’s splatter debut, though the gore is relatively low key—except for one scene where a model has her face fried on a hot water heater. Like many gialli, it’s stylish and colorful—and about as involving as a party at which you’re the only guest.

Blood and Black Lace

American-International, 1971; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Philip Gilbert Producers: Gil Lasky, Ed Carlin Writer: Gil Lasky With: Gloria Grahame, Melody Patterson, Vic Tayback, Dennis Christopher

Grahame runs an orphanage that, by comparison, makes the one in Oliver Twist look like a summer camp. New arrival Patterson is quick to experience the wrath of Grahame’s iron hand and becomes determined to flee the awful woman’s clutches and/or convince the cops that there’s something amiss about the demented place. What’s amiss is a hooded, punishing figure who prowls about the halls with a hammer and sometimes a cleaver, chopping off orphan limbs and stuffing orphan bodies in the institution’s food freezer for God only knows what purpose. Needless to say, this movie is not recommended viewing for orphans. A graphically bloody mess if you see it uncut—with the gore murders eliminated, it comes across as a rather slow moving but just as sick little potboiler. On its original release, the film somehow got past the MPAA rating board with a GP (now PG) rating!

Blood Beach

The Jerry Gross Organization, 1981; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Jeffrey Bloom Producer: Steven Nalevansky Writer: Jeffrey Bloom With: John Saxon, Marianna Hill, David Huffman, Burt Young

A malevolent creature lurking beneath the sands of a crowded Southern California beach pulls unsuspecting bathers to their bloody doom in this half-serious, half-absurd parody of Jaws (1975). Our favorite line: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water … you can’t get to it.”

Blood Cult of Shangri-La

See The Thirsty Dead

Blood Diner

Lightning Pictures, 1987; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Jackie Kong Producer: Jimmy Maslon Writer: Michael Sonye With: Rick Burks, Carl Crew, Roger Dauer, Lanette La France, Lisa Guggenheim

Uneven but frequently hilarious parody of splatter movies in general and H. G. Lewis’s Blood Feast in particular. Mass murderer Uncle Anwar, demented perpetrator of the Happy Times All-Girl Glee Club Massacre, is shot down by police before he can collect enough body parts for the ritual blood buffet he hopes will bring long-dead Egyptian princess Shitar back to life. He’s trained his dim-witted nephews well, however, and when they grow up, they take up where he left off, opening up a successful health-food diner that specializes in things such as “fish fingers,” which are actually the severed digits of a snoopy IRS man. The film is filled with outrageous splatter sight gags (like the beheading of a prostitute with the end of a broom) and equally outrageous dialogue, though the latter is sometimes a bit difficult to understand. If its cult reputation grows, Blood Diner could become The Little Shop of Horrors of splatter movies. Highly recommended.

Bloodeaters

Parker National, 1980; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Chuck McCrann Producer: Chuck McCrann Writer: Chuck McCrann With: Charles Austin, John Amplas, Beverly Shapiro, Dennis Helfend

McCrann’s attempt to follow in the footsteps of fellow Pennsylvania filmmaker George Romero is a Romero-ish zombie film (shot on Romero’s home turf of Pittsburgh) that features Romero stock company veteran Amplas as one of several victims of a government experiment gone awry. He and some other potheads get sprayed with an experimental herbicide being tested in the nearby woods, and the chemicals turn them into blood-craving, flesh-ripping monsters. FX technician Craig Harris successfully orchestrates the Savini-like blood and gore, which are both convincing and considerable despite the film’s extremely low budget; it was shot in 16mm and blown up to 35mm for theatrical release.

Blood Feast

Box Office Spectaculars, 1963; Color; 75 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: David F. Friedman Writer: Allison Louise Downe With: Connie Mason, Thomas Wood, Mai Arnold, Lyn Bolton, Scott H. Hall

A weirdo by the name of Fuad Ramses (Arnold), who thinks he’s sort of a modern Dr. Frankenstein, attempts to revive the corpse of a long-dead Egyptian princess by replacing her moldy old body parts with new ones—which he rips off and out (literally) of young girls while they’re still alive and kicking. First of the gore films: a crude, exploitative howler. Writer Downe, by the way, was once a parole officer.

Blood for Dracula

Bryanston Pictures, 1974; Color; 103 minutes

Director: Paul Morrissey Producer: Andrew Braunsberg Writer: Paul Morrissey With: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Arno Juerning, Maxime McKendry, Vittorio de Sica

It’s the 1920s (Elinor Glyn’s Three Weeks has just been published) and nary a “Wirgin” is to be found in Transylvania these days, so Dracula (Kier), who needs the blood of a “wirgin” in the worst way, sets out (coffin tied to the luggage rack of his car) for Italy, where his servant (Juerning) assures him there are “wirgins” aplenty, due to the influence of the Catholic Church. Alas, the locals direct him to the De Fiore family (“Oh, I’m sure they are religious, they have a very nice house!”) and their four unmarried daughters, two of whom have been sullied by a randy, Brooklyn-accented, Marxist spouting handyman (Dallesandro), who sums it up neatly by posing the immortal question, “If he’s looking for a virgin, what’s he doin’ with you two whores?” Such impure blood has a nasty side effect on the Count—he vomits it back up, crying, at one point, “The blood of these whores is killing me!” Lots of skin, blood, sex, and bizarre Paul Morrissey humor, but the film’s final impression is that of a somber and sad fairy story about the passing of an age. There’s more here than mere camp and it’s all beautifully shot by Luigi Kuveiller and moodily scored by Claudio Gizzi (with aptly titled pieces like “From Bohemia’s Meadows and Crypts” and “The Blood of These Whores Is Killing Me”). Look for Roman Polanski in an uncredited cameo.

Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb

American-International, 1972; Color; 94 minutes

Directors: Seth Holt, (uncredited) Michael Carreras Producer: Howard Brandy Writer: Christopher Wicking With: Andrew Keir, James Villiers, Valerie Leon, Rosalie Crutchley

Archaeologist Keir desecrates the tomb of murderous Egyptian queen Tera, who takes her revenge by possessing the body of Keir’s daughter (Leon). Excellent Hammer horror liberally laced with splatter. Holt died of a heart attack before filming was finished and Hammer executive producer Carreras took over. Most of the film is Holt’s, however. Based on Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars and remade (far less well but with a lot more splatter) as The Awakening.

Blood Legacy

Universal Entertainment, 1971; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Carl Monson Producer: Carl Monson Writer: Eric Norden With: Faith Domergue, John Russell, Merry Anders, Rodolfo Acosta, John Carradine

An elderly millionaire (Carradine) fakes his own death in order to observe the family squabbling he knows (probably from seeing The Cat and the Canary [1927] and scores of other “will read at midnight” movies) will ensue among his heirs. The squabbling quickly turns to murder, however, as the heirs start killing each other off in all sorts of creatively grisly ways. (Obviously they saw The Cat and the Canary, too). An early example of the “creative death” form of splatter filmmaking—though in terms of gory effects it rates fairly low on the Splat-O-Meter. It is aka Legacy of Blood, but not to be confused with Andy Milligan’s 1978 Legacy of Blood—which rates fairly high.

Blood Mania

Crown International. Color; 90 minutes

Director: Robert O’Neil Producers: Peter Carpenter, Chris Marconi Writers: Toby Sacher, Tony Crechales With: Peter Carpenter, Maria De Aragon

Low budgeter (naturally) in which the daughter of a retired surgeon (I’m being polite; he actually specializes in abortions), who hates her father dearly, decides to do him in in order to (1) collect the family inheritance and (2) take over the family business.

Blood Orgy of the She Devils

Gemini, 1972; Color; 73 minutes

Director: Ted V. Mikels Producer: Ted V. Mikels Writer: Ted V. Mikels With: Lila Zaborin, Tom Pace, Leslie McRae, Victor Izay

West Coast filmmaker Mikels’s work is a cross between that of Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis. His films incorporate the over-the-top gore of Lewis, often perpetrated by buxom, hot-blooded, violent females of the kind found in Meyer’s splatter fantasies. Mikels says he draws his female stock company from among the women with whom he lives—often ten at a time, or so he claims. The title of this film implies more than it actually delivers either in the gore or sex department, though there is some of both. It’s about a beautiful witch (Zaborin) and a bevy of beautiful followers who torture and torch men as ritual sacrifices to their cult. Tame.

The Blood Spattered Bride

Europix, 1974; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Vicente Aranda Producer: Jose Lopez Moreno Writer: Vicente Aranda With: Simon Andreu, Maribel Martin, Alexandra Bastedo

Umpteenth retelling of the Sheridan Le Fanu lesbian vampire fable, Carmilla, this time set in Spain. Bastedo is the sensuous lesbian vampire whose yen for Martin is complicated by Martin’s marriage to Andreu. Bastedo lets eroticism run its course and wins Martin over. In a vengeful rage, Andreu rips the women’s hearts out, which is only fair as Bastedo, in addition to having broken quite a few hearts in her lifetime, has ripped the hearts from the chests of some of her male adversaries. How much of all this heart ripping you’re likely to see depends on the print; most are truncated, leaving little but the frequent nudity.

Bloodsucking Freaks

Distributor unknown, 1976; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Joel M. Reed Producer: Alan Margolin Writer: Joel M. Reed With: Seamus O’Brien, Louie de Jesus, Niles McMaster

Ultralow-budget gore film in the tradition of H. G. Lewis. O’Brien runs a Grand Guignol theater (which Lewis once did in real life) and white-slavery racket—he keeps his “merchandise” naked and caged up backstage. Another kidnap victim is a New York City ballerina, who, perhaps influenced by all the bloody goings-on front and backstage, develops a unique new dance step when she kicks a man to death. Filmed in “Ghoul-O-Rama,” the film boasts such elaborate set pieces as having a woman’s brains sucked out of her head with a straw! It is aka The Incredible Torture Show—and it is definitely that, all right.

Bloodthirsty Butchers

Constitution Films, 1970; Color; 79 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: William Mishkin Writers: Andy Milligan, John Borske With: John Miranda, Anabella Wood, Berwick Kaler

There’s low budget and then there’s low budget. At a cost of approximately $7,000, the incomparable Andy Milligan shot this epic in England to give it some class. Essentially, it’s a modern retelling of the true story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, who killed people for their money, then disposed of their bodies by turning them into meat pies. Yum! Yum! Stephen Sondheim’s award winning musical was inspired by the same crime—but not, I suspect, by this movie.

Bloody Birthday

Analysis Films, 1980; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Ed Hunt Producer: Gerald T. Olson Writers: Ed Hunt, Barry Pearson With: Lori Lethrin, Susan Strasberg, Jose Ferrer, Elizabeth Hoy, Billy Jacoby, Andy Freeman

Canadian-made Bad Seed clone with a triple-threat band of murderous kids who are compelled to kill because their mothers gave birth to them during an eclipse; ever since, their combined horoscopes have been terrible. These kids (Hoy, Jacoby, Freeman) are a bad news lot, all right. They’ll kill anyone, for any reason. They kill a teacher because she gives them too much homework; wipe out others with a bow and arrow; strangle a fellow classmate. Two of them are rounded up in the end, but angelic Hoy gets away to perpetrate more nefarious deeds, thus paving the way for a sequel, which the box-office failure of this dud prevented poor old Ed Hunt from inflicting upon us.

Bloody New Year

Academy Entertainment, 1987; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producer: Hayden Pearce Writer: Frazer Pearce With: Suzy Aitchison, Colin Heywood, Catherine Brooks, Mark Powley

If it weren’t for its unusually banal dialogue (even for a splatter movie), stiff acting, and inability to keep us interested in what happens to the characters, Bloody New Year might have been a winner. The splatter FX are proficient and there are some clever camera and editing tricks—such as when an apparition jumps out of a movie screen to claw a victim to death. Five teens on an outing wreck their boat and take refuge at a remote island hotel that is decorated inside for a New Year’s Eve party circa 1959. Illusion and reality blur (a la the Elm Street movies) as the terrified teens experience an indoor snowstorm, a marauding rope, and an array of violent poltergeist activity, and turn into ghouls. It seems that back in ’59, the British government sent up a plane with a device capable of altering time, and the plane crashed near the hotel, trapping everyone inside in a perpetual time warp. Which is what happens to the teens as well, despite their best efforts to get away.

Blue Monkey

SpectraFilm, 1987; Color; 96 minutes

Director: William Fruet Producer: Martin Walters Writer: George Goldsmith With: Steve Railsback, Gwynyth Walsh, John Vernon, Joe Flaherty, Don Lake, Ivan E. Roth

An old codger cuts his finger on a bizarre plant from some obscure island south of Micronesia and is spirited to the county hospital, which doubles as a high-tech laser lab and was once an insane asylum. He spits up a parasite in the nurses’ faces. Then some pesty little kids feed the parasite a hormonal growth compound that just happens to be lying about, and the parasite (which gives birth to its own mate) mushrooms into a gigantic cross between the creature in Alien and the ants in Them. The hospital is quarantined, leaving those trapped inside to contend with the beast. Deadpan cop Railsback saves the day by incinerating the mate and lasering the oversized bug, which, due to murky lighting, we never get a good look at. The only novel thing about this film is its meaningless title.

The Boogeyman

The Jerry Gross Organization, 1980; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Ulli Lommel Producer: Ulli Lommel Writers: Ulli Lommel, (uncredited) Suzanna Love and David Herschel With: Suzanna Love, Ron James, Nicholas Love, John Carradine

A young girl (Ms. Love, also the director’s wife at the time) returns to the scene of her childhood, where she witnessed a murder committed by her brother (Mr. Love; this movie’s a real family affair!). Haunted by the incident, she is determined to rid herself of the nightmares that have plagued her since childhood. Instead, she comes in contact with a broken mirror that prompts people to kill. A psychological thriller with lots of “creative deaths” including one by pitchfork. Followed by a sequel, Boogeyman II (1983).

Boogeyman II

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color; 79 minutes

Director: Bruce Starr Producers: Ulli Lommel, Bruce Starr Writers: Ulli Lommel, Suzanna Love With: Suzanna Love, Ulli Lommel, Shannah Hall

In Boogeyman II, extensive use is made of footage from the first Boogeyman in the form of flashbacks related by Lacey, a character common to both films. Sequels often include footage from earlier entries to bring the audience up to date, but in this case the film is half over before the flashbacks end and the new story gets under way. To make things worse, Lacey had no knowledge, during the first film, of much of the information she relates with such detail in the sequel. The new story is so predictable and Bruce Starr’s direction so inept, that we begin to wish for a return to the flashback footage. The sequel can’t even deliver decent splatter effects (unlike the original, which contained some well-executed gore). In the new story unimaginative deaths occur in quick succession with choppy editing, flashing lights, and loud music used to cover up incompetent effects. The first Boogeyman was a modest little thriller with some decent writing and clever filmmaking. Compared to the sequel, however, the first film begins to look like a masterpiece.

Brain Damage

Paramount Pictures, 1988; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Frank Henenlotter Producer: Edgar levens Writer: Frank Henenlotter With: Rick Herbst, Gordon MacDonald, Jennifer Lowry, Theo Barnes, Lucille Saint-Peter

Henenlotter’s follow-up to Basket Case, his first feature, is disappointing. It starts out well, then lapses into a replay of too many elements from Basket Case (to which the director includes a blatant in-joke reference), culminating in a “mind blowing” finale that doesn’t make much sense. A medieval foot-long creature called Aylmer (pronounced Elmer) escapes from its present owners, an elderly Jewish couple, and latches on to hero Herbst. Elmer injects a bluish liquid that induces euphoria into Herbst’s brain. In return, Herbst must supply victims whose brains Elmer needs to suck out and eat to stay alive. Herbst suffers guilt, but as he’s hooked on the euphoric states the drug provides, he is unable to fight back. One can interpret the film as a basic reworking of Jekyll and Hyde/Faust (or even Little Shop of Horrors) themes—or as a satiric metaphor about the perils of drug abuse. In any event, there’s little suspense, the humor is too subdued, and Paramount appears to have trimmed some of the gore sequences, which are plentiful but not exceptional.

Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue

Distributor unknown, 1975; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Jorge Grau Producer: Edmondo Amati Writer: Sandro Continenza With: Ray Lovelock, Arthur Kennedy, Cristina Galbo

Set mainly in a hospital, this Spanish-made cannibal holocaust movie boldly apes Romero’s Night of the Living Dead—in fact, it almost has the same plot. An experimental pesticide developed by the government succeeds in killing bugs but unhappily raises the dead in the process. The decomposing zombies prove just as gruesome as Romero’s—and just as hungry. Lovelock is the hero who is consumed with revenge against the flesh eating ghouls after they consume his girlfriend. He manages to ward off their attacks and kill quite a few in the process but is gunned down in the end by an ignorant, fascist cop (Kennedy). In a turnabout, however, he gets even by becoming a zombie himself and gorging himself on the flabby cop’s innards. It is aka Don’t Open the Window.

The Brood

New World Pictures, 1979; Color; 90 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: Claude Heroux Writer: David Cronenberg With: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Cindy Hinds, Robert Silverman, Susan Hogan

Under the care of experimental psychologist Reed, institutionalized psycho and child abuser Eggar develops the unique ability to manifest her inner demons in physical form. Whenever she approaches critical mass, her id creatures—the brood—come alive to do her murderous bidding. Though critically drubbed upon release and chastised for its perverse and repulsive gore (the climactic scene where Eggar gives birth to one of her id creatures will have you reaching for the nearest barf bag), The Brood is no grade-Z exploitation film. Among other things, it’s a potent allegory about the effects of child abuse and the trauma of divorce. The gore is perfectly integrated with theme. One of Cronenberg’s best.

The Burning

Filmways, 1981; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Tony Maylam Producer: Harvey Weinstein Writers: Peter Lawrence, Bob Weinstein With: Brian Matthews, Leah Ayres, Brian Backer, Larry Joshua, Lou David

Counselors at a lakeside summer camp are being done in by a vengeful masked psycho brandishing pruning shears. Splatter movie in the Friday the 13th mold with effects by Tom Savini—many of which were cut prior to the film’s theatrical release but restored on home video. Music by Rick Wakeman.

Caligula

Penthouse Films International, 1980; Color; 143 minutes

Directors: Tinto Brass, Giancarlo Lui, Bob Guccione Producers: Bob Guccione, Franco Rossellini Writer: Gore Vidal With: Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, Teresa Ann Savoy, Helen Mirren, Sir John Gielgud, Guido Mannari

With credits such as “Adapted from a Screenplay by …,” “Additional sequences by …,” and “Edited by the Production,” it’s easy to tell why this lengthy sex and violence epic is a mess. Some of it is a bloody mess if you can sit through the rest. Early on, a drunken soldier is disemboweled after being force-filled with wine through a funnel. Then we’re treated to some flagellation and impalement “aftermaths.” Cal sucks some of his bride’s blood from a small slit in her neck, and there’s a pretty neat decapitation machine. Also, Cal throws up blood when he’s got the fever, and a severed penis is thrown to a dog after a torture murder. Finally, Cal is cleaved in the head and stabbed in the belly with a sword and spears, his flunky’s head is lopped off and kicked, his wife is stabbed, and his kid’s head is stove in for a last bloody tableau. The effects are adequate, but the really graphic scenes go by fairly quickly. It’s a lot of sexual chaff to go through for a little gory grain.

Campsite Massacre

See The Final Terror Cannibal

Ferox

See Make Them Die Slowly

Cannibal Girls

American-International, 1972; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Ivan Reitman Producer: Daniel Goldberg Writer: Robert Sandler With: Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Ronald Ulrich, Randall Carpenter

An old-dark-house (or, rather, old-dark restaurant) horror-comedy updated for the splatter generation. Girls whose car breaks down seek shelter at an old dark house, now turned into a restaurant where the bill of fare is human flesh. To add to the spoofery and send-up nature of the film, Reitman includes a William Castle-style gimmick: a warning bell that cues the audience that a gore scene is about to unfold (“When it rings—close your eyes if you’re squeamish!”). Levy and Martin, of course, later became members of the popular Second City TV group. This film, in fact, is very much in the same satiric vein as that show.

Cannibal Holocaust

Distributor unknown, 1979; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Ruggero Deodato Producer: Franco Palaggi Writer: Gianfranco Clerici With: Francesca Cardi, Robert Kerman, Luca Barbareschi

Documentary filmmakers investigating the existence of cannibalism in the South American jungles push the natives too far in an effort to prove their thesis and get graphic scenes of munching and torture on film. As a result, they get chowed down. The film they shot is discovered and linked together with voice-over narration explaining in dire tones what’s happening and how the moviemakers may have gotten what they deserved. Lots of impalements and disembowelings—plus animal violence for those who need their pot of grue fully stirred. Not to be confused with Umberto Lenzi’s 1980 Eaten Alive (which, in turn, shouldn’t be confused with Tobe Hooper’s 1976 Eaten Alive), which has a similar plot and also features Kerman.

Cannibal Massacre

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Anthony Dawson Producers: Marizio Amati, Sandro Amati Writers: Marizio Amati, Sandro Amati, Jose Luis Martinez Molla, Dardano Sacchetti With: John Saxon, Cindy Hamilton, Elizabeth Turner

Quasi-allegory about the post war effects of the Vietnam experience on the American home front. GI Saxon returns from the jungles of Nam, where the Cong didn’t get him but a cannibal did. Seems he was bitten by a fellow GI who’d developed a passion for human flesh. Now helplessly infected himself, Saxon joins with the GI who bit him, plus another cannibal compatriot, and the trio goes on a gluttonous orgy of flesh-eating, spreading the contagion to others. Eventually, the whole gang of ghouls is incinerated by the National Guard in the sewers of Atlanta. And that’s about as allegorical as this Romero/ Fulci clone gets. Vividly gruesome in the tradition of most Italian-made cannibal/zombie movies—though the film was shot in Georgia. It is aka The Cannibals Are in the Streets.

The Cannibals Are in the Streets

See also Cannibal Massacre

Carrie

United Artists, 1976; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Brian De Palma Producer: Paul Monash Writer: Lawrence D. Cohen With: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, William Katt, John Travolta, Nancy Allen, Amy Irving

Overrated shocker based on the novel by Stephen King. Spacek is the withdrawn, put-upon teenager of the title who lives under the shadow of her sexually repressed, religion-crazed mother (Laurie). A vicious prank played on her as she is crowned queen of the senior prom unleashes her telekinetic powers in an orgy of destruction. Spacek is excellent, but De Palma’s direction, a mixture of the exploitative, the derivative, and the tedious—the potentially most exciting scene in the film becomes excruciatingly tedious through languorous slow motion—is definitely uneven. Spacek and Laurie received Oscar nominations for their performances—a definite first (and last) for a splatter movie.

The Cars That Ate Paris

New Line Cinema, 1974; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Peter Weir Producers: Hal McElroy, James McElroy Writer: Peter Weir With: Terry Camilleri, Melissa Jaffa, John Meillon, Kevin Miles

Crazies who worship automobiles trap unsuspecting motorists passing through their town of Paris, Australia, at night. The cars are then stolen, the drivers reduced to vegetables through surgery, and the vehicles turned into death-dealing road hogs. Wacked-out SF/splatter/thriller directed by the talented Peter Weir just prior to his big international success with Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). For American release the film was retitled The Cars That Eat People and Aussie star Camilleri’s voice was redubbed into Brooklynese!

The Cars That Eat People

See The Cars That Ate Paris

Cassandra

Cassandra Productions Pty. Ltd., 1987; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Colin Eggleston Producer: Trevor Lucas Writers: Colin Eggleston, John Ruane, Chris Fitchett With: Shane Briant, Briony Behets, Kit Taylor, Lee James, Susan Barling, Tim Burns, Tessa Humphries

Cassandra, namesake of the psychic princess of Troy, is a famous photographer’s daughter who has nightmares about a young woman committing suicide with a rifle at the behest of a demonic little boy in the Australian outback. She also sees visions of the throat-slashing murder of her father’s pregnant mistress, and the attempted murder of her own mother, who turns out to be her aunt. Is the murderer her father’s new sinister assistant or even her father himself? Cassandra can’t tell because she sees her visions through the murderer’s eyes. It turns out that the demonic little boy of Cassandra’s dreams is her brother, now grown up, who’s just escaped from a mental institution. After her father’s head is lopped off with a shovel, Cassandra is drawn to the old family house in the outback. She is pursued by her aunt and a cop who catches an axe in the belly. Confronting her evil brother (if you care who he is, spend two bucks), Cassandra shoots and pours gas on him so he can immolate himself and burn down the house. This film is too complex for its own good and leaves a lot of loose ends. Gore fans will find the murders anemic and badly in need of a splatter transfusion.

Cathy’s Curse

21st Century Pictures, 1980; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Eddy Matalon Producers: Eddy Matalon, Mathieu, Nicole Boisvert Writers: Eddy Matalon, Myra Clement, A. Sens-Cazenave With: Alan Scarfe, Beverly Murray, Roy Wiltham, Randi Allen

Yet another Exorcist rip-off in which a little girl (Allen) is possessed by the spirit of her long dead aunt, who was burned to death in a car crash. Not very effective Canadian-made shocker.

The Cat O’Nine Tails

National General Pictures, 1971; Color; 112 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Salvatore Argento Writer: Dario Argento With: James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak, Cinzia De Carolis, Carlo Alighiero

Reporter Franciscus is in pursuit of a particularly nasty mad slasher who kills because of an anomaly in his chromosomes (perhaps he caught this mysterious malady from Hywell Bennett in Roy Boulting’s Twisted Nerve [1969], which offered the same medical explanation for Bennett’s psychotic behavior). Blind ex-reporter Malden helps him. Characteristically stylish, gory, and narratively feeble Argento thriller. Not boring, though. Beware of TV prints, which are atrociously dubbed.

Cat People

Universal, 1982; Color; 118 minutes

Director: Paul Schrader Producer: Charles Fries Writer: Alan Ormsby With: Nastassia Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O’Toole, Ed Begley, Jr.

Overlong, overblown remake of Val Lewton’s fragile B-movie classic. The Lewton film moved along at a brisk pace, allowing the viewer little or no time to ponder the essential silliness of the plot. But Schrader shows the cat people spectacularly bursting out of their human skins (courtesy of effects wizard Stan Winston), then plods along so that we can’t help but ask ourselves how these folks keep metamorphosing back into their wrecked torsos again. Alan Ormsby’s script also gets bogged down in detailing a convoluted cat people mythology, something Dewitt Bodeen mostly and quite wisely avoided in the original; he merely sketched in some details only when needed to propel the story along. Nudity, incest, and S&M flesh out the proceedings. Nicely shot on New Orleans locations, though.

The Challenge

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1982; Color; 112 minutes

Director: John Frankenheimer Producers: Robert L. Rosen, Ron Beckman Writers: John Sayles, Richard Maxwell, Ivan Moffat With: Scott Glenn, Toshiro Mifune, Donna Kei Benz, Atsuo Nakamura

American Glenn gets involved in a Japanese family feud, takes up martial-arts training (one of the techniques is to bury him up to his neck in dirt and leave him there screaming), slaughters various folks with a lethal samurai sword, and finally beheads the bad guy. The real challenge is to sit through this interminable potboiler. Directed with flare but to no purpose by one-time Hollywood boy wonder Frankenheimer, whose output since the sixties has been spotty at best. Scott Glenn is so wooden he should appear in zombie flicks.

The Child

Valiant International, 1977; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Robert Voskanian Producer: Robert Dadashian Writer: Ralph Lucas With: Richard Hanners, Laurel Bennett, Frank Janson, Rosalie Cole

A little girl (Cole), who perhaps has seen Night of the Living Dead one too many times, starts hanging around the local cemetery, where her mother is buried. Soon she makes friends with a number of flesh-eating ghouls, who also happen to be hanging around (in shreds), and uses her supernatural powers to make them do her bidding.

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Gemini, 1972; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Benjamin Clark Producer: Benjamin Clark Writer: Alan Ormsby, Benjamin Clark With: Alan Ormsby, Valerie Mauches, Anya Ormsby, Paul Cronin

A group of actors descends upon a supposedly deserted island to make a grade Z horror movie (perhaps this one) and encounters corpses who rise from their graves to help lend a hand as extras. Half humor, half horror—in the Night of the Living Dead tradition—and all amateurish. Director Benjamin Clark soon thereafter started signing his films as Bob Clark. Filmed in Florida.

Chopping Mall

Trinity Films/Concorde Films, 1986; Color; 76 minutes

Director: Jim Wynorski Producer: Julie Corman Writers: Jim Wynorski, Steve Mitchell With: Kelli Maroney, Tony O’Dell, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Suzee Slater

High-tech robots designed to act as security guards in a fabulous California shopping mall malfunction during an electrical storm and go berserk, attacking some teenage employees who’ve decided to stay after hours for a little partying and a lot of sex. Filled with movie-buff in-jokes (the sporting-goods store where the teens arm to the teeth to defend themselves is called “Peckinpah’s”). The killer robots sound like the Martian death machines in George Pal’s War of the Worlds. Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Dick Miller (who is called Walter Paisley, the name of his character in Roger Corman’s classic Bucket of Blood), Mel Welles, and Gerrit Graham appear in cameos. Not as funny as it might have been (nor as satiric as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, to which it bears more than a passing resemblance), but fun nonetheless. Producer Julie Corman is Roger Corman’s wife. It is aka Killbots (a much better title).

C.H.U.D.

Distributor unknown, 1984; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Douglas Cheek Producer: Andrew Bonime Writers: Parnell Hall, Shepard Abbott With: John Heard, Daniel Stern, Kim Greist, Christopher Currey

The government secrets barrels of toxic radioactive waste in the sewers of a major city. The resulting contagion turns the derelicts sheltering there into Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, or C.H.U.D.s for short. At night—and even during the day sometimes—these mutant spawns rise up and chow down on the living. Paunchy Heard plays the city health inspector who takes the government to task—with the help of smart mouthed activist Stern, who has most of the film’s snappiest lines. The creatures look like fugitives from a grade-B fifties SF movie like World Without End. The mediocre effects are by John Caglione, who has done much better work.

Class of Nuke ’Em High

A Troma Team Release, 1987; Color; 84 minutes

Directors: Richard W. Haines, Samuel Weil Producers: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz Writers: Richard W. Haines, Mark Rudnitsky, Lloyd Kaufman, Stuart Strutin With: Janelle Brady, Gilbert Brenton, Robert Prichard, R. I. Ryan, James Nugent Vernon, Brad Dunker

This violent, anarchic, punk teen comedy employs a lot of gore makeup, prosthetic devices, and stage blood. The problem is that the effects are tossed off or thrown away like a bunch of slapstick one-liners at too fast a pace to be savored. Set in Tromaville, the radioactive and toxic-waste capital of the nation, the plot pits the good teens, Warren and Chrissy, against the Cretins (formerly the school honor society), the toughest punk gang on campus. At a wild party, the Cretins force Warren and Chrissy to smoke radioactive grass. Yet another reason to “just say no,” kids. This causes our hero and heroine to (Gasp!) have sex. Chrissy becomes pregnant and gives birth to a mutant tadpole-like slime creature who becomes our protagonists’ unwitting ally in their final battle with the Cretins. This is a movie with more ooze and slime than effective bloodletting.

Code Name Trixie

See The Crazies

Color Me Blood Red

Box Office Spectaculars, 1964; Color; 74 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: David F. Friedman Writer: Herschell Gordon Lewis With: Don Joseph, Candy Conder, Scott H. Hall, Elyn Warner

Mad artist Adam Sorg (Joseph) uses human blood instead of Grumbacher Red to spice up his palette. This third entry in director Lewis’s pioneering splatter trilogy (see Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs) contains enough worm-ridden corpses, shotgun-blasted faces, and lousy acting to satisfy the most ardent fan. Many have wondered whether this film was inspired by Roger Corman’s similarly themed horror-comedy Bucket of Blood (1959). But Lewis says his real inspiration was the box-office receipts of his first two gore films. I believe him.

The Comeback

Bedford Films, 1977; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Pete Walker Producer: Pete Walker Writer: Murray Smith With: Jack Jones, Pamela Stephenson, David Doyle, Sheila Keith, Holly Palance, Richard Johnson

Crooner Jack Jones, who here gives one of the most lethargic performances in horror/splatter film history, plays a pop music idol whose marriage drove an adoring fan to suicide. The girl’s deranged parents (we don’t know who they are until the unsurprising conclusion) set out to drive him mad when he sets up shop in an old mansion and tries to cut a new album. Many of his friends wind up getting cut instead. Yet another Psycho rip-off.

Conan the Barbarian

Universal, 1982; Color; 129 minutes

Director: John Milius Producer: Edward Pressman Writers: Oliver Stone, John Milius With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Gerry Lopez, Max Von Sydow

Milius’s macho fantasy-adventure about the killer strong man of the Hyborean Age (drawn from the pulp novels and short stories of Robert E. Howard) is spectacular, violent… and dull! How could that be? Because John Milius made it, that’s how! Schwarzenegger certainly looks the part of the muscle-bound hero, and Bergman makes a voluptuous, sword-wielding Valeria, but their characters, as the film itself, never really come alive.

The Confessional

Peter Walker (Heritage) Ltd., 1975; Color; 104 minutes

Director: Peter Walker Producer: Peter Walker Writer: David McGillivray With: Anthony Sharp, Susan Penhaligon, Stephanie Beacham, Norman Eshley, Sheila Keith

An intense film about the darkest evil hiding beneath the official authority and trappings of the Catholic Church. Father Maldrum is an insane cleric who lusts after young women and takes the Lord’s vengeance into his own hands. After the heroine tells him of her abusive boyfriend, he scalds the wrong man’s face with boiling coffee, then corrects his mistake by killing the true offender with flaming incense. He then kills the suspicious mother of one of his girl victims with a poisoned host and strangles the heroine’s sister with a rosary. After murdering his own mother, a helpless invalid, and slitting the throat of his housekeeper, who has loved him for thirty years, he convinces the sister’s boyfriend, a disillusioned priest, to remain in the church, and sets out to eliminate the heroine in one of Walker’s signature “up in the air” endings. The horror comes from the fact that the priest is above suspicion simply because he is a priest. The gore is subtly effective but not terribly graphic nor extensive.

Countess Dracula

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1970; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Peter Sasdy Producer: Alexander Paal Writer: Jeremy Paul With: Ingrid Pitt, Nigel Green, Sandor Eles, Maurice Denham, LesleyAnne Downe

Hungarian director Sasdy and producer Paal’s tribute to that notorious Hungarian vampire countess Elizabeth Bathory, who slaughtered virgins and bathed in their blood to keep her complexion creamy. Lots of nudity and lots of blood, though chances are you won’t see much of either if you catch this one on television. As always, Ms. Pitt makes a very seductive villainess.

The Crazies

Cambist Films, 1973; Color; 103 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Al Croft Writer: George A. Romero With: Lane Carroll, W. G. McMillan, Harold Wayne Jones, Lynn Lowry, Richard Liberty

Romero’s follow-up to Night of the Living Dead (he’d made two dissimilar films in between) is really quite good. The crash of a government plane carrying a deadly biological weapon unleashes the contaminant into the water supply of a Pennsylvania town. Pretty soon, the townspeople start to go crazy, killing their families, stabbing people with knitting needles, hanging themselves, etc. The military steps in to contain the madness and even more madness ensues (shades of the Vietnam War experience on the American home front) as people trying to flee the town are shot down in cold blood. Not as grisly as Night, but quite splattery nonetheless, the film suffers a bit from its too-frantic pacing. It certainly isn’t boring, though. Due to terrible distribution, it flopped badly at the box office. For Romero fans, though, it’s a must-see. It is aka Code Name Trixie.

Creepers

Dacfilm, 1983; Color; 82 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Angelo Jacono Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini With: Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasence, Daria Nicoldi, Dalila Di Lazzaro

The generally inapt heavy-metal rock music blares on the sound track, a largely unknown cast overacts shamelessly, a mutant child (result of a tryst between a lunatic and a nurse at the asylum) runs amok skewering and slashing, maggots abound, a girl controls flies and other insects, a chimpanzee wields a straight razor, and Donald Pleasence takes the money and runs. What can it all mean? Why, it’s nothing more nor less than one of Dario Argento’s beautifully photographed and designed, but largely incomprehensible, “shock machine” movies. There’s a bit more plot—mostly unrelated and all quite insane—than usual, one truly nauseating sequence, and (thanks to clever scripting) the world’s longest telephone cord. The film appears to have been shorn of some sequences that might have verged on “kiddie porn” for U. S. release, but with Argento’s utter lack of concern for coherence, who can tell? Fun in a brain-damaged fashion.

Creepozoids

Titan Productions, 1987; Color; 72 minutes

Director: David DeCoteau Producers: David DeCoteau, John Schouweiler Writers: Burford Hauser, David DeCoteau With: Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, Michael Aranda, Richard Hawkins, Kim McKamy, Joi Wilson

This movie is a pale, earthbound Alien clone. The film opens with the killing of a female scientist in a remote research complex at the hands, or should I say pincers, of a six-foot-tall black insect-like creature. Later, the complex, now deserted, is invaded by five deserters from a post-apocalyptic war. The three men and two women play a deadly game of hide and seek with the creature and a couple of its smaller spawn in the labs and corridors of the complex. When bitten by the monster or its kids, the humans become violent and/or self-destruct. So, they are eliminated one by one until the last survivor kills the creature, which in death gives birth to a mutant human baby. The survivor also kills the baby, or does he? What any of this means is a mystery. The script, acting, and special effects are all adequate, but the film as a whole is too derivative to be anything more than a painless way to kill 72 minutes.

Creepshow

Warner Brothers, 1982; Color; 122 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein Writer: Stephen King With: Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, E. G. Marshall, Ted Danson, Stephen King, Carrie Nye, Viveca Lindfors

Romero and literary phenomenon King collaborated on this hymn to the popular EC horror comics of the fifties, which played no small part in the evolution of the splatter genre. The film consists of five separate stories each dealing with death, revenge, monsters, and such. Marshall’s episode in which a man who hates bugs is ultimately done in by thousands of cockroaches is arguably the best—with “The Crate” running a close second due to Barbeau’s wonderfully blowsy performance as the obnoxious wife of college professor Holbrook. Overlong and not as scary as it might have been, but good tongue-in-cheek fun nonetheless. As expected, Tom Savini’s effects are not for the squeamish. Followed in 1987 by a sequel, Creepshow 2, directed by Michael Gornick, who photographed the first film.

Creepshow 2

New World Pictures, 1987; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Michael Gornick Producer: David Ball Writer: George A. Romero With: George Kennedy, Lois Chiles, Dorothy Lamour, Tom Wright, Stephen King, Tom Savini (as “The Creep”)

This follow-up to the Stephen King/George Romero team-up of 1982 was not so eagerly awaited and is a lot more disappointing. The first film was no multimillion-dollar extravaganza, but this one has a definite poverty row air about it (Cheapshow 2). It has the same format: Animated EC-comics-style panels introduce the tales—but there are only three this time instead of five, all adapted again from stories by Stephen King. The first (“Chief Wood’nhead”) is about a cigarstore Indian that comes to vengeful life when some punks rob the store and kill the owners. The second, “The Raft,” is about a mysterious lake creature (which looks like a gigantic semi-submerged garbage bag) that scarfs down a quartet of teens when they drop in for a swim. The last episode, arguably the best (and funniest), is about a woman (Chiles) who accidentally runs down a hitchhiker and tries to get away with the crime—except that the dead fellow won’t let her. Some nice effects by Howard Berger and Ed French, but not enough of them.

Cujo

Taft International, 1983; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Lewis Teague Producers: Daniel H. Blatt, Robert Singer Writers: Don Carlos Dunaway, Lauren Currier With: Dee Wallace, Daniel HughKelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone, Ed Lauter

Bitten by vampire bats, a docile St. Bernard turns into a rabid, nearly unstoppable killing machine. The flimsy plot is really a setup for the film’s last half hour, a genuine tour-de-force of splatter/terror, as Wallace and her young son (Pintauro) are trapped inside their broken-down car in the sweltering heat by the disease-crazed animal. The opening scene where the dog is accidentally lured into the bat cave by a fleeing rabbit is also a humdinger. Based on a novel by Stephen King.

The Curse

Trans World Entertainment, 1987; Color; 92 minutes

Director: David Keith Producer: Ovidio G. Assonitis Writer: David Chaskin With: Wil Wheaton, Claude Akins, Malcolm Danare, Cooper Huckabee, John Schneider

Based on one of H. P. Lovecraft’s best and most cinematic of stories, The Color Out of Space (filmed once before as Die, Monster, Die [1965] with Boris Karloff)—though, luckily for H. P., there’s no mention of his name anywhere in the film’s credits. A meteor crashes in a field belonging to semi-impoverished farmer (and religious zealot) Akins. Its arrival at first appears to be a blessing. The well water tastes bad, but the chickens are growing fat and sassy and the fruits and vegetables are flourishing. Then everything goes to hell. The chickens try to kill a little girl. The tomatoes ooze juice that looks like blood. The apples are filled with maggots. Akins and family develop sores on their faces, start vomiting on each other, and finally take to killing one another with pitchforks and knives. All of this excitement is handled without an ounce of suspense, credibility, or coherence by actor David Keith (An Officer and a Gentleman), here making his directorial debut. Stick to acting, David.

Curtains

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Jonathan Stryker Producer: Peter R. Simpson Writer: Robert Guza, Jr. With: Samantha Eggar, John Vernon, Linda Thorson

In the tradition of The Flesh and Blood Show, murder and mutilation befall a group of theatrical hopefuls—in this case, girls who are trying out for parts in a bizarre movie to be directed by Vernon at his eerie and remote (naturally) country estate. Eggar leads the disintegrating pack. The character Vernon plays in the film is Jonathan Stryker. Canadian director Richard Ciupka adopted the same name as a pseudonym for the film’s credits. Whether this was to create a film-within-a-film motif or simply to escape blame for this flashy but incomprehensible mess, I don’t know.

Daddy’s Boys

Concorde Pictures, 1988; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Joe Minion Producer: Roger Corman Writer: Daryl Haney With: Daryl Haney, Laura Burkett, Raymond J. Barry, Dan Shor

Fast and loose cheapie using sets left over from Corman’s Big Bad Mama II. In fact, this film is little more than a gender reworking of Corman’s two Mama flicks—mixed with Bonnie and Clyde and his own earlier Bloody Mama. Barry is big bad daddy, head honcho of a gang of bank robbers made up of his devoted sons. Sibling Jimmy (Haney) proves less devoted, and more enterprising, than the others and decides to strike out on his own with a gun-toting prostitute (Burkett), but irascible dad connives to bring him back to the fold under penalty of being crucified (literally). Lots of blood and gunplay and not bad considering its thrown-together origins. Minion, here making his directorial debut, wrote Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, which this film resembles in its blackly humorous approach to violence.

Damien—Omen II

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1978; Color; 107 minutes

Director: Don Taylor Writers: Stanley Mann, Mike Hodges With: William Holden, Lee Grant, Lew Ayres, Robert Foxworth, Sylvia Sidney

Sequel to The Omen (1976), chronicling the devil child’s adolescence. More “creative deaths” as Damien is groomed by villain Foxworth to take over Thorn (a little religious symbolism?) Industries, a multinational company determined to hasten Armageddon by throwing the world into political and economic chaos. Co-writer Hodges (Get Carter) was replaced as director due to “artistic differences.” Followed by The Final Conflict (1981).

The Dark

Film Ventures, 1979; Color; 92 minutes

Director: John “Bud” Cardos Producers: Dick Clark, Edward L. Montoro Writer: Stanford Whitmore With: William Devane, Cathy Lee Crosby, Richard Jaeckel, Keenan Wynn

Los Angeles skid-row murders perpetrated by an unknown killer, dubbed “the mangler” by the press, turn out to be the work of a werewolflike alien from outer space with glowing red eyes. Absolute junk.

Dawn of the Dead

United Film Distribution, 1979; Color; 126 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein Writer: George A. Romero With: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, Gaylen Ross

Romero’s long-awaited (and long-avoided) sequel to Night of the Living Dead is a lengthy, suspenseful, action-filled, and deliciously comic extravaganza of gore and satire. To escape the zombie menace, four people hole up in a fabulous suburban shopping mall where everything is literally free for the taking—a consumer’s paradise. Instinctively sensing familiar surroundings, the brain-dead zombies head there, too—followed by some murderous bikers—and after a while the place gets to look as crowded as Macy’s at Christmas. Tom Savini’s wall-to-wall special effects are astonishing. Romero and his wife, Christine Forrest Romero, have cameos at the beginning of the film—as a harried TV director and his assistant. Dario Argento provided some of the financial backing—as well as the score, by Goblin. A masterpiece of splattery black humor aka “Splatstick.”

Dawn of the Mummy

Harmony Gold, 1981; Color; 88 minutes

Directors: Frank Agrama, (uncredited) Armand Weston Producer: Frank Agrama Writers: Frank Agrama, Daria Price, Ronald Dobrin With: Brenda King, Barry Sattels, George Peck, Joan Levy

A full-throttle splatter movie that pumps some badly needed blood into one of the most tired of all horror movie subgenres—the mummy movie. It was also filmed in Egypt, another first for a mummy movie, most of which have been shot on Hollywood sound stages or in the American desert. The scarcely original plot is about the desecration of the tomb of a long dead Egyptian prince—not by arrogant British Egyptologists this time, but by a fashion photographer and his bevy of luscious models, who are using the tomb as a backdrop for a photo spread. The mummy comes alive, resurrects his dead slaves (who were buried with him), and commands them to tear to pieces all those who cross their lumbering path. The flashback embalming scenes are also quite graphic. As witness the title (Dawn of…), the film works hard to recall Romero’s zombie films. And from the standpoint of effects, it does.

Day of the Dead

United Film Distribution, 1985; Color; 102 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein Writer: George A. Romero With: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato, Richard Liberty, Howard Sherman

Due to budgetary constraints, Romero was forced to scale down and revise his original script for this “concluding” episode in his zombie trilogy. As a result, many fans found it disappointing. I didn’t. True, it lacks Dawn of the Dead’s epic grisliness and seems more as if it should be the middle episode rather than the last. But that’s carping. This is an extremely well crafted film full of ingenious special effects—courtesy of maestro Tom Savini. It’s also very well acted—especially by Cardille, who could be another Jane Fonda if she gets the right breaks. (Cardille’s dad, by the way, had a cameo in Night of the Living Dead [1968].) Howard Sherman’s affecting performance as Bub, Romero’s “zombie with a soul,” is another high point.

Day of the Woman

See I Spit on Your Grave

Dead and Buried

Avco Embassy, 1981; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Gary Sherman Producers: Ronald Schusett, Robert Fentress Writers: Ronald Schusett, Dan O’Bannon With: James Farentino, Jack Albertson, Melody Anderson, Dennis Redfield, Lisa Blount, Nancy Locke Hauser

The dead rise in a New England town, courtesy of undertaker Albertson. Farentino plays the town sheriff, who’s trying to find out who is killing people by sticking needles in their eyes—among other equally grisly modes of murder. Schusett and O’Bannon collaborated earlier on Alien.

Dead-End Drive-In

New World Pictures, 1986; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith Producers: Andrew Williams, Damien Parer Writer: Peter Smalley With: Ned Manning, Natalie McCurry, Peter Whitford

Set in Australia sometime in the 1990s. Worldwide inflation has soared out of sight, prompting the collapse of various economies and whole governments. In Australia, youth gangs—called Car Boys—prowl the city streets in psychedelic, souped-up jalopies, passing the time by crashing into each other. Seeking respite from all this mayhem, Manning and his girlfriend (McCurry) go to the local passion pit. While they’re making out in the backseat, the cops who patrol the drive-in steal the wheels off the car, and Manning and his girl find themselves trapped. They’re not alone. Seems the drive-in is really a government-sponsored concentration camp for disaffected youth and the unemployed, who are fed a steady diet of junk food and junk movies to keep them amused. Most of his fellow inmates have never had it so good, but Manning wants out and begins planning his break, which he accomplishes in truly spectacular fashion. The film boasts some wild production design and is loaded with violence, but it sounds a lot better than it plays.

Deadly Eyes

Warner Brothers, 1982; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Robert Clouse Producers: Jeffrey Schectman, Paul Kahnert Writer: Charles Eglee With: Sam Groom, Sara Botsford, Scatman Crothers

Oversized mutated rats terrorize a Canadian city. The police feed them puppies laced with poison to kill them, but nothing works. The climax takes place in a school—a la The Birds—as the rats pursue innocent children, as well as the hero and heroine, up the down staircase. The special effects are atrocious. The rats look like exactly what they are—dachshunds dolled up in size XL rat suits (their tails wag as they kill people). Based on British splatter/punk novelist James Herbert’s debut book, The Rats, which is a lot scarier, more gruesome—and more convincing. The novel was set in England.

Deadly Friend

Warner Brothers, 1986; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producers: Robert M. Sherman, Robert Crawford Writer: Bruce Joel Rubin With: Matthew Laborteaux, Kristy Swanson, Michael Sharrett, Anne Ramsey

Wiz kid Laborteaux’s experiments with artificial intelligence produce a sophisticated robot called B-B, which reclusive, paranoid neighbor Ramsey blows apart with a shotgun. When his other neighbor (and girlfriend) Swanson, is killed by her brute father, Laborteaux implants B-B’s artificial brain into the dead girl’s head and resuscitates her. The result proves pretty nasty as the zombified girl goes about getting revenge (for herself and for B-B) by incinerating her dad and decapitating Ramsey with a basketball. The cops shoot her down in the end just as she is beginning to exhibit signs of her more human personality; then, in one of those meaningless shock epilogues so beloved of splatter moviemakers in general and Wes Craven in particular, B-B’s metallic skull bursts through the dead girl’s skin to make way for a sequel. Among the many, many holes in the plot that exist in this movie, one stands out: As the weeks go by, how come nobody at the hospital ever notices that Swanson’s body is missing?

Dead of Night

See Deathdream

Dead Ringers

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1988; Color; 11 6 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producers: David Cronenberg, Marc Boyman Writers: David Cronenberg, Norman Snider With: Jeremy Irons, Genevieve Bujold, Stephen Lack

Irons delivers a powerhouse performance (actually two of them) as twin gynecologists whose special bond spells doom for them both. They each pick up with druggie movie actress Bujold, but it is the less secure of the subtly twisted duo that gets hooked—in more ways than one. Somber, perverse, and occasionally confusing, but fascinating to watch. Cronenberg plays with his own reputation for over-the-top splatter by setting us up for potentially ghoulish sequences, then not delivering them—only to hit us between the eyes with some very potent bits of grisliness when we least expect them. The split screen work is literally seamless. Based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Greasland, which, in turn, was purportedly based on a true story.

Dead Time Stories

Cinema Group, 1987; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Jeffrey Delman Producer: Bill Paul Writers: Jeffrey Delman, Charles F. Shelton, J. Edward Kiernan With: Scott Valentine, Melissa Leo, Nicole Picard, Matt Mitler

Bargain-basement anthology film reminiscent of Creepshow, in which baby-sitter Uncle Mike spins splatter yarns based on well-known fairy tales so that his horror fan nephew will go to sleep. The ploy doesn’t work on the nephew, but I found myself yawning more than once. The first episode, which boasts the film’s best effects (by Bryant Tauser and Ed French), is about a resurrected witch named Magoga who feeds on human blood. The second, a modern retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” is about a werewolf who pursues a luscious teen in a red jogging outfit to grandma’s house because the teen accidently picked up his anti-werewolf prescription at the local drugstore. The third episode, the funniest and least sleep inducing, is about a family of wackos (Mama, Papa, and Baby Baer) who run into a mass-murdering Goldilocks; she apparently saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre one too many times.

Dear Dead Delilah

Avco Embassy, 1972; Color; 95 minutes

Director: John Farris Producer: Jack Clement Writer: John Farris With: Agnes Moorehead, Will Geer, Patricia Carmichael, Dennis Patrick, Michael Ansara

Moorehead is the wealthy but dying matriarch of a decaying southern clan whose heirs are being systematically butchered by an axe-wielding maniac. A prolific writer of horror/splatter novels (All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, Catacombs, The Fury), John Farris made his directorial debut—and (to date) swan song—with this not very bold reprise of films similar to Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), which also costarred Agnes Moorehead.

Deathdream

Europix, 1972; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Bob Clark Producer: Bob Clark Writer: Alan Ormsby With: Lynn Carlin, John Marley, Richard Backus, Henderson Forsythe, Anya Ormsby

A Vietnam-era reworking of W. W. Jacobs’s classic tale, “The Monkey’s Paw.” Carlin learns of her son’s death in the jungles of Nam and wishes him alive. Sure enough, he returns—as a catatonic, blood-drinking vampire. A genuinely haunting allegory about the effects of that cursed war on those who went to fight and die and those who were left behind to wait and worry. Backus is terrific as the undead vet. Tom Savini handled the gruesomely expert special effects. It is aka Dead of Night and The Night Andy Came Home. Not to be missed.

Death Line

See Raw Meat

Death Race 2000

New World Pictures, 1975; Color; 78 minutes

Director: Paul Bartel Producer: Roger Corman Writers: Robert Thom, Charles B. Griffith With: David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Simone Griffith, Louisa Moritz

Outrageous satire set in a futuristic America where hit-and-run driving has become the national sport and cross-country racers score points by achieving the highest body count. Stallone is particularly funny as “Machine Gun Joe,” a souped up gangster from Chicago who strives to cheat at every turn. Director Bartel says producer Corman cut most of the satiric elements out of the film prior to its release. It’s still bloody good fun, though.

Death Sport

New World Pictures, 1978; Color; 83 minutes

Directors: Allan Arkush, Henry Suso Producer: Roger Corman Writers: Henry Suso, Donald Stewart With: David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, Richard Lynch, William Smithers, Jesse Vint

Semi-sequel to Death Race 2000 (1975)—minus the laughs. Earth is a wasteland roamed by cannibal mutants and gladiators known as Range Guides, who do their fighting on motorcycles. Corman replaced director Henry Suso with New World vet Allan Arkush shortly after filming began. Artistic differences were not the cause. According to Corman, Suso just couldn’t “hack it”—clearly a fatal flaw if you’re supposed to be making a splatter movie.

Death Trap

See Eaten Alive

Death Valley

Universal, 1982; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Dick Richards Producer: Elliott Kastner Writer: Richard Rothstein With: Paul Le Mat, Catherine Hicks, Stephen McHattie

Former TV-commercial director Richards has an undeniable flair for the visual, but that’s about all. This film and his two previous features—The Culpepper Cattle Company (1972) and March or Die (1977)—are pictorially striking, but except for their exploitative scenes of sex and violence, they seem like glorified TV commercials—slick but empty. This one, about a young couple who are victimized by a deranged desert rat and must kill to survive, is no exception. Typical slasher fare.

Death Warmed Up

Distributor unknown, 1984; Color; 90 minutes

Director: David Blythe Producer: Murray Newey Writers: David Blythe, Michael Heath With: Margaret Umbers, Michael Hurst, William Upjohn, Gary Day

Hurst is a semi-psychotic superhero in the Mad Max tradition, who finds himself on an uncharted island where the evil doctor who created him is now involved in creating a race of mutant warriors in his image. Realizing that his super violent superhero status is in jeopardy and that if the doc’s plan succeeds he will become just another contorted face in the crowd, Hurst takes on the mad bunch in a fight to the death. Slick and sick.

Death Wish II

Columbia Pictures, 1982; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Michael Winner Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writer: David Engelbach With: Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Vincent Gardenia, J. D. Cannon, Robert F. Lyons, Anthony Franciosa

After decimating a goodly portion of New York City slime balls in his first Death Wish outing (which wasn’t, nevertheless, a real splatter movie), avenger Bronson takes Horace Greeley’s famous advice and goes west. He settles down in Los Angeles with his daughter, but their serenity proves short-lived when she is raped (again!) and killed by a vicious psycho (Lyons). Once again, Charlie goes on the warpath, shooting and bludgeoning his way through L.A.’s lowlifes to get to the killer—this time in bonafide splatter fashion. Followed by two more blood-rushing sequels set in different locales.

Death Wish 3

Cannon Films, 1985; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Michael Winner Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writer: Michael Edmonds With: Charles Bronson, Deborah Raffin, Martin Balsam, Ed Lauter

Charles Bronson looks and acts tired. It may have been part of his characterization (shooting and killing dozens of hoodlums would wear anybody down), but it comes off as the actor who’s had enough and not the character. The writer and director seem to be snoozing as well. The vigilante film has, to some degree, replaced the traditional Western, the lawless inner city substituting for the lawless frontier; the strong individual with a clear sense of right and wrong holding justice in his dead aim—A-man’s-gotta-do-what-a-man’s-gotta-do concept of righting wrongs whatever the personal cost. The problem is that the inner city presents too many real and complex social issues for such simpleminded, one-dimensional thinking. Some of the better vigilante films (such as the first Death Wish) at least pay lip service to the issues, but in Death Wish 3, the punks have evolved into a human subspecies that must be exterminated (if ya can’t reform ’em, shoot ’em). Director Michael Winner can’t even muster the kinetic energy so essential for this type of film. In trying to top previous entries, the filmmakers get carried away with extremes. The “calling all gangs” climax is silly and the image of senior citizen Bronson walking around blowing away dozens of punks becomes not the stuff of legend but the fodder for lampoon.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown

Cannon Films, 1987; Color; 100 minutes

Director: J. Lee Thompson Producer: Pancho Kohner Writer: Gail Morgan Hickman With: Charles Bronson, Kay Lenz, John P. Ryan, Perry Lopez

This installment in the saga of cinema’s most popular vigilante boasts an aging Bronson performing more listlessly than he did in Death Wish 3—not that Chuck was ever one of the screen’s most dynamic actors. But here when he takes on the violent young turks in hand-to-hand combat, the contrived staginess of the action that allows him to come out on top is painfully acute. In Death Wish 4, he assumes the role of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, playing two drug kingpins off each other, thereby destroying them both. However, the millionaire newspaper owner (Ryan) who hired him to do the job (supposedly the magnate’s daughter died from a cocaine overdose) turns out to be yet another drug pusher who has duped Bronson into rubbing out the competition. Bronson doesn’t like being duped, though, and he blows Ryan away in the film’s most spectacular splatter set piece. Electrocutions, blood-spattering firepower, and gory knifings add to the frolic. Bronson goes about his killing business with such effortless ease, however, that there’s never an ounce of suspense.

Deep Red

Mahler Films, 1976; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Salvatore Argento Writer: Giuseppe Basan With: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, Gabriele Lavi, Macha Meril

Hemmings witnesses the murder of a mind reader and sets out to track down the killer. This stylish and bloody thriller (the beheading by elevator scene is a real showpiece) ranks among director Argento’s best, which is not saying much unless one is a devoted fan. He simply cannot tell a coherent story, but he sure knows how to use the camera. Music by Goblin. It is aka The Hatchet Murders. Daria Nicolodi is Mrs. Argento in real life.

Deep Space

Trans World Entertainment, 1988; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producers: Alan Amiel, Fred Olen Ray Writers: Fred Olen Ray, T. L. Lankford With: Charles Napier, Ann Turkel, Ron Glass, James Booth, Bo Svenson, Julie Newmar, Peter Palmer

Centaur One, carrying a space-based U. S. biological warfare weapon, goes awry and crashes in California. Two teens come upon the wreckage and the weapon, a large brown blob that is described as looking like a roach egg but looks more like a gigantic stool specimen. The egg cracks open, tentacles spring out, and the teens are eaten by the warlike creature inside—which quickly grows up to look like a cross between Giger’s Alien design and Godzilla. Cops Napier and Glass are assigned to the case but prove totally incompetent. Psychic Newmar picks up the creature’s vibes and the police track it to a warehouse where they take it on with chain saws, guns, and a jar of “special gas,” accompanied by a flashing light display stolen from Alien. Former L’il Abner Palmer plays a medical examiner. Nice photography by Gary Graver, who worked on Orson Welles’s (to date) uncompleted film, The Other Side of the Wind. All in all though, this is just another Fred Olen Ray tribute to bad SF movies of the fifties.

The Demon Lover

21st Century Pictures, 1976; Color; 85 minutes

Directors: Donald G. Jackson, Jerry Younkins Producers: Donald G. Jackson, Jerry Younkins Writers: Donald G. Jackson, Jerry Younkins With: Gunnar Hansen, Val Mayerik, Christmas Robbins, Tom Hutton

Michigan-made independent about an occultist who conjures up a hideous demon to do his bidding but then must deal with the Beast when it turns on him. A must-see for those who enjoyed Hansen as “Leatherface” in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Full of movie-buff in-jokes (a la the films of Joe Dante) featuring characters named (Forrest) Ackerman, (George A.) Romero, (Alan) Ormsby—well, you get the idea.

Demons

Ascot Entertainment Group, 1985; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Lamberto Bava Producer: Dario Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Dardano Sacchetti, Franco Ferrini With: Urbano Barberini, Natasha Hovey, Karl Zinny, Fiore Argento, Paolo Cozzo

This gore extravaganza from the son of late Italian splatter master Mario Bava starts out promisingly enough but then degenerates into a clone of Dawn of the Dead and The Evil Dead. A mysterious figure with a half-metal face passes out freebie tickets to the premiere of an unnamed film at a haunted theater called the “Metropole.” The film is about some teens who unearth a book about demons from the tomb of Nostradamus and unleash these demons upon the “reel” world. The same events are quickly played out in the theater as several unlucky patrons become taloned blood and slime-spewing creatures who are determined to slaughter the others in every graphically horrible way possible. The impressive gore effects by Rosario Prestopino are as wall-to-wall as those in The Evil Dead. Pop songs by Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Rick Springfield, and others fill out the throbbing heavy-metal sound track.

Demons 2

Imperial Entertainment, 1987; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Lamberto Bava Producer: Dario Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti With: David Knight, Bobby Rhodes, Asia Argento, Virginia Bryant

Whereas Demons drew its inspiration from Romero’s zombie films and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, Demons 2 appears to be a nod to Cronenberg’s They Came from Within. Residents of a high-rise apartment complex who are watching a TV documentary about the events in Demons find themselves at the mercy of another plague of demons when one of the creatures emerges from a TV set, claims a victim, and starts spreading the contagion from floor to floor. Even animals aren’t immune from demonitis. A physics student and his pregnant wife (no, she doesn’t give birth to a demon come the final fadeout!) are the ostensible leads who, taking their cue from Demons, head for the roof to survive. Lots of pulsating veins in this one, as well as blood and gore dripping from ceilings and through plumbing fixtures, plus a fairly wild demon versus bodybuilder melee in the complex’s parking garage—but otherwise, the Argento/Bava team seems to have run out of steam. A disjointed and disappointing sequel—even Rosario Prestopino’s retread FX fail to score strongly.

Deranged

American-International, 1974; Color; 82 minutes

Directors: Jeff Gillen, Alan Ormsby Producer: Tom Karr Writers: Jeff Gillen, Alan Ormsby With: Roberts Blossom, Cosette Lee, Robert Wagner, Brian Sneage

The exploits of everybody’s favorite cannibal killer of the fifties, Wisconsin’s own late but unlamented Ed Gein (pronounced Geen), have almost become a mini cottage industry for filmmakers. Ed’s exploits (he murdered several women, ate parts of their bodies, and wore their skins around his farmhouse) have formed the basis for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Three on a Meathook, among others. The Gillen/Ormsby entry (with makeup effects by Tom Savini) is probably the most clinical and closest to the truth—though Ed’s name is changed to Ezra Cobb. It matches the macabre humor of the others, though—especially the scene where Cobb has his mummified victims keep his mummified mommy company at dinner.

Desperate Living

New Line Cinema, 1977; Color; 90 minutes

Director: John Waters Producer: John Waters Writer: John Waters With: Liz Renay, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce, Jean Hill

Released from a mental hospital, socialite Mink Stole later runs off with her 400 pound maid (Hill) when the maid kills Mink’s husband by sitting on him and squashing him to death. The pair then holes up in a town called Mortville, which is populated by criminals and run by an Idi Amin-worshiping fat lady (Massey). Typical John Waters fare—which is to say atypical of the work of almost any other director, sane or otherwise.

The Devil’s Rain

Bryanston Pictures, 1975; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Robert Fuest Producers: James V. Cullen, Michael S. Glick Writers: Gabe Essoe, James Ashton, Gerald Hopman With: Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, William Shatner, Keenan Wynn

Satanism and witchcraft flourish in a dusty southwestern town (actually Mexico), which is also the gateway to Hell—and this was before the reign of the cartels. Hero Shatner tries to abscond with the devil’s guest register. In the end, the title rain turns all the satanists into something resembling either (1) road accidents or (2) melting pizzas. Look for John Travolta in a small role.

The Devil’s Wedding Night

Dimension Pictures, 1973; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Paul Solvay Producer: Ralph Zucker Writers: Ralph Zucker, Alan M. Harris With: Mark Damon, Sara Bay

An archaeologist discovers a mysterious ring that has the power to draw young girls to the foreboding Transylvania castle near which it was found. The ring, it turns out, belongs to that queen vampire, Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Bay), who enjoys bathing in virgins’ blood. Ample splatter. Ample skin. What more could one ask?

Dr. Gore The Devil Wears Clodhoppers

See This Stuff’ll Kill Ya!

Dr. Butcher, M.D.

Aquarius Releasing, Inc., 1981; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Frank Martin Producer: Terry Levine Writer: Frank Martin With: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Cole, Donald O’Brian, Sherry Buchanan

Moreau-style jungle doctor performs backwoods brain surgery on still-conscious victims, stifling their screams by severing their vocal chords prior to each operation. But wait, that’s not all; there are also cannibals running amok, gobbling up the tourists. Tourists? The M.D. stands for “medical deviate.” As graphic as they come. Looks like a film by Lucio Fulci, but director Frank Martin is actually Francesco Martino.

Dr. Gore

Majestic International Pictures, 1972 Color; 90 minutes

Director: J. G. “Pat” Patterson Producer: J. G. “Pat” Patterson Writer: J. G. Patterson, Jr. With: J. G. Patterson, Jenny Driggers, Roy Mehaffey, Linda Faile, Jan Benfield, Jeannine Aber, Candy Furr, Vickie O’Neal

This twisted takeoff on Bride of Frankenstein is the only solo directorial effort by a veteran of several Herschell Gordon Lewis films. He also stars. Dr. Don Brandon (Patterson) with the help of his hunchbacked assistant (Mehaffey) murders and dismembers five young women to bring his dead wife, Anitra (Driggers), back to life as the perfect woman. There are gobs of Lewis-style gore as limbs are severed and eyeballs are cut out. We’re also treated to some pretty good mad lab scenes considering the obviously low budget. The doctor finally succeeds in creating his own personal Frankenstein, a perfect woman who is hot to trot with any man, even the hunchback. When the doctor discovers their dalliance, he splits the hunchback’s hump with an axe and dumps his body in an acid vat. The film ends with Dr. Don cooling his heels in jail, while his creation catches a ride out of town with a passing motorist. A wandering plot that sometimes gets lost and inane dialogue (Example: “Be sure to wear your jacket, so they won’t know you’re a hunchback.”) put this picture in Ed Wood, Jr., territory as well as Lewis land. So bad it’s good, if you’re in the right mood.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Blood

See The Man with Two Heads

Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death

Rochelle Films, 1979; Color; 91 minutes

Director: James Wood Producer: James Wood Writer: James Mathers With: James Mathers

Ultra low-budget monster-in-the-basement flick (the film looks like it was shot in one, too). It’s about the grandson of you know who performing his ancestor’s famous experiment on unsuspecting victims who come his way.

Dolls

Empire Pictures, 1987; Color; 77 minutes

Director: Stuart Gordon Producer: Brian Yuzna Writer: Ed Naha With: Stephen Lee, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason, Carrie Lorraine, Ian Patrick Williams

Stuart Gordon’s third film is a little gem of an homage to James Whale’s The Old Dark House, combined with fascinating elements of the old Warner Brothers cartoons such as Toy Town Tonight, in which toys come to life, and a bit of Hansel and Gretel thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, this unlikely combination of elements seems to have escaped most critics, who happily trashed the film as nothing more than a sillier than usual splatter film, without regard for its effective atmosphere and unbridled imagination. Guy Rolfe (famous to horror aficionados from William Castle’s Mr. Sardonicus, and, because of which, he was probably cast here) is wonderful as the somewhat less campy Ernest Thesiger character from The Old Dark House; and Stephen Lee is a refreshing change-of-pace hero in a role obviously patterned on Charles Laughton’s from the same film. The story is simple enough—travelers dropping in at Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason’s mysterious house because of a bad storm, where they are, in essence, judged—by Rolfe, Mason, and their vast array of occasionally murderous dolls—as good or evil by whether or not they are children at heart. Ed Naha’s script is unfailingly bright (sometimes hilarious) and insightful, and Gordon’s direction gets the most out of it. The doll effects may sound foolish, but they are splendidly achieved and presented with such an admirably straight face that they succeed on nearly every level, generating a surprising amount of suspense and unflinchingly bloody violence. Gordon proves once again that his is a very special talent, but one that, alas, is like caviar and Cordon Rouge to an audience wanting Big Macs and Coca-Cola.

The Doll Squad

Gemini, 1973; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Ted V. Mikels Producer: Ted V. Mikels Writers: Jack Richesin, Pamela Eddy, Ted V. Mikels With: Francine York, Michael Ansara, Anthony Eisley, Lisa Todd, Tura Satana, Jean London

Low-octane “thriller” (it was rated PG!) about an all-girl army of assassins called “The Doll Squad” who are called into action by CIA chief Anthony Eisley (whose career seems to have taken a precipitous nosedive following his stint on the fifties TV detective show, “Hawaiian Eye”) to put an end to the nefarious career of a renegade CIA operative (Ansara) who’s been monkeying with the U.S. space program and is out to enslave the world. As has often been noted, Mikels’s film predates the hit TV series “Charley’s Angels,” which bears more than a passing resemblance to The Doll Squad (Doll Squad leader York is even named Sabrina, the leader of the Angels)—except that the individual episodes of the TV show were slicker and shorter. Doll Squad member Satana starred in Russ Meyer’s bloodier, sexier, and far more exciting Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! It is aka Hustler Squad.

Don’t Answer the Phone

Crown International Pictures, 1980; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Robert Hammer Producer: Robert Hammer Writers: Robert Hammer, Michael Castle With: James Westmoreland, Flo Gerrish, Nicholas Worth, Ben Frank, Pamela Bryant

Physical-fitness enthusiast and nutso strangler Worth prowls the hills of Hollywood in search of victims (there is no shortage), then calls into a local radio talk show to discuss his hang-ups with the female psychiatrist host. Based on the novel Nightline by Michael Curtis, a fictionalized account of the Los Angeles Hillside Strangler case. A cheap but gritty and tough-minded shocker whose only drawback in credibility is that Worth is so obviously wacko, it’s hard to believe that no one suspects him of being the killer. But then again, maybe that’s the film’s point. It is aka The Hollywood Strangler.

Don’t Go in the House

Film Ventures, 1980; Color; 82 minutes

Director: James Ellison Producer: Ellen Hammill Writers: Ellen Hammill, James Ellison, Joseph Masefield With: Dan Grimaldi, Robert Osth, Ruth Dardick

Tormented by his mom, a young boy gets his revenge by murdering her and then cremating her body, an act that drives him psycho but also instills him with an ambition: to become an incinerator worker. He does this, then lures unsuspecting young women to his place of business so that he can pretend they’re mom and burn them up all over again. In the end, he gets plenty burned up himself when he imagines all these old flames coming back to life to revenge themselves on him. Not exactly a hot one.

Don’t Look in the Basement

Hallmark Releasing, 1973; Color; 95 minutes

Director: S. F. Brownrigg Producer: S. F. Brownrigg Writer: Tim Pope With: William McGee, Annie MacAdams, Rosie Holotik, Gene Ross, Jesse Lee Fulton

Inmates of a Florida asylum for criminally bad filmmakers plot to take over the studio—er, nuthouse—in this criminally bad and bloody shocker from the distributors of Last House on the Left (1972).

Don’t Open the Window

See Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue

Dracula Is Dead and Well and Living in London

See The Satanic Rites of Dracula

Dracula’s Dog

Crown International Pictures, 1977; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Albert Band Producers: Charles Band, Frank Ray Perilli Writer: Frank Ray Perilli With: Michael Pataki, Jan Shutan, Libbie Chase, Reggie Nalder, Jose Ferrer

An explosion uncovers the tomb of one of Dracula’s servants (Nalder), along with the dead count’s vampire dog Zoltan. Together, they head for America where the last of Dracula’s relatives (Pataki) lives. There, they draw more victims into their late and lamented master’s cult. Nalder does the planning while Zoltan, taking his cue from the Hound of the Baskervilles, does most of the dirty work. Albert Band directed the mini-classic (but non-splatter) Face of Fire (1959) based on Stephen Crane’s novella, The Monster. Check that out instead and skip this one.

Dracula’s Last Rites

Cannon Films, 1980; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Dominic Paris Producer: Kelly Van Horn Writer: Dominic Paris With: Patricia Lee Hammond, Gerald Fielding, Victor Jorge, Mimi Weddell

Story of a village of vampires lorded over by a mortician named Lucard—that’s Dracula spelled backward minus the letter a—who perpetuates their race by draining the blood of traffic-accident victims (planned accidents, that is) as they wind up on his slab. Routine vampire story shot in New York, the Empire (not Vampire) State. It is aka Last Rites.

The Dream Master

See A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master

Dream Warriors

See A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors

Dressed to Kill

Filmways, 1980; Color; 105 minutes

Director: Brian De Palma Producer: George Litto Writer: Brian De Palma With: Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon

Caine is a New York City psychiatrist whose chief clients include a housewife (Dickinson) with sexual problems and a transsexual named Bobbi, who is about to take the “big step” but then panics with murder on his/her mind. The film is so derivative that it cannibalizes its structure (and some dialogue) from Psycho (1960) and lifts whole scenes from that film as well as Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954). Effective, but it leaves you with the feeling that you’ve been ripped off by a real pro.

Driller Killer

Rochelle Films, 1979; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Abel Ferrara Producer: Rochelle Weisberg Writer: Nicholas St. John With: Jimmy Laine (Ferrara), Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Tony Coca-Cola and The Roosters

First feature by New York University grads Ferrara and St. John about a frustrated artist who goes bonkers and starts slaughtering people with a carpenter’s drill. Kinetic sleaze.

Drive-in Massacre

New American Films, 1976; Color; 78 minutes

Director: Stuart Segall Producer: Stuart Segall Writers: John Goff, Buck Flower With: Jake Barnes, Adam Lawrence, Douglas Gudbye

A restless crowd and a bad double feature lead to two brutal killings at a drive-in where a dollar a carload proves to be no bargain. Best to see at a drive-in, if you can find one that still shows movies and hasn’t been turned into a parking lot or an outdoor church.

Eaten Alive

New World Pictures, Mars Production Corp., 1976; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Mardi Rustam, Alvin L. Fast Writers: Mardi Rustam, Alvin L. Fast, Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper With: Neville Brand, Mel Ferrer, Marilyn Burns, Carolyn Jones, William Finley

The main body of critics, still foaming at the mouth over the Museum of Modern Art’s addition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to its permanent collection, helped bury Hooper’s follow-up film before it was even released, reporting that the new film was an unscary, tasteless (of course) disaster, that Hooper had proved himself an inept amateur, etc. As a result, Hooper’s bizarre, utterly stylized redneckish variation on The Old Dark House-Psycho school of horror has all but been overlooked. Too bad, because the film—despite some badly meandering stretches whenever it moves away from Neville Brand’s “old dark motel”—is probably the best cinematic attempt to date to capture the otherworldly madness of the death of the amateur-night-in-Dixie brand of the American Dream. Brand’s sleazy motel, complete with tatty roadside animal attractions (most of which, except his giant man-eating alligator—or crocodile—are dead or dying), is a worthy southern-fried successor to the Bates Motel. Unlike those modern maestros of hayseed tomfoolery, the Coen Brothers, Hooper neither romanticizes nor celebrates ignorance, but savages its narrow-minded, macho meanness with the incisiveness of a kind of splatter film William Faulkner. One need only see the outrageous moment where Brand, in a righteous fury, shoots himself in the leg (a wooden leg, it turns out) and gulps down the good ol’ boy’s cure-all, a BC powder, to set himself to rights, to realize that Hooper knows of what he speaks. By no means a great film, Eaten Alive is nonetheless a more accomplished work than its obscurity suggests. It is aka Death Trap, Horror Hotel Massacre, and Starlight Slaughters.

Eaten Alive

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Umberto Lenzi Producer: Antonio Crescenzi Writer: Federico Zanni With: Ivan Rassimov, Janet Agren, Robert Kerman, Paolo Senatore

Agren and Kerman head for South America in search of Agren’s missing sister when they get a hot tip as to her whereabouts. The clue is a bizarre film left behind by a south-of-the-border hitman who gets rubbed out on the streets of New York, courtesy of a truck. The hitman’s film shows scenes of sadistic torture and cannibalism and features a cameo by long lost sis. (Speaking of cameos, yes, that is Mel Ferrer in a small role.) Rassimov plays a Jim Jones figure who runs the cannibal cult and forces suicide upon his followers. Brutal and unpleasant entry in the Italian cannibal movie subgenre; made by the director of the equally unpleasant Make Them Die Slowly.

The Ecology of a Crime

See Twitch of the Death Nerve

The Eerie Midnight Horror Show

21st Century Pictures, 1974; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Mario Gariazzo Producer: Juston Reed Writer: Ambrogio Molteni With: Stella Carnacina, Chris Awram, Lucretia Love, Gabriele Tinti

Post—Exorcist conglomeration of obsession/possession themes coupled with religious metaphors about Satan, Barabbas, and other bad and good guys from the Bible—plus a weak story about a statue that hornily comes to life. It is aka The Tormented.

Enemy Territory

Empire Pictures, 1987; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Peter Manoogian Producers: Cynthia DePaula, Tim Kincaid Writers: Stuart Kaminsky, Bobby Liddell With: Gary Frank, Ray Parker, Jr., Jan-Michael Vincent, Frances Foster

Promised a hefty commission, white insurance man Frank takes his life in his hands by going into a dangerous ghetto neighborhood near dark to get a $100,000 policy signed. The holder, a retired teacher, lives in a run-down apartment complex that’s been turned into a nocturnal combat zone by a vicious all-black youth gang called the Vampires. Frank incurs the gang’s wrath (no difficult task). The Vampires declare war on the “white ghost” and anyone who tries to help him—a small group that includes the teacher, her granddaughter, a telephone repairman, and a crippled Vietnam vet who has turned his apartment into a bunker, complete with spear throwing wheelchair and enough ordnance to take out a small army. The blood flows thick and fast as Frank and the repairman use knives, guns, and a baseball bat to fend off the gang—whose leader is called the Count and whose second in command is appropriately nicknamed “Psycho.”

The Entity

Embassy Pictures, 1983; Color; 125 minutes

Director: Sidney J. Furie Producer: Harold Schneider Writer: Frank de Felitta With: Barbara Hershey, David Lablosa, Jacqueline Brooks, Ron Silver

Hershey gives a convincing performance as a put upon middle-class divorcee and mother whose life is further complicated when an unseen supernatural presence enters her bedroom and rapes her. She moves, but the malevolent ectoplasmic sex fiend follows her and rapes her again and again. Psychologists are in a quandary as to what to do—is she simply sexually frustrated, or what? Not on your life. Enter a team of open-mouthed parapsychologists who install Hershey and a replica of her apartment in the university lab in the hopes of capturing the demon on camera, freezing it, and destroying it. Purportedly, writer de Felitta, who adapted from his own best-selling novel, based this pyrotechnical display of sound, fury, and demon rape on a true case. Its rambling length and repetitive graphic depictions of spectral rape tend to diminish the film’s intensity and effectiveness; it might have been better if it had been half as long.

Eraserhead

A Libra Films Release, 1978; B&W; 90 minutes

Director: David Lynch Producer: David Lynch Writer: David Lynch With: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Laurel Near

Appropriately disgusting but also downbeat, dreamlike (or nightmare-like if you prefer) tale of a fishlike monster baby whose birth turns its parents’ lives upside down (not that their lives were all that right side up in the first place). The film spins wildly out of control with allegorical/symbolic/nonsensical fantasy images of grotesque doings. Made by the cheerless David Lynch (with partial backing from the American Film Institute), who went on to ruin The Elephant Man (1980).

Eternal Evil

Distributor unknown, 1988; Color; 85 minutes

Director: George Mihalka Producer: Pieter Kroonenburg Writer: Robert Geoffrin With: Winston Rekert, Karen Black, John Novak, Patty Talbot

Canadian-made police procedural/supernatural opus shot in 1985 by My Bloody Valentine director Mihalka and released on video three years later, following limited theatrical distribution. TV commercial producer Rekert’s hobby is the study of out-of-body experiences, or astral projection. Experiments on himself enable him to “see” several murders being carried out by an unknown serial killer. Rekert’s knowledge of the killings puts him under suspicion. In typical Hitchcock tradition, he, therefore, must set out on his own to prove his innocence and bring the real perpetrator to justice. Mihalka goes a bit overboard with the simulated astral projection “bird’s-eye view” shots.

The Evil Dead

Renaissance Pictures, 1983; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Sam Raimi Producer: Robert G. Tapert Writer: Sam Raimi With: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Hal Delrich, Betsy Baker, Sarah York

Although The Evil Dead has since been eclipsed by Raimi’s far more accomplished sequel/rehash, The Evil Dead II, the original film has a screwy cheesiness that is hard to resist. The plot is your average “kids on an outing in the woods encounter something nasty” routine, but the decidedly unsociable evil spirits of The Evil Dead were a welcome change from the run of brain-dead slashers and malevolent hillbillies so popular at the time, especially since the spirits here seem to belong to Larry, Moe, and Curly’s wicked twins. One by one, the young cast are assaulted and/or taken over by the demons (unleashed by their foolhardy playing of a tape recording designed for the purpose, which was left by the previous tenant/victim) in a variety of tasteless and comic ways. Raimi’s major accomplishment here lies in his uncanny ability to build the film to a fever pitch (however ludicrously) and then take it further and further with ever more elaborate gore effects (by Bart Pierce and Tom Sullivan) and strikingly vertiginous camera work (by Tim Philo). More clever than good, The Evil Dead succeeds on sheer energy. Clips from it appear on a TV screen in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The Evil Dead II

Renaissance Pictures, 1987; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Sam Raimi Producers: Robert G. Tapart, Bruce Campbell Writers: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel With: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Theodore Raimi

Slapstick comes to splatter with Sam Raimi’s engaging, often hysterically funny “bad taste” sequel to his own The Evil Dead. Rather than pick up the story line from the original, this backtracks and provides us with a miniature version (with a vastly reduced cast) of it at breakneck speed. Once again, the misguided professor’s conveniently tape-recorded incantations from the vaguely Lovecraftian Necronomicon Di Morti are foolishly played back, and once again the “wood demon” and his friends run riot in a nonstop series of ever-more ghastly possessions, body-hurtlings, blood-spewings, chain-sawings, and assorted demonic mischief. This round, Raimi has an obviously bigger budget and uses it to produce some genuinely brilliant images and outstanding vertiginous camera acrobatics in the midst of homages to everybody from his friends the Coen Brothers to the Three Stooges and The Wizard of Oz (and you thought Dorothy ran afoul of some unpleasant trees!). Despite a telegraphed ending and a rather disappointing materialized “wood demon,” the film is too inventive and cheerfully nasty to carp—a treat for splatter connoisseurs.

The Exorcist

Warner Brothers, 1973; Color; 121 minutes

Director: William Friedkin Producer: William Peter Blatty Writer: William Peter Blatty With: Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb

A pyrotechnical wonder designed to pulverize audiences into a single gagging mass. Virginal Blair is possessed by the devil and becomes a foul-minded, foulmouthed, vomit-spewing little monster. Miller and Von Sydow are the exorcists who are called in to drive the demon out. Dick Smith’s still-astonishing makeup and prosthetic effects are the real stars. The film does not wear well, however, because once one becomes inured to the shocks, the plot and characters leave little else to chew on. No question though, it’s one of the most influential splatter movies ever made. Followed in 1977 by the non-splattery Exorcist II—The Heretic, an absurd sequel that left audiences’ heads spinning the way Blair’s did in the first film.

The Exterminator

Avco Embassy, 1980; Color; 101 minutes

Director: James Glickenhaus Producer: Mark Buntzman Writer: James Glickenhaus With: Robert Ginty, Christopher George, Samantha Eggar, Steve James

Out-of-work Vietnam vet Ginty finds his true calling when a friend is nearly beaten to death by a gang of New York City street thugs. Taking his cue from Charles Bronson (Bernard Goetz hadn’t arrived on the scene yet), he goes on a revenge spree, rubbing out the culprits and other unsavories with his trademark weapon, a blowtorch. George is the cop who must bring Ginty to justice even though he sort of admires the guy for helping to rid the streets of scumballs. Eggar, a good actress who always seems to be cast in irrelevant, thankless roles, is cast in yet another irrelevent, thankless role as George’s classy-looking but long-suffering girlfriend. Followed in 1984 by a sequel, Exterminator II, directed by producer Buntzman.

Eyes of a Stranger

Warner Brothers, 1980; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Ken Wiederhorn Producer: Ronald Zerra Writers: Mark Johnson, Eric L. Bloom With: Lauren Tewes, John Disanti, Peter Durge, Jennifer Jason Leigh

TV reporter Tewes (of TV’s “Love Boat” fame) discovers that the psychotic killer whose escapades she’s been headlining each night lives in the apartment across the way from her. The question is; how to prove it so that the police will be convinced? She decides to smoke him out on her own. Occasionally tense tale laced with graphic gore (courtesy of Tom Savini, most of whose ultraviolent effects Warner Brothers left on the cutting-room floor to avoid an X rating), weakened by some wild implausibilities toward the end.

Eyes of Fire

Elysian Pictures, 1984; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Avery Crounse Producer: Philip J. Spinelli Writer: Avery Crounse With: Dennis Lipscomb, Guy Boyd, Rebecca Stanley, Sally Klein

An eerie, occasionally haunting and beautifully photographed story about… well, that’s just the trouble; the script is such a jumbled mishmash that I’m not sure what the story’s about. In flashback, a girl tells a Colonial officer (the film takes place in eighteenth-century America) about being trapped, along with some other settlers, in a mysterious valley populated by tree spirits and other supernatural creatures. She and two small children manage to escape thanks to help from another member of their group, a girl named Leah, who turns out to have supernatural powers. Good makeup FX by Annie Maniscalco—though there are a few too many scenes of tree and mud spirits spitting up green slime.

The Eyes of Laura Mars

Columbia Pictures, 1978; Color; 103 minutes

Director: Irvin Kershner Producer: Jon Peters Writers: John Carpenter, David Zelag Goodman With: Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, Raul Julia, Rene Auberjonois

Fashion photographer Dunaway, who chicly combines scenes of eroticism with violence in her Vogue spreads, gets a taste of the real thing when she starts “seeing” in her mind’s eye the violent mutilation murders of various women. Able to predict the murders but not identify the killer (naturally!), she seeks solace in the arms of the detective (Jones) assigned to the case, but she gets a big surprise instead. Designed as a high-class thriller, this is really a low-class exploitation film full of sleazy non-characters and contrived situations, including an ending that’s downright unbelievable. Carpenter wrote the original story (though he disavows what was done to it) and Jack Harris (The Blob [1958]) executive produced. Dunaway should have shot her cameraman; she looks positively anemic throughout.

Fade to Black

Compass International Pictures, 1980; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Vernon Zimmerman Producers: George Braunstein, Roy Hamady Writer: Vernon Zimmerman With: Dennis Christopher, Linda Kerridge, Tim Thomerson, Morgan Pauli, Marya Small

Deranged film fan Christopher goes over the edge and starts killing folks who’ve victimized him, modeling his murders after scenes from his favorite movies. A promising idea insufficiently realized. Kerridge is probably the definitive Marilyn Monroe look-alike.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Russ Meyer Associates, 1966; B&W; 83 minutes

Director: Russ Meyer Producer: Russ Meyer Writer: Jack Moran With: Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams, Susan Bernard, Stuart Lancaster

A trio of buxom “good-time girls” led by the psychotic Satana goes on a rampage in the desert, kidnapping a girl and killing her boyfriend—actually, they break his back and leave him to the buzzards. After that, they hide out with a crippled man and his two sons, who have a small fortune in cash stashed away. Determined to get at the loot, the pussycats try to seduce the men into revealing its whereabouts. When that fails, Satana grinds the old man to a pulp under the wheels of a car. The other boys (one of whom is named Vegetable, giving you a fair idea of his mental agility) turn on the pussycats and some knifings, karate kicks, and other mayhem ensue—until Satana is run over by a truck driven by the girl she kidnapped. Writer Moran, a former actor, had a small role in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives. Music by the Bostweeds. A Russ Meyer classic!

Fatal Pulse

Great Entertainment Group, 1987; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Anthony J. Christopher Producer: Anthony J. Christopher Writer: James Hundhausen With: Michelle McCormick, Ken Roberts, Joe Phelan, Alex Courtney

Yet another “mad slasher loose on campus” flick; this time he’s carving his way through the AOK sorority—if you can believe that name! There are plenty of suspects, all with a capital S—a disturbed, moronic Vietnam vet, a sniveling chemistry professor with terminal jitters, an unlucky-in-love slob of a student, the boyfriend of one of the victims, and another student who’s hooked on drugs and “Petticoat Junction.” The police are no help because they don’t bother questioning anyone. They’re also too incompetent to find the lead suspect even though no one else seems to have the slightest difficulty finding him. The gore murders—via electrocution, drowning, and knife—are standard stuff. For some reason, however, the slasher is compelled to bare his victims’ breasts before doing them in; perhaps he was just being egged on by a voyeuristic director. A who-cares whodunit that moves so slowly you’ll be asleep long before the “surprise finish.”

Fear No Evil

Avco Embassy Pictures, 1981; Color; 99 minutes

Director: Frank La Loggia Producers: Frank and Charles M. La Loggia Writer: Frank La Loggia With: Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Floffman, Kathleen Rowe McAllen, Frank Birney

High school student Arngrim is the incarnation of the devil; when his teachers and fellow students pick on him, he kills them. Turns out that another classmate (McAllen) and an old woman (Hoffman) are incarnations of the archangels Gabrielle and Mikhail, whose metaphysical mission is to overthrow the Great Beast. The final battle takes place on a remote island with the dead rising from their graves to do the devil’s bidding. La Loggia’s debut feature, made in Rochester, New York, strives for significance, but like The Omen and many other devil-child movies, it winds up simply wallowing in blood, gore, and nudity. Many of these elements—plus the film’s overbearingly intrusive and jarring use of then current rock ‘n’ roll hits—weren’t Frank’s idea, however; they were imposed on him by Embassy, who felt the film’s loftier aims alone wouldn’t grab the teens. Blood Simple’s Joel Coen worked on the editing.

The Female Butcher

Distributor unknown, 1972; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Jorge Grau Producer: Jose Maria Gonzalez Sinde Writers: Juan Tebar, Sandro Continenza With: Ewa Aulin, Lucia Bose, Espartaco Santoni, Franca Grey

“Documented in the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records,” this is the story of a medieval noblewoman who reputedly slaughtered over 600 young girls and bathed in their blood to keep her complexion creamy smooth and wrinkle free. In other words, it’s the familiar story of history’s favorite vampire countess, Elizabeth Bathory (Countess Dracula, et al.), here played by Bose—though most of the actual murders are carried out by her undead husband (Santoni). The film plays fast and loose with the facts, but there are enough decapitations and throat slashings to take your mind off the inaccuracies. Made in Spain. It is aka Legend of Blood Castle.

Female Trouble

New Line Cinema, 1974; Color; 92 minutes

Director: John Waters Producer: John Waters Writer: John Waters With: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Dawn Davenport (Divine) pursues her life of crime as if it was a form of show business, determined to win a cherished Oscar for best performance by a mass murderer in an electric chair. A film in amusing bad taste from the unhinged director of Pink Flamingos (1972).

The Final Chapter

See Friday the 13th—The Final Chapter

The Final Conflict

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1981; Color; 108 minutes

Director: Graham Baker Producer: Harvey Bernhard Writer: Andrew Birkin With: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow

After murdering dozens of innocent people in his two previous film escapades, The Omen (1976) and Damien—Omen II (1978), the son of the devil (Neill) is at last given his comeuppance. One expects Armageddon at the very least, but, alas, Damien goes out with a whimper instead. Producer Bernhard had planned yet another opus in the series, Armageddon 2000, but it was shelved when it became clear from the box-office receipts for this film that audiences had had enough.

The Final Terror

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 82 minutes

Director: Andrew Davis Producer: Joe Roth Writers: Jon George, Neill Hicks, Ronald Schusett With: Rachel Ward, Darryl Hannah, John Friedrich, Adrian Zmed

Routine Friday the 13th/Deliverance vacationers-in-peril movie with minimal gore—due, perhaps, to the film’s less than minimal budget. The vacationers this time around are a group of young forest rangers and their sweethearts out to do some camping and canoeing. Instead, they run afoul of a lunatic backwoodsman and his even more lunatic mom (who gave birth to her benighted son after being raped). Led by Friedrich, a former Vietnam vet (naturally!), the vacationers struggle to make it out of the woods alive as mad mom launches her campaign of terror. To add to the tedium, most of them do survive. Obviously the folks who made this movie didn’t realize that in madslasher flicks it’s the body count that counts. It is aka Campsite Massacre.

Flavia Priestess of Violence

Worldwide Entertainment Corp., 1976; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Gianfranco Mingozzi Producer: Gianfranco Mingozzi Writers: Gianfranco Mingozzi, Raniero di Giovanbattista, Sergio Tau, Francesca Vieltri, Fabrizio Onofri, Bruno de Geronimo With: Florinda Bolkan, Anthony Corlan, Maria Casares

After being unjustly imprisoned in a nunnery, Flavia (Bolkan) revolts against the sexist and repressive political climate into which she’s been born (fifteenth-century Italy) and escapes to join an invading army intent on conquering her homeland. Victimized and brutalized both within the nunnery’s walls and without, she becomes a vengeful she-devil, beheading and castrating all her male enemies. Her zeal eventually proves too much even for her compatriots, who, at the film’s gruesome conclusion, proceed to skin her alive. With six screenwriters at work inventing “creative deaths,” Flavia really piles on the splatter. It is aka The Rebel Nun.

Flesh and Blood

Orion Pictures, 1985; Color; 126 minutes

Director: Paul Verhoeven Producer: Gys Versluys Writers: Paul Verhoeven, Gerard Soetman With: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson, Ronald Lacey

Medieval bloodbath about a marauding band of cutthroats led by Hauer who kidnap Princess Leigh (no, not Leia) on her way to be married to Prince Burlinson. As it’s a marriage of convenience, Burlinson is not in love with the girl, but after she’s kidnapped, her absence apparently makes his heart grow fonder and he goes after her with a band of his own warriors. The final showdown takes place at an old castle, where limbs and other body parts soon proliferate. The twist is that sultry, diminutive Leigh (who reveals most of the film’s flesh when she is raped by practically everybody) finally falls for Hauer, too. She’s a survivor, though, and plays both suitors against each other. Burlinson wins, but Hauer escapes with his life (he gets even with her, though, in The Hitcher). Well-acted and drenched in atmosphere (as well as blood), the film, strangely, isn’t very involving or exciting. Verhoeven was apparently warming himself up for Robocop.

The Flesh and Blood Show

Entertainment Ventures, 1973; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Pete Walker Producer: Pete Walker Writer: Alfred Shaughnessy With: Jenny Hanley, Ray Brooks, Luan Peters, Patrick Barr, Robin Askwith, Judy Matheson

A group of actors is called to audition for a Grand Guignol stage production, but it’s all a ruse perpetrated by a madman who plans to kill the troupe as an act of revenge against all actors. Shot partially in 3-D. Walker reigned for a time as Britain’s premier splatter director, but his best film is the nonsplatter House of the Long Shadows (1983), an amusing and affectionate tribute to the “old dark house” movies of the twenties and thirties and the Hammer gothics of the fifties and sixties.

The Flesh Eaters

Distributor unknown, 1964; B&W; 88 minutes

Director: Jack Curtis Producers: Jack Curtis, Terry Curtis, Arnold Drake Writer: Arnold Drake With: Martin Kosleck, Rita Morley, Byron Sanders, Ray Tudor

A diverse group of unfortunates is shipwrecked on an island inhabited by everybody’s favorite movie Goebbels, Martin Kosleck, a mad scientist who is experimenting with flesh-eating fish. Early post Blood Feast splatter independent is not as gory as the Lewis film, but it has its flesh-munching moments (courtesy of the fish).

Flesh Feast

Viking International Pictures, 1970; Color; 72 minutes

Director: B. (Brad) F. Grinter Producers: Veronica Lake, B. F. Grinter Writer: Thomas Casey With: Veronica Lake, Phil Philbin, Heather Hughes, Chris Martell

Former Hollywood glamour queen Lake’s last screen appearance. She plays a scientist (and ex-inmate of a mental asylum) who’s discovered a technique for restoring youth to aged flesh. The technique involves maggots, which she uses to tear away the old wrinkled flesh, thus paving the way for the new stuff. When, courtesy of some helpful neo-Nazis, she finally gets the chance to try her revolutionary technique out on a needy subject, she finds the patient to be none other than Adolf Hitler! Even she won’t go that far to get a write-up in the New England Journal of Medicine, and so, suffering a crisis of conscience, she lets the maggots make a hot lunch of Der Fuhrer instead. Martell had a featured role in H.G. Lewis’s The Gruesome Twosome.

Flesh for Frankenstein

See Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein

The Fly

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1986; Color; 96 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: Stuart Cornfield Writers: Charles Edward Pogue, David Cronenberg With: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz

Dynamite remake (rethinking is probably more apt) of the 1958 Vincent Price howler that owes as much to Franz Kafka as it does to George Langelaan’s original story. Goldblum’s experiment in teleportation goes awry when a fly gets trapped in his telepod with him, turning the device into a gene splicer. As he slowly and gruesomely succumbs to fly-dom, losing all sense of identity and humanity, the film reaches emotional highs not often attained, or even strived for, in most splatter movies. Goldblum is sensational as the luckless scientist and Davis is equally good as his bereft girlfriend. And in a wonderful turnabout, John Getz’s “villain” becomes a good guy. Chris Walas won an Oscar for his special effects. Cronenberg’s best film to date. (Look for the director’s cameo as a gynecologist in a grisly dream sequence.)

The Fog

Avco Embassy, 1980; Color; 91 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: Debra Hill Writers: John Carpenter, Debra Hill With: Hal Holbrook, Janet Leigh, Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Nancy Loomis

A ghost ship whose crew was murdered for the gold on board returns in the fog, the dead crew members seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who killed them. Transparent characters and telegraphed scares, not to mention an ending that seems tacked on for its shock value alone, sink this contemporary ghost story from the director of Halloween (1978). Some good effects, though. Director Carpenter appears in a cameo as a church janitor.

Folks at the Red Wolf Inn

Intercontinental, 1972; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Bud Townsend Producer: Michael Macready Writer: Allen J. Actor With: Linda Gillin, John Neilson, Arthur Space, Mary Jackson

A genuine “meat movie” played for laughs. Jackson and ’50s SF movie veteran Space are aging cannibals who run the Red Wolf Inn, where the bill of fare is—you guessed it—the guests. Winsom Gillin is next on the menu, but the plot gets complicated when the couple’s son (Neilson) falls for the girl—and the girl herself, unwilling to be hung up in the meat locker or have her body parts stored in the fridge, quits playing the defenseless heroine and strikes back. Producer Macready (who plays a cameo role) is the son of late, great movie villain George Macready (Paths of Glory, et al.). It is aka Terror House.

Forbidden World

See Mutant

Forced Entry

Productions 2, 1981; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Jim Sotos Producers: Jim Sotos, Henry Scarpelli Writer: Henry Scarpelli With: Tanya Roberts, Ron Max, Nancy Allen

The title tells you what kind of violence to expect from this clinker. It’s about a stuttering grease monkey who gets enraged, rapes and kills women who are repelled by his cloddishness. In the course of the film, he rapes and kills three women—being impotent, he uses a liquor bottle to help out—but the fourth (Roberts), a housewife with marital problems, finally carves him up. The movie has a somber atmosphere that is made even more somber by the psycho’s non-stuttering voiceover diatribes against city filth and whores (reminiscent of De Niro’s patter in Taxi Driver) and an unbelievably slow pace. To pad out the running time, the murders are shown in slow motion (one of them is shown twice) and there are endless shots of people driving around, drinking coffee, taking showers, etc. Nancy Allen is third-billed, but her part as a hitchhike victim lasts about two minutes. A real el cheapo—filmed on location in Staten Island and New Jersey.

Forever Evil

B & S Productions/FrameWork Films, 1987; Color; 107 minutes

Director: Roger Evans Producers: Jill Clark, Hal Payne Writer: Freeman Williams With: Charles Trotter, Howard Jacobsen, Red Mitchell, Tracey Huffman, Kent Johnson, Diane Johnson

Mark Denning (Mitchell) and Reggie Osborn (Huffman), the sole survivors of two separate mass murder incidents, join forces against the perpetrator, an ancient god named Yag Kothag, whom we never get to see. Yag is fronted by Nash (Jacobsen), an evil realtor, who sells the victims homes whose locations form a pentagram. The hero and heroine spend most of the picture fighting Nash’s minions, a zombie servant and a devil dog. The plot is further, and unnecessarily, complicated by a fortune-teller who’s killed off before the credits roll, the hero’s nightmares of a demon baby, and talk of the cycles of pulsing quasars. A helpful cop (Trotter) is only around to become Yag fodder. Mark eventually saves Reggie by dispatching Nash with a ceremonial dagger. The acting is poor, the pace is nonexistent, the gore effects and makeup are crude, and the optical effects are bargain basement.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Paramount Pictures, 1971; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Salvatore Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Mario Foglietti With: Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Bud Spencer, Francine Racette

Argento updates the old wives’ tale about the image of a murderer being captured on the retina of his/her victim—a theory, incidentally, that pathologists actually explored at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders, but to no avail. A phantom slasher is slaughtering Brandon’s male and female friends. Using laser technology, the victims’ eyes are photographed in the hope that they will reveal the image of the killer. The resulting image looks like a cross between an ink blot and “four flies on grey velvet,” thus the title. Typical Argento psychofilm, full of graphically presented nasty murders, colorful decor, and a not too surprising twist finish.

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell

Paramount Pictures, 1974; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Terence Fisher Producer: Roy Skeggs Writer: John Elder With: Peter Cushing, Shane Bryant, Madeline Smith, Dave Prowse, Bernard Lee, Charles LloydPack

This last entry in Hammer’s long-running (since 1957) Frankenstein series is by far the goriest. Dr. F. (Cushing) has been consigned to a mental asylum, which he quickly takes over so that he can stitch together his latest creature (Prowse), a Neanderthal with a propensity for sticking shards of glass in people’s faces. In the end, the inmates—not a few of whose body parts have gone into making the beast—literally tear the creature apart, tossing its innards all over the place. By no means the best of the series, but not the worst, either. Cushing, as usual, is excellent. Fisher, whose last film this was, died of cancer in 1980 at age seventy-six. European prints run ninety-nine minutes.

Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks

Cinerama Releasing, 1973; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Robert H. Oliver Producer: Robert Randall Writer: Mario Francini With: Rossano Brazzi, Michael Dunn, Edmund Purdom, Christine Royce, Gordon Michael

A potpourri of creatures runs riot over the countryside thanks to more handiwork from the mad Dr. F. and his latest life-creating device, the Electric Accumulator—a good name for a rock group. More nudity than splatter. It is aka House of Freaks.

Freddy’s Revenge‌

See A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2

Friday the 13th

Paramount Pictures, 1980; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Sean S. Cunningham Producer: Sean S. Cunningham Writer: Victor Miller With: Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer, Harry Crosby, Joseph Zito

A summer camp that was closed down after two counselors were brutally murdered prepares to reopen for business. One by one, the new counselors are stalked and slaughtered by a relentless killer. This is the controversial boxoffice smash that propelled the independent, lowbudget splatter movie into the big time, spawning a host of sequels and gruesome imitations—as well as a syndicated television series that had absolutely nothing to do with its progenitor except the title. Effects by Tom Savini. Director Cunningham, the producer of Last House on the Left (1972), has since left the directing chores on most of his films to others. You might call him the George Lucas of low-budget splatter.

Friday the 13th—Part II

Paramount Pictures, 1981; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Steve Miner Producers: Steve Miner, Dennis Murphy Writer: Ron Kurz With: Amy Steel, John Furey, Adrienne King

Jason returns to get even with the counselor (King) who killed his murderous mom. Then he goes back to camp to take up where mom left off. Steve Kirshoff handled the gore effects this time. In this and most subsequent Friday the 13th flicks, the MPAA insisted on cuts and Paramount agreed to avoid an X rating. Still fairly splattery, though.

Friday the 13th—Part III

Paramount Pictures, 1982; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Steve Miner Producer: Frank Mancuso, Jr. Writers: Martin Kitrosser, Carol Watson With: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Richard Brooker

This third entry in the saga of the indomitable Jason (Brooker) was shot in 3-D to separate it a bit from the pack. The 3-D effects are good—especially the scene where Jason pops out the eyeball of one of his victims and it seemingly lands in the audience’s lap. The film is not in 3-D on video or television prints, however. The plot is standard Jason fare. The story takes up where Part II left off, as yet another band of unwitting teens enters the badlands of Camp Crystal Lake. This time around, they encounter not just Jason but some murderous bikers. Not at all discriminatory, Jason proceeds to decimate both groups before going up in flames. Martin Becker handled the gore effects in this one and they’re just as good as ever.

Friday the 13th—The Final Chapter

Paramount Pictures, 1984; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Joseph Zito Producer: Frank Mancuso, Jr. Writer: Barney Cohen With: E. Erich Anderson, Kimberly Beck, Judie Aronson, Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover, Richard Brooker

Though killed in his previous outings, Jason (Brooker) rises from his slab in the morgue like some supernatural creature to go on yet another spree. In this episode, the screen’s most prolific and versatile mass murderer is vengefully chopped up into little pieces by a monster make-up enthusiast named Tommy (Feldman), who shaves his head to make himself look like Jason. Though subtitled The Final Chapter, the film ends with the implication that the emotionally disturbed Tommy, seasoned by his massacre of Jason, will assume Jason’s role in future films. And sure enough, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning followed a year later.

Friday the 13th—Part V: A New Beginning

Paramount Pictures, 1985; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Danny Steinmann Producer: Timothy Silver Writers: Martin Kitrosser, David Cohen, Danny Steinmann With: John Shepard, Melanie Kinnaman, Richard Young, Shavar Ross

Though only a year separated the release of The Final Chapter and A New Beginning, Tommy Jarvis, Jason’s prepubescent executioner in the previous film, has somehow managed to grow into a teenager (Shepard)! Released from a state hospital, where he has been undergoing therapy for traumas incurred in The Final Chapter, he is placed in a private hospital located out in the boondocks. He’s plagued by night and daymares about Jason’s return—and, after one of Tommy’s fellow patients is axed to death by another “inmate,” the old boy returns with a vengeance, knocking everybody off, one by one. With as much nudity and as gore-filled as the others in the series (Martin Becker once again handles the FX, which by this time are getting more than a bit repetitive), Part V strives to be a whodunit—or, rather, a whoisit—but director Steinmann gives the killer’s identity away early on (he practically puts a neon sign on him!). The ending, where the physically and emotionally battered Tommy finally dons Jason’s mask for the next sequel, comes as no surprise, either. Easily one of the worst installments in the series.

Friday the 13th—Part VI: Jason Lives

Paramount Pictures, 1986; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Tom McLoughlin Producer: Don Behrns Writer: Tom McLoughlin With: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagan, Renee Jones, C. J. Graham

Writer-director McLoughlin either didn’t see Part V or decided to forget about how it ended. In Part VI, Tommy Jarvis (this time played by Thom Mathews) returns not as Jason (which the ending of Part V implied), but as the hero, who digs Jason (C. J. Graham) up to make sure he’s dead and inadvertently brings him back to life, courtesy of a bolt of lightning. There’s a lot more humor mixed with the gore effects in this outing. The opening credits include an amusing parody of the James Bond logo, as Jason, seen through a gun barrel, walks across the screen and hurls a knife, blood dripping down the screen. The best line in the film belongs to the alcoholic gravedigger who comes upon Jason’s opened tomb and opines: “Why did they go ahead and dig up Jason? Some folks sure have a strange idea of entertainment!”

Friday the 13th—Part VII: The New Blood

Paramount Pictures, 1988; Color; 92 minutes

Director: John Buechler Producer: lain Paterson Writer: Gary Drucker With: Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Kane Hodder

This latest installment in the long-running series contains no surprises. In fact, even the gore is less explicit, due to more stringent controls from the ratings board. The film-makers have the killings down to a science. The camera cuts away at exactly the right moment so that we think we’ve seen more than what is really shown (in fact, so tightly timed are these shots that if you happen to blink at just the right moment, you may end up thinking you’ve seen much less than is actually the case). In any event, in this outing, it’s “Jason’s back and Carrie’s got ’im,” as writer Gary Drucker, attempting to inject some freshness into the tired conventions, pits our everchanging “hero” against a young woman with telekinetic powers. You might call it a classic conflict of mind over splatter. Who wins? Paramount Pictures. They reap the profits.

Frightmare

A Pete Walker Production (Miracle), 1974; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Peter Walker Producers: Peter Walker, Tony Tenser Writer: David McGillivray With: Rupert Davies, Sheila Keith, Deborah Fairfax, Paul Greenwood, Kim Butcher, Fiona Curzon, Noel Johnson, Leo Genn

This film is about an English family with a mother who’s a cannibal. She’s just been released from the asylum, supposedly cured, but everyone’s wondering whether she’s up to her old culinary tricks again. Is her loyal, loving husband shielding her from the authorities as he did the last time? Is one of the two daughters following in mom’s footsteps? The potentially provocative climax, which pits the normal sister against the rest of her abnormal family, isn’t played out to its full potential. It’s like a half-hour TV show where the audience is left to imagine its own ending. The gore, whether caused by electric drill, hot poker, or other means, is minimal and indirectly observed. The highlight is the good sister’s psychiatrist boyfriend being killed with a pitchfork. A good idea for a film that is never brought to a satisfying conclusion. It is aka Once Upon a Frightmare.

Frightmare

Screenwriters Production Company, Inc., 1982; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Norman Thaddeus Vane Producers: Patrick Wright, Tallie Wright Writer: Norman Thaddeus Vane With: Ferdinand Mayne, Luca Bercovici, Nita Talbot, Leon Askin, Jennifer Storrett, Barbara Pilavin, Jeffrey Combs

Not to be confused with Pete Walker’s film of the same name, this film about the death of a malevolent aging horror star and the revenge he wreaks on the college horror-film society members who steal his body as a prank starts out strong but degenerates into a rotting corpse of a movie, lacking sufficient connective tissue. After murdering his present and past directors, Conrad Ragsov (Mayne) is interred in a mausoleum with video replay and a neon star over the door. Seven students (four boys and three girls) lift his body for a macabre dinner party. His wife and mistress, a medium, brings him back to life. He kills off the collegians one by one by strangulation and tongue ripping, fire from his glaring eyes, toxic fumes, face smashing with his levitated coffin, decapitation by sword (the best and bloodiest death, suffered by Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator and From Beyond fame), and cremation while still alive. The mistress gets hers in the end after trying to steal the “dead” star’s jewelry. A lack of vital characterization turns the victims into “just bodies” even before they’re dead.

Fright Night

Columbia Pictures, 1985; Color; 105 minutes

Director: Tom Holland Producer: Herb Jaffe Writer: Tom Holland With: Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys

Veteran splatter scriptwriter Holland (The Beast Within, Psycho II) made his directorial debut with this inexplicably well received nod to the vampire films of yore (particularly those made by Hammer), coupled with trendy gore effects. Sarandon is a vampire who moves next door to teenager Ragsdale. To put an end to this neighborhood scourge, Ragsdale enlists the help of late-night-TV horror movie host McDowall, who used to play a vampire hunter in Hollywood B movies. Thinking the kid nuts at first, McDowall is gradually convinced—especially when one of Ragsdale’s pals (Geoffreys) becomes a victim of the vampire. Sarandon makes a good vampire, though his dialogue tends to get a bit garbled when he’s wearing his fangs.

Frissons

See They Came from Within

From Beyond

Empire Pictures, 1986; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Stuart Gordon Producer: Brian Yuzna Writers: Dennis Paoli, Brian Yuzna, Stuart Gordon With: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Ted Sorel

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” claimed the ads for this follow-up film by the fine folks who brought us Re-Animator, and the altered hero (Jeffrey Combs) of From Beyond obviously took the message to heart. He doesn’t waste them; he sucks them out through the victim’s eye! Just as inventive as the first film, this surprisingly faithful adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s short story about a device that allows one to see—and, unfortunately, be seen by—unpleasant forces and creatures that inhabit another dimension is a little more straightfaced and ambitious (the latter possibly due to budgetary advantages of shooting in Italy). The cast is again letter-perfect (especially Jeffrey Combs, looking increasingly like a pint-sized, more manic Tony Perkins), and Gordon’s direction is smooth and assured, deftly blending the old Universal-style horror fantasy with the newer splatter techniques in a way no other current genre specialist even attempts. Shorn of a few bits of gore, this one managed to squeak by on an R rating, assuring slightly better distribution, but Gordon’s work, despite its high quotient of blood and guts, has yet to receive the attention it deserves from any but a handful of admirers. A colorful, flamboyant gem.

The Funhouse

Universal, 1981; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Derek Powers, Steven Bernhardt Writer: Larry Block With: Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Largo Woodruff, Miles Chapin, Kevin Conway, Sylvia Miles, William Finley

Four teenagers decide to spend the night in a carnival funhouse and encounter all manner of horrors, including a deformed monster that wears a Frankenstein mask to hide an even uglier visage beneath. Atmospheric and genuinely scary. Effects by Rick Baker and Craig Reardon.

The Fury

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1978; Color; 117 minutes

Director: Brian De Palma Producer: Frank Yablans Writer: John Farris With: Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Carrie Snodgress, Andrew Stevens, Amy Irving, Fiona Lewis

Two young psychics are pursued by government agents and international terrorists who want to put their powers to use as the ultimate weapon. Lots of bleeding nostrils, pulsating veins, exploding heads, and a spectacular death by Lewis, who becomes a whirling dervish of blood. Farris adapted from his own novel.

Future-Kill

An International Film Marketing Release, 1986; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Ronald W. Moore Producers: Gregg Unterberger, John H. Best Writer: Ronald W. Moore With: Edwin Neal, Marilyn Burns

Ronald W. Moore makes the most of a limited budget, starting with a clever but ambitious premise. A group of peaceful anti-nuclear demonstrators have made their home in a decaying section of an inner city. Ed Neal, in a surprising departure from his Texas Chainsaw character, plays Splatter, a member of the group who was disfigured by a nuclear accident. He is too violent for the others. Splatter kills the group leader and blames a gang of frat boys who have come into the area looking for kicks. Low on gore (though Splatter has a neat mechanical hand with springblade “claws” for a weapon) but high on imagination, Moore creates a number of interesting scenes. The dialogue is concise and dramatic. Colored lighting, carefully placed shadows, and a few strategically placed foreground props make the locations appear to be more decrepit and foreboding than was actually the case (a maximum effect for a minimum investment). Unfortunately, the limited budget begins to show during an extended climactic chase/fight scene that the filmmakers simply don’t have the resources to fully realize. Well worth the time, though.

Gates of Hell

An MPM Release, 1983; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Giovanni Masini Writers: Lucio Fulci, Danny Sacchetti With: Christopher George, Robert Sampson, Kathleen MacColl

Unofficial cannibal/zombie sequel to Fulci’s box-office hit Zombie, it is set in the mythical Lovecraftian town of Dunwich, Massachusetts, where the suicide of a village priest opens the gates of hell, releasing the hungry dead. Fulci offers virtually no plot this time around, concentrating on the kind of over-the-top gore effects that made his previous film such a success. There’s no needle-through-the-eye scene this time around, but there is a sequence (inspired, perhaps, by Romero’s screwdriver scene in Dawn of the Dead) where a victim is skewered ear-to-ear with a power drill. In the end, the zombies are incinerated and the gates of hell are closed. A movie with guts. And lots of ’em. It is aka Twilight of the Dead.

Ghost Story

Universal, 1981; Color; 108 minutes

Director: John Irvin Producer: Bud Weissbourd Writer: Lawrence D. Cohen With: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., John Houseman, Alice Krige, Craig Wasson

Four old-timers who committed an act of manslaughter in their youth are haunted in their waking and non-waking moments by the vengeful ghost of the victim whose body they tried to conceal. Jack Cardiff’s stunning atmospheric photography of northern New York State and Vermont’s wintery landscapes, Alice Krige’s otherworldly performance as the spiteful spirit, and Dick Smith’s makeup effects are the only elements that work in this otherwise plodding, disjointed, and not very frightening—or stomach-turning—adaptation of Peter Straub’s popular, though overrated, best seller.

Ghoulies

Empire Pictures, 1984; Color; 81 minutes

Director: Luca Bercovici Producer: Jeffrey Levy Writer: Luca Bercovici With: Lisa Pelikan, Peter Liapis, Jack Nance, Michael des Barres

Empire Pictures, run by splatter maven Charles Band and his father, Albert, is fast becoming the AIP of the eighties, turning out one low-budget, fast-profit exploitation pic after another. Some of them are good (Re-Animator), some not so good. This one—about a young man who performs a Satanic ritual that unleashes the title creatures on unsuspecting earthlings—is not so good. Similar to Joe Dante’s Gremlins, released the same year (giving you a good idea of how fast Band and Company can grab on to a successful formula and rush it through production to release), most of the ghoulies—puppet-like critters from another dimension—are supposed to be cuddly and cute. Here, the humans dish out most of the splatter, prompting the ghoulies to hide their eyes. The effects, however, look cheap—which they no doubt were. Empire’s studios are located in Italy, where this film was made.

God Told Me To

New World Pictures, 1975; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Larry Cohen Writer: Larry Cohen With: Tony Lo Bianco, Sandy Dennis, Deborah Raffin, Richard Lynch, Sam Levene, Sylvia Sidney

Thoughtful but confused hybrid of The Omen and Chariots of the Gods, it was made by the prolific triple threat Larry Cohen, whose ambitions always manage to exceed his grasp. Lo Bianco plays a deeply religious New York City cop with a firm faith in God, though he doesn’t know why. Several people go on a mass murder binge. When they’re brought down, each confesses that the reason he was driven to kill was that “God told me to.” Lo Bianco’s investigation leads to an androgynous creature (the product of an alien’s mating with a female earthling) who professes to be the second coming, who is set on inspiring devotion through fear this time around. In the not-so-surprising surprise finish, Lo Bianco discovers the reason for his abiding faith (he is the bloodthirsty creature’s far more Godlike brother) and slays the beast in mankind’s behalf. Fairly soft-core in the gore department, but gruesome enough. The film is dedicated to composer Bernard Herrmann.

Goodnight God Bless

ABC Pictures, 1987; Color; 98 minutes

Director: John Eyres Producers: Geoff Griffiths, Zafar Malik Writer: Ed Ancoats With: Emma Sutton, Frank Rozelaar Green, Jared Morgan, Jane Price

There are so many shots of feet in this movie—running, stalking, tip-toeing up stairs—you’d swear it was made by a bunch of foot fetishists. The plot concerns a psycho priest who opens fire in a British schoolyard, killing several children. Identified by a little girl whose life is saved when he runs out of ammo, the killer puts aside his gun for a knife and goes after the girl and her mother. As the police chief stares out of his office window hoping a clue will float by, the cops assigned to protect the girl and her mother are easily dispatched via throat slashing and impalement. But the mother’s boyfriend, an American cop assigned to the case, arrives in time to blow the butcher away. Amateurish, slow-moving slasher flick full of scenes that go on forever! One of them, a ponderous interrogation sequence shot at a distance in total silence, is a sure cure for insomnia. Made by people with no discernible talent whatsoever.

The Gore Gore Girls

A Lewis Motion Picture Enterprises Release, 1972; Color; 90 minutes

Dirctor: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Alan J. Dachman With: Frank Kress, Amy Farrell, Henny Youngman

Splattery whodunit about a psycho slayer/mutilator of go-go dancers who work for nightclub owner Youngman. Plenty of suspects here—including a Vietnam vet who draws faces on melons, then pulverizes them with his fist. Other nice scenes include the scalding of a victim whose face is pushed into a bowl of boiling oil. As (intentionally) funny as it is disgusting, this to date remains Lewis’s swan song as a splatter director—unless those rumors of a Blood Feast II come to pass.

Gore-Met, Zombie Chef from Hell

Swanfilms, 1986; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Don Swan Producer: Don Swan Writers: Don Swan, Jeff Baughn, William Highsmith With: Theo Depuay, Kelley Kunicki, C. W. Casey, Alan Marx, Michael O’Neill, Joy Merchant, Jeff Pillars, Jeff Baughn, Chuc Clubb, Billy Scott

This film has absolutely nothing going for it. The direction is nonexistent. The script is replete with a clichéd and virtually formless plot, lifeless characters (no pun intended), vacuous, uncompelling dialogue and sophomoric humor. The cast is composed exclusively of non-actors. The cinematography is mostly single-point-of-view porn loop style filled with ragged pans and jerky unmotivated zooms. The lighting is harsh, flat, and ugly. The sound track is full of dropouts and camera noise. The gore effects are pitiful. They’re poorly executed and are mostly “aftermath” stuff. We hardly ever get to see anything really happening. To call this mess amateurish would be giving it too much dignity.

The Graduation‌

See The Prowler

Graduation Day

Bedford Films, 1981; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Herb Reed Producer: Herb Reed Writers: Anne Marisse, Herb Reed With: Christopher George, Patch MacKenzie, E. Danny Murphy, Michael Pataki, E. J. Peaker

Death on campus as track stars are stalked and killed by a standard mad slasher whose face is concealed until the not-too-surprising finish. Halloween and Friday the 13th clone. Take note all of you who keep insisting that splatter movies boast an anti-feminist message: A woman (by the name of Jill Rockow) created the mutilation makeups for this one. And a good job she does, too.

Graveyard Shift

Cinema Ventures, Inc., 1986; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Gerard Ciccoritti Producer: Michael Bockner Writer: Gerard Ciccoritti With: Silvio Oliviero, Helen Papas, Cliff Stoker, Dorin Ferber, Dan Rose, John Haslett Cuff, Don James

This present-day erotically oriented vampire tale has a lot more stylish sensuality than good plot sense. As the film unreels, it becomes increasingly difficult to follow the story line and keep the characters straight, and the ending is a total anticlimax. The vampire hero is a driver for the Black Cat Cab Company on the (you guessed it) graveyard shift. He has a harem of female vampire victims, including a stripper and a cop. The heroine is a video director with a fatal disease who somehow gives our hero the courage to want to end his undead existence. The movie’s only interesting idea, a spiritual bond of sensations between the vampires a la the Corsican brothers, never really pays off. The traditional stake-through-the-heart finish, which takes place on a graveyard set meant for one of the heroine’s videos, looks cheap and contrived. There is a fair amount of blood, but none of the special effects are very special. The ending is the ultimate cliché: The heroine replaces the hero as a vampire cabbie.

Gremlins

Warner Brothers, 1984; Color; 106 minutes

Director: Joe Dante Producer: Michael Finnell Writer: Chris Columbus With: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday, Dick Miller, Keye Luke, Jackie Joseph

Screwball inventor Axton picks up a furry pet for his son (Galligan) in Chinatown and gives it to him for Christmas. The pet, called a Mogwai, comes with special instructions. It can’t get wet, shouldn’t be fed after midnight, etc. Naturally these instructions aren’t followed and the Mogwai sprouts furballs, which grow into murderous gremlins with a delightfully vicious sense of humor. The myriad gremlins go on the rampage, terrorizing and killing folks and turning the picture-postcard town upside down. Overlong, overdone, and sometimes overcute, but any film that trashes Frank Capra’s treacly It’s a Wonderful Life as solidly as this one does can’t be all bad. The gremlins are fun—especially Spike, the chainsaw wielding leader. Dante fills the film with movie-buff in-jokes, serving up people such as writer Richard Matheson and animator Chuck Jones in cameos.

The Grim Reaper

Film Ventures, 1981; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Joe d’Amato Producer: Oscar Santaniello Writers: Joe d’Amato, Lewis (Luigi) Montefiori With: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Vanessa Steiger, George Eastman

Shipwrecked with his family on a picturesque but remote Greek island, Eastman (alias co-writer Montefiori) must devour the corpses of his wife and kid to survive. The strain of it all drives him round the bend. As the years go by and the island develops a modest tourist trade, the now completely deranged and hideous cannibal, having long since lost any shred of hospitality or social grace, kills and consumes anyone who ventures upon the island. Farrow and Vallone are the latest unlucky’ pair, but after a grueling duel with axes and other weapons, Eastman’s territorial imperative is overcome and he’s hacked to pieces.

The Gruesome Twosome

A Mayflower Pictures Inc. Release, 1967; Color; 72 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Allison Louise Downe With: Elizabeth Davis, Chris Martel, Gretchen Welles, Rodney Bedell

Wigged-out son (Martel) of equally wiggedout wig-shop owner Davis scalps young women with a battery-operated electric knife and other handy tools in order to collect their hair for mom’s business. Ultra-realistic gore effects mixed with absurdism make for a passably funny ghoulish “comedy” in the Lewis tradition. Lewis added a ridiculous (and interminable) prologue with two talking balloon heads because his original cut was too short to release as a feature film.

Halloween

Compass International Pictures, 1978 Color; 90 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: Irwin Yablans Writer: John Carpenter With: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Nancy Loomis, P. J. Soles

A psychotic masked killer—and stand-in for the boogey man—busts out of the asylum where he was sent after murdering his sister some years back and returns to the scene of the crime, his old hometown. His target this time: a trio of delectable baby-sitters. Carpenter’s nod to Psycho (the Pleasence character is named Sam Loomis after the part played by John Gavin in the Hitchcock classic) became one of the most successful independent films ever made and is considered by many to be a classic scare show. Minimal graphic gore, but lots of violence.

Halloween II

Universal Pictures, 1981; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Rick Rosenthal Producers: John Carpenter, Debra Hill Writers: John Carpenter, Debra Hill With: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer

Takes up immediately where the original left off. The Shape goes to the hospital to finish off recuperating Curtis, the lone survivor of his initial onslaught. Feeling he’d already made this film once (which indeed he had), Carpenter handed over the directorial reins to film-school grad Rick Rosenthal after seeing a slick student film of Rosenthal’s called The Toyer, a thriller in the mold of the original Halloween. Rosenthal’s final cut didn’t have enough gore, though, so Carpenter went back and inserted some graphic murders to please the fans.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Universal, 1983; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace Producers: Debra Hill, John Carpenter Writer: Tommy Lee Wallace With: Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O’Herlihy

In this third episode of John Carpenter’s Halloween series, Michael Myers is replaced by villainous mask maker Dan O’Herlihy, whose specially designed Halloween masks have the power to take over the minds of those who wear them and turn them into killers. It’s all part of a diabolical plot to take over the world. Nigel Kneale wrote the original screenplay, but it was altered so much that he requested that his name be removed from the credits. Tepid rehash of elements from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers

Galaxy Releasing, 1988; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Dwight H. Little Producer: Paul Freeman Writer: Alan B. McElroy With: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, Michael Pataki, Sasha Jenson, George Wilbur

After a hiatus of seven years during which Jason Vorhees stole most of his thunder, the indomitable Michael Myers returns to Haddonfield on Halloween night to put the knife to his niece Jamie (Harris). Pleasence also returns as Sam Loomis, the obsessed doctor who refers to the masked killing machine as “it” rather than “he.” Halloween 4 dispenses with the tongue-in-cheek elements of the Elm Street and Friday the 13th series to concentrate on serious scares, but the endproduct is just another retread of stalk and slash clichés as Jason—I mean Michael—goes about his bloody business, puncturing people’s heads with his thumb and impaling them with shotguns. The “surprise” conclusion (which echoes the ending of Friday the 13th—The Final Chapter) neatly paves the way for a Halloween 5. But this formula is so shopworn by now that it’s hard to get excited at the prospect.

Hands of the Ripper

Universal, 1971; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Pater Sasdy Producer: Aida Young Writer: L. W. Davidson With: Eric Porter, Angharad Rees, Keith Bell, Jane Merrow, Dora Bryan

Freudian disciple Porter discovers the waifish daughter of Jack the Ripper (Rees) living with an oppressive medium/madam who is subsequently skewered with a fireplace poker. Porter knows Rees is the killer but takes her into his home anyway, determined to understand and cure her. Instead (shades of Hitchcock’s Mamie), he falls in love with her and gets a sword stuck through him for his efforts. Extremely gory, though thematically intriguing, Hammer thriller with a great performance by Porter, who is clearly as much of a psychosexual head case as his murderous patient. Beware of TV prints, which are not only severely cut (the gore, obviously) but have extraneous scenes added (shot in Hollywood) to pad out the running time.

Happy Birthday to Me

Columbia Pictures, 1981; Color; 108 minutes

Director: J. Lee Thompson Producers: John Dunning, Andre Link Writers: John Saxton, Peter Jobin, Timothy Bond With: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Tracy Bregman, Jack Blum, Laurence Dane

Returning to college after recuperating from a car crash that killed her mother and put her in the hospital, Anderson finds herself experiencing blackouts—following which, some of her friends start turning up slain. One is actually shish-kebabed to death. Is she the guilty party? It takes a party to find out—her birthday party, that is—during which the mad shish-kebaber is finally revealed in an ending so poorly established that it virtually makes no sense at all. Hollywood vet Ford must have been hard up for cash to have allowed himself to appear in a piece of junk like this.

Hatchet for a Honeymoon

Distributor unknown, 1969; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Mario Bava Producer: Manuel Cano Sanciriaco Writers: Mario Bava, Santiago Moncada, Mario Musy With: Stephen Forsythe, Dagmar Lassander, Laura Betti, Jesus Puente

This typically stylish Mario Bava psychofilm, though made in 1969, was not released in the United States until the early seventies when, to capitalize on the success of Mark of the Devil, its distributor gave it a “V for Violence” rating and promoted the hell out of it. Bava’s film is perhaps not as disgusting as Mark, but there are enough axe murders in it to satisfy splatter fans one and all. Forsythe plays the psychopath, an impotent designer who can’t consummate his own marriage and so decides to take his frustrations out on various brides-to-be who come into his store to buy their wedding gowns. It is aka The Red Sign of Madness.

The Hatchet Murders

See Deep Red

Hell Night

Compass International Pictures, 1981; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Tom DeSimone Producers: Irwin Yablans, Bruce Cohn Curtis Writer: Randolph Feldman With: Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Kevin Brody, Jenny Neuman

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the frat house … it turns out to be the very spot where a fellow frat brother witnessed his father slay his family many years before. Needless to say, the concept of hell night (hazing) triggers the prankster in him and he starts killing off his brothers as well as some sisters from an associate sorority. Not a bad dead-teenager movie, but nothing special, either—with the most spectacular splatter saved for the villain’s demise on a spiked fence.

Hello Mary Lou—Prom Night II

Virgin Vision, 1988; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Bruce Pittman Producer: Peter Simpson Writer: Ron Oliver With: Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Justin Louis, Richard Manette

This one doesn’t just provide a catalogue of nods to other splatter movies—it’s a virtual encyclopedia of knowing winks to the entire splatter/horror genre. Characters have names such as Hennenlotter and Dr. Poelzig; scenes and dialogue are lifted from the Elm Street series, Carrie, The Exorcist, Martin, etc; camera moves and color scheme are straight out of The Shining; and the possessed characters are described as suffering from “Linda Blairitis.” The plot is the standard splatter revenge theme. About to be crowned prom queen, vixenish Mary Lou is accidentally torched by her jilted boyfriend. Thirty years later, another aspiring prom queen unleashes her vengeful spirit. The film takes an interminable amount of time (and exposition) to get to the prom-night massacre, but there are a few flamboyant set pieces involving a malevolent blackboard and the crushing of a victim inside a row of lockers, which fold up like an accordion. The post-game shock epilogue has the newly possessed Ironside drive off in a car with the license plate “Mary Lou 2,” suggesting a sequel. Co-producer Ray Sager starred as H. G. Lewis’s The Wizard of Gore and worked on a number of other Lewis films.

Hellraiser

New World Pictures, 1987; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Clive Barker Producer: Christopher Figg Writer: Clive Barker With: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Sean Chapman

“I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker,” Stephen King has written. I don’t know, Steve. Judging from this, the “future” looks like the same old present to us: sex and slime and blood and gore. Robinson and Higgins move into the ex-home of Robinson’s sleazy, hedonistic brother, Frank, unaware that his putrefying remains are under the floorboards in the attic. Seems that in his pursuit of pleasure (and pain), Frank made contact with a wrongo group of unearthlies—including a bizarre acupuncture creature—that put him to death. Robinson cuts his hand and the blood oozes through the floorboards, putting some flesh back on Frank’s bones. While her unsuspecting husband goes back and forth to work, Higgins lures men to their home so that Frank (now a Freddy Kreuger lookalike) can add to his body weight by draining them of their blood. All ends badly, of course—especially for Frank, whom the vengeful unearthlies tear apart with chains and hooks. The creepiest thing about the film is Robinson (the flamboyant psycho in Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry), who comes across as slightly screwy even when he’s playing a good guy.

The Hidden

New Line Cinema, 1987; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Jack Sholder Producers: Robert Shaye, Gerald J. Olson, and Michael Meltzer Writer: Bob Hunt With: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri, Claudia Christian, Clarence Felder

Outer-space detective MacLachlan assumes the role of an FBI agent to track down a marauding psychopath from their home planet (Altair). The trouble is, the villainous alien, who has a penchant for guns, Ferraris, and heavy-metal music, keeps changing shapes (a la The Thing), invading one unwitting host after another. The slug-like creature accomplishes this by oozing out of the mouth of one host into that of another. Nouri is the at-first-uncomprehending L.A. police inspector who becomes MacLachlan’s partner in the chase. The two of them eventually develop a strong camraderie and exchange a lot of snappy lines. The splatter is relegated mostly to graphic “bullet hits,” but fans won’t be disappointed, as there’s enough firepower in this movie to rival Robocop. Fast paced and exciting, though not much plot—what plot there is, however, bears more than a passing resemblance to Hal Clement’s classic SF novel Needle, which was also about an alien detective and his prey who assume human shapes on earth to carry out a deadly game of cat and mouse.

The Hills Have Eyes

Vanguard Releasing, 1977; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producer: Peter Locke Writer: Wes Craven With: James Whitworth, John Steadman, Janus Blythe, Dee Wallace, Susan Lanier, Michael Berryman, Martin Speer

Suburban middle-class vacationers taking a shortcut through the desert meet up with a murderous clan of deranged desert rats and must fight for survival when their car breaks down. Ghoulishly funny (and suitably gross) reworking of the Sawney Bean cannibal-killer case, one of the most celebrated in the annals of Scottish crime. This not-to-be-missed splatter movie was followed in 1985 by a sequel, The Hills Have Eyes—Part II, which is so awful it’s hard to believe it was made by the same director.

The Hills Have Eyes—Part II

Hills Two Corporation, 1985; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producers: Barry Cahn, Peter Locke Writer: Wes Craven With: Michael Berryman, John Laughlin, Tamara Stafford, John Bloom, Janus Blythe

Desert rat Ruby (Blythe), who turned on her cannibal family in The Hills Have Eyes—even killing one of her brothers with a rattlesnake—returns in this wretched sequel as a pert teenager apparently suffering from amnesia. She and her newfound friends go back to the desert to party and race dirt bikes and run smack into more hill folks, including Berryman, another survivor from the earlier film. Writer-director Craven must have thought we all suffer from amnesia, too, because he fills the sequel with clips from the first film to help us remember what happened in it. Either that or, because he really didn’t have anything new up his sleeve, he was just trying to pad out the running time. The movie is so bad that it was shelved for two years, never released theatrically, then sold to video and pay TV to help recoup some of its cost.

The Hitcher

Embassy Pictures, 1986; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Robert Harmon Producers: Kim Ohman, David Bombyk Writer: Eric Red With: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jeffrey DeMunn

Serial-killer Hauer is picked up by Howell and thereafter won’t leave the kid alone; he even tries to pin the killings on Howell so that the kid can’t go to the police. Leigh plays a waitress who tries to help Howell, but the demented Hauer ties her to a couple of trucks and splits her in half. Howell digs into a plate of french fries and finds them “finger lickin’ good.” Homophobic psychofilm in which Hauer is (a) trying to seduce Howell into becoming just like him, or (b) just trying to seduce him. Your guess is as good as ours. It’s hard to believe but the graphic violence in Red’s original screenplay was actually toned down for the film! Ghastly, but undeniably suspenseful—even if totally preposterous.

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers

Camp Motion Pictures, 1988; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Fred Olen Ray Writers: Dr. S. Carver, B. J. Nestles, Fred Olen Ray, T. L. Lankford With: Gunnar Hansen, Linnea Quigley, Jay Richardson, Michelle McLellan

Whether intended to be or not, Fred Olen Ray’s pictures are camp. This time, so that we’ll know, an onscreen title card announces it as a Camp Motion Picture. Richardson plays a wisecracking but dim-witted gumshoe in search of a runaway (Quigley) who has joined up with a religious cult of chainsaw-worshiping hookers led by stout, bearded Gunnar Hansen (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame). The hookers seduce and slice up their “johns” as part of a ritual sacrifice to the Great Chainsaw God (the police label one of them “The Cuisinart Queen.”) Quigley has infiltrated the group to revenge the death of a friend (“I didn’t tell my mother,” she tells the P.I., “because I was afraid of being grounded.”) At the final midnight sacrifice, the chain-saw groupies drink sacremental motor oil. The cops arrive to save the day, but some of the baddies get away to leave room for a sequel (the possibly upcoming Student Chainsaw Nurses, or “Bad to the Bone.”) Hansen’s deft handling of his dialogue shows why, as Leatherface, he wasn’t given any in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The Hollywood Strangler

See Don’t Answer the Phone

Horror Hotel Massacre

See Eaten Alive

Horror on Snape Island

See Tower of Evil

Horror Planet

See Inseminoid

Horror Rises from the Tomb

Avco Embassy, 1973; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Carlos Alonso Aured Producer: Profils Writer: Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy) With: Paul Naschy, Emma Cohen, Vic Winner, Helga Line, Christine Suriana, Luis Ciges

Spirit of a villainous knight, who was beheaded for his crimes, returns to plague his descendant, possessing him and forcing him to reenact his gruesome deeds. Made-in-Spain splatter epic by horror/ splatter cult actor Paul Naschy—who also penned the script under his real name: Jacinto Molina. Most American prints are invariably (and terribly) dubbed as well as cut.

Hospital Massacre

See X-Ray

House of Freaks

See Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks

House of Psychotic Women

Independent International Pictures, 1973; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Carlos Aured Producer: Jose Giner Writer: Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy) With: Paul Naschy, Diana Lorys, Maria Perschy, Eva Leon

A cat-and-mouse game—or battle of the sexes—vaguely reminiscent of Don Siegel’s The Beguiled, but a lot gorier. Naschy plays an ex-convict who gets a job as stud and all-round handyman for three women living in an old house. All three appear to be quite deranged, though each in a different way, their maladies ranging from nymphomania (which provides a good excuse for some graphic sex scenes) to murder (which provides a good excuse for some graphic slice-and-dice and eyegouging scenes). Naschy thinks he’s got it made, but the murderess among his entourage has other plans, and soon the body parts start to proliferate. Cheap, incoherent, but very splattery psychodrama.

House of Whipcord

American-International, 1974; Color; 102 minutes

Director: Peter Walker Producer: Peter Walker Writer: David McGillivray With: Barbara Markham, Patrick Barr, Ray Brooks, Ann Michelle, Sheila Keith, Dorothy Gordon, Robert Tavman

“This film is dedicated to those who are disturbed by today’s lax moral codes and who eagerly await the return of corporal and capital punishment… “ reads the ironic title at the start of this movie about justice and punishment gone mad. A blind, senile, and almost deaf former judge and his mistress, a former warden discharged for malfeasance, run their own clandestine free-lance prison where they punish “indecent” young women. Their bastard son, using the name “Mark E. Desade,” supplies them with girls who have escaped official justice. A sadistic guard dispenses discipline by solitary confinement, flogging, and hanging. A French model, who posed nude in public, is the lead victim. Although the gore is all “aftermath” stuff, a scene of Keith admiring her handiwork on the back of a flogging victim is still chilling. The violence, carefully kept just out of camera range, allows the viewer’s imagination to run riot. Unlike some of his other films (The Confessional and Once Upon a Frightmare), which leave the audience hanging, Walker manages to give this one a definite ending.

The House on Sorority Row

Artists Releasing Corporation, 1983; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Mark Rosman Producers: Mark Rosman, John G. Clark Writer: Mark Rosman With: Kathryn McNeil, Eileen Davidson

A veritable compendium of splatter movie clichés. A sorority house provides an excellent stomping ground for a mad slasher: all those young, mostly female victims in various stages of dress and undress engaging in various sexual acrobatics. But how many ways can the same plot elements be shifted about before obvious repetitions begin to occur? Early on in the film, one develops a strong sense of deja vu. From its opening flashback (depicting the birth of a child who grows up into a psychotic killer) through the masked slasher opening his eyes after he is presumed dead, the film is obvious and predictable. Not only does writer-director Mark Rosman fail to provide any originality or variety, he also neglects to tie up a number of loose ends—exactly what was the experiment performed on the housemother resulting in the slasher son, for example?—leaving the viewer with more questions than answers.

The Howling

Avco Embassy, 1981; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Joe Dante Producers: Michael Finnell and Jack Conrad Writers: John Sayles, Terence H. Winkless With: Dee Wallace, Patrick MacNee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Dick Miller, John Carradine

Sexy werewolf tale that mixes comedy and splatter much more successfully than An American Werewolf in London (1981) but to just as little purpose. Rob Bottin’s werewolf transformation effects are the film’s highpoint; they’re as good as those in Werewolf, which won Rick Baker an Oscar. One of Dante’s in-jokes is giving his characters the names of well-known horror filmmakers—George Waggner, R. William Neill, Terry Fisher, Fred Francis, Erle Kenton, and so on. Based (very loosely) on Gary Brander’s novel of the same title. Followed by a sequel, The Howling II, which had nothing to do with either this film or the novel.

The Howling II

Hemdale, 1984; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Philippe Mora Producer: Steven Lane Writers: Robert Sarno, Gary Brander With: Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Sybil Danning

Subtitled “Your Sister Is a Werewolf.” At the funeral of the character played by Dee Wallace in the first film, her brother (Brown, a Ryan O’Neal look-a-like) and another reporter (McEnroe) meet occult investigator Lee, who persuades them that the world is going to the wolves—werewolves. The good news is that the head werewolf’s (Danning) lunar birthday is approaching. When it does, all the werewolves in the world will reveal themselves—an ideal time to kill them off. Off to Transylvania the intrepid trio goes, armed with silver bullets, stakes, and garlic (yes, the film does get its werewolf and vampire mythology mixed up a bit). The transformation scenes are mediocre, but there’s plenty of effective blood and gore—flesh ripping, arms being lopped off, exploding heads, the gamut, plus a fair amount of werewolf sex. Danning does little but hiss, bare her breasts, and flex her pecs—a shot that’s repeated at least six times in the closing credits! A truly dreadful sequel. Poor Chris Lee. Does he really need the work this badly?

The Howling III

Bancannial Pictures, 1987; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Philippe Mora Producers: Charles Waterstreet, Philippe Mora Writer: Philippe Mora With: Barry Otto, Imogen Annesley, Max Fairchild, Frank Thring, Leigh Biolos, Michael Pate

Arms talks between the Russians and the United States break down—apparently due to a “werewolf gap.” A Russian ballerina defects to the Australian outback to mate with a hulk who looks like one of the inbred clan members in The Hills Have Eyes. A female werewolf sleeps with an assistant movie director, gives birth to the first marsupial human, stuffs it in her pouch, and skips to Hollywood to win the Academy of Laser Arts and Sciences best actress award. The Pope and the President agree to a worldwide ban on killing lycanthropes. Chubby Frank Thring (director of Shape Shifters—Part 8, the film that gives the wolfwoman her Hollywood break) does an amusing caricature of the aging Hitchcock. The werewolf transformations seem inspired by “Little Red Riding Hood.” Shot primarily in the Australian outback, this fairy tale, satire, splatter cum-“save the werewolves” movie appears to have been dreamed up in the ozone layer.

Human Experiments

Crown International Pictures, 1980; Color; 82 minutes

Director: J. Gregory Goodell Producers: Summer Brown, J. Gregory Goodell Writer: Richard Rothstein With: Linda Haynes, Geoffrey Lewis, Ellen Travolta, Aldo Ray, Jackie Coogan, Lurene Tuttel

Psychiatrist in a women’s prison rids inmates of their criminal impulses through brainwashing and other techniques that erase their memories. Ellen Travolta is John’s sister. Writer-director Goodell is the author of an excellent book on independent filmmaking. No doubt he learned a lot making this country and western splatter pic.

Humanoids from the Deep

New World Pictures, 1980; Color; 82 minutes

Director: Barbara Peeters Producers: Martin B. Cohen, Hunt Lowry Writer: Frederick James With: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow

A California fishing village is terrorized by a modern ecological horror that is halfman, half fish, and all horny: sea beasts that are compelled to mate with village women in order to preserve their species. Absurd splattery SF with some good effects by Rob Bottin.

Humongous

Embassy Pictures, 1981; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Paul Lynch Producer: Anthony Kramreither Writer: William Gray With: Janet Julian, David Wallace, John Wildman, Janet Baldwin

Another dead-teenager movie from the director of Prom Night. This time around, the kids, who have been shipwrecked on a remote island, are being stalked and killed by the island’s possessive resident—a seven-foot-tall mutant with the mind of a child (sort of a murderous Baby Huey) and the appetite of a starving wolf. Seems the mutant’s mom was raped—by something—years before, which explains his existence, bizarre appearance, and lack of social grace. Lynch tries for suspense as well as gore, but the gore wins out because it’s hard to get worked up over the potential demise of characters you don’t give a shit about.

Hunter’s Blood

Concorde Pictures, 1987; Color; 102 minutes

Director: Robert C. Hughes Producer: Myrl A. Schreibman Writer: Emmett Alston With: Samuel Bottoms, Kim Delaney, Clu Gulager, Ken Swofford, Joey Travolta

Five sportsmen—one of them a city slicker from “way up north”—head into the backwoods of Arkansas for a weekend hunting trip and run smack into an inbred tribe of degenerates straight out of Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Seems these grotesques are illegally slaughtering deer and selling the venison steaks to the Razorback Meat Company for shipment to “one o’ them thar burger chains.” Two forest rangers save the sportsmen’s bacon and arrest some of the tribe. But on the way to the hoosegow, the rangers are captured and killed—one is gutted like a deer, the other beheaded. Instead of hightailing it out of the woods like sensible people, the sportsmen press on with their hunting trip, confirming an earlier statement made by one of rangers that,”…yer a die-hard bunch o’ hunters.” If you ask us, they’re also pretty stupid—’cause you just know those hill folks ain’t gonna let them out o’ the woods alive. You can count on lots of graphic killings in this one—and, amazingly, a fair degree of suspense as well.

The Hunting Party

United Artists, 1971; Color; 108 minutes

Director: Don Medford Producer: Lou Morheim Writers: Lou Morheim, Gilbert Alexander, William Norton With: Candice Bergen, Oliver Reed, Gene Hackman, Simon Oakland, L. Q. Jones, G. D. Spradlin

Outlaw Reed kidnaps and rapes the wife (Bergen) of cattle baron and hunting enthusiast Hackman, who likes to tour the nineteenth-century Texas countryside in a bordello-equipped train accompanied by a score of sharpshooters. Possessive Gene and his men go after Reed and his gang, and, one by one, the sharpshooters whittle the outlaws down. Super-splattery western made in the wake of The Wild Bunch, which it outdoes in violence but nothing else. When Gene learns that Reed and Bergen have fallen in love, he truly goes berserk and kills Bergen by shooting her in the breasts and crotch. He also subjects Reed to a lingering death by shooting him in the shoulders, blowing off his kneecaps, etc. And people think Jason Vorhees is sadistic!

Hustler Squad

See The Doll Squad

I Dismember Mama

Europix, 1974; Color; 81 minutes

Director: Paul Leder Producer: Leon Roth Writer: William Norton With: Zooey Hall, Joanne Moore Jordan, Greg Mullavey, Marlene Tracey

With this one, the title really does tell all. A deranged young man (Hall), sick and tired of his domineering mom, decides to chop her and others up into little bitty pieces. Not exactly original, but you’ve gotta admit: The title’s a gem.

I Drink Your Blood

Cinemation, 1971; Color; 88 minutes

Director: David Durston Producer: Jerry Gross Writer: David Durston With: Jadine Wong, Bashkar, Ronda Fulz, Lynn Lowry, George Patterson

A rabid splatter-venereal comedy about a vengeful young man whose father is killed by some hippies who slipped him an overdose of LSD. The boy gets even by slipping the hippies rabies-ridden meat. The hippies, in turn, go on to infect others. Definitely a cautionary tale.

Ilsa—Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

Cambist Films, 1976; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Don Edmonds Producer: William J. Brody Writer: Langton Stafford With: Dyanne Thorne, Michael Thayer, Wolfgang Roehm, Sharon Kelly

“Ilsa’s Back—More Sadistic Than Ever!” the ads for this sequel screamed. We’re not sure she could be more sadistic than she was in her first outing (see following entry), but the plot of this truly wacked-out sequel goes many steps beyond. This time around, Ilsa deals in white (and black) slavery, supplying nubile women for the titular Harem Sheiks to maim and torture. One unfortunate victim has an explosive diaphragm inserted that’s set to go off upon orgasm. Imaginative, huh? American secret agent Thayer arrives to see what he can do about lowering oil prices, and succeeds in putting an end to Ilsa’s scam as well. The brutalized harem girls are released and go on an orgy of castration against their tormenters. Ilsa is buried alive in shit. Dean Cundey, one-time cinematographer for John Carpenter, co-photographed the film. He has since gone on to bigger, though not always better, things.

Ilsa—She Wolf of the SS

Cambist Films, 1974; Color; 72 minutes

Director: Don Edmonds Producer: Herman Traeger Writer: Jonah Royston With: Dyanne Thorne, Sandi Richman, Wolfgang Roehm, Jo Jo Deville

Buxom Thorne plays Ilsa, the sadistic head torturer of a Nazi concentration camp where all manner of grisly (and purportedly true, if you believe producer Traeger’s ominous voice-over introduction) genetic and deviant experiments are being carried out. Ilsa really enjoys her work and indulges in it on and off hours. She also knows how to throw a party. At one, for a visiting German dignitary (Roehm), instead of the old girl-in-the-cake routine, she has a girl stand on a block of ice with a rope around her neck. As the ice melts, she slowly strangles. Other Ilsa tricks include castrating male prisoner lovers who don’t measure up to her sexual standards. The females, she merely electrocutes. In the end, she’s killed by her own German high command, who fear her more than they do the Allies. They Came from Within’s Joe Blasco handled the very convincing—and very stomach-churning—special effects. The camp exteriors, incidentally, were shot on old “Hogan’s Heroes” sets. But that Ilsa, she’s no Colonel Klink!

The Incredible Melting Man

American-International, 1978; Color; 84 minutes

Director: William Sachs Producer: Samuel F. Gelfman Writers: William Sachs, Rebecca Ross With: Alex Rebar, Burr DeBenning, Myron Healey, Rainbeaux Smith

Astronaut Rebar returns to earth suffering from a rare disease contracted while he was in outer space. Seems the temperature change, combined with the virus, is causing him to melt. But that’s not the worst of it. He’s also developed a powerful hunger—and only human flesh will do. As space scientists and the authorities try to find and stop him before he consumes the local populace, Rebar melts into the backwoods, looking for victims to satisfy his insatiable appetite. Good effects by Rick Baker. Look for director Jonathan Demme in a cameo role.

The Incredible Torture Show

See Bloodsucking Freaks

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Paramount Pictures, 1984; Color; 118 minutes

Director: Steven Spielberg Producer: Robert Watts Writers: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz With: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone, Ke Huy Quan

The intrepid Jones sets out to retrieve a precious gem that has been stolen from an East Indian village and rescue the villagers’ children who have been taken captive and put to work in the mines by a bizarre group of cultists straight out of Gunga Din. Capshaw is a nightclub singer who unwittingly tags along. This prequel to the megahit Raiders of the Lost Ark is even more fast and furious than the first film and boasts even more scenes designed to make your stomach heave. There’s a dinner sequence where the bill of fare includes monkey brains and slithery eels—the latter consumed by one of the diners in a single stomach churning gulp. There’s also lots of equally slimy bugs crawling around—and a scene where a man gets his pulsating heart yanked from his chest, which resulted in a national outcry for the MPAA to create a new movie rating (PG—13). Ky Huy Quan’s “Short Round,” Indiana’s diminutive helper, is strident and thoroughly obnoxious.

Inferno

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1980; Color; 107 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Claudio Argento Writer: Dario Argento With: Leigh McCloskey, Alida Valli, Daria Nicoldi, Eleanora Giorgi

Lots of plot (all senseless), gallons of blood (all red), rafts of acting (all ripe), tons of mystery (possibly intentional), and volumes of production design (all gorgeous) signal another typical Dario Argento opus. Love Argento’s slapdash story sense or hate it, this is probably his most beautiful film. Alas, it is also very likely his most incomprehensible (no mean feat), and it offers a climax that is a huge letdown. The plot—as far as can be discerned—has something to do with the Three Mothers (forces of evil) living in (or under) lavish art deco apartment houses in three parts of the world. Narration and time-location titles clarify nothing. Along the way are a handful of noteworthy sequences, including an unintentionally hilarious one where a woman is savaged by cats (you can almost see the stagehands tossing the flying felines into frame), which are later drowned in sacks by an antique dealer, who is being devoured for his pains by rats during a lunar eclipse, until a maniacal greasy-spoon cook happens along to put him out of his misery with a couple well-aimed blows of his butcher knife! Wow! All this and Keith Emerson’s ripoff of Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen score, too.

Innocents from Hell

See Sisters of Satan

Inseminoid

Shaw-Jupiter, 1981; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producers: Richard Gordon, David Speechley Writers: Nick and Gloria Maley With: Judy Geeson, Robin Clark, Jennifer Ashley, Stephanie Beacham, Victoria Tennant

High body count Alien clone that takes the malevolent extraterrestrial theme a provocative step further by having outerspace scientist Geeson impregnated by a slime creature and giving birth to halfhuman/half-alien and all cannibalistic offspring. Tyro British splatter director Warren, working with a good cast, good FX—and no budget—knows when to divert our attention from the film’s shortcomings by piling on the gore: namely, every other scene. A full-throttle grossout replete with a disgusting alien birth sequence and scores of murders as Geeson and her trapped outer-space pals wipe each other out and, in turn, get wiped out. It is aka Horror Planet.

Invasion of the Blood Farmers

NMD Film Distributing Company, 1972; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Ed Adlum Producer: Ed Adlum Writers: Ed Adlum, Ed Kelleher With: Norman Kelley, Tanna Hunter, Bruce Detrick, Jack Neubeck, Paul Craig Jennings

How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve been pureed? A half-baked religious sect modeled after the Druids cooks up a wild scheme to keep its catatonic, anemic, dying queen alive by using ritual sacrifices involving gallons of human blood. The ads for this film were not misleading. “See what really happens on a TERROR FARM!” they screamed. “We warn you! Don’t eat before you see this show and you’ll have nothing to lose.”

The Island

Universal, 1980; Color; 113 minutes

Director: Michael Ritchie Producers: Richard Zanuck, David Brown Writer: Peter Benchley With: Michael Caine, David Warner, Angela Punch-McGregor

News-magazine reporter Caine and his incredibly snotty son fly to the Bahamas to investigate a series of unsolved missing-persons cases and stumble upon a cult of pirate cutthroats, descendants of the infamous buccaneers, who are still living in the old style, plundering and killing unsuspecting tourists for booty. A piece of farfetched drivel in which Caine literally sleepwalks through his role, and the pirates, who speak in a patois of gibberish, are about as fearsome as The Three Stooges.

Island of the Alive (It’s Alive III)

Warner Brothers, 1986; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Paul Stader Writer: Larry Cohen With: Michael Moriarty, Karen Black, Laurene London, Gerrit Graham

Larry Cohen’s films have always been a mixed bag. They usually begin with an interesting—if offbeat—premise, but fall apart somewhere along the line. Island of the Alive, the third of the It’s Alive movies is, as might be expected, an eccentric concoction. Mutant babies are placed on an island to isolate them from society. They grow up (at an accelerated rate) and—are you ready for this?—have mutant babies of their own. If that’s not far-out enough, it turns out the adult mutants aren’t such bad folks after all—just misunderstood. Michael Moriarty is on hand, as he often seems to be in Cohen’s movies, playing yet another character on the edge. Some gore as the babies attack various victims (before we find out how nice they are deep down inside).

Island of the Twilight People

See Twilight People

I Spit on Your Grave

The Jerry Gross Organization, 1980; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Meir Zarchi Producers: Joseph Zbeda, Meir Zarchi Writer: Meir Zarchi With: Camille Keaton, Aaron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols

Keaton (reputedly a relative of the late Buster) is raped by a quartet of thugs. After recuperating, she exacts her revenge on them—with castration being a favored method. Often compared to Last House on the Left (1972), the film really has more in common with John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972) and, particularly, Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971). Reportedly even John Waters admits he was grossed out by it. Ultrasleazy and disturbing splatter flick that is by no means the brainless exploitation vehicle many critics have accused it of being. It is aka Day of the Woman.

It’s Alive

Warner Brothers, 1974; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Larry Cohen Writer: Larry Cohen With: John P. Ryan, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan, Guy Stockwell, Michael Ansara

Farrell gives birth to a mutant baby that makes quick work of everyone in the operating room. Distraught father Ryan must track junior down as the hungry tot crawls about the city feasting on milk-truck drivers and various other people. Excellent effects by Rick Baker and a terrific score by Bernard Herrmann make this low-key splatter pic a winner. Followed by two sequels, It Lives Again (1978) and Island of the Alive (1986).

It’s Alive II

See It Lives Again

It’s Alive III

See Island of the Alive

It Lives Again

Warner Brothers, 1978; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Larry Cohen Writer: Larry Cohen With: Frederic Forrest, Kathleen Lloyd, John P. Ryan, John Marley, Andrew Duggan

Sequel to It’s Alive (1974). Turns out that Ryan’s deadly tot wasn’t the only one. There’s more—a veritable army of them. He tries to warn pregnant Lloyd and her husband (Forrest) that they’re about to add to the list, but they don’t believe him until it is too late. Essentially, this is just a rehash of the original, though not as exciting. Effects are minimal. The excellent score by the late Bernard Herrmann was fashioned by Herrmann disciple Laurie Johnson (of TV’s “The Avengers”) out of used and unused tracks from the first film. It is aka It’s Alive II.

Jack’s Back

Palisades Entertainment, 1988; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Rowdy Herrington Producer: Tim Moore Writer: Rowdy Herrington With: James Spader, Cynthia Gibb, Rod Loomis, Rex Ryan

Capitalizing on the Jack the Ripper centennial (1888-1988), writer-director Herrington updates the grisly exploits of history’s legendary serial killer. The locale is modern Los Angeles, where prostitutes are being killed and mutilated on the exact dates the original Ripper struck. Several med students fall under suspicion. They don’t get along too well with each other. When one of them (Spader) is murdered, his twin brother (Spader also), who witnessed the crime in a dream, decides to get to the bottom of it all. Plodding whodunit that telegraphs its “surprise ending” way too early. Surely the infamous and venerable Jack deserves more memorable commemorative treatment than this!

Jack the Ripper

Cineshowcase, 1978; Color; 105 minutes

Director: Jesus Franco Producer: Peter Baumgartner Writer: Jesus Franco With: Klaus Kinski, Josephine Chaplin, Herbert Fux, Lina Romay

The phantom killer of the London fog strikes again in this el cheapo production shot on West German and Swiss locations that look absolutely nothing like London. Kinski makes a somnolent Jack, slicing up the ladies and dropping their bodies in the “Thames.”

Jack the Ripper of London

Distributor unknown, 1971; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Jose Luis Madrid Producer: Jose Luis Madrid Writers: Jose Luis Madrid, Jacinto Molina, Sandro Continenza With: Paul Naschy, Patricia Loran, Rensso Marinano, Orquidea de Santis

Spanish horror-film star Naschy took time out from playing his continuing werewolf character, Waldemar Daninsky, and various other movie monsters to play that true-life monster, Jack the Ripper—though actually he’s only a suspect in the Ripper’s mutilation murders of London’s prostitutes. (The film updates the crimes to the seventies.) The real Ripper turns out to be a cop. The film combines this tidbit of actual Ripper lore (the cop theory has never been taken very seriously) with other, more unsavory bits—such as having the Rip clip off the ears of his victims and perform other such acts, all shown in fairly graphic detail. Naschy also co-wrote the script of this seldom-shown Spanish cheapie under his given name, Jacinto Molina.

Jason Lives

See Friday the 13th—Part VI: Jason Lives

Jaws

Universal, 1975; Color; 124 minutes

Director: Steven Spielberg Producers: Richard Zanuck, David Brown Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb With: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Depending upon how you look at it, this is either a poor man’s Moby Dick (1956) or a rich man’s Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). A twenty-five-foot great white shark invades the waters off Amity Island at the outset of the summer tourist season and starts gobbling up the swimmers. Police chief Scheider wants to close the beaches, but Mayor Hamilton won’t let him. As a result, the team of Scheider, Dreyfuss, and Shaw must venture out in a boat and try to kill the shark at sea. Expertly directed, nail-biting thriller with little to no substance. Perfect splatter fodder.

Jaws 2

Universal, 1978; Color; 116 minutes

Director: Jeannot Szwarc Producers: Richard Zanuck, David Brown Writers: Howard Sackler, Carl Gottlieb With: Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Another great white shark descends on Amity Island, arguably to revenge the death of its mate at the hands of Steven Spielberg. Scheider is quite good as the police chief, a thankless role this time around, but the film is little more than a rehash of the original—which was not all that “original” to begin with. Szwarc (it rhymes with shark) replaced John Hancock as director shortly after filming began. He gives the shark so many close-ups that you can see it’s a fake.

Jaws 3-D

Universal, 1983; Color; 99 minutes

Director: Joe Alves Producer: Rupert Hitzig Writers: Richard Matheson, Carl Gottlieb With: Bess Armstrong, Dennis Quaid, Simon MacCorkindale, Lou Gossett, Jr.

More attacks from yet another great white; which has invaded a Sea World-style attraction in Florida. Quaid plays the grown-up son of Amity sheriff Roy Scheider (who declined to participate in any future Jaws sequels after being contractually bound to star in Jaws 2), who tries to stop the shark from putting the bite on all the tourists. Director Alves served as production designer on the first film. Originally the film was to be a comedy titled Jaws 3—People 0. Mild gore.

Jaws the Revenge

Universal, 1987; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Joseph Sargent Producer: Joseph Sargent Writer: Michael de Guzman With: Michael Caine, Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles

Amity police chief Brodie has died of a heart attack, leaving his younger son, Sean, to take over. During the Christmas holidays, Sean is gobbled up by a great white shark. Mrs. Brodie (Gary) is convinced the attack was personal and that her older son, Michael (Guest), a researcher for the Bahamian Fishery Department, may be next on the shark’s menu. She’s right, of course. Caine plays a pilot who falls for the widow and helps her and Michael stave off the beast—but not before it eats his plane. Once again, too many close-ups of “Bruce” the mechanical shark allow you to see how phony it looks and therefore kill the suspense. The low-gore theatrical release was rated PG-13. The home vido release contains approximately three minutes of graphic shark-chomping footage cut from the theatrical version. They don’t help much. A sucker for reading final credits, we got a chuckle out of this one: Marine Coordinator—John “Moby” Griffin.

Just Before Dawn

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Jeff Lieberman Producers: David Sheldon, Doro Vlado Hreljanovic Writers: Mark Arywitz, Gregg Irving With: George Kennedy, Chris Lemmon, Deborah Benson

Not to be confused with an old William Castle flick of the same title, this cross between Friday the 13th and The Hills Have Eyes involves a group of luckless campers who run into some inbred hill folks with saws who don’t like anyone treading on their property. Kennedy plays a forest ranger that helps out in the nick of time. Chris Lemmon is the son of actor Jack Lemmon.

Keep My Grave Open

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color; 80 minutes

Director: S. F. Brownrigg Producer: S. F. Brownrigg Writer: F. Amos Powell With: Camilla Carr, Gene Ross

Brownrigg’s follow-up (seven years later!) to his Don’t Look in the Basement is an atmospheric but confusing (as well as tedious) blood feast about a bizarre woman who lives in an old mansion—she goes by the name “The Lady of the Mansion,” strangely enough—and lures passersby to the secluded house so that a mysterious force can murder them. The film opens with a nosy hitchhiker getting skewered with a sword. Things go rapidly and gruesomely uphill or downhill from there, depending upon your point of view.

Killbots

See Chopping Mall

The Killer Behind the Mask

See Savage Weekend

Killer Fish

Associated Films, 1979; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Anthony Dawson (Antonio Margheriti) Producer: Alex Ponti Writer: Michael Rogers With: Lee Majors, Karen Black, James Franciscus, Margaux Hemingway, Marisa Berenson

Heist movie in which the haul winds up in piranha-infested waters. Various sorts set out to retrieve the goods, which at least provides some motivation for getting them into the water so that they can be eaten in glorious Technicolor. Made in Brazil.

Killer Party

A Polar Film & Marquis Production, 1986; Color; 92 minutes

Director: William Fruet Producer: Michael Lepiner Writer: Barney Cohen With: Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Elaine Wilkes, Paul Bartel, Sherry Willis Burch, Alicia Fleer, Joanna Johnson

The opening of this picture takes off in three different, surprising directions before settling down to its story of three college coeds who are determined to get into the exclusive Sigma Alpha Pi sorority. After that, it turns into a pretty standard version of the old “who’s killing the teenage partygoers in the old dark house” melodrama. Who is the killer? Is it one of the supersnooty Sigma Alpha Pi sisters? Is it one of the cruelly sexist Beta Tau boys? Is it the practical-joking, ugly-duckling pledge? Or, is it the spirit of the fatal hazing victim from years past? We’re not telling. The plot keeps twisting and turning and the pace is brisk. The acting, by the mostly young cast, is consistently good, with an interesting turn by director/actor Paul Bartel as a professor. Splatter fans may be somewhat disappointed because the gore in this film is a long time coming and isn’t very graphic or extensive.

Killer’s Moon

Distributor unknown, 1978; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Alan Birkinshaw Producers: Gordon Keymer, Alan Birkinshaw Writer: Alan Birkinshaw With: Anthony Forrest, Tom Marshall, Georgine Kean, Nigel Gregory

Gritty, British low-budgeter about four crazies who escape from a mental home where they are being experimentally treated with LSD (not a good idea, as anyone who lived through the sixties may admit, provided they remember). Anyway, the brains of the homicidal foursome are now completely scrambled, but their killer instincts are still intact. They head for the scenic English countryside, where, predictably, they meet up with some teenage schoolgirls on an outing and launch a campaign of terror, butchering their way through them. Made two years before Friday the 13th, but of the same school. Shot in Ken Russell country, the gorgeous Lake District, which provides a scenic backdrop to the graphic bloodletting.

The Kindred

An FM Entertainment Release, 1986; Color; 92 minutes

Directors: Jeffrey Obrow, Stephen Carpenter Producer: Jeffrey Obrow Writers: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow, John Penny, Earl Ghaffari With: David Allen Brooks, Amanda Pays, Kim Hunter, Rod Steiger

An interesting change of pace from the psycho/slasher films which have dominated the horror scene since Halloween in 1978. Rod Steiger and especially Kim Hunter remind us of what good acting is, and it is a credit to the rest of the cast that they are able to hold their own against these two pros. The script not only provides the cast with believable characters and realistic dialogue but also tells a compelling story. The film leaves some unanswered questions—just what is Rod Steiger doing with a dungeon/torture chamber under his lab?—but these problems aren’t too serious. There are some decent gore effects, but they take a backseat to the story, a splatter hound’s no-no. The scene in which a character turns into a bizarre amphibian creature, complete with working gills, is very effective, as is the climactic scene when the monster goes through a total metamorphosis.

La Lama Nel Corpo

See The Murder Clinic

La Lupa Mannera

See Legend of the Wolfwoman

Last House on Dead End Street

Cinematic Films, 1977; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Victor Juno Producer: Norman F. Kaiser Writer: Brian Lawrence With: Credits unavailable

Many people have accused splatter movies of being little more than fantasized “snuff films.” Some have even gone so far as to accuse a few of being real “snuff films.” Last House on Dead End Street perversely invites—even inflames—this controversy. It’s about a bunch of sleazoid filmmakers who make “snuff films” that their distributor doesn’t know are “snuff films”—until the filmmakers slaughter the distributor and some other people on film and use the scenes to make another “snuff film.” A genuinely over-the-top gore epic that’s rapidly achieving cult status.

Last House on the Left

Hallmark Releasing, 1972; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producer: Sean S. Cunningham Writer: Wes Craven With: David Hess, Lucy Grantham, Sandra Cassel, Marc Sheffler, Ada Washington, Jeremy Rain, Fred Lincoln

Trio of degenerates rape and mutilate two young girls in the woods. Unwittingly, they stop off at the home of one of the victims. When the parents catch on to what’s happened and who is responsible, they start laying the groundwork for revenge via castration and a chain saw. Intense and disturbing watershed splatter movie with an almost documentary feel, which director Craven now considers so grim that it even shocks him. Loosely based on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960), this is one of anti-splatter film critic Roger Ebert’s avowed “guilty pleasures.”

Last Rites

See Dracula’s Last Rites

The Legacy

Universal, 1979; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Richard Marquand Producer: David Foster Writers: Jimmy Songster, Patrick Tilley, Paul Wheeler With: Katharine Ross, Roger Daltrey, Sam Elliot, Charles Gray, John Standing

Ross is drawn, along with some other guests, to one of those secluded mansions so beloved of uninspired screenwriters. There, she finds herself the prey of the house’s virtually mummified owner, who wheezes in hiding behind the folds of an oxygen tent. Turns out the old geezer is the head of a devil cult and he wants to enthrone Ross at its head before he wheezes into the Great Beyond. Before that not-too-exciting revelation jolts us awake, however, Ross and company are treated to a string of cliché scares (shadowy disappearing shapes and so on). There are also some diverting “creative deaths” in the tradition of The Omen—drownings, impalements, etc.—but nothing flamboyant enough to lift the film above the norm.

Legacy of Blood

See Blood Legacy

Legend of Blood Castle

See The Female Butcher

Legend of the Wolfwoman

Dimension Pictures, 1976; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Rino Di Silvestro Producer: Diego Alchimeded Writers: Renato Rossini, Rino Di Silvestro With: Annik Borel, Frederick Stafford, Renato Rossini, Dagmar Lassander, Osvaldo Riggieri

Possessed by the spirit of a long-dead female werewolf, a young girl (Borel) becomes a lycanthrope herself. The transformation scenes allow her ample opportunity to strip. When she starts chomping away at the community, police detective Stafford is called in to investigate. It is aka Wolfwoman and La Lupa Mannera.

Lifeforce

Cannon Films, 1985; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writers: Dan O’Bannon, Don Jakoby With: Peter Firth, Steve Railsback, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Michael Gothard

Astronaut Railsback discovers an alien life form (May) in the tail of Hailey’s Comet and brings it back to earth. Turns out she’s a vampire with a penchant for walking around in her birthday suit, and as she kisses people they shrivel up. Some victims even crack apart like hammered stone. Soon all of London is in peril. Firth is the Scotland Yard Inspector who does little but stand around. Though the effects (by John Dykstra) are good, this is an astonishingly boring and laughable alien invasion flick that retains little of Colin Wilson’s excellent SF novel, The Space Vampires, upon which it is very loosely based.

The Long Riders

United Artists, 1980; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Walter Hill Producer: Tim Zimmermann Writers: Bill Bryden, Steven Phillips Smith, Stacy and James Keach With: David, Keith, and Robert Carradine; Stacy and James Keach; Randy and Dennis Quaid; Christopher and Nicholas Guest

What do you do when you’re saddled with yet another retelling of the too-often-told saga of Jesse James and his boys? You gimmick it up, swipe plot devices and set pieces from the works of other, better filmmakers (such as Robert Altman and Sam Peckinpah to name two), and lay on the bloody special effects; in short, you make a splatter Western. At least, that’s what Walter Hill did here. No doubt about it; the film is exciting, atmospheric, and gory as hell. The James boys would have loved it. Terrific score by Ry Cooder.

The Lost Boys

Warner Brothers, 1987; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Joel Schumacher Producer: Harvey Bernhard Writers: Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, Jeffrey Boam With: Corey Feldman, Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Dianne Wiest, Kiefer Sutherland, Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes

Though its title is taken from Peter Pan, The Lost Boys is a hip, contemporary vampire tale (with almost the same plot as Near Dark, another hip, contemporary vampire tale made the same year). Patric and Haim move to sleepy Santa Clara, California, with their divorced mom (Wiest) and encounter a group of motorcycle punks who happen to be vampires. When Patric becomes an undead (or semi-undead), little brother Haim enlists the aid of Friday the 13th alumnus Feldman (doing a very funny turn as a prepubescent Sylvester Stallone) in destroying the vampires and returning Patric to normal. Shot like a music video, The Lost Boys is terrific to look at. But director Schumacher’s all-too-frequent use of tight close-ups during the FX sequences dull their impact. The film is also a bit too flip to generate many scares. It’s funny, though, with a lot of witty dialogue. Crackpot grandpa Hughes’s closing line is especially priceless.

Lunch Meat

Monogram Entertainment Group and Tapeworm Productions, 1987; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Kirk Alex Producer: Mark Flynn Writer: Kirk Alex With: Kim McKamy, Chuck Ellis, Elroy Wiese, Joseph Ricciardella, Robert Oland

Unabashed rip-off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, about a family of cannibals that kills people, sells the bulk of the carcasses to a local burger joint, and eats the leftovers. Spotting some vacationing teens, they detour them into the woods and begin hacking away at them with machetes, meat cleavers, pickaxes and shovels. At the conclusion, one of the teens—a girl—manages to find her way to the highway and escape with the overweight junior member of the meat-loving clan in whirling pursuit. The gore FX of people having their throats torn out and eaten, their heads severed, and their feet impaled with a pickaxe are plentiful and fairly well executed despite the project’s distinctly poverty row origins. The film’s so cheap you can even hear the camera noise in the background, and the editing, which allows you to see the splices much of the time, seems to have been done with one of the prop meat cleavers.

Macabro

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Lamberto Bava Producers: Gianni Minervi, Antonio Avati Writers: Lamberto Bava, Pupi Avati, Roberto Gandus With: Bernice Stegers, Roberto Posse, Stanko Molnar

This feature film debut by the son of Mario Bava reveals the heavy shadow of Bava pere (for whom Bava fils worked many years as an assistant)—but with an equally heavy dash of Roman Polanski and Michael Powell tossed in for good measure. Stegers is a sexually bizarre young woman who keeps the severed head of her former lover on hand—and in bed with her—for, well, who knows what for! A nosy neighbor (Posse), who’s blind, becomes obsessed with the girl but winds up killing her instead. This doesn’t sit too well with the head in the bed, which proceeds to chomp the blind man to death in retribution. The film was not released theatrically in the United States. Co-scenarist Pupi Avati later wrote and directed the intriguing Revenge of the Dead.

The Mad Butcher

Ellman Films, 1972; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Guido Zurli Producer: Harry Hope Writer: Charles Ross With: Victor Buono, Karen Field, Brad Harris, John Ireland

Buono does away with his victims’ bodies by grinding them up into sausages and selling them lo the police. Yet another variation on the story of Sweeney Todd.

Madhouse

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Ovidio G. Assonitis Producer: Ovidio G. Assonitis Writers: Ovidio G. Assonitis, Stephen Blakely, Peter Shepherd, Robert Gandus With: Trish Everley, Michael MaCrea, Dennis Robertson

Good sister/bad (i.e., nutso) sister psychofilm in the mold of Brian De Palma’s Sisters. Everley’s deranged and deformed twin escapes from the madhouse where Everley had her committed. With the help of a vicious trained dog, bad sis sets out to terrorize good sis to death by killing everyone around her. The film includes lots of rotting corpses plus that old standby of the 1980s splatter film scene, “the power drill through the head” bit. There’s also a twist ending.

Madman

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Joe Giannone Producer: Gary Sales Writer: Joe Giannone With: Alexis Dubin, Harriet Bass, Seth Jones, Tony Fish

Another Friday the 13th clone about a summer camp—closed years before when a mass murdering lunatic sliced and diced most of the counselors—that reopens, thus encouraging the lunatic’s return. Like Jason, the knife-wielding crazy of the title (here named Madman Marz) is virtually a supernatural creature who seemingly can’t be stopped. Typical of the mad slasher sub-genre, the splatter murders—here executed by Jo Hansen—are graphic and convincing.

The Majorettes

Major Films, 1987; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Bill Hinzman Producer: John Russo Writer: John Russo With: Kevin Kindlin, Terrie Godfrey, Mark V. Jevicky, Sueanne Seamens, Denise Holt, Carl Hetrick, Russ Streiner

This reunion of some of the old Night of the Living Dead gang—including NOLD cowriter Russo (who also has a cameo as a coroner), NOLD coproducer and actor Streiner (who plays a Baptist minister) and NOLD graveyard ghoul Hinzman (who, in addition to directing, has a cameo as a cop)—yields very disappointing results. A mad slasher is killing high school majorettes, one of whom has also been targeted by her infirm grandmother’s German nurse (who’s out to get the girl’s inheritance). A devil-cult biker gang is also mixed into the boiling pot. Lots of graphic throat slashings and other fun stuff (well executed by FX chief Gerald Gergely) and leering shots of the nubile majorettes removing their bras. But the pace is interminable.

Make Them Die Slowly

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Umberto Lenzi Producer: Antonio Crescenzi Writer: Umberto Lenzi With: Lorraine de Selle, Bryan Redford, John Morghen, Zora Kerova

Young anthropologists visiting Colombia in search of cannibals run into something worse—drug dealers who torture their native slaves when they fail to produce the goods fast enough. The natives turn on their dope-dealing masters, as well as the young anthropologists, torturing them and making them die slowly—thus the title. In one particularly gruesome scene, one of the female anthropologists is strung up by her breasts and left to die screaming as the others watch. It is aka Cannibal Ferox.

Maniac

Analysis Films, 1981; Color; 91 minutes

Director: William Lustig Producers: Andrew Garroni, William Lustig Writers: Z. A. Rosenberg, Joe Spinell With: Joe Spinell, Caroline Munro

Spinell is a psycho who murders girls in all sorts of horrible ways, scalps them, and then uses their scalps to adorn the heads of female department store mannequins that he keeps for sex at home. A roller coaster ride of pathology and splatter that gives new meaning to the word sleaze. Effects by Tom Savini, who has since disavowed the film. Splatter fans tend to hate it also for being too ugly and depressing! It is certainly both.

The Man with Two Heads

Mishkin Films, 1972; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: William Mishkin Writer: Andy Milligan With: Denis DeMarne, Julia Stratton, Berwick Kaler, Jacqueline Lawrence

Umpteenth retelling of the R. L. Stevenson tale of Dr. Jekyll and his murderous alter ego. What sets this one apart is that it was made for about a dollar and a half. In this version, Dr. Jekyll downs his infamous potion and turns into the appropriately named Mr. Blood. Made in England during Milligan’s “Across the Pond Period.” It is aka Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Blood.

Mark of the Devil

Hallmark Releasing, 1970; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Michael Armstrong Producer: Adrian Hovan Writer: Sergio Cassner With: Herbert Lorn, Udo Keir, Reggie Nalder, Adrian Hovan

The first U.S. film to be heavily promoted with the fictitious V for Violence rating. And to show that the distributors knew what they were talking about, squeamish patrons were supplied free “vomit bags” at the door. (Why not? The airlines do it.) Lorn plays a sadistic nineteenth-century witch-finder who uses all manner of torture to make women (usually naked) confess that they are in league with the devil. His methods, sad to say, are all based on fact. But Mark is not intended as a history lesson. It’s a splatter show—plotless but stomach-churningly effective—with lots of graphic depictions of dismemberments, amputations, hangings, burnings, and so on. Oh, and sex too, of course. Yum yum.

Mark of the Devil Part 2

Hallmark Releasing, 1972; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Adrian Hovan Producer: Adrian Hovan Writer: Adrian Hovan With: Anton Diffring, Jean-Pierre Zola, Erica Blanc, Reggie Nalder

Hovan, who produced and played a part in Mark of the Devil, here takes the route of the triple-threat auteur—he also plays another small part, but uses a pseudonym (Percy Parker), perhaps so as not to appear overly credit-conscious. This time around, Diffring plays the witch-finder in search of nubile victims to maim and mutilate. He’s also after the fortune of a Count (whom he killed) that has fallen into the hands of the count’s voluptuous widow. What better way to separate widow from cash than to have her declared a witch? Nalder is his leering assistant and together they have a high old time subjecting the widow (and others) to the rack and the lash. Hallmark again advertised the film as rated V for Violence, but dispensed with the “vomit bag” gimmick. It was probably too costly.

Martin

A Libra Films Release, 1978; Color and B&W; 95 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein Writer: George A. Romero With: John Amplas, Lincoln Maazel, Christine Forrest, Elyane Nadeau, Tom Savini

Loner teen Martin (Amplas) goes to live with his superstitious cousin (Maazel), who is convinced the boy is a vampire. Whether vampire or garden variety psychopath, Martin is definitely one screwed-up kid. Slashing his victims with a razor, he drinks their blood—then discusses his escapades on a late-night radio talk show. All of this takes place in a decaying Pennsylvania town called Braddock, where even the church has decided to move on—leaving the place spiritually defenseless and therefore easy prey for Nosferatu-psycho Martin. More cerebral and suspenseful than gory—though Martin’s murders and demise will not disappoint Romero fans. Romero has a delightful cameo as a priest whose favorite film is The Exorcist. The film marked Tom Savini’s debut as Romero’s special-effects chief.

Mausoleum

Western International Pictures, 1983; Color; 96 minutes

Director: Michael Dugan Producers: Robert Barich, Robert Madero Writers: Robert Barich, Robert Madero With: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton, La Wanda Page, Maurice Sherbanee, Julie Christy Murray

A young girl (Murray) fleeing from her mother’s funeral is drawn to a sinister mausoleum, where she is possessed by a demon because of a seventeenth-century curse. Her family name is Nomed. Get it—demon spelled backwards? As an adult (Bresee), she murders a masher, her aunt, and a delivery boy by telekinesis, while preferring to dispatch the gardener and her husband (Gortner) by more old-fashioned means, such as slashing with a garden implement and a body-bursting bear hug. Her appearance while possessed ranges mindlessly from glowing green eyes, through heavy makeup, to early John Buechler prosthetics. She is eventually exorcised with a crown of thorns by her psychiatrist uncle. The gore scenes are short, poorly conceived and edited, and never register with any emotional force. The only original touch is the demon’s breasts, which transform into miniature replicas of its own head.

Maximum Overdrive

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1986; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Stephen King Producer: Martha Schumacher Writer: Stephen King With: Emilio Estevez, Laura Harrington, Pat Hingle, John Short

When earth passes through the tail of a comet, all the machines on the planet turn against man. Most of the film’s action is set at a truck stop, where the mechanical beasts outside circle the trapped humans inside like bloodthirsty Indians in an old Western. (Director King pays more than a few nods in the film not only to the Western but to pal George Romero’s Dead films and, especially, Hitchcock’s The Birds.) The film opens well with a spectacular pileup on a malfunctioning bridge. After that, the splatter is applied quite thickly as trucks and lawnmowers, you name it, start wiping out humans. Presumably some violent scenes were cut to avoid an X rating. King calls his directorial debut “… the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.” Wait! I’ve heard that one before; he has said the same thing about his books. Unlike his books, however, there isn’t an ounce of suspense or characterization in this interminable mess.

Microwave Massacre

Distributor unknown, 1979; Color; 76 minutes

Director: Wayne Berwick Producers: Thomas Singer, Craig Muckier Writers: Thomas Singer, Craig Muckier With: Jackie Vernon, Loren Schein, Al Troupe

That electronic, fast-food wonder, the microwave oven, becomes an instrument of death at the hands of late comedian Jackie Vernon when he discovers how good his wife tastes at the sound of the chime. Borrowing liberally from Roger Corman’s classic black comedy, The Little Shop of Horrors, this pointed satire on the rising tide of splatter isn’t as funny as it might have been, but Vernon’s deadpan style is a comic plus; his character of an entrepreneur who hooks the neighborhood on eating human flesh looks forward to the Blands (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov) in Eating Raoul, which has a similar plot.

Midnight

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 91 minutes

Director: John A. Russo Producer: Donald Redinger Writer: John A. Russo With: Lawrence Tierney, Melanie Verliin, John Hall, Charles Jackson, John Amplas

Gross and overbearing cop Tierney tries to seduce stepdaughter Verliin. She runs away from home and winds up the prisoner of a religious cult that plans to sacrifice her at, you guessed it, midnight. A made-in-Pennsylvania independent by Night of the Living Dead co-creator Russo, who adapted the screenplay from his own novel (which, frankly, we found a lot more horrifying than the film version). The basic problem with Midnight is that there isn’t a likable character in it; there’s no one with whom to really identify, as there was in Night of the Living Dead. Tom Savini handled the special effects, which are very good.

Mixed Blood

Sara Films, 1984; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Paul Morrissey Producers: Antoine Gannage, Steven Fierberg Writer: Paul Morrissey With: Marilia Pera, Richard Ulacia, Linda Kerridge, Marcelino Rivera

If Paul Morrissey had filmed West Side Story, it might have looked a lot like Mixed Blood (and been a lot more fun in the process). Extremely and graphically violent, Mixed Blood nevertheless manages to be more quirkily amusing than appalling, not in the least due to the typically wiggedout Morrissey cast. Impossible though it may seem, Morrissey managed to find a Brazilian Joe Dallesandro in Richard Ulacia, who plays the brain-damaged Thiago, son of Rita La Punta (Marilia Pera), the Carmen Miranda-fixated head of a motley assortment of Brazilian drug dealers in New York. Pera, who lords over her little band from a rickety throne enshrined with Christmas lights and sheet music from Carmen Miranda pictures, is even better at capturing Morrissey’s strange nonacting style. The plot is something of a shambles but scarcely matters in view of the vastly entertaining tangents into which Morrissey continually drifts, including a visit to a store that sells nothing but Menudo souvenirs and clothing that must be seen to be believed. Linda Kerridge is on hand as a bleached blonde, vaguely English accented Debbie Harry clone who falls for Thiago and is shot through the head for her pains (“I must look like hell,” she comments before expiring). The lunatic spirit of the whole thing, though, is best summed up when Marcelino Rivera asks Pera just why Miranda “never stop smiling.” “Why should she?” Pera glowers, explaining, “She was the Abraham Lincoln of Brazil—and she knew it!” And Lincoln never sang “The Lady in the Tutti Fruiti Hat,” so perhaps Carmen was one up on him.

Mondo Trasho

New Line Cinema, 1969; B&W; 95 minutes

Director: John Waters Producer: John Waters Writer: John Waters With: Mary Vivian Pearce, Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole

Waters’s first feature (made for $2,000!) follows Pearce’s exploits through Baltimore’s underbelly. Along the way, she meets a foot fetishist, gets run over by a Jayne Mansfield look-a-like (Divine), gets committed to an insane asylum, gets wounded in a knife fight, and winds up dying in a pigpen. A self-described “gutter film.”

Monkey Shines

Orion Pictures, 1988; Color; 112 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producer: Charles Evans Writer: George A. Romero With: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest

Romero’s first film since splitting with long-time producer Richard Rubinstein—and his first with major studio backing—is contrived and unconvincing. It’s also quite bland. Romero eschews ultra-gory FX to the point of selfconsciousness, but substitutes little else in return. Aspiring athlete Beghe becomes a quadriplegic after being hit by a bus. Pal Pankow, a research scientist, gives him a bright little capuchin monkey named Ella to lend a helping hand. Ella turns out to be very bright indeed. Through some undefined mind-link process, she picks up on Beghe’s anger and resentment toward others and becomes a nocturnal avenger. When he finds out and tries to stop her, she turns on him—hell hath no fury like a monkey spurned. The movie is like a dozen other man versus beast (the hero is even named “Mann”), science/nature-gone-wrong, monster-from-the-id potboilers. It even includes a gory cliché shock epilogue that was apparently imposed upon Romero to give the film some badly needed zip. Ella and the other actors are good, but the characters and their motivations are paper thin. A real disappointment from a master.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Cinema 5, 1975; Color; 86 minutes

Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones Producers: Michael White, John Goldstone Writers: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, and the rest of the Python troupe With: Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam

Lunatic retelling of the legend of King Arthur, his knights (pronounced ka-nigits), and their search for the Holy Grail by England’s most-celebrated band of comic crazies since Spike Milligan and his Goons. Death-dealing rabbits, oversized knights who get bloodily whittled down to size, catapulted horses, and liberal dousings of merde converge in this fullscale splatter comedy. Uneven but frequently hilarious. And visually quite sumptuous.

Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

Universal, 1983; Color; 103 minutes

Director: Terry Jones Producer: John Goldstone Writers: The Monty Python gang With: Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Carol Cleveland

More gross-out comedy in the vein of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, minus the gallons of blood. The funniest scene—perhaps because it is the grossest—features Terry Jones as a hugely obese diner at a restaurant, who keeps puking all over everyone so that he can make room for more food. A mixed bag.

Moonshine Mountain

Herschell Gordon Lewis Productions, 1964; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Charles Glore With: Chuck Scott, Adam Sorg, Jeffrey Allen, Bonnie Hinson

Country-western singer Scott goes back home to the Carolina hills to recharge his creative batteries and gets involved in a battle between some moonshiners and “The Revenooers.” Typically tongue-incheek as well as over-the-top gore epic from splatter pioneer H. G. Lewis (his directorial credit reads: “Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, who ought to know better, but don’t”). In addition to all his other duties, Lewis also photographed the film and even composed the score. Lots of nasty murders and cornball “good ole boy” humor. Filmed in “Lightnin’ Color” in the “Beautiful Carolinas.”

Motel Hell

United Artists, 1980; Color; 102 minutes

Director: Kevin Connor Producers: Robert and Steven-Charles Jaffe Writers: Robert and Steven-Charles Jaffe With: Rory Calhoun, Nancy Parsons, Paul Linke, Nina Axelrod, Wolfman Jack

Yet another Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired “meat movie,” though one that strives more for laughs—at least until the gore-filled conclusion where the deranged Calhoun dons a pig mask for a chain-saw duel with the heroine. Calhoun plays a backwoods motel owner (his place is called Motel Hello, but the o is always on the blink) and farmer specializing in specially cured meats. The special curing process involves waylaying travelers, slicing their vocal chords, and burying them up to their necks in his garden—making his products homegrown, as it were. His motto: “It takes all kinds o’ critters to make Farmer Vincent fritters!” Overlong and, though pointedly satiric, not all that funny, either. The chain-saw duel is good, though.

Mother’s Day

United Film Distribution, 1980; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Charles Kaufman Producers: Charles Kaufman, Michael Kravits Writers: Charles Kaufman, Warren Leight With: Nancy Hendrickson, Deborah Luce, Rose Ross, Tania Pierce

A trio of vacationing ex-college girls are captured and tortured by two perverted hillbillies and their even more demented mother (Ross). When one of the girls dies after being repeatedly raped and beaten, the other two pool their resources and strike back. Though conventionally gruesome and bloody, this is also an unconventional satire. Mad mom and her boys are consummate media junkies. Everything they do is motivated by the tube, which chatters away from its shrine-like position in the living room. When one of the hillbillies is crowned with an unused set at the splattery finish, he enters his TV world for real, his head twitching and sparks flying. A clever and unjustly maligned splatter movie; its major failing is one of those terrible shock epilogues.

Mountaintop Motel Massacre

New World Pictures, 1983; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Jim McCullough, Sr. Producers: Jim McCullough, Sr., Jim McCullough, Jr. Writer: Jim McCullough, Jr. With: Bill Thurman, Anna Chappell, Will Mitchell

Mental case Chappell is released from a home and goes back to run the decaying Mountaintop Motel (a place that makes the Bates Motel look positively high class) with her equally unstable daughter. When she catches the daughter performing some kind of weird ritual, she flips out and accidentally kills the girl with a hand scythe. A blinding rainstorm a la Psycho results in an influx of customers—some newlyweds, an itinerant mechanic, an adman and two nubile hitchhikers he picked up. Chappell releases snakes, rats, and cockroaches into their cabins via trapdoors. When that doesn’t drive the guests away, she goes after them with her trusty hand scythe. The splatter murders are predictably graphic but nothing special—except for Chappell’s demise, in which a nice touch of irony is coupled with the blood. The low-key acting ranges from mediocre to okay. And there’s a supernatural undercurrent to the proceedings that doesn’t really work. All that said, however, there is a compelling atmosphere and creepiness about the film that can’t be denied.

Ms. 45

Rochelle Films, 1981; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Abel Ferrara Producer: Rochelle Weisberg Writer: Nicholas St. John With: Zoe Tamerlis, Steve Singer, Peter Yellen, Jack Thibeau, Albert Sinkys

A Polanski-inspired psychodrama. Tamerlis plays Thana, a mute garment worker who is raped twice in a single afternoon. She manages to kill her second assailant, chops up the body, and disposes of the various parts around town. Having armed herself with the dead man’s gun, she blows away another potential assailant, then mounts an all-out war on the city’s hustlers, pimps, street gangs, and other misogynists. Invited to a costume party by her chauvinistic boss (Sinkys), who puts the move on her, Thana, dressed as a nun, starts blasting away at everybody until she is fatally stabbed by a female friend. Kinetic feminist exploitation film directed with real style by Ferrara, who also appears in the film (under the pseudonym Jimmy Laine) as one of Thana’s would-be assailants. Tamerlis claimed an attempt was actually made on her life because of the female-avenger image she created in the film. It is aka Angel of Vengeance.

Multiple Maniacs

New Line Cinema, 1970; B&W; 90 minutes

Director: John Waters Producer: John Waters Writer: John Waters With: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Baltimore’s redoubtable John Waters concocted this picaresque tale of a traveling freak show called the Cavalcade of Perversion. Run by the psychotic Divine, the show serves as a front for a gang of drug-crazed killers who bear a striking resemblance to the Manson family. Film’s climax has Divine raped by a giant lobster.

Murder by Mail

See Schizoid

The Murder Clinic

Europix, 1966; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Elio Scardmaglia Producer: Elio Scardmaglia Writers: Ernesto Gastaidi, Luciano Martino With: William Berger, Francoise Prevost, Mary Young, Barbara Wilson

Surgeon attempts to restore the face of a deformed woman. The locale of the operation is an out-ofthe-way clinic for the incurably eccentric. As the doc works on the face, a hooded killer with a knife roams the corridors in search of someone to stick it in. Based on the novel The Knife in the Body by Robert Williams. It is aka The Blade in the Body, Night of Terrors, The Murder Society, and Revenge of the Living Dead. Italian title: La Lama Net Corpo.

The Murder Society

See The Murder Clinic

Mutant

New World Pictures, 1982; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Allan Holzman Producer: Roger Corman Writer: Tim Curran With: Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap, Linden Chiles, June Chadwick

Now here’s a unique plot line. Wonder where they came up with it? An alien creature invades a spaceship and grows larger and more vicious each time it chows down on one of the unsuspecting crew. Instead of blasting it into outer space, however, the quick-thinking survivors kill it with poison—by operating on a terminally ill crew member and feeding his cancerous organs to the impudent beast. It is aka Forbidden World.

My Bloody Valentine

Paramount Pictures, 1981; Color; 91 minutes

Director: George Mihalka Producers: John Dunning, Andre Link, Stephen Miller Writer: John Beaird With: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, Neil Affleck, Don Francks, Keith Knight

A psychotic miner terrorizes the Canadian town of Valentine Bluffs on guess what day? His motive: revenge for a mining disaster that took place twenty years earlier. Intense but typical slasher film that was heavily scissored of its gore prior to release.

Nail Gun Massacre

A Terry Lofton/Futuristic Films Production, 1985; Color; 90 minutes

Directors: Bill Leslie, Terry Lofton Producer: Terry Lofton Writer: Terry Lofton With: Rocky Patterson, Michelle Meyer, Ron Queen, Beau Leland

A woman is raped by the workers on a construction site. Soon, it’s open season on construction workers and others as they are stalked by a killer wearing camouflage clothes and a visored crash helmet, who wields a pneumatic nail gun and drives a hearse. This film should be big with body-count buffs because it delivers fifteen bloody murders in less than ninety minutes. They start, imaginatively enough, with a man’s hand being nailed to his forehead as he shields his face. Another man is nailed in the groin after accidentally urinating on the killer’s boots. A third has his clasped hands nailed together as he pleads for his life; and others are nailed to trees and walls. After the first half-dozen “nailings,” however, the filmmakers just start piling up bodies. Although the killer’s voice is disguised to sound like a poor man’s Darth Vader, you’ll know him by what he says when he first appears unmasked. The doctor hero and the sheriff eventually get wise too, and the killer falls to his death from an elevated ore conveyor. Most elements of this production are merely competent, but the music rises above it all to generate some tension and suspense, even though the climax still peters out in the end.

Near Dark

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1987; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Kathryn Bigelow Producer: Steven-Charles Jaffe Writers: Eric Red, Kathryn Bigelow With: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henricksen, Bill Paxton

A vampire road movie, or Bonnie and Clyde meets The Lost Boys. Oklahoma farmboy Pasdar encounters otherworldly Wright one night outside a cowboy honky-tonk and she puts the bite on him, turning him into a neophyte vampire. She takes him to her home—a stolen van with duct tape and aluminum on the windows to keep the daylight out—where she lives with an undead wild bunch armed to the teeth with knives and guns. They balk at having Pasdar join their crosscountry bloodletting party and he proves too squeamish to become one of them. His veterinarian pop gives him a transfusion, returning him to normalcy but incurring the wrath of the bloodsuckers. There’s a wild barroom brawl in which the cowboy vampires slice people with knives and spurs to get at their blood, and an even wilder motel shootout where the bullet holes in the walls send shafts of daylight (a la Blood Simple) streaming into the trapped vampires’ lair. There are also lots of good lines, as when one of the undead sets fire to a van and the blaze reminds him of “that fire we started in Chicago.” Apparently Mrs. O’Leary’s cow wasn’t guilty after all. Gordon Smith’s FX of the vampires smoldering and exploding into flame in the sunlight are also top-notch.

Necropolis

Empire Pictures, 1987; Color; 77 minutes

Director: Bruce Hickey Producers: Cynthia DePaula, Tim Kincaid Writer: Bruce Hickey With: LeeAnne Baker, Jacquie Fitz, Michael Conte, William K. Reed

Dreadful satanist/reincarnation flick that introduces a kinky new twist to splatter movie sexuality—soul sucking. The film begins with an 1868 prologue (set to the anachronistic beat of eighties disco music) where satanist Baker claims virgin bride Fitz just as she is being wed to Conte. Flash forward to 1986. Baker, all decked out in black leather, is prowling the streets of New York City in search of Fitz’s reincarnation so that she can sacrifice her once more. To help out, she raises her dead disciples by sucking the souls out of various druggies and prostitutes and feeding the gooey substance (didn’t know souls were gooey, did you?) to the rotting corpses to give them a pick-me-up. Conte, reincarnated as a Stallone-like cop, tries to save Fitz with the help of a black reverend who knows how to throw a mean cross. The effects by Ed French are okay but nothing new.

A New Beginning

See Friday the 13th—Part V: A New Beginning

The New Blood

See Friday the 13th—Part VII: The New Blood

New Year’s Evil

Cannon Films, 1980; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Emmett Alston Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writers: Emmett Alston, Leon Neubauer With: Roz Kelly, Kip Niven, Grant Cramer, Chris Wallace, Louisa Moritz

Psychopathic killer goes on a cross-country murder spree, timing each of his orgies of bloodletting to occur at midnight so that they coincide with local coverage of a coast-to-coast New Year’s Eve TV special. Kelly, the host of the special, was once a regular on TV’s “Happy Days” during happier days.

The New York Ripper

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Abrizio de Angeli Writers: Lucio Fulci, Gianfranco Clerici, Dardano Sacchetti, Vincenzo Mannino With: Jack Hedley, Almanta Keller, Howard Ross, Andrew Painter

Gore galore! If real hard-core splatter is your cup of tea—er, blood—you’ve come to the right place. No implied blood and guts here. No discreet cutting away at the point of action—Lucio Fulci delivers the real thing! The psycho killer drags a blade across the face of a young woman, leaving a trail of blood. When he reaches her eye, he simply continues cutting while the camera records every grisly detail. The poor woman even manages to roll her eyeball as it is being cut—a detail that lends an unnerving and realistic touch. There are several other violent deaths during the course of the film. Unfortunate victims being repeatedly stabbed and sliced with very convincing effects work. The rest of the film? Oh, yeah. Well, it’s a pretty routine story about a hard-boiled New York City detective tracking down a psycho/slasher who turns out to be a character you’d never suspect.

The Night Andy Came Home

See Deathdream

Nightmare

21st Century Pictures, 1981; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Romano Scavolini Producers: John L. Watkins, William Milling Writers: Romano Scavolini, Wiliam Milling With: Baird Stafford, Sharon Smith, C. J. Cooke, Mik Cribben

Sexual psychopath Stafford is given drugs to curb his appetite for violence. Pronounced cured, he is released from a mental hospital, but he quickly reverts and begins stalking a young woman and her children on a southbound journey from New York to Florida. The film’s ads trumpeted Tom Savini as the effects maestro even though he scarcely worked on the film. Lurid and gross. But, hey, if that’s what you want….

Nightmare Hotel

Distributor unknown, 1973; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Eugenio Martin Producer: Jose Lopex Moreno Writers: Eugenio Martin, Antonio Fos With: Judy Geeson, Aurora Batista, Victor Alcazar, Lone Fleming

A made-in-Spain meat movie that bears more than a passing resemblance to Psycho. Sexually repressed hotel owner/restaurateur Batista (taking her cue from Norman Bates) carves up any and all female guests who exhibit signs of a healthy libido and stores their raw meat in the food cellar (no, not the fruit cellar) to be served up later to unsuspecting guests. Pert British tourist Geeson, whose sister stopped by the hotel and was quickly dispatched to the meat locker, catches on and in the tradition of Psycho’s enterprising Sam Loomis and Lila Crane decides to smoke out the psycho sicko on her own. At least director Martin avoids all those endless close-ups of eyes that made his cult favorite Horror Express so repetitive.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

New Line Cinema, 1984; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producer: Robert Shaye Writer: Wes Craven With: John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Weiss

The dreams of sleeping teens are haunted by the specter of a murderous child molester named Freddy Krueger whom their parents vengefully had put to death years before. One by one the teens are knocked off until heroine Langenkamp forces herself to go to sleep so that she can track down and destroy Freddy in her dreams. Though not The Hills Have Eyes by a long shot, Nightmare is one of Craven’s better splatter efforts. It boasts an interesting concept (the seamless interweaving of dream states and waking states) plus a number of truly spectacular splatter set pieces. It’s also got one of those annoying post-Carrie shock epilogues that, in this case, destroys the film’s precariously balanced sense of logic. Followed by three sequels.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge

New Line Cinema, 1985; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Jack Sholder Producer: Robert Shaye Writer: David Chaskin With: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Robert Englund

The further adventures of Freddy Krueger, everybody’s favorite killer sandman. Patton and his folks (Gulager and Lange) move into the Elm Street house where most of Freddy’s dream antics took place last time—and he immediately becomes possessed by the spirit of the steel-fingered one. In a climax pilfered from Altered States, Freddy is driven out and Patton is returned to normalcy by the purifying love of his high school sweetheart (Myers, who looks like a teenage Meryl Streep). The meaningless shock epilogue returns the film to the sequence that opened it, as a high school bus is shanghaied by the unstoppable Freddy. Good effects, though not as many as in the first film.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors

New Line Cinema, 1987; Color; 96 minutes

Director: Chuck Russell Producer: Robert Shaye Writers: Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, Chuck Russell, Frank Darabont With: Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, John Saxon

The last surviving kids from the old Elm Street neighborhood, all of them still suffering from dreams about Freddy, have been locked away in a local institution. A now grown-up Langenkamp returns as a therapist specializing in “pattern dreaming.” With the help of the kids—whom no one but she, of course, will believe—she finishes off Freddy seemingly, though doubtfully, for good. This entry in the Elm Street saga throws in every conceivable kind of special effect possible—from splatter to stop-motion animation. The ending where Wasson and Saxon are attacked by Freddy’s sword-wielding skeleton looks like something out of a Ray Harryhausen fantasy.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master

New Line Cinema, 1988; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin Producers: Robert Shaye, Rachel Talalay Writers: Brian Helgeland, Scott Pierce With: Robert Englund, Brooke Bundy

Though Part 4 boasts some of the wildest FX sequences in the series, it also ranks with Part 2 as the dullest and most preposterous installment. It begins with Freddy’s resurrection by the three remaining Elm Street kids (progeny of the vengeful adults who killed Freddy years before), who thought they’d dispatched him for good in Part 3. He kills them off, but the last one brings another school friend into her dream shortly before expiring and, presto, Freddy has another whole slew of teens to slay—the implication being that Part 4 will not be the last of the series. The most creative death occurs to a body-building teen whom Freddy turns into a bug so that he can squash her like same. The “Freddy Rap” composed expressly for the film and “sung” over the closing credits is a real groaner. Story by William Kotzwinkle (who should know better) and Brian Helgeland (who should, also).

Night of Terrors

See The Murder Clinic

Night of the Creeps

Tri-Star Pictures, 1986; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Fred Dekker Producer: Charles Gordon Writer: Fred Dekker With: Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, Tom Atkins, Dick Miller

The teaser sequence takes place in outer space and the credits roll over black and white images circa 1959, but the body of this well-conceived SF/Horror/Splatter hybrid takes place on a college campus in the mid-eighties. Chris (Lively) and his paraplegic buddy J. C. (Marshall) are students pledging a fraternity, so Chris can win the love of Cynthia (Whitlow), his dream girl. Instructed by their frat brothers to steal a body from the medical lab, Chris and J. C. end up liberating a zombie from the past with a brainful of alien parasites. Soon, the parasite-infested zombies are multiplying, and a neurotic police detective (Atkins) with a dark secret in his past has entered the case. In the end, the detective, Cynthia, and Chris battle an army of Chris’s zombie frat brothers with a pistol, shotgun, and flamethrower. Director Dekker draws the diverse elements of his story together and neatly pays off on plot points made earlier in order to reach a climax with enough exploding heads, slimy parasites, blood, and burned flesh to satisfy gore fans. Dick Miller makes a cameo appearance as a cop.

Night of the Living Dead

Continental/Image Ten, 1968; B&W; 96 minutes

Director: George A. Romero Producers: Russell Streiner, Karl Hardman Writer: John A. Russo With: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Russell Streiner, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, Marilyn Eastman

Produced on a shoestring over a long series of weekends by a crew of filmmaking unknowns, this ghoulishly clever splatter movie became a minor cause celebre on its initial release. Much of that furor has since died down and the film is now considered to be a classic. Its plot is very straightforward: All manner of corpses come back from the dead due to a freakish and undefined outer-space accident and begin to feed upon the living. Despite some imperfections, this low-budget shocker really delivers the goods. That’s writer Russo who gets a tire iron yanked out of his forehead and director Romero as a Washington, D. C. reporter. Followed by Dawn of the Dead (1979) and Day of the Dead (1985).

Night School

Lorimar, 1981; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Kenneth Hughes Producers: Larry Babb, Ruth Avergon Writer: Ruth Avergon With: Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, Drew Snyder, Joseph R. Sicari

Produced with all the polish and expertise of a big studio production, this film emerges as more of a traditional thriller than a gritty splatter movie. A shame, too, because all the elements are present for a real gorefest. A psycho slasher wearing an ominous black motorcycle helmet and visor and wielding a wicked-looking knife tracks down attractive young women and decapitates them. Pretty gruesome stuff but director Kenneth Hughes somehow manages to make it all rather subtle and tasteful. The script isn’t too bad, but there aren’t enough suspects to keep the real killer’s identity secret for very long and Rachel Ward simply has too much class and sophistication to be believable in the part she is asked to play. Not enough suspense to succeed as a conventional whodunit and not enough guts (literally and figuratively) to work as a splatter movie.

Nurse Sherri

Independent International Pictures, 1977; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Al Adamson Producer: Mark Sherwood Writers: Michael Bockman, Gregg Tittinger With: Jill Jacobson, Geoffrey Land, Marilyn Joi, Prentiss Moulden

A religious zealot with a bad ticker is spirited to the hospital but protests being operated on—maybe he’s a Christian Scientist. His mistrust of medical science proves well founded, however, when he dies on the operating table. You can’t keep a bad man down, though—at the exact moment of his passing, his vengeful spirit takes possession of one of the attendant nurses, Nurse Sherri (Jacobson). She robotically carries out his murderous revenge on the doctors who killed him, using all manner of sharp hospital instruments at his/her command—such as a pitchfork? Not as bad as Adamson’s The Astro Zombies, which has got to be one of the ten worst movies ever made.

Of Unknown Origin

Warner Brothers, 1983; Color; 90 minutes

Director: George Pan Cosmatos Producer: Claude Heroux Writer: Brian Taggart With: Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane, Shannon Tweed

Canadian executive Weller appears to be suffering a mid-life crisis due to a sterile job that doesn’t challenge him anymore. When his wife (Tweed) goes out of town for the weekend, he finds his challenge in the form of a superrat that has invaded his apartment. He and the rat virtually destroy the apartment in a duel to the death. Many friends felt this orgy of rat-man violence to be a clever “sleeper.” We thought it was inane—even more inane after a second viewing. The rat may be clever, but its initial triumphs over “man” are due mostly to Weller’s stupidity—he is surely one of the dumbest “heroes” to ever grace a splatter movie (hard to believe he became Robocop)! Tweed is a former model and Playmate of the Year.

The Omen

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1976; Color; 111 minutes

Director: Richard Donner Producer: Hanley Bernhard Writer: David Seltzer With: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Harvey Stephens, Leo McKern, Patrick Troughton

Peck is the U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, whose newborn son is switched at birth by a group of satanists and replaced by the offspring of the devil. Little Damien grows into a very nasty toddler indeed, causing murder and mayhem wherever he goes. Mom Remick takes a header from a skyscraper hospital into a parked ambulance (director Donner must like this type of “creative death” a lot because he repeats it in his 1987 hit Lethal Weapon); priest Troughton gets skewered with a spear; Warner gets decapitated. And so it goes. Followed by Damien—Omen II (1978) and The Final Conflict (1981).

Omen II

See Damien—Omen II

Omen III

See The Final Conflict

Once Upon a Frightmare

See Frightmare

Orca

Paramount Pictures, 1977; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Michael Anderson Producer: Luciano Vincenzoni Writers: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati With: Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Keenan Wynn, Bo Derek

Whaler Harris catches a pregnant killer whale that proceeds to give birth on the deck of his boat. Both mama whale and her baby die, however, and papa, who has been watching from nearby, “flippers” out and decides to get revenge on Harris and company. A totally absurd mock Jaws from Dino De Laurentiis. Derek, one of the victims of Orca’s wrath, sheds one of her legs instead of her clothes this time around.

The Other Side

See Poltergeist II—The Other Side

The Outing

The Movie Store, 1986; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Tom Daley Producer: Warren Chaney Writer: Warren Chaney With: Deborah Winters, James Huston, Danny D. Daniels, Andrea St. Ivanyi

Some punks bent on robbery break into an old woman’s house and find an ancient Aladdin-type lamp. When they kill the old woman, the lamp releases the spirit of a genie, who proceeds to splatter the disagreeable punks in high style. The lamp is turned over to a local museum. The curator’s daughter persuades some of her high school chums to sneak in after hours for some merriment among the mummies, rubs the lamp, and unleashes the genie. The genie is suitably grotesque and spiteful as he goes about his business of killing the teens and others by such inventive means as decapitation by ceiling fan, impalement by ancient javelin, a revivified snake, an iron mask with interior spikes, and so on. The trouble is, the film’s almost half over before it gets to all this “good stuff.” An opera-singing guard who gets offed by the javelin but returns after the closing credits to take a final bow gives the film a definite lift.

Outland

Warner Brothers, 1981; Color; 109 minutes

Director: Peter Hyams Producer: Richard Roth Writer: Peter Hyams With: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, Kika Markham

Connery is the newly installed federal marshal of a mining colony on one of Jupiter’s moons, a forbidding place where overworked miners are developing acute cases of the crazies. He learns that they’re being given lethal drugs that step up their productivity but drive them insane. Determined to stop the carnage, he finds himself alone. His final showdown against a trio of gunmen hired by company man Boyle rips off High Noon (1952). Lots of explosions and bleeding inside space helmets.

Outlaw Force

Trans World Entertainment, 1988; Color; 95 minutes

Director: David Heavener Producers: David Heavener, Ronnie Hadar Writer: David Heavener With: David Heavener, Paul Smith, Frank Stallone, Robert Bjorklund

Who does Heavener think he is, Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson? The answer is: both. In this absurdly derivative vengeance melodrama, Heavener plays a put-upon do-gooder who saves a gas station attendant from some violent, no-good “good ole boy” rednecks. The rednecks don’t take too kindly to his interference and decide to get even by raping and killing Heavener’s wife, then kidnapping his daughter. When the police prove to be little help in bringing the culprits to justice and returning his daughter home, Heavener decides he must do the job himself Eastwood/Bronson style. Bad.

Parasite

Embassy Pictures, 1982; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Charles Band Producer: Charles Band Writers: Alan J. Adler, Michael Shoob, Frank Levering With: Robert Glaudini, Demi Moore, Luca Bercovici, Vivian Blaine, Cherie Currie

Another spawn of Alien (1979), featuring malevolent slug-like creatures that rip their way through people’s bodies. The setting is earth following “The Big One” where, as if the parasites aren’t enough, civilization is also locked in combat with splatter-punk gangs and right-wing paramilitary groups. Sounds like today. Filmed in 3-D.

The Parasite Murders

See They Came from Within

People Who Own the Dark

Newcal Trefilms, 1975; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Leon Klimovsky Producer: Salvatore Romero Writers: Vicente Aranda, Harry Narunsky With: Maria Perschy, Tony Kendall, Paul Naschy, A. de Mendoza, T. Gimpera

Spanish post-nuclear holocaust drama in which the survivors, followers of the Marquis de Sade, find the chaos that envelops them very much to their liking. They get their comeuppance, though, when a decontamination team finds them, puts them to sleep, then buries them alive. Strives for significance but is just unpleasant. Spanish title: Planeta Ciego.

Phantasm

Avco Embassy, 1978; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Don Coscarelli Producers: Don Coscarelli, Paul Pepperrnan Writer: Don Coscarelli With: Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornsberry, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Kathy Lester

Two brothers investigate a mysterious house where a friend was recently murdered and they encounter some very strange goings-on indeed. For example, a bizarre undertaker called The Tall Man (Scrimm), a proliferation of limb-tearing ghouls, and a flying silver sphere that, when hurled at its victims, sprouts a sharp blade for quick impalement. Definitely original but it makes little narrative sense. Some gore effects were removed prior to release. Followed ten years later by a sequel—Phantasm II (“This summer … the ball is back!”)—that’s a lot gorier and more high-tech than the first film (a bigger studio, Universal, was behind the sequel) but not substantially different. Coscarelli again wrote and directed and Scrimm reappeared as The Tall Man.

Pink Flamingos

New Line Cinema, 1972; Color; 93 minutes

Director: John Waters Producer: John Waters Writer: John Waters With: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Two groups of outcasts compete for the title of “The Filthiest People Alive” in this self-billed exercise in poor taste by the Baltimore director who could have written a book on the subject—in fact, he did. There are some raunchily funny moments (such as the furniture-licking scene), but overall, it’s just plain disgusting—as it was meant to be. Divine’s parting shot, which wins her the title, is especially nauseating. A genuinely rancid movie.

Piranha

New World Pictures, 1978; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Joe Dante Producers: Jon Davidson, Chako Van Leeuwen Writer: John Sayles With: Bradford Dillman, Kevin McCarthy, Heather Menzies, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, Dick Miller

Wacko scientist McCarthy unleashes a strain of supercharged—and superhungry—experimental piranha into the waters of a nearby holiday resort run by Dick Miller, who, in the best Murray Hamilton tradition, refuses to warn the summer trade and risk losing profits during the busiest season of the year. Not so much a rip-off of Jaws as a parody of it—with lots of underwater blood and gore.

Planeta Ciego

See People Who Own the Dark

Poltergeist

MGM/UA, 1982; Color; 114 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall Writers: Steven Spielberg, Michael Grais, Mark Victor With: JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight, Heather O’Rourke

Suburban home is beseiged by evil spirits emanating from the family TV set. The uninvited houseguests snatch the family’s youngest daughter, then subject everyone to a reign of supernatural terror. Mom and dad bring in parapsychology researchers and an eccentric spiritualist to help reclaim their stolen tot. Turns out that a greedy land developer (James Karen) built their house on land that was once a cemetery but didn’t bother to relocate the dead. Nice combination of humor, horror, and splatter that suffers a bit from an overabundance of technical razzledazzle. Though Hooper is credited as director, the film bears the unmistakable and, in this case, not wholly desirable “Spielberg touch.” Followed by Poltergeist II (1986).

Poltergeist II—The Other Side

MGM/UA, 1986; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Brian Gibson Producers: Michael Grais, Mark Victor Writers: Michael Grais, Mark Victor With: Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Heather O’Rourke, Oliver Robins, Will Sampson, Julian Beck

This sequel to Poltergeist makes no sense whatsoever. In the first film, the Freelings were attacked by creatures from “the other side” because their house had been built over an Indian cemetery. In this film, they’ve moved yet are plagued again! Why? Because that’s what happens in sequels, that’s why! The late Will Sampson plays an Indian who uses tribal medicine to ward off the avenging spirits. Beck is creepy as a black-garbed whatever whom people can walk through—and who can disappear at will. The special effects are high-tech and spectacular. When drunken Nelson regurgitates a tequila worm that’s over a foot long, you’ll swear off the sauce for life.

Possession

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color; 127 minutes

Director: Andrzej Zulawski Producer: Marie-Laure Reyre Writer: Andrzej Zulawski With: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent

Menage a quatre splatter movie in which the delectable Adjani finds herself torn between three lovers, one of whom resembles the creature in Alien and may or may not be a product of her confused mind—like Catherine Deneuve’s phantom lover in Repulsion. At any rate, their frequent love scenes together are graphic and erotic—not to mention slimy. She gets pregnant but loses the baby in a gruesome miscarriage scene that, for sheer revulsion and audaciousness, almost eclipses the scene where Samantha Eggar gives birth to an id creature in David Cronenberg’s similar-themed The Brood. Adding to the fun of Possession, the jealous alien gobbles up everyone who threatens his/its domestic bliss. One gets the feeling that there’s some kind of psychosexual, or, perhaps, political (the film was shot in the divided city of Berlin), undercurrent to all of this. But your guess is as good as ours. The video version, cut to ninety minutes, resolves even fewer questions.

The Possession

See Amityville II: The Possession

Predator

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1987; Color; 107 minutes

Director: JamesMcTiernan Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver, John Davis Writers: Jim and John Davis With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura

Space-age variation on Richard Connell’s oft-filmed story The Most Dangerous Game—mixed with elements from Alien, The Lost Patrol, and half a dozen other movies. CIA man Weathers lures special agent Arnold and his muscle-bound band into the Central American jungles to rescue some diplomats who’ve been taken hostage by hostile guerillas. Once there, they find themselves up against a far more terrifying enemy—a chameleon space creature that hunts them down, kills them, and strips them of their flesh. Tough guy Arnold proves a resourceful opponent, however, and the mortally wounded creature finally nukes itself to death. McTiernan’s direction is fast-paced, but the plot is oddly unsuspenseful. The effects (by Stan Winston and others) are top-notch, though. Watch for the scene where Weathers has his arm blown off while he’s firing at the creature—and the severed limb keeps on firing. Gross stuff but inventive. Kevin Peter Hall plays the oversized interstellar sportsman with the scorpion-like face and mean laugh.

Prince of Darkness

Universal, 1987; Color; 102 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: Larry Franco Writer: Martin Quatermass (John Carpenter) With: Donald Pleasence, Victor Wong, Jameson Parker, Lisa Blount, Alice Cooper

Seems that somewhere around seven million years ago (carbon-dating time), Satan—or maybe Son o’ Satan—was imprisoned in the world’s first lava lamp, but rather than swirl atop someone’s TV set, he ended up perched on a secret altar guarded by a Catholic sect so mysterious even the Vatican hierarchy is unaware of its existence. Alas, this liquid Lucifer wants out so he can drag his even nastier father back from the “Dark Side” and start the millenium. Carpenter’s entry in the Apocalyptic Claptrap Sweepstakes contains large doses of The Exorcist, The Sentinel, and Evilspeak to name a few of its more obvious sources. It’s almost stately for about two-thirds of its length, then launches into the expected gooey horrors. The most unsettling aspect of the film is the obnoxious idea that the devil can control “lower life forms”—including worms, ants, beetles, and, shockingly, street people!

Prison

Empire Pictures, 1988; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin Producer: Irwin Yablans Writer: C. Courtney Joyner With: Lane Smith, Viggo Mortensen, Chelsea Field, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Tom Everett, Ivan Lane

Warden Sharpe (Smith), who suffers from nightmares about a prisoner executed for a crime the warden himself committed, is put in charge of the newly reopened, but rundown, Wyoming penitentiary where the execution took place. Among the busload of arriving inmates is the ghost of the dead prisoner (Mortensen). Sharpe inexplicably orders the walled-up execution chamber unsealed, unleashing a malevolent light beam. A guard is strangled with barbed wire, a prisoner is burned to death, another prisoner is impaled with an iron bar, the inmates riot in fear for their lives, and Warden Sharpe gets his. The old, abandoned prison provides an interesting setting for this variation on standard haunted house themes. The FX are good and the direction stylish. But the script is such a jumbled mess and the characters’ motivations so unclear that by the time you figure out even the rudiments of what’s happening, you’ve long ceased caring.

Programmed to Kill

Trans World Entertainment, 1986; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Allan Holzman Producers: Don Stern, Allan Holzman Writer: Robert Short With: Robert Ginty, Sandahl Bergman, Louise Caire Clark, James Booth

Mideast terrorists attack a marketplace in Greece and take two American children hostage. Ex-Exterminator Ginty, here playing a maverick CIA operative, puts aside his blowtorch for an Uzi, rescues the kids, and captures terrorist Bergman. Back in the U.S.A., the terminally wounded Bergman undergoes a special operation and is turned into a cyborg killing machine—the new “action Barbi” as one character calls her. She’s sent back to the Middle East to terminate her former colleagues, but after she does, her memory circuits click in (as in Robocop) and she returns Stateside to get even with her programmers. She’s superstrong and nearly unstoppable; she rips one guy’s arm off, but when she loses a hand, she simply glues it back on. But Ginty gets her in the end, cutting her in half with a bulldozer as she tries to put him away with a bazooka.

Prom Night

Avco Embassy, 1980; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Paul Lynch Producer: Peter Simpson Writer: William Gray With: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Silverman, Antoinette Bower, Casey Stevens

A masked killer stalks a group of high schoolers on the night of their senior prom, as revenge for an accidental death (fall from a window) caused by some of the teens six years earlier. Predictable Halloween (1978) clone, but with a little more stab and drip added.

Prom Night II

See Hello Mary Lou—Prom Night II

Prophecy

Paramount Pictures, 1979; Color, 95 minutes

Director: John Frankenheimer Producer: Robert L. Rosen Writer: David Seltzer With: Robert Foxworth, Talia Shire, Armand Assante, Victoria Racimo

Anti-rape-the-landscape, pro-Indian, environmentalist monster movie in which doctor Foxworth and pregnant wife Shire travel to backwoods Maine to investigate the effects of pollution from a local lumber mill on the area’s flora and fauna. What they discover is a race of toxic mutants that resemble a cross between Godzilla and a pizza with all the trimmings. After a genuinely scary opening where a pack of hunting dogs and their masters are pulled to their doom by who knows what, the film descends into ludicrousness and cheap thrills.

The Prowler

Sandhurst, 1981; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Joseph Zito Producers: Joseph Zito, David Streit Writer: Glenn Leopold With: Vicki Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Cindy Weintraub, Laurence Tierney, Farley Granger

Ex-Jason Zito stepped behind the camera for this revenge shocker in the Friday the 13th (1980) mold about couples who are systematically butchered by a pitchforkwielding maniac at a graduation dance, a reprise of similar events that occurred thirty-five years earlier at another graduation dance. Nothing new here except for Tom Savini’s potent gore effects. It is aka The Graduation.

Psycho from Texas

Showcase Entertainment, Inc., 1981; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Jim Feazell Producer: Jim Feazell Writer: Jim Feazell With: John King III, Herschel Mays, Tommy Lamey, Candy Dee, Janel King, Joanne Bruno, Reed Johnson

There’s a lot of local Texas color in this movie, but very little of it is blood-red. The psycho of the title, Wheeler (King III), likes to degrade, beat up, and sometimes kill women because he saw his mommy turnin’ a trick when he was just a young’un. Wheeler’s in town to participate in a kidnapping scheme masterminded by a mysterious Mr. Big with his local henchman Slick (Lamey). The victim is oil man Bill Philips (Mays), whose daughter Connie (Dee) is about to marry her beau, Steve Foster. Philips escapes from Slick and they engage in a foot chase as long and boring as an Olympic marathon. Meanwhile, Wheeler rapes and/or kills Connie’s best friend Ellen (King). We glimpse her bruised and bloody body as it falls out of a closet. Philips finally stabs Slick dead in the neck with a gaff (look it up). Steve, who turns out to be Mr. Big, is shot by the police after another seemingly endless foot chase (Can’t these guys afford gas?). Wheeler meets a similar fate on his way out of town.

Psychos in Love

Wizard Video/Generic Films, Inc., 1986; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Gorman Bechard Producer: Gorman Bechard Writers: Gorman Bechard, Carmine Capobianco With: Carmine Capobianco, Debi Thibeault, Frank Stewart, Cecilia Wilde, Donna Davidge

It’s cheap, crude, sleazy, sick, and funny! This neat little black comedy tells the story of Joe (Capobianco), a bartender, and Kate (Thibeault), a manicurist, who have two things in common: They both murder members of the opposite sex and they both hate grapes. Falling in love, they continue their murderous ways, at first separately, in an open relationship without jealousy or suspicion. When Kate does get jealous of one of Joe’s victims, they decide to collaborate on their next killing for the sake of togetherness. This leads to a scene in which their victim, a stripper from Joe’s bar who is like “The Shape” in Halloween in that she refuses to expire again and again. When the magic goes out of their murders, they turn to slasher videos, but then return to the real thing. Our loving psychos finally marry, but can they survive a cannibalistic killer plumber? This film’s contrasting of domestic bliss and bickering with its many bloody murders is hilarious. It works because the victims are portrayed as despicable individuals who deserve to be offed, and the film uses distancing devices—such as asides to the camera, having the microphone dip into the frame, and even showing the effects crew—to remind us that it’s only a movie. The gore effects are crude but effective.

Psycho II

Universal, 1983; Color; 113 minutes

Director: Richard Franklin Producer: Hilton A. Green Writer: Tom Holland With: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Robert Loggia, Meg Tilly, Dennis Franz

Twenty-two years after the fact, Norman Bates (Perkins) is judged “restored to sanity” and thrust back into society, much to the irritation of another Psycho veteran, Lila Loomis (Vera Miles). Yes, Lila appears to have married her late sister’s lover, but since John Gavin, who played Sam Loomis in the Hitchcock classic, entered big-time acting as Ambassador to Mexico, he has conveniently expired in the meantime according to the script. Of course, it isn’t long before the violins start screeching and the knife starts slashing; but is Norman responsible, or is Lila doing it all in an excessive attempt to prove him insane, or is there someone else? Okay, so it ain’t Hitchcock, but for three-quarters of its length. Psycho II is a surprisingly good film—due almost entirely to Perkins’s brilliant performance, in which he makes us as much afraid for Norman as of him. The film is slickly made, handsome, and director Franklin shows a lot of style—mostly other people’s (Hitchcock, James Whale, Charles Laughton). It all degenerates into a thoroughly enjoyable, utterly absurd bloodbath and a gimmick ending that just doesn’t work. Still, there’s Perkins, plus lots of places in the Bates house we didn’t get to see the first time, and, oh, it could have been so much worse.

Psycho III

Universal, 1986; Color; 96 minutes

Director: Anthony Perkins Producer: Hilton A. Green Writer: Charles Edward Pogue With: Anthony Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey, Roberta Maxwell, Hugh Gillin

Having been directed during his career by two of the most brilliant of all filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock and Ken Russell, Anthony Perkins takes over the directorial reins himself for the third installment in the Psycho series, and proves he learned much from his teachers. Sure, there are echoes of both Hitch and Russell throughout the film, but Perkins uses them to good effect (many of the Hitchcock evocations are obviously intended to be recognized to make a point), and the approach is bolder and more effective than Psycho II’s Richard Franklin achieved by bending over backward (and failing) not to emulate the original. This time the mystery element is missing (we know all along who’s in that ugly dress and those sensible shoes) and the story concentrates on Norman’s inner struggle with his alter ego when he falls in love with a suicidal ex-nun (Scarwid, who resembles Janet Leigh) who has lost her faith. (When she slashes her wrists in the Bates Motel at precisely the same moment Mother Bates comes calling, the confused girl’s mind transforms her would-be attacker into a vision of the Virgin, and the shock jolts Norman back to himself.) Perkins doesn’t flinch at graphic splatter effects, but the story is mostly an examination of two disaffected characters who might have been each other’s salvation. The film is witty enough that it can easily be read as either an intensely serious Catholic meditation on guilt and redemption, or as a harsh parody of it. The motel setting (embodiment of the American Dream gone bad) takes precedence this time, giving the film an added depth. Hitchcock might well have been pleased.

Q—The Winged Serpent

United Film Distribution, 1982; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Larry Cohen Writer: Larry Cohen With: Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, Richard Roundtree

A pterodactyl (actually the revivified Quetzalcoatl of Mexican folklore) builds a nest in New York City’s high-rise Chrysler Building, where, coincidentally, some stolen loot has also been stashed by petty thief Moriarty. As New York’s finest pursue Moriarty and his stash, Q gobbles up anyone who comes near. Amusing monster movie parody laced with gore. Moriarty is very funny as the seemingly dimwitted thief/hero, a performance he would reprise in Cohen’s The Stuff.

Rabid

New World Pictures, 1977; Color; 90 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: John Dunning Writer: David Cronenberg With: Marilyn Chambers, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan, Patricia Gage, Susan Roman, Frank Moore

Porn queen Chambers plays an accident victim who undergoes a skin-grafting experiment that results in her turning into a rabies-spreading vampire. Instead of biting her victims in the neck, she lets her armpit do the work. Writer-director Cronenberg has proven himself capable of much better things than this frothy but decidedly mediocre reprise of Night of the Living Dead (1968). It is aka Rage.

Rage

See Rabid

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Paramount Pictures, 1981; Color; 115 minutes

Director: Steven Spielberg Producer: Frank Marshall Writer: Lawrence Kasdan With: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, Ronald Lacey, Paul Freeman

Exec producer George Lucas and director Spielberg’s fast-moving tribute to old-time serials is full of freewheeling action, but it also boasts a substantial yechhh factor, which makes it a splatter movie—the most spectacular and, to date, the most financially successful one ever made. The plot centers on hero Indiana Jones’s (Ford) search for the Ark of the Covenant, which holds the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments (or what’s left of them)—and the efforts of the Nazis to steal the Ark first. Its epic snake scene is guaranteed to make the tightest of skins crawl—and the denouement full of melting faces and exploding heads is rousing indeed. Followed in 1984 by a prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!

Mishkin Films, 1972; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: William Mishkin Writer: Andy Milligan With: Hope Stansbury, Jacqueline Skarvellis, Berwick Kaler, Noel Collins

Another bargain-basement splatter bonanza from Andy Milligan—shot on location in his beloved England and Staten Island. Apocalyptic nightmare (With a title like that, what else could it be?) about a family of werewolves and a deranged girl who raises man-eating rats. Terrible, but the title ranks right up there with I Dismember Mama as one of the splatter genre’s best. To promote the film, Milligan suggested that theater owners conduct drawings, with the winner collecting a live rat to feed to his/her mother-in-law! It’s a wonder William Castle never thought of that!

Rawhead Rex

Alpine Pictures, 1986; Color; 89 minutes

Director: George Pavlou Producers: Kevin Attew, Don Hawkins Writer: Clive Barker With: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Niall Tobin, Ronan Wilmot, Heinrich von Schellendorf

Lightning knocks over an Irish totem, releasing an eight-foot-tall flesh-eating devil creature buried there centuries ago following a legendary battle between good and evil. The supernatural creature is known as King Rawhead (or Rawhead Rex). In order to destroy the religious weapon that once defeated him (it’s hidden in a church), Rawhead possesses a local cleric. He also spends some time decimating a nearby trailer park. A visiting American historian (Dukes), whose son was gobbled up by the creature, locates the weapon and with the help of his Irish-American wife (Piper) sends Rawhead back where he belongs in a protracted light show reminiscent of the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This first feature written by horror-fiction superstar Clive Barker is stupefyingly awful. The special effects are cheap and unconvincing. The script, acting, and direction are even worse. A real bomb.

Raw Meat

American-International, 1973; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Gary Sherman Producer: Paul Maslansky Writer: Ceri Jones With: Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, Norman Rossington, David Ladd, Sharon Gurney, Hugh Armstrong

Men and women trapped when a London underground station collapsed upon them back in 1892 survive over the years by feasting on their dead and mating with each other. When their food runs out, they surface, kidnapping derelicts and commuters to restock their larder. When the cannibal leader’s wife expires, he’s compelled to go upstairs again and seek out a new bride (Gurney) to keep the race going. Her husband (Ladd) doesn’t take too kindly to being cuckolded by a cannibal, however, and follows beauty and the beast to the subterranean lair. Pleasence and Lee are police inspectors in search of all those missing persons. Lee is onscreen for only a few minutes, however. A vivid, atmospheric, well done little horror tale with plenty of raw meat to satisfy splatter fans. It is aka Death Line.

Razorback

Distributor unknown, 1984; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Russell Mulcahy Producer: Hal McElroy Writer: Everett de Roche With: Gregory Harrison, Arkie Whitely, Bill Kerr, Judy Morris

A savage wild boar called a “razorback” that’s about the size of a VW bus goes on the rampage in the Australian outback. American Harrison and Aussie Morris join in the hunt, which climaxes at the farm of a pair of murderous brothers who illegally slaughter kangaroos for their meat. They get their comeuppance, though, courtesy of “Raze’”s lethal tusks. Flashy and violent variation on the familiar Jaws theme that lacks any real suspense due to a lack of empathy for any of the characters. Not released theatrically in the United States, though it is available on video.

Re-Animator

Empire Pictures, 1985; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Stuart Gordon Producer: Brian Yuzna Writers: Dennis Paoli, William J. Norris, Stuart Gordon With: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, Robert Sampson

“Herbert, this has got to stop!” cries the stalwart hero (Bruce Abbott) of Re-Animator upon learning that Herbert (Jeffrey Combs) has just decapitated arch-villain Dr. Hill (Robert Sampson) with a shovel and then “re-animated” both his head and body. That off-the-wall lunacy pretty well sums up the approach of the film and helps explain why it marks one of the most audacious directorial debuts in many moons. No question that this is splatter with a vengeance (the film boasts no MPAA seal, but undoubtedly would have been awarded the dreaded X), yet it is what might be called “fun splatter,” done with loads of style, energy, wit, and delirious bad taste. H. P. Lovecraft, from whose early “Herbert West—ReAnimator” stories the film is adapted, might well revolve in his sepulcher could he see the outrageous antics of Gordon and his top-notch ensemble cast. The less reverent among us are more apt to be delighted by such unseemly displays as exploding eyeballs and two grown men trying to appear to be pursuing an obviously absent re-animated cat around a cellar with a baseball bat! This may well be your only chance this lifetime to see a body hold its decapitated head in its hands while attempting to orally arouse an understandably recalcitrant heroine. Not to be missed.

The Rebel Nun

See Flavia Priestess of Violence

The Redeemer

Dimension Pictures, 1978; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Constantine S. Gochis Producer: Sheldom Tromberg Writer: John Michael Seymer With: Michael Hollingsworth, Damien Knight, Gyr Patterson, T. G. Finkbinder, Nikki Barthen

Six ex-students attend a class reunion and find they’re the only ones who showed up—except for a disfigured master of ceremonies who proceeds to murder them for various “sins” they’ve committed since graduation. Such as not getting a job? It is aka The Redeemer … Son of Satan.

The Redeemer … Son of Satan

See The Redeemer

The Red Sign of Madness

See Hatchet for a Honeymoon

Rest in Pieces

Calepas International, Inc., 1987; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Joseph Braunstein Producer: Jose Frade Writer: Santiago Moncada With: Scott Thompson Baker, Lorin Jean Vail, Dorothy Malone, Jack Taylor, Patty Shepard

Wealthy Aunt Carol (Malone, who’s aged into a Carol Channing look-a-like) commits suicide on home video. Vail inherits Malone’s subdivided estate (called 8 Manors), where a number of weird characters have been living for years rent-free. Vail’s ambitious husband (Baker) learns there’s a fortune buried somewhere and sets out to find it even though his wife is being terrified by apparitions of dead Aunt Carol and wants to move out. Turns out that all the residents are dead—also suicide victims. They’re awaiting Aunt Carol’s return and want Vail to slit her wrists and join them. The title suggests some all-out splatter, which is seldom delivered—though an occasional decapitation, amputation, and “hypodermic needle through the eye” scene is sprinkled throughout. One thing you’ll definitely come away remembering about this film is the name of Vail’s husband (Bob), which she screams endlessly as she’s being terrified. A tedious, unrewarding, and unremarkable U.S.-Spanish co-production.

Return of the Living Dead

Orion Pictures, 1985; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Dan O’Bannon Producers: Tom Fox, Graham Henderson Writer: Dan O’Bannon With: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Linnea Quigley, Don Calfa, Brian Peck

Unofficial sequel to Night of the Living Dead, based on a script by John Russo. Metal drums containing the deadly virus that caused the dead to rise in the earlier film have been secreted away by the army. They’re discovered, opened, and, presto, the dead rise once more. In this film, they do more than grunt and groan, however. They actually speak, expressing their wants and needs with a recurring cry of “I want to eat your brains!” Whereas Romero’s zombie films possess a satiric undercurrent, this one strives for outright laughs—and gets them. A good example of splatter slapstick—or splatstick, as it were.

Return of the Living Dead II

Lorimar, 1988; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Ken Wiederhorn Producer: Tom Fox Writer: Ken Wiederhorn With: James Karen, Thom Mathews, Dana Ashbrook, Marsha Dietlein

This should have been titled Abbott and Costello Meet the Living Dead. The only thing missing is Abbott and Costello, but the humor is on the same level and the flesh-eating zombies are given a send-up in much the same way that the comedy team used to send up the old Universal monsters. Perhaps filmmakers have gotten all the mileage out of the Romero-style zombies that they’re going to get and it may be time to bury the unfortunate creatures once and for all. Not as awful as many fans think—in fact, there are even a few chuckles—but if you’re hoping to see a suitable follow-up to Dan O’Bannon’s highly effective Return of the Living Dead, you won’t find it here.

Revenge of the Dead

A Motion Picture Marketing Release, 1984; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Pupi Avati Producers: Gianni Minervini, Antonio Avati Writers: Pupi Avati, Maurizio Costanzo, Antonio Avati With: Gabriele Lavia, Anne Conovas, Paolo Tanziana, Cesare Barbetti

An aspiring writer is given an electric typewriter by his wife as an anniversary present. On the used ribbon, he discovers an account of a pseudo-scientific project aimed at bringing the dead to life. The letters discuss K-zones, places where time doesn’t exist and where the dead can re-enter the land of the living. He decides this would be a good subject for his next novel and, assuming the role of amateur sleuth to learn all he can about the project, runs headlong into a deadly conspiracy. Though this film was packaged and promoted to appear similar to one of Romero’s zombie films, it really has more in common with the work of Jacques Tourneur, whose style was the antithesis of splatter. The film even includes a swimming pool scene inspired by Tourneur’s Cat People. The scientific experiment that succeeds in raising the armies of the dead is also quite similar to an unfilmed Tourneur project called Whispering in Distant Chambers. Though occasionally disjointed, this is an effective supernatural thriller with infrequent but suitably gross interludes of mayhem.

Revenge of the Living Dead

See The Murder Clinic

The Ripper

United Entertainment Pictures, 1986; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Christopher Lewis Producer: Linda Lewis Writer: Bill Groves With: Tom Schreier, Mona Van Pernis, Wade Tower, Tom Savini

A made for home video release, this tale of the revivified spirit of Jack the Ripper was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A college professor who teaches a course in crime cinema finds Jack the Ripper’s ring in an antique shop, puts it on, and takes up where Jack left off. Though Savini gets star billing, he only appears for a couple of minutes at the end, where he has his fingers cut off. David Powell and Robert Brewer handled the gore effects, which are convincing and genuinely disgusting. Christopher Lewis is the son of Golden Age Hollywood actress Loretta Young.

Road Games

Avco Embassy, 1981; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Richard Franklin Producers: Richard Franklin, Barbi Taylor Writer: Everett De Roche With: Stacy Keach, Jamie Lee Curtis, Marion Edward, Grant Page, Bill Stacey

Stylistic clone of Psycho about a maniacal trucker who makes occasional pit stops to wield his bloody knife. Keach is another trucker hot on the killer’s trail; Curtis is an American hitch-hiking through Australia who gets picked up by Keach and decides to help him out. Filled with nods to the late, great master of suspense by devotee Franklin, who studied film at USC and later got the job to direct Psycho II on the basis of his Hitchcockian flourishes in Road Games. He’s no Hitchcock, though. Minimal gore but nice scenery.

Robocop

Orion Pictures, 1987; Color; 103 minutes

Director: Paul Verhoeven Producer: Arne Schmidt Writers: Edward Neumeir, Michael Miner With: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Daniel O’Herlihy, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer

This American film debut by the Dutch director of the spellbinding Fourth Man is as slam-bang a piece of action/splatter filmmaking as you’re likely to see. Weller is a cop in futuristic Old Detroit, where a multi-national corporation runs the police department. The company wants to tear down the old city and build a high-rise, high-tech paradise in its place, but first it has to rid the streets of crime. When Weller is literally blown to pieces by a sadistic gang of drug dealers, executive Ferrer (the look-a-like son of the late actor Jose Ferrer) has him reconstructed as a cybernetic Dirty Harry called Robocop. Trouble is, Weller’s human memory circuits haven’t been completely erased and he goes after the bad guys who blew him away. The trail leads all the way up the corporate ladder to villainous number-two man Ronny Cox. The cardboard, comic book plot is little more than a setup for a potential (and possibly more interesting) series of Robocop adventures. But the pace is relentless and the firepower and gore (courtesy of Rob Bottin) are truly spectacular.

The Running Man

Tri-Star Pictures, 1987; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Paul Michael Glaser Producers: Tim Zenneman, George Linder Writer: Steven de Souza With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Jesse Ventura, Richard Dawson

Fly-boy policeman Arnold is unjustly sent to prison for slaughtering a bunch of Bakersfield civilians. He escapes (one of his fellow escapees isn’t so lucky; his head is blown up by an electronic booby trap) and is given a chance to clear himself on a nationally televised game show called The Running Man. Contestants are given a head start, then mercilessly tracked by chain-saw and spiked hockey-stick-wielding “stalkers.” The show boasts some successful past contestants, but this proves a ruse, for no one has ever successfully run the gauntlet. Arnold discovers the sham, kills his foes by blowing off their heads and turning them into sopranos with a buzz saw. Then he goes after the obnoxious game-show host (played impeccably by the obnoxious Richard Dawson), whose other worries include a ratings battle with a rising sitcom called The Hate Boat. Arnold’s delivery of his Bondian oneliners makes Roger Moore look like Cary Grant. Based on a novel by Richard Bachman (Stephen King).

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

Warner Brothers, 1973; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Alan Gibson Producer: Roy Skeggs Writer: Don Houghton With: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, William Franklyn, Michael Coles, Joanna Lumley, Freddie Jones

No longer a caped predator putting the bite on his victims one by one, Dracula (Lee) has become a reclusive and powerful Howard Hughes figure whose mysterious “company” is blackmailing scientists into developing a deadly new virus aimed at killing every living creature on earth—except for Van Helsing’s (Cushing) daughter, whom Drac intends to make his eternal bride. Hammer had long run out of plots for its Dracula series by this time (though Houghton’s script for this last entry does add a few new wrinkles) and compensated with increasing doses of gore. This is by far the splatteriest of the series—full of bullet hits, stakings, the gamut, plus a sequence involving a nest of female vampires that’s almost worthy of George Romero. Due to the box-office failure of Hammer’s previous Dracula A.D. 1972, the film was not theatrically released in the United States. (It is shown on television, though, often uncut). And it is available on home video in various licensed and public domain editions. It is aka Dracula Is Dead and Well and Living in London.

Saturn 3

Associated Films, 1980; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Stanley Donen Producer: Stanley Donen Writer: Martin Amis With: Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, Harvey Keitel

Douglas and Fawcett are a husband and wife team of outer-space botanists who create an artificial Garden of Eden for research purposes—into which barge Keitel and a shiny death-dealing robot. Fawcett loses her clothes while the others lose various body parts.

Savage Weekend

Upstate Murder Company, 1976; Color; 83 minutes

Director: David Paulsen Producers: David Paulsen, John Mason Kirby Writer: David Paulsen With: Christopher Allport, James Doerr, Marilyn Hamlin, Kathleen Heaney, David Gale

That old splatter movie stand-by, the masked killer, is loose again, this time using cars, fishhooks, chain saws, and bench saws to dispatch his victims. Director Paulsen has since become a writer and producer on TV’s “Dallas.” It is aka The Upstate Murders and The Killer Behind the Mask.

Scanners

Avco Embassy, 1981; Color; 102 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: Claude Heroux Writer: David Cronenberg With: Patrick McGoohan, Stephen Lack, Jennifer O’Neill, Michael Ironside

An underground society of telepaths (“scanners”) whose abilities are the result of an experimental drug unleashed on their mothers during pregnancy by scientist McGoohan must conceal themselves from those who wish them ill will—and from those within their own ranks who wish to use the group’s powers as a weapon. A provocative script marred by some truly terrible acting (by Lack, who has the lead!). O’Neill’s part is a throwaway. McGoohan is good, though—as are the effects by Dick Smith, who was called in to salvage the finale, a splattery duel between good scanner Lack and bad scanner Ironside.

Scarecrows

Manson International, 1988; Color; 88 minutes

Director: William Wesley Producers: Cami Winikoff, William Wesley Writers: Richard Jefferies, William Wesley With: Ted Vernon, Michael Simms, Victoria Christian, B. J. Turner

Paramilitary types heist $3 million from Camp Pendleton, then hijack a plane to escape. One of the thieves absconds with the loot by parachuting into a graveyard protected by huge scarecrows. The others go in after him and one-by-one all the thieves are snuffed out by the malevolent and apparently anti-trespassing scarecrows, who take possession of the interlopers’ bodies, turning them into zombie killers that bleed when their throats are cut and their heads are chopped off, yet ooze straw when they’re disemboweled. The pilot’s daughter manages to get away in the hijacked aircraft, but a dog on board scarfs up the remains of one of the zombie killers, gets zombified itself and gives everyone back at the airport an unpleasant greeting. Good FX by Norman Cabrera, but the film itself is plodding and relentlessly predictable.

Schizo

Niles International, 1977; Color; 109 minutes

Director: Pete Walker Producer: Pete Walker Writer: David McGillivray With: Lynn Frederick, John Leyton, Stephanie Beacham, John Fraser, Jack Watson

Splattery whodunit in which the the heroine (Frederick—wife of the late Peter Sellers) and the knife-wielding psychopath stalking her are revealed at fadeout to be one and the same person—not that the film’s title is any kind of a tip-off.

Schizoid

Cannon Films, 1980; Color; 91 minutes

Director: David Paulsen Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writer: David Paulsen With: Klaus Kinski, Marianna Hill, Craig Wasson, Donna Wilkes

Someone is knocking off therapist Kinski’s patients. Could it be he? Or is that axe in his hand really a red herring? One of his patients, an “advice to the lovelorn” columnist (Hill), receives letters threatening her life and, fearing she’ll be next, he sets out to track the killer down. Standard mad-slasher stuff with a twist ending. It is aka Murder by Mail.

Scream Baby Scream

A Westbury Films Production, 1969; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Joseph Adler Producer: Joseph Adler Writer: Laurence Robert Cohen With: Ross Harris, Eugenie Wingate, Chris Martel, Suzanne Stuart, Larry Swanson

This is not so much a gore movie as a disfigurement movie. Jason Grant (Harris) and Janet Wells (Wingate) and their friends Scotty and Marika (Martel and Stuart) are young art students who fall under the sinister influence of Charles Butler (Swanson), an introverted, romantic, mad artist who glorifies the ugly. Chris Martel, the idiot son from Herschell Gordon Lewis’s The Gruesome Twosome, turns his friends on to sugar-cube acid in a cup of coffee and sings psychedelic rock songs with the group Odessey. Butler himself is a victim of Dr. Garrison’s flesh-melting injections because he once coveted Garrison’s daughter. Now, Butler uses the same serum to disfigure the models for his grotesque paintings. Ironically, even though Janet smashes a glass vase over the mad artist’s head (the heaviest gore in the film), both Jason and Janet end up as grotesque facial freaks who were just made for each other.

Scream Bloody Murder

Indepix, 1972; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Robert J. Emery Producer: Robert J. Emery Writer: Robert J. Emery With: Fred Holbert, Leigh Mitchell, Robert Knox, Suzette Hamilton

A young boy grinds up his dad with the family tractor (hope it was paid for) but mangles his hand in the bargain. Outfitted with your basic, all-purpose, steel-claw prosthetic, he goes on a murder spree, making his mom, stepdad, and others “cry uncle.” You’ve seen it all before—and since.

Scream for Help

Lorimar, 1984; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Michael Winner Producer: Michael Winner Writer: Tom Holland With: Rachael Kelly, David Brooks, Marie Masters, Rocco Sisto, Lolita Lorre

Embarrasingly bad splatter/thriller with most of the gore set pieces occurring in the almost howlingly funny last half hour. Kelly discovers that her stepfather (Brooks) is trying to kill her mother (Masters) in order to get at the family fortune. She tries to blow the whistle on him, but nobody will believe her. Lorre and Sisto are Brooks’s partners in crime—and a more incompetent trio you’ve never seen. You won’t believe a single scene in this contrived mess. John Paul Jones’s atrocious musical score, which seems to belong to another movie, rounds out the awfulness. There’s a good deal of diverting nudity, though.

Screams of a Winter Night

Dimension Pictures, 1979; Color; 92 minutes

Director: James L. Wilson Producers: Richard Wadsack, James L. Wilson Writer: Richard Wadsack With: Gill Glasgow, Mary Cox, Robin Bradley, Matt Borel, Patrick Byers

Anthology film in which kids camping at a remote mountain lake spin ghost stories to terrify one another. The stories deal with a Big Foot-type monster, a sexually repressed girl who carves up people who are overly libidinous, and a demon Indian. Originally shot in 16mm, then blown up to 35mm for theatrical distribution—of which it got little.

The Secret of Dr. Alucard

See A Taste of Blood

The Seduction

Embassy Pictures, 1983; Color; 104 minutes

Director: David Schmoeller Producers: Irwin Yablans, Bruce Cohn Curtis Writer: David Schmoeller With: Morgan Fairchild, Michael Sarrazin, Andrew Stevens, Vince Edwards

More mad-slasher nonsense from producer Irwin Yablans, who hasn’t been able to make anything else since his successful connection with Halloween. Stevens plays a crazy fan of L.A. TV reporter Fairchild. Living just up the hill from her multi-windowed home allows him ample opportunity to see her take nude swims, fanning his desire. The next logical step is to make her his, but first he has to knock off her boyfriend (Sarrazin), whom he knifes in her hot tub. Cop Edwards can do nothing, of course, so Fairchild must get out the family shotgun and settle things herself.

The Sender

Paramount Pictures, 1982; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Roger Christian Producer: Edward S. Feldman Writer: Thomas Baum With: Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Shirley Knight, Paul Freeman

A troubled young man (Ivanek) tries to commit suicide by drowning but winds up with amnesia instead. He is put under the care of compassionate psychiatrist Harrold. Her curative powers are severely put to the test, however, when Ivanek starts sending her gruesome telepathic images from his nightmarish dream-sleep. Low-key but deservedly R-rated psychological shocker made in England.

The Sentinel

Universal, 1976; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Michael Winner Producers: Michael Winner, Jeffrey Konvitz Writers: Michael Winner, Jeffrey Konvitz With: Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Martin Balsam, Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Jose Ferrer, Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Sylvia Miles, Deborah Raffin, Eli Wallach, Jerry Orbach

Michael Winner’s superbly stylish spook and splatter show is perhaps the only one of his post 1960s films to reflect the brilliance he showed in the previous decade with films such as I’ll Never Forget What’s ’is Name and The Jokers (both 1967). Unfortunately, the film has always been badly misunderstood, misinterpreted, and maligned, not in the least because Winner (who has always liked to squirt a little blood) really delivers the gore goods. His graphic nastiness is unflinching in a way not generally seen in a decently budgeted mainstream film. In the process of damning the film’s excesses, nearly everyone missed the fact that, while it’s somewhat illogical, the film is one of the creepiest demonic-possession thrillers ever to lurch across the screen. If the viewer can accept the basic premise that the entrance to hell (guarded by the Sentinel of the title) is in Brooklyn Heights, Winner’s film affords many an effective shudder, in part because one is disoriented by the fact that the good guys (a lunatic branch of the Catholic Church) are as weird a lot as the demons. As a bonus, there are a series of wonderfully ripe performances by Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Ava Gardner, and Sylvia Miles. Beware the TV print, which is not only severely cut but is littered with substitute footage (removing all references to the Catholic Church), making the film even more illogical.

The Serpent and the Rainbow

Universal, 1988; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producers: David Ladd, Doug Claybourne Writers: Richard Maxwell, A. R. Simoun With: Bill Pullman, Cathy Tyson, Zakes Mokae, Paul Winfield

Based on the book of the same name by Wade Davis, which in turn was based on Davis’s real life experiences, The Serpent and the Rainbow funnels factual information related to voodoo practices into a fictional story. This gives the film a ring of truth—we believe that what is happening is possible and consequently it becomes more frightening. Director Wes Craven knows a good script. He builds the plot slowly. As the protagonist, Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman), we are led progressively deeper into the more bizarre elements of the story. In a scene where he is buried alive, we experience the horror with him as the point-of-view shots literally place us in his position. Sure, it’s been done before, but it’s still chilling. Not much excess gore, but there is one unnerving scene when the villain tortures the hero in a way that will have at least the male viewers wincing. Toward the end. Craven gets carried away with too much visual razzle-dazzle not in keeping with the rest of the tilm, but, for the most part, The Serpent and the Rainbow effectively combines traditional atmospheric horror with contemporary shocks and thrills.

The Severed Arm

Media Cinema/Media Trend, 1973; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Thomas S. Alderman Producer: Gary Adelman Writers: Thomas S. Alderman, Darrel Presnell, Larry Alexander, Marc B. Rand With: Deborah Walley, Paul Carr, Roy Dennis, Marvin Kaplan, David G. Cannon, John Crawford

Trapped by a landslide, spelunkers turn to cannibalism to survive—drawing lots and eating the loser’s arm. After they’re saved, the loser who surrendered his limb goes after the rest to get even.

Sharkey’s Machine

Orion Pictures, 1981; Color; 120 minutes

Director: Burt Reynolds Producer: Hank Moonjean Writer: Gerald Di Pego With: Burt Reynolds, Vittorio Gassman, Brian Keith, Rachel Ward, Charles Durning, Henry Silva

Special vice squad unit headed by Reynolds sets out to bring down sleazeball mobster Gassman’s call girl empire by spying on one of his $1,000-a-night hookers (Ward). Reynolds becomes fixated on the girl instead. When she gets a face-lift courtesy of hitman Silva’s shotgun, lovesick Reynolds goes on a bloody rampage. Turns out she’s not dead, however; it was someone else who got blown away. Surprise, surprise—unless, of course, you’ve seen Otto Preminger’s Laura, which this film borrows from quite shamelessly. John Boorman was originally set to direct but suggested that Reynolds do it himself. Wise decision, John. Bad advice, Burt.

She-Devils on Wheels

A Mayflower Pictures Release, 1968; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Allison Louise Downe With: Betty Connell, Pat Poston, Nancy Lee Noble, Christie Wagner

After Blood Feast, this tale of a free-spirited all-girl gang of motorcyclists who call themselves The Maneaters was H. G. Lewis’s most financially successful splatter pic. To lend authenticity to the film, Lewis employed real female bikers. The plot centers around the conflict between The Maneaters and a rival gang of male bikers, who do them dirty. When Noble is beaten to a raw and bloody pulp by one of the males, the girls mount their “Harley Hogs” and peel out to get even. In one scene, they string a wire across the highway, decapitating Joe-Boy, the rival gang leader, as he unwittingly roars by. Another of the boys is dragged along the road until he’s a bloody mess. Grisly and funny, the film boasts such memorable lines as: “Go fumigate yourself, craphead!”

Shivers

See They Came from Within

Shock

See Beyond the Door II

Shogun Assassin

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color; 84 minutes

Directors: Kenji Misumi, Robert Houston Producers: Shintaro Katsu, Hisaharu Matsubara, David Weisman Writers: Kazuo Koike, Robert Houston, David Weisman With: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Masahiro Tomikawa, Kayo Matsuo

When his wife is killed by the warriors of a villainous shogun, a samurai takes his young son (who provides the voice-over narration so that we know what’s going on) on a cross-country blood spree of medieval Japan, hacking off his enemies’ limbs, cutting their throats, severing their hands, you name it. Ultraviolent Japanese “Western” that is also quite funny—intentionally so. The little boy has a wonderfully dry wit.

Shriek of the Mutilated

American Films, 1974; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Michael Findlay Producer: Ed Adlum Writers: Ed Adlum, Ed Kelleher With: Alan Brock, Jennifer Stock, Tawn Ellis, Darcy Brown

Cannibal-cult “meat movie” from the producer/director of Invasion of the Blood Farmers and the co-director of Snuff. An anthropology professor enlists the aid of some of his students in searching out a Big Foot-type creature reportedly seen on a remote island. There they meet up with the island’s population of two—another doctor and his faithful Indian companion—who give the group some tips. Predictably, the students start getting offed by the mysterious bear-like creature, but then—surprise, surprise—one of the brighter students picks up on the fact that there’s no Big Foot at all. It’s really a ruse, cooked up by the two doctors and some other locals, all members of a cannibal cult in need of nubile human vitals as vittles for their annual banquet. The students are ceremoniously hacked up with an electric carving knife and summarily eaten.

Silent Night, Bloody Night

Cannon Films, 1973; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Theodore Gershuny Producers: Jeffrey Konvitz, Ami Artzi Writer: Theodore Gershuny, Jeffrey Konvitz With: Patrick O’Neal, James Patterson, Mary Woronov, Walter Abel, John Carradine

This film is clearly low budget; the photography is grainy and murky, and sometimes the image is too dark to see what is going on. In spite of these problems, the filmmakers appear to have believed in what they were doing. The film boasts an incredibly complicated plot, but we are pulled in slowly so that as layer after layer of the story is peeled away, we become intrigued as to just how far things are going to go. There’s an almost surrealistic quality to the story—a kind of illogical logic, as if the film exists in its own dream-like world. The sepia-toned flashbacks are moody and evocative and the period details are convincing enough to lend some credibility to the more far-fetched plot developments. The acting, while sometimes amateurish, works because the cast is sincere and approaches the material with conviction. There are some gruesome bits of business, although the gore is suggested more through editing than Savini-like special effects. Problems? Yes, to be sure. But there is an overriding ambience here—a dark and somber mood that draws one in and somehow makes it all work.

Silent Night, Deadly Night

Manson International, 1984; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr. Producer: Ira Richard Barmak Writer: Michael Hickey With: Lilyan Chauvan, Gilmer McCormick, Robert Brian Wilson, Linnea Quigley

Little Billy’s nutso grandpa scares the kid into believing that Santa Claus punishes those who are naughty and gives to those who are nice. Shortly after, Billy’s parents are murdered by a psycho dressed in a Santa suit. Billy and his brother are spirited to a Catholic orphanage, where the Mother Superior (Chauvan) reinforces the punishment message. The disturbed boy grows up and gets a job in (where else?) a toy store, where, come Christmas, his employer enlists him to play Santa Claus. Billy dons the suit, flips out, and, axe in hand, sets off in pursuit of naughty folks to chop up. Bottom-of-the-barrel, mad-slasher fare that unabashedly strives to include every cliché of the genre—Quigley’s impalement on some moose antlers strikes the only original note. Billy gets his, of course, but the implication is that his little brother will don the killer Santa suit in a future installment. The film caused somewhat of a stir when its distributors decided to release it during the Christmas season—a tasteless decision that resulted in some initially brisk business at the box office, but the controversy prompted them to pull it from release and re-open it in the spring. Original title: Slayride.

Silent Night, Deadly Night—Part II

Manson International, 1986; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Lee Harry Producer: Lawrence Appelbaum Writers: Lee Harry, Joseph H. Earle With: Eric Freeman, James L. Newman, Elizabeth Cayton, Jean Miller

Little Ricky (not of “I Love Lucy” fame) takes up where older brother Billy left off in this lame sequel that incorporates an astonishing twenty-five minutes (a third of its running time!) of flashback footage from the first film. So many scenes from the first film are used that the closing credit roll lists complete casts and credits for both films. The advantage, of course, is that you can catch the sequel and see the first film all at once, thus saving time. Part II is more light-hearted as Eric Freeman (as Ricky) goes around imitating Jack Nicholson from The Shining, shouting “NAUGHTY!” as he dispatches victims with an axe, a gun, and a set of battery charger cables. The ending, where Ricky is blown away but survives, paves the way for a Part III—which, if equal quantities of flashback footage from the two earlier films are used, might make for a spirited short subject.

Silent Scream

American Cinema Releasing, 1980; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Denny Harris Producers: Denny and Joan Harris Writers: Ken and Jim Wheat, Wallace E. Bennett With: Rebecca Balding, Cameron Mitchell, Avery Schreiber, Barbara Steele, Yvonne De Carlo

Young lodgers in a rooming house run by De Carlo are knocked off by a secret boarder—De Carlo’s deranged daughter (Steele), who has a thing for knives. Mitchell and Schreiber are the cops assigned to the case; their scenes together are (unintentionally?) quite funny. Director Harris capitalizes sensationally on the “sex leads to death” controversy by intercutting a bloody murder with a couple reaching orgasm. One wonders. Was he making a moral statement?

Simon—King of the Witches

The Fanfare Corporation, 1971; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Bruce Kessler Producer: David Hammond Writer: Robert Phippeny With: Andrew Prine, Brenda Scott, Ultra Violet

Psychedelic potboiler about a warlock (Prine) and his predilection for human sacrifices—especially those involving nude young women. Ultra Violet was one of the late Andy Warhol’s campy superstars; haven’t seen her in too many films since. Maybe if she changed her name to Ultra Violence, she’d get more work

Sisters

American-International, 1973; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Brian De Palma Producer: Edward Pressman Writers: Brian De Palma, Louisa Rose With: Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Bill Finley, Charles Durning, Lisle Wilson

Kidder is one half of a deadly Siamese twin sister act; she’s a model; her sister’s a deranged murderess. Finley is the creepy doctor who separated the two. De Palma’s first and best Hitchcock pastiche boasts some really nasty murders. Film’s scary atmosphere is aided immeasurably by Bernard Herrmann’s riveting score, one of his last and best.

Sisters of Satan

A Dallas Laser Leasing III Presentation, 1975; Color; 77 minutes

Director: Juan Lopez Moctezuma Producers: Eduardo Moreno, Max Guefen Writers: Juan Lopez and Yolanda L. Moctezuma, Alexis T. Arroxo With: Claudio Brook, David Silva, Tina Romero, Susana Kamini

There are two films with this title; this one is much better than the other, which stars Anne Heywood and Ornella Muti and has only minimal gore. In 1865, Alucarda (Romero) and Justine (Kamini), two fifteen-year-old orphan convent girls, are seduced into demonic possession by a satyr-like gypsy devil. The gore starts subtly with a blood-sister ritual in which the girls lick blood from small cuts on each other’s breasts. It builds through a bloody long-distance psychic battle for the girls’ souls between Sister Angelica and a gypsy witch, to an orgy of flagellation by the nuns when the girls’ possession is discovered. Justine is killed in an exorcism attempt when her belly is repeatedly pierced by a large needle, the head priest decapitates a possessed nun with a spurt of blood and then picks her severed head up off the floor, and Justine rises naked from a literal bloodbath in a coffin to slash Sister Angelica with her nails and take a killing bite out of her neck. Justine is destroyed by holy water that burns her like acid, while Alucarda plays “Carrie” in the convent by burning the place up along with half its occupants. Good gore, frenzied acting, hallucinogenic images and editing, and a lot of nudity make this film a must see! It is aka Alucarda and Innocents from Hell.

The Slaughter

See Snuff

Slaughter High

Vestron Pictures, 1987; Color; 95 minutes

Directors: George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten Producers: Steve Minasian, Dick Randall Writers: George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, Peter Litten With: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Kelly Baker, Billy Hartman

Nerdy chemistry major Marty (Scuddamore) is tormented by his fellow classmates on April Fools Day. One of the pranks results in an explosion in the chem lab and Marty’s permanent disfigurement. The plot skips forward five years as the classmates are invited to a special April Fools Day reunion at the now closed high school. Would you go? Us, neither. Anyway, one by one, Marty’s former tormentors are impaled, reduced to bones in an acid bath, disembowled with a lawn mower blade, and electrocuted. Come on, it couldn’t really be Marty who’s behind all this, could it? Oh yes, it could. There is an attempt at a surprise twist, but it’s dumb and doesn’t work. It does, however, provide the filmmakers with the opportunity to throw in one last splatter murder—in this case a hypodermic needle thrust in somebody’s eye. Trite Friday the 13th clone with cloned score by F13th alumnus Harry Manfredini.

Slaughter Hotel

Hallmark Releasing, 1973; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Fernando Di Leo Producers: Armando Novelli, Tizio Longo Writers: Fernando Di Leo, Nino Latino With: Klaus Kinski, Margeret Lee, Monica Strebel, John Karlson

Another “V for Violence” opus—from the friendly folks who brought us Last House on the Left and Mark of the Devil, parts 1 and 2. “Carved out of today’s headlines,” Hallmark attempted to exploit the notoriety surrounding the Richard Speck murder case, in which the deranged Speck (“Born to Kill”) had brutally slain several Chicago nurses (“See the slashing massacre of 8 innocent nurses!” the ads screamed). Alas, twenty years after the fact, this come-on doesn’t mean much—especially when you consider how many nurses have been dispatched in splatter movies since then. Besides, the film really has nothing to do with Speck—nor does it take place in a hotel. The setting is actually an up-scale clinic for the mentally disturbed run by nutso doctor Kinski. There, not just nurses but many of the residents seeking treatment are tortured, maimed, carved up, and beheaded by a masked killer on the loose. Typical, badly dubbed Italian-made murder melodrama.

Slaughterhouse

American Artists, 1987; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Rick Roessler Producer: Ron Matonak Writer: Rick Roessler With: Sherry Bendorf, Don Barrett, William Houck, Joe Barton, Eric Schwartz, Jane Higginson, Jeff Grossi

Beware! This movie may turn you into a vegetarian. The credits sequence graphically depicts a pig’s real last mile on the way to our dinner tables. Lester Bacon (Barrett) and his demented giant of a son, Buddy (Barton), live in their deserted slaughterhouse, which was put out of business by the new mechanized packing plant. The plant owner, a lawyer, and the sheriff conspire to steal the Bacons’s home. Liz Borden (Bendorf), the sheriff’s daughter, and her teen friends use the slaughterhouse to make out, shoot a home music video, and play pranks. But they, the conspirators, and others start disappearing when Buddy grabs his butcher’s axe. This fine film delivers nearly a dozen bloody murders and doesn’t take its time about it. Great gore moments include a deputy covered by his own gun while it’s still clutched in his severed hand, and Lizzie’s lesson from Lester that the smallest cut can be the most painful.

Slave of the Cannibal God

New Line Cinema, 1978; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Sergio Martino Producer: Luciano Martino Writers: Sergio Martino, Cesare Frugoni With: Stacy Keach, Ursula Andress, Claudio Cassinelli

Andress hires guide Keach to take her into the jungle in search of her missing husband, and both are taken captive by a cult of hungry cannibals. Replay of King Solomon’s Mines, but with trendy nudity and gore.

Slayride

See Silent Night, Deadly Night

Sleepaway Camp

American Eagle Film Corp., 1983; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Robert Hiltzik Producers: Michele Tatosian, Jerry Silva Writer: Robert Hiltzik With: Mike Kellin, Katherine Kamhi, Paul DeAngelo, Jonathan Tierston, Robert Earl Jones

This very perverse little psycho-splatter movie starts out similar to a Friday the 13th clone. A divorced man (he’s gay) and his two children are victims of a freak boating accident. The surviving child is sent to live with a man-hating aunt and her young son, Ricky. The movie skips forward eight years. Ricky and his stepsister, Angela, are sent away to camp for the summer. Shy and retiring Angela, who’s terrified to go swimming because of what happened years before, becomes the victim of a nasty cook, who makes sexual advances, and some of the other kids. Soon, her various tormentors start turning up dead—one is scalded with boiling water, another is knifed, a third is stung to death by wasps. There’s very little mystery as to who done it. And about halfway through, one begins to suspect that the reason why Angela won’t go swimming or even shower with the other girls is that she’s been brought up by her twisted aunt to act like a girl, when, in fact, she’s really a boy. The ending still comes as a shock, though—due mostly to Ed French’s grotesque makeup of the girl/boy when she finally reveals herself. There’s also a perverse love song played over the film’s closing credits. Director Hiltzik dedicated his film: “In fond memory of mom, a doer.” One can only wonder what that means!

Slumber Party Massacre

New World Pictures, 1982; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Amy Jones Producer: Amy Jones Writer: Rita Mae Brown With: Michele Michaels, Michael Villela, Robin Stille, Debra DeLiso

Girls having a slumber party are visited by a maniac (Villela) brandishing an outsized power drill (get the phallic symbolism?). He kills most of them plus a couple of their boyfriends before being set upon by one of the survivors (Michaels), a friend of hers, and the friend’s younger sister. They beat him with baseball bats and finally carve him up with an electric saw. Is there a feminist message lurking about here? Doubt it. Despite the participation of feminist author Rita Mae Brown (whose script, we understand, was considerably altered), this is just another exploitative slasher flick in which female director Amy Jones piles on the gore with the same skill and gusto as her male counterparts in the field.

Slumber Party Massacre II

Concorde Pictures, 1987; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Deborah Brock Producers; Deborah Brock, Don Daniel Writer: Deborah Brock With: Crystal Bernard, Kimberly McArthur, Juliette Cummins, Patrick Lowe

The younger sister (Bernard) who helped to kill the drill-wielding psycho in the first film has now grown up. Her sister is recuperating in an asylum and she herself is still plagued by nightmares about what happened. An aspiring rock singer, she joins some other members of her all-female band for another slumber party at an expensive condo—and the psycho, whom she apparently conjures up from her nightmares, returns. This time, however, he assumes the form of a satanic guitar player, whose guitar handle doubles as an even longer, more lethal (and more phallic) power drill. Repetitive, uninspired sequel.

Snuff

Monarch Releasing Corp., 1974 Color; 82 minutes

Directors: Michael and Roberta Findlay Producers: Michael Findlay, Allan Schackleton Writers: Michael and Roberta Findlay With: Credits unavailable

Almost plotless gore-fest set in South America about a south-of-the-border Manson family that mutilates an actress and some of her friends. As a splatter movie, it’s really no worse than many, but its advertising campaign, which encouraged audiences to believe that one of the killings was real, succeeded in packing ’em in. The claim was a hoax (fortunately!). Director Michael Findlay was later killed in a freak helicopter accident, but his wife, Roberta, continued making splatter pics. It is aka The Slaughter.

The Soldier

Avco Embassy, 1982; Color; 96 minutes

Director: James Glickenhaus Producer: James Glickenhaus Writer: James Glickenhaus With: Ken Wahl, Klaus Kinski, William Prince

Globe-trotting spy yarn in which somnolent, uncharismatic CIA operative Wahl (it rhymes with wall, which is a fairly accurate description of the actor’s emotional range) tries to avert a Russian plot to blow up an Arabian oil field, thereby throwing the oil-dependent West into political and economic chaos. Short on suspense and logic but long on chase scenes, violent set pieces, and wild stunts.

Soldier Blue

Avco Embassy, 1970; Color; 112 minutes

Director: Ralph Nelson Producers: Harold Loeb, Gabriel Katzka Writer: John Gay With: Peter Strauss, Candice Bergen, Donald Pleasence, John Anderson

Cavalry officer Strauss and settler Bergen are thrown together after an Indian attack that wipes out his entire company. Their journey to survival climaxes at Sand Creek, where more boys in blue led by the murderous Colonel Chivington (Anderson) get even by raiding an Indian village and slaughtering every Indian in sight, man, woman, or child. Another revisionist Western made in the wake of the stunning impact of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. The film was made, according to its producers and director, to offer a statement about the genocide of the American Indian. Come on, guys—you just wanted to do a massacre scene bloodier than Peckinpah’s. Admit it! See soldier boys chop off the breasts of protesting Indian maidens! See brave Indian warriors get disembowled! See Indian children shot in the head! See sensitive, guilt-ridden soldier blue Strauss toss up his cookies at the bloody spectacle! See Candice Bergen looking as if she just stepped out of Bloomingdale’s! In this splatter Western, disguised as an “important movie,” you’ll see all that and less.

Sorority House Massacre

Concorde Pictures, 1986; Color; 74 minutes

Director: Carol Frank Producer: Ron Diamond Writer: Carol Frank With: Angela O’Neill, Wendy Martel, Pamela Ross, Nicole Rio, John C. Russell

What a waste! There’s really some talent here. The first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film contain promise, but things go downhill from there. The scenes where Beth, the main character, arrives at the sorority house are intercut not only with her memories, dreams, and hallucinations but also with the real and out-of-body experiences of a patient at a local mental hospital. This is strong visual stuff, and it is to the credit of director Carol Frank that it never gets confusing. A repeated viewing of these early scenes reveals just how adroit Frank really is with this footage. There are other pleasures as well during these early sequences: Blood slowly drips onto an immaculately set dinner table until the china, silver, candles, and linen become spotted—a haunting and ironic image. The inmate at the hospital turns his head at the exact moment he turns his head in Beth’s hallucination, and Frank cuts while the turn is in progress, suggesting that the psycho is really in both places at the same time. Unfortunately, this highly cinematic beginning is not sustained; the film becomes progressively more routine and predictable.

Southern Comfort

Embassy Pictures, 1981; Color; 106 minutes

Director: Walter Hill Producer: David Giler Writers: Michael Kane, Walter Hill, David Giler With: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, Peter Coyote

National Guardsmen on weekend maneuvers in the Lousiana swamps mess with the local Cajuns and die to regret it. Hill’s Vietnam allegory is really a composite (polite word for rip-off) of Deliverance and John Ford’s The Lost Patrol. Most of the characters are so overdrawn—and boneheaded to boot—that one doesn’t care whether they get killed or not. The “creative deaths” are suitably spectacular and bloody. Tense but stupid. Andrew Laszlo’s photography and Ry Cooder’s score are terrific, though.

Spasms

Distributor unknown, 1983; Color; 87 minutes

Director: William Fruet Producers: John G. Pozhke, Maurice Smith Writer: Don Enright With: Peter Fonda, Oliver Reed, Kerrie Keanue, Al Waxman

Canadian-made giant-serpent movie in which financier Reed finds himself in telepathic contact with a lethal South American snake that killed his explorer brother. When it’s captured, he buys it and hires scientist Fonda to come up with an explanation for the bizarre mind link. A group of snake worshipers, believing the reptile to be a god, let it loose by heating up its cage. The hothouse effect causes the snake to grow to the size of an elephant. The venomous creature busts loose and bites Reed and several others before being destroyed by Fonda. The oversized mechanical snake head created for the film is okay, though it doesn’t do much except bite people, causing them to drool a lot and develop a case of what looks like the mumps. The real snake is a lot scarier.

Splatter University

A Troma Team Release, 1984; Color; 78 minutes

Director: Richard W. Haines Producers: Richard W. Haines, John Michaels Writer: Richard W. Haines With: Francine Forbes, Cathy Lacommare, Dick Biel, Denise Texeria

Splatter University’s low budget and lack of resources is evident from the beginning, but what is really amazing about the production is the total lack of talent on the part of the cast and crew. Every aspect of the production is amateurish and lacking inspiration. The story is a whodunit, but the murderer is so obvious from the start that any chance for suspense is lost (kindly priests with short tempers who are confined to wheelchairs and who spend a great deal of time spying on people are often suspicious characters!). Even the potential for an ironic ending is missed. The nominal hero could easily have been framed for the murders, leaving the imposter priest free to resume his demented deeds and the filmmakers with a natural sequel. Perhaps it’s just as well the film ended as it did. The last thing we need is Splatter University II!

Spookies

Miggles Corporation, 1985; Color; 85 minutes

Directors: Eugenie Joseph, Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner Producers: Eugenie Joseph, Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner, Frank M. Farel Writers: Frank M. Farel, Thomas Doran, Brendan Faulkner With: Felix Ward, Dan Scott, Alec Nemser, Maria Pechukas

Young people in search of a place to party get trapped inside a mansion owned by a codger who looks a bit like John Zacherly and speaks with a Yiddish accent. He plans to kill the party-goers in order to revivify his long-dead bride—who actually committed suicide because she couldn’t stand him! One by one, the young folks are splattered down to size by all sorts of slimy, graphically decaying creatures; our favorite is the “Muck Men” who continually break wind as they descend upon their victims. Various graveyard zombies and a flesh-ripping lizard creature round out the cast of “spookies.” The film has good FX, but its threadbare (and largely incomprehensible) plot and ludicrously bad acting work against it.

Squirm

American-International, 1976; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Jeff Lieberman Producers: Edgar Lansbury, Joseph Beruh Writer: Jeff Lieberman With: John Scardino, Patricia Pearcy, R. A. Dow, Peter MacLean

A freak electrical storm launches an attack of night crawlers on a sleepy southern town. The film takes some time to get started, but once the worms take over, you won’t be disappointed. Includes scenes of worms burrowing into (and out of) people’s faces; worms oozing out of faucets; worms hiding out in plates of spaghetti. Not recommended for wormophobes.

Stanley

Crown International Pictures, 1972; Color; 96 minutes

Director: William Grefe Producer: William Grefe Writer: Gary Crutcher With: Chris Robinson, Alex Rocco, Steve Alaimo, Susan Carroll

Seminole Indian and returned Vietnam vet Robinson uses his pet rattlesnake to drive poachers off his happy hunting ground. Creepy—especially if you have an aversion to snakes—with a few moments of grisly gristle thrown in, such as one scene where a character bites the head off a snake. Yechhh!

Starlight Slaughters

See Eaten Alive

Steel Justice

Atlantic Releasing, 1987; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Robert Boris Producer: John Strong Writer: Robert Boris With: Martin Kove, Sela Ward, Ronny Cox, Bernie Casey

Vietnam vet Kove goes back home to Los Angeles only to find that a corrupt expatriate South Vietnamese general has set up shop as a drug kingpin. For awhile it’s “let sleeping dogs lie,” but when an expatriate Vietnamese pal of Kove’s (and the pal’s whole family) is slaughtered by the drug lord’s son and chief executioner, Kove goes into action, sidestepping the inept and inefficient police (aren’t they always in vigilante dramas like these?) to topple the drug thugs and bring them to justice. Lots of bodies and blood but not much suspense, as the film is shot like an extended music video.

A Stranger Is Watching

MGM/UA, 1982; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Sean S. Cunningham Producer: Sidney Beckerman Writers: Earl MacRauch, Victor Miller With: Kate Mulgrew, Rip Torn

On the strength of the box-office receipts of his Friday the 13th (1980), low-budget filmmaker Cunningham finally got his shot at the big time with this adaptation of Mary Higgins Clark’s bestseller. Torn kidnaps TV reporter Mulgrew and the daughter of a prominent politician and conceals them in a special hideaway beneath Grand Central Station. Ludicrous over-the-top thriller (Torn chews up the scenery). The slow-motion beheading finale is straight out of—you guessed it—Friday the 13th.

Student Bodies

Paramount Pictures, 1981; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Mickey Rose Producer: Allen Smithee Writer: Mickey Rose With: Kristen Riter, Matt Goldsby, Richard Brando, Mimi Weddell

Parody of mad-slasher movies in which crazed masked killer Brando, nicknamed The Breather on account of how he sounds behind his mask, wipes out school kids with such ingenious weapons as paper clips and erasers. Frequently very funny, but its absurdities often fail to outdo the real thing. “Smithee” is a favorite Hollywood pseudonym used to protect the guilty.

The Stuff

New World Pictures, 1985; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Larry Cohen Producer: Paul Kurta Writer: Larry Cohen With: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Paul Sorvino, Garrett Morris, Patrick O’Neal

Corporate bigwigs hire deceptively moronic industrial spy Moriarty to steal the secret formula behind America’s fastest-selling junk-food dessert—The Stuff, a creamy yogurt-like concoction that scrambles people’s brains. Turns out The Stuff bubbles up out of the earth, like The Blob of yore. Moriarty gets help from survivalist millionaire Sorvino by convincing him The Stuff is the stuff of a communist plot. Moderately funny satire on junkfood fads, with good stop motion and gore effects by David Allen, Jim Danforth, Ed French, and others. The Ramboesque Sorvino has the film’s best line when he machine-guns a whipped cream oozing “Stuffie” and says, “I kinda like blood, but this is disgusting!” Look for cameos by Tammy Grimes, Brooke Adams, and the late Clara Peller (“Where’s the Stuff?”).

The Supernaturals

Republic Entertainment International, 1985; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Armand Mastroianni Producers: Joel Soisson, Michael S. Murphey Writers: Joel Soisson, Michael S. Murphey With: Maxwell Caulfield, Talia Balsam, Bradford Bancroft, LeVar Burton, Bobby DiCicco, Nichelle Nichols

Return with us now to 2000 Maniacs territory (with a dash of Southern Comfort thrown in). Yankee soldiers use Rebs as guinea pigs to test a mine field. Several of them are killed, including the mother of a little boy named Jeremy, who has supernatural healing powers and returns her to life. A century or so later, the modern equivalent of the same Yankee regiment is on tactical maneuvers in the same spot; fog creeps in and the dead Rebs rise up as zombies, led by the boy’s mother, to exact revenge. One by one the greenhorn lost patrolers are mutilated, maimed, and knocked off until the resurrected mother is sent back to her grave by her 100-plus-year-old mummy of a son. This short movie seems to take forever to get going—and the wait isn’t worth it. Truly pitiful.

Surf Nazis Must Die

A Troma Team Release, 1986; Color; 83 minutes

Director: Peter George Producer: Robert Tinnell Writer: Jon Ayre With: Barry Brennan, Gail Neely, Dawn Wildsmith, Michael Sonye, Bobbie Bresee

The Big Quake hits L. A., killing 80,000 people. The overburdened police department becomes ineffectual as youth gangs run wild, fighting for control of Power Beach, a surfer’s paradise. The worst of the bunch are the Surf Nazis, a group that includes surfer Adolf, Eva, Mengele, and some other surf troopers, including one wearing a hook. The competing gangs—the Samurai Surfers, Designer Waves, and the Pipelines—seem impotent in the face of this Fuhrer of the New Beach. But Adolf and his gang are finally brought down by a gun-and-grenade-toting black mama (Neely) whose son was murdered by the Surf Nazis. The film might have been an action-filled, outrageous splatter satire—except that there’s little action, the splatter is reduced to a minimum, and there aren’t any laughs. There’s lots of pretty but tedious surfing footage, though, suggesting that the project started out as something else. The best thing about Surf Nazis Must Die is the title.

Suspiria

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1976; Color; 99 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Claudio Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi With: Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett, Alida Valli, Udo Keir, Stefania Casini

American ballet student Harper arrives in Rome to take up studies at a ballet school run by Bennett and Valli and finds herself up to her ears in maggots (which rain from the ceiling) and a coven of witches. Yet another exercise in pure style by Mario Bava protégé Dario Argento, who includes his usual generous helping of murders and whatnot. The protracted deaths of two of the ballet students in the film’s opening scene—one crashes through a skylight with a rope around her neck, while the other is skewered by all the broken glass—is guaranteed to grab your attention. So will the flamboyant color scheme—Argento piles on the red with Antonioniesque glee. Though most of his fans tend to like Deep Red more, this is probably Argento’s best film—it is certainly his wildest. The pounding score is again by Goblin.

The Sword and the Sorcerer

Bedford Films, 1982; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Albert Pyun Producers: Brandon and Marianne Chase Writer: Tom Karnowsky With: Lee Horsley, Kathleen Beller, Simon MacCorkindale, George Maharis, Richard Lynch

Horsley’s family is murdered by evil sorcerer Lynch, so when the lad grows up, he naturally vows revenge and commits himself Conan-style to toppling the powerful magician from his throne. Emptyheaded but fast-moving debut feature by Pyun in the Robert E. Howard tradition, with some very good (and gruesome) special effects. Definitely a B movie, but it doesn’t look like one.

Tales from the Crypt

Cinerama Releasing, 1972; Color; 92 minutes

Director: Freddie Francis Producers: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky Writer: Milton Subotsky With: Ralph Richardson, Joan Collins, Ian Flendry, Peter Cushing, Richard Greene, Nigel Patrick

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead had already introduced the grisly spirit of EC horror comics to the screen. This anthology film, based on one of EC’s most popular horror comics, Tales from the Crypt, draws its stories from the pages of the comic book itself. Ralph Richardson is the “Crypt Keeper,” who spins the tales, all of them centering on the theme of revenge. The episode featuring Cushing as a victimized widower who literally claims his tormentor’s heart, is the most emotionally affecting; the segment in which victimizer Patrick must make his way in the dark through a corridor lined with razor blades as a savage dog pursues him is undeniably the grisliest. Gruesome good fun.

A Taste of Blood

Creative Film Enterprises, 1967; Color; 120 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Donald Stanford With: Bill Rogers, Elizabeth Wilkinson, Thomas Wood, Otto Schlesinger, Sheldon Seymour (Lewis)

After drinking Slivovitz that has been spiked with who knows what, Rogers discovers he’s a descendant of Count Dracula, turns into a vampire, and sets out to kill the ancestors of those who did in his infamous relative. But Schlesinger, the ancestor of good old Dr. Van Helsing, puts the stake to him first. This is probably Lewis’s best-looking film. It’s also his longest—almost a gore epic. It’s awfully talky, though. Lewis appears in a cameo at the beginning of the film as a mustachioed longshoreman. It is aka The Secret of Dr. Alucard.

Tenebrae

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color; 110 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Claudio Argento Writers: Dario Argento, George Kemp With: Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, Daria Nicolodi, Guiliano Gemma

After making two splatter movies with supernatural overtones, Argento returned to the whodunit theme that characterized his early giallo thrillers—most notably The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, which this film resembles in many ways. Franciosa is an American detective-story writer visiting Italy to promote his latest book. He gets some unwanted publicity when a psychopath starts murdering women, using methods borrowed from the book. Without giving the ending away, the old Hitchcock “transference of guilt” theme plays an important part in the final twist. The film was not released theatrically in the United States.

10 to Midnight

MGM/UA, 1983; Color; 100 minutes

Director: J. Lee Thompson Producers: Pancho Kohner, Lance Hool Writer: William Roberts With: Charles Bronson, Andrew Stevens, Lisa Eilbacher, Gene Davis

Bronson trades in his persona as an avenger working outside the law for that of an avenger working inside the law—well, almost. He’s an L.A. cop on the trail of a nasty serial killer/rapist who cavorts about the city carrying out his nefarious deeds in the nude. Charlie gets the goods on the nudist nutso, but as the goods aren’t sufficient to stand up in court, he falsifies the evidence to make it more convincing. His straight-arrow junior partner (Stevens) can’t abide this constitutional rape and turns Charlie in; Charlie then gets thrown off the force. This minor setback only makes Charlie more determined than ever to get his quarry—especially since the killer is now stalking Bronson’s own daughter. And, of course, get the killer he does—by shooting him down stark naked in the street. Typically liberal-minded Bronson fare.

The Terminator

Orion Pictures, 1984; Color; 107 minutes

Director: James Cameron Producer: Gale Ann Hurd Writers: James Cameron, Gale Ann Hurd With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Dick Miller

Cameron was chosen to direct the sequel to Alien on the basis of this futuristic blood and thunder Alien clone. Schwarzenegger isn’t an alien; he’s a robot killing machine sent back in time to assassinate the mother (Hamilton) of a future political messiah. Biehn is one of the messiah’s revolutionary followers who journeys back in time to prevent the assassination from occurring. The ending where lone survivor Hamilton must fight the relentless cyborg on her own by setting it on fire, then crunching it in a punch press is unquestionably exciting. Probably Schwarzenegger’s best movie (because he doesn’t speak much).

Terror Circus

See Barn of the Naked Dead

Terror House

See Folks at the Red Wolf Inn

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Bryanston Pictures, New Line Cinema, 1974; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel Writers: Tobe Hooper, Kim Henkel With: Marilyn Bums, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen

Young people on vacation run out of gas and seek help at a farmhouse inhabited by a family of crazed cannibal-killers, who proceed to stalk them, kill them, and turn them into prime ribs. Most viewers (and critics) perceive this film as being much gorier than it actually is, and this is Hooper’s cleverest ploy: The title alone has you cringing before you even sit down to watch. Rather than gobs of graphic gore, it’s the pervading atmosphere of violence and depravity in this film that makes it seem so relentless. That and the infernal whirr of Leatherface’s chainsaw. Undeniably one of the scariest of all splatter movies, Chainsaw was based (loosely) on the Ed Gein case, the same true crime that inspired Hitchcock’s Psycho. Followed in1986 by a sequel also directed by Hooper, which is everything in terms of in-your-face gore that this film has often been accused of but is not.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Cannon Films, 1986; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Tobe Hooper Writer: L. M. Kit Carson With: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson

After a series of interesting but generally disappointing films, Tobe Hooper returns to the fertile ground that first made his name and comes up a winner with this amazingly vicious and “sick” sequel, which offers a brutal slap-in-the-face satire of the Traditional Family Unit to rival David Lynch’s more famous Blue Velvet. This time the demented (but undeniably solid) Sawyer clan have moved their nefarious trade to the Dallas area, where they’ve made a name for themselves with their prize-winning chili (“The secret’s in the meat,” enthuses ring-leader Jim Siedow, whose dialogue is mostly made up of American Success Ethic clichés). Unfortunately for them, ex-Texas Ranger Dennis Hopper (whose nephew was massacred in the first film) has spent years tracking them to their new lair, an abandoned amusement park (which one of their number wants to turn into “what the public want—’Nam Land!”). Hopper himself is quite insane (naturally) and winds up having a chainsaw duel with Leatherface in a sequence that must be seen to be believed. Astoundingly, Grandpa is still with us—just as unable to wield (or even hold) a sledgehammer as ever, and just as absurdly revered by his family. Frequently very funny (in an unwholesome fashion), often disturbing, always good to look at (the subterranean set is a stunner), the film’s only real failing is that it may go too far—even for hardcore splatter fans.

Theatre of Blood

United Artists, 1973; Color; 104 minutes

Director: Douglas Hickox Producers: John Kohn, Stanley Mann Writer: Anthony Greville-Bell With: Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Harry Andrews, Robert Morley, Ian Hendry, Jack Hawkins

Hammy Shakespearean actor Price commits suicide after being ridiculed one too many times by the critics. His death is a ruse, however. With the help of daughter Rigg (who’s disguised as a bewigged, mustachioed hippie), he rises like the phoenix to murder each of his tart-tongued adversaries, modeling their deaths after violent set pieces created by the Bard himself. Reminiscent of Price’s Dr. Phibes films, but a lot more gruesome—and a lot funnier, too. Price has a field day in his role as the death-dealing thespian. The rest of the impressive cast matches him every step of the way—especially Morley as a gluttonous gourmet critic who overindulges himself to the grave after feasting on his precious French poodles.

They Came from Within

A Trans-America Release, 1976; Color; 87 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: Ivan Reitman Writer: David Cronenberg With: Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Allan Migicovsky, Barbara Steele

Residents of the Starliner Towers, a completely self-contained, up-scale apartment complex that even boasts its own medical clinic, are infected by a parasite that turns them into sexual crazies. Reserved doctor Hampton, who refuses to get turned on even when his nurse strips in front of him, is the last to succumb. When it’s not imitating Night of the Living Dead, Cronenberg’s debut feature is quite good, generating some real tension and nasty shocks as the parasites ooze out of people’s mouths, latch on to people’s faces, and have to be pulled off with pliers—courtesy of some excellent special effects by Joe Blasco. The film clearly seems to come down on the side of the free-loving maniacs as they spread their libidinous contagion from one body to the next—a cathartic viewpoint that isn’t nearly so easy to accept now that we know about AIDS. It is aka Shivers, Frissons, and The Parasite Murders.

They Live

Universal, 1988; Color; 94 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: Larry Franco Writer: Frank Armitage With: Roddy Piper, Meg Foster, Keith David, Raymond St. Jacques

Who is that behind those Foster Grant’s? Why it is wrestler-turned-actor Rowdy Roddy Piper giving one of the worst debut performances in recent screen history. Piper plays an out-of-work construction worker who catches on to the fact that the earth has been taken over by aliens who dominate the human race by feeding on human greed and apathy. Thanks to special sunglasses developed by revolutionaries who run a shelter for the homeless, he’s able to see who’s an alien and who isn’t. Charged with patriotic fervor, he takes up arms and sets out to “Kick some ass and chew bubblegum.” The movie does the same thing. Once again, Carpenter rifles the work of Nigel Kneale (in this case Kneale’s Quartermass II) for an interesting concept which he then proceeds to do absolutely nothing with. At one point in the film, an alien talk show host discussing media violence chides Carpenter for going “too far” in his movies. The truth though is that Carpenter, a B filmmaker here masquerading as a Z one, never goes far enough—especially with his plots.

The Thing

Universal, 1982; Color; 109 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producers: David Foster, Lawrence Turman Writer: Bill Lancaster With: Kurt Russell, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, A. Wilford Brimley, Donald Moffat, David Clennon, T. K. Carter

Carpenter’s remake of Howard Hawks’s 1951 classic The Thing has a lot of things going for it and they’re all spelled Rob Bottin. Make-up wiz Bottin’s astounding, splattery special effects of Thing-ness are the real stars—in fact, they’re the only stars. Bill Lancaster’s (Burt’s son) script harks back to the original John Campbell story upon which Hawks’s film was also (loosely) based, but it leaves out any sense of characterization. One simply doesn’t care whether this Arctic team gets Thinged or not. But oh, those effects!

The Thirsty Dead

International Amusement, 1974; Color; 96 minutes

Director: Terry Becker Producer: Wesley E. Depue Writer: Charles Dennis With: John Considine, Jennifer Billingsley, Tani Gutherie, Judith McDonnell

Blood-drinking vampire corpses rise from the dead to deliver nubile virgins to their satanist lord of the jungle—Considine, not Tarzan. Bottom-of-the-barrel shocker, made in the Philippines that will not leave you thirsting for more. It is aka Blood Cult of Shangri-La.

This Stuff’ll Kill Ya!

An Ultima Productions, Inc. Release, 1971; Color; 100 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Herschell Gordon Lewis With: Tim Holt, Jeffrey Allen, Gloria King, Ray Sager, Erich Bradley

Bloody companion piece to Lewis’s earlier hillbilly splatter epic, Moonshine Mountain, featuring B-Western star Tim Holt in his last screen role. (Holt had co-starred in Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons and John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, then he’d fallen on hard times.) Allen is a moonshiner posing as a preacher. Holt is one of the “revenooers” determined to put him out of business. The moonshiners are a tough bunch. Those who threaten to blow the whistle on them are stoned to death, burned alive, blown away, or crucified. Lewis, using his Sheldon Seymour pseudonym, composed the country and western songs that lace the sound track. It is aka The Devil Wears Clodhoppers.

Thou Shalt Not Kill … Except

Film World Distributors, 1985; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Josh Becker Producer: Scott Spiegel Writers: Josh Becker, Scott Spiegel With: Brian Schulz, Robert Rickman, John Manfredi, Tim Quill, Sam Raimi

A platoon led by Lt. Miller and Sgt. Stryker is almost decimated trying to take a Vietnamese village. Stateside, a Manson-like cult wipes out a family, then retires to the K.I.A. (Killed In Action?) campground to snare and torture vacationers. Back home, the wounded Stryker, who lives in a cabin nearby, is reunited with three of his Nam pals. When the vets discover what the cult is up to, they arm themselves and go after them. The result: ultragore. In Nam, a Marine is shot in the head and his buddy is drenched with the man’s brains. Back home, the cult members are shotgunned, skewered with knives and hedge clippers, and impaled on trees. Sound serious? Well, it starts out that way, but the over-the-top mayhem, punctuated by sardonic dialogue, quickly reminds you of The Evil Dead. That’s no accident. The film was made in Detroit by associates of Dead director Sam Raimi, who plays the wild-eyed Manson-like cult leader. The spirit of the film is summed up by one of the vets after the carnage is over: “Let’s get the hell out of here, man, and get somethin’ to eat!” Worth a look.

Three on a Meathook

Studio One, 1973; Color; 79 minutes

Director: William Girdler Producers: John Ashman, Lee Jones Writer: William Girdler With: ChaHes Kissinger, James Pickert, Carolyn Thompson

Another backwoods slasher film—from the director of Grizzly, The Manitou, and even more undistinguished fare. This one, loosely based on the infamous Ed Gein Case, is again about a psycho who kills nubile young women, eats parts of their bodies, and wears their skins as souvenirs as he dallies around his ramshackle farmhouse. As with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was also loosely based on the Gein case and which this film preceded by one year, it’s laced with absurd situations and dialogue. It’s a whole lot gorier than Chainsaw, though, but not as good. Still, it’s a must-see for Ed Gein-inspired “meat movie” completists.

Tombs of the Blind Dead

Hallmark Releasing, 1973; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Amando De Ossorio Producer: Salvadore Romero Writer: Amando De Ossorio With: Lone Fleming, Cesar Burner, Joseph Thelman, Rufino Ingles

First of three popular (in Europe, anyway) Spanish-made zombie/ghoul—or “blind dead”—movies all helmed by Ossorio. Executed for crimes against humanity and buried in unmarked graves, the vicious medieval sect known as the Knights Templar magically spring to life and rise from their tombs seven centuries later to revenge themselves on modern-day man and, especially, woman—whom they proceed to maim, mutilate, and drain of blood. These living dead creatures are, for the most part, in worse physical shape than George Romero’s zombies—their eyes, as well as their flesh, have long since rotted away, making it a bit difficult for them to spot victims. Nature—and illogical splatter-movie scripting—has compensated, however, giving the “blind dead” super-sensitive hearing that allows them to locate victims from the slightest sound and chow down.

The Toolbox Murders

Cal-Am, 1977; Color; 95 minutes

Director: Dennis Donnelly Producer: Tony Didio Writers: Neva Friedenn, Robert Easter, Ann Kindberg With: Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Wesley Eure, Tim Donnelly, Aneta Corseault

Police are stymied by a series of suburban psycho murders where the crazed killer (Mitchell) wipes out his victims with power drills, screwdrivers, hammers, and nail guns. Brutal stuff—but also fairly dull. One of the few splatter movies to have been discussed at length on the the Phil Donahue show—where the nail-gun murder was shown and predictably greeted by decline-of-civilization groans of horror and dismay from the studio audience.

The Tormented

See The Eerie Midnight Horror Show

Torso

Joseph Brenner, 1974; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Sergio Martino Producer: Antonio Cervi Writers: Sergio Martino, Ernesto Castaldi With: Suzy Kendall, Tina Aumont, Carla Brait, John Richardson

It appears that the Italian filmmakers behind this production were attempting to create an American-style thriller. They failed. The major problem seems to be that they’re not quite sure exactly what type of American film they want to emulate. A whodunit with no real mystery or suspense, a splatter movie with minimal gore (choppy editing indicates that some footage may have been cut), and a soft-core porn film with very little sex (a lot of bare breasts and one mild lesbian scene) leaves the viewer feeling that he really hasn’t seen much of anything. There is some suspense toward the end of the film when an American girl is trapped in an upstairs bedroom while the killer saws up her dead girlfriends downstairs, but this scene simply doesn’t justify sitting through a pretty tepid eighty-nine minutes. Bad dubbing and an indifferent, often inappropriate, score further alienate the viewer.

Torture Dungeon

Mishkin Films, 1970; Color; 80 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: William Mishkin Writers: Andy Milligan, John Borske With: Jeremy Brooks, Susan Cassidy

Arguable plot deals with a brutal nobleman who tortures, kills, and dismembers any and all pretenders to the throne of England—which, naturally, he covets for himself. Lots of splatter murders—including one by pitchfork. Staten Island locales stand in for England—but, hey, a dungeon is a dungeon, after all.

Tourist Trap

Compass International Pictures, 1979; Color; 85 minutes

Director: David Schmoeller Producer: J. Larry Carroll Writers: David Schmoeller, J. Larry Carroll With: Chuck Connors, Joe Van Ness, Jocelyn Jones, Robin Sherwood, Tanya Roberts, Keith McDermott

Yet another “vacationing teenagers in peril” flick. On a trip through the desert (where else?), they run into car trouble and seek help at a gas station run by wacko Connors. In addition to pumping gas, Connors also has a museum on his property; when the teens go in to take a look, the mannequins on exhibit come dangerously to life and start knocking the teens off one by one. Some suspenseful moments and the gore is fairly low-key. But like Phantasm (1978), which it somewhat resembles, the film doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

Tower of Evil

Independent International Pictures, 1972; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Jim O’Connelly Producer: Richard Gordon Writer: Jim O’Connelly With: Bryant Halliday, Jill Haworth, Anna Palk, Jack Watson, George Coulouris, Dennis Price

American Haworth is suspected of murdering her companions with an ancient spear discovered at a scenic vacation spot called Snape Island. She claims she’s innocent, so Scotland Yard and a team of archaeologists, who believe the spear may point the way to a long-lost Phoenician treasure, go back to the island with her to investigate. And once again, the corpses start piling up. Boasting some good effects, this film is really a murder mystery with a hint of Psycho (1960) lurking about. It is aka Horror on Snape Island.

Transmutations

Distributor unknown, 1985; Color; 103 minutes

Director: George Pavoul Producers: Don Hawkins, Kevin Attew, Graham Ford Writers: Clive Barker, James Caplin With: Denholm Elliott, Steven Berkoff, Larry Lamb, Nicola Cowper, Miranda Richardson

Virginal beauty Cowper is kidnapped from the high-class brothel where she works by a band of grotesquely misshapen subterranean beasts. Her former bodyguard and lover (Lamb) is lured out of “retirement” by gangster Berkoff to find her. The trail leads to a villainous doctor (Elliott) who’s invented a powerful hallucinogenic drug that induces extreme euphoria. It also has an unfortunate side effect, causing the faces of the doctor’s human guinea pigs to swell up and rot, which is why they’re hiding underground away from the eyes of society. Convoluted and excruciatingly dull variation on the beauty and the beast theme, with most of the FX relegated to the film’s conclusion—Elliott’s face, for example, rots and then explodes in flame and various people get shot and/or punctured with needles.

Trick or Treat

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, 1986; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Charles Martin Smith Producers: Michael S. Murphey, Joel Soisson Writers: Michael S. Murphey, Joel Soisson, Rhet Topham With: Marc Price, Tony Fields, Lisa Orgolini, Doug Savant

Trick or Treat takes an interesting premise—a dead rock star using hidden messages in his recordings to influence the living—and tries to build a horror film around it. Unfortunately, director Charles Martin Smith makes two fundamental mistakes. First, he refuses to take his horror seriously. Humor can be a vital part of a horror film, but respect must be maintained for the basic horror elements; the director must know where to draw the line. Smith doesn’t. The second problem is that too much happens too quickly and the story loses credibility. A good horror film—and most good splatter films—pulls us in a bit at a time. The director carefully builds the story so that by the time the more outrageous plot developments occur, we have surrendered to the dramatic momentum and accept the events as plausible. Smith piles on too much too soon; we simply can’t buy it. A promising premise worked on by some talented people goes astray.

Twilight of the Dead

See Gates of Hell

Twilight People

New World Pictures, 1972; Color; 84 minutes

Director: Eddie Romero Producers: Eddie Romero, John Ashley Writers: Eddie Romero, Jerome Small With: John Ashley, Pat Woodell, Pam Grier, Eddie Garcia, Jan Merlin

Return with us once more to The Island of Dr. Moreau (uncredited, of course) on which a mad scientist is busy experimenting with genetic engineering, turning animals—and even trees—into grotesque-looking humans. The human/animal make-ups are passable, the gore murders effective, but the script is ridiculous and the direction even worse. Romero must have a fixation with Wells’s classic tale, for he produced another uncredited (and loosely adapated) version in 1959 called Terror Is a Man. Frankly, that film was a lot better, though it eschewed the splatter of the later film. Made in the Philippines. It is aka Island of the Twilight People.

Twitch of the Death Nerve

Hallmark Releasing, 1973; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Mario Bava Producer: Giuseppe Zaccariello Writers: Mario Bava, Joseph McLee With: Claudine Auger, Claudio Volante, Luigi Pistilli, Leopoldo Trieste

Splattery parody—at least it could be interpreted that way—of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Except that there’s not one murderer herein, but many. Greedy to grab on to some valuable—and scenic—property, a host of prospective buyers, rather than attempt to out bid one another, opt to bump each other off, using spears, knives, axes, meat cleavers, whatever’s handy. The mayhem eventually gets so out of hand that at the ironic conclusion the surviving land grabbers are unexpectedly slain by their own kids, who’ve come to believe that this is the way the world works. Shot on a shoe-string, this isn’t one of Bava’s better films, but it is one of his bloodiest—maybe even the bloodiest. It is aka The Ecology of a Crime.

2000 Maniacs

Box Office Spectaculars, 1964; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: David Friedman Writer: Herschell Gordon Lewis With: Connie Mason, Thomas Wood, Jeffrey Allen, Ben Moore

A southern town (actually St. Cloud, Florida) magically reappears Brigadoon-style 100 years after its devastation by Yankee troops during the Civil War. As a group of northern tourists (led by former Playboy playmate Mason) pass through, the revenge-hungry townsfolk of the title take them captive, torture and murder them in a variety of ingenious and graphically horrible ways—including a very pointed variation on the old theme of “Roll Out the Barrel.” Colorfully photographed (by Lewis) hackwork and the personal favorite of its director, who, due to budget constraints, couldn’t deliver the sizable cast of crazies the film’s title promises (he falls short by about 1,980). But who’s counting?

The Undertaker and His Pals

Howco, 1967; Color; 60 minutes

Director: David C. Graham Producer: David C. Graham Writer: T. L. P. (Tom) Swicegood With: Robert Lowry, W. Ott, Rad Fulton, Ray Dennis

Meat movie laced with black humor about of a couple of Burke and Hare-style bikers who kill and mutilate women to help out their undertaker pal’s not-so-thriving business. Prior to the help of his friends, he’d been forced to cut rates and even give out trading stamps. The enterprising fiends sell the uninterred body parts in a restaurant. They don’t kill indiscriminately, however. With an eye toward truth in advertising, they only select victims whose names boast nutritional value, such as “Miss Lamb” whose “leg” proves ideal for the restaurant’s bill of fare. Cheap and terrible with unconvincing special effects. The bizarre humor does occasionally compensate, though.

The Unholy

Vestron Pictures, 1988; Color; 105 minutes

Director: Camilo Vila Producer: Mathew Hayden Writers: Philip Yordan, Fernando Fonseca With: Ben Cross, Ned Beatty, William Russ, Jill Carroll, Hal Holbrook, Nicole Fortier, Trevor Howard

Priest Cross survives a demon-induced fall from the seventeenth floor of a New Orleans skycraper without a scratch. Archbishops Holbrook and Howard therefore deem him sturdy enough to take on the malevolent spirit of a sensuous supernatural creature (dubbed “The Unholy”) who materializes at Easter to claim pure souls for the devil by making priests and other virgins have sex with her. Russ is the good guy/bad guy owner of a satanic night club who catches onto all the hocus-pocus long before Cross, and is crucified for his meddling. In the laughable finale (which has to be seen to be believed), Cross confronts The Unholy (Fortier), which transforms into what looks like a round-headed alligator. Aided by dwarfs that explode like blocks of granite, the creature makes the put-upon priest eat its/her slime. But Cross saves the day by uttering the immortal words: “Get thee behind me, Satan.” An absolute stinkeroo!

The Unnamable

Yankee Classic Pictures, 1988; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Jean-Paul Oulette Producers: Dean Ramser, JeanPaul Oulette Writer: Jean-Paul Oulette With: Charles King, Mark Kinsey Stephenson, Alexandra Durrell, Laura Albert

Advances in ghoulish screen FX, plus the success of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator and From Beyond, have finally turned H. P. Lovecraft into a hot commercial property. This is a Canadian made elaboration of a very short tale by Lovecraft of the same name. A vicious primordial creature born of man and woman (it killed mom during childbirth and later ripped dad’s heart out) is kept imprisoned in a deserted New England house for two centuries. Several Miskatonic University students venture inside to see what’s up and wind up getting their throats torn out and their heads bashed in. The film’s bookish hero (Stephenson) finally entraps the creature by conjuring up tree spirits with the help of the Necronomicon. The film follows Lovecraft’s flip 3,000-word story closely, but also pads it out interminably. The it/she creature (Katrin Alexandre) is suitably ghastly but has feet reminiscent of the Morlocks in George Pal’s Time Machine. Not up to Gordon’s Lovecraft films by far.

The Unseen

World Northal, 1981; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Peter Foleg Producer: Anthony B. Unger Writer: Micael L. Grace With: Barbara Bach, Sydney Lassick, Karen Lamm, Doug Barr, Lois Young, Leila Goldoni

News reporter Bach and her assistants, camera woman Lamm and gofer Young, are covering a “Danish Festival” in the mid-west heartland. Circumstances force them to seek accommodations in a rooming house run by the grotesque Lassick and his sister (Goldoni), who harbor a secret—a badly deformed and subhuman son, the product of their incestuous union, hiding in the cellar. Sonny boy escapes, of course, and … well, you no doubt can guess what happens next. Not bad, but by no means good—and relatively restrained in the gore department, which, in light of the drab script, was probably not a wise decision.

The Upstate Murders

See Savage Weekend

Vampire Circus

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1971; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Robert Young Producer: Wilbur Stark Writer: Jud Kinberg With: Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri, Thorley Walters, Robert Tayman, John Moulder Brown

Desperately in need of some diverting entertainment, a plague-infested Serbian village (circa 1800) is visited by a mysterious circus whose performers have the ability to transform themselves into beasts and bats. They’re vampires, you see. And they’ve come to get revenge on the villagers for having skewered one of their own in the film’s bloody prologue. In keeping with most post-1970 Hammer Horrors, there’s a lot more nudity and gore (and a lot less characterization) than in the studio’s classic Gothics of the late fifties and early sixties. It also seems to end rather abruptly—due, perhaps, to budget constraints. Still, it’s one of Hammer’s more stylish and inventive latter-day vampire tales and is recommended despite its obvious imperfections.

Vault of Horror

Cinerama Releasing, 1973; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Roy Ward Baker Producers: Max J. Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky Writer: Milton Subotsky With: Daniel Massey, Terry-Thomas, Glynis Johns, Anna Massey, Michael Craig, Tom Baker, Richard Todd

An anthology of five gruesome horror tales culled from the pages of William M. Gaines’s well-known series of EC horror comics from the fifties. The wraparound story tells of five men trapped in an elevator, each of whom recounts a strange and gory tale of revenge and retribution in typical EC style. When the elevator opens, they find themselves in a cemetery and realize they’re all dead. The stories include: “Midnight Mass”; “The Neat Job”—in which Todd’s mutilated body parts come alive to terrorize the wife who killed him; “This Trick’ll Kill You”; “Bargain in Death”; and “Drawn and Quartered.” Perhaps not as good as its predecessor, Tales from the Crypt (1972)—though it is gorier, but on a par with Creepshow (1982).

Vice Squad

Avco Embassy, 1982; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Gary Sherman Producer: Brian Frankish Writers: Sandy Howard, Kenneth Peters, Robert Vincent O’Neill With: Gary Swanson, Season Hubley, Wings Hauser

L. A. cop Swanson enlists the aid of prostitute Hubley to bring a psychotic pimp (Hauser) to justice who enjoys beating up and mutilating his girls. Super-violent police drama. Wings Hauser really takes flight as the battering, knife-wielding pimp.

The Video Dead

Manson International, 1987; Color; 90 minutes

Director: Robert Scott Producer: Robert Scott Writer: Robert Scott With: Roxanna Augesen, Rocky Duvall, Vickie Bastel, Sam David McClelland, Michael St. Michaels, Jennifer Miro

This film stinks, and it’s not from the smell of rotting flesh. The script is riddled with clichés and implausible situations, the acting is consistently amateurish and the limp direction never manages to generate any real tension or suspense. Author Henry Jordan mistakenly receives a cursed TV, and is soon murdered by the zombies who enter his home through its screen. Siblings Jeff and Zoe Blair (Duvall and Augesen), whose parents are abroad, move in next. Jeff falls for neighbor girl April (Bastel) but is almost seduced by a strange blond woman (Miro) through the TV before her throat is slit by a character called “The Garbage Man.” We never see or hear from these two interesting characters again. Then April’s father and the family maid, plus an elderly couple we’ve never seen before, are slaughtered by the zombies. April takes refuge with Jeff and Zoe, who have been joined by Texas zombie hunter Joshua Daniels (McClelland), but is soon carried off and killed nevertheless. Jeff and Joshua attack the zombies but are also killed, leaving Zoe to face the undead alone. She survives in a traumatized state, but then the video dead return. Two mediocre gore effects—live mice crawling in a zombie’s guts and a chain-sawed zombie whose top half moves on its hands a la Freaks—are this films’s only “good” points.

Videodrome

Universal, 1983; Color; 90 minutes

Director: David Cronenberg Producer: Claude Heroux Writer: David Cronenberg With: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Sonja Smits

Cable-TV pirate Woods discovers an unlawful but popular channel featuring scenes of torture and murder and he sets out to track its source. Instead, he becomes the ultimate couch potato—a grotesque blend of the medium and the message. Unlike in The Brood and The Fly, Cronenberg’s splattery effects (orchestrated by Rick Baker) tend not to support this film’s compelling theme, but ultimately drown it out.

Visiting Hours

Universal, 1982; Color; 103 minutes

Director: Jean Claude Lord Producer: Claude Heroux Writer: Brian Taggert With: Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, William Shatner, Lenore Zann

Canadian-made quasi-Coma (1978) clone about a maniac (Ironside) who rips his way through a crowded city hospital, slaughtering victims right and left—and all without the benefit of being a doctor himself. His motive: to find and kill recuperating assault victim Grant before she can identify him.

The Wall

MGM, 1982; Color; 99 minutes

Director: Alan Parker Producer: Alan Marshall Writer: Roger Waters With: Bob Geldof, Eleanor David, Bob Hoskins, Kevin McKeon

Just what the world was crying for—The Splatter Movie Meets the Rock Musical. This hideous, shapeless mess of a film would be less irritating were it not for the fact that filmmaker Alan Parker is one of our most creative directors—as he occasionally is even here when he isn’t trying (and failing dismally) to be Ken Russell, or when he isn’t swamped with bad, oh-so-trendy animation effects (by Gerald Scarfe), or when he isn’t mired in Roger Waters’s self-pitying, egotistical wallow of a screenplay. Unfortunately, those debits make up most of the film. Heady stuff if you want to see a future Nobel Prize candidate ineptly play a disintegrating rock musician who is given to flailing about in pools of blood and shaving off his nipples. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it must take a brain totally benumbed by narcotics to watch Bob Geldof in his underwear menaced by a giant animated flower-woman-vagina-monster and not burst out laughing.

The War Game

BBC Films, 1965; B&W; 50 minutes

Director: Peter Watkins Producer: Pater Watkins Writer: Peter Watkins With: Credits unavailable

A splatter movie with a message, this harrowing fictional documentary (splattermentary!) cautions against the proliferation of nuclear arms by portraying the ghastly after-effects of nuclear war on the population of Great Britain. A grim, disturbing, and very realistic film that has lost little of its power over the years. Originally made for and by the BBC, it was never aired because of its graphic presentation.

The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman

Ellman Films, 1970; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Leon Klimovsky Producer: Salvadore Romero Writers: Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy), Hans Munkel With: Paul Naschy, Patty Shepard, Gaby Fuchs, Andres Resino, Julio Pena, Barbara Cappell

Another entry in Naschy’s El Hombre Lobo series inspired by Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941) in which he plays the Larry Talbot-ish Count Waldemar Daninsky, who turns into a vicious wolf whenever the moon is full. In this episode, the Count teams up with a pair of students to destroy an evil vampire countess (Shepard) patterned after Elizabeth Bathory. Followed by The Fury of the Wolfman (1971).

Werewolves on Wheels

The Fanfare Corporation, 1971; Color; 85 minutes

Director: Michael Levesque Producer: Paul Lewis Writers: Michael Levesque, David M. Kaufman With: Stephen Oliver, Severn Darden, Billy Gray, D. J. Anderson, Barry McGuire

Sleazy riders get into a row with equally sleazy satanists, who get even by turning the bikers into werewolves—thus the title. Occasionally quite funny—though we’re not sure it’s supposed to be—with lots of slow-motion violence that seems to have been influenced by Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, released two years earlier.

When a Stranger Calls

Columbia Pictures, 1979; Color; 97 minutes

Director: Fred Walton Producers: Doug Chapin, Steve Feke Writers: Fred Walton, Steve Feke With: Charles Durning, Carol Kane, Colleen Dewhurst, Tony Beckley

The first twenty minutes of this film are scary as hell. A baby-sitter (Kane) starts getting threatening phone calls from psycho Beckley; when she has the police trace them, she finds they’re coming from inside the house. The police arrive in time to save her, but not the children. The film then skips forward some years. Beckley is released from prison and is bent on taking his revenge on Kane by going after her own kids. Director Walton expanded the film from his college-made short. What he kept from the short—the film’s first twenty minutes—remains the best part of the feature version.

Witchboard

Paragon Arts International, 1986; Color; 98 minutes

Director: Kevin S. Tenney Producer: Gerald Geoffray Writer: Kevin S. Tenney With: Todd Allen, Tawny Kitaen, Stephen Nichols, Kathleen Wilhoite

At a party, Kitaen is introduced to the wonders of the Ouija board and makes the acquaintance of a dead ten-year-old boy named David who was killed in a boating accident. Hooked, she persists in making contact on her own, but she soon finds David to be more malevolent than friendly. A medium is called in to perform an exorcism but gets impaled on a sundial for her meddling efforts. Another friend who tries to help out gets an axe between the eyes. Turns out that David isn’t the one behind all this mayhem—rather, Kitaen has unwittingly unleashed the vengeful spirit of a mass murderer killed by police many years before. Despite some obvious plot holes, this is an absorbing little thriller, directed by newcomer Tenney with style, wit, and something else you don’t often see in splatter movies—well-drawn and believable characters for whom you genuinely care. The acting is uniformly excellent. Wilhoite is especially delightful as the punked-out medium with spiked hair (“Where did you find her?” hero Allen asks. “The circus?”). A real sleeper.

The Witches of Eastwick

Warner Brothers, 1987; Color; 118 minutes

Director: George Miller Producers: Neil Canton, Peter Guber, Jon Peters Writer: Michael Cristofer With: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, Veronica Cartwright

What do you get when you call upon the director of the Mad Max movies to adapt the work of one of America’s premier serious novelists? You get an odd pairing, to be sure—but you also get a splatter movie full of blatant references to The Exorcist and The Shining, plus one scene virtually duplicated from The Omen! (Miller’s directorial style at times even mimics the films of Ken Russell, particularly Lisztomania.) Three bored, frustrated New England women call upon the powers of darkness to grant them the man of their fantasies—and he turns up in the form of Jack Nicholson, a wealthy playboy who moves in and proceeds to seduce the women. Repressed violinist Sarandon undergoes the most startling character change due to his attentions, turning into a high-flying floozy. Cartwright catches on to the fact that he’s the devil, but she is neutralized by a spell that causes her to vomit up cherry pits. In the end, the girls tire of Jack (be careful what you wish for, etc.) and subject him to some pit and feather puking as well, plus other astonishing ordeals. We have no idea what this film is about, but it’s as hilarious as it is disgusting, and vice versa. Nicholson is top-notch, as are the FX by Rob Bottin.

Without Warning

Filmways, 1981; Color; 89 minutes.

Director: Greydon Clark Producer: Greydon Clark Writers: Lyn Freeman, Daniel Grodnik, Ben Nett, Steve Mathis With: Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Tarah Nutter, Christopher S. Nelson, Cameron Mitchell, Neville Brand

What starts out as a teens-in-peril movie turns quickly into an everybody’s-in-peril movie. What they’re in peril from is an outer-space big-game hunter that kills by hurling some kind of alien leech creature at people; it attaches itself to their faces and sucks them dry. Don’t know why it took so many writers to flesh out this simple tale of alien invasion, but for some strange reason, the movie actually works. There may not be enough splatter to satisfy all fans, but there are some good scares and a whole lot of laughs, most of the latter provided by Palance, Landau, and company, who chew up the scenery with delightful gusto. Grade Z to be sure, but fun.

The Wizard of Gore

A Mayflower Pictures Release, Inc., 1970; Color; 96 minutes

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis Producer: Herschell Gordon Lewis Writer: Allen Kahn With: Ray Sager, Judy Cler, Wayne Ratay, Phil Laurenson

Mad magician Montag the Magnificent (how’s that for alliteration!) performs mutilation tricks onstage—fake disembowelings with a punch press, knives thrust through heads, swords poked down gullets, you know, typical stuff. After the show’s over, his willing “victims,” culled from the audience, get mutilated for real, their deaths patterned after Montag’s onstage tricks. Though many of the gore effects aren’t terribly convincing—particularly the knife-through-the-head trick (the mannequin that’s getting skewered doesn’t even look real), they are definitely sickening and guaranteed to make your gorge rise. Horrendously acted—even for a Lewis film.

Wolfen

Warner Brothers, 1981; Color; 115 minutes

Director: Michael Wadleigh Producer: Rupert Hitzig Writers: David Eyre, Michael Wadleigh With: Albert Finney, Edward James Olmos, Diane Verona, Gregory Hines

A race of supernatural creatures evolved from wolves preys on derelicts and others who trespass on its bombed-out South Bronx turf. Finney is the police detective who discovers their existence and, in the end, pacifies them—despite the fact that they have eaten a number of his friends. Some mumbo jumbo about the white man’s mistreatment of the American Indian is thrown in to give the effects-laden film a measure of social significance, but it’s all rather fuzzy and slows the plot to a crawl. The wolves are scary, though, and there is some bright repartee between Finney and Hines. Based on a virtually unreadable novel by Whitley Streiber, who later claimed, in a work of “non-fiction,” to have been abducted by an alien spaceship.

The Wolfman

EO Studios, 1979; Color; 101 minutes

Director: Worth Keeter III Producer: Earl Owensby Writer: Darrell Cathcart With: Earl Owensby, Kristina Reynolds, Maggie Lauterer, Ed L. Grady

With the advent of home video, movie mogul Earl Owensby may finally succeed in reaching a wider audience for the thirty-three or so movies he’s made since 1974 at his 200-acre studio in his hometown of Shelby, North Carolina. Most of those movies have never been screened theatrically outside of North and South Carolina, Owensby’s main marketplace. Nevertheless, not a single one has ever lost money. In fact, they’ve made Owensby a millionaire—seventy times over! All of them are genre pieces with lots of action and gore. The Wolfman marked Owensby’s debut in the horror arena. Owensby, who doesn’t claim to be an actor but often takes the lead roles in his films to keep costs down, plays a southern gent named Colin Glasgow who discovers his old man was a werewolf. When papa dies, Colin inherits the family curse, as well as the old man’s hair suit, and starts clawing up the neighboring townsfolk. Shot in Georgia, this period gore film boasts some nice atmosphere and well executed effects. Keeter is Owensby’s “house director.”

Wolfwoman

See Legend of the Wolfwoman

X-Ray

Cannon Films, 1982; Color; 88 minutes

Director: Boaz Davidson Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writers: Boaz Davidson, Marc Behm With: Barbi Benton, Jon Van Ness, Chip Lucia, Den Surles

Made-in-Israel slasher movie with overtones of My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, and their ilk. Former Playboy Playmate-of-the-Year Benton is the slasher’s victim. Seems, as children, she and her brother rebuffed the overtures of another little boy to become friends. Out of rage, the boy killed her brother. Now an adult psycho, he goes after the grown-up Benton. He works in a hospital, where, conveniently, she turns up for an examination. She proves an elusive victim, however, and many others have to die in her stead before the psycho is finally brought down. Ample displays of Benton’s uncovered anatomy turn this film into one long centerfold. Next to the one in Coma, the hospital in this film is one of the most deserted we’ve ever seen. It is aka Hospital Massacre.

Xtro

New Line Cinema, 1982; Color; 86 minutes

Director: Harry Bromley Davenport Producer: Mark Forstater Writers: lain Cassie, Robert Smith With: Bernice Stegers, Philip Sayer, Simon Nash, Danny Brainin

The unworldly progeny of a woman raped by a space creature grows up and settles down to a life of domestic bliss, but his “past” catches up with him. He turns his son into an alien; people in the neighborhood start getting splattered—well, you know the rest. Made in England.

The Zodiac Killer

Adventure Productions, 1985; Color; 87 minutes

Director: Tom Hanson Producer: Tom Hanson Writers: Ray Cantrell, Manny Mendoza With: Hal Reed, Bob Jones, Ray Lynch, Tom Pittman

Bargain basement “docu-drama” about the celebrated California sniper case of the late sixties. The killer randomly shot people, then wrote to the newspapers about his exploits, signing himself “Zodiac.” The real killer was never caught. The film Zodiac isn’t caught either, but we know who he is—a loner postman named Tom whose only friends are rabbits. Unlike the real Zodiac, Tom doesn’t just shoot and stab people (though he does plenty of both). He also waylays them and crushes their heads under the hoods of their cars. Though ineptly acted—and a bit pretentious with its voice-overs warning society about the danger of serial killers like Zodiac—there is some diverting low-brow humor, such as when the cops visit a flaky psychic hoping to learn the killer’s identity and get a litany of nonsense instead. As they leave in frustration, they encounter a cabby, who says, “Hey, fellas, need a hack?” To which one of the cops replies, “No thanks, just had one.”

Zombie

The Jerry Gross Organization, 1980; Color; 93 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producers: Ugo Tucci, Fabrizio de Angelis Writer: Elisa Briganti With: Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Richard Johnson, Auretta Gay

McCulloch and Farrow find themselves on a remote island called Matool, where mad Doctor Johnson experiments with raising the dead. He succeeds and there are zombies, zombies everywhere, chowing down on the living—and even each other. Ultra-gore-filled rip-off of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1979) by Italy’s reigning king of spaghetti splatter. In fact, in some parts of Europe, its title was changed to Zombie 2 in order to make people think it was a legitimate sequel to Romero’s film, known there as Zombie. As a filmmaker, the ceaselessly imitative Fulci has his detractors to be sure, but say what you will about him, he really knows what the genre is all about and can always be relied upon to dish out the gore with eye-popping virtuosity.

Zombie High

Cinema Group, 1987; Color; 91 minutes

Director: Ron Link Producers: Aziz Ghazal, Marc Toberoff Writers: Tim Doyle, Aziz Ghazal, Elizabeth Passarelli With: Virginia Madsen, Richard Cox, James Wilder, Sherilyn Fenn

Madsen gets a scholarship to prestigious Ettinger Academy, a trendy prep school that’s finally gone co-ed. Most of the students act like zombies; after visiting the infirmary, her rebellious friends become zombies, too. Seems the folks who run the place are making their students immortal by implanting crystals in their skulls, an operation that helps them get good grades but also turns them into cold emotionless pods. With the aid of a horny 102-year-old professor (who looks 30), Madsen switches the elevator-music cassette that controls the students’ brain waves with a heavy metal tape, prompting the dead heads to go up in smoke. She also destroys the serum that keeps the aging faculty alive, causing them to rot. Dull pastiche of everything from Coma to The Stepford Wives, with uninspired FX. Made in association with the U.S.C. film school—you gotta be kidding!

Zombie Island Massacre

A Troma Team Release, 1983; Color; 89 minutes

Director: John N. Carter Producer: David Broadnax Writers: Logan O’Neill, Wiliam Stoddard With: David Broadnax, Rita Jenrette, Tom Cantrell, Diane Clayre-Holub

With a better script, decent dialogue, and competent acting, this might not have been half bad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have them, so it’s all bad. Still, you don’t find too many splatter movies around that borrow from The Maltese Falcon (at the conclusion, the hero says to his duplicitous lover, “I’m not playing the sap for you anymore, Angel”). The plot is Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (so that we’ll know, a character even makes reference to it), this time set on a Caribbean island populated by a murderous zombie tree creature. A busload of vacationers gets stranded and variously beheaded, impaled, and so on by the tree before the truth comes out—the killer isn’t a zombie tree creature at all, but rather a bunch of vengeful Colombian drug runners! The somnambulistic cast performs with less energy than most zombies. Jenrette, who gained prominence when her husband was convicted during Washington’s ABSCAM scandal, removes her clothes several times, but even that’s not worth the price of admission.

Zombie Nightmare

New World Pictures, 1986; Color; 89 minutes

Director: Jack Bravman Producer: Pierre Grise Writer: David Wellington With: Adam West, Jon Mikl Thor, Tim Carrere, Mamuka Frank Dietz

Teenage victim of a hit-and-run accident is revivified by a family friend, a Haitian witch who was saved from an assault years ago by the boy’s father. Armed with a baseball bat, the zombie teen goes after the punkers who flattened him. Ex-Batman West plays the tight-lipped cop in charge of the case. Mercifully for him, his scenes in this dreadfully amateurish Canadian-made mess are brief. The splatter effects are strictly poverty row. Each scene seems to go on forever—as if the editor had fallen asleep at his Moviola. The unforgettable heavy-metal score is provided by those immortal groups Motorhead, Girl School, Thor, Deathmask, and Fist.

THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME II

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank the following individuals for their help in putting together this second volume of reviews of the good, the bad, and the gory:

My editor, Gordon Van Gelder, for understanding the need for a Volume 2 and working like hell to make sure splatter fans were not disappointed.

The late David F. Friedman of Entertainment Ventures, Inc. and the late Eric Caidin of Hollywood Book & Poster Company, for supplying me with appropriately juicy photos to accompany the text.

My wife, Cheryl, for putting up with more months of ear-splitting shrieks and screams in the house, most of them emanating from the downstairs home video mancave.

And finally, my special gratitude—and a big round of applause—to those intrepid fellow explorers into the uncharted regions of brain-damaged cinema: my contributing “splatterologists,” John Brent, Joe Citro, Walter Gay, Bruce G. Hallenbeck, the late Ken Hanke, and Dan Krogh, without whose efforts this book would be nowhere nearly as comprehensive, insightful, and funny as it (hopefully) is. Thanks, guys—the visit to the shrink’s on me!

INTRODUCTION

When Herschell Gordon Lewis and David F. Friedman churned out Blood Feast in 1963, they had little or no idea that they were giving birth to a new cinematic genre, the splatter movie—a genre which, over the next three decades, would turn the heads of low-budget filmmakers and major studio moguls alike, put millions of dollars into the pockets of others following in their footsteps, and color movie screens worldwide blood red.

By their own admission, Lewis and Friedman were not out to alter film history; they simply wanted to make a few bucks for themselves and their financial partners. Nevertheless, their achievement in both areas testifies to the fact that the “little guy” can still have an impact in the increasingly high-stakes game of moviemaking. Lewis and Friedman's accomplishment, regardless of their films’ quality (or lack thereof), represents a Capraesque tale come true—albeit in somewhat demented form.

Though filmmakers as seemingly disparate as Dario Argento and Steven Spielberg have since polished up the primitivism of Lewis and Friedman’s pioneering form, they, like all other directors working either full time or part time in the genre today, continue to follow the basic ground rules that Lewis and Friedman inadvertently established.

On the surface, a world of difference may appear to separate films like Argento’s Opera and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but look beneath the surface and you’ll see that both spring from the same exploitative well as Lewis and Friedman’s groundbreaker.

Whatever else they may aspire to be, Opera, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and all the other big-budget, low-budget, superior or trashy films collected and reviewed in this volume, are united in the following way. Each strives (with varying degrees of success) to astonish us with the perfection of their violent illusions, and, at their most extreme, mortify us with the gleefully presented “realism” of these often disgusting film tricks. Mutilation, or other forms of graphic mayhem designed to evoke in us a feeling of revulsion, is usually the theme; in the lesser of these films, often the only one.

Other similarities unite them as well. Their plots are often openly derivative of other films, and usually dispense with logic or plausibility of any kind. Why? Because plot serves mainly as a springboard from one violent/splattery/FX-laden set piece to the next. As a result, the pace of such films is almost always pell-mell—high energy filmmaking at its most furious—and the stories can be quite entertaining on that level alone if, as is often the case, no other levels of appreciation are offered. Of course, as with the best films in general, the best splatter movies do strive to increase audience pleasure and involvement by transcending the basic requirements of their genre.

Whether or not individual splatter movies manage to achieve all of these uniting characteristics, most of them—from Lewis’ Blood Feast forward—conform to my definition of the genre as offered in Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen, which traced the history of splatter movies and where I minted the term itself. My belief in the accuracy of this definition has not changed over the years, although some filmmakers working in this arena are said to deny adhering to any such generic patterns. Many even deny their work should be called “splatter” at all. In the forties, of course, the makers of films noir had little or no idea that they were creating a genre with specific conventions—until the French defined those conventions and gave the genre its name many years later. But when, for example, a modern director like Stephen Frears makes a film like The Grifters, he clearly sees that he is playing with the conventions of film noir and makes no bones about saying so. As splatter is a much newer genre, still evolving in many ways, it is inevitable that some filmmakers will fail to see that they, too, are adhering to certain conventions in their work—though others, like George Romero, clearly do acknowledge this and are not at all hesitant about labelling their work in this vein as “splatter movies.”

The filmmakers’ denials may also stem, in part, from the controversial baggage the term “splatter” carries with it—the way, and for the same reason, that certain horror filmmakers once stubbornly refused to admit their work belonged to such a “scurrilous” genre. Instead, many splatter filmmakers will insist their films are westerns, or war films, or action-adventures—which may be true as well. But they are also splatter movies, a genre unto itself which has survived over the years by feeding voraciously off virtually every other filmic form, especially the horror film, a genre which it has all but consumed.

Though some observers of the film scene insist that the popularity of splatter movies has been steadily winding down over the years, my own perception is just the opposite. Since the publication of The Official Splatter Movie Guide [Volume I] in 1989, the flood of new splatter movies reaching our theatre and home video screens has continued virtually unabated. New releases average between fifteen and twenty a month. Certainly, no one would continue making these films in such quantity if audiences were growing tired of seeing them. I would suggest instead that we are still experiencing splatter’s golden (or crimson?) age—an age to which those wonderful little gizmos that constitute “home video,” have contributed in no small way. Thanks to the democratization of the moviemaking process allowed by the lucrative home video industry, more people have been able to grind out more movies over the past decade than was ever possible before.

Volume II, therefore, picks up where Volume I left off. Its aim is to cover as much of the remaining territory as possible by reviewing all the new splatter films that have come our way since 1989, while at the same time picking up some of those titles which, because of time and/or space constraints, failed to make it into the first book.

I and my contributing “splatterologists” have made every effort to screen and review everything the genre has produced to date. Inevitably, certain titles have stubbornly escaped us because they were not distributed in our geographic regions—or, in the case of many direct-to-video releases, they were sometimes not distributed at all. Some foreign-made splatter movies have also been difficult for us to see for the same reasons. As there may be some nuggets among them, we have included an index of these hard-to-find titles, as well as a list of some new splatter films released too close to press time to include here.

One final word: Some readers of Volume I wrote to me asking why I hadn’t included a list of video sources from whom the films reviewed could be obtained. The reason is this: neither Volume I nor Volume II of The Official Splatter Movie Guide is intended to be a video sourcebook—though splatter fans (not to mention worried parents) can certainly tuck the books under their arms when they go to the video store to help determine whether or not to rent a specific film. (In fact, I recommend both guides for just this purpose.)

While most of the films reviewed in both books are available on video and were, in fact, screened by me and my colleagues in that medium, the credit provided is that of the primary distributor, i.e., the distributor of the theatrical release. If that information was unavailable, we provided the name of the film’s production company or listed the distributor as “unknown.” Only in the case of films released directly to video did we credit the video source, for that source is the primary distributor of the film. The fact is, video distributors and their licensing agreements with film companies tend to change like the wind. Therefore, providing a list of video sources for each film reviewed would accomplish little but frustration for us and for you, the reader, because such a list would likely be inaccurate the moment the book was published. And frustration is not the goal of The Official Splatter Movie Guide—Volume II. The goal is to provide you with a book you can rely on for accurate information—and a few laughs—for many, many years to come.

Contributing “Splatterologists”

JOSEPH A. CITRO is known as “The Robert Frost of Gore.” His horror novels include Dark Twilight, The Unseen, Guardian Angels, and Shadow Child. All are set in his native Vermont, two have been optioned for motion pictures, and one, The Unseen, was recommended for a Bram Stoker award for Best Horror Novel of 1990 by the Horror Writers of America. His shorter horror tales have appeared in several “Best of the Year” anthologies.

JOHN BRENT is a filmmaker and film buff who published a neat little magazine called Phantasma some years ago. An ex-theater manager, John knows all about splatter movies, as the chain he once worked for, in his words, “… seemed to book every one of them that came out.” His magazine, however, focused on less well-known horror, SF, and fantasy films from the silent days to the present; I heartily recommend it to readers who can locate copies as an opportunity to expand upon their knowledge of genre filmmaking.

WALTER L. GAY is a lifelong horror/splatter fan who was born in the same year The Curse of Frankenstein appeared, or, as someone once remarked, hatched the same year as Rodan. Two of his short horror tales, The Gore People and The Confession of Charlie Burke, were published in the horror fanzine Nightgaunt. He too has published fanzine—a newsletter actually—called The Ghastly Ones, which is devoted to horror, crime, and western movies deemed too weird or offensive for mainstream moviegoers. Check it out if you can findcopies.

BRUCE G. HALLENBECK is a regular contributor to splatter, horror, and exploitation film publications such as Fangoria, Little Shoppe of Horrors, and Filmfax. He is an expert on the British Gothic cinema in general and the British horror film studio, Hammer Films, in particular. He is also a filmmaker, whose debut feature, Vampyre, a Hammer-style remake of the Carl Dreyer classic Vampyr, was released direct-to-video in 1991.

KEN HANKE (1954-2016) is the author of Charlie Chan at the Movies (McFarland Press), A Critical Guide to Horror Film Series (Garland Publishing), and Ken Russell’s Films (Scarecrow Press) which is the definitive most insightful (and vastly readable) exploration of this great director’s work to date. He is also a regular contributor to Films in Review.

DANIEL KROGH is an award-winning filmmaker and the author of The Amazing Herschell Gordon Lewis and His World of Exploitation Films. Dan brings a real insider’s knowledge to The Official Splatter Movie Guides. He knows whereof he writes because he’s actually made some of the damn things, having worked with Lewis on several of the Godfather of Gore’s celebrated splatter epics, including The Wizard of Gore and The Gore Gore Girls.

Africa: Blood and Guts

The Jeny Gross Organization, 1970, Color, 72 minutes

Directors: Franco Prosperi, Gualtiero Jacopetti Producer: Jerry Gross Writers: Franco Prosperi, Gualtiero Jacopetti

Filmed circa 1964 by the same dudes who blessed us with Mondo Cane, this was originally a 122-minute shockumentary called Africa Addio. It was protested and censured by countless African governments and disappeared from the screen until 1970, when Gross grabbed it, trimmed it, retitled it, and dumped it on the drive-in circuit. Even with the original social commentary deleted, Blood and Guts is a true catalogue of horror that will shock even the most jaded viewer. Footage of emerging black Africa, with reverse racism against whites, is followed by wholesale animal slaughter. The high point is the extermination of rebel dope fiends and rapists by mercenaries in the closing stages of the picture. Africa: Blood and Guts may appeal to serious historians as a bloody retrospective of the emerging Dark Continent. It will definitely appeal to blood hounds with its graphic scenes of violence against man and beast alike. For fans of the “Mondo” genre, it doesn’t get any “better”than this.

Alice, Sweet Alice

Allied Artists, 1976, Color, 108 minutes

Director: Alfred Sole Producer: Richard K. Rosenberg Writers: Rosemary Ritvo. Alfred Sole With: Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, Niles McMaster, Brooke Shields, Lillian Roth, Alphonso DeNoble

A devout Catholic family is plagued by a series of brutal murders after their youngest daughter’s disastrous first communion. Young Shields, as the doomed communicant, is strangled and her corpse is set on fire. A maniac clad in plastic mask and yellow raincoat goes to work; the knife-murders are nasty and realistic, shot and edited for maximum impact. In one painful example, a mean aunt of the slain girl has a blade plunged into her foot. McMaster (who also sucked brains in Bloodsucking Freaks) has a crucifix rammed down his throat. The two-ton, chrome-domed pervert who lives downstairs is brutally butchered and his corpse crashes through an aquarium while “Three Little Fishes” plays on the phonograph. Gleefully excessive but extremely well made, with Sheppard a real standout as the schizophrenic older daughter. The religious angst will overpower viewers of any denomination. A. k. a. Communion and Holy Terror.

The Alien Dead

Firebird Pictures. 1979, Color, 73 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producers: Chuck Sumner, Fred Olen Ray Writers: Fred Olen Ray, Martin Alan Nicholas With: Buster Crabbe, Ray Roberts, Linda Lewis, Mike Bonavia

A meteor crashes in the Florida swamps and brings back the dead as flesh-eating ghouls. This is Ray's second feature (after The Brain Leeches) so you know what to expect. Primitive edits and fades vie for attention with out-of-synch sound, flubbed lines, amateur makeup, and gratuitous T&A. Veteran Crabbe and the novice “actors” ham it up with equal enthusiasm. (One of them looks like Colonel Sanders’ twin brother!) Intentional comedy includes sick jokes and Cormanesque surnames. The nonsense is punctuated by facial mutilation, cannibalism, gut-munching, and dismemberment. A dog chows down on a bisected corpse. An old woman is skewered on a three-tined pitchfork—and four prongs burst out her back! A spear gun figures in what passes for a hair-raising finale. Part Night of the Living Dead, part Zombie Lake, all bad. Another great party film from the schlockmeister who gave us Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Alien Nation

Twentieth Centuiy-Fox, 1988. Color, 90 minutes

Director: Graham Baker Producers: Gale Anne Hurd, Richard Kobritz Writer: Rockne S. O'Bannon With: James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, Terence Stamp

The plot is a replay of every cop movie you’ve ever seen. Crusty, bigoted cop Caan loses his partner during an attempted robbery when one of the holdup men blows holes in the guy with a high-powered gun. Ethnic cop Patinkin becomes Caan’s new partner. Initially, the seasoned pro subjects the rookie to ridicule and racial slurs but gradually develops tolerance and respect and they become buddies as they track down the high-level mastermind behind a lethal drug operation. The difference is that Patinkin is not a black or Hispanic, but a “slag,” a member of an alien race that has come to earth to escape cosmic persecution and settle down. The difference works. O’Bannon’s satiric and offbeat premise offers some sharp observations on racial misunderstanding, as well as some very bright dialogue and wry situations. Caan and Patinkin are excellent and wholly believable as the mismatched pair. There’s also lots of gunplay and splatter, particularly towards the end when the duo takes on drug lord Stamp, an opportunistic “slag” who metamorphoses into a nearly unstoppable monster when he overdoses on the alien drug he’s peddling to the new minority population. But the scene that will probably make your gorge rise most is the one where Caan and Patinkin get sociably drunk together. Earthling Caan drinks Scotch while alien Patinkin gets his kicks from clotted, spoiled milk, which he washes down with a lip smacking, “Really hits the spot!” And so does most of this movie.

The Alienator

Distributor: American Independent/ International Majestic, 1989, Color, 93 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Jeffrey C. Hogue Writer: Paul Garson With: Jan-Michael Vincent, John Phillip Law, Ross Hagan,Dyana Ortelli, Leo V. Gordon, and Teagan.

The immortal Fred Olen Ray, maker of such classics as Cyclone and Deep Space, hasn’t done it again with this Terminator/Star Wars/everything else rip-off. An unpleasant wheezing alien bad guy escapes his prison planet and high-tails it for Earth, where he encounters an equally unpleasant band of jerky campers. Just when all seems dull, a fat female bounty hunter shows up. She’s unpleasant too, and way too portly to bring any sex interest to this monumentally unpleasant film. There’s gunfire, lasers, face-eating bugs, and fist fights, but nowhere do we find the vision or creativity to make this anything but a dull film full of dull unpleasant people. All that can be said in the R-rated Alienator’s defense is that it may inspire a whole new and potentially crowded classification for rating movies—D, for Dumb.

Alien Prey

Tymar, 1979, Color, 80 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producers: Terence Marcel, David Wimbuiy Writer: Max Duff With: Barry Stokes, Sally Faulkner, Glory Annan

The day after weird green lights are seen in the English sky, a strange young man stops at the country home of two lesbian housemates. He doesn’t know the meaning of everyday words, can’t hold down food, and in general acts like it’s his first day on the planet. Confused Annan is torn between loyalty to her lover and attraction to the man; dominant Faulkner takes his spacey behavior to be that of an asylum escapee. It’s a toss-up as to who’s scarier, Stokes' alien or Faulkner’s hateful, switchblade-wielding dyke. By the end of this twisted, paranoid little film, we have been treated to numerous animal mutilations (policemen who investigate are similarly torn open), soft-core sex scenes of several varieties, the sight of the alien’s hideous face, and the tearing-out and devouring of one character’s throat. The parting shot of this sick flick is truly spine-chilling. Warren, who often does amazing things on a shoestring, also gave us Terror and Bloody New Year.

Alligator

Group I, 1980, Color, 94 minutes

Director: Lewis Teague Producer: Brandon Chase Writer: John Sayles With: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Dean Jagger, Michael Gazzo, Jack Carter,Henry Silva, Mike Mazurki

A little girl’s mean father flushes her pet alligator down the toilet. Twelve years later the gator comes back—36 feet long and real hungry. Forster, a likeable cop with a grim past, is called in to investigate when chewed-off arms and legs surface in the Chicago sewer system. Alligator attacks are frequent and splattery, with gallons of gushing crimson. Many of the victims—crooked politicians, a slimy industrialist, a pet shop owner who sells puppies to vivisectionists and a reporter—are scumballs who deserve everything they get. Silva has a hilarious and too-short part as a sexist, racist Great White Hunter. Innocent gator bait includes a kid in a swimming pool and a cop lifted out of a canal with nothing below the knees. The sequence where the reptile crashes a wedding party is a real gem. Satirical, underscored with gallows humor, chock-full of sight gags and in-jokes, and surprisingly well-directed by the same guy who cursed us with Fighting Back. This is one that rises well above the sewer.

The Amityville Curse

Distributor unknown, 1989, Color. 91 minutes

Director: Tom Berry Producer: Franco Battista Writers: Michael Krueger, Norvell Rose With: Kim Coates, Dawna Wightman, David Stein, Cassandra Gave

It is never made clear where this installment fits into the never-ending Amityville saga. Here the house looks different than it does in the other entries, and it’s situated in a place that looks nothing like Long Island. But that’s not weird enough to make a good movie. This time around, the house takes on an all-new history, supposedly based on a “true” account by Hans Holzer. In this incarnation, the house is a rectory where an elderly priest was murdered by a young man who may also have killed his own family. Twelve years later a group of yuppies buys the long-deserted house as a “fixer-upper,” hoping to make a killing in the real estate market. Apparently, the house hopes to make a killing of its own and yuppies start dying in boring, insipid, uninteresting, tiresome, slumber-producing ways. Why mince words? This is a terrible, tacky, tedious film. It is rambling, slow, and incoherent. Lacking excessive gore, nudity, or imaginative effects, its main claim to the being a splatter film is that it is highly derivative. Derivative? Hell, it’s a blatant rip-off of the Amityville name, which long ago became a synonym for horrible ho-hum horror.

Angel of Death

New World, 1986, Color, 92 minutes

Director: A. Frank Drew White (Jess Franco) Producer: Daniel Lesoeur Writers: Gregory Freed, AL Mariaux, David Khunn With: Fernando Rey, Christopher Mitchum, Jack Taylor

Name-brand actors rub elbows with the usual Franco clowns in this Dr. Mengele story that gives The Boys from Brazil no competition. Rey and Taylor are Nazi-hunters, while Mitchum is a crippled American mercenary employed by Mengele (Howard Vernon). A pretty young woman infiltrates Mengele’s stronghold and gets to see the pathetic results of his genetics experiments, including a chimp-man who probably could have made a better movie himself (Hell, any monkey with a camera could.) She is beaten and thrown in a cage. Taylor and friends attack the stronghold in a pitched battle that tries without success to match the gunplay in The Wild Bunch. The big news, gore-wise, is that Franco actually uses blood-squibs this time, and he’s just like a kid with a new toy. The bullet holes are big and bloody and the red stuff sprays through the air by the gallon, literally painting the screen red. Otherwise it’s the usual Franco monkey business: Guns are aimed at soldier’s chests and they suffer head wounds; Taylor walks out of an exploding building unscathed. Has Franco hit the big time, or have Rey and Mitchum hit the small time?

Arachnophobia

Hollywood Pictures/Amblin Entertainment, 1990, Color, 110 minutes

Director: Frank Marshall Producer: Kathleen Kennedy, Richard Vane Writer: Don Jakoby, Wesley Strick With: Jeff Daniels, Julian Sands, Harley Jane Kozak, Brian McNamara. John Goodman

Yet another big-budget film producer pays homage to the classic flicks of the fifties with this American tale of arachnid invasion. A super spider leaves the hustle and bustle of beautiful Ayun-tepui in South America in order to settle down in Canaima (i.e. Your Town, USA) and raise a family. Yuppie doctor Daniels and stockbroker wife Kozak do likewise and we have a classic territorial squabble between the two-leggers and the eight-leggers. Surprisingly, in spite of superior production values (including some wonderful footage of South America), the story’s a bore, as executive producer Spielberg’s classic domestic, small-town values are thickly applied in loving, boring detail. It’s also hard to imagine a spider this bright losing to Daniels, who does his part in building some sympathy for Dr. Yuppie, USA. There are a couple of good spider bites with a bit of blood, and a nicely-drained corpse, but most of the splatter here is of the arachnid variety, as we’re treated to some great shots of squishy spider goo (particularly one shot of exterminator Goodman’s shoe). There are some interesting things in the spider webs as well, and lots of suspense, but by the time our arachnid adversary is finally torched and nail-gunned, we’re left feeling that this couldn’t happen in our town. We’d never let our precious invasion movies become so overproduced and wholesome. At least we’re spared the predictable ending of one sole survivor spider sneaking off towards a sequel.

The Arena

See Naked Warriors

Armed Response

CineTel Films, 1986, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Paul Hertzberg Writer: T.L Lankford With: David Carradine, Lee Van Cleef, Mako, Lois Hamilton, Ross Hagen, Michael Berryman, Laurene Landon

A father-and-son cop team (Van Cleef, Carradine) tangles with the Japanese Mafia in this violent piece of contemporary film noir. The bone of contention is an oriental jade statue. The bloody tale of greed and double-crosses is punctuated by gorier-than-average gunplay; Landon suffers a ghastly chest wound and, to quote her character, has “the air let out of her right tit.” The piece de resistance involves one character having his torso pierced by thousands of long needles, then tortured by acupuncture. This leads to such charming exchanges as “Have you ever had your bones scraped?” “Not lately.” The bloodletting is underscored by typical, puerile Lankford/Ray scatology, wise-ass dialogue, in-jokes, etc. Mako, the singular Berryman, and especially Hagen are riveting as the bad guys. Fast-paced and well-directed without a wasted moment, and a great film by Ray standards, it’s a good solid actioner by any standards. A.k.a. The Jade Jungle.

Attack of the Beast Creatures

Obelisk Motion Pictures Ltd., 1983. Color, 83 Minutes

Director: Michael Stanley Producers: Michael Stanley, William R. Szlinsky Writer: Robert A. Hutton With: Robert Nolfi, Julia Rust, Lisa Pak

Shipwreck survivors in the 1920s wash up on a North Atlantic island; they are attacked by carnivorous little men who resemble Jivaro warriors with a wicked sunburn. The monsters worship what looks like a cut-rate Aztec idol atop a cliff. The origins and motivations of the creatures are never explained. Little more effort is expended on character development before the humans are attacked. The assaults and beast-creature puppets are made effective through rapid-fire editing. The havoc wreaked on the humans is pretty grisly, especially when one monster chows down on a man’s leg wound with sadistic relish. Several more folks are impaled and graphically dissolved in acid pools. The monsters are beaned with rocks, smashed against trees, hit for line-drives by stick-wielding victims and squashed underfoot like big red bugs. The amateur acting and writing don’t undermine the inherent creepiness, and Stanley is to be commended for not cluttering his film with the usual cast of obnoxious teenagers. The 1920s time frame is a nice touch, also. Filmed in Fairfield and Stratford, Connecticut. A.k.a. Hell Island.

Backwoods

Overlook Films LTD., 1986, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Dean Crow Producer: Maureen Sweeney Writer: Charles Joseph With: Christina Noonan, Jack O'Hara, Dick Kreusser, Brad Armacost

Filmed in Indiana, this tale of urban campers attacked by a neck-biting subhuman who graduates from small critters to people could have been a real corker. It creates a certain atmosphere of boondocks menace, relieved both by the stupid city-folks and hillbillies who make Jed Clampett sound like Einstein. (You know—Albert.) However, despite the initial snappy dialogue and a barbed-wire finale that will delight sadists of all ages, Backwoods fails to maintain interest throughout; a piece of dead wood best thrown in the burn barrel. Possibly the weirdest picture ever filmed in the Hoosier State. A.k.a. Geek! Not to be confused with another elusive flick, Luther the Geek.

Bad Taste

Wingnut Films, 1987, Color, 88 minutes

Director: Peter Jackson Producer: Peter Jackson Writer: Peter Jackson With: Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Craig Smith, Mike Minett

Flesh-eating extraterrestrials duke it out with kill-happy commandos in the first interesting film to come out of New Zealand. The unrated version contains the usual dismemberments, beheadings, and gushing bullet hits, along with a few one-of-a-kind set pieces. Before the main credits, an alien’s head is blown away from the nose up; one of his buddies later eats his brains. An alien is tortured with a bayonet pushed slowly through his foot. Another one has a hole blown through his torso; a commando, for no good reason, rams his UZI through the aperture and blasts more aliens through the exit wound. A sheep is blown to pieces with a bazooka. A commando has his skull broken open after falling off a cliff and spends the rest of the picture trying to keep his brains inside his cranium. Aliens are bisected and cut up with a handy chainsaw. The communal vomit-eating scene will most likely induce regurgitation among more tender viewers. Excessive and well-made, with the various outrages offset by savage satire and gallows humor. Easily the most accurately-titled splatter-fest of all time.

Bail Out

Distributor unknown, 1988, Color, 88 minutes

Director: Max Kleven Producers: Sanford Hampton, David Hasselhoff, Max Kleven Writer: Max Kleven With: David Hasselhoff, Linda Blair, John Vemon, Tom Rosales, Gregoiy Scott Cummins

In some dog shows the judges test the intelligence of Borzois and other narrow-skulled dogs by dropping a matchbook in front of them. If the dog notices something has happened, it passes the test. We have grave misgivings about David Hasselhoff passing this test. Bereft of talking car (but with that offensively permed hair that made him so obnoxious on TV), Hasselhoff may just be the only actor living who makes Patrick Swayze look like an intelligent being. Pairing him with Linda Blair in this interminable and often incomprehensible drug war thriller may make Ms. Blair seem somewhat better than usual, but it does precious little for the hapless viewer. The plot revolves around bail bondsman Hasselhoff trying to keep La Blair alive for her court date. Alas, the young lady has somehow run afoul of a South American-Iranian drug feud; the film thus emigrates to an exotic south-of-the- border setting with a cast of characters who look like they're auditioning for a third-rate remake of Viva Villa. (To keep this from being wholly racist, our heroes are saddled with a sidekick who appears to have stolen Leo Carrillo’s clothes from the Cisco Kid set.) All of this leads nowhere. The thrilling set pieces aren’t and even the gore effects are minimal (in the main the action is on the B-western level), leaving one to wonder for whom this picture was made. Amazingly, this fiasco is in rather decent Surround Sound—only the channels are reversed so that when people slam a door on the right side of the screen, the sound comes from the left! If you avoid only one film this year, make sure this is it.

Barbarian Queen

Concorde, 1985, Color, 77 minutes

Director: HectorOlivera Producers: Frank Issac, Alex Sessa Writer: Howard D. Coen With: Lana Clarkson, Katt Shea, Frank Zagarino, Dawn Dunlap

The statuesque Clarkson (Sorceress) is out to avenge her sister and fellow villagers, who have been raped and pillaged in the opening scene. There’s a shade less sex and gore in this outing than in some of the other Concorde/New Horizons fantasies, but director Olivera (Deathstalker) always manages to include a few touches of perversity. In one of the more interesting, Clarkson is trussed up seminude on a cross and lightly tortured by a medieval “geek” who brags of his technique: “No fuss, no mess, no bother—no unsightly blood splattered all over the room.” Then he proceeds to “tickle" her nipples with a spiked metal hand. This is fairly inter-changeable with the other films in this series, but they’re all entertaining in spite of, or because of, their obviously low budgets. These are feminist barbarians, and in fact Clarkson’s sister (Dunlap) ends up stabbing the man who raped her.

The Bare Breasted Countess

See Erotikill

Basket Case 2

Shapiro/Glickenhaus, 1990, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Frank Henenlorter Producer: Edgar Levin Writer: Frank Henenlotter With: Kevin Van Henteniyck, Annie Ross, Kathryn Meisle, Heather Rattray, Jason Evers, Ted Sorel

Van Hentenryck makes a spectacle of himself in New York City, where he and “twin” brother Belial escape from a hospital. They end up in a house occupied by weird freaks with oversized heads. Belial falls in love with Eve, a creature as misshapen as he, and is advised, “Ripping the faces off people may not be in your best interest.” Reporter Meisle tries to find out what’s going on in Mother Ruth’s House o’ Freaks. She ends up getting torn apart by its inhabitants, while one of the freaks takes pictures. The story on the whole is reminiscent of Tod Browning’s Freaks and constantly asks the question: Who is “normal”? Meisle is literally transformed into a freak. Belial and Eve share a truly grotesque love scene toward the end, while the seemingly normal woman with whom Van Hentenryck has fallen in love turns out to have an Alien-type creature growing inside of her that “needs to come up for air every once in a while." There’s a ghastly climax and the film is every bit as twisted as the original.

Barbed Wire Dolls

Blite Film Productions, 1976, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jess Franco Producer: Erwin C. Detrich Writer: None credited With: Lina Romay, Monika Swinn, Paul Muller

This legendary Franco atrocity pits his favorite actress (and future wife) Romay against scuzzy prison warden Swinn, with sadistic and predictable results. Manacled Swinn, a horror in her own right, walks around without the bottom half of her uniform. As if that wasn’t nasty enough, Franco throws in flogging, bondage, starvation, and he himself plays an incestuous rapist. Romay is shackled—naked of course—to a metal bed frame which is then electrified. The most notorious scene has a female inmate masturbating, in loving close-up, with a lit cigarette; since this is a Franco flick, we’re surprised she used the filter! A typical bloodless gunfight brings this to a welcome close. Features the sort of bad acting, hyperactive zoom lens, and lazy-boy direction we’ve come to expect from Franco—and he never disappoints us. Reportedly shot back to back with Ilsa, the Wicked Warden, the scroungiest prison picture ever made.

Beaks

Ascot Entertainment Group, 1987, Color, 86 minutes

Director: Rene Cardona, Jr. Producer: Rene Cardona, Jr. Writer: Rene Cardona, Jr. With: Michelle Johnson, Christopher Atkins, Sonia Infante, Salvador Pineda, Carol Connery

A blatant rip-off of Hitchcock’s The Birds that not only reprises the master’s winged creatures-bent-on-revenge plot but lifts whole scenes from Hitch’s film as well. For example, there’s a lengthy bird attack at a children’s birthday party and another scene where killer birds swarm from a fireplace. TV photographer Atkins and reporter Johnson, who are covering the ecological showdown, even take refuge in a luncheonette/bar to ruminate over the assaults with other trapped customers. In a further nod to Sir Alfred, Cardona then has the climactic bird attack take place on a train. To his credit, Cardona mounts his frequent bird assaults with some cinematic skill and intensity. And he vastly outstrips Hitchcock in the gore department. The furious flock devour babies, pluck victims’ eyes out, scratch and claw faces to raw, bleeding pulp, and even sabotage airplanes. Johnson concludes the film with a plea for ecological coexistence, but considering the high body count just witnessed, it’s more likely viewers would reach for their shotguns instead.

Beast of the Yellow Night

New World, 1971, Color, 86 minutes

Director: Eddie Romero Producers: Eddie Romero, John Ashley Writer: Eddie Romero With: John Ashley, Mary Wilcox, Eddie Garcia

Ashley is a rape-happy, homicidal GI who saves his own skin at the end of World War Two by selling his soul to the Devil. Years later, bored with life and (understandably) with wife Wilcox, he tries to renege on the contract. The Devil responds by putting a curse on the GI; he is periodically transformed into a monster that viewers have compared with everything from a werewolf to Michael Jackson. Ashley’s transformations culminate in local islanders’ being transformed into mincemeat. Too bad he never transforms into an actor. At least Beast of the Yellow Night has guts—literally. A Good Samaritan comes to the aid of a prostitute with a fatally ripped throat; the monster attacks him and munches out on his steaming entrails. Cops and vigilantes have their faces shredded. The beast is inexplicably bullet-proof until the end. Not bad for a Filipino film—but it’s still a Filipino film.

The Being

Distributor unknown, 1983, Color, 82 minutes

Director: Jackie Kong Producer: William Osco Writer: Jackie Kong With: Martin Landau, Jose Ferrer, Dorothy Malone, Ruth Buzzi, Marianne Gordon Rogers, Murray Langston, Rexx Coltrane

Monstrous creature spawned by toxic waste from a nuclear dump site searches out people in their cars and homes and tears them asunder with its radioactive paws, leaving a stockpile of bloody stumps behind. Ferrer, the stoic head honcho of the lax nuclear power plant, wants to put a lid on all the bad publicity and assigns the job of tracking the creature down to scientist Landau while long-suffering Malone looks tearfully on. Though these three get top billing, their screen time is relatively brief. Their infrequent scenes together and separately look like they were shot in one session. The supporting cast of unknowns does most of the work. Kong, whose 1987 splatter satire Blood Diner was a minor laugh-filled gem, directs this one with tongue in cheek as well. But the laughs just aren’t there, and the FX are quite poor. Producer Osco, who appears in the film under the pseudonym Rexx Coltrane, is the creator of the legendary Flesh Gordon, a triumph of wizardry and wit compared to this low-rent job.

Beyond Dream's Door

Panorama Entertainment. 1988, Color, 86 minutes

Director: Jay Woelfel Producer: Dyrk Ashton Writer: Jay Woelfel With: Nick Baldasare. Rick Kesler, Susan Pinsky, Norm Singer

Lovecraftian hodge-podge in which a scaly creature with claws, rows of razor- sharp teeth, and a truly rotten disposition re-enters the world of the living via the nightmares of psych student Baldasare, then tries to destroy him and anyone else privy to his dreams in an effort to erase all evidence of its existence… Until next time! Brrrr… scary, eh kids? Not really. But it is terribly disjointed—the film, that is, not the creature. Apart from its rubbery face, Eddie Cantor-like eyes and those claws, we never see the thing except in silhouette. What we do see are its several graphically mutilated, beheaded, and dismembered victims, a “dream seductress” who enjoys exposing her small breasts and uttering threats in a guttural, Freddy Krueger-like voice, and a malevolent red balloon. Plus references to, yes, The Red Balloon, plus Re-Animator, Curse of the Demon, and numerous other, better films. Shot on a shoestring for an “advanced” course in filmmaking at Ohio State University and using the university itself as a major location and many of its students as extras, this celluloid term paper by debut writer-director Woelfel merits an A for effort and an F for results.

Beyond the Living Dead

See The Hanging Woman

Biohazard

21st Century, 1984, Color, 79 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Fred Olen Ray Writer: Fred Olen Ray With: Aldo Ray, Angelique Pettyjohn, Will Fair, David Pearson, Christopher Ray

A government experiment with teleportation brings back a mutant from another dimension. Though only four feet high, the thing has big claws and knows how to use them. It tears a number of faces off, and the victims—including an Otis Campbell-type town drunk—foam at the mouth after death. Monster number two eats a man’s throat in a protracted medium shot. We also get to see a lab employee’s flesh charred off his bones. Veteran actor Aldo Ray flubs more lines than anyone else in the cast. Professional bra-buster Pettyjohn, seen previously in Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Titillation, knocks out our eyeballs once again. Fred Olen’s little son Christopher gets to run around in the monster suit. Liberally padded with outtakes at the end, this is strictly for fans of Ray’s screwball style of filmmaking; all others stay away.

The Black Cat

W.W. Entertainment/Selenia Cinematographia, 1981, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Giulio Sbarigia Writers: Biagio Proietti, Lucio Fulci With: Patrick Magee, Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck, Al Cliver, Dagmar Lassander, Bruno Corazarri

A British star and a supposedly British setting do little to disguise the fact that this is a thoroughly Italian, thoroughly Lucio Fulci production. For the uninitiated, this means it’s about on the same level as a Dario Argento picture—at least as far as comprehensibility is concerned. In theory the film is "freely” adapted from the Poe story. One might more correctly say that it runs riot with the Poe story—insofar as it is possible to follow Fulci’s sense of dramatic construction. Whatever merit the film’s story may have is effectively obscured by Fulci’s seemingly pathological need to crowd his hand-held wide-screen camera in on his subjects. Bad as this claustrophobic device is on the screen, it becomes much worse when reduced to the flat dimensions of a television set. More often than not we end up staring interminably at the bridge of someone’s nose—and there are finer and more edifying sights in this world than Patrick Magee’s nose and shaggy eyebrows. Yet Magee is about the only thing this production has going for it, even if his little bout of playing a psychotic and/or possessed psychic here is hardly in the same league as his Marquis de Sade in MaratlSade or his Mr. Alexander in A Clockwork Orange. For a gore film, The Black Cat is light on the effects, while possessing a singularly unappealing fascination with decaying corpses and the like (this conveyed by the cast’s nose-holding reactions to same!). Not that any of this much matters in the midst of the muddle. We would, however, be curious to know just why the titular beast wanders about causing haphazard mayhem. Readers may send their suggestions on this fine point. No prizes, though.

Black Christmas

Warner Brothers. 1974, Color, 98 minutes

Director: Bob Clark Producers: Bob Clark, Geriy Arbeid Writer: Roy Moore With: Olivia Hussey. Keir Dullea, Andrea Martin, John Saxon, Art Hindle, Margot Kidder

Effective, Canadian-made mad slasher-on-the-loose shocker directed by the talented Bob Clark (Deathdream, Murder by Decree) before he went Hollywood with real sleaze items like Porky’s. Dullea is the sexual psychopath who’s got it in for the girls. He hides in the attic of a sorority house on Christmas Eve and terrorizes the sorority babes, who, for various reasons, aren’t going home for the holidays—at first by making obscene phone calls which no one realizes are coming from inside the house. Inspector Saxon is called in to investigate, but proves predictably useless. Eventually, the maniac progresses from terror tactics to murder. One by one, the more sexually precocious girls are isolated and done in by the knife-wielding killer, who then stuffs their bodies in plastic bags and stashes them in the attic to keep himself company. Virginal heroine Hussey eventually catches on to the evil lurking within (a little Freudian symbolism here?) and must go head-to-head with the killer in a fairly tense conclusion that is capped off by a twist ending that actually works. Like Halloween (which borrowed just about everything from this film), there’s more suspense than upfront gore here, but genre fans are not likely to be disappointed. A.k.a. Silent Night, Evil Night and Stranger in the House.

Blackenstein

Exclusive International, 1973, Color. 92 minutes

Director: William A Levy Producer: Frank R. Saletri Writer: Frank R. Saletri With: John Hart, Ivory Stone, Andrea King

A fatally wounded Vietnam vet is turned into a 400-pound ebony Frankenstein monster with an Afro who bears a striking resemblance to the Reverand Al Sharpton. This incredibly strange creature goes after the bad guys—all white, of course. The monster moves slower than molasses in January. But he somehow manages to catch the villains; this makes for some graphic, onscreen disembowelments and other mutilation. The monster itself is dismembered and eviscerated at film’s end in a Doberman attack that should make rednecks bounce up and down in their chairs. In terms of quality, the only thing Blackenstein has going for it is some striking electrical lab machinery by Kenneth Strickfaden, veteran of the original Universal Frankenstein series.

Black Gestapo

Distributor unknown, 1975, Color, 89 minutes

Director: Lee Frost Producer: Wes Bishop Writers: Wes Bishop, Lee Frost With: Rod Perry, Charles P. Robinson, Donna Desmond

Perry and Robinson are officers in the black People’s Army of Watts, dedicated to wiping out the white syndicate drug-runners and whore-masters, played by Lee Frost and Wes Bishop. Bloodthirsty Robinson eventually takes command of the army; when the white bad asses have been routed, Robinson displays his concept of equality by preying on black shopkeepers even more than the whites did before. Perry objects, is shot through the chest, and makes a two-day recovery before packing up his homemade mortars and attacking Robinson’s stronghold in the most unbelievable commando strike ever. Footage of Hitler’s Gestapo is edited in, just in case we didn’t get the point. Russ Meyer alumnus Uschi Digard bares her trophies in some of the more interesting scenes. Black Gestapo lifts certain aspects from Black Caesar and Foxy Brown, while existing solely for the rampant violence. This includes belly shots, head-cracking, groin kicks, and the spectacle of blacks castrating a white rapist and flushing his gonads down a toilet.

Blackout

Distributor unknown. 1989, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Doug Adams Producers: Doug Adams, Joseph Stefano Writer: Joseph Stefano With: Carol Lynley, Gail O'Grady, Michael Keys Hall, Joanna Miles

Remember Joseph Stefano’s contribution to TV shows like “The Outer Limits,” or his screenplay for Hitchcock’s Psycho? Do you perchance have fond memories of being pleasantly surprised by Carol Lynley in Radley Metzger’s version of The Cat and the Canary? Well, forget ’em all here. This is nothing but an incredibly slow-moving “thriller” about someone digging up a past that would have been better left buried (along with this script). Do you really care what happened to the heroine’s poetry-scribbling papa? Was he sinner or saint? Is he alive or dead? Who’s running about via point-of-view shots in the attic of mama’s house (clue: it isn’t Mrs. Bates)? If you must know the Dreadful Secret, papa was offed with a screwdriver years and years ago (in an admittedly gory flashback) and all this poking around only serves to unleash (you guessed it) more horror. You have just been saved ninety minutes and three bucks. You’re welcome.

Black Rain

Paramount Pictures. 1989. Color, 125 minutes

Director: Ridley Scott Producers: Stanley R. Jaffe, Sheny Lansing Writers: Craig Bolotin, Warren Lewis With: Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Kate Capshaw, Ken Takakura

Douglas and Garcia are two New York City cops assigned to extradite a Japanese drug lord to Tokyo. But through a ruse engineered by the kingpin’s Yakuza (Japanese gangster) compatriots, the captive gets away from the intrepid pair. Douglas, a loud-mouthed maverick in the Dirty Harry tradition—whom Japanese officials would give the bum’s rush, if the plot of this film were even remotely plausible—stays on to recapture the drug lord on his own. When Garcia is beheaded by a sword-wielding motorcyclist—in a gruesomely realistic scene that will leave you gasping—Douglas’ dedication turns to revenge. As filtered through the eyes of director Ridley Scott, whose noirish Blade Runner this film recalls with its garish, steamy, overcrowded decor, Black Rain is no Japanese picture postcard. It’s a travelogue for xenophobes, in which Tokyo is portrayed as a noisy, neon-lit, corruption-filled city, peopled by thugs who spend most of their time bludgeoning, stabbing, and shooting each other. Sure makes you wonder how they find the time to turn out such great cars and electronic gadgets.

The Black Room

Lancer Productions. 1982, Color, 88 minutes

Directors: Elly Kenner, Norman Thaddeus Vane Producer: Aaron C. Butler Writer: Norman Thaddeus Vane With: Stephen Knight, Cassandra Gaviola, Jimmy Stathis, Clara Periyman, Linnea Quigley

A brother and sister rent out an “intimate room” in their Beverly Hills mansion at a too-good-to-be-true price. Philandering husband Stathis takes the bait, using the place for some afternoon delight with whores, coeds, etc. His wife finds out and does a little cheating of her own in the same room. Little do they know that the voyeuristic brother (Knight) is suffering from a rare form of anemia. With the help of sister Gaviola he drains various visitors of the fresh blood he needs to survive, often siphoning it directly from their punctured throats and into his arm. Since these contemporary vampires are none too tidy, the transfusions constitute “blood spilling” in the most literal sense of the word. One character is stuck in the jugular with a straightened coat hanger and squirts blood all over the place. Another is stabbed in the stomach with a blood-siphon. The whole gory business is well made, skillfully acted, and beautifully photographed by Robert Harmon.

Black Roses

Imperial Entertainment Corp., 1988, Color, 90 minutes

Director: John Fasano Producers: John Fasano, Ray Van Doom Writer: Cindy Sorrel With: John Martin, Ken Swofford, Julie Adams, Sal Viviano, Robin Stewart

Former Second Lady Tipper Gore’s worst nightmare comes true in this tuneful tale about Black Roses, a satanic heavy metal rock group that kicks off its first intercontinental tour in small-town America, turning the local teens into sex maniacs and killers. Put off by the band’s anti-everything lyrics, the teens’ straight-laced parents, led by fifties scream queen Julie Adams, at first nix the concert, but band leader Damian (Viviano) wins them over with some mellow music and they allow the band to play on. Then the kill riff begins. One parent is woofered and tweetered to death by a scaly creature that pops out of his son’s speaker system. Another teen runs his mom down with the family car. Good girl Tina (Stewart) bashes her stepfather’s head in with an ashtray, then cuts the throat of her heartthrob English teacher’s (Martin) ex-girlfriend. Martin rescues the inflamed teens with his own version of “Light My Fire” when he incinerates band leader Damian, who transforms into a caterwauling demon before expiring. But—surprise! surprise!—society hasn’t seen the last of this devilish group. Seems their small-town gig was only a warm-up for Madison Square Garden. A cautionary parable for members of audience-hungry civic centers everywhere who can’t decide whether to book ’em or ban ’em.

Blades

John P. Finegan Productions. 1990, Color, 101 minutes

Director: Thomas R. Rondinella Producer: John P. Finegan Writers: John P. Finegan, William R. Pace, Thomas R. Rondinella With: Robert North, Jeremy Whelan, Victoria Scott, Lee Devin, William Towner. Holly Stevenson

The first two-thirds of this film may bore everyone but golf fans. During the Tall Grass Country Club's gold tournament, the new club pro (North) arrives. Soon, bodies begin turning up mutilated and dismembered—body parts on the greens, the corpses on the fairways. With an important tournament coming up, the chief of police orders "a course-wide maniac hunt.” Suspicion falls on the former grounds-keeper (Whelan), but the murders continue after his incarceration. The monster finally shows itself during the tournament: It’s a possessed lawnmower, and it’s run amok. Whelan claims that he alone has enough knowledge to lead the hunt for the maniac mower, and he sets out with a specially equipped van armed with guns, explosives, and bales of hay (for bait). The film turns into a deadpan parody of Jaws that produces quite a few laughs and actually generates some tension and suspense. It has a slow beginning, but a fine conclusion.

Blind Fury

Tri-Star, 1989, Color, 83 minutes

Director: Phillip Noyce Producers: Daniel Grodnick, Tim Matheson Writer: Charlie Robert Carner With: Rutger Hauer, Terrance O'Quinn, Lisa Blount, Nick Cassavetes, Rick Overton, Meg Foster, Brandon Call, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Sho Kosugi, Noble Willingham

Hauer is excellent in this wild splat-action movie derived from the Japanese Shogun Assassin series. Blinded in Vietnam, Hauer learns how to “use the force” in the jungle from the Vietnamese. Flash forward twenty years later, and he’s beating the hell out of some rednecks in a bar. Later, at the home of one of his old army buddies, some thugs break in and shotgun Foster. Hauer promptly chops off one of the hoodlums’ hands and impales another on the sword he keeps hidden in his cane. With her dying breath, Foster asks him to protect her son, who is wanted by the hoods. He dispatches several of the bad guys in a cornfield. Hauer is referred to as a “walking chop-o-matic.” He slices off the eyebrows of one of the hoods and remarks, “I also do circumcisions.” In the wild finale, one man is ripped from crotch to throat, and there’s a kung-fu showdown with Kosugi, who ends up getting electrocuted in a hot tub.

Blood Cult

United Entertainment Pictures, 1985, Color, 89 minutes

Director: Christopher Lewis Producer: Unda Lewis Writer: Stuart Rosentall, James Vance With: Julie Andelman, Charles Ellis, James Vance, David Woods

Here is yet another in the endless series of low-low-budget films centered on and around a college campus and involving a series of murders of attractive, young female students. The twist this time is that each victim has a different body part removed—an arm here, a leg there—with the ultimate purpose of assembling a composite body to be used as a sacrifice in a cult ritual. The film begins with an attractive blond student taking a shower in her sorority house one evening. The psycho-slasher enters the house—indicated through tried and true point-of-view shots. The unsuspecting coed hears a noise and assumes it to be her returning sorority sisters. Surprise! It turns out to be the local mad slasher. In what may be the most ripped-off scene in film history, the girl is brutally murdered in the shower as the blood splatters against the wet tiles. We are even treated to a shot of the blood washing down the drain as an obviously rubber hand and forearm literally bounce into the shot. And this is the best scene in the movie!! But what can you say about a film that features an actor in the romantic lead who resembles Mad magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman? And a female lead who could easily shed a few pounds? The film was shot on video in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma and the production reeks of amateurishness. It’s extremely difficult to try to put together a film on a next-to-nothing budget. We can forgive the flat, cheesey-looking images and the unpolished performances and even the weak script. What’s really missing here, more than anything, is even a hint of originality, style, or inspiration. Even the supposedly exciting scenes have a sluggishness about them that looks as though the director was taking a nap. There are some decent gore effects—severed fingers showing up in a salad, a decapitated head, a leg cut off in full view of the camera while the stub continues to pump out blood—but even these bits are small compensation for sitting through this lack lustre production.

Blood Frenzy

MPM in association with Wescom Productions. Inc., 1987, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Hal Freeman Producer: Hal Freeman Writer: Ted Newsom With: Wendy MacDonald, Tony Montero, Lisa Loring, Hank Garrett, Lisa Savage, John Clark

An interesting if somewhat implausible premise involving a doctor who takes a group of mentally troubled patients—an alcoholic, a bitter lesbian, a nymphomaniac, a troubled Vietnam veteran, a frigid woman, and an obsessively macho guy—into the desert for several days of intensive group encounter sessions. Before you can say Sigmund Freud, a mad slasher starts bumping off members of the group and the story turns into a kind of who-dunnit as the survivors try to figure out who the murderer is (their van has been conveniently disabled and the desert heat is too strong to trek back to civilization on foot). Not many surprises here, really, although the ending provides a bit of a twist on an all-too-predictable formula. The characters remain too simplistic and stereotypical to provide much interest, and the uneven acting makes it even more difficult to get involved. There is quite a bit of gore as the camera unflinchingly fixes on shots of knives cutting skin—but the shots are held for far too long, making the latex appendages all too apparent. This is a simple case of the filmmakers’ having enough money to put together a fairly professional looking film, but not enough talent to lift their work out of the routine.

Blood off Ghastly Horror

Hemisphere, 1971, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Al Adamson Producer: Al Adamson Writers: Dick Poston, Chris Martino With: John Carradine, Kent Taylor, Regina Carroll, Tommy Kirk

Jewel thieves use a deranged Vietnam vet (complete with brain implant) for their dirty work. The electronic psycho goes berserk, kills Dr. Carradine for playing with his head, then flees to snowbound Lake Tahoe (where some of the characters run around in shirtsleeves). He is shot dead by the police. His mad scientist father (Taylor) keeps a disfigured monster in a flimsy cage. To avenge his son, Taylor kidnaps Carradine’s daughter and turns her into a freak with a ground-beef face. This was filmed in 1965 as Psycho-A-Go-Go, then reissued in 1969 and 1971 with new scenes and subplots added each time. All three versions maintain the same abysmal level of non-acting, poor lighting, etc. Comedy fans will love the dime-store lab equipment and police revolvers that sound like cap-guns. Whenever the action flags, a stagey fight or strangling is thrown in to keep things rolling. One character gets a close-range bullet in the kisser. Shots of a severed head in a gift box have been snipped from some prints. A real gem from the uncontested king of patchwork filmmaking.

Blood Rage

See Never Pick Up a Stranger

The Blood Seekers

See Cain’s Cutthroats

Blood Shack

Distributor unknown. 1980, Color, 70 minutes

Director: Wolfgang Schmidt Producer: Carol Flynn Writer: Christopher Edwards With: Carolyn Brandt, Ron Haydock, Jason Wayne, Laurel Spring, John Bates

Brandt inherits the ramshackle family ranch somewhere in America’s dustbowl, not knowing that one of the bunk houses is haunted by a sword-wielding ghost called “the Trooper’’ who dresses like Cat-woman. As Brandt sashays about the ranch in outdated psychedelic garb, local entrepreneur Haydock pesters her to sell the place, using “the Trooper’s” mounting body count as an incentive. Scruffy ranch-hand Wayne eventually unmasks Haydock as the mysterious “Trooper”—bet you couldn’t figure that one out, could you?—and Brandt is left to enjoy her nowhere acreage of scrub peacefully. In between having various victims show up at the haunted bunk house for no purpose except to be offed by the leaping and bounding “Trooper,” director Schmidt pours on the suspense with endless footage of people walking around, then adds to the excitement by inserting several minutes of action footage taken at a nearby rodeo. A terminally inept piece of filmmaking from Steckler Enterprises (i.e., the infamous producer-director Ray Dennis Steckler) that gives Ameri-Trash Cinema a bad name.

Bloodsuckers

Titan International, 1970. Color, 87 minutes

Director: Michael Burrowes (Robert Hartford-Davis) Producer: Graham Harris Writer: Julian More With: Patrick Mower, Peter Cushing, Patrick Macnee, Imogen Hassall, Alex Davion, Johnny Sekka, Madeline Hinde, Edward Woodward, David Lodge, Valerie Van Ost

An adaptation of Simon Raven’s modern vampire novel Doctors Wear Scarlet, this follows the exploits of an Oxford don’s son (Mower) who is seduced into vampirism by a beautiful Greek woman (Hassall). The conceit here is that vampirism is not a supernatural manifestation, but rather a sexual perversion. This is a very dated movie, with too many psychedelic pretensions. The most laughable scene takes place at an orgy where we see close-up after close-up of people indulging in that most decadent of pastimes: playing footsy. The production had so many problems that the director had a pseudonym tacked onto the credits. Cushing, as the don, is his usual reliable self but doesn’t have enough screen time to save the picture. Macnee faces a similar predicament and is killed off far too soon. Hassall and Mower are convincing enough, but Woodward has the best lines, as an anthropologist who notes that “Some men only achieve orgasm by the sucking of blood.” Otherwise, this is a classic case of missed opportunities. A.k.a. Incense for the Damned.

Blood Sucking Nazi Zombies

Eurocine, 1981, Color, 90 minutes

Director: A. M. Frank (Jess Franco) Producer: Daniel LeSoeur (Jess Franco) Writer: A. L. Mariaux (Jess Franco) With: Manuel Gelin, France Jordan, Jeff Montgomeiy, Myriam Landson, Eric St.-Just, Caroline Audret, Henry Lambert

Another poorly dubbed European import whose plot has only one function: to bring ignorant victims within reach of the title zombies. It’s like cattle being led to the slaughter. In the beginning, scantily clad young women show up at the oasis for no good reason. They see a skull, a Nazi swastika symbol, and rusty rifles, but stick around until they’re grabbed by the zombies and dragged to their deaths. Suddenly, we’re flashed back to the same site during World War Two and subjected to an extended battle sequence between the British and the Germans that was probably appropriated from another movie. “The oasis is damned,” intones one of the characters solemnly. Meanwhile, back in the present, a bunch of greedy teenagers venture to the oasis in pursuit of gold. Why is there gold at the oasis? The film never lets us know, but you can probably guess: So that the teens can become zombie meat. Sure enough, one-eyed skull zombies strangle some of them. The rest stick around waiting their turns, burying their dead and making love. Why do movie teenagers always make love in situations such as this? In hopes of begetting more characters to get “lunched?” In the end, they too perish at the hands of the Nazi zombies, all to the accompaniment of sound effects reminiscent of pigs snorting. A.k.a. Oasis of the Zombies.

Blue Holocaust

See Buried Alive

Blue Sunshine

Cinema Shares International, 1977, Color, 97 minutes

Director: Jeff Lieberman Producer: George Manesse Writer: Jeff Lieberman With: Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard, Robert Walden, Charles Siebert, Alice Ghostley

Ferociously violent, yet quite funny, this movie’s a mixture of Romero-style Crazies craziness, David Cronenberg/Robin Cook science-gone-mad satire, and government conspiracy films. Here, human guinea pigs in a sixties experiment with an LSD-type drug called Blue Sunshine undergo a chromosome change that turns them into balding, psychotic killers a decade later. King is the activist hero who is determined to uncover the woeful truth behind the contagion by unmasking the Dr. Frankenstein behind it all—a former Stanford chemistry professor (Goddard) who now holds political office and is equally determined to use the power of that office to keep his secret quiet. Writer-director Lieberman also made Squirm, the squirmy 1976 homage to fifties B-horror/SF movies that presented thousands of slithering worms driven ecologically mad. This follow-up to that earlier effort is a lot more ambitious and somewhat more slowly paced, but will likely make you squirm as well.

Blue Steel

Vestron Pictures. 1990. Color, 103 minutes

Director: Kathryn Bigelow Producers: Edward R. Pressman, Oliver Stone, Michael Rauch Writers: Kathryn Bigelow, Eric Red With: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Silver, Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Pena, Philip Bosco, Louise Fletcher

In her debut splatter pic, Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow exhibited a real flair for gory action sequences. She also turned the traditional vampire movie on its ear. During the first fifteen minutes of this, her first film since then, it looks like she's about to do the same thing with the psycho thriller. But everything goes rapidly to hell after that, and the film winds up being another psycho versus Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween thrill show. Instead of a babysitter, Curtis is a New York City cop who kills a robber in the line of duty but is suspended when the crime scene fellas find no weapon on the deceased. Turns out the dead man’s gun was snatched by Ron Silver, a Wall Street trader and over-acting nutso who witnesses Curtis’ act of heroism and decides she’s the gal for him. He carves her name on the unused bullets, goes out shooting people, then seduces her into an affair that gets kinkier, deadlier, and groaningly implausible when she realizes what he’s up to but can’t prove it. (He’d be behind bars in seconds if she and/or her cop cohorts were even remotely efficient or believable.) This leads to a protracted game of cat and mouse that explodes into a lengthy, ridiculous (but admittedly exciting) series of bloody, slow-motion show-downs as Curtis dons her steel blue uniform and shoots it out with the maniac all over the streets of New York. Stylistically, Bigelow has her Peckinpah and Sergio Leone down pat. What she needs is a decent script.

Boarding House

Blustarr, 1982, Color, 88 minutes

Director: Johnn Wintergate Producer: Peter Baahlu Writer: Jonema With: Hawk Adley, Kalassu Kay, Alexandra Day

Soft-core splatter flick with almost every unimaginative offing in the business, from the hand down the disposal to the bloodied shower stall. Golden boy Adley buys a suburban house with a history of evil, as its last owners fell victim to the horrors unleashed by their experiments in mind power. Adley turns said mansion into a Hefner-esque boarding house brimming with blonde and brunette bimbos, none of whom are missed when various killing clichés catch up with them. Most of the action centers around the pool or the bedroom, so the women are never wearing much when the guys drive up in their vans. Adley himself is into meditation and psi powers, but it’s unlikely that anyone cares how he defeats the evil forces, since this flick has the lowest production values we've seen since we were in Mrs. Sherman’s sixth grade film class (our apologies to Mrs. Sherman for the comparison). The effects are cheap and cheesy, the dialogue and “acting” appalling, and the pornography itself is uninvolving. In one exemplary scene, Adley and one of the bevy are making it on the beach when an ominous black-gloved hand clunks Adley on the head with a rock. “Hey!” exclaims the woman in a monotone. “What the hell did you do that for?” Boarding House, though filmed in 1982, has one sole redeeming feature: with its gold chains, polyester jogging suits, and cheesy moustaches, it will surely cure anyone of nostalgia for the late seventies.

The Body Beneath

Cinemedia Films, 1971, Color. 87 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: Andy Milligan Writer: Andy Milligan With: Gavin Reed, Jackie Skaivellis, Susan Heard. Berwick Kaler, Richmond Ross, Emma Jones. Colin Gordon, Judith Heard

This film is recommended only for die-hard Andy Milligan fans, who know what they’re getting into and actually seem to enjoy it. Featuring the same faults as the rest of Milligan’s work—a snail’s pace, interminable and often needless dialogue, ham acting by a cast of amateurs, and a meager plot stretched way too thin to pad out the running time—this one’s about vampires. Reverend Ford (Reed) is a bloodsucker who serves as the front man for a family of vampires living in an English church. We get to see a thorn-pricking, blood drinking, and fake transfusions, but the camera coyly (or cheaply?) fades out before Reed bites into his victim’s neck. Reed kidnaps a pregnant relative (Skarvellis) in order to use her baby as a breeder to continue the vampire line. Her lover (Ross) tries to rescue her with the help of Reed’s maid, who gets knitting needles stuck through her eyes for disloyalty. We also get to see a scrumptious vampire/cannibal banquet at which Reed announces his grand plans for the vampire clan to emigrate to America.

The Brain

Brightstar Films, 1988, Color, 94 minutes

Director: Edward Hunt Producer: Anthony Kramreither Writer: Barry Pearson With: Tom Breznahan, Cindy Preston, David Gale, George Buza, Bret Pearson

This so-bad-it’s-fun sci-fi opus involves a psycho psychologist who joins forces with a giant brain from outer space. Their plan is to take over the world via a self-help television show. With themes of alien invasion, hometown paranoia, and research gone bad, and especially because of its clunky special effects, The Brain recalls all those nifty old schlockers of the fifties and sixties, like Donovan’s Brain, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and, especially, Fiend without a Face. The less ancient among us will no doubt think of Videodrome, too. There’s lots of good comedy, though much of it seems unintentional. And there’s a bit of nudity. Alas, the splatter is on the tame side. For example, a white-clad mental-health worker whacks a guy with an ax. The victim is beheaded, yet magically the killer doesn’t bloody his white suit! But the best part, the monstrous brain of the title, is in a class by itself. It has a spinal column on one end, a fanged, demonic face on the other, and it chows down on everyone it can’t mentally dominate. That’s a category that includes virtually everyone in this enjoyable mess, but unfortunately we don’t get to see our hero devouring the writer, director, and producer.

Brain Dead

Concorde Pictures, 1989, Color, 84 minutes

Director: Adam Simon Producer: Julie Corman Writers: Charles Beaumont, Adam Simon With: Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, Patricia Charbonneau, Bud Cort, Nicholas Pryor, George Kennedy

Apparently resurrected from an unfilmed screenplay by the late, great Charles Beaumont (based on his own short story) and reworked by director Simon to be brought up to date, Brain Dead is an intriguing SF-cum-mystery-cum-corporate-espionage-thriller-cum-medical-horror tale about corporate exec Paxton’s efforts to wrest a vital secret formula from the scrambled memory circuits of nutso scientist Cort with the help of surgeon extraordinaire Pullman. The operation’s a success (sort of) except that for some inexplicable reason, Pullman seems to have contracted Cort’s brain disorder and is fast turning into a hallucinating, violent paranoid. What have we here? A parable about the patient-doctor spread of AIDS? An illusion versus reality opus? A corporate conspiracy flick? We won’t tell—because we can’t. The film refuses to pay off with any answers. It does pay off with lunch-blowing FX though—of brains being sliced open and dug into, of human faces scraped of flesh, and other assorted examples of splatter-glop courtesy of Barney and Rob Burman. Muddled and frustrating, but definitely watchable.

Brain of Blood

Hemisphere, 1971, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Al Adamson Producers: Al Adamson, Sam Sherman Writer: Joe Van Rodgers With: Kent Taylor, Grant Williams, Vicki Volante

Mad scientist Taylor transplants a dying Moslem leader’s brain into the body of a deformed halfwit. The monster goes on the requisite rampage and Taylor tries to seize control of the Arab’s nation. This corker carries on the Adamson tradition of using has-been actors, new actors who couldn’t get work elsewhere, bad dialogue, grade-school makeup, shoddy sets, and tattered lab equipment. The music was cribbed from Mad Doctor of Blood Island and the footage of battery acid dissolving John Bloom’s face was used in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant the same year. The good news is that this is gory by anyone’s standards. A motorist stops to help Regina Carroll; the monster rips the flesh from his face and takes out his left eye. Pint-sized sadist Angelo Rossitto torments women chained in Taylor’s cellar and drains their blood before being gut-stabbed with a handy hypodermic. The transplants involve gushing blood, scalp-slicing, opened skulls, and brains lifted out in loving close-up.

Breeders

Wizard Video, 1985, Color, 78 minutes

Director: Tim Kincaid Producer: Cynthia DePaula Writer: Tim Kincaid With: Teresa Farley, Lance Lewman, Frances Raines

Pure Big Apple women are raped by a subterranean alien who can only breed with virgins. The rapes are frequent and bloody and any guy who intervenes is fair game also; one boyfriend’s face is mutilated and a hospital orderly is ripped open with a scalpel. One of the alien’s limbs is crushed and bleeds green. The monster sheds its human skin a couple of times and the ending is rife with head explosions and burst-open cadavers. Nude female victims bathe in a pool of sticky white stuff. There is also a grisly transformation scene. Grossest of all is a mutant baby, the result of a mating between the alien and an ugly bag lady; Junior looks better than Mom. Except for some effective set-pieces by FX wizard Ed French, Breeders has no production values whatsoever. The acting and flubbed lines are on a par with grammar-school theatricals; it doesn’t help that director Kincaid obviously never heard of the word “retake.” Also, check out the monster’s black Oxfords in one shot.

Bride of Re-Animator

Taurus Entertainment, 1990, Color, 93 minutes

Director: Brian Yuzna Producer: Brian Yuzna Writers: Woody Keith, Rick Fry With: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, David Gale, Fabiana Udenio

This snappy sequel to one of splatter’s bona fide classics pays a concluding nod to a certain Mary Shelley, although, like the first film, it owes more to James Whale instead (as witness the title), not to mention H.P. Lovecraft, of course. Herbert West (Combs), his bewildered cohort Dan Cain (Abbott), and head man Dr. Carl Hill (Gale) are all back in action trying to concoct a replacement for Barbara Crampton by using her heart and West’s re-animation technique to resuscitate a slaughterhouseful of pulsating viscera and body parts. As in From Beyond, their mad lab becomes swamped with all manner of grotesque, Lovecraftian creatures and blood-dripping “thingies” West stitches together to amuse himself before the final, stomach-churning fade-out, which clearly paves the way for yet another sequel. Yuzna, who produced the first film, takes over the directorial chores from Stuart Gordon, and he does well. The film is constructed in the same outrageous, over-the-top style as the original, though there’s a bit less character development this time around. But there’s a lot more gore and sexual hijinks, and just as much humor, so you probably won’t miss it. A worthy, though not better, successor.

Brothers in Arms

Ablo, 1989, Color, 95 minutes

Director: George Jay Bloom III Producers: Mark R. Gordon, Christopher Melendandri Writer: Shane Kilpatrick With: Todd Allen, Charles Grant, Jack Starrett, DeDee Pfeiffer

While these backwoods thrillers may not appeal to those urbanites whose idea of camping extends no further than Harvey Fierstein singing “Love for Sale,” this ridiculous catalogue of carnage will get buried in the back lot of even the most dedicated aficionado of outdoorsy gore. Backwoods has enough flat-out splatter to amuse the hardcore connoisseur, but unlike most splatter, which tends to be in cheerful bad taste, this is just unnecessarily ugly and repellant. Now, we like a good crucifixion or a tasteful dismemberment by helicopter as well as the next person, but such extended scenes of pointless humiliation as we have here could well turn us into Gidget groupies. Does anyone really want to see the hero awakened from a blow by having an inbred hillbilly take a whiz in his face? And granting that someone may have a taste for this, who among us wants to see the hero forced into having a go at the heroine by these Kalikaks, only to be threatened with … uh … dismemberment for this action? You too have probably guessed that the plot of Brothers in Arms matters not at all—and a damned good thing, since what plot there is makes no sense. Even presuming that all unpopulated regions are rife with rejects from The Hills Have Eyes, why would a burnt-out government agent (Starrett) with delusions of Christdom have fathered these Deliverance deviants? This movie is a steaming pile of what the proverbial bear leaves in the woods. It’s also left open-ended, no less, for a potential sequel.

Brutal Sorcery

Ocean Shores, Ltd., 1984, Color, 86 minutes

Director: Pam Ling Producer: None credited Writer: None credited With: Lai Han Chi, Lily Chan, Kwan Hoi Shan, Lee Hong Yu

This Hong Kong horror, made by people who usually do kung-fu flicks, begins with the funeral of a taxi driver, complete with images of severed pigs’ heads covered with worms and maggots, then flashes back to show the events that led to his demise. The cabbie had the bad luck to pick up a star-crossed couple of ghosts, who possess him until he agrees to take their remains to Thailand so they can be buried together. He delivers their remains to a sister and has an affair with her. When he breaks off the affair, she has a curse put on him by an evil sorcerer. She also does a naked dance with a bowl of worms. The curse causes our hero to eat some goldfish. His obsession with sushi becomes so extreme that his belly swells to the point of bursting. A “good” sorcerer named Mr. Kingpin is enlisted to lift the curse by doing battle with the evil sorcerer, who uses female body parts in his brews. They throw fire and blood at each other and quote Ali’s “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” The evil sorcerer hits a doll in the stomach and the cursed “hero’s” belly finally explodes. The evil sorcerer then pours worms on himself and perishes. Guess the operation was a success, but the patient died.

Burial Ground

Distributor unknown, 1980, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Andrea Bianchi Producer: Gabriele Crisanti Writer: Piero Regnoli With: Maria Angela Giordan, Karen Weil, Gian Luigi Chrizzi

More George Romero/Lucio Fulci-inspired zombie madness as the dead rise up from a churchyard somewhere in Italy and set their murderous sights and insatiable appetites (and lusts) on a group of high-living partygoers at a plush country estate. The walking dead give new meaning to the term “party animal” as they dismember, decapitate, and crucify their (mostly female) victims, gouge and feast on eyeballs, and perform a hideous radical mastectomy, zombie-style. The gore effects are stomach-churningly effective and nonstop, the acting and English dubbing is terrible as always, and the plot non-existent in this quintessential, no-holds-barred, no-body-left-intact, Italian-made meat movie. A.k.a. Zombie Horror, Zombie 3, and Le Notte de Terrore.

Buried Alive

Aquarius, 1979, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Joe D'Amato Producer: None credited Writer: Ottavio Fabri With: Kieran Cantor, Sam Modesto, Ann Cardin

The charming tale of a boy and his corpse. A young man lives in a lonely mansion, keeps his fiancée’s cadaver in the bedchamber, kills and dissects passersby with an assist from his loony housekeeper. Loads of hacked limbs, rotting bodies, scattered entrails, an acid bath, and cannibalism abound. The unique sight of our hero chowing down on a blood-spouting heart may be a milestone in splatter history; likewise the torture-murder and post-mortem butchery of an obnoxious hitchhiker. Buried Alive is also atmospheric. Much of the film is so well made, it’s hard to believe that D’Amato had anything to do with it. A.k.a. Blue Holocaust.

Buried Alive

21st Century, 1989, Color, 89 minutes

Director: Gerard Kikoine Producer: Hany Alan Towers Writers: Jake Clesi, Stuart Lee With: Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasance, Karen Witter, John Carradine, Ginger Allen

Supposedly based on Poe’s “Premature Burial"; just how faithful it is to the source is apparent starting with the opening credits: Poe’s middle name is misspelled “Allen.” The story has Witter, prone to anxiety attacks and in need of some rest, accepting a teaching job at Vaughn’s school for emotionally disturbed girls. Former porn queen Allen (nee Ginger Lynn) is typecast as a sleazy inmate there. Pleasance, as another teacher at the school, does nothing but eat, thereby re-creating his role in the Frank Langella version of Dracula (1979). He also wears a toupee and bow tie. Vaughn looks embarrassed throughout. The identity of the killer is transparent from the first frame; Most of the time, we’re treated to the tired “maniac in the mask” routine. Highlights: Witter nearly faints when she sees a picture of Carradine (as Vaughn’s dad); lots of women get bricked up underground (the only resemblance to Poe’s work in the picture); Witter has weird visions; a man is stabbed in the head with a trowel; one girl gets fried with a curling iron, and Allen is buried upright in mud next to her dead boyfriend. For the love of God, Montressor, let this disaster end!

Bury Me an Angel

New World Pictures, 1972, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Barbara Peeters Producer: Paul Nobert Writer: Barbara Peeters With: Dixie Peabody, Terry Mace, Clyde Ventura, Joanne Moore Jordan, Dennis Peabody, Stephen Whittaker, Dan Haggerly

This film is a poor man’s copy of Easy Rider with revenge rather than adventure as its major motivation for jumping on “that old hog” and riding into the sunset. Tough biker chick Dag (Peabody) sees her brother shotgunned in the face by a Hell’s Angel. After identifying him, she sets out in hot cross-country pursuit with her male biker buddies, Jonsie and Bernie (Mace and Ventura). Along the way, they engage in a barroom brawl with very skimpy gore, go for nude swims, and eat marijuana-laced stew with a hippie girl who’s into witchcraft. Then, by blind luck, Dag meets an art teacher (Dan Haggerty of TV’s “Grizzly Adams” fame) who tells her that the Hell’s Angel in question has been working as a handyman at his school. After invading the school with a shotgun, Dag finally blows the Angel away. The act brings Dag more psychic trauma than satisfaction when she is forced to confront the fact that her love for her sibling may have been incestuously abnormal. The only excessive gore here is the shotgunning, which is shown several times in flashbacks, but that still isn’t enough to satisfy your basic gore hound.

Cain's Cutthroats

Fanfare, 1970, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Kent Osborne Producers: Kent Osborne, Bud Dell Writer: Wilton Denmark With: Scott Brady, John Carradine, Robert Dix

This is a grungy, trashy western starring and produced by alumni of Al Adamson pictures. Scott Brady tracks his former Confederate raiders after they rape his wife, kill his son, and leave him for dead. He is aided by the ubiquitous John Carradine in one of his weirdest roles, as a bible-thumping bounty hunter who severs the raiders’ heads and preserves them in a keg of salt-brine. Blood squibs, blasted heads, and blown-up bodies aplenty mark the first half; growing tedium characterizes the second, along with bursts of stupid dialogue. Some theatrical prints of this movie intercut footage of modern bikers on the rampage, but for no good reason. The Outlaw Josey Wales and a few other sagebrush successes notwithstanding, Hollywood was taking a dim view of Westerns in the 1970s. This Kent Osborne spectacular demonstrates why. A.k.a. Cain’s Way and The Blood Seekers.

Cain s Way

See Cain’s Cutthroats

Caged Women

Beatrice Films, 1983, Color, 100 minutes

Director: Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei) Producer: None credited Writers: Palmanbrocio Molteni, Oliver LeFait With: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Lorraine DaSelle, Raul Cabrera

Another in a long line of European Emmanuelle ripoffs with ultra-sultry Gemser in the title role. Busted for drugs and prostitution, she’s hurled into the requisite hellhole where DaSelle is the evil wardeness. Tinti is an incarcerated doctor. Brutal beatings, crotch shots, torture, and lesbianism abound, while a mincing “fairy” in the men’s cellblock provides stereotypical amusement. Women are raped while DaSelle and her lover get hot and horny watching. Emmanuelle drenches one of the guards with a bucket of shit and is thrown in a cell to be chewed on by rats. We soon find out that she is actually a reporter after a scoop on conditions in the penal system; in an act of supreme brilliance, she hasn’t informed anyone of her whereabouts, which leaves her completely at DaSelle’s mercy. The prisoners revolt eventually; the film does so throughout.

Caligula—The Untold Story

Distributor unknown, 1982, Color, 100 minutes

Director: Joe D'Amato Producer: Alexander Sussman Writers: Joe DAmato, Richard Franks With: David Cain, Laura Gemser, Oliver Finch, Fabiola Toledo, Gabriele Tinti, Charles Borromel

Inept sleazefest from hardcore gore/sex merchant Joe D’Amato (here billing himself as David Hills), which attempts to outdo Bob Guccione’s 1980 exploitation-extravaganza about ancient Rome’s most malodorous emperor. Considering the abomination that was Guccione’s film, this would seem no difficult task, but, alas, D’Amato clearly isn’t the man for the job. (To give credit where credit is due, Guccione will always have the edge because he did manage to lure better actors.) No new insights are offered into Caligula’s (Cain) demented character this time around, but his repertoire of horrors and sadism is carefully catalogued. Cal’s victims have their tongues ripped out, their anatomies ripped apart, their eyes gouged, and swords thrust up their rectums. Along the way, the violence-prone leader, his lover (Gemser), and others in the decadent court also engage in some softcore (or hardcore, depending upon which print you suffer through) sex with each other, and even with a horse! Not quite “the untold story,” but definitely bottom of the barrel.

Cameron's Closet

Smart Egg Pictures, 1987, Color, 87 minutes

Director: Armand Mastroianni Producer: Luigi Cingolani Writer: Gary Brandner With: Cotter Smith, Mel Harris, Scott Curtis, Chuck McCann, Leigh McCloskey, Tab Hunter

This cross between Poltergeist and The Omen starts out well but takes so long to unravel its negligible mystery that you’ll be asleep by the conclusion. Cameron (Curtis) is a telekinetic lad whose powers have unleashed a malevolent creature that lives in his closet. Only Cameron has the ability to control the fiend, though he does a fairly poor job of it—which is why a number of people try to kill him. Dad Tab Hunter is decapitated; mom’s boyfriend gets his eyes burned out and is defenestrated for good measure; and investigating cop McCloskey is vaguely “monsterized.” Cop Smith, who is plagued by supernatural nightmares, eventually drives the creature from Cameron’s closet in an FX-laden showdown that doesn’t make much sense but is suitably showy. Whatever scariness Carlo Rambaldi’s closeted monster might have possessed goes out the window when we finally see it in close-up. The thing looks like Batman! But the film’s biggest problem is that there is simply too much exposition for so little plot.

Cannibal Hookers

Hollywood International, 1987, Color, 65 minutes

Director: Donald Farmer Producers: Donald Farmer, Gary J. Levinson Writer: Donald Farmer With: Marya Gant, Amy Waddell, Sheila Best, Gary Levinson, Kristie Etzold, Eric Caidin

Made for video. The title vixens lure horny men to their lair and butcher them. Two sorority pledges and three nerds get taken in, some dumbbell detectives investigate, and the fun begins in earnest. Levinson, as brutish servant Lobo, snaps necks with his bare hands, waves a bloody axe, and munches out on human hearts. A finger is gnawed off in loving close-up. New cannibal hookers are created when innocent girls have their throats torn open. Statuesque Etzold rubs her breasts with a nerd’s ripped-out heart. A gory gunshot to a character’s forehead brings the film to such an abrupt close one thinks Farmer must have suddenly run out of tape. His porn-style videography and bad humor dispel whatever horror atmosphere this might have had, even if the brothel scenes were shot in director Ted V. Mikels’ famous eerie mansion. This film plays like a teen/slob comedy gone homicidal. Aside from a few unbelievable filmmaking techniques, Levinson’s resemblance to mass murderer Leonard Lake is the scariest thing about this picture.

Carnage

Jaylo International, 1983, Color, 91 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: Lewis Mishkin Writer: Andy Milligan With: Leslie DenDooven, Michael Chiodo, DeeAnn Veeder, Chris Georges, Che Moody

Newlyweds buy a house where a bride and groom committed suicide years before; the couple and their friends are soon beset by evil, ghostly forces. An old housekeeper slashes her throat with a straight razor. Sharp objects sail through the air and cause all sorts of mayhem. Two burglars are deservedly dismembered, impaled, and eviscerated; a radio drops into a bathtub and flash-fries one hapless guest. A meddling priest is brained by a flying meat cleaver. The effects are generally good, with the exception of one bloodless decapitation that, one hopes, was deliberately funny. Carnage is also better constructed and more evenly paced than your average Milligan picture, with only one extraneous monologue. Lewis Mishkin wasn't as tight with the purse-strings as his infamous father William, and that fact is evident on the screen. Easily Milligan’s best and most professional looking picture.

Carnival of Blood

Monarch Films, 1971, Color, 80 minutes

Director: Leonard Kirtman Producer: Leonard Kirtman Writer: Leonard Kirtman With: Burt Young, Earle Edgerton, Judith Resnick, Martin Barlosky, John Hams

In this cinematic debut (and swansong) by triple-threat auteur Kirtman, a madman is stalking the midway of a Coney Island amusement park in search of female fun-seekers to slay in the usual grisly ways. Billed as a “horrifying creep show” in “blood bathing” color, this slow moving, endlessly talky mad slasher flick is reminiscent of the work of Herschell Gordon Lewis—except that it’s not as “slick.” A.k.a. Death Rides a Carnival.

The Carpenter

God Gems/Jack Bravman, 1987, Color, 87 minutes

Director: David Wellington Producer: Pierre Grise Writer: Doug Taylor With: Wings Hauser, Lynn Adams, Pierce Lenoir, Barbara Ann-Jones, Beverly Murray

“Bad night, huh?” Lenoir says nonchalantly to his wife (Adams) when he wakes up to find her angrily cutting one of his expensive business suits into squares. No, she’s not suffering from PMS. The poor woman’s got an acute case of dementia brought on by that age-old disease: male domination. After spending time at the local loony bin to “snap out of it,” she moves into a house Lenoir has bought for them and is having refurbished by an inefficient bunch of bozos who goof off more than they work. During the midnight hours, Adams meets the man of her dreams: a hard-working carpenter named Ed who diligently finishes off the work left by the bozos each day, and treats her like a lady as well. Is Ed a fantasy figure, or is he real? A little of both, actually. The unfinished house once belonged to him, and when the repo men came to foreclose, he sliced them up with his power tools and went to the chair. Now he haunts the place, nail gunning, drilling, and power sawing anyone who treats Adams badly, inlcuding her boorish husband. But there’s a streak of male dominance in Ed, too, and when Adams discovers it, she flips out and destroys him by laying waste to his prize handiwork, the house itself. Like the plot’s contractors (and most real-life contractors, it must be said), this somewhat obscure psychofilm’s a bit on the slow side. But it doesn’t stint on the gore and the grue. And, as always, Wings Hauser makes a great psycho.

Cataclysm

Distributor Unknown, 1980, Color. 94 minutes

Directors: Tom McGowan, Greg Tallas, Philip Marshak Producer: Darryl A. Marshak Writer: Phillip Yordan With: Cameron Mitchell, Marc Lawrence, Faith Clift, Charles (Richard) Moll, Maurice Grandmaison, Robert Bristol

An unholy brew of atheists, Nazis, religious fanatics, demons, and an Antichrist is about to take over the world. Simple enough, but the film is often confusing, due to too many directorial cooks spoiling the broth, and bad actress Clift, who looks as if she were recruited from a grammar school pageant. This film is still creepy and violent enough to sustain interest, though, and it’s one of the few places (along with Night Train to Terror) to see Night Court star Moll with hair on his head. The heart-ripping finale should please gorehounds everywhere. Abbreviated versions called Satan's Supper and The Nightmare Never Ends are floating around on video; Cataclysm was also condensed, punched up with poor man’s Harryhausen monsters, and featured as one segment of Night Train to Terror. Believe it or not, it was scripted by the same man who wrote the classic 1945 gangster film, Dillinger.

Cellar Dweller

Distributor unknown, 1987, Color, 78 minutes

Director: John Carl Buechler Producer: Bob Wynn Writer: Kit Du Bois With: Deborah Mullowney, Brian Robbins, Vince Edwards, Yvonne De Carlo. Cheryl-Ann Wilson

This bargain-basement collection of has-beens and rehashings should be a lot better than it is. As we watch the comic book creator of Cellar Dweller seeking inspiration in old tomes on demonology, he accidentally summons a ghastly eight-foot monster. Of course, the creature whacks him, but—unfortunately—the story doesn’t end there. Thirty years later the fun begins anew. Now (for some reason) the house is an artists’ colony run by Yvonne De Carlo (who hates comics!). When a lovely young artist shows up to revive the Cellar Dweller character, she finds the same eldritch tome and summons the same demonic critter. Okay, so none of it makes much sense, but the creature is kind of cool and the interplay of comic book art with less artful cinema holds a certain fascination. Also, the young heroine (Mullowney) outclasses everybody else in the cast, and we find ourselves wondering if she’s done any other movies. (If you find yourself wondering what other films FX wizard-turned-director Buechler has done, just keep an eye out for movie posters that litter the wall of the single set.) Not a complete waste of time, but Cellar is not as deep and dark (nor as much fun) as it could have been.

Cemetery High

Rynex, 1987; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Gorman Bechard Producers: Gorman Bechard, Kristine Covello Writers: Gorman Bechard, Carmine Capobianco With: Debi Thibault, Karen Neilsen, Ruth Collins, Tony Kruk

Bechard, Connecticut’s reigning king of comic carnage, is at it again, as raped high school girls form a gang called “The Scumbusters” and go on a rampage. Bechard’s quirky direction and the wacky writing defuse what could have been Waterbury’s answer to Ms. 45. Only a Bechard movie would feature a medical examiner in blood-drenched smock singing “The Toreador March,” or a manicurist who goes door-to-door with a chainsaw. The film lampoons vigilanteism, chauvinism (male and female), authority figures, jocks, film gimmickry, Ruth Collins’ bust, Bechard’s earlier work, and itself. Interspersed with the laughs are some high-bore bullet wounds, head-shots, brains splashed on walls and a yummy pile of slimy intestines on the mayor’s desk. Another highlight: Thibault shoves a Magnum muzzle into the mouth of an annoying on-screen narrator and blasts him right out of the picture.

Children of the Corn

New World Pictures, 1984, Color; 93 minutes

Director: Fritz Kiersch Producers: Donald P. Borchers, Terence Kirby Writer: George Goldsmith With: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, John Franklin, Courtney Gains, Robby Kiger

TV “Thirtysomething’s” star Peter Horton and Terminator's Linda Hamilton find themselves stalked (pun intended) by a violent band of kids from Iowa who worship the God of Corn (as do the makers of this film, obviously)—who have slit the throats of their nay-saying elders and now want to make Horton and Hamilton blood sacrifices to some hellish thingamajig that lurks beneath their holy cornfield. Outstanding in its hokiness and predictability, if not in its gore, this oh-so-long and drawn-out expansion of a slim and not very good Stephen King short story is truly a harvest of shame.

Child's Play

United Artists, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Tom Holland Producer: David Kirschner Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland With: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif

A psycho (Dourif) with supernatural powers hides in a toy store to elude police. When they close in on him, he transfers his murderous soul to a mechanical toy “Chucky" doll, which unsuspecting Hicks buys for her lonely son (Vincent) as a playmate. The villainous Chucky pushes an interfering babysitter out the window, but when Vincent tells police that Chucky did it, no one, of course, believes him—not even kindly police detective Sarandon, who soon falls for Hicks. When Dourif’s conniving accomplices start getting splattered by Chucky, Sarandon slowly begins to catch on. He proves inept against the rampaging, knife-wielding Chucky, however, so the job of dispatching the unstoppable killer doll falls to Hicks, whose climactic battle with the fleet-footed little rascal is a straight lift from the killer-doll episode of the much superior 1975 telefilm Trilogy of Terror, written by Richard Matheson. Gory and stupid—though FX man Kevin Yagher’s animatronic Chucky doll is superb.

Child's Play 2

Universal Pictures, 1990, Color, 83 minutes

Director: John Lafia Producer: David Kirschner Writer: Don Mancini With: Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Christine Elise, Grace Zabriskie, Peter Haskell

Boring sequel in which every potentially scary scene and plot twist can be spotted a mile off. Placed in a foster home while his mom recuperates from a nervous breakdown, Vincent is once again targeted for soul transference by the newly reconstructed Chucky. To get at Vincent, Chucky breaks foster-dad Graham’s neck, cuts foster-mom Agutter’s throat, beats a schoolteacher to death with a yardstick (?!), slices up social worker Zabriskie, and wastes several other supporting characters as well. But streetwise foster-sis Elise and the boy finally nail the little creep. Back at the factory where he was made, the two fuse Chucky’s body parts (a la The Fly), then shove a rubber hose up his plastic nose until his swelled head explodes. The finale also includes a blatant lift from Kubrick’s The Shining, as Elise and Vincent are pursued by the knife-wielding doll through a maze of cartons—a plagiarism made all the more obvious by Chucky’s raving-Jack Nicholson voice (again supplied by Dourif). To paraphrase Siskel & Ebert, this one rates two thumbs off.

Christine

Columbia Pictures, 1983, Color, 110 minutes

Director: John Carpenter Producer: Richard Kobritz Writer: Bill Phillips With: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosty, Harry Dean Stanton, Roberts Blossom

This borderline splatter adaptation of Stephen King’s eight-cylinder splatter novel curiously retains the chrome of King’s story but dispenses with much of its scares, blood-letting, and ghoulishness, leaving us to wonder if the film was made expressly for the MPAA rating board. While all his non-friends in high school are drooling over girls, nerdy loner Gordon loses his heart to a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth, which he restores lovingly to pristine shape with the help of the car itself. Seems the Plymouth is haunted, and as Gordon gains strength and confidence via the car’s supernatural influence, the amorous auto falls obsessively in love with him too. As Gordon becomes progressively more obnoxious and the jocks and jerks who once taunted him turn up flattened and covered with tire marks, Gordon’s only human friend (Stockwell) and the girl of Gordon’s dreams (Paul) try to rescue the poor lad by returning the malevolent car to the scrap heap. Christine features some clever FX of the car reconstituting itself. Otherwise, this Fatal Attraction for grease monkeys makes Elliott Silverstein’s guilty pleasure The Car seem like a classic.

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud

Vestron, 1988, Color, 84 minutes

Director: David Irving Producer: Jonathan D. Krane Writer: M. Kane Jeeves With: Brian Robbins, Bill Clavert, Tricia Leigh Fisher, Robert Vaughn, Gerritt Graham, Bianca Jagger, Clive Revill, June Lockhart

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: this is not a sequel to 1984’s C.H.U.D.; it merely trades on its name. In this version, Vaughn is an army general who wants soldiers who will “fight after death.” A chemical has been developed that will enable this resurrection, but there’s a “small glitch”: the late soldiers become cannibals. The usual idiot teens are featured; dumb humor ensues when they lose a cadaver from the disease-control center. The humor soon becomes mean-spirited when they find the stiff, Bud, has come to life. Bud proceeds to nibble on a poodle’s brain, do aerobics, and turn people into morons. The dog bites the mailman, who also becomes a cannibal, but this is neither funny nor gory. A Chud barber cuts up … in short, everyone becomes a Chud. Vaughn, meanwhile, blows up a diner with an antitank gun, and when one Chud’s head is knocked off, he has trouble finding it. Vaughn also gets to deliver lines such as “They’re very hungry people with bad complexions.” By the way, C.H.U.D. stands for “Cannibalistic Human Underground Dwellers,” just in case you missed C.H.U.D.!

The Church

Distributor unknown, 1990; Color, 110 minutes

Director: Michele Soavi Producer: Mario and Vittorio Cecchi, Gori and Dario Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini, Michele Soavi With: Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Fedor Chaliapin, Barbara Cupisti

Based on Fulcanelli’s controversial theories that medieval cathedrals are symbolic portrayals of the mystical processes of alchemy, The Church takes us into the dark world of witches, demons, and Catholic priests. When a sixteenth-century village full of Satanists is massacred by the Knights Templar, a church is built on the site in hopes of sealing their evil in the ground forever. But modern restoration work in the church looses demonic evil on twentieth-century Italians. Priests, scientists, and historians join forces to stop it. This is a genuinely creepy film full of gothic gadgetry, hooded monks, secret passages, and arcane rituals. The shadowy atmosphere is evoked beautifully through rich visuals and the better-than-usual soundtrack (by Goblin). And there is enough wit, intelligence, and crackpot theorizing in the story line to keep you tuned in right until the end. Only bad dubbing spoils The Church, making the actors sound like imbeciles and the dialogue sound unbelievably dumb. Unless you’ve developed a tolerance for this sort of thing, it might be worth learning Italian to see the film in its original form.

City of Blood

New World Pictures, 1987; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Darrell Roodt Producer: Anant Singh Writer: Darrell Roodt With: Joe Stewardson, Ian Yule, Susan Coetzer, Dudu Meltize, Ken Gampu

Twenty thousand years ago, an African tribesman is bludgeoned to death for no apparent reason by a ghostly figure in a bizarre headdress wielding a club with five sharp spikes. Twenty thousand years later in an unnamed South African city (possibly Johannesburg), white prostitutes are being killed in the same way, but with a few added extras: Their hands and feet are chopped off and their bodies set aflame. Somnolent medical examiner (and anti-Apartheid activist) Stewardson is naturally concerned, so he drives endlessly about the city hunting down leads but seldom asking anyone any questions. Meanwhile, a Nelson Mandela-like black leader is accidentally killed in prison by his white guards, and Stewardson is asked to write a phony a death certificate to avoid a race riot. He does, then commits suicide, but prior to that the apparition in the headdress reappears to spear the city police chief (Yule). Though there’s some vague discussion about whether man is descended from killers or benign apes—and Stewardson is shown reading Colin Wilson’s Criminal History of Mankind (perhaps in search of an answer)—the actual meaning of this confusing mixture of politics, metaphysics, and murder is anybody’s guess.

Clownhouse

Distributor unknown, 1990; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Victor Salva Producers: Michael Danty, Robin Mortarotti, Victor Salva Writer: Victor Salva With: Nathan Forest Winters, Brian McHugh, Sam Rockwell

In the early sixties, Robert (Psycho) Bloch wrote a famous essay for Famous Monsters magazine called “The Clown at Midnight,” in which he postulated that true horror lies in the out-of-place. A clown, he said, is funny in a circus (to some), but if you saw that same clown standing on your lawn at midnight, he wouldn’t be funny at all. That concept seems to be the basis for this low-budget suspense thriller. Bloody Bozos have been featured before (and generally to better effect) in films such as Something Wicked This Way Comes and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, nevertheless, this movie has some good moments due to stylish direction and atmospheric photography. In the opening scene, a kid has a dream about clowns and wets his bed. Casey, the bed-wetter, has an irrational fear of clowns; his brother Jeff is sympathetic toward him, and their older brother Randy is an unbelievably mean bully. In counterpoint to these three protagonists are three escaped mental patients who, after being denied circus privileges, deficiently dress up as clowns and terrorize the countryside. In fact, whenever the action gets boring, the filmmakers send in the clowns. More suspense than gore.

Coffy

American International, 1973; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Jack Hill Producer: Robert A. Papazian Writer: Jack Hill With: Pam Grier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui, William Elliot Alan Arbus, Sid Haig, Linda Haynes

Everybody’s favorite urban Amazon takes on the drug dealers who hooked her sister on heroin and crippled her best friend. This gem features all the obnoxious characters, heavy scatology, gratuitous nudity, bilateral racism, jive musical numbers, cockeyed moralizing, and skewed social commentary that made “blaxploitation” pictures great. And all the violence too, of course. The picture opens with Coffy (Grier) blowing a pimp’s skull away with a twelve-gauge shotgun. After Elliot is brutally bludgeoned, Coffy infiltrates the black/white criminal coalition led by DoQui and Arbus. She gets into a rousing “catfight” with a bunch of “hoors” led by Haynes, who grabs Coffy's Afro and for her trouble gets her wrists slashed open by hidden razor blades. DoQui is noosed to his pimpmobile and gruesomely dragged to death. Coffy stabs Haig in the throat and blows a police chief nearly in two with some buckshot to the breadbasket. If you think that’s bad, you should see where Bradshaw gets it!

Combat Shock

Troma, 1984, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Buddy Giovinazzo Producer: Buddy Giovinazzo Writer: Buddy Giovinazzo With: Ricky Giovinazzo, Veronica Stork, Mitch Maglio

A nightmarish, nihilistic look at a war-shocked Vietnam vet’s last day on Earth. Frankie (Giovinazzo) lives in a rat-hole apartment with his shrill wife and mutated Agent-Orange baby. He spends this last day going to the unemployment office; along the way he’s exposed to angry pimps, child prostitutes, strung-out muggers, and the local scuzzball loan-shark. He’s also haunted by flashbacks of a grisly wartime massacre. At the end of the day Frankie decides that death equals salvation, so he goes home to “save” himself and his family. This movie has violence enough to shock the most jaded gorehound. A pregnant woman is gunned down, a baby is put in an oven, and three hoodlums are shot to pieces. The war footage entails blasted-off limbs, severed heads, and corpses blown open to the innards. The scene where an addict gives himself a fix with a coat hanger caused a mass walkout at one filmfest. Transcending all the “deranged Vietnam vet” clichés, this film presents a hopeless look at one man’s not-so-quiet desperation and delivers a Taxi Diver-like gut-punch you’ll feel for months afterward.

Communion

See Alice, Sweet Alice

The Company of Wolves

Avco-Embassy, 1984, Color, 95 minutes

Director: Neil Jordan Producers: Stephen Wolley, Nik Powell Writers: Neil Jordan, Angela Carter With: Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Sarah Patterson, Brian Glover

Visually stunning lycanthropic reworking of the classic fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood." Patterson assumes the role of the virginal heroine who encounters sundry ardent males on her way to, and once inside, Grandma’s (Lansbury) house. The males are really wolves in disguise (get the message, girls?) and eventually reveal their true colors (not to mention their snouts and claws) to the girl, who must fend off these snarling suitors. The set design is great, and the numerous transformation scenes (orchestrated by FX men Peter McDonald, Christopher Tucker and Alan Whibley) are on a grisly (though perhaps more fanciful) par with Rob Bottin’s work in The Howling and Rick Baker’s work in An American Werewolf in London. The acting is top notch. But the pace is deadeningly slow, and the running time too long for the modicum of plot and sexual intrigue the script has to offer. Worth a look, but expect to get bored whenever the wolves aren’t on screen. Based on the story of the same name by Angela Carter, the well-known British author of The Sadeian Woman and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.

The Corpse Grinders

Geneni, 1971, Color, 73 minutes

Director: Ted V. Mikels Producer: Ted V. Mikels Writers: Arch Hall, Joseph L Cranston With: Sean Kenney. Monika Kelley, Sanford Mitchell

Two nogoodniks run a cat-food factory (staffed by cripples and winos) and use cadavers as their product’s main ingredient. They soon realize it’s cheaper to make their own corpses. Meanwhile, felines who’ve sampled their wares develop a taste for human flesh; guess what happens then? Full of contempt for the handicapped, this flick also features gratuitous cheesecake, marginally scary cat attacks, and surgery on a dead kitty’s stomach. The climactic battle takes place in a room strewn with severed limbs and butchered meat. The highlight is a flimsy grinding machine that spews ground beef from one end as bodies are fed into the other. This movie is typical of Mikels’ cheap artistry—check out one character’s lapsing English accent. At least Mikels had more brains than to take this all seriously; the same can’t be said for the British censor, who ordered ten minutes clipped from the film’s already scant running time.

The Craving

Dalmata Films, 1980, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Jacinto Molina Producer: Modesto Perez Redondo Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Silvia Aguilar, Julia Saly

In the sixteenth century, satanic Countess Bathory (Aguilar) and her cohort, Waldemar Daninsky (Naschy), are executed for witchcraft. In modern times, grave robbers yank the silver dagger from Daninsky’s heart and our favorite Iberian lycanthrope is loose once again. While in his human form, Naschy rescues three students from a rape when he shoots a gang of bandits full of crossbow bolts. One of the students, herself a Satanist, drenches Bathory’s casket with human blood and brings her back to life, too. While Naschy/Waldemar chows down on the locals, Bathory vampirizes his serving-woman and the students. Various neck-chewings, gory impalements, throat-slittings, and gruesome stakings abound; also, look for a nude vampire who takes a crimson shower in the dripping blood of a strung-up victim. This is a real weird one, effectively combining hoary horror icons such as old dark castles, hanging skeletons, and disfigured servants with eighties splatter and scatology. A.k.a. The Return of the Wolf Man.

Craze

Herman Cohen Production, 1973, Color, 96 minutes

Director: Freddie Francis Producer: Herman Cohen Writers: Aben Kandel, Herman Cohen With: Jack Palance, Diane Dors, Julie Ege, Edith Evans, Hugh Griffith, Trevor Howard, Martin Potter

Jack Palance is occasionally convincing in this marginally interesting story of a fine-arts dealer (and black-magic coven leader) who sacrifices women to a groovy-looking idol named Chu’ku. Trevor Howard plays a cop who’s sure that Palance is guilty. Palance impales one woman on Chu’ku’s metal fingers, incinerates another woman, and leaps out of a closet with a scary mask to frighten his aunt to death. Each sacrifice brings Palance and his young assistant Griffith more financial reward, and brings the police that much closer, but none of it really matters since (a) after the first death, we know Palance doesn’t need the money, and (b) there’s no battle of wits involved in the police’s pursuit of Palance. No, it takes a compelling portrait of a psycho to make a flick like this worth watching, and instead we get scenery-chewing Jack. Adapted from the novel Infernal Idol by Henry Seymour.

Crime Zone

Concorde, 1989, Color, 96 minutes

Director: Luis Llosa Producer: Luis Uosa Writer: Daryl Haney With: David Carradine, Peter Nelson, Sherilyn Fenn, Michael Shaner, Orlando Sacha

In a typically bleak future (post-World War Three), the world has been reduced to perpetual night on an ersatz Ridley Scott set (full of incense smoke and neon) where love is illegal except in fifteen-minute bouts at the House of Pleasure. Life hardly seems a bowl of cherries. The police, it turns out, stamped out crime years ago and thus invent criminals in order to justify their continued existence. Hero Peter Nelson and heroine Sherilyn Fenn (the latter looking like she stepped out of a Madonna video) fall in love and defy the system, entering into a life of crime at the behest of David Carradine, who promises to get them out of town. Well, we can’t give this high marks for originality—or splatter, or much of anything. No one is particularly sympathetic and the dialogue hardly crackles with cleverness. (“Show me your dick,” an evil, purple lipped lady cop instructs our hero at one point, asking, “Is that its normal size?” when he complies. The stunning comeback to this straight line is just a dull-witted “Yes.”) In perfect theory, this is a David Carradine film, but in impure practice Carradine is nothing but a glorified supporting player. Mostly, he smokes cigars (presumably an economy measure to bolster the haze on the set) and mispronounces the name of the city-state in which the action takes place. In case anyone cares, the romantic leads are allowed to escape to the free (and unpopulated) world of sunlight. This isn’t much of an improvement, though, because the free world looks like rejected test footage for The Bed-Sitting Room.

Curse of the Devil

Gemstone, 1973, Color, 85 minutes

Director: Carlos Aured Producer: Luis Mendez Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Faye Falcon, May Oliver, Maria Silva

Yet another entry in Spain’s Naschy/werewolf series. A medieval Matthew Hopkins-type slaughters a family of witches and one of them, sure enough, puts a whammy on his family. It’s only a matter of centuries until descendant Naschy (a.k.a Jacinto Molina) mutates into a fur-bearing fanged flesh-ripper at each full moon—and full moons seem to occur every night in this picture. Some violence looks cropped, while other instances of face and throat mutilation are nearly on a par with the mayhem in Naschy’s Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman. No lycanthrope chows down on screaming victims quite like Paul! There is also more T&A than usual. Once he stopped working as a circus strongman and got in front of the camera, Naschy/Molina didn’t shy away from the lens; this time he plays not only the doomed hero, but the witch-burning knight as well. The spectacle of a fully-armored Naschy jousting in the opening is amusing indeed.

Curse of the Blue Lights

Tamarack Productions, 1988, Color, 96 minutes

Director: John H. Johnson Producer: John H. Johnson Writer: John H. Johnson With: Brent Ritter, Bettina Julius, Kent E. Fritzzell, Willard Hall

Teenagers hanging out at a haunted passion pit called Blue Lights stumble upon the half-buried figure of the Muldoon Man, a legendary Golem-esque stone creature that purportedly ruled the Earth during an ill-defined but distinctly Lovecraftian version of pre-history. Investigating further, they come across the Ghoul Men, a cadre of hideously misshapen creatures busily at work beneath the local graveyard melting corpses to aid in Muldoon Man’s resurrection. Several teens get melted into puddles of putrefying pus before the head ghoul (Ritter) gets run through during a swordfight with one of the less victimization-prone teens. The cops arrive to mow down the Ghoul Men’s army of zombies in an orgy of Romero-inspired mayhem. And the lumbering Muldoon Man bites the dust when it steps on a bottle of nitroglycerin and gets blown to smithereens. This low-budget effort, shot in Colorado, really pours on the splattery FX, but bogs down terribly during the expository sequences, of which there are far too many. The teens are the usual collection of dumbos who can’t act their way out of a paper bag. But the supporting cast of maggot-oozing corpses and flesh-ravaged zombies deports itself just fine.

The Curse of the Screaming Dead

Distributor unknown, 1982, Color, 86 minutes

Director: Tony Malanowski Producer: Tony Malanowski Writer: Lon Huber With: Steve Sandkuhler, Christopher Gummer, Rebecca Bach

Three deer hunters, who resemble refugees from one of S. Clay Wilson’s biker comics, take their girlfriends on a hunting trip in the wilds of Maryland. They disturb a churchyard full of Confederate soldiers who were tortured and killed by Union troops. The rancid, rotting rebels come back for some long-delayed retribution. Two silly cops investigate and make matters worse. Several characters are killed before the limp-noodle ending. The production values are rock-bottom; the film looks like an eighth-grader’s homegrown monster movie, recorded inside a garbage can and processed in a lavatory. The filmmakers seem to have devoted most of the budget to the makeup, pyrotechnics, and splatter effects, which are admittedly impressive given the $75 budget. Zombies are shot in the head and their skulls explode all over the screen. The eventual zombie feasts are protracted and loaded with spilled intestines, torn tendons, and ripped-out hearts. Some of this footage wound up in a superior film, Cannibal Hookers. Thanks to Malanowski, Jess Franco can now forfeit his title as the worst zombie-monger in horror history. It’s not lonely at the bottom.

Curse II: The Bite

Distributor unknown, 1988, Color, 97 minutes

Director: Fred Goodwin Producer: Ovidio G. Assonitis, Kenichi Tominaga, Frederico Prosperi Writers: Susan Zelouf, Frederico Prosperi With: Jill Schoelen, J. Eddie Peck, Jamie Farr, Savina Priori, Bo Svenson

Wouldn’t you know it? After they’re warned away, two lovers take a short cut through an abandoned nuclear test site. And wouldn’t you know it? They have a flat tire. And then the guy gets bit by a mutating snake, and—wouldn’t you know it?—he starts to mutate, too! Nothing new in the setup, but don’t be fooled. This worthy little item creates an all-new world of weird in the disgusting mutation department. We’re talking first-class gross-out as the nipped hand and arm start to change into the head and body of a killer snake. Even after he tries to amputate the alien growth, his foul mutation continues, leading to a gory climax deserving some kind of vileness award. Although its relationship to Curse I is a mystery, this is a well-produced, well-acted film that you wouldn’t know would be so unsettling and grotesque.

Damned River

Silver Lions, 1989, Color, 93 minutes

Director: Michael Schroeder Producer: Lance Hool Writers: John Crowther, Bayard Johnson With: Stephen Shellen, Lisa Aliff, John Terlesky, Marc Poppel, Bradford Bancroft

Four damned yuppies go down this Damned River with a damned psycho for a guide in this damned endless movie. At its best, this is a kind of a National Geographic special gone sour (the scenery around the Zambezi River is quite spectacular). At its worst, it is a showcase for Stephen Shellen as a man who makes Captain Queeg look tightly wrapped. He yells, he screams, he pouts, he sulks, he cuts off heads, bashes in brains, has fits of paranoia, mistakes the heroine for Ned Beatty in Deliverance, and demonstrates the speaking lessons he took from Dennis Hopper’s character in Blue Velvet (“If you fucks fucking make a move, you’re fucked!”). And Shellen is awful! However, let’s not give him all the accolades: we can’t forget the redoubtable John Terlesky—a man whose neck is about as twice as large as his head—here cast as an Izod-shirted lawyer. He’s pretty bad, too, but the clear winners in this tasteless trash are the writers. They’ve apparently been to college, and the rest of us are going to suffer for it by slogging through a script with highfalutin’ references to Byron and the like. At one point, the psycho is described as “an earthy, powerful man like a character in a Zola novel”! Maybe schools could start showing this interminable flick to students who don’t do their homework.

Darkman

Universal, 1990, Color, 96 minutes

Director: Sam Raimi Producer: Robert Tapert Writers: Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel and Joshua Goldin With: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake

Splattermeister Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead I and II) goes easy on the “splat-stick” in this modern Gothic story of a comic book-style hero. Peyton Westlake (Neeson) is conducting scientific research into synthetic flesh (shades of Preston Foster in Dr. X) when he is doused with acid (a la Phantom of the Opera) at the hands of some especially nasty criminals. He’s literally blown out of his lab and into the street. He ends up in a hospital, where doctors cut his nerve endings, leaving him impervious to pain but really pissed off. Taking up residence in what’s left of his lab (a la Dr. Phibes), Westlake perfects his synthetic skin. Well, maybe perfects isn’t the right word: It only lasts for ninety-nine minutes, but he can impersonate anyone for that length of time. As should be obvious, this is a very derivative mixture, but Raimi throws in his usual operatic flourishes and keeps it all interesting, if not quite as mythic as he seems to be intending. Neeson is excellent as the tortured anti-hero, offering shades of Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo. There isn’t a lot of excessive gore in this show, but there’s an abundance of intensity.

Dark Sanity

Benmar Productions, 1981, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Martin Green Producer: Ben Brothers Writers: Phillip Pine, Larry Hilbran With: Aldo Ray, Kory Clark, Chuck Jamison, Bobby Holt, Andy Gwyn, Ray Borinson, Harry Carlson

The indefatigable Aldo Ray stars as a retired cop in this third-rate murder mystery trying to masquerade as a splatter movie. A young married couple (Clark and Jamison) moves into a new house and the wife, a recovering alcoholic, begins to have psychic visions of bloody, severed body parts. After an AA meeting, she is tailed by a strange man (Ray) who tells her that he had similar visions while investigating an axe murder at her house in which the female victim’s head was never found. Who is the murderer? Is it the dead woman’s son, who’s doing time for the murder? Is it the wacky neighbors? The suspicious gardener? The husband’s new boss? We won’t tell, but if you watch this turkey, you won’t care! And why does the dead woman’s black cat keep trying to get back into the house? Give us a break. Do they think the public schools have stopped teaching Poe? The “aftermath” gore scenes are so badly tacked onto this irritating fiasco that you’ll think you’re watching a completely different movie … or maybe you’ll just wish you were.

The Dark Side of the Moon

Wildstreet Pictures, 1989, Color, 96 minutes

Director: D.J. Webster Producer: Keith Walley Writers: Carey W. Hayes, Chad Hayes With: Will Bledsoe, Al Blumenfield, Joe Turkel, Wendy MacDonald, Rob Sampson, Camilla More, John Diehl

Astronauts on a mission to the other side of the moon encounter a spacecraft inhabited by a murderous extraterrestrial. The monster can rip its way out of one body and into another so nobody knows who the enemy is. This is an obvious cash-in on Alien, with some elements of The Hidden, the paranoia and nihilism are straight out of Carpenter’s The Thing. It does still offer some new twists, such as a Bermuda Triangle connection and the number “666” appearing on the ship’s computer screen. There is also plenty of red stuff, including some bullet wounds, lots of open torsos and glistening guts. Highlight: The monster bursts out of one victim’s abdomen, grabs an Earth woman, and pulls her face into the cavity. This well-acted rip-off is professionally made, while disgusting enough to push the R rating to the outer limits; highly recommended.

Dark Tower

Frias, 1987; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Ken Barnett Producers: John R. Bowey, David M. Witz Writers: Robert J. Averech, Ken Blackwell, Ken Wiederhorn With: Michael Moriarty, Jenny Agutter, Carol Lynley, Theodore Bikel, Kevin McCarthy

When a new high-rise (the Dark Tower) is almost completed, a preternatural force moves in and starts killing people in unimaginative ways. Who or what is responsible? It’ll take you 91 minutes to find out; that is, if you haven’t guessed in the first five. You’d think with three writers on the job they could come up with a decent story. Well maybe they can, but this ain’t it. A capable cast is wasted on this interminable exercise in boredom filmed, for some reason, in scenic Barcelona, Spain. Worse, Dark Tower is so soft in the splatter department, we can’t even rely on grisly effects to break the monotony.

Dead Heat

New World Pictures, 1988; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Mark Goldblatt Producers: Michael Meltzer, David Helpern Writer: Terry Black With: Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Darren McGavin, Lindsay Frost Clare Kirkconnell, Vincent Price, Keye Luke

This loopy mix of zombie, cop, and medical mischief genres isn’t quite the delicious satire it strives to be, but works fairly well due to some clever sight gags, funny dialogue, and the deadpan delivery (no pun intended) of its two leads. After stopping a pair of nearly unstoppable jewelry store robbers in an unbelievable hail of bullets, cops Williams and Piscopo discover the crooks were already dead, their bodies animated by an immortality device created and soon to be marketed by parties unknown. The trail leads to a mysterious, high-tech clinic where Williams is killed, then resurrected by Piscopo and Frost. The trouble is, he only has twelve hours to bring the bad guys to justice before he rots away. The pair visits a Chinese restaurant owned by co-conspirator Keye Luke, who has an immortality device of his own and uses it to fight off Williams and Piscopo by reanimating some violent spare ribs, Peking Duck, and a side of beef. The trail eventually leads back to the clinic, where Williams and Piscopo (who is also killed, then re-animated) unmask the real bad guy and use the device to turn him into an offal soufflé. After which the rapidly deteriorating duo walks off into the fog together Casablanca-style, announcing that, “This could be the end of a beautiful friendship.” The splatter certainly overwhelms the laughs in this one, but the laughs are there. And the regrettably infirm Price has a nice cameo.

Deadly Obsession

Distant Horizons, 1988, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jeno Hodi Producer: Anant Singh Writers: Jeno Hodi, Paul Wolansky, Brian Cox With: Jeffrey R. Ioria, Joe Paradise, Darnell Martin, Brian Seeman, Monica Breckinridge

Not exactly the work of rocket scientists, this is a clean-cut, no-nonsense splatter film with no delusions of merit. This was a wise move, since there is so little merit here. Joe Paradise (hands up all who believe this isn't an alias) is a ’round the bend janitor, who lives in the seemingly endless basement of New Gotham College, and plans to extort an easy million out of the school by product tampering. Ah, but, you see, he doesn’t (at first) actually plan to kill anybody (apart from a variety of practice rodents whose corpses he keeps in Tupperware in the ice box)—until he accidentally claims his first victim, but she survives. What makes no sense is that the girl in question very clearly has no earthly idea who did this and isn’t even vaguely a threat. Add to this a thoroughly unlikable cop-hero (Jeffrey R. Iorio), who looks like he might have graduated from junior high last week, and you can be pretty certain that a bad time will be had by all. In its favor, the film does generate a modicum of suspense in a somewhat overlong sequence set in a dark, deserted gymnasium (someone involved saw Tourneur’s Cat People), but quickly blows it all by dragging the climax out into another sequence. This last section of the film is both padded and arbitrary, despite a nice comeuppance for Mr. Paradise in a vat of acid (which probably means someone had also seen Fisher’s Curse of Frankenstein). Something old, nothing new.

Deadly Sanctuary

Towers of London Productions, 1970; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jess Franco Producer: Harry Alan Towers Writer: Peter Wellbeck With: Jack Palance, Sylvia Koscina, Mercedes McCambridge, Akim Tamiroff, Klaus Kinski, Rosemary Dexter, Romina Powers

We have yet to decide whether this film is the result of Jess Franco on an art binge, or if Senor Franco merely got a hold of some bad acid. Whatever the case, the results are an incomprehensible mess, despite appearances by name actors (most of whom don't speak with their own voices). The Marquis de Sade (Klaus Kinski, which is at least believable casting) may have been a genuine nut case or the greatest con man of all time, but whatever he was must have been more interesting than this hodge-podge of high-school-level torture scenes. There is a plot of sorts here, however, and even a moral. Two orphaned sisters, Justine and Juliette, are summarily tossed out of a convent and proceed to follow very different paths. Juliette enters a life of crime, lesbianism, sensuality, and murder—and prospers. Justine attempts to be virtuous, gets ripped off by a priest, raped, tortured, branded, led to the brink of kinky sacrifice, and arrested for murder. For eighty-odd minutes, Deadly Sanctuary warns that virtue only leads to misery, only to turn around in the last ten minutes and conclude that virtue is essential for happiness. None of this makes much sense, but, with its scenes of sexual hijinks and torture, the point of the film appears to center around giving the viewer an erotic kick. Alas, most of these images are so obscured by arty camera work (there are enough focus shifts and badly aimed zoom shots herein to make Roger Vadim look like a classically trained filmmaker) that it’s quite hard to tell what’s going on most of the time. Moreover, with Spanish censorship what it was in 1970 (mind the pubic hair!), we’re treated to some of the most contorted, artfully posed legs in the history of cinema. Overall, the film can be summed up in the image of a breast with blood running down it—not much of an achievement for an hour-and-a-half’s worth of film.

Dead Man Walking

Metropolis Pictures, 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Gregory Brown Producer: Gregory Brown Writers: John Weidner, Rick Marks With: Wings Hauser, Brian James, Jeffrey Combs, Pamela Ludwig

A fairly dead film set in the plague-ridden world of 1997. Two infected killers, called Zero Men, track each other across the wasteland after one of them kidnaps a dignitary’s daughter. Hauser and Combs do what they can; James has never been creepier. Too bad about the rotten script, poor pacing, and limp-noodle ending. If nothing else, gorehounds can revel in the graphic gunplay, death by fire, electric torture, a severed head, and game of Russian Roulette—both the traditional and with chainsaw versions. Also thrown in are living and dead plague victims in various stages of decay. However, the bloodless passages of this apocalyptic mess will make the viewer yearn for the glory that was The Road Warrior.

Dead of Night

Vista Street Productions, 1987; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Deryn Warren Producer: Jessica Rains Writer: Gerry Daly With: Julie Merrill, Kuri Browne, John Reno, J.K. Dumont

Shy, plain, and sexually repressed Sara (Merrill) serves as a punching bag for her brutish boyfriend until she stumbles upon a book of voodoo magic and discovers a ritual that will give her beauty, sexual freedom, and power over men. She performs the ritual and becomes possessed by the spirit of a voluptuous but evil sorceress named Sura. In her sexy new guise, Sara/Sura cruises the local nightspots, picking up men and jumping into bed with them—then ripping out their throats with her bare hands. As the sexual hijinks increase and the bodies pile up, Sara/Sura starts to deteriorate mentally (not that she was particularly well balanced to begin with), then physically, and winds up looking like a female picture of Dorian Gray. This film is a slickly made, low-budget, direct-to-video potboiler with an equitable mix of nudity and gore. Not to be confused with the 1945 British classic or the 1977 Dan Curtis telefilm of the same name.

The Dead Pit

Cornerstone, 1989; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Brett Leonard Producer: Gimel Everett Writers: Brett Leonard, Gimel Everett With: Jeremy Slate, Cheryl Lawson, Steffan Gregory Foster, Danny Gochnauer

A lovely young “Jane Doe” is committed to a state hospital when she claims that her memory has been taken from her. Her dorm-mates there are a crazed nun and a demolitions freak with a Terence Stamp accent. Asylum atrocities include abbreviated hypodermic-needle-in-eyeball scenes, a facial laceration by fire hose, and a severed head flung against a window. Lawson, under hypnosis, does a bad Linda Blair/Mercedes McCambridge impression. This madhouse melodrama is bracketed by zombie footage, since a “head surgeon” is conducting experiments with the dead in one wing of the hospital. The last quarter shamelessly rips off Return of the Living Dead, right down to including stupid cops and scooped-out brains. Slate’s grey matter is used as a pin cushion; some neat zombie disintegrations are also featured. The grand finale may be the goofiest ever. For indiscriminate zombiephiles of all ages and stages of decomposition, this film at least sometimes delivers.

Death Feud

Distributor unknown, 1987; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Carl Monson Producer: Mardi Rustam Writer: Carl Monson With: Frank Stallone, Christopher Mitchum, Karen Mayo-Chandler, Anthony Caruso, Lisa Loring

You might say this is a family film. It’s got Sylvester Stallone’s brother Frank, and Robert Mitchum’s son Chris, in it and that alone should tip you off you’re headed for trouble. We have Merchant seaman Stallone in love with a beautiful call girl, unaware of her seedy secret. Smitten by this love, she wants to quit the street life, but the evil Harry Caine (Anthony Caruso. Whose relative is he?) won’t permit it. When Caine orders her dead, a slam-bang revenge drama unfolds. Or tries to … Though the fights look staged, the car chases seem slow, and there’s a deficiency of surprises, this mindless little potboiler offers some second-banana-type interest. The goreless gunshot wounds seem real, and there’s plenty of tough talk, semi-nudity, and gratuitous violence. And hey, white slavery’s always fun, right? Best of all, there’s an air of authenticity about the seedy world portrayed: The hoods are creepy, the girls are lovely (in a slutty sort of way), and the locations look like spots to be avoided. The same can’t be said about the film. Second-rate all around, it still rates a lot higher than some.

Death Rides A Carnival

See Carnival of Blood

Death Weekend

See The House by the Lake

Death's Directors

See Effects

Deathstalker

Palo Alto Productions, 1983; Color, 80 minutes

Director: John Watson Producer: James Shardellati Writer: Howard Cohen With: Richard Hill, Barbi Benton, Richard Brooker, Lana Clarkson, Victor Bo

Take one muscle-bound stud (who need not act), as many voluptuous females as you can find, and squeeze them into skimpy costumes (or better yet, forget the costumes), throw in a few cheesy sets, add a dash of cut-rate special effects and, voila!, you’ve got your own sword and sorcery epic, 1980s style! Wait! Did we forget something? Oh yeah, a script. Oh well, it seems the folks who made Deathstalker forgot it as well. In all fairness, there is a plot of sorts. Deathstalker (Hill) must obtain the three powers (a sword, an amulet, and a chalice) in order to become all-powerful and defeat the evil sorcerer who has taken over the kingdom. A friendly neighborhood witch gives Deathstalker the sword, but the amulet and chalice are in the possession of the evil sorcerer, and so our hero must head to the sorcerer’s castle in the hope of obtaining these other items. On his journey, Deathstalker meets several interesting characters—a seemingly heroic warrior who later turns out to be a bad guy, a beautiful female warrior, and a troll who has been living in a cave for the last 30 years subsisting on mice and insects—but they simply pop in and out of the narrative and one gets the impression that their primary purpose is to fill in the gaps between the long, pointless, and not very exciting action scenes. Deathstalker finally arrives at the castle and, following even more tedious action scenes, acquires the amulet and chalice. He defeats the evil sorcerer and in an unexpected twist concludes that the quest for power is meaningless and ultimately futile. Coincidentally, the viewer comes to an identical conclusion about this film much earlier on. The fantasy element is a hodge-podge of various ideas—none of which are very well developed, and the action scenes are poorly conceived and executed. Even if the action scenes were more exciting it would be difficult to become involved, because we never care about the two-dimensional characters. All this is too bad, because the sword and sorcery genre holds great potential for the screen, but here this potential is hinted at only occasionally.

Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans

Concorde, 1986; Color, 77 minutes

Director: Jim Wynorski Producer: Frank Isaac Jr. Writer: Neil Ruttenberg With: John Terlesky, Monique Gabrielle, John La Zar, Toni Naples

This is not really a sequel to the 1984 Deathstalker (also produced by Roger Corman’s Concorde); it’s more a spoof of that film, which was a spoof to begin with. Terlesky is the likable barbarian who wants to be “right up there with Conan ” but comes across as more of a doofus than anything else. Much of the humor is strictly sophomoric, but some is actually quite clever. Wynorski, who has written and directed a number of films for Corman, is an unabashed film fan who loves quoting his own favorites. This one features a living-dead-rising-from-the-grave sequence that is lifted “bodily” from Hammer’s Plague of the Zombies, an homage to Corman’s Pit and the Pendulum, and several lines unashamedly stolen from Goldfinger. Filmed on the same cheesy but enjoyable Argentinean sets as Corman’s other sword-and-sorcery films (Sorceress, Barbarian Queen, etc.), it also features Maria Socas, the constantly topless heroine of The Warrior and the Sorceress, in a small role. Gabrielle has a dual role as a princess and her clone, the latter created by the evil La Zar. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy this goofy, nearly irresistible romp.

Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell

Concorde, 1988; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Alfonso Corona Producers: Alfonso Corona, Antonio de Noriega Writer: Howard D. Cohen With: John Allen Nelson, Carla Herd, Thom Christopher, Terri Treas

This third entry in the Deathstalker series is neither as splattery as the first nor as amusing as the second. Nelson is the third actor to play Deathstalker. He’s entrusted to protect an enchanted jewel—one of three—by the beautiful Princess Carissa (Herd). Needless to say, he has an evil wizard (Christopher) and his consort (Treas) to contend with. Christopher assembles an army of the dead, which rises to fight the living. Nelson is captured by Treas and tortured with electric gemstones. He nearly passes out when she moves them toward his own family jewels. She also threatens him with acid, whereupon he escapes and chains her to a wall. This film is mildly amusing at best. There are mundane impalements aplenty, but the swordfights are well staged and the film overall looks a tad more expensive than the others in the series.

Deepstar Six

Tri-Star Pictures, 1989; Color, 103 minutes

Director: Sean S. Cunningham Producers: Sean S. Cunningham, Patrick Markey Writers: Lewis Abernathy, Geof Miller With: Taurean Blacque, Nancy Everhard, Greg Evigan, Miguel Ferrer, Nia Peeples, Cindy Pickett

Friday the 13th auteur Cunningham beat everyone to the punch with this first entry in the virtual flood of undersea-monster movies that swamped theatres in 1989. It isn’t the best of the lot, but it’s by no means the worst, either. The action clicks along, and the acting, particularly by Ferrer as a technician who cracks up (quite literally) from too much time underwater, is above par. Builders of an undersea missile site unleash a centuries-old creature that looks like a high-tech version of Roger Corman’s fifties crab monsters. The beast wrecks the sea lab and chews up the crew, except for Everhard and Evigan, who blow the beast up and escape to the surface in the nick of time. In Friday the 13th fashion, the malevolent crustacean isn’t dead, of course, and makes an unsurprising last-minute reappearance topside for one final battle. Cunningham spent most of his low budget on the undersea lab and other SF hardware, so there wasn’t a lot left over for gory FX. Still, a deep-sea diver does get bitten in half; another victim’s chest balloons and explodes when he’s accidentally struck by an inflatable bullet; and Ferrer’s veins erupt when he surfaces in too much of a hurry to depressurize himself adequately.

Demented

International Releasing Corporation, 1982, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Arthur Jeffries Producers: Arthur Jeffries, Mike Smith Writer: Alex Rebar With: Sallee Elyse, Bruce Gilchrist, Bryan Charles, Chip Matthews

Elyse is raped by masked hoodlums, does a stint in a mental institution, and finally goes home to rebuild her life. Husband Gilchrist—who looks like Golden Age pornstar Harry Reems—is carrying on with a young floozy. Elyse “sees” images of the rapists in her bathroom mirror. Then there is a long expository stretch, full of endless monologue and dialogue. Also tiresome is Elyse’s high-pitched whining. Eventually, some teenage hooligans put masks on and start harassing Elyse, who slips into some black see-through nightwear and strikes back, cleavering two of them (one in the throat and the other in the face). A third has his gonads sliced off with piano wire, and the fourth is tortured—along with the viewer—by another bleating Elyse monologue before he is put out of his misery with a shotgun blast.

Demon Queen

Camera I Productions, 1986; Color, 50 minutes

Director: Donald Farmer Producers: Donald Farmer, David Reed Writer: Donald Farmer With: Mary Fanaro, Dennis Stewart, Cliff Dance, Patti Valliere, David Blood, Rick Foster

The title villainess shreds deserving urban scum in Farmer’s first made-for-video feature. The washed-out videography and bad acting (by Rick Foster especially) sink this flick lower than anything by Andy Milligan or H.G. Lewis. The butchery includes cannibalism, facial mutilation, heart removals, and a couple of throat-rippings, complete with spurting jugular fountains. In the spirit of Bloodsucking Freaks, Fanaro has a friendly tete-de-tete with a torn-out cardiac muscle. This, and a few other in-jokes, prove that Farmer is a splatter fan, if not much of a filmmaker. At least his films, like his production values, are mercifully short.

The Demons

Interfilme, 1972; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Clifford Brown (Jess Franco) Producer: Victor de Costa Writer: Jess Franco With: Anne Libert, Britt Nichols, Howard Vernon, Alberto Dalbes, Karin Field, John Foster

Witch-killer Lord Jeffries (Foster) and his cohorts are cursed by a sorceress as she sizzles at the stake. Soon after, her twin daughters—residents of the local nunnery—become possessed. One of them is tortured with a nipple-pincher and a hot iron. Franco keeps the first half moving with witch-burning, witch-pricking, sadistic Catholic discipline, rape, masturbation, and lesbianism. As they involve women of the cloth, these sexual hijinx are all the more shocking. Franco’s brain was deeper in the gutter than usual, judging from the frequent, close shots of female buttocks and pubic hair. The film’s second half bogs down until one of the bewitched twins is given the power of a death kiss; victims are smooched and turned into skeletons. These effects are primitive even by Franco standards.

Demonstone

Fries, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Andrew Prowse Producer: Antony I. Ginnane Writers: John Trayne, David Philips, Frederick Bailey With: R. Lee Ermey, Jan-Michael Vincent, Nancy Everhard, Pat Skipper

Four hundred years ago in the Philippines, a Chinese warrior priest is murdered and his "demonstone” is stolen. Before he dies, he curses the family of his murderer. Today—perhaps due to the demonstone—the murderer’s descendants are the most powerful political-criminal force on the island and the vengeful demon has his hands full! In spite of the good locations, interesting lore, and local color, this is a movie with an identity problem; it just can’t make up its mind what it is. Maybe that’s the result of too many writers working at cross purposes. Anyway, Demonstone begins with excitement, fear, and genuinely eerie scenes. The idea of modern kick-ass marines coming up against ancient Chinese magic in an exotic locale promises something special. The trouble with promises is that they are often not kept. What starts out as a major horror film degenerates into a tawdry, less-than-minor political thriller. The supernatural stuff gets bogged down and eventually lost among scenes of political corruption, U.S.-Philippine relations, stunts, endless chases, and boring gun play. Then, when horror happens, the special effects are cheesy and the gore kept to a tasteful and boring minimum. This film represents a good idea gone bad, but interesting just the same.

Demon Wind

Prism Entertainment/United Filmmakers, 1990; Color, 97 minutes

Director: Charles Philip Moore Producers: Michael Bennett, Paul Hunt Writer: Charles Philip Moore With: Eric Larson, Francine Lapensee, Bobby Johnston, Lynn Clark, Mark David Fritsche, Rufus Norris

Despite a title suggesting some rare form of supernatural flatulence, this little opus is essentially a thing of shreds and tatters derived from a variety of more original sources. The primary influence is a borderline plagiaristic borrowing of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead concept, but writer-director Charles Philip Moore would appear to have also seen several other flicks. He cribs from A Nightmare on Elm Street (in the final showdown ’twixt hero and a slimy son o’ Satan with dubious dental hygiene); The Omen; and even Citizen Kane (don’t ask). In spite of all this background material, Demon Wind seems hopelessly padded, not in the least because it has very little sense of humor. To its credit, the film supplies a certain sense of style in its 1931 prologue (according to a title card) the action of which, according to the dialogue, seems actually to have occurred in 1929—talk about your mysticism! This brief section has a genuinely creepy feel to it—at least until we get our first dose of demonic possession, characterized mainly by the expected guttural (and all too often unintelligible) reverb speech emanating from the throat of the possessed, whose complexion has nothing to do with Pond’s, and who vomits disconcertingly something resembling chunky potato soup. (Perhaps the premise does have something to do with a gastrointestinal disturbance after all.) Thereby hangs the rest of the film, as one by one a group of diverse, long-in-the-tooth teens falls victim to the evil forces, with little point and less style. Ultimately, the proceedings veer off into some cheesy truth-or-illusion cinematic mind games until one wonders just what the hell is going on. Finally, the film arrives at its tired-and-true, open-ended ending. Ho hum. Well, at least it looks like a movie, which is more than can be said for an alarmingly increasing number of direct-to-video splat-o-ramas these days.

Destroyer

Moviestore/Back East Money/Wind River Productions, 1988; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Robert Kirk Producers: Peter Garritty, Rex Hauck Writers: Rex Hauck, Peter Garritty With: Deborah Foreman, Clayton Rohner, Lyle Alzado, Anthony Perkins, Tobias Andersen, Lannie Garrett

Extremely graphic, above-average splatter, this movie offers an unusually good cast, production values, and sound design. Unfortunately, even with all these things in its favor, Destroyer suffers from a screenplay too often mired in the nightmare sequence of truth-or-illusionville that has been horror’s lot ever since the effectively tacky ending of DePalma’s Carrie. Only here, we have both a tacky tag scene and an equally tacky nightmare opening. The final scene is nice if you want to see Lyle Alzado eat his own ear, but the electrocution opening, while effectively gory, only confuses the picture. In between, we are treated to a few other examples of confusion in this otherwise serviceable tale. A film crew is at work in an abandoned prison on one of those movies-within-a-movie that you can’t believe anyone would ever make (or watch). Their problem—apart from an inept former, Miss Dairyland of 1971 (Lannie Garrett), in the lead—lies in the fact that “executed” killer Lyle Alzado is hell-bent on killing everyone to get to stuntwoman Deborah Foreman. Our problem, on the other hand, is figuring out whether former defensive end Alzado is truly supernatural or just so nasty that you can’t kill him with a stick—or an electric chair, two-by-four, car, etc. The film never explains this, preferring instead to concentrate on some pretty nasty deaths (including a disemboweling by pneumatic drill that must be seen to be believed), a genuinely sick performance from Alzado, and the undeniable charms of reliable Tony Perkins as a movie director (“Cecil B. De-fucking Mille! Cut! Cut!”). Generally, the performances are good, while Foreman and Rohner make an appealing pair of leads, even if Rohner is about as ineffectual in his heroics as David Manners on a bad day. Worth a look for Perkins (he even gets to direct a shower scene!) and the effects.

The Devil's Eye

See Eyeball

The Devil's Nightmare

Hemisphere, 1971; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Jean Brismee Producer: Charles Lecocq Writers: Patrice Rhomm, Charles Lecocq, Andre Hunebelle With: Erika Blanc, Jean Servais, Daniel Emilfork

Seven travelers (representing the Seven Deadly Sins) seek shelter in a castle inhabited by a bizarre baron and his even weirder servants. Little do they know that the castle is haunted by a succubus who starts to do them in one by one. People are killed by serpents and rapiers or go flying out of windows. One falls onto a handy bed of spikes. A philanderer is guillotined moments before his girlfriend is slammed into an Iron Maiden, which leaks blood onto the attic floor. The porker who symbolizes the sin of gluttony dies in the pukiest poisoning sequence ever. These deaths are graphic enough, but two other set pieces are especially ruthless. Blood drips through a ceiling and, in the room above, the twitching corpse of a tortured cat is discovered. A baby is daggered before the main credits. Add some lesbianism, and you have one of the most lurid Euro-horrors of the 1970s. When it hit our shores later it was promoted to tie in with The Exorcist, and the ads proudly blared “This Time the Devil Wins!!!” Beware of censored prints titled The Devil Walks At Midnight, which are shorn of much nastiness and the grisly World War Two prologue.

Die Hard

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1988; Color, 132 minutes

Director: John McTiernan Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver Writers: Jeb Stuart, Steven de Souza With: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia, Alexander Godunov

A slam-bang combination of action and splatter, directed to a turn by John McTiernan with extraordinary FX support from Richard Edlund. Willis drops his obnoxious persona—perhaps because he’s too busy saving his skin—to play a New York City cop on leave to California to visit his estranged wife (Bedelia), a bigwig in a multinational corporation with headquarters in a Century City high-rise. Soon after Willis’ arrival at the office Christmas party, a gang of pseudo-terrorists takes over the place, holds everyone hostage (except for Willis, who has slipped through the gang’s fingers), and demands a king’s ransom. Willis spends the next two-plus nail-biting hours whittling down the bad guys and making wisecracks, most of which are quite funny. The baddies are dispatched in all sorts of graphically horrible ways, making this a splatter fan’s bonanza. Rickman, who plays the smooth head of the terrorist gang, all but steals the show. He’s a villain to be reckoned with, as well as being one of the most interesting the screen has given us since the halcyon days of Hitchcock.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Warner Bros., 1990; Color, 123 minutes

Director: Renny Harlin Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver, Charles Gordon Writers: Steven de Souza, Doug Richardson With: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia

Once you’re over the difficult hurdle of accepting the idea that Willis, as Detective John McClane, could once again find himself in the situation of battling terrorists who have kidnapped his wife (Bedelia), you’ll find Die Hard 2 to be a satisfyingly relentless action thriller, a sort of raunchy James Bond extravaganza drenched in blood. Willis is again enjoyable as the wise-cracking cop, and the action scenes are rough and often gruesome (as when one of the villains gets sucked into a jet engine). The film cost $60 million; despite the money invested, though, you'll still notice its most notorious gaffe: Pacific Telephone Company logos on the pay phones, though the film is ostensibly set in the District of Columbia. Now that is stretching credibility.

Die Sister Die

Cinema Shares International, 1977; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Randall Hood Producer: Randall Hood Writer: Tony Sawyer With: Jack Ging, Antoinette Bower, Edith Atwater, Kent Smith

Disinherited Ging hires blacklisted nurse Bower to kill ailing sister Atwater. Bower gets an attack of conscience, leading to an ultimately fatal series of double and triple crosses. The sordid story is professionally acted by the three principals, but it’s all for naught. The pace is slow, the payoff minimal, and the dark photography is soporific. Die Sister Die is also too short on gore, though it does feature one slit wrist and a vile-looking corpse rotting away in the cellar. A dream sequence features severed limbs in a pool of crimson, not to mention a manual decapitation.

Disconnected

Generic Films, 1984; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Gorman Bechard Producer: Gorman Bechard Writers: Gorman Bechard, Virginia Gilroy With: Frances Raines, Mark Walker, Carl Koch, Carmine Capobianco, Ben Page, Professor Morono, William A. Roberts

Waterbury Connecticut’s own Man o’ Gore provides a splattery little tale whose plot would go nowhere if the heroine had an answering machine. Raines stars in a dual role as good twin Alicia, who works in a video store, and bad twin Barbara Ann, who sleeps with all the good twin’s boyfriends. While dealing with her current boyfriend’s infidelity, Alicia has her problems compounded by a series of silent, anonymous phone calls. Voila! Shy and sweet psycho Franklin (Walker) walks into Alicia’s life, and soon she’s killing for this boy-next-door (whose fondness for splattering white sheets red we soon discover). A less-than-consuming subplot concerns the detective’s search for this psycho killer—or, more precisely, his wasting time in on-camera interviews about why the killer remains uncaught. Alicia unwittingly escapes slaughter once, but bad twin Barbara Ann doesn’t; she seduces the bloodthirsty Franklin, and her screams alert the detective, who, coincidentally, is walking by. End of story … except the phone calls still haven’t stopped. The acting is good overall—Raines especially, considering how much time she spends answering the phone—and production values are surprisingly high, with a hard rock soundtrack that works quite well. Though it dwells overly much on Alicia's cowering from the ringing phone, Disconnected has a lasting potency that testifies to its odd individuality.

Don't Go In the Woods

Seymour Borde & Associates, 1981; Color, 82 minutes

Director: James Bryan Producers: Roberto and Suzette Gomez Writer: Garth Eliasson With: Jack McClelland, Mary Gail Artz, Angie Brown

In the wilds of Utah, several one-dimensional characters are slaughtered by a primitive, grimy survivalist mountain man. Since the film’s script and acting are worthless there's nothing to do here but sit back and enjoy the gore—poured on by the gallon. Two men have their arms lopped off, another’s face is crushed in a bear trap. A camper’s face is splattered against his RV’s window; his wife is burned alive. Several people are helplessly butchered in their sleeping bags. An artist is repeatedly knifed, and she gushes blood. One outdoorsman takes the law into his own hands and impales a hiker by mistake. A girl stumbles into the killer’s lair, and is chopped with a machete. A dude in a wheelchair is beheaded. Eventually, the murderer is hunted down by a fat sheriff who looks like he ate an entire donut shop by himself, but it’s up to two vengeful victims to give the survivalist what he and all of his breed richly deserve. In keeping with the rest of this bargain-basement bloodbath, the song played over the end credits is completely beyond belief.

Don't Open Till Christmas

Distributor unknown, 1984; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Edmund Purdom Producers: Steve Minasian, Dick Randall Writer: Derek Ford With: Edmund Purdom, Belinda Mayne, Alan Lake, Caroline Munro

British-made precursor to the Black Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night sub-school of Yuletide mad-slasher flicks. Former fifties Hollywood heartthrob Purdom (The Egyptian, The Student Prince) directs and stars as a somewhat inept (aren’t they always in films like these?) Scotland Yard inspector on the trail of a psychopath (Lake) who’s got it in for London’s department store and Salvation Army-type Santas during the colorful holiday season. Suspects abound (including the inspector himself), as do the bodies of various dismembered, slashed, and castrated Santas before Lake, whose murderous rage was triggered by memories of an abused childhood that reached its peak during the Christmas holidays, is finally run to ground. This is a muted bodycount movie that mostly pulls it punches.

Don't Torture a Duckling

Medusa Films, 1972; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Renato Iaboni Writers: Lucio Fulci, Roberto Gianviti, Gianfranco Clerici With: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian, Irene Papas, Marco Porel, George Wilson

A Sicilian village is ripped apart by a string of brutal mutilation murders of young boys. The enraged villagers’ suspicions fall on a voyeuristic handyman who himself has the mind of a child, a gypsy witch (Bolkan) with a collection of anatomically correct boy dolls whose genitals she sticks with pins, a local prostitute (Bouchet) who likes her trade young, and a repressed priest (Porel) who seems overly dominated by his gloomy mother (Papas). The likely culprit is the witch, whom in the film’s most brutal scene the vengeful villagers whip to death with chains. But the real perpetrator is the priest, who is killing the boys to spare them from becoming slaves to their budding sexual desires. He gets his in the film’s most disgusting scene, when he’s hurled over a cliff and we see his face and body cut and pulverized on the jagged rocks below. Some critics view Italian splattermeister Lucio Fulci as a serious and compelling filmmaker, while others view him as just a hack. As evinced by this ornately shot, thematically disturbing yet clearly exploitative early psycho/splatter film, he may actually be a bit of both. European prints supposedly run 110 minutes. Great film.

Doom Asylum

Academy, 1987; Color, 78 minutes

Director: Richard Friedman Producer: Steve Menken Writer: Richard Marx With: Patty Mullen, Ruth Collins, Kristin Davis, William Hay

A lawyer (Michael Rogen) and his girlfriend are seemingly killed in a car crash, but the man wakes up in the middle of his autopsy and kills the two doctors who are taking him apart. No particular reason is given for this; perhaps, like Topsy, the living dead man “just growed that way.” Ten years later, the daughter (Patty Mullen) of the woman who was killed visits the ruins of the old hospital with friends on an outing. A legend has grown up about “the coroner,” the fiend who kills anyone who comes near the hospital. As it turns out, the coroner seems to get his ideas from watching old Tod Slaughter movies on TV, and we’re treated to long clips of Slaughter’s films, obviously dropped in to pad this already short movie to feature length. Mullen has the best line when she prays: “I’d just like to add, God, that if we get through this, I’ll give you anything you want—money, sex, a charge card at Bloomie’s.” Meanwhile, the coroner goes about killing the young people, spouting legal terms as he slashes away. The main attractions here are former Penthouse Pet Mullen, later to hone her comic talents in Frankenhooker, and East Coast B-movie queen Collins (Psychos in Love, Sexpot) as a punk rocker who comes to a bad end.

Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls

Cinerama Releasing, 1972; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Eddie Saeta Producer: Eddie Saeta Writer: Sal Ponti With: John Considine, Barry Coe, Florence Marley, Jo Morrow

Considine hams it up as a thousand-year-old wizard who survives by transferring his soul from one body to another—never mind that the victims have been murdered prior to this transfer. Considine also has a sideline switching souls from disfigured bodies into beautiful ones. (The souls are fully clothed.) Pretty grisly fare: The villain and his hideous assistant, Thor, saw a woman in half before a live audience. People are graphically stabbed and routinely corroded with acid. One character stabs the sorcerer, gets splashed by the blood, and has his face eaten right down to the bone. The ending is one of the goofiest ever. This film’s name will be mud with Stoogemaniacs, since it features Moe Howard in his last role, as a dirty old necrophile. TV horror host Seymour is on hand, also.

Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman

International Cinema Films, 1971; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Leon Kilmovsky Producer: Jose Frade Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Shirley Corrigan. Jack Taylor, Mirtha Miller, Luis Induni

Bandits spoil Corrigan’s honeymoon in Transylvania by killing her husband and threatening her with a fate worse than death. She is rescued by Naschy’s Waldemar, a pariah who lives with the local witch. Waldemar turns out to be a werewolf; he does a number on the surviving bandits. Naschy and Corrigan flee the country after locals behead the witch and come after them. Corrigan introduces Naschy to Dr. Jekyll (Taylor) who is carrying on his ancestor’s experiments with good and evil and is persuaded to help the wolfman. Jealous assistant Miller fouls up the experiment. Along with his usual full-moon mutating, Naschy also changes into a sadist who flogs Corrigan, impales Miller on a bed of spikes, drowns a local drunk, and terrorizes prostitutes. Watch what happens when Naschy and a nurse are trapped in a jammed elevator with the full moon rising outside. A real screwy one by anybody’s standards. Don’t miss it.

Dracula: The Bloodline Continues

Profilmes, 1972; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Leon Klimovsky Producer: Jose Antonio Perez Giner Writer: Lazarus Kaplan With: Tina Saenz, Tony Isbert, Helga Line, Narcisco Ibanez-Menta, Cristiana Suriani, Maria Kost, J. J. Paladino, Betsabe Ruiz, Luis Ciges

This Spanish film is interesting in an odd sort of way. Although set in contemporary times, it has a pleasing Gothic atmosphere. Pregnant Saenz and husband Isbert journey to the castle of her grandfather, Count Dracula (Ibanez-Menta). As they spend some time there, Isbert gets distracted by all the beautiful, voluptuous females roaming around the place, while Saenz discovers that the wine she is being served is blood. It is revealed that the Dracula family has become decadent through incest, and so Saenz’s baby is the new hope of the family. When she discovers this, she is not, shall we say, pleased. She kills her own child, stakes the whole bloody family, and is mortally wounded by the caretaker. Then she trips over her supposedly dead baby’s body, which starts sucking on her blood. There are stylish dream sequences involving a giant bat-headed vampire, and the requisite sex, nudity, and gore usually found in Spanish horror splatter films of the period. Klimovsky uses fewer zooms than usual. A.k.a. The Saga of the Draculas.

Dracula: The Love Story

See To Die For

Dracula's Widow

DEG, 1988; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Christopher Coppola Producer: Stephen Traxler Writers: Kathryn Ann Thomas, Christopher Coppola With: Sylvia Kristel, Josef Sommer, Lenny Van Dohlen, Mac Coppola, Stefan Schnabel, Rachel Jones

Sylvia Kristel, star of the erotic Emmanuelle series, delivers an overblown performance as the obtuse widow of the Count. She arrives in a box at the Hollywood Wax Museum, where a new Dracula exhibition is in progress—conveniently bringing descendents of Jonathan Harker and Dr. Van Helsing into town. When Kristel learns that her husband has been dead for a century (didn’t we say she’s obtuse?), she goes on a rampage that takes out a bunch of Satanists and a fair chunk of the populace of Hollywood. Throughout all this, a hardboiled cop narrates his pursuit of this “serial killer.” (Did we mention that he’s obtuse?) In spite of a script brimming with improbabilities, Dracula's Widow turns out to be a much better film than it has any right to be. Its reverence and affection for the old horror films comes through loud and clear, as does some stylistic flair that far exceeds its budget. Kristel herself is really the big disappointment. Though she overacts (and overdresses), she brings no passion to one of the great vamp roles available. She may be responsible for most of the murders, but at least she doesn’t kill the film. Worth a look.

Dr. Caligari

Steiner Films, 1989; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Stephen Sayadian Producer: Joseph F. Robertson Writers: Jeny Stahl, Stephen Sayadian With: Madeleine Reynal. David Peny, Laura Albert, John Durbin

Tough to pigeonhole, this souped-up-to-date version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is aimed at the “cult” crowd, and it’s likely to strike audiences as did its precursor: They’ll love it or hate it, be puzzled or outraged, and debate whether it’s really a film, a stage play, or a rip-off. Low-budget like its granddaddy, it’s performed on claustrophobic, hand-painted sets with campy costumes and stylized “theatrical” acting. Its ancestor was spawned by the despair that followed the Great War. But times have changed. The new Dr. Caligari’s mood is more frantic than chilling in its depiction of a media-dominated culture tyrannized by the tube, pop psychology, marketing mania, and our American bumper-sticker mentality. “Describe your life in three words or less,” Dr. Caligari asks. “Unending torment,” says the patient. Along with its Day-Glo dazzle, this kinetic production has a coherent core. The fetching granddaughter (Reynal) of the original Dr. Caligari has kept his brain in a bottle, planning to inject his intelligence into herself. But first she must learn the proper technique by experimenting on her unwary patients. This is a sexy, high-energy film, full of grotesque imagery (see a woman caressed by a tongue the size of a surfboard), in-jokes (an involuntary patient is named Les Van Houten after the Manson madwoman), social commentary (the atrocities are carried out by the CIA—Caligary Insane Asylum), and freaky imagination. Don’t try to figure it out, just go with it. But be warned—it’s not for everyone, not even hard-core splatter fans.

Driving Force

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 88 minutes

Director: A.J. Prowse Producers: Howard Grigsby, Rod Confessor Writer: Patrick Edgeworth With: Sam Jones, Katherine Bach, Don Swayze, Gerald Gordon

Driving Force has all the look and quality of a made-for-TV movie. Steve (Jones) is an agent hired to clean up some of the scum terrorizing the roads in this post-war, near-future world. Chief among those terrorists are the Black Knights, led by Nelson (Swayze). The action scenes aren’t very exciting. Much screen time is spent on the sub-plot involving Steve’s young daughter and her grandparents’ attempts to wrestle custody from Steve. In one scene, Steve is hanging out on the beach while his daughter is playing in their trailer, perched on a cliff overlooking the shore. Sure enough, Nelson and the boys come along and push the trailer over the cliff as Steve watches in horror from below. This is probably the most riveting moment in the film. Everything else about this film seems sanitized. Even the bad guys are your basic, generic-brand evildoers. Swayze works at it, but the director and writer fail to give him any off-beat qualities or eccentricities to make him a really interesting villain. Try as they might (and they do try), the cast just can’t make this poor man’s Road Warrior work. Did we say poor man’s? We should have said destitute!

Edge of Sanity

Allied Vision Ltd., 1988; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Gerard Kikoine Producers: Edward Simons, Harry Alan Towers Writers: J.P. Felix, Ron Raley With: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, David Lodge, Sarah Maur-Thorp, Ben Cole, Lisa Davis

Perkins, the screen’s archetypal modern psycho, takes on the role of Victorian literature’s most famous madman, Edward (here called “Jack”) Hyde, in this kinky adaptation of the venerable R.L. Stevenson classic. As a boy, the good Dr. Jekyll is caught in the act of spying on a whore and her lover getting it on and is whipped for his bad behavior, scarring him for life with repressed sadomasochistic longings. The adult Jekyll (Perkins also) unleashes these longings when he gets an accidental whiff of a powerful new anesthetic he’s developing, turning him into a red-eyed combination of Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper. After slitting the throat of a prostitute and committing several more grisly murders, he enlists a pair of acolytes with his wondrous new drug, thus forming a ménage a trois of mayhem. When Mrs. Jekyll (Barber) catches on, she’s almost done in as well, but dispatches her hubby in the nick of time—or so she thinks. Garishly lit in bright reds and cold blues, this psycho-sexual extravaganza owes more to Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion (which also starred Perkins) than Stevenson’s story, but isn’t quite up to either source. Even the touted “unrated version” is fairly tepid in the sex and gore departments. Filmed in Hungary.

Effects

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Dusty Nelson Producers: John Harrison, Pasquale Buda Writer: Dusty Nelson With: John Harrison, Tom Savini, Joseph Pilato, Susan Chapek, Bernard McKenna

Low-key, low-gore, low-budget psycho-film that trades on the controversy surrounding the splatter movie’s alleged potential to create an audience appetite for “snuff’ films. It was made independently of George Romero by several of Romero’s stock company of actors and technicians. Harrison, who composed the scores for Romero’s Creepshow and Day of the Dead, plays a deranged horror movie director named Bickle (as in Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle?) who is killing off the cast and crew of his latest slasher flick in order to make a potentially more lucrative “snuff” film. Romero FX maestro Savini plays a small part, as well as handling the film’s modicum of splatter, which amounts to one realistically executed gore murder. By no means up to Romero’s work, but not without interest either. Debut writer-director Nelson succeeds in making the best of his poverty-line budget. Co-producer Buda edited Romero’s Knightriders, Creepshow, and Day of the Dead. A.k.a. Death’s Director and The Manipulator.

Epitaph

City Lights, 1987; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writer: Joseph Merhi With: Delores Nascar, Jim Williams, Natasha Pavlova, Flint Keller

When they’re not grinding out bloody urban shoot-’em-ups, the slap-happy City Lights boys Merhi and Pepin manufacture bad horror flicks instead. In this one, Nascar plays a misanthropic housewife who believes that all males are after her body, and no man in the neighborhood is safe. A painter is repeatedly stabbed; her daughter’s boyfriend is drenched with gas and set afire. She blasts another schmuck right out of a window with a twelve- gauge. Hubby Williams covers for her, even buries her victims, until he has his spine split with a pickaxe. Women who stand in Nascar’s way are in for it, too. A well-meaning mother-in-law is sliced up with an electric knife. A female psychiatrist is hung up by her wrists, and, employing a blowtorch and strategically-placed metal bucket, Nascar forces a rat to eat through her stomach.

Erotikill

General Films/Eurocine, 1973; Color, 80 minutes

Director: J.P. Johnson Producers: Marius Lesoeur, Pierre Queret Writers: David Kuhne, Gerard Brissard With: Lina Romay, Jack Taylor, Alice Arno, Monica Swinn, Jess Franck

While hiding behind the aliases of Johnson, Franck, and Kuhne, our old splatter buddy Jess Franco scrawls his name all over this film, and his name is mud as usual. Romay, the future Mrs. Franco, plays a sex vampiress who drinks more than blood. Her unique brand of Deep Throat proves deadly for her victims—a hapless peasant, a female reporter (with silicone boobs and a beer-gut) and love-struck poet Jack Taylor. Traditional throat-ripping vampirism is also featured. Romay and her henchman are mute; considering how these Euro-horrors are typically dubbed, it’s just as well. Franco himself plays an investigator named Mr. Roberts, though the dubbing makes him sound more like Mister Rogers. Like many Franco films, this exists in about three or four different versions worldwide; one print, for two good reasons, is known as The Bare-Breasted Countess.

Escape 2000

New World, 1981; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith Producers: Antony I. Ginane, William Fayman Writers: Jon George, Neill Hicks With: Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig, Carmen Duncan, Roger Ward

At the turn of the century, prison warden Craig runs a “Most Dangerous Game”-style hunt for the diversion of his sadistic friends. The victims are hapless captives, labeled “deviants" by the fascist government. Railsback and Hussey are as enjoyable in this actioner as they were in more highbrow material like The Stunt Man and Romeo and Juliet, respectively. This was reportedly trimmed for an R rating, but Escape 2000 still manages to pack torture, burning, attempted rape, hand amputation, lots of gunplay, and other raw stuff into its short running time. One character is bisected by a bulldozer blade. A hunter employs a semi-human geek as a bloodhound. The best villain, aside from the hatefully suave Craig, is a flagrant dyke who hunts with a rocket-launching crossbow—and still can’t hit the forest or the trees. The evil warden gets his head blown off in a rip-roaring finale. A.k.a. Turkey Shoot.

Eve of Destruction

Nelson Entertainment, 1991; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Duncan Gibbins Producer: David Madden Writers: Duncan Gibbins, Yale Udoff With: Gregory Hines, Renee Soutendijk, Kevin McCarthy

Soutendijk plays Dr. Eve, a sexually repressed scientist who develops an unstoppable killer android (Eve VIII) in her own image and programs it to share her own memories and frustrated inner longings. The robot Eve is to be used by the U.S. as a high-tech secret weapon capable of awesome destruction, including nuclear annihilation. But—surprise!—something goes wrong during a test (the foiling of a bank robbery). Robot Eve’s control circuits are damaged by gunfire and the android sets out on its own, the programmed libido and hostilities of its creator no longer repressed but rising to the fore, leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken bodies in its/her wake. Hoofer Hines, miscast as the Army’s top antiterrorism expert, joins the real Eve in tracking down and stopping the gun-toting android with the hot body and even hotter temper. It’s all relentlessly stupid and illogical. Nevertheless, this genderbending Terminator/Robocop clone does contain the full quotient of blood, gore, and firepower—plus the added draw of the sexy Ms. Soutendijk, a major Dutch film star here making her unfortunate American film debut.

The Evil

New World, 1978; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Gus Trikonis Producer: Ed Carlin Writer: Donald G. Thompson With: Richard Crenna, Joanna Pettet, Andrew Prine, Cassie Yates, Victor Buono

This immensely entertaining haunted-house opus features a team of doctors trying to turn an old mansion into a rehab center. The fact that they picked it up for a song should have told them something, but it isn’t until they are imprisoned and decimated by occult forces that they admit the place is infested by good and evil spirits, with evil predominating. This film is a real rarity in which characterization and atmosphere get some screen time along with the ugly deaths. Pyrophobes may want to avoid this one, since many of the victims are graphically killed by electrocution and fire. Gus Trikonis does a good directing job, working with a cast of commendable exploitation veterans. Crenna, who unintentionally unleashes the evil forces, eventually confronts Victor Buono as Satan. Incredibly, filmdom’s most fiendish fat man was cut from some prints.

Evil Spawn

American Independent, 1987; Color, 74 minutes

Director: Kenneth J. Hall Producer: Anthony Brewster Writer: Kenneth J. Hall With: Bobbi Bresee, Drew Godderis, John Terrence, Gary Levinson, Donna Shock, John Carradine, Forry Ackerman

Those who spawned this Wasp Woman rip-off are evil indeed. Bresee is typecast as an over-the-hill actress who injects herself with an anti-aging serum, mutates into an insectoid monster, and goes on a rampage. Her shredded victims include no-talent starlets and sleazy Hollywood agents. The acting and production values are so primitive that this might have been culled from Fred Olen Ray’s cutting-room floor. Sleaze fiends can at least revel in the gratuitous nudity, vomiting scenes, and violence such as impalement, throat-tearing, and the ripping out of one victim’s arm by the roots. The only brains in evidence are those blown out of a woman’s skull with a .45.

Exorcism

ZIV, 1975; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Juan Bosch Producer: None credited Writers: Juan Bosch, Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Maria Perschy, Maria Kosti, Grace Mills

A young woman attends a Satanic rite, complete with blood sacrifice, and becomes possessed by her dead father’s malicious spirit. She exhibits this sub-genre’s complete list of symptoms: swearing, screaming, spitting, convulsing, attacking the hired help, and hitting on priest Naschy. She also tries to strangle mother Perschy. Her ex-boyfriend and a meddling stepbrother are found with their heads twisted around 180 degrees. In the later stages of possession her eyes glaze, bloody stigmata appear on her hands, she raves in her father’s voice, and her face appears corpse-like. It’s up to Naschy to save the day when everybody finally decides the girl is possessed. He tries to exorcise the spirit into a German Shepherd, as if that breed isn’t nasty enough. The exorcism footage is brief and anticlimactic in the extreme. Though punctuated by a few shocking moments, the film generally plods.

Eyeball

Joseph Brenner, 1978; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Umberto Lenzi Producer: Joseph Brenner Writers: Umberto Lenzi, Felix Tussel With: John Richardson, Martine Broachard, Silvia Solar, Jorge Rigaud, Marta May

The eyes have it in this Italian-made, Dario Argento-like shocker about a deranged killer in a red hood and cape who knocks about the Spanish countryside killing nubile young women, then gouging out their eyeballs. Suspects abound, but the real culprit turns out to be hero Richardson’s nutso ex-girlfriend. She’s lost an eye of her own and requires replacement orbs from her victims—designer-style, as she seems to require a fresh one for each day of the week. In addition to all this eyeball-snatching, the film offers numerous throat-slittings, poor performances made even poorer by atrocious dubbing, and an interminable series of confusing flashbacks designed to flesh out the running time. Not much here to keep you awake—though the scene where plucky little red ripping hood dispatches one of her victims in a pigpen may make you sit up and take notice, if only briefly. A.k.a. The Devil’s Eye.

555

King Video, 1988; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Wally Koz Producer: Wally Koz Writer: Roy M. Koz With: Mara Lynn Bastian, Charles Fuller, Greg Kerouac

Made for video. A lunatic who looks like Rasputin butchers fornicating couples in the Windy City. The men are decapitated, the women slashed open with daggers and raped after death. A shrill, ugly reporter and a profane, obnoxious cop track him down many murders later. The acting, writing, videography, sound recording, and set design are all bottom-of-the-barrel so Koz and company try to compensate by ladling on the gore. Some of the special effects aren’t so special. An obvious latex belly-slice takes about seven seconds to bleed. One lover’s head starts to fly off even before the blade strikes his neck. Judging from the end-credits, Wally Koz hired all his relatives to help him out; in the annals of bloody messes, only the Manson Family made a bigger one. Why is it called 555? Watch it and find out for yourself—we had to!

Fatal Attraction

Paramount Pictures, 1987; Color, 120 minutes

Director: Adrian Lyne Producers: Stanley R. Jaffe, Sherry Lansing Writer: James Dearden With: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer, Ellen Hamilton Latzen, Stuart Pankin

Happily married but quickly lonesome yuppie lawyer Douglas has a one-weekend stand with alluring Close while his wife (Archer) is out of town. When Archer gets back, he goes back to her loving arms, but Close, whose need for companionship is more than a bit obsessive, refuses to call off their affair and starts terrorizing the poor guy (to what end we’re not sure) by turning the family pooch into soup (du jour), taking Douglas’ toddler on a wild and dangerous amusement park ride, and finally coming after Douglas with a knife like some wild-eyed female clone of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. About forty minutes later than the audience, Douglas finally decides he’s had enough of this shrieking harridan and drowns her in the bathtub. This cautionary tale of safe sex told in Halloween terms was a boffo hit for Paramount after the studio decided to change writer James Dearden’s original ending, wherein the lovelorn Close arranges things so that Douglas goes to the slammer for her seemingly pre-mediated murder. (His script, according to the bizarrely worded credits, was “based on his original screenplay.”) Presumably, this alternate ending has since been restored on some of the video versions of the film now in release.

Faces of Death

F.O.D. Productions, 1978; Color and B/W, 105 minutes

Director: Conan LeCilaire Producer: Rosilyn T. Scott Writer: Alan Black With: Michael Carr

This evil little number allegedly raked in a fortune on Oriental theater screens before it was picked up Stateside and turned it into the most notorious “Mondo” movie of the eighties. Angry protests got it discontinued, but only after sales reached the saturation point. Michael Carr as Dr. Francis B. Gross (no, we’re not kidding) narrates a fairly structured documentary on death, titillating us with supposedly real executions, slaughterhouse footage, plane crashes, self-immolation, political assassinations, etc., on the pretext of helping us “understand our own destiny” and other claptrap. The power of this pukey potpourri has been undermined over the years as various scenes and statistics have been proven fake. (One execution features an electric chair so flimsy a baby could walk out of it. For superior high-voltage hi jinx, watch what happens to Tony Curtis at the end of Lepke.) Still, there’s enough stuff here to test the nerves and stomach. A monkey’s brains are scooped out and eaten in a segment that is a total gross out, real or not. The autopsy footage should satiate the most avid gorehound. Faces of Death was followed by two official sequels, numerous imitations, and a storm of controversy throughout the decade.

Fear

Cinetel Films, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Robert A. Ferret Producer: Lisa M. Hansen Writers: Rick Scarry, Kathryn Connell With: Frank Stallone, Cliff DeYoung, Kay Lenz, Robert Factor, Scott Schwartz, Geri Betzer

Tight-lipped Vietnam vet DeYoung has trouble expressing his emotions and represses his memories of the war by storing his medals in an unmarked box in the garage. To renew feelings of togetherness, he takes his at-odds family on an outing. They get a belly full of togetherness when they’re waylaid by several escapees from a local prison. The escapees, led by the foul-mouthed Stallone (Sly’s baby brother), are a nasty bunch. Factor, another former vet who was sent to the slammer for murdering his family and now thinks he’s back in the jungles of ’Nam, proves the nastiest when he starts slaughtering everyone in sight, including several of his own comrades. It’s up to DeYoung and family to get themselves out of this mess, which they do in predictably bloody fashion. Wife Lenz and daughter Beltzer (“Mom, spending time with you and dad can be so boring!”) dispatch the junior member of the gang (Schwartz), a pretty boy who is so afraid he might like getting raped in prison that he asserts his manhood by trying to rape the daughter—only to get his wick dipped in a mousetrap instead. Meanwhile, DeYoung kills Factor with gasoline and a flare gun—after which he’s finally able to say “I love you” to his wife. Though Stallone gets top billing in the ads, he’s really a supporting character who gets wasted early on.

Fight for Your Life

Mishkin, 1977; Color, 82 Minutes

Director: Robert A Endelson Producers: William Mishkin, Robert A. Endelson Writer: Straw Weisman With: William Sanderson, Robert Judd, Reginald Blythewood, Dan Faraldo, Lela Small

Three sadistic convicts led by Sanderson escape the police, steal a car, and head upstate. They commit bloody holdups along the way, then invade a house in the boonies and terrorize the inhabitants. The family is black and Sanderson is a racist, so the ensuing dialogue has more anti-black language than Mandingo and Drum combined. After much degradation, including rape, the victims take the law into their own hands in a violent, rewarding conclusion. Features graphic gunplay, including castration by bullet. An innocent victim is thrown over a waterfall and a small white boy has his head bashed in with a rock (this scene has been cut from some prints). One of the villains is gruesomely impaled on a big shard of window glass. The film is well made despite its excesses; Sanderson is outstanding, though he’s probably trying to forget this film today. Filmed in Chatham, Ghent, and Hudson, New York. A.k.a. I Hate Your Guts.

The First Power

Orion Pictures, 1990; Color, 98 minutes

Director: Robert Resnikoff Producer: David Madden Writer: Robert Resnikoff With: Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffith, Jeff Kober, Mykel T. Williamson, Elizabeth Arlen

According to one of the characters, the first power is resurrection, and judging from the script, she’s right—because there is virtually nothing in this film that hasn’t lumbered across movie screens before. Baby-faced Phillips plays a seasoned LAPD detective (in his early twenties?) who snares devil-worshipping serial killer Kober and gets him sentenced to death despite the admonitions of psychic Griffith that Kober will gain the power to return and kill again if he is executed—as in Wes Craven’s Shocker, the Elm Street movies, etc. She’s right, of course. In fact, the deceased becomes a gymnastic shape-shifter with a Freddy Krueger sense of humor who hurtles about the city possessing druggies, winos, and even a bag lady to do his nefarious bidding with Phillips and Griffith in hot pursuit. Phillips wins out, but along the way gets kicked in the balls more frequently and with less injury than any cop hero we’ve ever seen. Kids, don’t try this at home. Though there are some stabbings and impalings, the main emphasis is on relentless and ultimately tedious action sequences, the best of which occurs toward the end when our heroes and the villain are swept through the L. A. sewer system on a tidal wave of water. It’s a wildly executed adventure that would make a great thrill ride at a theme park. Too bad Disney or Universal didn’t make this turkey instead.

Flesh-Eating Mothers

Panorama, 1988; Color, 89 minutes

Director: James Aviles Martin Producers: Miljan Peter llich, James Aviles Martin Writers: James Aviles Martin, Zev Shlasinger With: Robert Lee Oliver, Donatella Hecht, Neal Rosen

A blood virus makes put-upon housewives go on cannibal rampages. A man has his arm ripped off and shotguns his wife before the main credits. A policeman catches his wife eating their son’s arm and shoots her to pieces. Another woman fattens up her son on milk and mashed potatoes while discoursing on veal calves. A corrupt cop is torn limb from tendon and eaten alive. Two of the monstrous matrons pick a cat out of a dumpster and tear it in two in a scene surely not approved by the ASPCA. Other delights include a severed hand in a refrigerator and a mother/daughter banquet that degenerates into a cannibal orgy. The most rewarding scene has a wife-beating drunk tortured and devoured by his mate. Teenagers hold a council of war and utter such classic lines as “What are we supposed to do, stay here and have our asses chewed out by our mothers?” This savage send-up of suburbia, full of gushing gore and monstrous makeup, is so enjoyable that even flubbed lines and hit-or-miss acting still leave it delectable.

The Fly II

Twentieth Centuiy-Fox, 1989; Color, 105 minutes

Director: Chris Walas Producer: Steven-Charles Jaffe Writers: Mick Garris, Jim and Ken Wheat, Frank Darabont With: Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson, Harley Cross, John Getz

Uninspired directorial debut by FX wizard Chris Walas, the technician who engineered Jeff Goldblum’s stomach-turning descent into flyness in the Cronenberg classic. Stoltz is the spawn of Brundlefly and Veronica, who died during childbirth. Lee Richardson excellently portrays the icy head of the institute that bankrolled Brundle’s experiments and now holds the rights to the teleportation device. He also acts as surrogate dad to Brundlefly, Jr., whose only friend is a sickeningly mangled dog, the victim of a subsequent teleportation experiment gone horribly awry. Stoltz meets employee Zuniga and falls in love with her just as his transformation begins, thus providing us with a replay of the Goldblum/Davis romance of the earlier film, but one which lacks the emotional resonance of their doomed affair. The FX are expert and disgusting, but the script is just a tepid rehash of the Cronenberg him. It also includes some real howlers. For example, what does top gun Richardson plan to do with the fly creature he has helped to nurture? You guessed it: Turn it into a secret U.S. weapon. One can see the arms race beginning all over again as the Russkies start developing laser fly swatters.

Folds of the Flesh

Distributor unknown, 1970; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Sergio Bergonzelli Producer: Sergio Bergonzelli Writers: Sergio Bergonzelli, Fabio de Agostini With: Pier Angeli, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Alfredo Mayo, Fernando Sancho

Incomprehensible noir-ish rip-off of Psycho, seemingly about mixed identities and a murderous mother/daughter slasher team that spends most of the film’s unendurable running time slicing and dicing the various men in their lives. Severed limbs, dismembered bodies, and decapitated heads (not to mention Nazis!) abound between scenes of the women undraping and getting raped by their doomed and sometimes brutish victims. The police finally solve the mystery (something the audience never quite does) and bring the curtain happily down. Former Hollywood star Angeli committed suicide shortly after making the film—purportedly due to a failed love affair, but having been professionally reduced to taking roles in bargain-basement dreck like this surely didn’t help much either. The title refers either to flab or to wounds, we’re not sure which.

Food of the Gods

American International, 1976; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Bert I. Gordon Producer: Bert I. Gordon Writer: Bert I. Gordon With: Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin. Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino, Chuck Courtney

Gordon, that triple-threat creator of some of the trashiest (and most fun) giant-monster-on-the-loose SF/horror films of the fifties, takes on H.G. Wells in this big- budget (for Gordon, that is) nature-gone-mad tale involving—you guessed it—giant-monsters-on-the-loose. The monsters this time around are mutated worms, chickens, wasps, and rats. Befitting the times, the mayhem is a lot more graphically gory than Gordon’s past films, as the giant creatures go about rending and eating most of the cast with rapacious abandon. But the dreadful FX, also handled by Gordon, are definitely on a par with the director’s past work, so the film has a warmly nostalgic feel to it. Add former child evangelist Gortner as the hero and you get a turkey that’s not to be missed. Filmed once before by Gordon as Village of the Giants (1965) and followed by a sequel, Gnaw: Food of the Gods Part II.

Food of the Gods Part 2

A Concorde/Centaur Films Release, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Damian Lee Producers: David Mitchell, Damian Lee Writers: Richard Bennett. E. Kim Brewster With: Paul Coufos, Lisa Schrage, Michael Copeman, Colin Fox

Animal-rights activists, cancer researchers, and giant lab rats clash head-on in this obscure sequel to the Bert I. Gordon trash classic. A doctor turns for help to researcher Coufos when a synthetic growth hormone she’s been giving a little boy turns the kid into an ill-tempered giant. But Coufos bungles the job when his lab rats get a taste of the hormone, grow in size as well, and break loose on campus thanks to some luckless animal-rights activists. A Dirty Harry-type exterminator (“Rat-A-Tak”) is called in, but he gets chewed to death early on. After which the grizzly-sized rats, in a parody of Jaws, launch an underwater attack in the college swimming pool. The eviscerated bodies mount up until the rats are lured into a trap and shot to pieces. But the giant boy has escaped by now, so there’s plenty of room for a Food of the Gods 3. Though this sequel has very little to do with the Gordon film apart from the title and the growth-hormone premise, the FX are definitely on a par. (Your basic rat is placed in a miniature set to create the illusion of a giant rat, and so on.) A.k.a. Gnaw: Food of the Gods Part 2.

Forever Evil

B & S Productions/Framework Films, 1987, Color, 107 minutes

Director: Roger Evans Producer: Jill Clark Writer: Freeman Williams With: Charles Trotter, Howard Jacobsen, Red Mitchell. Tracey Huffman

Fairly well done little Evil Dead rip-off with more thought and characterization than one generally finds in such offerings. Nasty real estate agent Jacobsen is really an immortal worshipper at the feet of some sub-Lovecraftian god called Yog Kothag (“so evil that the other gods ganged up on him and imprisoned him on a dark star”), whom he plans to return to the world through a series of ritual murders committed when Kothag’s star-prison sends out mysterious pulses. His problem—so it seems—is that his evil dead are also evil dumb, and can be fairly easily suckered into missing a victim here and some meat on the hoof there, leaving a pair of survivors (Mitchell and Huffman) to play havoc with the villainous realtor’s scheme. What works about this film is that its mythology is reasonably convincing (at least within the confines of the film), its effects are not cheesy (and a few are genuinely nasty), and both characters and players are refreshingly human and even a bit against type (lead Red Mitchell at first looks like he was picked up at Dorks “R" Us, but grows on you as the film progresses). The only major downside to the film—apart from the central question of its necessity at all, perhaps—lies in its pointlessly confusing ending, where it is unclear who is and is not dead. Still, any film with a realtor as its central villain has to have its heart in the right place.

Foxy Brown

American International, 1974, Color, 94 minutes

Director: Jack Hill Producer: Buzz Feitshans Writer: Jack Hill With: Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Peter Brown, Sid Haig, Kathryn Loder

Nurse Grier hits the urban vengeance trail after white drug dealers gun down her narcotics-agent boyfriend. The first part of the film is interesting but standard fare, with Grier infiltrating a call-girl racket and humiliating ringleader Loder. Along the way she rescues a friend who has stumbled into a lesbian bar (great brawling footage here). Loder’s boyfriend (Brown) and his henchmen capture Grier, and she is gang-raped by the worst that white gangsterdom has to offer. The violence shifts into high gear when Grier takes out one rapist’s eye with a coat hanger and turns another into a human torch. Her brother (Fargas) is shot-gunned, and his girlfriend’s throat is slit open. Grier and her vigilante friends take on the enemy in a bloody gun battle, and one slime ball is graphically beheaded with a plane propeller. This film is most notorious for the scene in which Brown’s member is cut off and delivered to Loder in a pickle jar.

Frankenhooker

Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment, 1990; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Frank Henenlotter Producer: Edgar levins Writers: Robert Martin, Frank Henenlotter With: James Lorinz, Patty Mullen, Charlotte Helmkamp, Louise Lasser

James Lorinz (Street Trash) and former Penthouse Pet Patty Mullen star in this outrageous tale of “sluts and bolts." Directed in a flamboyant style by Frank Henenlotter, creator of the cult classics Basket Case and Brain Damage, it’s the inspiring, romantic tale of a budding mad scientist (Lorinz) who tries to piece his girlfriend (Mullen) back together after she’s been dismembered by a lawnmower. He invents a new form of crack cocaine that blows up prostitutes, whose body parts he recycles, transplanting his girlfriend’s head (which he keeps in a freezer in the garage) onto a stitched-together body. Then, in an homage to Bride of Frankenstein (complete with wedding bells on the soundtrack), he brings her to life in his makeshift mad lab. Compelled by hooker genes, she goes out into the night to play for pay, but unfortunately, her electric personality causes her lovers to explode. Meanwhile, just for inspiration, our mad scientist friend puts a power drill to the strange hole in back of his head and… oh, forget it. There’s no sense in trying to explain it. Suffice it to say this film is funny, raunchy, and outrageous.

Frankenstein 1980

MGD Films, 1973; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Mario Mancini Producer: Benedetto Graziani Writer: Ferdinando di Leone With: John Richardson, Renato Romano, Xiro Papas, Gordon Mitchell, Dalila Parker

A modern-day, man-made misogynist is on the loose in one of the most obscure Frankenstein features ever made. The creature is called “Mosaico,” which is appropriate since his disfigured face looks like a mosaic with its tiles every which way. This guy eviscerates women in slow, loving fashion, brains people with beef bones, and in general makes a nuisance of himself. In the film’s most tasteless scene, a racetrack spectator enters the men’s room and assumes position in front of a urinal. Mosaico creeps up from behind and smashes his face into the wall, profusely splattering blood on the tiles. Papas and Mitchell also starred in Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks the same year. Both flicks are equally lame in terms of craftsmanship and direction, though Frankenstein 1980 will at least be of value to sleaze hounds with its splatter, gruesome vivisection, and “so-bad-it’s-funny” appeal.

Freedom R.I.P.

See Northville Cemetery Massacre

Freeway

New World Pictures, 1988; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Francis Delia Producers: Peter S. Davis, William Panzer Writers: Darrell Petty, Francis Delia With: Darlanne Fluegel, James Russo, Richard Belzer, Michael Callan, Billy Drago

This brainless thriller is about a nutso ex-priest (Drago) who’s convinced Armageddon is coming and decides to speed it up by blowing people’s heads off as he passes them on the freeway. Nurse Fluegel is the widow of one of the victims. Frustrated with the police’s ineptitude in cracking the case (they see no pattern in the killings!), she takes up with a tight-lipped bounty hunter (Russo) and a radio talk show host (Belzer) to whom the killer regularly calls in. Carefully scrutinizing the Book of Revelations, the dynamic trio plots the locale of Armageddon—a cloverleaf intersection of several freeways in downtown L.A.—and vanquish the pernicious padre on their own. One wonders what the writers were thinking about, if anything, when they contrived this piece of junk. The killer stands out like a sore thumb. Bounty-hunter Russo keeps popping up out of nowhere, always in the nick of time. Nurse Fluegel seems to have unlimited flex time, as she comes and goes from her job whenever she pleases. And Belzer is on the air at all times of the day and night. What is he, a one-man radio station?

Fresh Kill

City Lights, 1987; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writer: Joseph Merhi With: Flint Keller, Patricia Parks, Pamela Dixon, Robert Zdar

Aspiring actor Keller travels to LA for an audition and is rejected. He gets a job in a meat market and, while working late one night, meets a strange girl (Parks) who is being pursued by two thugs. Keller saves his own and Parks’ lives by stabbing one of the two thugs to death and splitting the other’s skull with a cleaver. Our heroes then flee the cops, as well as a drug lord who is the brother of one of the dead thugs; Parks’ mom is stabbed to death in reprisal; and Keller’s father and mother are mutilated and shot to death, respectively. Keller and Parks get even in a running battle with so many faceless thugs that it’s hard to keep count of the victims. Keller rips off the drug lord’s money and the drug lord kidnaps Parks. But Keller rescues her with the help of a couple of his L. A. buddies; he throws acid in the sleazy drug lord’s face and shotguns him. As the movie ends, the seemingly victorious Keller and West are gunned down by a mystery assailant who then departs in a chopper. As the preceding description indicates, there’s a lot of violence in this movie. But it’s awkwardly staged, and the plot is incomprehensible half the time and implausible the rest. This makes it very hard to care who’s shooting whom, or why.

Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Paramount, 1989; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Rob Hedden Producer: Randolphe Cheveldave Writer: Rob Hedden With: Jensen Daggett, Scott Reeves, Barbara Bingham, Peter Mark Richman. Kane Hodder

An underwater power cable off Camp Crystal Lake is accidentally severed and the electric current jump-starts Jason (Hodder) on another killing spree. He hops aboard a cruise ship (called “Lazarus”) populated by assorted teenagers on a high school outing to the Big Apple, and begins killing them off. A handful of survivors make it to port; Jason gets several of them, but he’s finally brought down (for good, we hope) in Times Square by the last surviving teens. One of them is a girl plagued by Jason-inspired nightmares since her youth. Jason goes about his murderous business as inventively as usual, employing everything from shards of glass, knives, and a rocker’s electric guitar to a harpoon to slay his victims. The problem is, as the “Jason” series has worn on, so has the MPAA grown considerably tougher in limiting the graphic splatter it will allow the series’ makers to show. The gore FX by Jamie Brown and Martin Becker appear to have been trimmed considerably, making this eighth installment in cinema’s longest-running killer serial even more pointless than previous installments.

Fright Night 2

The Vista Organization. 1988; Color. 108 minutes

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace Producers: Herb Jaffe, Mort Engelberg Writers: Tim Metcalfe, Miguel Tejada-Flores, Tommy Lee Wallace With: Roddy McDowall, William Ragsdale, Traci Lin, Julie Carmen, Jonathan Gries, Russell Clark

The seductive sister (Carmen) of the vampire destroyed by Ragsdale and McDowall in the inexplicably popular first Fright Night moves into a mansion opposite Ragsdale’s college dorm. Bent on revenge, she’s a vampire too, you see, but unlike her brother she comes protected—surrounding herself with several unsavory acolytes, including an amusing manimal creature (Gries) and a Renfield-type (Clark) who devours moths and creepy-crawlies at every opportunity. When Clark is killed in the film’s most disgusting scene, his tummy bursts open and buckets of bugs, maggots, and other icky things tumble out. Aided by his girlfriend (Lin), Ragsdale once again turns to timorous horror movie host McDowall for help, and the trio manages to disintegrate the vampire using a mirror and reflected sunlight. The movie is overlong and lacks suspense, but dense with graphic scenes of blood spurting from necks, impalements, rotting bodies, and Carmen’s erotic probing of the neck wounds of her victims with her ferociously pointed teeth.

From a Whisper to a Scream

See The Offspring

Funeral Home

MPM in association with Wescom Productions, Inc., 1980; Color, 93 minutes

Director: William Fruet Producer: William Fruet Writer: Ida Nelson With: Kay Hawtry, Lesieh Donaldson, Bary Morse, Dean Garbett, Stephen Miller

Heather goes to stay with Grandma, a widow who resides in the funeral home that her late husband operated. Grandma continues to speak about her spouse in the present tense, which Heather and the town-folk dismiss as a reluctance on the part of the older woman to let go of the past. Director Fruet has put together a nice, moody thriller with fine performances, and well-crafted scenes. By no means the least of the film’s many virtues is the performance by Kay Hawtry as Grandma. Even though it becomes clear early on that not all is well with the poor dear, we still like her for her sweetness and self-reliance. She presents us with a fully realized, multi-dimensional character who occasionally provides us with a glimpse into her disturbed mind. Like most people we find funeral homes rather unpleasant places, but this is one time we actually enjoyed our visit!

Fury of the Wolfman

Avco-Embassy, 1970; Color, 85 minutes

Director: J.M. Zambala Producer: Maximiliano Perez Flores Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Perla Cristal, Veronica Lujan

This film brings Naschy’s fifth appearance as reluctant lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. This time he picks up the curse of werewolfism on a trip to Tibet, mutates into a homicidal hair-bag, and tears up his cheating wife and her lover. He is “killed” in a freak accident, and brought back to life by crazed female scientist Cristal. After being flogged by the sadistic mad doctor, Naschy breaks out, tears an innocent student’s neck open, then does a number on some peasants, one of whom bleeds to death after being thrown in a fireplace. Other hijinx in the doctor’s asylum include hand amputation, patients hacked with a hatchet, and attendants torn up by patients. Mean Cristal eventually brings back Naschy’s dead wife as a werewolf and the fur flies in more ways than one. This is even more melodramatic than the average Naschy wolf-fest with its diverse subplots and romantic entanglements; bad dubbing makes it seem even more like a supernatural soap opera. Definitely a minor-league installment in the series. Naschy was soon up to par again in the entertaining Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman.

Galaxy of Terror

New World, 1981; Color. 80 minutes

Director: B.D. Clark Producer: Roger Corman Writers: Marc Siegler, B.D. Clark With: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Robert Englund

A body-count splatterfest set in outer space. Astronauts try to rescue another crew marooned on an eerie planet, but monsters pick them off one by one. A tentacled creature tears the top off one spaceman’s head. The captain is bled to death by critters resembling moray eels. A crystal burrows under Sid Haig’s skin and forces him to hack off his own arm to save himself; the severed arm kills Haig with another handy crystal. A buxom female astronaut is ravished and murdered by a giant worm after her space suit, conveniently enough, has been ripped off. Zalman King is gutted by a humanoid monster; Moran’s bowels burst and her head explodes. There is a pretentious subplot here—some gobbledy-gook about the astronauts’ obsessions and phobias manifesting as the monsters—but let’s face it, folks, this conceit is just an excuse for a lot of graphic bloodshed. The evisceration and a protracted shot of a scalped corpse with part of its skull missing were trimmed to secure an R rating but Galaxy of Terror still delivers the gore groceries.

Gatorbait II: Cajun Justice

Paramount 1988; Color, 95 minutes

Directors: Ferd Sebastian, Beverly Sebastian Producers: Ferd Sebastian, Beverly Sebastian Writers: Ferd Sebastian, Beverly Sebastian With: Jan Mackenzie, Tray Loren, Paul Muzzcat, Brad Kepnick

A mangy bunch of excitable swamp rats invades a Cajun wedding, kidnaps the city-gal bride, and shoots the “coon-ass” (i.e. Cajun) husband. And the fun is only just beginning! After being gang raped, brutalized, and humiliated continually, our heroine escapes into the swamps with one thing on her mind—revenge (a.k.a. Cajun Justice). In all, this is a respectable little entry in the revenge cinema genre. The bad guys are crazy as hell; the locales and local dialects seem authentic; the music is twangy and appropriate; and boat chases through the mysterious and beautiful bayou are a pleasant switch from boring and predictable car chases. So maybe the leading lady’s acting isn't the best, but it’s fun nonetheless to watch her chew up the scenery and shoot up the scumbags.

Geek!

See Backwoods

The Ghastly Ones

JER, 1968; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: Andy Milligan Writers: Andy Milligan, Hal Sherwood With: Veronica Radburn, Maggie Rogers, Haal Borske, Anne Linden, Fib LaBlaque, Carol Vogel, Rich Romanos

Here’s the first of Milligan’s infamous costume horrors, set in Victorian England. Three sisters and their husbands convene on Crenshaw Island for the reading of the family will. This tired premise is given new blood (and guts) when a hooded mutilator starts hacking the heirs with pitchforks, saws, and meat cleavers. A real backyard effort, literally, since this $8,000 horror was shot on Staten Island property owned by Milligan at the time. Of course, that’s the way to go when you set your actors on fire and spatter gore all over the walls. During one nasty murder, Andy’s voice can be heard giving direction in the background. Effects range from fake and obvious to fairly gruesome. These include dismemberment, eyeball-yanking, hanging, bisection, evisceration, stabbing, a cleaver in the skull, and a severed head on a turkey platter. Except for Borske’s on-target portrayal of an abused hunchback, and the performance of the severed head, the acting is comically bad.

Ghosthouse

Filmirage, 1987; Color; 94 minutes

Director: Humphrey Humbert Producer: None credited Writer: Cinthia McGavin With: Lara Wendel, Greg Scott, Mary Sellers, Donald O'Brian

Young people investigate a haunted house and suffer the consequences. The film boasts an eerie atmosphere rare in the splatter genre, with such ghostly manifestations as exploding mirrors, blood running from faucets, a spectral hound, and a phantom girl with an evil clown doll. None of this weirdness, however, gets in the way of the gore. A man’s skull is split with a hatchet; his wife’s eye is punctured by flying glass moments before a knife is shoved through her neck. One trespasser sees a severed head in a washing machine. Another’s throat is slit by a fan blade. Mad caretaker O’Brian (also seen as Doctor Butcher, MD) hammers a mortician’s head in before hanging himself in a graveyard. A hapless victim is stabbed with garden shears, another is guillotined at the waist, yet another falls into an acid pit full of skeletons. Did we forget anything? Probably. A gratuitously graphic, often senseless, totally enjoyable bloodbath.

Ghost Town

Empire, 1988; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Richard Governor Producer: Timothy D. Tennant Writer: Duke Sandefur With: Franc Luz, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Catherine Hickland, Bruce Glover

An atmospheric opening sets the tone. A rich girl on the way to her wedding is waylaid and kidnapped by ghost riders on horseback. Deputy Luz is sent to look for her in a ghost town called Cruz del Diablo. The long-dead corpse of a sheriff rises from the earth and tells him to rid the town of the evil Skaggs. Luz meets the sinister Glover, the blind “Man of Chance,” and blows away two cowpokes, but gets grazed by a bullet. He wakes up in the arms of an attractive (and dead) brunette and gives new meaning to the term “laying a ghost.” Meanwhile, rich bitch Kate (Hickland) is groped by cow-hands and we get a glimpse into the past, when the original sheriff shot Skaggs in the face and was subsequently crucified on a windmill and buried alive. Here, the bad ghosts don't die unless they’re shot with “old things,” i.e. pistols from the eighteenth century. The plot is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, but the mood is more Val Lewton.

Ghoulles II

Empire, 1987; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Albert Band Producer: Charles Band Writers: Charlie Dolan, Dennis Paoli With: Royal Dano, Damon Martin, Phil Fondacaro, J. Downing, Kerry Remser

A reptilian and omnivorous band of growling ghoulies infests a failing carnival spook show called “Satan’s Den”—and guess what? They’re good for business! Minimally entertaining splatstick comedy with its fair share of gags of every kind. Never really gets beyond the Saturday morning cartoon level, so the only way you’ll experience any true chills is to watch it in a cold room. But the sight gags are occasionally amusing, and the story, though predictable, has an awkward and heavy-handed charm, mostly due to the performance of diminutive Phil Fondacaro as a Shakespeare-spouting dwarf. In every other case the creatures out-perform the live actors. The musical score is maddening, the ending is awful, but you could do a lot worse (renting Ghoulies I, for example). Another bit of evidence that no one has yet made a really good movie using, or ripping off, Gremlins.

Gnaw: Food of the Gods Part 2

See Food of the Gods Part 2

Grandma's House

Omega Pictures, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Peter Rader Producer: Nico Mastorakis Writer: Peter Jensen With: Eric Foster, Kim Valentine, Brinke Stevens, Len Lesser, Ida Lee, Furley Lumpkin

When their father dies, Foster and Valentine are sent to live with their deceased mother’s parents. In a precognitive nightmare, Foster sees gramps (Lesser) tying up a young woman (Stevens) in the basement and suspects the kindly old codger may not be so kindly after all. The nightmare proves correct when the same woman shows up at the house and shotgun-wielding gramps handcuffs her inside the family truck. Believing the woman to be in danger, Foster and Valentine set her free, not realizing that she’s a deranged escapee from the local asylum. The psychotic woman knifes a cop who stops by, kills grandma (Lee), then goes after the kids and gramps. Foster explodes a rocket in the basement where the psycho’s hiding, but the fiery pyrotechnics fail to kill her. Grandpa recaptures her and, in a replay of the boy’s nightmare, ties her to a table to perform some kind of hellish surgery. At this point, Foster learns that the woman is actually his supposedly dead mother, who was committed to the loony bin some years before after kindly gramps raped her and she gave birth to the boy. So Foster goes bonkers too and in revenge kills grandpa/daddy with an axe. An overlong bore full of interminable stalk-and-chase sequences.

Graveyard Shift

Paramount Pictures, 1990; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Ralph S. Singleton Producers: William J. Dunn, Ralph S. Singleton Writer: John Esposito With: David Andrews, Kelly Wolf, Stephen Macht, Brad Dourif

Out-of-work drifter Andrews lands a job in a Maine textile mill, where he’s assigned the graveyard shift—keeping the mill’s basement machinery ship-shape and rat-free during the nighttime hours—by nogoodnik foreman Macht. The money’s good, but the job’s a bitch. There are rats, rats everywhere—and a slimy, gaint-sized mutated bat makes matters worse. When Andrews, Macht, and several other workers descend into the bowels of the mill to do some spring cleaning, all hell breaks loose, and everyone falls victim to bloody rat/bat violence—except Andrews, who, in a scene that surely rates a ten on the Barf-o-Meter, escapes by grinding the bat to a squishy pulp in the mill’s machinery. Sound good? It ain’t. Except for Dourif’s deranged cameo as a rat-obsessed exterminator who gets wasted too early on, the acting is uniformly lousy—especially by the overwrought Macht, who sports a Bert and I Maine accent which stands out like a sore thumb (no one else has one). And the disjointed script, which provides little or no motivation for the characters or rationale for what’s going on, is pure gibberish. The appalling rap song played over the closing credits, comprised of snippets of dialogue from the film, should be burned. Expanded from a short story by Stephen King, who should have shown some professional pride by refusing to have his name associated with this piece of trash.

Grim Prairie Tales

Academy, 1990; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Wayne Coe Producer: Richard Hahn Writer: Wayne Coe With: James Earl Jones, Brad Dourif, William Atherton, Lisa Eichhorn

A foppish city fella and a grizzled black bounty hunter share a campfire in the trackless desert wilderness of the American west. As night falls, they begin to swap the ho-hum horror tales that comprise this enticing little exercise in disappointment. Grim Prairie Tales is an excellent example of appearance versus reality. It looks as if it should be a terrific film, but in reality, pardner, it just ain’t! The daring westem-horror genre-crossing promises inventive fun, and the offbeat casting and above-average photography raise our hopes. But, alas, the individual stories lack punch and originality, the music is inappropriate, and the dialogue and performances are anachronistic. In fact, there is only one sequence—no more than thirty seconds of film time—that elevates this production into the “lofty” realms of the splatter film. As a couple is making love, the man disappears into an anatomical void that gives Grim Prairie Tales its glowing moment of tasteless greatness. But in the final analysis, Grim Prairie fails.

Grotesque

United Filmaker's Group, 1987; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Joe Tomatore Producers: Mike Lane, Chuck Morrei Writer: Mikel Angel With: Linda Blair, Tab Hunter, Donna Wilkes, Brad Wilson, Nels Van Patten, Sharon Hughes, Michelle Bensoussan, Charles Dierkop, Guy Stockwell

The eerie opening scene featuring a hooded figure menacing a white-haired old woman turns out to be a clip from the latest work of a special-effects makeup man. The film cuts to his daughter (Blair) and her best friend (Wilkes) driving to his summer place. Accosted en route by a band of vicious punks, they manage to escape, but the punks follow and attack them by night. These scenes are truly harrowing, and create a great amount of tension as Blair manages to escape into the snowy wilderness. But when her deformed-monster brother pops out of his hidden room to avenge these atrocities, Grotesque goes downhill fast. We watch a ludicrous monster murder characters whose lives don’t interest us, while police pointlessly investigate events we’ve already seen first-hand. By the time Blair expires from exposure—about a reel later—you’ll wish the film was over, but Tab Hunter has yet to put in his brief appearance as another deformed-monster relative. By this time the film is tired of itself, and it ends with bad parodies of classic Universal monsters frightening the cast and crew back in the screening room where all this fun began. It was only a movie, you see. Or better yet, you don’t see, unless you’re a hardcore Linda Blair fan.

The Guardian

Universal, 1990; Color, 90 minutes

Director: William Friedkin Producer: Joe Wizan Writers: Stephen Volk, William Friedkin, Dan Greenburg With: Jenny Seagrove, Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell, Brad Hall, Miguel Ferrer, Natalia Nogulich

Beware the film that cannot start without a lengthy set of titles explaining its mythology! With the possible exception of Star Wars, such movies always prove to be self-infatuated, humorless muddles. This one’s a case in point. William Friedkin’s attempt at bolstering his post-Exorcist career and reputation plays like Lair of the White Worm with all the humor surgically excised. Co-writer Stephen Volk proves once again (after The Kiss) that the transformation of his scripts into good movies is entirely dependent on Ken Russell’s directorial prowess—otherwise, as here, they serve double-duty as torture devices. Supernanny Jenny Seagrove is really the high priestess of a Druidic cult. Not content merely to really listen to incomprehensible Jethro Tull tracks on the topic, this lady has a disconcerting tendency to strip off her clothes, smear herself with mud, and (honestly!) get it on with a rubbery animatronic tree. ("Are you saying my apples aren’t what they ought to be?” takes on a whole new meaning here.) Worse, said tree has a taste for sacrificial babies, and therein lies the bulk of the film’s action, as the nanny-from-hell attempts to kill the young offspring of her hideously yuppified employers. (One suspects that the couple would be more upset by an attack on their BMW, but no matter.) This uninvolving nonsense climaxes with the father’s taking a chainsaw (of course) to the offending Arbor Day refugee; the tree spews blood like something out of a Paul Morrissey picture. The film’s funniest moment comes when, as a branch is lopped off the tree, Miss Seagrove’s leg also clatters to the floor. Though severely impeded, she continues to slither about for several more purposeless minutes. As Friedkin himself says in the chapter on The Guardian in Thomas Clagett’s book about the director “None of my films are perfect.” Now, if only Friedkin practiced such understatement in his films.

Hack-O-Lantern

Spencer Films, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jag Mundhra Producer: Raj Mehrotra Writers: Burford Hauser, Carla Robinson With: S. Cummins, Katina Gamer, Carla Baron, Hy Pyke, Patricia Christie, Jeff Brown, Larry Coven, Michael Potts

In this family picture about devil worship, incest, and murder, kindly grandfather Pyke gives grandson Cummins a pumpkin and a toy skeleton. The boy cuts himself carving the pumpkin, licks his finger, and discovers he likes the taste of blood. On Halloween, Cummins’ mother sends her husband to tell Pyke to keep away from the boy, but when the husband discovers devil worshipers in Pyke’s barn, the older man incinerates him with gasoline. Cummins, the product of an incestuous relationship between grandpa and ma, grows up to join the cult. Years later, at another Halloween party, a robed and hooded figure kills Cummins’ girlfriend and another teen. Pyke holds a black mass where a woman is branded on the ass. Two teens make love on a grave. Cummins is ordered to commit a ritual sacrifice but has a crisis of conscience and helps the intended victim escape. Too complex for its own good, with lots of loose ends, Hack-O-Lantern is further plagued by a thin blood count.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

Galaxy, 1989; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard Producer: Ramsey Thomas Writers: Michael Jacobs, Dominique Othenin-Girard, Shem Bitterman With: Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell, Beau Starr, Donald Pleasence, Wendy Kaplan, Tamara Glynn

In one of several false conclusions to this latest installment in the Michael Myers saga, dotty, doddering Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasence) traps the unstoppable killer in chains and beats him over the head with a board, screaming, “Die, die, die!” The viewer will sympathize completely; for, as with Friday the 13th, this series has gone on far too long. Part 5 takes up exactly where Part 4 left off, as murderous Uncle Mike returns to Haddonfield on Halloween to kill his niece Jamie (Harris), who is so psychologically attuned to his presence that she spends most of the movie wimpering and/or screaming annoyingly. He fails to shut her up, of course, but nails the usual array of innocent bystanders with his trusty knife and other assorted instruments of death—for example, a pitchfork, with which he performs his own unique style of coitus interruptus on a pair of hot-bodied teens. The by-the-numbers direction of these and other splatter set pieces offers nothing new. And, of course, the door is left wide open for yet another sequel when Mad Mike is sprung from his jail cell by a mysterious figure in a black cloak and silver-tipped boots. Just who this figure is, we’re not told. Presumably, Part 6 will fill us in. We can hardly wait.

The Hanging Woman

International Artists, 1971; Color, 85 minutes

Director: John Davidson Producer: Bernard Woolner Writer: Jack Daniels With: Stanley Cooper, Vickie Nesbitt Marcella Wright, Catherine Gilbert, Paul Nash

Magic, satanic rites, and plenty of eavesdropping are just the start of this entertaining period piece set in the Scottish hinterlands. At least, we think it is Scotland. The scenery—wherever it is—is quite nice, though the herky-jerky story moves in too many directions. Serge Chekov (Cooper) is a stranger come to town to claim his inheritance. He’s met by the sight of a woman’s body swinging from a tree. After a spate of misdirected action played in true Naschy (“Nash”) fashion—we learn at last about the revivified dead who are tormenting the village. Despite many lapses, there’s lots of value here; the movie has a dated feel that gives the splatter more impact than it would have in a contemporary movie. Nash himself turns in a good performance as the demented gravedigger Igor which looks forward to John Belushi’s in Animal House. The raised dead are used in a restrained, suspenseful manner until the ending, when they’re on screen too much of the time and become more hackneyed zombies. Overall, this film is a good day’s haul of perversions and gory deaths. A.k.a. Return of the Zombies and Beyond the Living Dead.

Hannie Caulder

Paramount, 1972; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Burt Kennedy Producer: Patrick Curtis Writer: Z.X. Jones With: Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Strother Martin, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors

One of the most enjoyable trash westerns ever made. Raquel is raped and left for dead by the bandits who killed her husband. Trained by bounty hunter Culp, armed by gunsmith Lee, and aided by a mysterious man in black, she offs her oppressors in a gunpowder orgy sure to please splatter-’em-up fans everywhere. The violence is so splattery that director Kennedy must have ordered blood-squibs as big as watermelons, but the gore is offset by some grim comedy. Borgnine, Elam, and Martin play the villains like homicidal versions of Larry, Moe and Curly. Welch shoots hot lead and acid one-liners with equal enthusiasm. More horrific hilarity involves the fire fight between Welch and Elam. The bad man’s corpse crashes through a brothel window, plummets two stories, and pins a passing prostitute to the dust. A drunk chortles to madam Dors, “Hey, your sign fell down!” much to her disgust and viewers’ delight.

Hardware

Millimeter Films, 1990; Color, 92 minutes

Director: Richard Stanley Producers: JoAnne Sellar, Paul Tiybits Writer: Richard Stanley With: Dylan McDermott, Stacy Travis, John Lynch, William Hootkins, Iggy Pop

This low-budget but slick and occasionally quite potent Alien/Terminator clone tells of a grim future Earth where humans have become an endangered species, leveled by plague and robots that have turned on their human masters and run-amok. Soldier-of-fortune McDermott comes across the meanest of these lethal cyborgs, a busted-up killing machine with the power to rebuild itself—which it does, going on a murder and mutilation spree climaxing in a ferocious game of cat and mouse with McDermott’s girlfriend (Travis). (The resourceful Sigourney Weaver/Linda Hamilton-type heroine experiences a particularly hair-raising moment when the metal fiend attacks her in the shower—gee, that’s original—and tries to rape her.) The film was reportedly shorn of several minutes of graphically brutal robot versus human violence, as well as some fairly steamy sex scenes, to avoid an X rating. But a ton of gore and a modicum of silhouetted sex remain. As the film’s ads point out: “You can’t stop progress.”

Headhunter

Gibraltar Releasing Organization, 1990; Color, 92 minutes

Director: Francis Schaeffer Producer: Jay Davidson Writer: Len Spinelli With: Wayne Crawford, Kay Lenz, John Fattoh, Steve Kanaly, June Chadwick

A sword-wielding demon blows into Miami, pursuing expatriates from its Nigerian homeland, and lays waste to the city’s African-American population by lopping off heads right and left. Crawford and Lenz play cops assigned to the case, but they spend more time fretting over Crawford’s deteriorating home life and their own repressed love affair than they do the proliferating body count. Fattoh, a professor of Afro-American studies and the black community’s shaman, clues the two in to the supernatural forces behind the crime and gets demonized for his trouble. Crawford suffers nightmares in which Lenz is beheaded, and he is later attacked. All this finally motivates Crawford to get down to business, and leads to a bloody showdown in which he, brandishing a chainsaw, and Lenz, armed with an axe, hack the nasty thing to pieces. Naturally, the final frames reveal that the malevolent spirit isn’t really dead. We get vibrant color photography and wall-to-wall blood, but the uninvolving plot and the actors’ tendency to mumble expository dialogue (or maybe the soundman’s incompetence?) make the film’s 92 minutes an endurance contest.

Headless Eyes

Laviniaque Films, 1971; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Kent Bateman Producer: Ronald Sullivan Writer: Kent Bateman With: Bo Brundin, Gordon Ramon, Kelly Swartz

A starving artist resorts to burglary; his irate victim pops his left eye out with a spoon and we see it dangling down his face during the main credits. Guess who starts terrorizing the Big Apple by killing people and gouging out their ocular orbs with a spoon of his own, then casts their eyeballs in sculpture and displays them in his shop window? (An eyeball mobile even hangs from his ceiling.) Victims include a prostitute, a secretary, and a freshly buried corpse. The eye extractions, like the rest of the film, are primitive but unsettling nonetheless. Other violence includes the battering of an off-duty cop, the slitting of a whore’s throat, and an incident with a drunken husband and wife who laugh at eye-patched Brundin and have their skulls deservedly hammered in. The ending features poetic justice real-life killers just don’t get. Though devoid of production values, this ugly little flick has a grimy atmosphere money can’t buy; take a hot bath after viewing.

Heat Street

City Lights, 1987; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writer: Joseph Merhi With: Del Zamora, Quincey Adams, Wendy McDonald, Yvette Davis

Another look at life in the low lane from the Merhi/Pepin team. A small-time boxer teams up with an auto repo man to fight the Los Angeles gangs, with predictably violent results. The action in the first half consists of rape, savage beatings, and a slow-motion rumble in a pool hall. Later, things get redder and wetter, with a holdup in which five innocent people, including Zamora’s pregnant girlfriend, are slowly blown away; the victims wear light colors, the better to show off the gushing blood. A gunfight has a 400-pound car thief shot in the guts, and numerous punked-up gang members get riddled with slugs. Their leader is pummeled to a pulp in the boxing ring. One character is handcuffed between two posts and blasted full of holes in a scene that gives new meaning to the phrase “shot and hung up to dry.” For viewers who enjoy seeing punks bruised and blasted—and who doesn’t?—this is worth watching every two years or so.

He Knows You're Alone

MGM 1980; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Armand Mastroianni Producer: George Manasse Writer: Scott Parker With: Don Scardino, Caitiin O'Heaney, Elizabeth Kemp, Tom Rolfing, Tom Hanks

Better than many of the early eighties splatter movies, He Knows You’re Alone reminds us of the importance of a good story and sympathetic characters. Murder number one takes place in a film-within-a-film; as we cut from the murder to two young women sitting in the theater watching the on-screen mayhem. The movie is upsetting one of the girls and she wants to leave. Her friend wants to stay. Moments later, a stranger sits behind the two women and runs a knife through the back of the seat and into the woman who wanted to leave. This effective opening is followed by the discovery that the victim was engaged to be married, and a local detective fears that a string of psycho murders involving brides-to-be has just begun. Next, we are introduced to Amy (O’Heaney), an engaged woman whose fiancé is leaving for the weekend. Amy is pursued by Marvin (Scardino), a former boyfriend. As the murders begin, Amy and Marvin become more involved, and it’s clear that she still cares for him—perhaps even more than for her current love. Both characters are well developed (in a quirky bit of writing, Marvin is given a job at the local morgue) and well played. We actually care as much about the lovers as we do about the rampaging psycho—unusual in splatter films, where the gore tends to pre-dominate. Fairly graphic murders ensue, although the blood is kept in check and most of the killings are routine stabbings. A curious sidelight: Two of the victims are men, whom the psycho stabs repeatedly with his very phallic knife. This is an interesting touch, since psychosexual messages of this type are usually reserved for female victims. Another sidelight is Tom Hanks, who shows up in a small part, well before his career took off. In all, this enjoyable film still holds up because the filmmakers remembered to write a script.

Hell Comes to Frogtown

New World Pictures, 1987; Color, 87 minutes

Directors: R.J. Kizer, Donald G. Jackson Producers: Donald G. Jackson, Randall Frakes Writers: Donald G. Jackson, Randall Frakes With: Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman, William Smith, Rory Calhoun

Here’s an entertaining action film that works on a number of levels. The premise is clever and allows ample opportunity for humor, thrills, and good old T&A. It seems that following a major war near the end of the century, the powers that be are interested in replenishing the population to provide fresh cannon fodder. A government agency comprised primarily of women recruits Sam Hell (played by wrestler Roddy Piper) to impregnate healthy and fertile women when and where they can be found! Good old boy Sam has an impressive track record, having left a number of women pregnant in the past. Now he can do for his country what he used to do for fun. Sam ventures into Frogtown—a community of sorts—inhabited by mutants who seem to be frogs in humanoid form (impressive makeup effects by Steve Wang). He is accompanied by two attractive women from the agency, and together they must rescue a group of beautiful women from Toty’s (the frog leader) harem! As silly as it sounds, this flick is immensely entertaining. Piper has the right combination of charm and machismo to work in the central role, and there are a number of well-played characters to lend him support. Notable among these is a juicy character part well-played by veteran actor Rory Calhoun. The writers and directors know how to create a pleasing balance of humor, adventure, science fiction, and thrills. The film obviously cost some money to put together, since the makeup and FX are quite impressive. The movie is far more entertaining in its light-hearted, unpretentious way than many of the inflated-budget genre outings that have come our way in recent years. Let’s hope the sequels are as good.

Hell Island

See Attack of the Beast Creatures

The Helter Skelter Murders

Wade Williams Productions, 1988; Color/B&W, 83 minutes

Director: Frank Howard Producer: Wade Williams Writer: J J. Wilkie, Jr. With: Brian Klinknett, Debbie Duff, Phyllis Estes, Paula Shannon

This stark, low-budget re-creation of the infamous 1969 Manson “family” massacre of actress Sharon Tate and her friends is neither shocking nor insightful, but it is authentic, as well as ponderous as hell. Director/photographer/editor Howard has a still-photographer’s eye for moviemaking, staging every sequence in “real time.” If it actually takes five minutes to tie someone up or ten minutes to navigate a driveway, then that’s how long these sequences last. The film begins in court, as various Manson family members testify about their sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, which is then shown to us in a series of interminable flashbacks. A witness finally takes the stand to tell what happened that fateful night, and the film flashes back once more to the murders, shown in very graphic but equally interminable detail. After that, the film ends abruptly, making the courtroom set-up rather pointless. None of the characters (including Manson) are referred to by name, but we know who they’re supposed to be because the actors are practically lookalikes. (Klinknett could be Tex Watson’s twin brother.) In addition to Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz, the soundtrack boasts the real Manson singing one of his compositions (“Mechanical Man”); like this movie, it stinks.

Henry: Portrait off a Serial Killer

Majjack Productions, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: John McNaughton Producers: John McNaughton, Lisa Dedmond, Steven A. Jones Writers: Richard Fire, John McNaughton With: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold

Debut director McNaughton puts the sting back into splatter with this low-key but relentlessly grim and disturbing study of the day-to-day life of psychopath Henry (Rooker), his sleazeball roommate (Towles) and the roommate’s sister (Arnold), who moves in with the duo to escape a bad marriage, unwittingly jumping from the frying pan into the incinerator. Towles becomes Henry’s companion in murder, photographing the death throes of their victims with a video camera and replaying the tapes to Henry’s ever-increasing annoyance and disgust. When Towles puts the moves on Sis, Henry decides he’s had enough of this low-life and kills him. Confused, Arnold misinterprets Henry’s Norman Bates-style gallantry for love, thinks she’s finally found a man who cares for her, and winds up dead and stuffed in a suitcase beside the road as Henry presses on with his deranged lifestyle. Less a portrait of a serial killer than a sketch of one, this Peeping Tom-style psychofilm, loosely based on the exploits of real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, is gritty and compelling all the same. The murders are presented with an unflinching eye, but McNaughton is more interested in fathoming Henry’s behavior than wallowing in FX. Critics fed up with the antics of Freddy, Jason, and Michael have tended to overrate it a bit—but not nearly as much as the MPAA, which slapped the film with an unfair and wholly unjustified X.

Hide and Go Shriek

Distributor: New Star Entertainment, Inc., 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Skip Schoolnik Producer: Dimitri Villard Writer: Michael Kelly With: George Thomas, Donna Baltron, Brittain Frye, Annette Sinclair, Scott Fults

Yet another entry in the seemingly endless cycle of teenagers-stalked-by-a-mad-slasher splatter. This one is complete with the teens stripping down and jumping into bed together, frequently getting bumped off in the process. The variations here are that the story takes place in the large furniture store (lots of beds for the horny teens) run by the father of one of the kids. A sinister looking ex-con who works for the father is currently living in the store because he has nowhere else to go. Of course, everyone assumes that the rehabilitated criminal is the killer, but we ultimately discover that it is actually an ex-lover of the ex-con, who goes berserk when his former prison boyfriend decides to go straight. Actually, this little thriller is better than some of the movies that it is so derivative of, but if you’re going to do something that’s been done dozens and dozens of times, do it better or do it differently than it has ever been done—or don’t do it at all.

The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher

Program Releasing Corporation, 1979; Color, 71 minutes

Director: Wolfgang Schmidt (Ray Dennis Steckler) Producer: Carol Flynn Writer: Christopher Edwards With: Pierre Agostino, Carolyn Brandt, Denise Alford, Snowy Sinclair

The infamous director of The Thrill Killers and The Incredibly Strange Creatures … hides behind a pseudonym this time around, and we can’t blame him. A warped photographer chokes the life out of trashy models, when he isn’t ogling haggard Brandt or talking to his pigeons—the most intelligent creatures involved with the picture. Drunks who annoy Brandt (the former Mrs. Steckler) end up with their throats cut, gagging blood. The strangler and slasher ultimately go at it in a battle that makes the finale of Bloodthirsty Butchers rousing by comparison. The action is repetitious, the dead soundtrack nothing more than narration and bad music, seemingly post-dubbed. The whole mess is monotonous despite frequent T&A and a high body count. The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher bears little resemblance to the actual crimes alluded to in the title. It also bears no resemblance to professional filmmaking as we know it.

Holy Terror

See Alice, Sweet Alice

Horror of the Blood Monsters

Independent International, 1970; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Al Adamson Producer: Al Adamson Writer: Susan McNair With: John Carradine, Robert Dix, Vicki Volante, Joey Benson

After a rousing (for Adamson) vampire attack, we discover that the vampire scourge originated in outer space. Scientist Carradine and his merry crew fly off in their rocket to investigate; they end up stranded on a remote planet with giant lizards, Cro-magnons, vampire-Neanderthals, bat-demons, and crawfish-men. The planet is actually B/W footage from a bad Filipino flick tinted rancid red and grungy green—a process touted in the ads as “Spectrum X!” The new scenes with Carradine and Dix feature the usual Adamson blend of bad lighting, amateur supporting cast, and cardboard sets. At least the neck-bitings, arrow impalements, spear-stabbings, and some startling cannibalism are as grisly as the archaic GP rating allowed. A.k.a. Vampire Men of the Lost Planet.

Horror of the Zombies

Independent International, 1976; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Amando De Ossorio Producer: None credited Writer: Amando De Ossorio With: Maria Perschy, Jack Taylor, Carlos Lemos, Barbara Rey

Filmed in 1974. Models cast adrift board a ghostly ship that emerges from a perpetual fog bank and are chewed up by the hooded, cannibalistic Knights Templar, or Blind Dead, in this lame third installment of Spanish director De Ossorio’s continuing take on the zombie-ghoul school of splatter pioneered by George A. Romero. Periodicals report the European film as much longer, and gorier, than this American release version. This could be, for there are some very choppy cuts indicating the excision of more than one shot and/or scene. What plot there is mostly centers on the girls’ playing a repetitive game of peek-a-boo with the Blind Dead before getting offed one by one. The Blind Dead are apparently destroyed when their ghost ship (an obviously phony toy model) goes up in flames, but the film was successful enough (in Europe anyway) for De Ossorio to resurrect his bloodthirsty gang once more in Night of the Seagulls (1975).

The Horror Show

United Artists, 1989; Color, 95 minutes

Director: James Isaac Producer: Sean S. Cunningham Writers: Alan Smithee, Leslie Bokem With: Lance Henriksen, Brion James, Rita Taggart, Dedee Pfeiffer, Aron Eisenberg

In the ongoing quest to find a surreal villain on the order of Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, Cunningham and Isaac offer us Brion James as Jenke, an electrical nightmare of the worst kind. Electrocuted for more than 110 murders, demonic killer Jenke returns as some ill-explained manifestation of volts and watts bent on wreaking revenge on the cop (Henriksen) who put him away. The film begins with high tension, but somewhere along the line it begins to short out. There are zaps and shocks enough to keep you interested, and blood and gore enough to keep you satisfied, but the means somehow doesn’t justify the end. Little by little logic starts to intrude; as we watch the end titles, we begin to think, “Oh my, did I miss something? Watts going on?” Electric performances by Henriksen and James coupled with bright flashes of inspired direction fail to rescue the film from this confusion. With competent technicians like Bokem, Isaac and Cunningham on the job, it’s a wonder somebody didn’t figure out how to step-up the voltage. “Alan Smithee” is Hollywood’s all-purpose pseudonym to disguise the real perpetrator’s ashamed identity.

The Horrors of Burke and Hare

New World, 1971; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Vernon Sewell Producer: Guido Coen Writer: Emie Bradford With: Harry Andrews, Derren Nesbitt Glynn Edwards, Dee Shendeiy, Yootha Joyce, Francoise Pascal, Alan Tucker, Paul Greaves, Yutte Stensgaard, Joan Carol

It’s difficult to find the horror in this softcore porn, black-comedy version of the story much better told in the 1959 The Flesh and the Fiends and later retold in the 1985 The Doctor and the Devils. Andrews is Dr. Knox, while Nesbitt and Edwards play Burke and Hare as a poor imitation of Laurel and Hardy. Much of the action takes place in Edinburgh whorehouses. The murderous pair’s wives (Shendery and Joyce) play their roles shrilly and broadly. Director Sewell had seen far better days by the time this farce was made. The production values are solid enough, but there’s very little gore; the accent is decidedly on sex and nudity. The ending is lame, and to make matters worse, there’s a ridiculous title song by a group called The Scaffold.

House by the Cemetery

Almi Pictures, 1981; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Fabrizio de Angelis Writers: Lucio Fulci, Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo With: Katherine MacColl, Giovanni de Nava, Dagman Lassander, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina

A New York City researcher heads for New Whitby, a suburb of Boston, to take up where a dead associate left off. He moves his family into Oak Mansion, a haunted New England manse that everyone still refers to as “Dr. Freudstein’s House” because of the deranged medical man who lived (and killed) there a century ago. Turns out that the undying fiend is still living there—in the cellar. He is up to his same old tricks, mutilating everyone who passes through the house for their body parts to keep himself alive. The researcher’s young son, who possesses a Shining-esque gift for foreseeing dire events, is urged to get away from the hellhouse by a little girl he envisioned he would meet there. When he expresses his misgivings to his parents, they dismiss them as products of his overheated imagination and summarily meet a grisly end. Virtually everyone else dies in this clinker, which consists of very little plot but numerous throat slittings, beheadings, spear impalements, head stabbings, bat skewerings (with scissors), body-part lopping, and severed jugulars erupting like Old Faithful. Typical Lucio Fulci fare, in other words.

The House by the Lake

American International, 1977; Color, 89 minutes

Director: William Fruet Producer: Ivan Reitman Writer: William Fruet With: Brenda Vaccaro, Don Stroud, Chuck Shamata, Richard Ayres, Kyle Edwards

Owing much to Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs and often on a double bill with Last House on the Left, this Canadian-made shocker delivers a few gore groceries of its own. Slimy yuppie Shamata takes model Vaccaro to the country for a weekend; they incur the wrath of Stroud and his country hoodlums and all hell breaks loose. The good news is that the yuppie is properly humiliated and snuffed. The bad news is that Vaccaro is left alone with four rape-happy psychos. The sanguinary slate of atrocities includes shotgun shenanigans, murder by motorboat, and one nasty throat-slashing. One villain goes pearl-diving in quicksand while another is turned into a human torch. All this, and well-made, too; perennial villain Stroud gives his grungiest performance since 1970’s Bloody Mama. Produced by the future director of Ghostbusters. A.k.a. Death Weekend.

The House on Straw Hill

New World, 1975; Color, 82 minutes

Director: James Kenelm Clarke Producer: Brian Smedley-Aston Writer: James Kenelm Clarke With: Udo Kier, Linda Hayden, Fiona Richmond, Patsy Smart Vic Armstrong, Karl Howman, Sydney Knight

Horror veteran Hayden (Blood on Satan’s Claw) all but disowns this film, claiming that the producers “exploited” her by inserting additional sex scenes after she left. But it’s difficult to understand how she couldn’t have known what she was getting into with this tale of kinky sex, revenge, and murder set in the English countryside; clearly no body double was used for Hayden in her nude scenes, which include fairly graphic depictions of masturbation and lesbianism. Novelist Kier and his rather uninhibited lover (Richmond, a former East End stripper) are joined (in more ways than one) by Hayden in their country cottage. Hayden is caught masturbating in the wheat field near the cottage by two men (one of whom is veteran stuntman Armstrong) and proceeds to blow them away with their own shotgun—or so she thinks. During the course of the film, she seduces both Kier and Richmond (the latter in a lesbian scene that goes beyond the bounds of the R rating) and stabs the housekeeper (Smart). Nearly everyone is murdered by film’s end, when we learn that Keir’s most successful novel was actually written by Hayden’s husband, who had committed suicide.

The House on the Edge of the Park

Bedford Entertainment, 1984; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Ruggero Deodato Producer: None credited Writers: Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino With: David A Hess, John Morghen, Lorraine De Selle

Rich yuppies pick up a couple of dull-witted mechanics, bring them to a party, and humiliate them. Hess and Morghen, psychos that they are, reply in kind and the violence escalates from there. If you thought Hess was a bad boy in Last House on the Left, watch his antics here. He simultaneously rapes and strangles a girl even before the main credits. He subjects the yuppies to savage beatings, rape, and razor slicing. One rich boy is flung in a swimming pool; when he tries to climb out, Hess uses him for a urinal. The local virgin stops at the party and is subsequently raped and tortured. Racism, lesbianism, and 9mm castration are also featured. Morghen’s belly is opened with a straight razor. Hess’ eventual execution is one of the longest ever, with lots of screaming and bloody bullet hits. And the surprise ending works fairly well, in spite of some heavy-handed moralizing by the survivors. More deep social commentary from the director of Cannibal Holocaust.

House of Dark Shadows

MGM, 1970; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Dan Curtis Producer: Dan Curtis Writers: Sam Hall, Gordon Russell With: Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, Grayson Hall, Katherine Leigh Scott, Roger Davis, Thayer David

A veritable stew of Universal and Hammer vampire-movie clichés, this big-screen adaptation of the popular daytime soap opera, which ran on ABC from 1966 to 1971, is essentially an updated rip-off of Dracula. Frid assumes the role of the centuries-old vampire released from his tomb by a Renfield-like character so that he can put the bite on a host of unsuspecting New Englanders. David is the Van Helsing character, ultimately vampirized in the film’s single reversal of audience expectations. Scott is the Mina character, a reincarnation of the vampire’s long-lost love, Josette. Hall is the infatuated doctor who tries to cure the vampire of his “disease,” but succumbs to his fangs instead when the creature finds himself growing old. Though the TV soap contained more shadows than gore, the film, despite its PG rating, doesn’t stint in the latter department. Courtesy of FX wizard Dick Smith, bloody necks and impalings abound, especially in the gruesome finale, when the vampire is fatally run through with the help of a crossbow. There’s no character involvement here, just a series of shocks and gory set pieces. The film is also overlong. But it’s slickly done, and Frid makes an excellent vampire.

The House of Usher

21st Century, 1989; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Alan Birkinshaw Producer: Harry Alan Towers Writer: Michael J. Murray With: Donald Pleasence, Oliver Reed, Romy Windsor, Norman Coombes, Rufus Sward, Anne Stradi

Filmed by producer Towers concurrently with his high-camp update of Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, House of Usher is also set in modern times and is arguably even campier. In this variation, Poe’s crumbling house, where hapless vacationer Windsor is terrorized, is rampant with Ushers. Reed plays central character Roderick Usher, who’s less obsessed with death than with sex. He rapes the girl when she’s taking a shower, then lusts after her for the remainder of the film while his less amatory relative Pleasence, an even more diseased nutcase who has a lethal power drill connected to one of his arms, pursues the girl with a different kind of intercourse in mind. As you can see, there’s more Old Dark House than Poe in this merry romp, but if you get off on watching a couple of old horror pros like Reed and Pleasence chew up the scenery, you might still have a good time.

The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare

IVE, 1988; Color, 91 minutes

Director: John Hough Producer: Harry Alan Towers Writers: Clive Trevor, Freddie Rowles With: Romy Windsor, Antony Hamilton, Susanne Sevareid

As the title implies, this is more of a remake of the original 1980 movie than a sequel to it, making the whole affair seem even more pointless. Novelist Windsor takes a much-needed vacation in a remote area of California (the movie was actually filmed in South Africa). Her husband starts carrying on with another woman, while Windsor makes friends with a lesbian (Sevareid). The word “werewolf’ isn't even mentioned until an hour into the film and up to that point we’re forced to listen to deadly, dubbed dialogue. In fact, the entire movie was shot in English but nearly all the soundtrack seems to have been post-synched. Also includes one of those silly freeze-frame endings that leaves the audience saying, “Huh?”

The Howling V: The Rebirth

IVE, 1989; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Neal Sundstrom Producer: Clive Turner Writers: Clive Turner, Freddie Rowe With: Philip Davis, Victoria Catlin, Elizabeth She, Ben Cole, William Shockley, Mark Sivertsen, Stephanie Faulkner, Mary Stavin

A family is slaughtered in a medieval castle, but one baby survives—a werewolf child, of course. Flash forward to Budapest, 1989 and the re-opening of the 500-year-old castle as a tourist attraction. Eight specially selected people are invited—and then picked off one by one. The first two deaths are goreless; all we see is the aftermath of some slashed throats. The plot is obviously based on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. Some brief nudity will keep some people from falling asleep.

The Hunchback of the Morgue

Janus Films, 1972; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Javier Aguirre Producer: Francisco Lara Polop Writers: Javier Aguirre, Jacinto Molina [Paul Naschy] With: Paul Naschy, Rosanna Yanni, Vic Winner, Maria Perschy, Alberto Dalbes

One of Naschy’s best films. He plays a grotesquely misshapen hospital-morgue attendant who falls in love with a dying patient (Perschy). When she expires and is hauled off to the morgue for dissection and study by several medical students, he goes wild, murders them all with an axe, and stashes her body in his underground home. The plot thickens, the blood congeals, and hordes of rats run wild feasting on decaying corpses. A mad scientist (Dalbes) agrees to resuscitate the hunchback’s dead love if he will supply the bargain-basement Dr. Frankenstein with bodies to feed a cannibalistic creature he is stitching together. At first the hunchback steals corpses from the morgue, but when the supply runs out, he starts kidnapping live victims. One of them, a sympathetic psychiatrist (Yanni), persuades the lovesick hunchback he’s wasting his efforts because the psycho scientist has no intention of reviving the dead girl. Convinced, the murderous hunchback springs into action and absolves himself of his sins by slaying the scientist and his hungry creature, then perishing in a vat of acid. This high-gore stew blends ingredients from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Body Snatcher, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein and numerous other genre films quite effectively (actor/co-writer Naschy is obviously a big fan of classic American horror films). As usual, however, the dubbing is terrible.

I Hate Your Guts

See Fight for Your Life

Igor and the Lunatics

Troma, 1985; Color, 79 minutes

Director: Billy Parolini Producers: Jocelyn Beard, Billy Parolini Writers: Jocelyn Beard, Billy Parolini, Tom Doran, Brendan Faulkner With: Joseph Eero, Joe Niola, Mary Ann Schact, T.J. Michaels

Back in the 1960s, a hippie cult leader has stray disciples murdered. When he gets out of the slammer in 1983 and hooks up with two of his high priests, the poor man’s Manson takes up where he left off. Soon the wilds of Putnam County, New York, are strewn with bodies, whole and piecemeal. People are transfixed with arrows, stabbed with pitchforks, and have their throats tom open. A woman is pierced with an ice pick, then hacked below the belt with a machete. Igor strips, slashes, beats, and eviscerates a hitchhiker, then preserves the moment with a Kodak. One of the villains is shot through the skull with a crossbow bolt. The film’s most notorious set piece has a woman cut in half lengthwise, from the crotch up, in a sawmill; this scene is repeated twice in the first ten minutes. Igor is confusing the first few viewings; it took a while for the filmmakers to finish it, and several characters are played by different actors; some characters switch names for no apparent reason. Still, this is probably the best Manson movie ever filmed in Carmel, New York.

Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia

Mount Everest Entertainment, 1976; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jean Lafleur Producer: Julian Parnell Writer: Marven McGara With: Dyanne Thorne, Michel Morin, Tony Angelo, Terry Coady, Howard Mauer

This is one of the better entries in the so-so series. It finds Ilsa (Thorne) commanding Gulag 14 in Siberia in 1953. We soon learn that she hasn’t lost her knack for stylish sadism. Two escaping prisoners are punished with death. One is impaled through the back of the neck with a spear that comes out of his mouth. The other has his skull crushed with a giant mallet. Ilsa has also acquired a pet: a man-eating Siberian tiger which she keeps well fed with any other prisoners who incur her wrath. When she’s not torturing them with electro-shock or dipping feverish prisoners into icy lakes, Ilsa dances with her Cossack guards or rides them like horses, urging them on with spurs and a whip. A prisoner spurns Ilsa’s seduction, so she feeds him to the tiger. Escaping prisoners are herded into a barracks, locked in, and burned alive. The film then jumps forward to the 1977 Montreal Olympics. Ilsa is now running a brothel, a cover for more torture. She’s trying to take over a gangster’s empire while still pursuing the one prisoner who escaped her pet Tiger at the Gulag. In between, a Soviet agent pursuing Ilsa dreams that a woman castrates him with her teeth. Another character meets a horrible death by snowblower. Ilsa throws a party and it’s crashed by white clad, ninja-like Soviet commandos. But despite the commandos’ efforts, “The bitch has escaped again.”

Ilsa, The Wicked Warden

Cinepix, Inc., 1977; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jess Franco Producer: Jess Franco Writer: Jess Franco With: Dyanne Thorne, Lina Romay, Tania Busselier, Angela Ritschard, Peggy Markoff, Ester Studer, Howard Mauer, Eric Falk

This is the weakest film in the “Ilsa” series, and also the sleaziest, thanks to the triple-threat Mr. Franco. In this one, Ilsa runs a jail in the jungle for female sexual deviants, but it’s actually a political prison. A young woman, whose sister disappeared after being sent to the prison, has herself committed in order to investigate. There, she sees Ilsa making love to a female inmate by sticking pins into her breasts and belly, then pushing them home with an embrace. There’s a load of lesbianism, filthy dialogue, and a naked “cat fight” in the showers. Ilsa ties the heroine up, injects her with something and then applies electric shocks to her temples. Meanwhile, Ilsa’s right-hand man has been filming everything and selling it as pornography. (Could this be Franco’s stab at self-criticism?) Ilsa whips a naked inmate and then parades her own nude body before a government official, whom she later beds down and turns on with tales of torture. Then later, she orders the male prisoners to rape all the female inmates. This is also secretly filmed. The heroine finally finds her sister, who has been horribly scarred. Ilsa discovers them and vows that they’ll never live to tell the tale, and she proceeds to suffocate the heroine’s sister with a plastic bag. At the climax, the female inmates attack Ilsa en masse, ripping her to shreds with their bare hands. This is intercut with scenes of lions and tigers tearing and masticating their prey. A.k.a. Wanda, the Wicked Warden.

I, Madman

Trans World Entertainment, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Tibor Takacs Producer: Rafael Eisenman Writer: David Chaskin With: Jenny Wright, Clayton Rohner, Randall William Cook, Steven Memem, Stephanie Hodge

Aspiring actress and bookstore clerk Wright develops a fascination with the bloody works of an obscure horror novelist named Malcolm Brand, whose sadistic plots come startlingly alive in her imagination, and then for real. Turns out the presumably dead author was a schizo who called his books “nonfiction confessionals” because their plots and characters were dictated to him by deadly Lovecraftian creatures “from beyond.” Mutilated bodies pile up as Wright tries to convince her cop boyfriend Rohner that the deranged lead character in Brand’s last book I, Madman has come to life—or may be Brand himself—and is responsible for the killings. Rohner doesn’t believe her, of course, until the conclusion, where the Phantom-of-the-Opera-like fiend almost kills both of them. Wright finally gets the bright idea to unleash an even more lethal character from one of Brand’s books to dispatch him. Sound stupid? Perhaps. But Takacs’ imaginative, atmospheric, and suspenseful direction make these bizarre events unfold quite credibly. That, plus a literate script, good acting, and a musical score that’s part Bernard Herrmann, part classical, and part Big Band make I, Madman a winner.

The Immortalizer

Film West, 1988; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Joel Bender Producer: Fredrick Wolcott Writer: Mark M. Nelsen With: Ron Ray, Melody Patterson, Bekki Armstrong, Chris Chrone, Bo Byers

Slurpy brain transplants, flesh-eating geeks, body snatchers that look like disinterred dirt bags, and an undraped heroine highlight this gore-filled but distinctly low-level Re-Animator clone. Ron Ray (standing in for Jeffrey Combs’ more animated Herbert West) plays a loony-tunes scientist whose trick is not re-animating the dead but giving the near-dead nubile young bodies to walk around in (shades of John Frankenheimer’s Seconds). He gets these nubile young bodies by kidnapping local teenagers and spiriting them to his hideaway clinic under the non-watchful eyes of blockheaded sheriff Byers. As in Re-Animator, there’s a certain amount of over-the-top spoofery going on here, but the infrequent chuckles don’t approach the rollicking camp humor of the earlier film. Re-Animator's occasional chill factor is also woefully absent. Still, this film does boast a high gross-out factor, which is something in its favor.

Incubus

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color, 92 minutes

Director: John Hough Producers: Marc Boyman, John M. Eckert Writer: George Franklin With: John Cassavetes, John Ireland. Kerrie Keane, Duncan McIntosh, Helen Hughes

A small town in Wisconsin is plagued by a series of gruesome sex murders—actually the work of an incubus, a demonic spirit that assumes human shape to go about its plundering business. The late John Cassavetes (who turned increasingly to slumming in low-budget gorefests like this one to finance his own directorial projects) plays the stalwart town doctor, who, with Sheriff Ireland, attempts to ferret out the culprit and bring down the demonic rapist/killer. The incubus piles up a considerable body count before Cassavetes brings it to bloody justice—apparently. But then, in a not-so-surprising twist, he discovers the real fiend a lot closer to home. Director Hough and FX chief Colin Chilvers pour on the Exorcist-inspired splatter in frantic fashion—perhaps to disguise the lack of plot and suspects. Based on a novel by Ray Russell which is even more gruesome and bloodthirsty than this movie, and a lot kinkier as well.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Paramount Pictures, 1989; Color, 126 minutes

Director: Steven Spielberg Producer: Robert Watts Writer: Jeffrey Boam With: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, Julian Glover, John Rhys-Davies

“Lucasberg” cut down on the usual quota of gore and revulsion in this supposedly final installment of their blockbuster Indiana Jones series, but enough of it remains to keep things lively. Their splatter mentality hasn’t left them, though, as they continue to feed off every action-adventure film and serial ever made to keep the plot perking, including James Bond (this time with the original 007 himself in a supporting role) and their own previous Jones movies. The Nazis are back as Indy tracks down the Holy Grail and his kidnapped father (Connery), his way thwarted by the usual perils and booby traps, not to mention rats. The conclusion has pure-of-heart Indy almost getting away with the prize until God snatches it back again via a divine earthquake. In between, various villains are shot, impaled, beheaded, ground under tank treads, and blown out of the sky. One even rots away from instant old age after drinking from the wrong Grail. A prologue (featuring River Phoenix as the young Indy) shows how our stalwart hero got his trademark hat and whip, as well as his fear of snakes. Ford continues to confuse facial tics and grimaces for acting, but Connery is great, the locations are beautiful, and the excitement is nonstop. On par with the first film in the series—and at least there are no obnoxious kids this time around.

Inhumanities

Distributer unknown, 1988; Color, 70 minutes

Director: None credited Producer: Bruce J. Kelton Writer: None credited

Another pretender to the throne previously occupied by Faces of Death, this miserable barf bag is better written and narrated than the execrable Death Faces IV, for what that’s worth. Much of the footage looks like fifth-generation videography, but at least the natives in this jungle setting do things more outrageous than dance and beat sticks together. The sight of a witch doctor performing open-skull brain surgery is especially harrowing. Other delights include a baby giraffe being attacked by hyenas, and a wounded jaguar beset by crocodiles—though we can’t help but wonder how it got wounded and within reach of the crocodiles to begin with. One laughably fake scene has a “crock” ostensibly chowing down on a hapless native. The best scenes show of entrail-munching cannibals and the execution of rapists after the battle of Stanleyville. These scenes, cribbed from Trap Them and Kill Them, Jungle Holocaust, and Africa, Blood and Guts may barely fool the uninitiated and are par for the course in a production like this.

Inn of the Damned

Distributor unknown, 1975; Color, 95 minutes

Director: Terry Bourke Producers: Terry Bourke, Rod Hay Writer: Terry Bourke With: Alex Cord, Judith Anderson, Michael Craig, John Meillon, Joseph Furst, Robert Quilter

Violent, psycho-killer(s) “western” set in the late nineteenth century Australian outback. The inn of the title is really a run-down way station for stagecoach passengers who get waylaid by the murderous Anderson and her equally violence-prone husband (Furst), two demented desert rats seeking a bizarre form of retribution for the deaths of their offspring at the hands of prison escapee Quilter. On the plus side, there’s a good international cast of Australian, English, and American actors, and nice scenery. But the pace is too sluggish and the action too dull to lift this formula plot above the norm.

Inquisition

Anubis, 1976; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy) Producer: None credited Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Ricardo Marino, Monica Randall

Having jumped on every other horror bandwagon, Naschy/Molina now strays into witch-burner country. As a fanatical French judge, Naschy does a great job of ridding the world of witches until he sees the busty young Randall. Overcome with lust, he has her fiancé murdered. She uses the black arts to find out who ordered the slaying, then seduces Naschy before turning him in to his colleagues. He gets his in an ending reminiscent of Ken Russell’s The Devils. Loads of nudity and violence keep the pace from flagging. Rural scenery includes scarred plague victims and maggot-blown corpses hanging from trees. Witches are burned, pricked with needles, and tortured on those perennial favorites, the wheel and the rack. One is seared between the breasts with a hot coal before her nipple is pulled off. A nude woman’s throat is slashed at a Black Mass. Naschy’s one-eyed servant tries to rape a local lovely and winds up with a sickle embedded in his stomach. While not nearly as grand as Russell’s masterpiece or Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General, Inquisition is hard-hitting, well-mounted, and evokes a true medieval atmosphere.

Into the Fire

S.C. Entertainment, 1989; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Graeme Campbell Producer: Nicolas Stillada Writer: Jesse Ballard With: Art Hindle, Olivia D’Abo, Lee Montgomeiy, Susan Anspach

What we have here is a kind of bargain-basement Double Indemnity with T & A and no talent. Drifter Art Hindle wanders into town one day and is immediately given employment of a very non-specific nature by shady Lee Montgomery. No sooner does Hindle arrive at Montgomery’s place than the negligee-clad Mrs. M. (Anspach) coos, “I hope you’re good with your hands.” Having apparently never seen a movie in his life, Hindle takes no notice of the implications and soon finds himself in all manner of compromising situations with the lady of the house, who seems to specialize in wandering around in the snow wearing only a top coat (strategically placed so that she keeps popping out of it). In the meanwhile, he falls in lust with bubble-headed waitress Olivia D’Abo and soon is shacking up with everything in sight except his dog (and we’re not so sure about that). When Anspach offers him 500 grand to arrange an “accident” for her hubby, Hindle finds it hard to refuse, especially since D’Abo thinks this a nifty idea. But it takes Montgomery’s murder of Hindle’s dog to turn the trick. In an unbelievable series of twists, turns, and twisted turns, Hindle finds himself blown up instead of his victim, and we discover that both women and Montgomery are involved in an overly elaborate insurance scam. Looking like Oliver Reed after his execution at the stake in The Devils, Hindle staggers around purposelessly, startling Montgomery into crashing a truck into a tree and Anspach into blowing a hole through D’Abo, before falling to her own death. After this outburst of carnage Hindle himself expires on D’Abo corpse. Very little of this makes much sense (there’s an hysterical bit where Anspach freaks out and blasts away at her houseful of stuffed wildlife—reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin in One A.M. with a pump shotgun), and even less of it is interesting. The splatter is minimal (stuffed animals don’t go splat)—limited to a severed finger (which the investigating officer keeps in his pocket!), a charred Hindle, a few sleazy dream images of D’Abo with gobs of blood oozing from her mouth, etc.

I Was a Teenage Zombie

Priclean Motion Pictures, 1986; Color, 90 minutes

Director: John Elias Michalakis Producers: Richard K. Hirsh, John Elias Michalakis Writer: James Martin With: Michael Ruben, Steve McCoy, Kevin Nagle, George Seminara, Peter Bush

I Was a Teenage Zombie looks like it was directed with a sledge hammer. Almost everything is overstated and overdone, which is too bad considering the potential here. The story is a horror spoof involving the accidental killing of neighborhood drug dealer Mussolini (McCoy) by a group of high school students. In an attempt to cover up the misdeed the gang dumps the body into the polluted river. The body, now a zombie reanimated by the radioactive wastes in the river, returns to track down the kids who killed him. Mussolini kills Dan (Ruben), one of the group’s ringleaders, and the survivors hit upon the idea of dumping Dan’s body into the river on the assumption that they should fight zombies with zombies. This situation creates some humorous moments. But because the production is so low-budget, the director and writer seem unable or unwilling to use any subtlety or finesse in developing the gags. Michael Ruben, who plays Dan, is engaging and even likable as a green zombie, but the filmmakers give him very little help. To make matters worse, most of the cast overacts badly and Steve McCoy gives what may very well be one of the worst performances in screen history. His constant mugging and eyeball rolling really have to be seen to be believed. Some impressive gore effects are worth watching—we see a tongue ripped out and a face literally tom off—but for the most part the film represents a decent idea cut short by lack of money, talent, and experience.

Isle of the Fishermen

See Screamers

The Jade Jungle

See Armed Response

Johnny Flredoud

Entertainment Ventures, 1977; Color. 90 minutes

Director: William A. Castleman Producer: David F. Friedman Writer: David F. Friedman With: Ralph Meeker, Victor Mohica, Frank De Kova, David Canary, Sacheen Littlefeather, Christina Hart

This modern-day revenge western has a plot reminiscent of Nevada Smith. Native American Mohica (who’s actually Puerto Rican) leaves the army, returns home to his tribe, and incurs the wrath of a powerful white rancher (Meeker) by falling in love with the man’s daughter (Hart) who then dies in childbirth. In violent retribution, Meeker unleashes his goons, who rape and kill a pretty Indian schoolteacher (Littlefeather, whom you may remember from the 1972 Oscar ceremony where she declined the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando.) Pursued by the law, Mohica gets even with Meeker and company by scalping one, stuffing another’s head in a sack of live rattlesnakes, cleaving the head of yet another with a tomahawk, shoving a stick of dynamite in a fourth’s pants, and gouging the eyes out of another whom he then leaves for vulture bait. In the end, the law lets Mohica go because he was so obviously provoked. This was writer-producer Friedman’s swansong to his splatter-movie career, which began with Blood Feast.

Jungle Holocaust

Erre Cinematografica, 1976; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Ruggero Deodato Producer: Giorgio Carlo Rossi Writers: Tito Carpi, Gianfranco Clerici, Renzo Genta, Giancarlo Rossi With: Massimo Foschi, Me Me Lay, Ivan Rassimov

This cannibalistic horror is one of the sickest films ever made, as oilman Foschi survives a plane crash only to become the plaything of ferocious Amazon natives. The usual mutilations and animal cruelty are included, as well as bathroom antics, and the feeding of a fetus to a crocodile; the luckless reptile is later garroted on camera. Rassimov and Me Me Lay were fixtures in the Italian cannibal cycle. Ms. Lay’s main claim to fame is her sadistic murder at the hands of the natives; ticked off at her helping the hero, they slice open her abdomen and load it with red-hot coals. By the way, this movie may not be suitable for young children.

Junior

Palan Entertainment, 1984; Color, 82 minutes

Director: Jim Hanley Producer: Don Carmody Writers: John Maxwell, Don Carmody With: Suzanne DeLaurentis, Linda Singer, Jeremy Ratchford

Two tough, gorgeous parolees migrate to the country and are harassed by the local rednecks. The worst offender is Junior, a muscle-bound moron who opens beer bottles with his teeth. His torment of the girls and their friends amuses his slobbering, equally degenerate mother to no end. One woman’s face is smeared with worms and a pet dog is gutted, then nailed up in a doorway. DeLaurentis’ boyfriend is noosed and dragged across the lake by motorboat. Junior’s leg is slashed open and he gets staked in the lower belly. Ultimately he is hung up in a net, battered with a two-by-four, shot, and torched. Veteran gorehounds will immediately spot the homages to, or rip-offs of, Mother's Day, I Spit on Your Grave and numerous others.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Trans World Entertainment, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Stephen Chiodo Producers: Edward Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo, Charles Chiodo Writers: Charles Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo With: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder. John Allen Nelson, Royal Dano, John Vernon

Cosmic Bozos invade the Earth in this splatstick spoof of everything from The Blob, Gremlins, and Alien to The Greatest Show on Earth. The hilarious yet creepy-looking Klowns (wonderfully designed by Charles Chiodo, who also plays one) zap people with guns that spin victims into cocoons of yummy cotton candy, as well as death-dealing popcorn bazookas and flesh-melting custard pies, turning the sleepy California town of Santa Cruz into a three-ring circus. In a parody of Night of the Living Dead’s “shoot ’em in the head” theme, several local teens and a young cop discover the secret to the Killer Klowns’ vulnerability—and shoot ’em in their bulbous red noses, dispatching their leader, the lumbering King Kong-like Master Klown, and saving the day. Not as scary (except to very young children) or as funny as it might have been; still, there are some chills and several solid belly laughs. John Vernon’s deadpan fascist cop (“I survived Korea, I can survive this bullshit!”), whom the Klowns turn into a bloodstained ventriloquist’s doll, is especially good, as are the FX. Special gems: the scene where one of the Klowns lures some onlookers with a deadly (and hilariously absurd) game of hand silhouettes; the parody shock epilogue, where the not-quite-vanquished Klowns take a parting shot at the heroes (and the audience) with some custard pie.

Killing Spree

Film Around the World, 1990; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Tim Ritter Producer: Al Nicolodi Writer: Tim Ritter With: Asbestos Felt, Courtney Lercara, Raymond Carbone, Joel D. Wynkoop, Rachel Rutz

Husband Felt wants wife Lercara to stay home and be a good old-fashioned fifties-style hausfrau. But since he’s slightly demented, he imagines she’s having affairs with all his neighbors and visitors. So he launches a campaign to murder the “lovers.” The attempts at humor are juvenile, and mostly of the bathroom variety, and the musical score is really awful. In a visual pun, Felt imagines his wife “giving head” envisioning giant lips that literally encircle a man’s bald head. This scenario is shot exactly like a hardcore porn film; the “meat shots” are hallucinatory scenes announced by flashing red lights. The acting is amateurish throughout. Various atrocities include: Felt’s cutting off a girl’s head and French-kissing it; a ceiling fan that gives a handyman a very close haircut; and, most revolting of all, a scene in which Felt strings up a TV repairman, pulls out his innards, and wires them to the TV set to make his body dance. Felt also buries a lawn maintenance man up to his neck, stuffs socks in his mouth, and runs a lawnmower over his face and hands. And just for fun, he thrusts a screwdriver into one man’s skull, announcing: "You screw my wife, I screwdrive your head!” The very busy Felt also drives a pickaxe through a lady’s throat and rips out her flesh. At the not-so-riveting climax, all the victims come back to life, Felt gets bitten in the crotch by a disembodied head, and beaten with a ripped-off arm. Appalling—and not in a good way.

The Kiss

Tri-Star, 1989, Color; 105 minutes

Director: Pen Densham Producers: Pen Densham, John Watson Writers: Stephen Volk, Tom Ropelewski With: Joanna Pacula, Meredith Salenger, Mimi Kuzyk, Jan Rubes

Anyone who doubted that nearly everything good about Ken Russell’s Gothic was the direct result of the Great Man himself need only see The Kiss to settle those doubts, since Gothic screenwriter Stephen Volk also penned this childish confection of black magic. As always with Volk, the story proper cannot get underway without an excessive prologue—here, at least, it’s a filmic one rather than a series of explanatory titles. The specious mythology on which this Volkian premise works has to do with some slimy parasitic nuisance that must inhabit a human being to survive (it’s passed via the title’s kiss, as in Cronenberg’s They Came From Within). Problems arise for two reasons: 1.) The creature kills its host, cutting down on anxious volunteers, and 2.) Since it inhabits a corpse, the shell tends to decompose, which means it needs new housing at fairly brief intervals. (So the thing’s latest home comes calling on her immediate family to find a fresh victim.) However, since the lady’s sister knows of the plot, she has to be put out of the way early on—in a bizarre graphic sequence in which a car falls on her—and her leg tastefully rolls away! (Considering a similar gag in The Guardian, one wonders about Volk’s predilection towards run-away—or rollaway—limbs.) Most of the plot centers upon the succubus’ attempts to pass on her gift to her niece. Ultimately, she fails, thanks to a clever neighbor and the novel use of a gas barbecue grill. Chances for falling asleep prior to this are strong. There’s a good bit of carnage and goo along the way, but not enough to justify the lengthy running time. This said, you gotta admire any film in which a character can summarize Josef von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus thus: Dietrich’s sleeping with Cary Grant to get the money for her wimpy husband’s operation, adding the terse summation, “Some sacrifice.” Now that’s putting classic cinema into perspective—and you heard it in an upscale splatter opus first.

L.A. Crackdown

City Lights, 1987; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writer: Joseph Merhi With: Pamela Dixon, Patricia Parks, Kita Harrison

A well-intentioned policewoman takes two teenaged crack addicts under her wing in hopes of reforming them. The girls soon revert to type. One steals whatever Dixon hasn’t nailed down and goes back to her buddies on the street; the other seduces Dixon’s husband. Both wind up dead; the more promising of the two overdoses and her corpse is found next to a garbage dumpster. Dixon wises up and realizes that the final solution to the crack question comes from the barrel of a high-caliber pistol. So she takes on the big dope-dealers with a .45. One sleazebag has about twenty holes blown into him, and each wound gushes like a red Niagara Falls. The plot is more involving than that of many other of the Merhi/Pepin team’s gorefests, but the camera noise on portions of the soundtrack is somewhat annoying. At least there is plenty of gunplay and gory blood-squibs to enjoy, if you can sit through the heroine’s “Boys’ Town” (or Girls’ Town) sentiments until the violent end. Followed by—what else?—L.A. Crackdown II.

Lady Frankenstein

New World Pictures, Inc., 1973; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Mel Welles Producer: Mel Welles Writer: Edward Di Lorenzo With: Joseph Cotton, Sara Bay, Paul Muller, Peter Whiteman, Herbert Fux, Mickey Hargitay

Bay plays the driven, liberated, and rather attractive daughter of the old Baron himself (Joseph Cotten) in this entertaining Hammer-esque splatter-feast. Returning home as a surgeon, Lady F. Frankenstein’s monster, who’s rather ugly, with one lidless eye bugging out, soon comes alive and wastes no time in killing the Baron and terrorizing the countryside with some mildly graphic murders. Lady Frankenstein and the late Baron’s assistant, Charles (Muller), decide to set a monster to catch a monster. Our liberated mad lady doctor seduces the local hulking idiot and Charles suffocates him in the act, allowing Ms. F. to transfer Charles’s mind into the studs. The new monster and the old one duke it out, and to the victor go the spoils—she promptly receives retribution for her MacBethian machinations. Didn’t Daddy tell her not to play with dead things?

Lady, Stay Dead

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color, 95 minutes

Director: Terry Bourke Producer: Terry Bourke Writer: Terry Bourke With: Louise Howitt, Deborah Coulls, Chard Hayward, Roger Ward, James Elliott

Sleazy Australian entry in the eighties flood of Halloween/Friday the 13th clones about a bearded, myopic, sexually repressed gardener (Hayward) who gets his jollies by getting it on with an inflatable rubber doll. When the doll no longer proves satisfying to his sexual appetites, he seeks work with various comely lasses in the neighborhood, ostensibly to prune their hedges but lusting for rape instead. When they resist his advances, he kills them. His last victim (Howitt) survives, and Hayward goes to his splattery reward. But like the lady of the title—not to mention Michael and Jason—he won’t stay dead, thus paving the way for future sequels. If there were any, mercifully, we missed them.

The Last Horror Film

Twin Continental, 1983; Color, 87 minutes

Director: David Winters Producers: David Winters, Judd Hamilton Writers: Judd Hamilton, David Winters, Tom Klassen With: Caroline Munro, Joe Spinell, Judd Hamilton, David Winters

Late great sleazeball Spinell is Vinnie Durant, a deranged fan who travels to the Cannes Film Festival to make a fright flick starring Jana Bates (the under-employed Munro.) When Bates and her producers (understandably) brush Vinnie off, he proceeds to make mincemeat out of anybody who stands between him and his mad dream. Like Leatherface, this dude wields a mean chainsaw. Unfortunately, outrageous scenes of topless sunbathers and hit-or-miss gore are interspersed with stretches of boredom. References to John Hinckley abound, as if the filmmakers are proud of the association. The film’s one stab at brilliance has Munro clad in a bath towel and screaming for her life as Spinell pursues her through a mob of onlookers who hail the scene as the greatest publicity stunt ever.

The Last Slumber Party

B and S. Productions, 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Stephen Tyler Producers: Bill F. Blair, Betty S. Scott Writer: Stephen Tyler With: Jan Jensen, Nancy Meyer, Joann Whitley, Danny David, Lance Descourez, Paul Amend

About a third of the way through this glorified made-for-video flick, one of the “characters” announces, "This is not fucking funny—I’m not taking any more of this shit.” Sage advice indeed. Writer-director Stephen Tyler (presumably no relation to the Aerosmith lead singer) here offers us something from somewhere beneath the bottom of the barrel. This very lame madman-on-the-loose thriller is cursed with an atrocious script, generic music more suitable to a porno film, no acting, and even less direction. Even the gore FX are lamentable, since our maniac (played—if that is the word—by Mr. Tyler himself) does little more than slit throats with a trick scalpel that leaves a small trail of blood on the throats of his remarkably nonchalant victims. (People in this film tend to edge their way around corpses with less concern than they might show for the pile left by an unhousebroken Lhasa Apso.) The production’s one major gore effect comes very late and is nothing to give Herschell Gordon Lewis cause for pause. Judging by the amazing amount of dirt evident on the screen in a number of shots, one assumes that The Last Slumber Party was made at least partially on 16mm, but the film is ugly enough to have been shot completely on a half-inch camcorder. A bit of wit, a sense of style, or even the efficient no-frills approach of The Slumber Party Massacre might have made a difference here, but these attributes are nowhere to be found.

The Laughing Dead

Skouras Pictures, 1990; Color, 90 minutes

Director: S.P. Somtow Producer: Lex Nakashima Writer: S.P. Somtow With: Tim Sullivan, Wendy Webb, Patricia Roskowick, Premika Eaton, Krista Klein, Gregory Frost, Ryan Effner, S.P. Somtow

Despite its title, this debut feature by popular horror writer S.P. Somtow (Moon Dance, etc.) can’t quite make up its mind whether it’s sending up the genre or playing it straight. There are enough ghoulishly amusing sight gags, goofy characters, and funny lines to qualify it as splatstick, but it also has a serious side, as shown by its “love conquers all” ending. Doubting priest Sullivan takes a busload of New Age eccentrics and fun-seekers on a trip to Mexico to study the ancient rituals of the Aztec “laughing dead,” and, in the process, renew his lapsed faith by confronting the “dark heart of the human psyche.” Along the way, he picks up a foxy-looking former nun (Webb) with whom he once had a scandalous affair that produced a son. At a Mexican village, the good priest undergoes a literal change of heart, becomes possessed, and starts killing off his assemblage of eccentrics as part of a sacrificial rite orchestrated by the village’s wily mad doctor (Somtow), who intends to use Sullivan's illegitimate son as the final offering. The ancient conflict between good and evil culminates in an off-the-wall climax, where two Aztec variations of Godzilla duel to the death. Splatter fans will enjoy the film’s plentiful gore, which includes numerous decapitations, head-squishings, and one scene where a guy has his arm ripped off and shoved down his throat. But it’s such comic scenes that give Laughing Dead a definite lift. In one, the clergy’s irritable offspring is outfitted in sacrificial Aztec garb and snaps, “Jesus Christ, I look like fucking Prince!” Look for cameos by lots of writers, including Edward Bryant, Bill Warren, and horror icon Forrest J. Ackerman.

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

New Line Cinema, 1989; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Jeff Burr Producer: Robert Engelman Writer: David J. Schow With: Kate Hodge, Ken Foree, William Butler, Tom Hudson, Joe Unger, RA Mihailoff

Splatterpunk novelist Schow’s (The Kill Riff) screenwriting debut proves to be a lame sequel that pretends Part II doesn’t exist. There’s no attempt to explain the survival of Leatherface (Mihailoff), who was killed, along with the rest of his meat-loving family, at the close of Chainsaw II. Instead, we find him living back in the backwoods with a different, larger family of similar cannibal killers whose appetites are whetted by the arrival of another group of human hors d'oeuvres who, predictably, wander into their hellish camp. The buzz is back, but, reportedly to avoid an X rating, much of Leatherface’s gory chainsaw mania was cut prior to the film’s release. There’s still enough strong grue on hand to titillate if not satisfy splatter fans, though the film is so murkily lit that the blood looks brown. The cleverest thing about the film is its trailer, a parody of the Arthurian Lady of the Lake legend, with Leatherface’s saw in place of the fabled sword Excalibur. But Chainsaw III is just not up to the terror of the original, nor the savage satire of its unfairly maligned—and now totally ignored—follow-up.

Legacy of Blood

Ken Lane Films, 1978; Color, 82 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producer: Andy Milligan Writer: Andy Milligan With: Elaine Boies, Marilee Troncone, Chris Broderick

This misbegotten mess has its roots in the 1968 feature The Ghastly Ones. For some reason—extreme hunger, maybe—Milligan remade Ghastly a decade later. The only thing Legacy has in its favor is a pessimistic view of people: A postman rips off his customers and hooligans get a retardate drunk and hurl him off a balcony. This realism is nearly meaningless in light of the film’s slow pace and abysmal acting. Milligan usually recruits colorful and/or semi-professional actors to keep things interesting; here, he directs insipid adults and child actors who look straight into the camera. To make matters worse, Legacy of Blood has no blood in it at all. Gore alone doth not a splatter film make, but a Milligan movie without it is like a Russ Meyer flick sans naked breasts. Watching The Ghastly Ones, we couldn’t wait for the heroes to get to the island so the killer could go to work. This time around, we hope the boat will sink and bring the movie to a merciful end. No such luck.

Leviathan

MGM, 1989; Color, 98 minutes

Director: George P. Cosmatos Producers: Luigi, Aurelio DeLaurentiis Writers: David Peoples, Jeb Stuart With: Peter Weller, Richard Crenna, Amanda Pays, Daniel Stern, Lisa Eilbacher, Hector Elizondo

Another of the spate of deep sea horror/ splatter shows rushed into production to jump the gun on James Cameron’s multimillion dollar (but non-splattery) underwater extravaganza, The Abyss. Leviathan isn’t the worst of the bunch—in fact, it starts off quite nicely. But it then drowns itself in a sea of implausibilities and gore-for-gore’s sake pyrotechnics. The plot is basically Alien meets The Thing underwater. A crew of underwater miners led by the taciturn Weller (whom the crew dislikes) and attended by dipso Doc Crenna (whom the crew doesn’t trust) discovers a sunken Russian ship with a genetically engineered experimental weapon on board. Once off-loaded, the bio-weapon infects a couple of crew members, metamorphoses into a gargantuan fish-like creature with razor sharp teeth, and starts lunching on the survivors. Severed limbs and blood flow freely as the remaining crew members fight for life, but the suspense and shock value of their struggle is severely diluted by the viewer’s inability to care what happens.

The Lift

Sigma Films, 1983; Color, 95 minutes

Director: Dick Maas Producer: Matthijs Hejjningen Writer: Dick Maas With: Huub Srapel, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Josine van Dalsum, Piet Romer, Pieter Lutz

A deranged elevator in a lush Dutch high-rise starts killing people. Its first victims are a group of tenants heading back to their apartments after partying in the building’s restaurant. The lift locks its doors, shuts off its ventilation system, and suffocates the partygoers. Later, a blind tenant plunges to his death when the lift plays a practical joke on him. Another victim is decapitated as a security guard watches in horror, and yet another is skinned by the mechanical monster. Repairman Stupel is called in to fix the lift, but finds nothing wrong. After more unexplained deaths, he and a reporter (Dalsum) join forces to get to the bottom of things, seeking help from a computer expert who attributes the mechanical mayhem to malevolent computer chips that are reproducing at will and making the elevator do bad things. The solution: Disarm the computer box at the top of the shaft by shooting and stabbing it to “death.” No, we’re not kidding. Endless conversations between characters and boring scenes portraying Stupel’s marital woes (his wife’s jealous of the reporter) slow the pace to a crawl. But there are some clever bits along the way—for example, following a recent lift murder, an ambulance screeches across the screen in close-up, but when the frame widens we see the vehicle is only a child’s toy. This movie also features the one-of-a-kind ad line, “For God’s sake, take the stairs!"

The Lost Platoon

A.I.P. (Action International Pictures) Color, 1989; 96 minutes

Director: David A Prior Producer: Kimberley Casey Writers: David A. Prior, Ted Prior With: William Knight, David Parry, Stephen Quadros, Lew Pipes

This film could just as easily be called The Lost Boys Go to War. As a young man, Hollander (Knight) was helped by a mysterious stranger on the battlegrounds of World War Two. He has spent the intervening decades as a war correspondent trying to find out who that stranger was. In his research, Hollander has discovered that the man he is seeking (and several other men) keep popping up in war photos, beginning with the American Civil War and continuing all the way through the Vietnam conflict. Hollander now travels to Nicaragua to cover a skirmish—and also, he hopes, to solve the mystery that has puzzled him all these years. He finally encounters the seemingly immortal four soldiers—the lost platoon—and learns that they are vampires! In the climactic fight scene, we discover that the Nicaraguan rebel leader is himself a vampire, but also the brother of Hancock (Parry), the leader of the good-guy vampires! Clean, crisp photography, some exciting action scenes, and generally fine acting highlight the production; but the pacing is sluggish and the special FX are inexcusably cheap-looking and obvious. While there are a couple of impalings on wooden stakes and a vampire who disintegrates before our very eyes, the on-screen-gore is minimal.

Love at Stake

Hemdale, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: John Moffitt Producer: Michael Gruskoff Writers: Terry Sweeney, Lanier Laney With: Patrick Cassidy, Kelly Preston, Bud Cort, David Graf, Stuart Pankin, Barbara Carrera, Dave Thomas

Greedy, stake-happy Puritans frame pretty Preston for sorcery while real witch Carrera hexes the town. Sounds scary, right? This is actually a hysterical costume comedy with Puritans played by veterans of “SCTV” and “The Hollywood Knights.” It takes digs at modern pop culture and the yuppie mentality. Bad language, nudity, impotence, and drug abuse are showcased to good advantage, while well-timed slapstick and some clever writing make this the sort of laff-fest the Zucker Brothers only dream about—on their good days. It qualifies for mention here due to its scenes of smoking corpses on charred stakes, fairly graphic for a comedy. Also, the sight of ultra-gorgeous Carrera mutating into the late Anne Ramsey (Throw Momma from the Train) rates an easy “ten” on anybody’s Barf-o-meter. Sophomoric, enjoyable nonsense.

The Love Butcher

Mirror, 1975; Color, 84 minutes

Directors: Mikel Angel, Don Jones Producers: Gary Williams, Mickey Belski Writers: Don Jones, James Evergreen With: Erik Stern, Kay Neer, Howard Roehm, Robin Sherwood

A myopic, crippled gardener assumes the identity of his handsome dead brother and snuffs the bitchy women who abuse him. He also bumps off the most irritating hero and heroine of all time in an orgy of violence via pitchfork, switchblade, garden hose, shears, and weed-whacker. What could have been the most nasty, misogynistic slasher flick of all time is, instead, undone by its ineptitude—or maybe, the filmmakers wanted to make a turkey. Stem hams it up royally in his dual role, at one point switching accents in the middle of a scene. And he’s the best actor in the picture! Caustic, overweight detective Roehm wears suits tailored by Barnum and Bailey. The situations are impossible, the dialogue hysterical, and the admittedly frequent gore looks like it was applied with a paint-brush. A real howler, not to be missed under any circumstances.

Love Me Deadly

Cinema National, 1972, Color, 93 minutes

Director: Jacques LaCerte Producer: Buck Edwards Writer: Jacques LaCerte With: Maiy Wilcox, Lyle Waggoner, Christopher Stone, Timothy Scott

Wilcox plays a father-fixated young woman who attends the funerals of strangers, then steals kisses from the corpses after everyone leaves. Twisted mortician Scott catches her in the act and initiates her into his cult of necrophiles. Things get complicated when Wilcox meets Waggoner—who looks just like Daddy—and attempts a normal relationship. As if corpse-groping and naked necrophile orgies aren’t nasty enough, the film offers some graphic murders to keep things rolling. Scott picks up whores of both sexes, takes them back to his mortuary, slices open their necks, and siphons their blood. Stone pursues Wilcox and is stabbed in the guts for his trouble. A lackluster shotgun killing is also thrown in. A really sick picture by anyone’s standards, undoubtedly hated by undertakers from coast to coast.

Luther the Geek

Quest Entertainment, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Carlton J. Albright Producer: David Platt Writer: Whitey Styles With: Edward Terry, Joan Roth, J. Jerome Clarke, Tom Wills

Luther the Geek looks like a movie that started shooting before a finished script existed. A lot of loose ends are thrown together, presumably with the hope that a few gimmicks will bamboozle the viewer into accepting the pointless end result. A narrator explains that a geek was a sideshow attraction that bit off the heads of live chickens and drank their blood. Luther, a young boy watching just such a performance in the late 1930s, is struck in the face and loses his teeth. Many years later, the boy, grown to manhood, is released from a mental institution. He wears metal dentures which can be used to bite the necks of people who annoy him. Luther goes on a murderous rampage, often clucking like a chicken when approaching his victims. (Go figure.) The neck bites are realistic and gory as he tears off hunks of flesh with his metal teeth. Exactly why his childhood experience turned him into a psycho murderer is never explained. Nor do we learn why he sometimes behaves like a chicken. The direction is often confident and sure, but the director is given very little to work with. The actor playing Luther (Terry) is bald and of slight build and hardly looks formidable enough to do anyone any harm. Overall an uninspired production with a few good moments but not really worth your time.

Mad Doctor of Blood Island

Hemisphere, 1969; Color, 85 minutes

Directors: Geraldo DeLeon, Eddie Romero Producer: Eddie Romero Writer: Reuben Conway With: John Ashley, Angelique Pettyjohn, Ronald Remy

Doctor Ashley, the stacked Pettyjohn, and several others go to Blood Island and run afoul of the green-blooded monster created by deranged scientist Remy. Slow in places, and shoddy in the acting department, Mad Doctor features enough gratuitous nudity and graphic violence to keep things rolling merrily along. It’s supposedly rated PG, but don’t believe it; the grisly stabbings, shredding of hapless natives, and one after-the-fact evisceration would call for at least an R in the most liberal of times. Incredibly, it took two directors to make this mess. By the way, this film is the best Filipino flick we’ve ever seen, an honor analogous to being dubbed the best paralytic Elvis impersonator.

Manhattan Baby

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Lucio Fulci Producer: Frabrizio de Angelis Writers: Elisa Livia Brigante, Dardano Sacchetti With: Christopher Connely, Martha Taylor, Giovanni Frezzo, Brigitta Boccoii, Laura Lenzi

Goremeister Fulci lets his bloodthirsty FX people loose on the mummy-movie genre, this time in a blatant rip-off of Hammer’s splattery Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972) and its even more splattery 1980 Charlton Heston remake, The Awakening (1980). Connelly plays an American Egyptologist who desecrates the tomb of an evil Egyptian god and is struck blind for his impertinence. Meanwhile, his Manhattanite daughter (Taylor) becomes the possessed instrument of the evil god’s retribution and proceeds to wreak bloody havoc on her fellow Gothamites. The streets of the Big Apple run red as New Yorkers are sliced, diced, mutilated, and maimed in graphic Fulci fashion. (Like a mad porno director, the man seems obsessed with shots of spurting jugulars, always lingering on them until the severed things run dry.) A warm-up for Fulci’s perhaps even more bloodstained “I Love New York” postcard from the edge, The New York Ripper, which was filmed and released the same year.

Maniac Cop

Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment, 1988; Color, 92 minutes

Director: William Lustig Producer: Larry Cohen Writer: Larry Cohen With: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z'dar, Sheree North

Like many Larry Cohen movies, Maniac Cop boasts an intriguing premise that’s never fully realized. The film begins with a bang as two street punks wrestle a woman for her purse. She scratches and kicks and breaks free, the punks in breathless pursuit. She spots a cop and rushes to him for help, but instead of rescuing her, he breaks her neck—as the punks look on in wonderment and dismay. For them and for the victim, the world has indeed turned upside down. Unfortunately, the film goes rapidly downhill after this as we learn who the maniac cop (Z’dar) is and what he’s up to—revenge against the city’s authorities for sending him to prison, where he was sliced up and almost killed by several cons he’d had an overly zealous hand in busting. Director Lustig (of Maniac fame) engages in blood sport with gusto as citizens shoot cops, cops shoot cops, and Z’dar shoots, stabs, bludgeons, and butchers everybody until he’s finally brought down by Campbell (an innocent policeman on whom the maniac has pinned his crimes), who takes almost as much of a beating here as he did in Sam Raimi’s two Evil Dead movies. The conclusion has Z’dar’s hand rising from New York Harbor, where the fiend supposedly drowned, indicating that he’s not really dead after all. Ho-hum.

Man from Deep River

Joseph Brenner Associates, 1972; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Umberto Lenzi Producer: M.G. Rossi Writers: Francesco Barilli, Massimo d'Avack With: Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lay, Pratitsak Singhara

Photographer Rassimov travels upriver to the uncharted wilds of Thailand. He goes scuba diving and is netted by Stone Age natives who mistake him for an aquatic monster. They torture him and threaten him with execution until the chief’s daughter plays Pocahontas and saves him. Soon after his initiation into the tribe, he marries her. Then a cannibal tribe attacks the village and Rassimov fights to save the people who nearly killed him. This film may have some likeable characters and a tragic subplot, but the sentiment doesn’t stand in the way of the gore. Animal butchery rears its ugly head; a cobra is slit open for its poison, an ox is ritually slaughtered, and a crocodile is stabbed to death. The top of a monkey’s head is whacked off with a sword. Humans take a beating, too. Rassimov is tied to a revolving cross and shot with darts. A cannibal has his tongue yanked out and a traitor’s hand is lopped off with a machete. Later, Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato would squabble over who was the reigning Cannibal King. See all their masterworks and decide for yourself.

The Manipulator

See Effects

Mansion of the Doomed

Group 1, 1976; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Michael Pataki Producer: Charles Band Writer: Frank Ray Perilli With: Richard Basehart, Gloria Grahame, Trish Stewart, Lance Henriksen, Vic Tayback

Basehart plays eye surgeon Doctor Chaney, who blinds his daughter in a car accident and becomes obsessed with restoring her sight. He extracts eyeballs from various unwilling donors, and of course none of the transplants works. Eye surgery is featured in clinical detail as the orb-less victims, still living, accumulate in his cellar. Basehart’s acting disintegrates as the film progresses. The ending is predictable, but shocking nonetheless. Henriksen is the first victim; Grahame is Chaney’s misguided assistant. Tayback has a short part as a detective; his presence should have been exploited for some badly needed comic relief. Mansion clearly has its roots in numerous fifties and sixties melodramas in which deranged doctors tried to restore damaged loved ones at the expense of anyone they could get their hands on. This may have been the last of its breed, but it was damned profitable, playing drive-ins and grindhouses for half a decade after its release.

Mardi Gras Massacre

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Jack Weis Producer: Jack Weis Writer: Jack Weis With: Curt Dawson, Laura Misch, Bill Metzo

In what seems to be a Big Easy tribute to Herschell Gordon Lewis, a demented Aztec priest in a welder’s mask goes on a rampage, paying homage to his god by torturing and mutilating prostitutes. The good news is that three blood-spattered murders are showcased here, with the mad priest ripping the hearts out of his victims as in the days B.C. (Before Cortez.) The bad news is that the killings are undone by stilted, dumb dialogue and are boringly identical, except for slightly different camera angles. The picture is drawn out interminably by a sappy romance between an amoral cop and a gold-hearted whore. Laura Misch was Playboy’s Miss February 1975. For some reason Hefner and company didn’t advertise her protracted, barrel-bottom performance here as much as they ballyhooed her ten-second nude scene in Mandingo.

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary

Summit International, 1974; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Juan Lopez Moctezuma Producers: Robert Yamin, Henri Bollinger Writer: Malcolm Marmorstein With: Christina Ferrare, David Young, Helena Rojo, John Carradine

The title character (Ferrare) is a bisexual vampire artist who gets it on with an art buyer, punctures his neck, and guzzles his blood—all before the main credits. Throughout the picture, Mary’s insatiable thirst for blood threatens even the few people for whom she cares. When not painting weird pictures, she vampirizes innocent men and kills her lesbian lover in a bathtub. The papers start covering blood-murders that Mary never committed; we soon find out that another vampire (Carradine) has come back from the dead—switchblade, disfigured face and all—and he starts stalking Mary for reasons revealed in the bloody final reel. Ferrare almost sinks the film by herself. Thank God for the strong supporting cast, especially Rojo, and Moctezuma’s slick direction. Also featured are plenty of nudity, many graphic stabbings, and arterial gushers. All this, and not a Mexican wresting woman in sight!

The Masque of the Red Death

21st Century, 1989; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Alan Birkinshaw Producer: Harry Alan Towers Writer: Michael J. Murray With: Herbert Lom, Frank Stallone, Brenda Vaccaro, Michelle Hoey, Christine Lunde

Updated version of the classic story, in which Poe’s metaphoric Red Death becomes a contemporary mad slasher roaming about reclusive European soap-opera star Lom’s Bavarian castle, slicing and dicing the guests Lom has gathered for a decadent party. Hoey, a photo journalist who wants to snap some shots of the publicity-shy star, is the waif who gets ensared in the doom-laden proceedings. For a mad-slasher flick, the film is a bit reticent with its gore, but it doesn’t stint in the high camp department—with Frank Stallone doing a Joe Dallesandro turn as the out-of-place he-man among these European semi-aristocrats, how could the film be anything but high camp? Not to be confused with Roger Corman’s 1989, non-splattery (and non-anything else, either) remake of his 1964 classic.

Mayhem

City Lights, 1986; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writer: Joseph Merhi With: Raymond Martino, Pamela Dixon, Robert Gallo

Martino and Gallo are small-time hustlers who take on contract killings when things get slow. Martino spends a lot of time searching Hollywood for the floozy who left him two years earlier. Then some white slave-owning pimps kidnap Gallo’s woman (Dixon) and the violence escalates. In the sort of downbeat ending we don’t see very often, one of the hustlers starts straightening out his life, only to be shot full of holes by the police. The splatter here consists strictly of gunplay, but what gunplay it is! The bullet holes are the reddest and wettest since Peckinpah went to that big shooting range in the sky. Characters are blasted three or four more times than is necessary to kill them, often in slow motion. One scene has a pimp getting the back of his skull blown away. In another, the hustlers hit a kiddie-porn racket with blazing shotguns; the female ringleader takes a point-blank charge right between the legs. Made for video.

The Meateater

Hollyco/Richard Tasse Productions, 1978; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Derek Savage Producer: Richard Tasse Writer: Derek Savage With: Arch Joboulian, Dianne Davis, Peter M. Spitzer, Emily Spindler, Gary Dean, Joe Marmo

The abandoned Crest movie theatre is home to a fire-scarred, rat-eating ghoul who worships images of Jean Harlow. Pity that the enterprising former shoe salesman (Spitzer) and his family, who plan to reopen the cinema, don’t know about him. A street tramp even tries to warn Spitzer’s wife (Davis), but she doesn’t understand. During the opening night show, the ghoul electrocutes the nerdy projectionist and a hanged man’s body is discovered behind the screen. Enter the cops, led by Lieutenant Wombat (Marmo). The tramp returns to tell Davis that the ghoul is his brother, who was scarred long ago in a nitrate film fire. Helpful though it be, this bit of information goes over the heads of the cops, who finally figure it all out when the ghoul abducts Spitzer’s daughter, mistaking her for Harlow. If you think this is a silly, trite, derivative film, you’re right. It also suffers from inept cinematography, weak editing, no pace, and an ensemble that qualifies for a “Worst Acting of the Year’’ award. The only exception is Arch Joboulian in the dual role of the ghoul and his brother. His performance has the imagination and class that everything else in the picture sadly lacks. Despite its title, the gore is minimal.

Memorial Valley Massacre

Motion Picture Corporation of America, 1988; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Robert C. Hughes Producers: Brad Krevoy, Steven Stabler Writers: Robert Hughes, George Francis Skrow With: John Kerry, Mark Mears, Lesa Lee, Cameron Mitchell, William Smith

A California campground opens on Memorial Day Weekend and faster than you can say “stalk and slash,” a killer Cro-Magnon goes to work on the campers. Perfectly capable of snapping necks and spines with his bare hands, he isn’t above using knives, spears, swing traps, and stake-lined pits for his ends. People are also burned alive and blown up in their RVs; one guy gets an axe right in the old cardiac cavity. Since the victims are bikers, spoiled teenagers, and Heavy-Metal-heads, one can root for the killer with a clear conscience. Smith steals the show as a redneck general. The plot has more holes than a pound of Swiss cheese and there’s not an original thought in sight, but this holiday horror is slicker and better-produced than most of this sub-genre.

Mercenary Fighters

Cannon Group, Inc., 1988; Color 90 minutes

Director: Riki Shelach Producers: Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus Writers: Bud Schaetzle, Dean Tschetter, Andrew Deutsch With: Peter Fonda, Reb Brown, Henry Cele

A group of soldiers-for-hire is brought together and sent to a country in central Africa to quiet insurgent natives who wish to remain on their ancestral homelands, while the government wants to relocate them. Peter Fonda and Reb Brown head the reliable cast in a story that contains a novel twist: Brown deserts his fellow mercenaries to fight with the unjustly treated insurgents. This change of heart (influenced by an attractive woman who sides with the underdog natives) gives the film a sense of drama and a complexity often lacking in medium-budget “war-is-hell-but-fun-if-you’re-macho” movies of this type. Brown’s two scenes with the rebel leader (beautifully played by Henry Cele) are very moving and show a depth of writing and a level of acting uncommon in action pictures. (Brown proves that he is capable of much more than his muscle-bound stud image would indicate.) In a sub-genre not known for subtlety, it’s nice to see a conscientious attempt on the part of the filmmakers to come to grips with some of the more complex political and moral issues. And, oh yes, mixing it all with sufficient carnage.

Metamorphosis

Filmrage, 1990; Color, 93 minutes

Director: G.L. Eastman Producer: Filmrage Writer: G.L Eastman With: Gene Le Brock, Catherine Baranov, Stephen Brown, Hary Cason

This is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is The Fly. This is highly derivative and a big waste of time. As the film crawls to its climax, we watch well-intended but unscrupulous Dr. Peter Houseman (Le Brock) try to develop a serum that will stop human aging. (Great idea, right?) Needless to say, his colleagues oppose his research and threaten to cut off his grant money. In an inspired bit of plotting, Houseman becomes his own guinea pig and injects himself with the serum. Then (surprise, surprise) he gets mean and begins to change. Okay, so maybe there are a few ho-hum murders and a bit of low-tech gore along the way. And maybe the directing, pacing, and music are tedious, but hey, the performances are highly soporific. The film’s one point of minor interest is in trying to guess what Dr. Houseman will ultimately metamorphose into. When you find out, you’ll have to decide whether you’ve just witnessed the end of a horror movie or the punch line of a bad joke.

Midnight Intruders

Even Steven Productions, 1987; Color. 59 minutes

Director: Gary Graver Producer: Dave Arthur Writer: Gary Graver With: Francoise Dare, Alain Mayniel, Alexander Chapuies, Lyllah Michael Torrena, Tom Hart, Adrian Anderson, Barbara Keene, John Savage, B. R. Connors

Another mini-movie masquerading as a feature film. The movie itself looks great, because debut writer/director Graver is one of Hollywood’s best cinematographers (he’s worked with Orson Welles, among others). But the plot leaves a lot to be desired. Everything in this movie seems to happen by pure chance. It opens with a scene of Mayniel and Dare making love, intercut with shots of jet planes landing. After nearly six minutes of this, Mayniel leaves for the airport and boards a jet for a business trip. Dare immediately calls her lover (Chapuies), who answers the phone while he’s making love to two women at once. He rushes right over to make love with Dare in her sauna. Mayniel returns early, fights with Chapuies, and leaves him seemingly dead from a blow to the head. Then he attacks his unfaithful wife, trying to force her hand down the garbage disposal, but she kills him with a knife. The home is invaded by a pair of black-clad burglars, who force Dare to take hard drugs before they ravish her. Chapuies revives, shoots one burglar and chases the other into a highway tunnel, where she’s hit by a car. Then Dare and Chapuies spirit Mayniel’s corpse away in another car. The cops pursue them for speeding, they lose control, and the car goes over a cliff. What’s the point? Beats us! There is very little graphic gore in the film, and most of the dialogue seems to have been dubbed after the fact.

Mind Killer

Prism/Flash Features, 1989; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Michael Krueger Producers: Doug Olson, Sarah H. Liles Writers: Dave Sipos, Curtis Hannum, Michael Krueger With: Joe McDonald, Christopher Wade, Shirley Ross. Kevin Hart

“Are you killing hamsters in there again?” screams mom to her rapidly disintegrating son in the confusing first scene of this clearly amateur production; and at first it looks like this line will be the highlight of the evening. However, if you can make it to Mind Killer's second half, things improve to no end. When nerd Joe McDonald comes across the hamster murderer’s notes on mind control, he transforms himself into a self-confident Don Juan, while his more stable (but even nerdier) friend, Christopher Wade (who’s seen The Nutty Professor 25 times, to judge by his performance), uses the same notes to less grandiose results. Eventually, McDonald’s new-and-improved mind turns on him, producing a slimy, many-toothed brain monster that takes over his girlfriend (Shirley Ross). Fortunately, Wade arrives on the scene in time to do battle with the beast and inherit McDonald’s prowess with the ladies in the bargain. Hardly great, but made with some degree of thought and characterization, Mind Killer is a good example of the potential of even the lowest-budget film when some care is exercised in its making. (One day someone with real talent is going to make one of these direct-to- video films and alter our concept of film for all time.) The FX are ambitious and fairly well achieved, while the minimal splatter splats with the best of ’em.

Ministry of Vengeance

Motion Picture Corp. of America, 1989; Color. 97 minutes

Director: Peter Maris Producers: Brad Krevoy, Steven Stabler Writers: Mervyn Emryys, Brian D. Jeffries. Ann Narus With: John Schneider, James Tolkan, Ned Beatty, Apollonia, Robert Miano, Yaphet Kotto

If you can accept the basic premise that Dukes of Hazzard’s John Schneider is a Vietnam-vet-turned-Episcopal-priest-turned-bloodthirsty-revenge-minded vigilante when his wife and daughter are mown down by terrorists in an airport, then you’re welcome to this bargain-basement Bronson crap. As confused as it is morally dubious, this picture wants to have it at least three different ways—part right-wing fantasy, part xenophobic nightmare, part anti-government conspiracy delirium. What can be said for a movie in which the most likable character is a survivalist-type, self-proclaimed soldier (Tolkan) who is secretly employed by George H.W. Bush’s kinder, gentler CIA? The entire affair seems designed to appeal to the more credulous readership of Soldier of Fortune—or maybe The National Enquirer. Very little of it makes much sense (just what use has the CIA for a man who slaughters airports full of hapless people and hijacks planes?), and the viewer is truly thankful that the bad guys run around with checkered, Italian-restaurant table cloths on their heads so we know who’s who. Most of the bloodletting is saved for the last couple of reels, with much of the running time padded by torture scenes that make those in, say, Chandu on the Magic Island seem realistic. Any thirties-style Foreign Legion picture is more sincere, and a helluva lot more fun.

Misery

Columbia Pictures, 1990; Color, 107 minutes

Director: Rob Reiner Producers: Andrew Scheinman, Rob Reiner Writer: William Goldman With: James Caan. Kathy Bates, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Stemhagen

Best-selling romance novelist Caan suffers a near-fatal car crash in the snowy Colorado mountains and is rescued from the wreckage by his number-one fan (Bates), who takes him home and nurses him back to health. At first, Bates treats him with tender, loving care, but when she discovers he’s changing literary directions and has killed off Misery Chastain, the popular heroine of the author’s romance series she loves so much, she goes berserk. Threatening him with grievous bodily harm if he fails to resurrect her cherished literary alter-ego in another book, she virtually chains him to the typewriter to complete it. When Caan matches his wits against his demented-fan-turned-severest-critic to survive, this adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is wry, tension-filled, and convincing. But whenever it cuts away to small-town Sheriff Farnsworth’s half-hearted search for the missing author, it loses both steam and credibility. Farnsworth’s trying to ferret out a significant clue to Caan’s whereabouts by poring through the vanished writer’s Misery Chastain novels is particularly lame and laughable. And the bloody, booga-booga ending is pure Halloween/Friday the 13th stuff. But the scene where Bates “hobbles” Caan with a sledgehammer is a real shocker. And the performances of both Caan and Bates (who won an Oscar) are superb.

Mission Kill

Media Home Entertainment, 1987, Color, 97 minutes

Director: David Winters Producer: David Winters Writers: Maria Dante, David Winters With: Robert Ginty, Merete Van Kamp, Cameron Mitchell, Olivia D'Abo. Henry Darrow, Brooke Bundy

Two very serious problems hinder Mission Kill. One is the script, which plods along the well-worn path of the dozens of splat-action films that have gone before. The writers add no new twists and no surprises. Ginty plays a building-demolition expert who visits his buddy, a fellow Vietnam veteran and former Marine, with a scheme to make a quick buck by running weapons to Santa Maria, a developing nation in the midst of a civil war. Ginty reluctantly agrees to go with his friend who, much to Ginty’s dismay, gets bumped off shortly after their mission has begun. Ginty then decides to help the rebels remove the evil dictator from power himself. As tried-and-true as this premise is, it could work—but the writing is so inept that the viewer never gets very involved. The buddy, a likable character whom we’re just getting to know when he’s killed off, dies too early on. The pacing is sluggish and even potentially emotional scenes—like the killing of an innocent young native girl—are strangely flat and uninvolving. The second major problem with Mission Kill is Ginty. Not a bad actor, really, but hardly suitable to the heroics called for here. He looks and acts tired—his features are puffy, and he never seems to get very excited about anything. The viewer gets the feeling that this indifference is cynicism, but it comes off more like boredom. As for splatter, things get blown up and people get shot and the chubby, evil dictator does evil deeds. We’re supposed to get wrapped up in all this, but nothing ever comes together.

Monster Squad

Vestron, 1987; Color, 82 minutes

Director: Fred Dekker Producer: Jonathan A. Zimbert Writers: Shane Black, Fred Dekker With: Andre Gowan, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht, Maty Ellen Trainer, Stan Shaw, Tom Noonan, Duncan Regehr

A squad of familiar monsters rises from the dusty vaults of Universal Studios to wrest a magical amulet away from a group of modem kids who call themselves the Monster Squad. The uglies want to rule the world, and the kids want to stop them. It’s all in a day’s work in this clever tribute to the nifty old horror movies. Old pals Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolfman, and even the Creature from the Black Lagoon are all here, and there’s plenty of nostalgia, not-so-subtle in-jokes, and film references to keep you alert and happy (we all remember Count Alucard, don’t we?), though the gore is diluted, the film is fast-paced and derivative enough to qualify as a splatter movie of the splatstick variety. Sure, it’s a little sappy, but it’s also surprisingly suspenseful in spots. Overall, it’s sound, savvy, and visually satisfying all the way through. One can’t help thinking Boris Karloff would be charmed.

Monster

Academy International Pictures, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Kenneth Hartford Producer: Kenneth Hartford Writers: Kenneth Hartford, Walter Roeber Schmidt, Herbert L Strock, Garland Scott With: Jim Mitchum, John Carradine, Phil Carey, Tony Eisley, Andrea Hartford, Glenn Hartford

It’s big. It’s rubber. It has a cute Fu-Manchu mustache. It’s hokey. It eats villagers. We see it mostly at night. Pollution and Big Business caused it. Jim Mitchum does it in by feeding it a sheep stuffed with dynamite. Priest John Carradine burns a witch and overacts. It took four fellas to write this thing. It’s “based on a true story” (so they tell us not once but twice). The paperback is “now available from Carousel Books." If you screen it on video, it takes less than two seconds to hit the stop button on your VCR. Do you really need to know any more?

Monster High

Lightyear Entertainment, 1989; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Rodiger Poe Producer: Eric Bernt Writers: Roy Langdon, John Platt With: Dean Iandoli, Diana Frank, David Marriott Robert M. Lind, Sean Haines, DJ. Kerizner

“Warning: The following motion picture contains strong language, graphic violence, and adult situations. Some scenes may be considered objectionable by sensitive viewers, dead people, and farm animals. On the other hand, if you like that sort of thing … ” So begins this cheerfully dumb picture—and, in the main, it lives up to its word. Unfortunately, it isn’t as funny as it thinks it is, and it seems a little confused about its aims—much of the mood and humor is on the Teen Wolf/My Demon Lover level, while there’s enough splatter to make Tobe Hooper flinch and enough raunch to give John Waters cause for pause. Monster High stars Mr. Armageddon (David Marriott) and his blue alien sidekicks, Doom and Gloom, who specialize in doing bad rap songs about how lost hymens don’t grow back. Alas, Mr. Armageddon runs afoul of an uncooperative high school student (Dean Iandoli), whom he recruits as his Prophet of Doom. Iandoli and girlfriend Diana Frank manage to sucker Armageddon into a basketball game for a thousand-year reprieve. While this is an imaginative variation on the usual “chess game with death” concept, the results are uninspired and mechanical. The attempt is admirable, however, and the gore effects (particularly one involving a student who explodes after subjecting his odor-eaters to microwave radiation!) are very nicely done.

Movie House Massacre

Movie House Productions, 1984; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Alice Raley Producer: Alice Raley Writer: Alice Raley With: Mary Woronov, Jonathan Blakely, Lynne Darcy, Cynthia Hartline, Lisa Lindsley, Pam McCormack

Spotlite Theatres take over an old movie-house abandoned since the psychotic owner killed his final audience. Of course, his spirit still haunts the place, to the surprise of no one but the young Spotlite employees renovating the cinema. Will they make it to opening night? Will anyone watch long enough to find out? Nothing resembling production values mar this slasher schlocker. Continuity, plot, dialogue, humor, and the soundtrack are all stultifyingly bad. Despite slashings, stranglings, and a decapitation, the only real dose of red comes in the first five minutes. Make a great double-bill with The Meateater; together, two examples of cinema very bad that don’t combine to rival one real so-bad-it’s-good flick.

The Mummy's Revenge

Distributor unknown, 1973; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Carlos A. Aured Producer: None Credited Writer: Jacinto Molina (Paul Naschy) With: Paul Naschy. Riva Otolina, Jack Taylor, Helga Line, Luis Davila

Spanish horror star Naschy continues his love affair with the classic Universal monster movies of the thirties and forties by doing his own take on the role of the mummy—as well as that of the villainous Egyptian who brings the creature to life and uses it to visit death on the British archeologists who desecrated the mummy’s tomb. In a flashback sequence, Naschy also plays the mummy’s early incarnation, a sadistic pharaoh buried alive for performing ritualistic human sacrifices. Though ostensibly a remake of Karloff’s 1932 classic The Mummy and Hammer’s 1959 variation on the same theme, this film emphasizes bloody murder, pure and simple. Julio Sanchez-Caballero’s wall-to-wall FX of the mummy throttling, skewering, and crushing the body parts and ripping the throats out of his numerous victims make this example of Spanish splatter a must-see.

Murder Weapon

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Ellen Cabot Producers: Fred Kenwamer, Linnea Quigley Writer: Ross A Perron With: Lyle Waggoner, Linnea Quigley, Karen Russell, Victoria Nesbitt, Lenny Rose

Cabot does little to advance the cause of women directors in this turgid tale of insanity. The first five minutes or so concentrate on Russell putting suntan lotion on her legs and upper torso. She covers herself in about five pounds of the stuff. Later, Quigley takes a knife, gets in the shower with Russell’s lover, and kills him. This turns out to be a dream, and the story proper opens in an institution, where inmate Quigley talks to her therapist about the trauma of seeing her family die in a fire (everyone, that is, except her nasty mob-connected dad). Her equally disturbed best friend Russell fantasizes about having her throat cut. Boring exposition bogs this down until, at a party honoring Quigley and Russell’s release from their padded cells, a boy’s head is crushed into strawberry jam with a sledgehammer. For interest, there’s a character who plays in a band called The Chainsaws; Quigley strips a lot; a heart pops out of a man’s chest after sex; Russell strips a lot; and some studs get murdered in creative ways, including one who has a broken champagne bottle thrust into his throat. When a head is blown apart by shotgun in close-up, nobody thinks to call the cops.

Naked Vengeance

Distributor unknown, 1985; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Cirio H. Santiago Producers: Anthony Maharaj, Cirio H. Santiago Writer: Reilly Askew With: Deborah Tranelli, Kaz Garas, Bill McLaughlin

Tranelli’s Good Samaritan husband is beaten, then shot for his trouble. Our grieving heroine goes to visit her parents in rural California, where she attracts the unsavory attention of the local bad boys. Half a dozen of them pay her a visit and gang-rape her. Mom and Dad walk in and are blown away with a twelve-gauge. Tranelli, knowing she can do a better number on the brutal crew than the system can, proceeds to wipe them out, one subhuman at a time. A bartender is drenched with his own hooch and set afire. A mechanic is pinned under an auto, wheel-rim to balls, before being turned into a roasted marshmallow. One slob undergoes a shotgun lobotomy and another is fed into an industrial ice-crusher. In the best scene, a pervert is castrated with a fishing knife and turns the river bright red. Except for the Ms. 45 twist ending, this film plays like I Spit on Your Grave with a large cast and musical score; for all its grossness, Santiago’s rip-off fails to match its parent films for overall impact. Still it’s more fun to watch than rapists getting their wrists slapped in court.

Naked Warriors

New World Pictures, 1973; Color, 83 minutes

Director: Steve Carver Producer: Mark Damon Writers: John William, Joyce Hooper Corington With: Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, Lucretia Love, Paul Muller, Daniel Vargas, Marie Louise

Most splatter movies feature male violence against females, or, to a lesser degree, male violence against other males. This film features all-female ferocity. It also asks a moral question: Could you kill another person to preserve your own life if society demanded it of you? Bodicia (Markov), and Mamawi (Grier) are captured by Roman legions and sold into slavery. They end up in the household of a provincial gladiatorial entrepreneur. After they engage in a “cat fight" in his kitchen, he is inspired to train them as gladiatrix for his shows. The women are compelled to fight to the death, but they resolve to escape instead. The film is very well made, with high production values; the plot is carefully constructed, with well-drawn characters, and the battle scenes are edited and executed well, building lots of excitement. And there are enough spear, arrow, sword, and trident injuries to satisfy gladiator buffs everywhere. A.k.a. The Arena.

Nam Angels

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Cirio H. Santiago Producer: Christopher H. Santiago Writer: Dan Gagliasso With: Jeff Griffith, Romy Diaz, Brad Johnson, Vernon Wells, Kevin Duffis, Rick Dean

While visiting a Vietnam bar, a band of Hell’s Angels on a world tour is recruited to liberate a treasure and some captured American soldiers. That’s the plot, and somebody actually got paid to come up with it (proving once again there is hardly any justice in the world). The resulting uninspired trek into the Asian jungles also proves that in spite of bikes and bullets, fists and fire, war can be a bore. This film is so dependent on illogic and inanities that it can only be recommended for the negative IQ set. To enumerate the sublime stupidities here would be to spoil the fun for anyone with a penchant for this sort of thing. Suffice it to say that Nam Angels is another front-runner in the race for the Acadummy Awards. Highly unrecommended.

Nekromantik

Manfred Jelinski Productions, 1989; Color, 71 minutes

Director: Jorg Buttgereit Producer: Manfred O. Jelinski Writers: Jorg Buttgereit, Franz Rodenkirchen With: Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice M., Harold Lundt, Susa Kohlstaedt, Heike Surban

“What lives that does not live from the death of someone else?” This V.I. Compton quote opens this German-made cross between a splatter movie and an experimental film. One night, a man urinates by the roadside. He gets back in the car with his female companion and they are both killed in a horrible accident. Her body is severed at the waist, and he’s trapped in the wreckage with an eyeball hanging out. Our hero is a member of the team whose job it is to clean up the carnage. He has a nasty habit of stealing organs and body parts, which he keeps in glass jars at his apartment. His girlfriend, who bathes in blood, seems to be turned on by this hobby. When our hero eventually brings home the rotting corpse of a shooting victim, both he and his friend make love to it in a macabre manege a trois. When he’s fired from his job, he feeds part of his organ collection to his cat and then beats the animal to death. Then he goes to a splatter flick in which a blonde is menaced by a maniac with a switchblade, who slashes her breasts. After a dream in which he and a woman play catch with a severed head, he hires a prostitute to screw him in a cemetery. When he can’t get it up, he strangles her to death. Discovered by the caretaker, he lops off half the man’s head with a shovel. Finally, while masturbating, our hero commits hari-kari, as semen and blood spurt from his penis. Grotesque and truly horrifying.

Neon Maniacs

Cimarron Productions, 1985; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Joseph Mangine Producers: Steven Mackler, Christopher Arnold Writer: Mark Patrick Carducci With: Allan Hayes, Leilani Sarelle, Donna Locke

A horde of subhuman ghouls emerges by night from inside the Golden Gate Bridge to hack up the populace. Who they are, what they’re doing in the bridge, or their motivation are never explained; what matters is the bloody damage they do with spears, crossbows, metal hooks, and assault rifles. Limbs are ripped off, throats are slit, a heart is sliced out, and a girl gets an arrow through the back of her skull which exits out her mouth. Beheading and bisection are tossed in for good measure. One of the heroes discovers that the Neon Maniacs melt on contact with water, which paves the way for some truly gross, slimy disintegration scenes. A fairly well acted and slickly made film, considering its low budget; grisly, enjoyable nonsense that exists solely for the sake of gore effects.

The Nest

Concorde, 1988; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Terence H. Winkless Producer: Julie Corman Writer: Robert King With: Robert Lansing, Lisa Langlois, Franc Luz, Terri Treas, Stephen Davies

This nod to fifties mutant-monster movies lacks the nostalgic feel for the genre that made Tremors such a winner. Unscrupulous mayor Lansing hatches a deal with a developer to build condominiums on the island paradise of Northpoint, site of a past experiment to create an alternative to pesticides in the form of a genetically engineered anti-cockroach cockroach. The building activity reawakens the dormant nest, and hordes of killer cockroaches strip the flesh from the bones of numerous cast members. The bugs are able to become what they eat—a hybrid of a hybrid—so when Lansing is devoured, his eyes pop out and he sprouts mandibles. Daughter Langlois pays homage to David Cronenberg’s The Fly by blowing the bug/man away with a shotgun. Sheriff Luz and several others track the bugs to their nest in a cave and do battle with an Alien-sized superbug, then bring the environmental nightmare to an end with explosives. Needless to say, the final shot portrays a lone bug that managed to escape the conflagration so it can reproduce and spawn a sequel. The FX here are gruesome and convincing, but the script and acting are so indifferent that the film never grabs hold. Based on a novel by Eli Cantor.

Never Pick Up a Stranger

Distributor unknown, 1984; Color, 98 minutes

Director: Joseph Bigwood Producers: Joseph Zito, Alan M. Braveman Writer: Robert Jahn With: Ian Scott, Judith Marie-Bergen, James Johnston, Lawrence Tierney

Shy, sexually repressed, Howdy Doodyish Peeping Tom Scott turns on a prostitute who gets too pushy after he spurns her advances and sends her crashing headfirst through a window. As Johnston, the dead girl’s policeman boyfriend, chats idly outside her house, Scott gives the bloody scene of his crime the Norman Bates once-over treatment—even neatly removing the shards of glass from the girl's wounds—and buries her corpse. He then skips to the city, kills another prostitute, and gets fatally hooked on another hooker (Marie-Bergen). He watches the woman continuously through his apartment window, boring us with his deranged inner thoughts via a monotonous (and barely audible) voice-over monologue reminiscent of Travis Bickle’s patter in Taxi Driver. The musical score attempts to mimic Bernard Herrmann—with little success, because it, too, is barely audible. In fact, the entire soundtrack seems to have been recorded on a machine with dirty heads. This one’s a long, long, long, numbingly slow psycho film—director Bigwood lets every scene, indeed every shot, go on forever! Awful. A.k.a Blood Rage.

The Newly Deads

City Lights Productions, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Joseph Merhi Producers: Richard Pepin, Joseph Merhi Writers: Joseph Merhi, Sean Dash With: Jim Williams, Jean Levine, Roxanna Michaels, Jay Richardson, Scott Kaske

Yet another pathetic opus from the overly prolific Pepin/Merhi team. Not only is this movie poorly conceived and shoddily executed, it literally reeks with homophobia. The womanizing owner (Williams) of a newlyweds’ vacation lodge tries to put the make on a young woman (Kaske), not realizing that “she" is really a transvestite. Outraged when he learns the truth, Williams’ “manhood” demands that he kill the transvestite with an ice pick to the belly and brain. Then he/she ghost-haunts the lodge and begins to murder heterosexual newlywed couples who stay there. A man gets it with a brass rod through the head, and his wife is stabbed to death. The ghost transforms itself into Williams’ wife and makes him strangle her to death by mistake. A country gal is impaled on some tree limbs, and the lodge’s maid is decapitated with a crosscut saw. Levine, a woman with psychic powers, finally exorcises the evil spirit by transforming into the ghost and then stabbing herself to death with a knife lashed to a crucifix. A senseless, offensive mess.

Next of Kin

Distributor unknown, 1982; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Tony Williams Producer: Robert Le Tet Writers: Michael Heath, Tony Williams With: Jackie Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex Scott

Linda (Kerin) has inherited a rambling country estate from her recently deceased mother. The estate, turned into a nursing home some years before by Linda’s mother and aunt, is not doing well financially and Linda is undecided about what to do. Before she can make up her mind, it becomes clear that something strange is going on involving old family friend Dr. Barton (Scott), and Connie, one of the nursing home administrators. It is soon revealed that the aunt, whom Linda believed long dead, is still living, having been committed to a home for the mentally ill some years before. It would take several viewings to sort out all the details, but the plot doesn’t really matter much. What we remember about Next of Kin is the way all the production elements combine to create scenes of genuine intensity. We've seen some of these scary-old-house trappings before—a shadow of a man cast on a wall turns out to be the boyfriend, a strange noise turns out to be the cat—but rarely executed as well as they are here. Several compelling moments display more originality. One of the old folks living at the home steps into a steamy bathtub only to put his foot on the head of a dead fellow resident who presumably died of a heart attack and is lying below the water’s surface. And Linda has several dreams that contain some truly horrifying images. Even when the pacing is slow, which is often, the esthetic element in the film absorbs us and holds our interest.

Night Angel

Paragon, 1989; Color, 90minutes

Director: Dominique Othenin-Girard Producers: Joe Augustyn and Jeff Geoffray Writers: Joe Augustyn, Walter Josten With: Isa Andersen, Linden Ashby, Debra Feuer, Karen Black

Watch out! Here she comes again! All of a sudden, screen and book writers have discovered Lilith. In fact, this beautiful boogey-woman may be the hottest thing since Dracula. And she’ll never be hotter then she is here, portrayed by knockout Isa Andersen. Lilith—in case somebody hasn’t heard—was allegedly Adam’s first wife. Not happy shackled to one man (and there was only one in those days), she fled the Garden of Eden and took up with demons. Known today as “Satan’s whore,” she pursues lust with high sensuality and relentless carnal aggression—just our kind of gal! In this wet-dream-turned-nightmare, eros and evil blend perfectly in the glamorous, groovier-than-thou world of wealth and high fashion. Lovely Lilith seduces and bumps off publishers and editors so she can control the helm of “Siren,” an influential and popular “Vanity Fair”-type magazine—the perfect medium to spread her corruption. As the characters learn what they’re up against and try to stop her, the viewer is treated to mind-boggling bodies, brain-numbing special effects, and a vision of hell that outdoes Clive Barker and Dante. Great stuff all around.

Nightbeast

Amazing Films, 1982, Color, 90 minutes

Director: Don Dohler Producer: Don Dohler Writer: Don Dohler With: Tom Griffith, Jamie Zemarel, George Stover

A humanoid alien terrorizes the inhabitants of backwoods Maryland. It disintegrates humans and automobiles until cops break its zap gun, at which time it resorts to good old manual mutilation. One sap steps into the bushes to relieve himself; the creature shreds his face and leaves one eye dangling by the optic nerve. Skulls are bashed in, a hillbilly’s arm is tom off, a stomach is ripped out, the mayor is beheaded, and one of the heroes has the flesh electrically charred from his face. One protracted shot shows a screaming man’s intestines reeled out inches at a time. The monster goes on hiatus for the middle third of the flick, during which we are treated to endless dialogue and the dumbest love scene ever. The ending echoes many monster movies of decades gone by. The monster suit, pyrotechnics, and gore are fairly impressive, given Dohler’s typical five-and-ten-cent budget, but the low budget is painfully obvious in all other departments. The acting is hilariously bad.

Night Breed

20th Century-Fox, 1990; Color, 102 minutes

Director: Clive Barker Producer: Gabriella Martinelli Writer: Clive Barker With: Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid

British multimedia star Clive Barker has created another menagerie of grotesques for this big-budget version of his novella Cabal. Splatter maven David Cronenberg as a psychotic psychoanalyst is an inspired bit of casting. Disturbed by weird nightmares, Sheffer seeks treatment with Cronenberg (bad move) and eventually finds himself in Midian, a kind of city of the dead beneath a graveyard in the Canadian wilderness. The most interesting parts of the film involve the “Night Breed” themselves, a gallery of ghouls who initiate Sheffer into their fellowship and who, in comparison to the humans, come across as positively noble. Unfortunately, Fox cut some of the gorier scenes, destroying its flow and making for some choppy continuity and vague character motivations. Even cut, Night Breed abounds with potent nightmare imagery.

Night Flyers

Vista Organization, 1987; Color, 94 minutes

Director: T.C. Blake Producer: Robert Jaffe Writer: Robert Jaffe With: Catherine Mary Stewart, Michael Praed, John Standing, Lisa Vlount. Glenn Withrow, Michael Des Barres

Beautiful production design by John Muto and an occasionally thoughtful script are effectively obscured by the incense-smoke-filled sets (no thanks to Ridley Scott) and a dragging pace in this tame sci-fi splatter piece about a crew of scientists at the mercy of a “living” spaceship. The conceit—that the ship is the nearly organic embodiment of its captain’s (Michael Praed) evil, twisted mother—is intriguing, and the performances are generally appealing. But the clichés are spread rather thick (including the old suck-everything-into-space-through-the-open-door shtick), and so little happens for nearly half the film that it never makes the grade. Where the original story, written by award-winner George R.R. Martin, is tense and exciting, this is just dull. The only point of genuine interest in the first half of the film is Michael Des Barres as an obnoxious telepath—so naturally he’s the first on whom the splatter effects are unleashed. (A rampaging surgical laser lops off his arm, then slices his head in two at the mouth.) Otherwise, the film is pretty tough going for too little reward. Worse, it has a synthesized soundtrack that’ll sucker you into thinking the phone is ringing every few minutes.

Night Life

Creative Movie Marketing, 1989; Color, 92 minutes

Director: David Acomba Producer: Charles Lippincott Writer: Keith Critchlow With: Scott Grimes, John Astin, Anthony Geary, Cheryl Pollack

An appealing outcast named Archie (Grimes) works in the local mortuary, run by his uncle (Astin). Archie’s future depends on the money he can save from his job, so he must stay employed at all costs. Trouble is: He’s continually tormented by rich, arrogant bullies and their sexpot girlfriends. When the snooty creeps die in a car-and-chemical-truck collision, Archie has to prepare their mangled bodies for burial. Weird toxins combine with an electrical storm to bring the bullies back to life so they can continue to torment Archie, threatening his job security even after death. This gore-humor hybrid is strengthened by good production values and fine performances. There are some grisly assaults on the stomach, as when we’re treated to overly realistic looks at the body prep and embalming processes. Throw in some head-splittings, some eye-gougings, and a fist fight with a flaming corpse in a grave, and this one makes for a terrific time: it starts with a splat and keeps on splattering.

Night of the Seagulls

See Night of the Death Cult

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5: The Dream Child

New Line Cinema, 1989; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Stephen Hopkins Producers: Robert Shaye, Rupert Harvey Writer: Leslie Bohem With: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Kelly Jo Minter, Erika Anderson, Whitby Hertford

The plot’s the same old thing. Freddy’s back and killing more teens by invading the dreams of Wilcox, a holdover from Part 4. When she finds herself pregnant, Freddy tries to claim her unborn child too, but he gets done in at the conclusion by his own mom, Amanda, a nun who worked in an asylum and was raped by the inmates, after which she gave birth to the demented Krueger. What separates this entry from others in the series is that it boasts the wildest, most innovative and hallucinatory dream/nightmare sequences of them all (liberally laced with splatter, of course). The plot’s a bore, sure, and Freddy and his “sharp wit” take a back seat this time, but director Hopkins and his FX folks pour on the psychosexual imagery and surrealism with such Bunuelian abandon that the film almost becomes an experimental art movie. Probably the only episode apart from the original that even non-Elm Street enthusiasts may enjoy, though we’ll have to see what the inevitable Part 6 has in store. Just make sure to leave the theater or turn off the video player before the closing credits, which are backed up by another of those terrible Freddy “rap” songs.

Nightmare Sisters

Distributor unknown, 1987; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Dave DeCoteau Producer: Dave DeCoteau Writer: Kenneth J. Hall With: Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Michelle McClellan, Rich Gabai

Three sorority nerdettes stage a séance with a possessed crystal ball, then mutate into curvaceous and deadly she-demons. (The scene where all three cram into one bathtub is the film’s high-water mark.) Frathouse bullies crash the party and are dispatched in a novel fashion—they disintegrate after the girls bite them (guess where)? An exorcist is called in for a somewhat amusing finale that will hardly give William Friedkin’s classic a run for its money. Some credit is due to the makeup people, who accomplished the impossible by making Quigley, Stevens, and McClellan look ugly in the film’s first half. Also features in-jokes, puerile dialogue, stupid humor, one decapitation, and some black-leather S&M. The film is almost sunk, however, by “master-shot” DeCoteau who, with his stationary camera, makes Herschell Gordon Lewis look like a fidgetter.

Night of Bloody Horror

Howco International, 1969; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Joy N. Houck, Jr. Producer: Joy N. Houck, Jr. Writers: Joy N. Houck, Jr., Robert A. Weaver With: Gerald McRaney, Gaye Yellin, Evelyn Hendricks, Robert Nelson

Delta Burke’s hubby stars as a young man with girlfriend trouble—he keeps blacking out, and they keep winding up dead. Police try to lock him up because of his past stint in a mental hospital and the fact that his brother and father both died under violent circumstances. The ending is an uninspired reversal of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Aside from some dopey dialogue, Night of Bloody Horror is fairly well made and well acted for a low-budget shock-fest. The gore is also startling. McRaney’s fiancée goes to confession, admits to “sins of the flesh,” and is rewarded with a knitting needle in the eye. Girlfriend number two, while lying on the beach, has a hatchet plunged into her upper chest; the camera closes on her blood seeping into the sand, then fades to a bowl of tomato soup on the doctor’s table. This kindly soul tries to help our hero; for that he has his hand lopped and his head chopped with a cleaver. Some grisly gunplay is thrown in for good measure. Filmed in “Violent Vision” in New Orleans.

Night of Dark Shadows

MGM, 1971, Color, 97 minutes

Director: Dan Curtis Producer: Dan Curtis Writers: Dan Curtis, Sam Hall With: David Selby, Lara Parker, Kate Jackson, Grayson Hall, John Karlen, Nancy Barrett, James Storm, Diana Millay, Christopher Pennock, Thayer David

After the success of House of Dark Shadows (1970), producer/director Curtis rushed a follow-up into production, again with cast members from the 1966-1971 TV series. Unfortunately, this semi-sequel did not resurrect Barnabas the vampire, but instead features David Selby as Quentin Collins, a relative. That wouldn’t have been a bad move had Selby played his werewolf character from the TV series, but for some reason, he’s just “plain old Quentin," bringing his new bride (a young Kate Jackson) to live in the ancestral home (again, the Jay Gould mansion in Tarrytown, New York). The rest of the movie follows your basic Barbara Steele horror movie plot: Quentin begins to feel “not quite himself’ and starts walking with a limp—like his evil ancestor. Parker plays a witch called Angelique, Quentin’s consort in a previous life. There are some nice, scary moments, but they’re few and far between. Storm gets shot in the face and wanders around town for about an hour until he gets to kiss his girlfriend and drool blood on her—while the sentiment is welcome, the slaughter inflicted on the storyline is not.

Night of the Bloody Apes

Jerand, 1968; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Rene Cardona Producer: G. Calderon Stell Writers: Rene Cardona, Rene Cardona, Jr. With: Jose Elias Moreno, Carlos Lopez, Moctezuma, Norma Lazareno

A notorious South-of-the-Border schlock-fest in which a misguided scientist replaces his dead son’s ticker with an ape heart. (Perhaps this is allegorical of the father/son relationship behind the script.) This provides an excuse for inserts of actual open-heart surgery in sickening close-up. Surprise, surprise—the patient develops simian features and starts doing his bit for population control. Facial mutilation is his stock in trade; there is blood by the bucket as he claws off noses, pops out eyeballs, and peels back scalps. Some of the effects work well, while others look like they were done by chimps with modeling clay and ketchup. We get to see lots of female wrestling footage—whether we want to or not. More laughs and gaffes involve insane dialogue and continuity problems, especially concerning the large clocks in the laboratory. Since the gorilla-faced murderer walks around shirtless, the audience can easily see that his makeup ends at the neck.

Night of the Death Cult

Angla Centuiy Films, 1985; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Amando de Ossorio Producer: Jose Angel Santos Writer: None Credited With: Victor Petit, Maria Kosta, Sandra Mozarosky

1985 may be the date with which this film is tagged, but it was obviously made at least a decade earlier and is nothing more nor less than one of those ghastly Knights Templar blind-dead movies. As with the other entries in this series, this means that we have a bunch of moldy corpses running around aimlessly on slow-motion horses dealing death to a variety of performers who either have to be tied up, terminally slow, or backed into a comer to be in any real peril. The film’s opening ranks pretty high on the Splat-o-Meter, as the pre-dead Knights sacrifice a girl, feed her heart to a statue, feed on her remains, and toss the leftovers to some crabs (that move even more slowly than the zombified Knights). But it’s downhill from there, with bad scripting, bad acting, and an even worse climax. After hundreds of years of turning over seven (count ’em) nubile cuties to the stumbling dead every so often, the new doctor topples the heart-munching statue, whereupon the zombies collapse and their skulls disgorge quantities of red paint with Vesuvius-like fervor. Why no one else ever thought of this is not explained, but at least it makes the movie stop. A.k.a. Night of the Seagulls.

Night of the Demon

Aldan, 1983; Color, 82 minutes

Director: James C. Wasson Producer: Jim L Ball Writer: Mike Williams With: Michael J. Cutt, Joy Allen, Bob Collins. Jodi Lazarus. Melanie Graham

This unrated excuse for graphic bloodshed flouts known facts about Bigfoot and is further muddled by a flashback-within-a-flashback structure. None of that will matter to true gore fiends, however, since murder and mayhem are the order of the day. A luckless bumpkin’s arm is ripped off in the pre-credit sequence, and we get to see the stump bleed behind the main titles. Another time, entrails are groped, yanked out, and gleefully waved in the air. In the grisliest scene, a cyclist stops on a wooded roadside to attend a call of nature and has his tallywhacker ripped off. No detail is spared in this footage, which would get the film an easy X in the most liberal of times. When we finally get to see the monster in its entirety, its makeup is ludicrous, but that’s appropriate for a geek show like this.

Night of the Demons

Halloween Partners, Ltd., 1977; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Kevin S. Tenney Producers: Don Robinson, Joe Augustyn Writer: Joe Augustyn With: Alvin Alexis, Linnea Quigley, Mimi Kinkade, Allison Baron, Lance Fenton, William Gallo, Hal Havins, Cathy Podewell, Phillip Tanzini, Jill Terashita

This well-produced film has a familiar feel to it. The plot is like Romero’s Night of the Living Dead turned inside out. Instead of retreating into a house to escape flesh-eating ghouls, the teenage protagonists are trapped in a deserted mortuary with a demon who is turning them into bloodthirsty ghouls one by one. The fact that one of the characters is named Sal Romero seems to confirm the homage. During the course of the picture we get to see: a burning finger, a smashed face, gouged-out eyes, a severed arm, some broken necks, a tongue being bitten off, an impalement, and a fiery immolation. Other stand-out sequences include Kinkade doing a strobe-lit demon dance (which the credits say, she choreographed herself) and Quigley scrawling lipstick on her naked breasts, then pushing the entire tube through her nipple. We’re also treated to a scene of teens having sex in a coffin. This film has a lot going for it: sharp direction, moody cinematography, taut editing, and good performances from the entire cast. The special FX are realistic and imaginative, and the gore is plentiful. Despite its familiarity, this one delivers the goods.

Night of the Howling Beast

Profilmes, 1975; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Miguel Iglesias Bonns Producer: None credited Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Grace Mills, Castillo Escalona, Gil Vidal

Naschy’s Waldemar Daninsky accompanies an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the Yeti. He separates from the others, finds two gorgeous women living in a cave, and spends a pleasant night with them. The next morning he finds them gorging on the limbs and guts of his guide. He stakes them, but not before one woman bites him and turns him into a werewolf. Meanwhile, the rest of the expedition is attacked by bandits. One is impaled with a stake up the ass and out the neck; the others are taken to the lair of Saka Khan and his sadistic mistress. Naschy gnaws and claws his way through six bad men before being captured himself. Khan suffers from a hideous skin disease, and has the hides taken from living victims and applied to his own back. Waldemar and friends break free and take on Khan’s forces in a bloody climax. Naschy also dukes it out with a Yeti, thrown in as an afterthought. The ending is less grim than most in this series. Known abroad as The Werewolf and the Yeti.

Night of the Living Dead

Columbia, 1990; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Tom Savini Producers: John A Russo, Russ Streiner Writer: George A. Romero With: Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, Tom Towles, McKee Anderson, Heather Mazur, William Butler, Katie Finneran

FX maestro-turned-director Tom Savini, ably assisted by George A. Romero and Romero’s extended family of Pittsburgh-based filmmakers, achieves the near impossible by enabling audiences to experience the impact of the original NOLD all over again in this superbly crafted remake that is as funny, frightening, and suspenseful as the 1968 classic. Even the quantity of gore remains determinedly on par with the original. Romero’s screenplay does take some well-earned liberties with his (and John Russo’s) original story, but this is done mostly to give that story’s sixties themes more contemporary currency, as well as to keep audience expectations at bay. And it succeeds in both aims. Barbra (Tallman) is a more aggressive participant this time around; Ben (Todd) is a hero with feet of clay; and Harry (Towles), an even more sniveling “me-oriented” coward than before, is a genuinely eighties villain, who gets his just reward in a most satisfying (though disturbing) manner. The final sequences, in which numerous zombies are rounded up and used for survivalist sport (another hallmark of the eighties) gives the story’s familiar ending new potency as well. Considering that Romero admits he undertook this project mainly to recoup financial losses he suffered due to copyright problems with the original, he and Savini have given their audience a pleasant surprise—a remake that may well achieve classic status on its own.

Night of the Zombies

MPM, 1981; Color, 101 minutes

Director: Vincent Dawn (Bruno Mattei) Producer: Sergio Cortona Writers: Claudio Fragasso, J.M. Cunilles With: Frank Garfield, Evelyn Margit Newton, Selan Karay

A strike force is sent to New Guinea to stem a tide of mob violence and mass murder. The killers are actually dead natives, brought back to life by a chemical experiment gone wrong. The soldiers spend a lot of time blowing zombies’ bodies full of holes before learning the value of shots to the head. Zombies attack a native village, munching out on all the guts and gristle they can get their hands on. Our heroes escape and hide in a Colonial mansion. They are set upon by the zombified residents, one of whom has rats in her abdominal cavity; they shoot the undead clan to shreds. They end up inside the research center where it all began. Zombies come out of the woodwork for a final assault, and Newton gets hers in a literally eye-popping climax. This film has a bad name even among zombiephiles, thanks to stock footage of natives and jungle beasts intercut to pad out the running time. Also, the Goblin score was lifted from Dawn of the Dead. But the film still has its followers, since it features the “Three G’s” of modem zombiedom—Gore, Gunplay, and Guts. Not Good, though.

Night Train to Terror

Visto International, 1985; Color, 98 minutes

Directors: Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, John Carr, Tom McGowan, Greg Tallas, Philip Marshak Producer: Jay Schlossberg-Cohen Writer: Phillip Yordan With: John Phillip Law, Cameron Mitchell, Faith Clift Richard (Charles) Moll, Robert Bristol, Eva Hesse

The Lord and Satan ride a train full of punk-rockers in this offbeat anthology film. One tale, a condensation of a flick known as The Death Wish Club, involves a life-and-death game of chance. Losers are killed by a giant wasp or have their heads crushed. Another segment is a cut-down edition of Cataclysm, punched up with poor-man’s Harryhausen monsters who chow down on humans. The best story deals with a private clinic which ships fresh body parts to medical schools worldwide; beforehand, nubile nudes are sawed up alive, for sadism’s sake alone. Fans of “Night Court” may enjoy watching Moll in two segments. British thespian Ferdy Mayne literally plays God in the framing footage. There’s no real reason why this hodge-podge production should work, but it does.

Nightwish

Nightwish Productions, Inc., 1988; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Bruce R. Cook Producer: Keith Walley Writer: Bruce R. Cook With: Clayton Rohner, Alisha Das, Jack Starrett, Robert Tessler, Elizabeth Kaitan, Artur Cybulski, Tom Dugan, Brian Thompson

This film is quite a salad, mixing sleep-deprivation experiments, toxic waste, mutants, UFOs, Satanism, and psychic phenomena. It’s also an illusion-versus-reality drama that delights in setting up, and then defeating, viewers’ expectations. While this technique may fascinate some, it’s certainly irritating to others. Kaitan, Rohner, Thompson, and Das drive to the “Valley of Fear,” a toxic area rife with UFO sightings, to meet their professor (Starrett) and another student (Cybulski) at an old mansion rumored to have been the site of satanic rites. Soon a smoke creature emerges from the fireplace and everyone’s instruments and cameras go wild. The seemingly sadistic Starrett tells the team it was a trick to test their mettle. Then a real ghost appears, and we get a steadicam tour of the mansion. Starrett ties up the unwilling students for the world’s first bondage séance. Then things really get wild. We get a knifing. A finger is severed. One of the male students has a Plexiglas case full of spiders placed over his head. Soon we’re into Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as the students try to flee. But—surprise—everything turns out to be a dream.

976-EVIL

Cinetel Films, 1989; Color, 100 minutes

Director: Robert Englund Producer: Lisa M. Hansen Writers: Rhet Topham, Brian Helgeland With: Stephen Geoffreys, Pat O'Bryan, Lezlie Deane, Jim Metzler, Sandy Dennis

Dominated by his religious-fanatic mother (Dennis) and repeatedly beaten up and dunked in toilet bowls by the high school toughs, wimp Geoffreys follows through on an ad to dial 976-EVIL for his “Horrorscope”—and is invested with supernatural powers enabling him to revenge himself on all his victimizers. As he transforms into FX-chief Kevin Yagher’s vision of Satan, Geoffreys rips out human hearts, chops off hands, impales people on neon lights, and turns deranged old mom into a hot lunch for her numerous pet cats—all the while spouting Freddy Kruegerish witticisms. The premise of the dumped-on teenager who gets gruesomely even with his tormenters is certainly not a new one in splatter movies. What’s different about this retread is how laboriously first-time director Robert (Freddy Krueger) Englund and his scriptwriters set up their version of this clichéd premise—roughly an hour goes by before the film gets down to brass tacks. The soul-transferance ending, lifted from The Exorcist, leaves room for a sequel. Stick with playing Freddy Krueger, Bob. Judging from this badly acted, badly written, ponderously paced box office bomb, directing ain’t your thing.

Northville Cemetery Massacre

Distributor unknown, 1974; Color, 80 minutes

Directors: William Dear, Thomas L Dyke Producers: William Dear, Thomas L Dyke Writers: William Dear, Thomas L. Dyke, Jim Pappas With: David Hyry, Carson Jackson, Herb Sharpies, J. Craig Collicott, Len Speck

A latter-day biker flick, and a splattery one at that. A fun-loving motorcycle “club” (portrayed by the Detroit Scorpions) rides into hostile redneck territory. A local storm trooper rapes a rich man’s daughter and puts her in the hospital, then convinces Daddy the bikers did it. The cop and irate father contact the resident Count; armed with shotguns, high-powered rifles, and a helicopter, the three attack the bikers during a Hell’s Angels funeral. Envision, if you will, The Hunting Party with Hueys, Harleys, and a ton of blood-bags, and you’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with here. This isn’t very well-made, except for one hilarious Patton parody, and the strikingly choreographed slaughter scenes. A.k.a. Freedom R.I.P.

Not of This Earth

Miracle Pictures, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Jim Wynorski Producers: Jim Wynorski, Mark Hanna Writers: Jim Wynorski, R.J. Robertson With: Traci Lords, Arthur Roberts, Lenny Juliano, Rebecca Perle

Considering the rise in inflation over the years, this thirtieth-anniversary remake of the 1958 Roger Corman classic achieves the impossible by looking even more cheaply made than the original. Roberts assumes the Paul Birch role of the alien vampire in the groovy shades who is transporting suitcases full of human blood to his thirsting planet. Ex-porn queen Lords is the nurse he’s hired to give him periodic transfusions, but who brings about his downfall when she catches on to his scam. Whereas the original film played everything straight (except for one amusing sequence featuring Dick Miller as a luckless door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, repeated here sans Miller), the remake is strictly for laughs. Unfortunately, those laughs are minimal, and the gore and suspense even less. Apart from a scene where another alien vampire (Perle) goes on a gory knife rampage after inadvertently being transfused with the blood of a rabid dog, most of the splatter is relegated to the opening credits, and consists of a hodge-podge of scenes from other, more graphic splatter pix that have nothing to do with this movie. Lords removes her clothes several times, but if that’s what you’re looking for, you’d be wise to check out one of her old porno flicks instead. A bomb on every level.

Le Notte de Terrore

See Burial Ground

Oasis of the Zombies

See Blood Sucking Nazi Zombies

Offerings

Arista Films, 1988; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Christopher Reynolds Producer: Christopher Reynolds Writer: Christopher Reynolds With: Loretta Leigh Bowman, Elizabeth Greene, G. Michael Smith

Yet another entry in a long line of second-rate Halloween rip-offs. A group of neighborhood children takes pleasure in harassing a quiet, introverted boy whose only friend is a pretty blonde girl who defends him. The nasty kids push our shy friend into a well and the reliable “ten years later” flashes on the screen. Our “hero” is badly scarred, and currently residing in an institution for the mentally ill. He escapes and goes on a rampage, bumping off the now-teenaged kids who tormented him a decade earlier. The only variation on the familiar theme here is that the psycho cuts off pieces of his victims—a nose, an ear, a finger—and leaves these “offerings” on the front steps of his blonde protector’s home. Producer/writer/director Reynolds brings no imagination or variety to the standard formula; though competently made, Offerings doesn’t offer much that’s fresh except dead meat.

The Offspring

IVE, 1986; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Jeff Burr Producers: Darin Scott, William Burr Writers: C. Courtney Joyner, Darin Scott, Jeff Burr With: Vincent Price, Clu Gulager, Terry Kiser, Harry Caesar, Rosalind Cash, Cameron Mitchell, Susan Tyrrell, Angelo Rossitto, Lawrence Tierney, Martine Beswick

In this recommended horror anthology, reporter Tyrrell investigates an execution and, through librarian Price, discovers the unsavory history of Oldfield, Tennessee in a series of tales. An aging shipping clerk’s frustration leads to murder, necrophilia, and worse. A hoodlum is caught up in a bayou version of the Fountain of Youth legend combined with the old “Monkey’s Paw” story taken a few bloody steps further. The third segment, set in a traveling carnival, tells of “internal horror” nasty enough to knock Cronenberg flat on his kiester. The fourth vignette is a Civil-War shocker that could have been scripted by Ambrose Bierce on a severe gore-trip. Along with the ace acting and slick direction, we’re treated to a flayed corpse in a guy’s bed, a zombie baby, ice pick antics, immolation, dismemberment, eyeball violence, torture, bludgeoning, groin-stabbing, splashy gunshot wounds—everything that makes a gore-hound’s life worth living. A.k.a. From a Whisper to Scream.

Open House

Intercontinental Releasing Corp., 1987; Color, 97 minutes

Director: Jag Mundhra Producer: Sandy Cobe Writer: David Mickey Evans With: Joseph Bottoms, Adrienne Barbeau, Rudy Ramos

Working stiffs should get a kick out of this bloodbath, in which a serial killer snuffs rich condo dwellers, yuppie home-owners, and real estate agents. Obviously, it’s a tale of good versus evil. The fun begins when a realtor shows buyers a house and a bloody, fly-ridden corpse is found in the bathroom. Next a yuppie’s fingers are cut off; the killer beats him and his agent to death with a razor-blade-studded baseball bat. One woman is strung up in front of a picture window; another is soaked and electrocuted so severely her flesh blisters. Other set pieces include strangulation by dog-leash and the sight of a fat salesman’s head in a Jacuzzi. Liberal radio host Bottoms says the killer is entitled to due process, until girlfriend Barbeau’s life is threatened. The murderer is a giggling moron who eats dog food. A slickly-made, gore-drenched thriller for the Yuppie Age.

Opera

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 105 minutes

Director: Dario Argento Producer: Dario Argento Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini With: Cristina Marsillach, Ian Charleson, Daria Nicolodi

A young actress understudying the part of Lady Macbeth is terrorized by a psycho. Trussed-up with her eyes pinned open by strategically-placed needles, the heroine watches as her close friends are butchered before her eyes. At one point the killer slashes open a corpse’s esophagus to retrieve a piece of “damning evidence.” Wild ravens reduce a character’s face to mincemeat. Other set pieces (which only Argento could dream up) include shots of the madman’s fevered brain pulsating inside his cranium, and a cutaway view of a large-bore bullet travelling up a gun barrel before blowing open a victim’s skull. Low on plot but high on gore—typical Argento. A.k.a. Terror at the Opera.

The Other Hell

Cinemec, 1980; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Stefan Oblowsky Producer: None credited Writers: Bruno Mattel, Claudio Fragasso With: Franca Stoppi, Carlo De Mejo, Frank Garfield

A priest investigates homicides at a convent, erroneously believing that the Devil has nothing to do with the murders. Lamps explode for no reason and Bibles inexplicably catch fire. The old priest is roasted alive. A corpse’s rotting head is deposited in the tabernacle. A nun takes Communion, barfs blood, develops stigmata, and hemorrhages to death. A crazed Mother Superior cuts the genitals and uterus out of a dead nun accused of fornicating with Satan, and later disembowels her. A sadistic caretaker beheads a live chicken onscreen, sics his hounds on a helpless cat, and has his throat ripped open by his own dogs. Flashbacks show a baby being scalded. Satan’s daughter walks around with ordure smeared on her mouth. In one close-up, a character is stabbed in the groin, and the blade is slowly twisted. The dead rise for one of the dumbest endings ever. The Other Hell is diverting enough on the level of pure trash, but fans of carnage and carnality in the convent would do better with Ken Russell’s The Devils.

Patrick Still Lives

See Patrick 2

Patrick 2

Distributor unknown, 1980; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Mario Landi Producer: Gabriele Crisanti Writer: Piero Regnoli With: Gianni Dei, Sascha Piteoff, Maria Angela Giordan, Paola Giusti

Splattery sequel to Australian Richard Franklin’s boring (and non-splattery) 1978 “thriller.” In the first version, a lad with lethal telekinetic powers killed anyone who angered him by launching Freddy Krueger-ish dream attacks while lying comatose in his hospital bed. In this Italian-made follow-up, Patrick (Dei) is still flat on his back, but now relocated to a posh clinic run by his father (Piteoff), where various nasty things happened once before and, thanks to Patrick, now start happening again. The comatose avenger unleashes his telekinetic powers on one and all. Where Franklin’s film strived for suspense (with a few visual pyrotechnics thrown in) but failed, this one goes straight for the gore (with some nudity tossed in) and succeeds. Pat’s victims are convincingly decapitated, boiled alive, skewered in the neck, and ripped apart by savage dogs. A.k.a. Patrick Still Lives.

Pet Sematary

Paramount Pictures, 1989; Color, 104 minutes

Director: Mary Lambert Producer: Richard P. Rubinstein Writer: Stephen King With: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Blaze Bredahl, Miko Hughes, Susan J. Blommaert, Brad Greenquist

The intensity of Stephen King’s novel—a variation on “The Monkey’s Paw"—is cinematically diminished by scenes and performances so overdrawn they border on parody. Dr. Louis Creed, his wife, son, and daughter move into a Maine country house located next to a busy highway. This seemed plausible in the novel because the proximity of the road and the degree of traffic were left to the imagination. In the film, however, the road is practically in the Creeds’ front yard and populated by so many thundering trailer trucks hurtling by with such frequency that no one in their right mind would consider buying such a house. The noise factor alone would kill you! The house is also located near an old Indian burial ground used by former neighborhood children to inter dead pets. The hallowed pet “sematary” supernaturally enables the deceased to return—albeit somewhat altered. When Creed’s son (Hughes) is accidentally killed by one of the multitude of passing trucks, the grieving doctor disinters the lad, takes him to the pet “sematary” and resurrects him. Unfortunately, the boy is no longer a tousled-haired toddler—he’s a dirt-caked, knife-wielding death machine. All ends badly and bloodily for everyone in this film, which comes complete with a cliché shock epilogue not present in the novel but seemingly indespensible to makers of horror/splatter pix. The FX are good (and gross), but the overall film, like Fred Gwynne’s terrible down-home Maine accent and Midkiff’s zomboid Creed, is unconvincing.

Phantasm II

Universal, 1988; Color, 97 minutes

Director: Don Coscarelli Producer: Roberto A. Quezada Writer: Don Coscarelli With: James Le Gros, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm, Paula Irvine, Samantha Phillips

Although a box-office failure, this sequel to Coscarelli’s imaginative 1979 film has a fair amount going for it. This one begins where the original left off, with Le Gros and Bannister batting dwarfs and escaping from their exploding house. The Tall Man (Scrimm) seeks to “plunder graveyards and enslave the dead." Those who missed the original film will have a hard time knowing what’s happening as the Tall Man sweeps through the countryside “murdering towns.” There’s a great shot of a vast boneyard, all the graves yawning open. Scrimm’s face crawls out of a girl’s back. A corpse with its lips sewn shut ends up with a knife in its chest. Scrimm once again lives in a funeral home, where lots of weird embalming rites go on and “gravers”—those who exhume the bodies—wear gas masks. The famous flying silver sphere slices off a priest’s ear and then drills into his head. There’s also a chainsaw duel, and Scrimm is embalmed with sulphuric acid.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge

Fries Entertainment 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Richard Friedman Producer: Thomas Fries Writers: Scott J. Schneid, Tony Michelman, Robert King With: Derek Rydall, Kari Whitman, Jonathan Goldsmith, Rob Estes, Paul Shore, Kimber Sissons, Morgan Fairchild, Ken Foree

Unscrupulous land developers burned down his house, left him disfigured, ruined his life, and now from the catacombs (!) beneath their shiny new shopping mall Eric plots his fiendish revenge. Efficiently made, yes, but lacking in much point or originality, Phantom of the Mall is little more than a parade of creative deaths strung together with no regard for plot development. We witness death by: stabbing, crossbow, cobra bite (to the crotch no less), forklift (with a nice flying eyeball that ends up in a dish of frozen yogurt), escalator, fan blade, incinerator door, etc. When the film runs out of creative death ideas, it simply ends by blowing up the mall. The idea of satirizing mall society was done much better by George Romero in Dawn of the Dead, and what humor there is here is mostly of the unconscious variety (imagine, if you will, a phantom wearing a high-school varsity letter jacket, pumping iron, engaging in kung-fu fighting, and sporting a secret hideout that appears to have been furnished from a Spiegel catalogue). Much of the plot is sketchy. Where the hell did this kid get a hold of cobras—the Docktor Pet Center? Why does his oh-so-spiritual teeny-bopper girl friend throw him over just because half of his face looks like the inside of a golf ball? What kind of sporting goods stores sell flamethrowers anyway? We don’t know and doubt the filmmakers did, either. The whole thing is very nearly worth sitting through just to see Morgan Fairchild and all 48 pounds of her fluffed-up hair go sailing through a window and wind up impaled on a spike. Any version of Phantom of the Opera is better than this. Oh, yes, there’s a theme song, too. No soundtrack album, alas.

The Phantom of the Opera

21st Century Film Corporation, 1989; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Dwight Little Producer: Harry Alan Towers Writer: Duke Sandefur With: Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, Alex Hyde-White, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Lawrence

Umpteenth remake of the venerable Gaston Leroux classic, updated for the splatter generation and starring everybody’s favorite mass murderer, Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund, as the musical madman. The truth is, Englund’s pretty good in the part, but his efforts are undermined by a meandering, uninvolving script. There’s also a wraparound story that doesn’t work, except to provide room for a sequel. Aspiring opera singer Schoelen comes across a 120-year-old music score (written by the phantom) and opts to use it at an audition. Sandbagged, quite literally, during her performance, she is transported back to nineteenth-century London (actually Budapest, where the film was shot) to relive the terrifying tale of the phantom—a ghoulish cut-up named Erik Destler who surgically removes the faces of his victims and stitches the flesh over his own, even more hideous visage. There’s no real story here, just the usual decapitations and slicing and dicing, all vividly executed by FX chief Kevin Yagher. Some of the more splattery footage appears to have been trimmed to get the film an R rating, however. All in all, Andrew Lloyd Webber need not worry.

Pieces

Almena Film Productions, 1983; Color, 119 minutes

Director: J. Piquer Simon Producers: Dick Randall, Steve Minasian Writers: Dick Randall, John Shadow, Ian Sera, Jack Taylor With: Christopher George, Paul Smith, Edmund Purdom, Linda Day

Here’s another generic Euro-slasher epic that’s basically stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster from bits and pieces of other films. It does have some good gore scenes, but very few surprises. The pre-credit sequence shows a little boy playing with a picture puzzle of a naked lady. His sexually repressed mother slaps him as punishment, so naturally he hacks her to death with an axe. We see her severed head in a closet. Many years later, a slasher is terrorizing a college campus. He does in his first girl victim with a chainsaw. A couple having sex in a swimming pool gets it next. A cop (George) and an undercover decoy (Day) go to work on the case. A member of a girl’s dance class has her arm lopped off in an elevator. Day roams the campus at night searching for suspects. Meanwhile, the killer stabs another coed to death on her waterbed, and chainsaws a female tennis player in the locker room. She pees in her pants as her torso is severed. A frustrated Day pays a visit to the college dean (Purdom), who promptly drugs her. It turns out that Purdom is, in fact, the slasher. Just as he is about to cut off Day’s toes so that her feet will fit his mother's shoes (he’s fashioning a composite of mom from pieces of his victims), the cops burst in for the rescue and to mercifully bring the curtain down.

Plutonium Baby

Distributor unknown, 1987; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Ray Hirschman Producer: Ray Hirschman Writer: Wayne Behar With: Patrick Molloy, Danny Guerra, Caran Sheehan

A boy whose mother was contaminated by plutonium turns radioactive and goes after the dirty corporate birds responsible. As a youngster he eats live fish, swallowing them head-first, and starts fires with his bare hands. There is also a mutant rabbit who helps terrorize some dopey teenaged hikers. Most of the carnage is concentrated in the first half of the film, as several teens have their faces gnawed and bellies laid open. Another guy has a claw rammed between his eyes. The best part involves a corporate gunman’s being torn in two; his top half is wedged in a tree and his dangling intestines blow merrily in the breeze. The last half, shot mainly on the city rooftops, moves slower than Roseanne Barr swimming in molasses; while the gory bits would make a neat film clip, the movie overall fails to hold our interest.

Popcorn

Studio Three Film Corporation, 1991; Color, 90minutes

Director: Mark Herrier Producers: Torben Johnke, Gary Goch, Ashok Amritraj, Sophie Hurst Writer: Tod Hackett With: Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, Derek Rydall, Elliott Hurst, Kelly Jo Minter, Ray Walston, Tony Roberts, Bruce Glover

For originality, this mad slasher/monster-on-the-loose-in-a-movie-theater illusion-versus-reality opus may not stand head and shoulders above others in this small but growing sub-genre of splatter (which includes Anguish, Demons, etc.) but it does have a nice sense of humor about it, and an enjoyable emphasis on parody. At a festival of grade-B, fifties horror/SF movies, the spirit of the dead director of one of the films (“The Possesser”) possesses one of the youthful filmgoers (Villard) and starts chopping up the audience. This includes Schoelen, the mad director’s daughter, whom he had once before tried to kill. In this film, though, it’s not what’s on screen that counts, but what’s on the screen on the screen: The front-row mad-slasher plot is totally routine, but the movies within the movie give Popcorn a definite lift. Boasting such bogus titles as “The Amazing Electrified Man”, “The Stench,” and “The Mosquito,” these parodies of typical schlock are right on target, although in terms of makeup and FX, they reveal a bit too much eighties and nineties state-of-the-art technology.

Posed for Murder

Fox/Fury Ventures, 1989, Color, 83 minutes

Director: Brian Thomas Jones Producers: Carl Fury, Jack Fox Writers: John A. Gallagher, Chuck Dickerson With: Charlotte J. Helmkamp, Carl Fury, Rick Gianasi, Michael Merrin

There are only three possible reasons for this unspeakably bad movie—and two of them wear D cups. The other is its rather tepid blood-letting. The correct term for this film is perhaps “soft-core splatter." The only positive element is director Jones’s impartial view of humanity as just so much meat: The film includes just as many fragmented shots of male body-builders (a-tit-here, a-large-and-sinewy-muscle-there) as of former centerfold Helmkamp. The less said about Miss D-Cup’s acting the better. Let’s just say that it makes all the inane comments printed in the skin mags (“Charlotte collects belly-button lint in her spare time; her favorite movie is Hillbillies in the Haunted House”) seem perfectly believable. The title, by the way, is something of a misnomer, since the killings—by psycho bodybuilder boyfriend (and co-producer) Fury—have nothing to do with models and revolve around people who get close to our heroine. Even seeing Fury get his hand chewed up in a garbage disposal doesn’t make this trip worthwhile.

The Possession of Joel Delaney

Paramount Pictures, 1972; Color, 105 minutes

Director: Warris Hussein Producer: Martin Poll Writers: Matt Robinson, Grimes Grice With: Shirley MacLaine, Perry King, Michael Hordern, Lovelady Powell, Paulita Iglesias

This preemptive strike on a pre-Exorcist public soon to be hungering for movies with demonic possession themes was not the box office winner the latter film was, and disappeared quickly from view. Not yet knowing how mainstream audiences would accept the kind of gross-out gore indigenous to such films, the filmmakers perhaps pulled a few too many graphic punches (or had those punches pulled for them by the MPAA), but the shocks are plentiful enough. Like Rosemary's Baby, the film places its horrors in New York City, a hotbed of racial intolerance. The brother (King) of socialite MacLaine, who disdains the Puerto Rican servants she depends on as well as all others of their class, is possessed by the spirit of a Puerto Rican sex killer. Thereafter, King goes on a murder spree himself, decapitating several victims. The Puerto Ricans catch on fast to this sixties-style “burn, baby, burn” threat and resort to some superstitious hocus-pocus to exorcize the demon of their racial avenger from King’s body. The ritual is no-go, however, and this leads to a suspenseful climax in which King brandishes a knife, terrorizing sis MacLaine and her kids inside the no-longer-protective walls of her upscale apartment. A fast-moving, mad-slasher flick with a social conscience, based on a much duller novel by Ramona Stewart.

Possession—Until Death Do You Part

North American Releasing/A.B. Enterprises, 1987; Color, 93 minutes

Directors: Lloyd A. Simandl, Michael Mazo Producers: Lloyd A. Simandl, John A. Curtis Writer: Lyne J. Grantham With: John R. Johnston, Melissa Martin, Cat Williams, Leanne Jaheny, Samra Wolfin, April Akins

Part film, part video nonsense of the worst kind; the idea of actually spending 93 minutes with a film of this ilk is about as appalling as donating money to Tammy Faye Bakker. There really is no plot, only a situation: mom-fixated nut case (Johnston) kidnaps girls and murders them because they fail to live up to his mother. Ultimately, mommy becomes a nuisance, and he does her in just moments before the cops blow him up in a row boat. Naturally, he isn’t really dead, and over mom’s grave (with a nice tombstone that reads, “Mother”) he promises to set things right by killing off a veritable sorority of girls. (What this will put right is never explained.) The remainder of the film is devoted to this sport, as our protagonist lurks about in Rambo night-attack makeup and plays at being a bargain-basement Jason Voorhees. In truth, a great deal of this rubbishy outing’s raison d’etre lies in the chance to undress its meat-on-the-hoof bimbettes, all of whom seem to take showers just prior to being murdered. (At least they’re clean.) One’s tolerance for this stuff depends solely upon one’s taste (or lack thereof) for watching a parade of Hustler-level cuties lathering up their breasts.

Predator 2

Twentieth Century-Fox, 1990; Color, 108 minutes

Director: Stephen Hopkins Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver, John Davis Writers: Jim Thomas, John Thomas With: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Robert Davi, Bill Paxton, Kevin Peter Hall, Morton Downey, Jr.

The gore and action in this sequel to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzeneggar hit are so breathlessly nonstop there’s no way Predator 2 could rate anything less than a ten on our Splat-o-Meter. It makes the exciting first film seem like a stroll in the park. But therein also lies the problem. Predator 2’s sound and fury are so relentless that the film becomes exhausting, and, ultimately, boring. This time around, the scorpion-faced alien game hunter (Hall again) is stalking human trophies in 1997 Los Angeles, where the streets are in a constant state of siege by rival drug gangs. Top-cop Glover discovers the eviscerated corpses of his men and several gang members and realizes that a malevolent third party has intruded on the city’s war-torn preserve. But he’s pulled off the case by a zealous federal agent (Busey) who wants to capture this alien and employ it as a U.S. secret weapon. Of course, Glover refuses to sit idly by, and when Busey is killed, he takes on the cosmic killing machine in a singlehanded showdown. The battle concludes inside the alien’s ship, where Glover kills the creature and is saluted for his bravery by several more aliens, who then return to the stars to gear up for the, we suppose, inevitable Predator 3. Glover is a bit too paunchy for a convincing action star, but at least he can act. Morton Downey, Jr. on the other hand, is quite convincing in his cameo as a loathsome, loudmouthed reporter for a tabloid TV news show called Hard Core.

Prey

Distributor unknown, 1977; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producers: Terence Marcel, David Wimbury Writer: Max Cuff With: Glory Annen, Sally Faulkner, Barry Stokes. Sandy Chimney

This British cannibal movie features Stokes as a hungry alien who comes to Earth in search of a fresh food source for his home planet—and finds human flesh not only lip-smacking good, but nutritious too. An ugly cuss in his alien guise, he assumes the form of one of his victims so he can go about his flesh-eating business in relative anonymity, using the home of the unsuspecting Annen and Faulkner as his meat locker. When the two delectable females finally do catch on to who he really is and try to save the Earth from being turned into a cosmic Burger King, he chows down on them as well. Grim and grisly SF/splatter shocker with lots of gristle.

The Prey

New World Pictures, 1980, Color, 80 minutes

Director: Edwin S. Brown Producer: Summer Brown Writers: Summer Brown, Edwin S. Brown With: Debbie Thureson, Steve Bond, Lori Lethin, Robert Wald, Jackie Coogan, Jackson Bostwick, Carel Strucken

Deranged Strucken, his body scorched in a forest fire started by some careless campers when he was a wee lad, stalks the north woods with an axe, killing any fresh-air fanatics who set foot on his preserve. Victims include a middle-aged couple and several hot-bodied teens, who succumb to deaths by decapitation, suffocation, garroting, and impalement at the wood fiend’s burned hands. Forest ranger Bostwick takes time out from serenading his pet doe with the banjo and telling bad jokes to find out why so many campers are disappearing—only to vomit up gouts of blood when the wood fiend strangles him. Surviving teen Thureson is spared, but suffers a fate worse than death when the wood fiend, a lonely family man at heart, mates with her to produce Wood Fiend Junior. Endless talk tediously punctuates the graphic killings (at one point, one of the teens tells the entire story of "The Monkey’s Paw” around the campfire). There’s some good nature photography of bugs, centipedes, snakes, and other real-life denizens of the woods, which is actually a whole lot creepier than the staged stuff in this dud.

Prime Cut

National General, 1972; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Michael Ritchie Producer: Joe Wizan Writer: Robert Dillon With: Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Gregory Walcott Angel Tompkins, Sissy Spacek, Janit Baldwin

Anti-heroic Chicago gunsel Marvin is sent to Kansas City to talk sense to porcine country crook Hackman. Gene’s other peccadilloes include drug-running, white slavery, and processing rival gangsters in his meat-packing plant. Of course, Hackman has no use for Marvin’s message; he presents him with a butcher’s package full of a cohort’s entrails, and the fight is on. The ensuing story is full of blood-squibs and splashy shotgun deaths; Marvin and Spacek are nearly ground up in a grain thresher. We also get to see rape, subtle lesbianism, nubile women penned like cattle, and a villain’s righteous, ignoble death in a swine pen. In one disgusting scene, Hackman chows down on a platter of slimy livers—beef livers, one would hope. Most notorious is the spectacle of Walcott turning a gangster into hot dogs and sending them (him?) to his buddies in Chicago. Prime Cut, for all its mayhem, may be too subtle and slick for the Jason-and-Freddy generation, but a few older viewers have considered vegetarianism after seeing it.

Primal Scream

Unistar Films in association with Kiwi Productions, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: William Murray Producer: Howard Foulkrod Writer: William Murray With: Kenneth J. McGregor, Sharon Mason, Julie Miller, Jon Maurice, Joseph White

Just what are these filmmakers up to? Is Primal Scream supposed to be taken seriously, or is it a spoof? Not a good sign when you can’t tell. There’s a plot of sorts here—a kind of modem film noir scenario involving an alternative energy source called Hellfire, and a down-on-his-luck private investigator hired by a beautiful blonde to do some sleuthing—but nothing ever seems to come together. The film looks as though writer/director Murray saw Chinatown, Bladerunner and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and tried (unsuccessfully) to blend elements from all three into a cohesive whole. We get some marginal special effects—people exposed to Hellfire dehydrate and decompose, and some gore—a couple making love is run through with a sword—but these elements in no way compensate for the muddled plot. In straightforward, narrative filmmaking, it would seem, the primary objective is simply to tell the tale. This rather obvious point has eluded the people responsible for this confusing and ultimately pointless pastiche.

Prime Evil

Crown International Pictures, 1988; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Roberta Findlay Producer: Ed Kelleher, Harriette Vidal Writer: Walter E. Sear With: William Beckwith, Christine Moore, Mavis Harris, Max Jacobs, Tim Gail

Alex Parkman (Moore) is a young woman engaged to be married to Bill King (Gail); she lives with her uncle, George Parkman (Jacobs). Unbeknownst to Alex, Uncle George is very much involved with an evil cult and has offered his granddaughter as a sacrifice. George is also planning to unseat longtime cult leader Thomas Seaton (Beckwith) and forcibly gain more power within the cult. Meanwhile, Seaton has become very attracted to Alex—something of a problem, since he is posing as a priest. (This in no way deters his plans to accept her as a sacrifice, however.) Alex is also attracted to Seaton, and this makes boyfriend Bill very jealous. Oh yeah—Uncle George has a sidekick (perhaps a lover?)—a woman cult member to whom George explains all his grandiose plans. With us so far? To top things off, we have a Sister Angela, sent by the Church to infiltrate the cult and, hopefully to destroy its members. And let’s not forget the two detectives who are investigating the cult-related murders. All this could work if one or two characters became the focus of the film—but they never do. Alex seems to be the central protagonist, but so much time is spent on the secondary characters that we don’t get to know her very well. Her willingness to dump nice guy Bill for sleazeball Seaton alienates the viewer. When Bill sacrifices his life in an attempt to rescue Alex, the audience's empathy for her dies with him. We could see the story from Sister Angela’s point of view, but once she is introduced early on, she is all but forgotten until the film’s climax. Even Uncle George or Thomas Seaton could become the focus of the film—the villain is often the central character in horror films—and Beckwith in particular has the menacing presence, combined with just enough sinister charm, to pull off a fully developed central character. Overall, with no solid central story or hero/heroine to capture our interest, Prime Evil leaves the viewer apathetic. Skip it.

Prison Ship

See Star Slammer

Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss

IVE, 1988; Color, 97 minutes

Directors: Ron Oliver, Peter Simpson Producers: Ray Sager, Peter Simpson Writer: Ron Oliver With: Tim Conlon, Cyndy Preston, David Stratton, Jeremy Ratchford, Dylan Neal, Courtney Taylor

In the opening sequence, a man is electrocuted by a jukebox while performing his own version of “Shock the Monkey.” Later, the principal of Hamilton High reopens the school gym, once the scene of Prom Night carnage, and promptly slices off his own finger. Meanwhile, a burned-up Mary Lou from Hell (Taylor) seduces Conlon on top of the American flag, and, not finding enough satisfaction in that dubiously patriotic act, impales a lab teacher’s hands with maximum-strength ice cream cones and shoves a milkshake machine through his head, turning him into a banana split. She then gets Conlon to do the dirty work of body disposal. A guidance counselor is soaked in battery acid under a hair dryer. “That wasn’t a person, it was a guidance counselor!” quips one student. A football turns into a flying corkscrew and impales a jock; a social-disease film features Mary Lou undressing Conlon; in a nifty dream, corpses crawl up from their graves; and a boy has his heart ripped out. A bookworm is strangled and dangled in computer tape, and our Female Freddy ends up with the other characters—and all damned viewers—in Hell.

Psycho Cop

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Wallace Potts Producer: Jessica Rains Writer: Wallace Potts With: Bobby Ray Shafer, Jeff Qualle, Palmer Lee Todd, Cynthia Guyer, Lina West

A bunch of boring, materialistic teenagers is menaced by a psycho cop at a remote country mansion. No real rationale is offered for any of the tedious goings-on, but in an attempt to provide multiple-choice motivation, the villain is, at different times, identified as: (1) a Satanist; (2) a serial killer; (3) an escaped mental patient; (4) a good cop gone bad; and/or (5) all of the above. The characters are uniformly whiney, wimpy, and airheaded. So much so that we want to help our loco police and knock off a few of them ourselves. This impoverished excuse for a movie is so dull and unimaginative that the writer-director’s idea of a shock effect is to have one character grab another’s shoulder or (get this!) to step unexpectedly into the frame! (Wow!) He must be delighted with this effect, because he repeats it ad nauseam, occasionally heightening the suspense with a crescendo of synthesized sound. If prizes were given for totally terrible flicks, this one would clean up. Save your money.

Pumpkinhead

Distributor unknown, 1987; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Stan Winston Producers: Howard Smith, Richard C. Weinman Writers: Mark Patrick Carducci, Gary Gerani With: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John DiAquino, Kimberly Ross, Joel Hoffman, Cynthia Bain

Stan Winston and company show what can be done on a shoestring, creating an elegant and unforgettable tale of backwoods terror that will keep you enthralled through 87 of the most compelling minutes to hit the screen in a long time. After some city folks accidentally kill his son, a hard-working storekeeper (Henriksen) evokes a demon to get revenge. Terror builds as the grotesque yet strangely believable creature from another realm stalks its human prey. When the murders start, the bereaved father realizes there is far more to retribution then he’d bargained for. This deceptively simple yarn has all the immediacy and power of a folk tale. The hypnotic world of Pumpkinhead alternates beautifully from the barren reality of the impoverished hill folks to the menacingly surreal landscape of a nightmare. Stylish photography and Richard Stone’s music complete this vision of a world where demons walk, witches curse, and people know whom to help and whom to leave alone. This one stands head and shoulders above the rest of the crop.

Puppetmaster

Full Moon Productions, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: David Schmoeller Producer: Hope Perello Writer: Joseph G. Collodi With: Paul LeMat, Jimmie F. Scaggs, Irene Miracle, Robin Frates, William Hickey, Barbara Crampton

There’s bad news brewing at the Bodega Bay Hotel. When the forces of Nazi evil, circa 1939, threaten to confiscate his ambulatory marionette creations for use as a potentially deadly secret weapon, good puppeteer Hickey blows his brains out, thereby shutting off the mind current that sparks the puppets to life. Skip forward to the present. A group of people who can reach into each other’s minds gathers at the same hotel for the wake of another group member (Scaggs) who appears to have died but is actually faking. Seems he’s discovered the dead puppeteer’s secret, has brought the wooden figures back to life, and intends to use them to kill his psychic friends before they read his mind and tap his secret knowledge. One victim is skewered through the face by a cone-head puppet whose dome does double duty as a power drill. Another is sucked to death by a puppet whose mouth spews bloodsucking leeches. And a third is hacked to death by a knife-wielding skeleton puppet. Scaggs almost wins the day until he turns on one of his puppets (an amusing pinhead creature with the torso of a longshoreman) and the gang take him to bloody task, Freaks-fashion, for abusing one of their own. The puppets are great—David Allen’s stop-motion animation is delightful. But the plot is a bore, and the pace interminable. One wonders: Is writer Collodi actually related to the creator of Pinocchio, or just using the name as an in-joke pseudonym to conceal his participation in this misfire?

Puppetmaster II

Paramount, 1990; Color, 88 minutes

Director: David Allen Producers: David DeCoteau, John Schouweiler Writer: David Pabian With: Elizabeth MacLellan, Collin Bernsen, Gregory Webb, Charlie Spradling, Steve Weller, Jeff Weston, Sage Allen, Nita Talbot

The fun-loving marionettes from the original Puppetmaster (Tunneler, Leech Woman, Pin Head, etc.) get together to exhume their master from his grave. Paranormal researchers are soon back at the old hotel to research its blood-soaked past. The puppets are after the fluid that keeps them alive, which just happens to be found in human brains. These brains are extracted through noses, Egyptian mummy-style, and Tunneler lives up to his name when he bores into a man’s forehead. (He gets flattened by a lamp for his troubles.) Toulon (Welles) appears in Invisible Man garb, complete with bandages and shades. Meanwhile, people are getting their brains cut out left and right, Leech Woman ends up getting her just desserts in a wood stove, and another woman is burned to death before her brain is extracted. "This has been cooked! It’s useless!’’ Toulon complains. Former animator Allen proves to be a good genre director here; the gore is nasty enough, Spradling is a voyeur’s delight until her brain is removed, and there’s a wild, weird ending.

Purgatory

New Star Entertainment, 1988; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Ami Artzi Producer: Ami Artzi Writers: Felix Kroll, Paul Aratow With: Tanya Roberts, Julie Pop, Hal Orlandini, Rufus Swart

Peace-Corps worker Roberts is framed for drug-running in the emerging African nation of Umlanga and thrown in prison—the purgatory of the title. Resultant indignities include beatings, rape, gang-violation, forced fellatio, throat-slittings, and live immolation. Roberts doesn’t even qualify as a good screamer, since anytime she talks above a whisper, she squeaks like Mickey Mouse with laryngitis. Pretty slow going until the obligatory prison revolt, which is so silly one thinks a slapstick troupe has taken over. The heroine smuggles a knife out of a kitchen strangely devoid of security cameras (not that we’d know any of this firsthand—our only crime is watching this stuff). Guards are stabbed in the throat and hardly bleed. Roberts suffers a two-story fall that would kill Schwarzenegger, then gets up and runs around as if nothing happened. Exhausted escapees with no combat experience inexplicably shoot like Holliday or Hickock. Viewers suffer.

Rabid Grannies

Troma, 1989; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Emmanuel Kervyn Producers: James Desert, Johnathan Rambert Writer: Emmanuel Keayn With: Danielle Daven, Anne Marie Fox. Jacques Mayar, Elliot Lison

An unbearably sloppy mess made by French, Belgian, and Dutch filmmakers, then dubbed with patently fake British accents. Two old guests-of-honor at a birthday bash are hexed by a Satanist and become the snarling, green-spewing homicidal ghouls the title suggests. The film allegedly won awards for its bloody transformations and other FX; a booby prize would be more like it. Brief amusement is provided by cannibalism, hand-lopping, finger-chomping, gut-juggling, and a severed leg on a staircase. One obnoxious character does a pratfall on a ripped-out liver. These highlights would make a great splatter-film clip; the rest is brainless, inept, and utterly boring.

Red Blooded American Girl

Prisim, 1990; Color, 87 minutes

Director: David Blyth Producer: Nicolas Stiliadas Writer: Alan Moyle With: Andrew Stevens, Heather Thomas, Christopher Plummer

What’s the difference between Heather Thomas and Heather Locklear? Answer: one drinks blood. This bloodsuckers-but non-supernatural vampire film opens with a nude shot of a girl in bed who is soon joined by a fellow who cuts her neck with nail clippers and sucks blood from the wound. Later, Plummer walks into Stevens’ home and arm-wrestles with him. They’re both supposed to be great scientific minds: Stevens plays a former drug designer who came up with, among other things, the illicit drug “Ecstasy,” Plummer is referred to as “Dr. Strangelove.” Thomas is a clinic volunteer who wears black leather miniskirts; seems Plummer wants Stevens to help in experimental AIDS research at his “Life Reach” institute. Stevens charms her by smashing eggs in her kitchen. Back at the clinic, Thomas gets bitten by a bloodlust infected inmate. After this “lovely evening,” she and Andrews smooch; later, she cuts her finger, tastes her own blood, and likes it. Bloodsucking is both a perversion and an addiction here. A man takes a bath while sucking on blood bags. Thomas does a funky dance with a knife and finds that vampirism provides a new high. Plummer is infected too, a blood addict who admits: “Yes, I’m a blood user, but I adore garlic and I hate sleeping in coffins.” What’s going on? In his search for an AIDS cure, he experimented with an addictive virus, and that’s why everyone’s so blood-happy. Thomas quickly flips out, cuts open a man’s foot, and drinks his blood. “Don’t stop!" he cries in a moment of passion. Obviously, the clinical splatter of this movie is mostly played for campy humor.

Redneck Zombies

Troma, 1988; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Pericles Lewnes Producers: Edward Bishop, George Scott, Pericles Lewnes Writer: Fester Smellman With: Lisa M. DeHaven, William E. Benson, P. Floyd Piranha, Martin J. Wolfman

In the wilds of Maryland, the fattest, ugliest hillbillies imaginable turn into slobbering undead mutants when their moonshine is poisoned by nuclear waste. Of course, they form a crust-faced cannibal army—including the first zomboid baby on record—intent on devouring a band of innocent hikers who conveniently happen to be there. Features cannibalism, entrail scooping, dismemberment, decapitation, hammer hijinx, shotgun splatter, and the gouging and ingestion of eyeballs. One character is torn in two at the waist. Most of the violence is convincing, but in their zeal the filmmakers have overlooked certain technical details. Watch one hiker’s T-shirt change in the middle of a death scene, or the heroine behead a zombie with the dull side of a machete. The mayhem, like the raw scatological humor, is played strictly for cheap laughs. Is there any better kind?

Rejuvenator

See Rejuvenatrix

Rejuvenatrix

Steve Mackler/SCSV Films/Jewel Production, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Brian Thomas Jones Producers: Steven Mackler, Robert Zimmerman Writers: Simon Nuchtern, Brian Thomas Jones With: Vivian Lanko, John MacKay. James Hogue, Katell Pleven, Marcus Powell, Jessica Dublin, Roy MacArthur, Louis F. Homyak

Despite its state-of-the-art special FX, this film fails to rise to the level of the films it mimics: Roger Corman’s The Wasp Woman (1959) and Edward Dein’s The Leech Woman (I960). Corman and Dein kept the focus of their films on the predatory anti-heroines who strove to remain young at any cost. The makers of Rejuvenatrix try to divide the focus between the female monster and her scientific stooge. This halves the effectiveness of the premise. Dr. Gregory Ashton (MacKay) invents an anti-aging formula made from the brain cells of cadavers and uses it to rejuvenate old film star Elizabeth Warren (Lanko). Of course, the effects are only temporary, and larger and larger doses are required to maintain the effect. Warren becomes a hideous monster who kills and eats the brains of the living to stay young and beautiful. Although the ending of this film racks up a body count as impressive as Hamlet, the gore is neither imaginative nor very extensive. A.k.a. Rejuvenator.

Repossessed

Seven Arts, 1990; Color, 89 minutes

Director: Bob Logan Producer: Steve Wizen Writer: Bob Logan With: Linda Blair, Ned Beatty, Leslie Nielsen

In this unauthorized sequel to The Exorcist, Linda Blair plays Nancy instead of Regan (Nancy Reagan—get it?). The tranquility of her middle-class home at 733 Sexx Drive is shattered when she becomes “repossessed.” (“Twenty bucks says it’s PMS,” her son theorizes.) An opportunistic pair of Jim-and-Tammy-type zealots wants to show her exorcism live on national TV. Satan agrees, planning to taunt Christian souls, and the so-called fun begins. Recalling films like Airplane and The Naked Gun, Repossessed draws a bead on such worthy targets as TV programs, televangelists, health clubs, music videos and the Catholic Church. It’s even occasionally funny with its sight gags, moments of irreverent satire, and rampant sophomoronic nonsense. Trouble is, inspired and truly clever moments are buried under an excess of tedium. Repossessed simply goes on too long; it would work far better as a sketch on “Saturday Night Live.” Sure, it has laughs and lots of naked women, but too many jokes are of the fart ‘n’ puke variety, and the producers have no real sense of timing—like knowing when to quit. We can say one thing for it: Repossessed is a more worthy sequel than Boring Boorman’s Exorcist Part II: The Heretic. At least it raises important theological questions such as: “The Bible says God created man in His own image. Oh yeah? Then how do you explain Pee-wee Herman?”

Return of the Blind Dead

Distributor unknown, 1973; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Amando De Ossorio Producer: Ramon Plana Writer: Amando De Ossorio With: Tony Kendall, Fernando Sacho, Lone Fleming, Esther Ray

Sequel to Tombs of the Blind Dead (1973) in which the resurrected, decaying corpses of the vicious medieval sect known as the Knights Templar gallop (in ponderous slow motion) into a Spanish village to rape and feast graphically on the flesh of the local populace before succumbing to that age-old vampire disease, death by daylight. A bit murky (and we don’t mean just the plot) and disjointed, but on par with the first film in the series in terms of atmosphere and mayhem. Followed by Horror of the Zombies in 1974.

The Return of the Wolf Man

See The Craving

Return of the Zombies

See The Hanging Woman

Return to Horror High

New World, 1987; Color, 95 minutes

Director: Bill Froehlich Producer: Mark Lisson Writers: Bill Froehlich, Mark Lisson, Dana Escalante, Greg H. Sims With: Scott Jacoby, Alex Rocco, Maureen McCormick, Vince Edwards, Lori Lethin, Brendan Hughs

This witless, sub-sophomoric, heavy-handed “comedy” is a film-within-a-film-within-a-flashback-within-a-mess. It is either the worst screenplay of all time, or the participants made up the plot as they went along. Essentially, it goes like this: A group of filmmakers return to Horror High, the scene of a bloody massacre. Sure enough, members of the film crew start getting splattered. Or do they? The viewer must decide: Is it the movie? Is it real? Is it a flashback? Who cares? The only minimal conflict in the film comes between the on-screen director, who wants to make an upscale “psychological thriller,” and oily producer Alex Rocco, whose motto is “Everybody loves a gross-out.” Yeah, we do—but a good gross-out. By pretending to parody splatter conventions, Horror High exploits those splatter conventions. Consequently, there’s no shortage of nudity and gore. A movie can’t get much worse: Someone should have slashed about thirty minutes out of this film, then thrown the rest away.

Revenge

United Entertainment Pictures, 1986; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Christopher Lewis Producer: Linda Lewis Writers: James Vance, Christopher Lewis With: Patrick Wayne, John Carradine, Bennie Lee McGowan

A slicker-than-average video feature, this sequel to the infamous charmer Blood Cult has the slap-happy cultists at it again, cutting off victims’ body parts and terrorizing a widow whose land they absolutely have to have for their evil rites. The Duke’s son, Patrick, investigates and Carradine is suitably diabolical as an evil senator. While not as grisly as its predecessor, Revenge has enough mayhem to keep gore lovers happy. A nosy reporter is slashed before the main credits. A farmer is axed in the head. A woman’s foot is caught in a bear trap; as she dies, her leg is lopped off and carried away, trap and all. The college dean is poisoned and dies barfing blood. A girl in a swimming pool is stabbed about twenty times, then beheaded as the water turns crimson. A cultist is sliced with barbed wire. A composite cadaver, assembled from various hacked-off limbs, comes to life during a cult ritual. With all this going on, one hardly notices all the flubbed lines and other gaffes.

Revenge of the Living Zombies

Cinevest, 1989; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Bill Hinzman Producer: Bill Hinzman Writers: Bill Hinzman, William Randolph With: John Mowad, Leslie Ann Wyck, Lisa Smith

Hinzman, the “cemetery zombie” in Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead, reprises his role in his own ill-advised remake. A farmer unearths one of the undead on his Back Forty and is infected; so are the requisite gang of idiot teenagers. In the ensuing bloodbath, a teenager is impaled on a pitchfork a la Andy Milligan; another gets an axe in the head; still another (in a vampire costume) gets his lip chewed off. Little trick-or-treaters are zombified and later have their heads blown off. A cop is disemboweled, his guts strewn all over the inside of his patrol car. A zombie drives his fist into a girl’s back and it bursts out between her boobs. The hero and heroine have their heads blasted off by a posse in a scene that tries, without success, to outdo the original NOLD finale. Revenge of the Living Zombies has more throat-rippings than seven Paul Naschy werewolf films, not to mention tons of torn-out hearts, scooped-out entrails, blown-out brains, and shredded flesh. Too bad it doesn’t have one original bone in its body. Romero should definitely talk to his lawyers about this, if he hasn’t already. Romero’s NOLD remake remains miles ahead of this lifeless monstrosity.

Rituals

Viacom, 1978, Color, 100 minutes

Director: Peter Carter Producer: Lawrence Dane Writer: Ian Sutherland With: Hal Holbrook, Lawrence Dane, Robin Gammell, Ken James, Gary Reineke

Canadian filmmakers hop on the Deliverance bandwagon, as five doctors on a North-woods vacation are stalked by elusive killers. Early assaults involve the use of bear traps and swarms of hornets; things get really hairy when Holbrook and Dane find one of their companion’s heads on a stick. Many violent films run out of steam long before the end, but Rituals builds up suspense while saving most of its outrages for the final reels. One man is burned alive, another has his hand blown away with a shotgun. An attacker slashes Holbrook’s leg open; in one of the most excruciating scenes ever, Hal cauterizes his gushing femoral artery by pouring gunpowder into the wound and lighting it! The disfigured killers, when we finally see them up close, are just as scary as the rest of the movie. A real powerhouse.

Robocop 2

Orion, 1990; Color, 118 minutes

Director: Irvin Kirshner Producer: Jon Davison Writers: Frank Miller, Walon Green With: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen

Irvin Kirshner, who helmed the best of the Star Wars trilogy (The Empire Strikes Back), is totally at sea in this disappointing sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 science fiction/adventure/satire. Most of the satire is missing here, replaced by big-budget special effects, ultraviolence, and explosions. The plot is straight out of Terror of Mechagodzilla; somebody builds a better cyborg and it’s up to our hero to prove that they’re wrong. Weller and Allen reprise their roles from the first film as Robocop and sidekick, but their hearts don’t seem to be in it. There is a brave early attempt at re-creating the humanity of Weller’s character, but that subplot is dispensed with quickly in favor of blowing people up. In short, the makers of the sequel completely misunderstood the point of the original. The ending is a real case of overkill, a pitched battle between Robocop and a super-cyborg that employs more firepower than the Operation Desert Storm.

Rollerball

United Artists, 1975; Color, 128 minutes

Director: Norman Jewison Producer: Norman Jewison Writer: William Harrison With: James Caan, John Houseman, John Beck, Maud Adams, Moses Gunn, Ralph Richardson

It’s the twenty-first century. Crime has been just about eliminated, so the masses have to get their violence fix from watching a futuristic combination of football, hockey, and gladiatorial combat called Rollerball instead. The game is played on roller skates or motorcycles, and involves no-holds-barred physical contact to the death. Caan is a top rollerballer who begins to question it all, much to his misfortune. There’s lots of rock ’em, sock ’em, crash ’em, burn ’em, splattery, bone-crunching action in this forerunner of the Robocop/Total Recall school of bloody social satire. The many rollerball sequences are exciting, though after two-plus hours they get a bit repetitive. And the government-conspiracy subtext is both pretentious and dull. Harrison based the bloated script on his much superior short story, Rollerball Murders, which first appeared in Playboy.

Ruby

Dimension, 1977; Color, 83 minutes

Directors: Curtis Harrington, Stephanie Rothman Producer: George Edwards Writers: George Edwards, Barry Schneider With: Piper Laurie, Stuart Whitman, Roger Davis

After strutting her powerful stuff as Carrie’s Moral Majority mother, Laurie returned a year later in this drive-in fave. Her gun-moll character once operated a roadhouse and set up the assassination of her hoodlum lover. Now she runs a respectable drive-in with the killers as employees. The drive-in is so respectable, in fact, that it shows Attack of the 50-Foot Woman—but that’s another story. Everything is mellow and copacetic until her workers start dying—hanged in reels of film, crammed into Coke machines—that sort of thing. To make matters worse, her already weird daughter, Ruby, begins talking in the murdered mobster’s voice and manifesting bullet holes in her face. Whitman worries, parapsychologist Roger Davis investigates, and John Crawford plays the local sheriff. Ruby has its effective moments, creates a nostalgia for the old drive-in days, and stands as one of the better entries in the race to rip off The Exorcist.

The Saga off the Praculas

See Dracula: The Bloodline Continues

Satan's Blood

Almena Films SA, 1977; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Carlos Puerto Producer: Juan Picquer Writer: Carlos Puerto With: Angel Aranda, Sandra Alberti, Marian Karr

Ultra-obscure Spanish horror Satan’s Blood opens with a soft-core devil sacrifice; a woman is raped and stabbed on an altar by a Satanist. This segment is unrelated to the bulk of the picture; it was probably tacked on to keep audiences from leaving. A young couple is accosted by a man and woman who pass themselves off as old forgotten friends; the innocent husband and wife are lured to a dark mansion for some sex-and-Satanist hijinx, not to mention murder and the subsequent resurrection of the dead. Finally, our heroes escape the mansion, only to be trapped in one of the dumbest endings of all time. Despite lurid subject matter, the going is slow, though punctuated by a few flashes of nudity and splashes of gore. To the film’s credit, the dubbing is superior, and the atmosphere is downright creepy (though this ambience is due more to the weird location than any expertise on the part of the filmmakers).

Satan's Sadists

Independent International, 1969; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Al Adamson Producer: Al Adamson Writer: Dennis Wayne With: Russ Tamblyn, Scott Brady, Kent Taylor, Regina Carroll, Gary Kent, Jackie Taylor, John "Bud" Cardos

Numerous victims, one of whom looks like “Married with Children’s” Peggy Bundy, are terrorized by a gang of bikers, one of whom looks like Zippy the Pinhead. Adamson and his merry crew of has-beens and never-weres are at it again, with production values shoddy enough to match. (This time around, exaggerated engine-roars drown out dialogue, which may be just as well.) The dope-happy bikers (a.k.a. Satan’s Sadists) commit two rapes (one with lesbian overtones) and six murders before a Vietnam vet decides to even the score. One scumball has a mirror smashed into his face, and his buddy drowned in a toilet bowl. Biker-moll Carroll drops acid and rides over a cliff. Another sadist is killed by rattlers, yet another loses at Russian Roulette. The showdown is a real hoot. Satan’s Sadists plays like a scroungy comedy today, but it actually shocked people when it was first released. The ads then called it “The Most Vicious and Violent Film of the Decade.” You be the judge.

Satan's Slave

Crown International Pictures, 1979; Color. 86 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producers: Les Young, Richard Crafter Writers: Norman J. Warren, David McGillivray With: Michael Gough, Martin Potter, Candace Glendenning, Michael Craze, Barbara Kellerman

Shot in England, this rural variant of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby by prolific British director Warren, who averages a film a year, has innocent Glendenning getting caught up in a devil cult run by her evil uncle (Gough) and cousin (Potter), who are trying to resurrect the spirit of a persecuted ancestor torched as a witch several centuries ago. In pursuit of their diabolical mission, the bloodthirsty duo must, of course, subject a cross-section of the local populace to the usual array of ritualistic eye-gougings and mutilations. As in the Polanski film, bewildered Glendenning (and the audience) can’t at first decide whether what’s going on is real or a nightmarish hallucination. It’s real, of course; in fact, even the heroine’s own father, whom she thought murdered by the Satanists, turns up very much alive as a member of the cult of devil worshippers. This is a well-crafted but predictable thriller. Co-writer McGillivray, a former film critic, also penned several of director Pete Walker’s British splatterpix. As always, Gough makes a good villain. Filmed in 1976.

Savage Abduction

Cinemation Industries, 1972; Color, 84 minutes

Director: John Lawrence Producer: John Lawrence Writer: John Lawrence With: Tom Drake, Stephen Oliver, Joseph Turkel, Sean Kenney, Amy Thomson, Tanis Chalik

We always suspected that just watching Meet Me in St. Louis was bad for you, but being in it must have been even worse, since boy-next-door Tom Drake ended up in this dreck from the bottom of the swill pail. The story here concerns a lawyer blackmailed by a sickie—displaying a taste for ugly polyester clothes—into arranging a tryst with not one but two young ladies—the catch being that our maniac’s tastes run toward necrophilia. The situation is really the lawyer’s fault; his hiring the nut to murder his wife gave the gent his first taste of necro delight. (Previously, this boy had been perfectly happy with ladies’ underclothes and department store dummies.) Things go awry when one of a gang of three bikers has a rather hard-to-swallow crisis of conscience about the extremely irritating bimbettes kidnapped for the deed. It all climaxes with a low-speed car crash (which, amazingly, kills nearly everyone involved) and a slew of corpses bespotted (not besplattered) with some pretty lame gore. And to get to this part you have to wade through no less than nine (count ’em) trailers for other bad movies—any of which would still be a better choice than this.

Savage Justice

Eastern Film Management and FGH, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Joey Romero Producers: Lope V. Juban, Rod M. Confesor Writers: David Howard, Parker Bratel With: Julie Montgomery, Steven Memel, Chanda Romero, Ruel Vernal, Esther Chavez

Truly inane revenge-motif opus with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in—including martial-arts expert Buddhist monks, who make fighting noises that sound remarkably like an overheated radiator, and a midget gang lord, whose performance makes Herve Villechaize’s acting look like Laurence Olivier’s. The plot is too stupid and predictable to recount, except to note that this Philippine-made claptrap doesn’t even seem too clear on just where it takes place. By and large, the film is an excuse for some low-grade sex, lower-grade gore (of which there isn’t much), and a carload of explosions for visual excitement. The heroine is tiresome and unbelievable, the hero singularly unattractive and boring, and the villain seems too bored to care about any of it. So were we.

Savage Streets

MPM, 1984; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Danny Steinmann Producer: John C. Strong III Writers: Norman Yonemoto, Danny Steinmann With: Linda Blair, John Vernon, Linnea Quigley, Robert Dryer

An extremely ruthless and foulmouthed addition to the female vigilante pantheon. Blair and her girlfriends incur the wrath of leather-clad drug dealers led by Dryer. While Blair engages in a catfight with another student in the girls’ locker room, the druggies beat and rape her deaf/mute kid sister Quigley. Later, they throw Blair’s pregnant best friend off a bridge a few days before her wedding. Blair finally finds out who did it and, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “Of course you know, this means war!” She dons some black leather of her own, packs her switchblade and crossbow, and goes to work. One rapist takes an arrow in the throat. Another lands on a bunch of steel-jawed traps; in the best abuse of such implements since Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, he dies with traps on his limbs, throat, and head. Dryer is maimed with an arrow in each leg; he yanks one out and a big piece of meat comes off with it. He gets stabbed below the belt and, finally, turned into a human torch. Blair’s singular lack of talent is compensated for by Quigley, in one of her few innocent roles, and Vernon, as a profanity spouting high school principal. Crude, violent, and not to be missed.

Scalps

Imperial Entertainment, 1988; Color, 100 minutes

Director: Werner Knox Producer: None credited Writers: Bruno Mattei, Roberto DiGirolamo With: Mapy Galan, Vassili Garis, Albert Farley, Charlie Bravo, Beny Carosa

Sexy Indian maiden Galan sees most of her tribe wiped out by bloodthirsty Confederate soldiers from the local fort—though what all these Rebs are doing patrolling the west in the late 1870s is a bit puzzling. Galan is beaten, tied up, and removed to the fort for the pleasure of the Rebs’ lecherous colonel. But she escapes, and is nursed back to health by a suspicious rancher (Garis), who hates Injuns because they slew his wife. When the Rebs come to fetch Galan, the two must flee and fight for their lives. Scalpings, shootings, and knifings abound as they whittle down most of the Rebs, but then Garis is captured and given the Man Called Horse treatment. Hooks are driven into his bleeding chest, then he’s hauled around by them. Galan frees him after scalping and/or blowing up and/or shooting the remaining Rebs full of arrows. Turns out it was the lecherous Colonel who raped and killed Garis’ wife after all, so Galan plugs him with arrows and Garis scalps him, after which the two go off into the sunset together. There’s no offscreen carnage—it’s all upfront and quite graphic (especially the scalpings) in this fairly slick and well-dubbed example of spaghetti splatter, which even manages to be somewhat entertaining on a Hollywood B-western level.

Scarface

Universal Pictures, 1983; Color, 170 minutes

Director: Brian De Palma Producers: Martin Bregman, Peter Saphier Writer: Oliver Stone With: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia

Like many Brian De Palma movies, Scarface starts off looking as if it might amount to something, but winds up being a parody of itself. Inspired by Howard Hawks’ 1932 roman a clef about Al Capone, this Scarface updates the tale to the early 1980s, when Castro’s Cuba exiled boatloads of undesirables to U.S. shores. Pacino plays one of them, a scarfaced punk with an unsavory attachment to his sister (Mastrantonio). He rises to become a kingpin in Miami’s flourishing drug trade, and is eventually brought down—not by the Feds, but by his former cronies, who kill him for his brutal and deranged excesses. The film’s over-the-top violence—torture by chainsaw, non-stop shootouts and rub-outs, a concluding massacre aimed at topping (and parodying) Peckinpah’s finale to The Wild Bunch—almost earned the film an X rating. Obviously, the MPAA didn’t realize that what they were looking at was really an anarchic splatter comedy. Pacino, perhaps warming up for his role as the cartoonish gangster in Dick Tracy, chews up the scenery as sort of an ultra-violent “Frito Bandito.” The finale, where he drowns his sorrows—and his face—in a plate of cocaine is the film’s absurdist high point.

Screamers

New World, 1981; Color, 83 minutes

Directors: Sergio Martino, Miller Drake Producer: Luciano Martino Writers: Sergio Donati, Cesare Prugoni, Sergio Martino With: Barbara Bach, Richard Johnson, Joseph Cotton

A bore-fest dealing with castaways washed up on a volcanic island. The inhabitants include Bach, who stands around looking good; Cotten, a half-dead biologist who conducts bizarre experiments on the local population of homicidal fish-people; and Johnson, who overacts to the point of twirling his moustache as he schemes to plunder the treasure of Atlantis. Martino’s gore consists of some lackluster facial mutilations and the graphic stabbing of a guy being transformed into a fishman; Bach blows a snake’s head off, probably for out-acting her. Footage of Mel Ferrer, Cameron Mitchell, and others is obviously tacked on. Ads speciously promised that we would see a man turned inside out; gorehounds would like to do that to the man who dreamed up the ad campaign, and possibly to Martino as well. A.k.a Isle of the Fishmen.

The Screaming Dead

Fenix, 1972; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Jess Franco Producers: Robert de Nesle, Arturo Marcos Writer: Jess Franco With: Dennis Price, Howard Vernon, Britt Nichols

Dr. Jonathan Seward drives a silver stake into Count Dracula and turns him into a dead bat. Dr. Frankenstein plans to revive and enslave Dracula; he finds the bat in a coffin (along with a wooden stake, in an amazing continuity gaffe). He sends his pasty-faced monster out to abduct a dancing girl and uses her blood to bring back Drac. Animal lovers will adore this effect, which involves nearly drowning a vampire bat in a beaker of blood. Frankenstein’s Igor-ish servant fondles the girl’s corpse before incinerating it. Vernon, as a green-faced Dracula, comes back with some of his girlfriends, and together they start draining the locals. A gypsy woman with an unspecified grudge against Frankenstein and Dracula sics a werewolf on them and the creatures have a free-for-all in an unbelievable conclusion to this flawed, badly dubbed splat-o-drama.

Shallow Grave

E.LF. Productions, 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Richard Styles Producer: Barry H. Waldman Writer: George E. Fernandez With: Tony March, Lisa Stahl, Tom Law, Carol Cadby

This starts with another on-campus Psycho shower scene, then degenerates as coeds and their boyfriends head south for Spring Break. Unfortunately for them, they drive into the redneck province ruled by a homicidal sheriff. One of the college cuties wanders into the woods, witnesses a strangling by the sheriff, and is dispatched. Then it’s “Let’s Rip Off Macon County Line” time as the sheriff traps, stalks, and slaughters the witless witnesses one by one. The direction is aimless and the abrupt ending comes so quickly, one gets the feeling that Styles had five feet of film left and had to wind up his masterpiece pronto. Still, this flick has a lot to offer. March’s portrayal of the sun-glass-wearing, menacing sheriff brings back (faint) echoes of William Devane’s shotgun-wielder in Rolling Thunder. Also, every character is an oaf, or a silver-plated scumbag. Each time someone is snuffed, the audience gains. Shallow Grave is a must for misanthropes, misogynists, and nihilists the world over.

She Freak

Crest/Sonney-Friedman, 1967; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Byron Mabe Producer: David F. Friedman Writer: David F. Friedman With: Claire Brennan, Lee Raymond, Lynn Courtney, Bill McKinney, Felix Silla

Conniving Brennan marries successful carny owner McKinney while carrying on an illicit affair with Raymond. When dwarf Silla (best known as “Cousin It”) tips off his boss that he’s being cuckolded, McKinney goes after the two-timing duo and is killed. Brennan inherits the carnival, turns on Silla for tipping her hand, and is dealt a grotesque comeuppance by Silla’s fellow human oddities, who mutilate her and transform her into one of their own. If the plot sounds reminiscent of Tod Browning’s classic Freaks, that’s because it is. Writer-producer Friedman, a former carny man himself, had long wanted to remake the Browning film and this is his attempt to do so. Despite its bargain-basement budget and absence of authentic “freaks” (Friedman and makeup man Harry Thomas had to invent most of the film’s human oddities, with mixed results), the film boasts a sleazy sideshow atmosphere and sense of ghoulishness that’s almost on par with the original’s, and is a lot slicker than Friedman’s earlier splatter co-ventures with Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red). From here, McKinney went into John Boorman’s Deliverance. Worth catching, but don’t expect a classic.

Shock ’em Dead

Academy, 1990; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Mark Freed Producer: Eric Lonzil Writers: Mark Freed, David Tedder With: Traci Lords, Aldo Ray, Troy Donahue, Stephen Quadros

Former underage porn queen Lords doesn’t even get naked in this film, so what’s the point? Here, she plays the manager of a heavy-metal band called “The Creeping Flesh.” Would-be rock star Quadros meets an old bag lady on the street who just happens to be an emissary of Satan. He literally sells his soul for rock and roll, taking a cook’s tour of Hell, where he’s given three lovers to take back to Earth with him; in lieu of Lords, they provide the requisite T & A. The demonic babes look good in the flesh but bad in the mirror; they’re all dead. Meanwhile, Quadros discovers one problem with selling his soul: He can’t eat food anymore, so he has to kill people to live. He vomits green slime onstage, a trick which turns him into the latest rock sensation. Then, Dorian-Gray-like, he must stab people and suck out their life forces to keep his appeal. This film isn’t too gory, but there’s plenty of nudity; in fact, it’s shot very much like a porn film. Things get a bit more gruesome when one of the protagonists forces food concentrate down the demons’ mouths, causing them to explode.

Shocker

Universal Pictures, 1989; Color, 111 minutes

Director: Wes Craven Producers: Marianne Maddalena, Barin Kumar Writer: Wes Craven With: Michael Murphy. Peter Berg, Cami Cooper, Mitch Pileggi, Dr. Timothy Leary

Alternately clever and dopey, this splatter satire is taxed with a climax that goes on too long, but mixes some outrageous sight gags along the way and must be seen to be believed. Pileggi plays serial killer/TV repairman Horace Pinker, a psycho with a Freddy Krueger sense of humor and a similar penchant for supernatural sleight-of-hand. Berg is Jonathan Parker (groan!), the adopted son of cop Murphy, whose family Horace slays. Fingered by Parker (the killer’s natural son and nemesis), Horace is sentenced to death but survives execution in the best tradition of Lon Chaney, Jr. He goes on killing people until he is brought down in a surrealistic finale, an homage to Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. in which he and Parker enter TV land and pursue each other across several fast-switching video landscapes—including a clip from “Leave It to Beaver”! Fans of Craven’s brand of cinematic grue won’t be disappointed, for there’s gore aplenty mixed with the laughs (keep an eye out for the scene where Horace tries to bite off a policeman’s lips.) Former LSD guru Dr. Timothy Leary has a small role as a TV preacher, but one wonders if he might not have had a hand in the hallucinatory script as well.

Shocking Asia

First Film Organization, 1981; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Emerson Fox Producer: Wolfgang Von Schiber Writer: Emerson Fox

This well-constructed shockumentary is a travelogue through an Asia that doesn’t appear in travel brochures. Milder fare includes Japanese midget wresting, pornographic architecture, a sex museum, and a parade where the marchers carry giant phalluses. Then there are restaurants where snakes are skinned alive for hungry diners. Witness the martyrs of Kuala Lampur, transfixed through the cheeks and tongues with long needles, punctured with metal hooks, and more. Visit the cremation vats of Benares, complete with the spectacle of half-incinerated corpses floating in the Ganges River. The narrator reminds us that Indians use the same river for bathing and drinking. The piece de resistance is an actual sex-change operation in a Singapore clinic—complete with breast implants, penectomy; the whole works. This footage will make viewers wonder what attracted them to the Mondo genre in the first place, and they’ll probably swear off knockwurst as well.

Shoot

Avco Embassy, 1976; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Harvey Hart Producer: Harve Sherman Writer: Dick Berg With: Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine, Henry Silya, Kate Reid, Larry Reynolds, Les Carlson

A chance encounter between two groups of hunters leads first to murder, then to a private war in the wilderness. Much of the film is carried by the powerhouse actors, especially Robertson and Silva as frustrated old-time war vets who can’t wait to turn the North Woods into their own Ardennes Forest. Borgnine tries to talk sense to his buddies, but ends up with a few slugs in the spine anyway. Under Hart’s surefire direction, tension mounts throughout the film; the very atmosphere is violent even during quieter moments. The graphic gunplay concentrated at each end of the picture is truly memorable; blood sprays like red mist whenever the bullets hit. One of Silva’s soft-lead slugs strikes an enemy between the eyes and blows the back of his skull off. Henry brags, “That shit I hit him with was like peanut butter! His brains should be all over Lincoln County now!” Made by the Getty Corporation as a tax write-off, this coarse, bloody, and well-produced flick shouldn’t be written off by true fans of slaughter-in-the-sticks-flicks.

The Silence of the Lambs

Orion Pictures, 1991; Color, 118 minutes

Director: Jonathan Demme Producers: Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon, Ron Bozman Writer: Ted Tally With: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith, Diane Baker

As with any masterwork in this genre, The Silence of the Lambs will be adapted, appropriated, and otherwise ripped off by genre filmmakers for years to come. Watching the original now will make it needless to see the clones, since this is a film that won't be equaled by any low-budget production company with more avarice than inspiration. In this adaptation of the bestseller by Thomas Harris, author of Red Dragon and Black Sunday, Jodie Foster is impeccable as the young FBI recruit Clarice Starling, who’s hunting for serial killer “Buffalo Bill’’ (he skins his victims). Excellent performances by the supporting cast, including Levine as the killer and Brooke Smith as the victim trapped at the bottom of a well inside the killer’s home, are all overshadowed by Anthony Hopkins in his terrifying performance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a.k.a. “Hannibal the Cannibal.” As psychos go, Lecter replaces Norman Bates as number one, for Lecter is so many things we fear. He’s unpredictable, calculating, and relentless in his evil, more intelligent than anyone around him, and still he remains aristocratic. ("Look at you,” he sneers at Starling in their first encounter. “You’re only a generation away from white trash.”) We get soupcons of Lecter’s past repasts, and one delicious scene of the cannibal in action, but the true terror lies in the film’s images of restraint. Regardless of the special cells and handcuffs, the straitjackets and iron masks, we know Lecter will find a way to kill again. Riveting and satisfying in its gore, The Silence of the Lambs is a five-course feast for every splat gourmand.

Silent Night Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!

Distributor unknown, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Monte Heilman Producer: Arthur Gorson Writer: Carlos Lazlos With: Robert Culp, Richard Beymer, Bill Moseley. Samantha Scully

Ricky Caldwell, the Santa Claus Killer, has been in a coma for six years, his reconstructed brain exposed under a Plexiglas bubble. A crazy parapsychologist uses a young, blind, pretty, female psychic to “make contact” with Ricky. For reasons unexplained, this contact wakens Ricky from his coma and sets him on another homicidal holiday rampage. Though police and medical consultants were credited, everything about this film is too simple-minded to engage the non-comatose viewer. The sight of Ricky’s brain in a bubble, with flashing lights and liquid sloshing around inside, would be better suited to the comedy this brainless travesty lacks the creativity to become. As a “serious” film, it gives us characters so indifferent to each other’s suffering and to the violence around them that the viewer simply doesn’t care either. Perhaps this quickie’s overall problem is the obvious lack of enthusiasm of everyone involved. Before reaching for Silent Night Deadly Night III: You Better Watch Out!

Silent Night Deadly Night 4—Initiation

Silent Films, 1990; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Brian Yuzna Producer: Richard N. Gladstein Writer: Woody Keith With: Maud Adams, Tommy Hinkley, Allyce Beasley, Clint Howard, Neith Hunter

SNDN-4 offers convincing proof that sequels don’t have to be bad. In fact, Initiation is edge-of-your-seat stuff, with good plotting, good acting, and mind-blistering special effects of the gut-squeezing, barf-bag variety. It is also a movie with impressive range, from subtle to gross, from comic to cosmic, and its horror ranges from the ultra-realistic human to the highly imaginative supernatural. A-typical also is Initiation’s strong stand for women’s rights, including the right to be villains instead of the simpering, squealing, stereotypical damsels in distress so often endured in splatter films. One could argue that this is one of the few “women’s horror movies,” because its opposing forces involve a Cult of Lilith (allegedly Adam’s first wife) that targets an ambitious female reporter for sacrifice and transformation. Deserving four stars at least, Initiation may become a cult classic.

Silent Night, Evil Night

See Black Christmas

Silver Bullet

Paramount Pictures, 1985; Color, 95 minutes

Director: Daniel Attias Producer: Martha Schumaker Writer: Stephen King With: Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim, Terry O’Quinn, Robin Groves

This who’s-next-on-the-menu whodunit, adapted by Stephen King from his own novella, The Cycle of the Werewolf, isn’t the sorriest lycanthrope movie ever made (the competition for that ignoble honor is very stiff indeed), but it’s not one of the best, either. Like too many werewolf flicks—but particularly those set in modern times—it takes too damn long for the thick-headed characters to realize that the growling, furry, four-legged, full-moon maniac who’s ripping them all asunder and making neighborhood property values plummet is—yes, indeedy, folks—a werewolf! Any first grader would know in five minutes. To its credit though, the werewolf FX here (by Carlo Rambaldi) are good, although the werewolf’s grisly handiwork is definitely sub-par in the gross-out department. And the film is nicely shot on locations near Dino DeLaurentiis’ North Carolina studio, where, at one time, he seemed to be trying to chum out a Stephen King property every other week. The title refers not only to the traditional method for killing a werewolf (and employed once again in this very traditional movie) but the souped-up wheelchair in which our handicapped hero (Haim) zips about.

Slashdance

Glenco Entertainment Group, 1990; Color, 83 minutes

Director: James Shyman Producer: Andrew Maisner Writer: James Shyman With: Cindy Maranne, James Carrol Jordan, Queen Kong, Joel Von Ornsteiner, Jay Richardson, William Kerr, John Bluto

This film can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be a gore movie, a murder mystery, a musical, or a travelogue of Los Angeles. This is a movie short on gore and long on filler. If there had been one more gratuitous L.A. street scene, or one more clumsily staged dance number, we would have screamed. After two girls are murdered (one has her throat slashed with a saw, the other is hung) at the Van Slake Playhouse while auditioning for a musical, an undercover policewoman (Maranne) is sent to investigate. She meets the two brothers who run the theater: Oliver (Kerr), the sane one, and Amos (Omsteiner), the crazy one, who eats live goldfish. Also in attendance are Rupert (Bluto), the stage manager, who is a flasher, and Logan (Jordan), the out-of-town director who was the deceased Mr. Van Slake’s protégé. When another girl is attacked, Maranne suspects Omsteiner, but he is soon out of the running when he stabs himself to death with a knife he thought was a prop. Maranne stays on the case, and even wins the “Happy Hoofer” award. Eventually, she also unmasks the villain. Just in case any of you are masochistic enough to sit through this dull and silly movie, we won’t reveal his name, but suffice it to say that Maranne defeats him by putting a hole in his head with the spiked heel of a shoe, then finishing him off with a saw.

The Slasher

Mishkin, 1976; Color, 83 minutes

Director: Roberto Montero Producer: William Mishkin Writers: Lou Angeli, I. Fasant, Roberto Montero With: Farley Granger, Sylva Koscina, Susan Scott, Chris Avram

A maniac photographs unfaithful married women with their lovers, then stabs and slashes them and leaves the photos on the butchered corpses. Granger investigates, then gets a call from the killer saying his wife is next. Will Granger bother to save her or not? Who cares? Lots of graphic drawn-out knife attacks and their aftermath are featured, with loving close-ups of breast and throat wounds. One scene shows a crippled cuckold taking a header down a staircase, crutch and all. Poorly made, badly dubbed, sure to offend everyone on one level or another—but not worth watching, anyway.

Slaughter

Los Quintos, 1976; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Burt Brinckerhoff Producers: Allan F. Bodoh, Bruce Cohn Writer: O'Brian Tomalin With: David McCallum, George Wyner, Eric Server. Linda Gray, Barry Greenburg, Sandra McCabe

Any film that opens with an extended point-of-view shot through the eyes of an Irish Setter can’t be all good, and this certainly isn’t. This is your average 1970s drive-in movie about nature gone awry—in this case, with killer dogs. We’re offered a great deal of “scientific” hoo-ha to explain the intricacies of it all (which manages to clarify nothing); but the real point is obvious: nothing more or less than the thrill of watching a band of domestic dogs chew up hundreds of college-student extras (who have all the acting ability of college-student extras). Yes, it’s very bloody and graphic—at least, when the attacks are staged other than at night during zero visibility (this may be what is known as build up). It’s also too silly for words. Granted, there is some menace in murderous Dobermans, German Shepherds, and Great Danes (Rotweillers and Pit Bulls were not trendy in 1976), but killer poodles, Cocker Spaniels, and Old English sheepdogs come across as merely absurd. Speaking of absurdity, scientist David McCallum’s acting amounts to a fifth-rate Richard Harris impression, consisting mostly of sulking as if he’s just learned that “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” has been cancelled. In best seventies drive-in style, the film doesn’t really end. The dastardly doggies gnaw up an entire college town like a box of dog biscuits, and McCallum beats a hasty retreat as the film freezes on an orange tabby (a harbinger of a new threat to come). Woof.

Slaughter Day

International Releasing Corporation, 1976; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Peter Patzak Producer: Gunter Kopf Writers: Peter Patzak, Walter Kinder, Ossi Bronner With: Rita Tushingham, Michael Hausserman, William Berger, Gordon Mitchell, Vicki Woolf

This dubbed European production makes no sense. Rita Tushingham walks through her role as (a) a medical student, or (b) a med school employee, fondling grotesque anatomical models. Bizarre radio transmissions tell the public how to make money. A scene in a Roman-style natatorium features naked women, and, later, there’s a bank robbery. The thieves rig briefcase bombs in the bank for an unimpressive explosion. Guys in masks appear with guns. The thieves double-cross one another and have a falling out. Violence includes one bloody bludgeoning and two bloody shootings. Maybe some lines from the oft-repeated title tune will help clarify the plot: “More than insane, we were together / You flew away and fell / I planned the perfect coup / Fire in the mountain.” No, we didn’t think so.

Slaughterhouse Rock

Taurus Entertainment Company, 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Dimitri Logothetis Producer: Louis George Writer: Ted Landon With: Nicholas Celozzi, Tom Reilly, Donna Denton, Hope Marie Carlton, Tamara Hyler, Toni Basil, Steve Brian Smith, Ty Miller

Dead rock star Basil—she and her group were murdered by some sort of creature while practicing their licks on the deserted island of Alcatraz—makes dream contact with Celozzi and lures him and several other collegians to the island to kill the creature and release her spirit. Most of them meet predictably bloody ends. The creature turns out to be the demonic spirit of a sadistic former commandant of Alcatraz who tortured, killed, and ate Indian maidens back when the place was a fort. This one’s rife with hideous monsters, severed limbs, worm-ridden faces, and gaping wounds—plus some humor, as Celozzi’s mutilated companions keep popping up to have heart-to-heart conversations with him about being dead. A gruesome Nightmare on Elm Street/American Werewolf in London clone with music by Devo.

The Slayer

21st Century, 1982; Color, 80 minutes

Director: J.S. Cardone Producer: None credited Writer: None credited With: Sarah Kendall, Frederick Flynn, Carol Kottenbrook, Alan McRae, Michael Holmes

Bloody, claustrophobic chiller filmed on Tybee Island, off the coast of Georgia. One of several vacationers suffers from nightmares involving a homicidal monster. Whenever she goes to sleep, her friends die horribly. The monster whacks a fisherman on the head with an oar and a flap of his torn-off scalp lands in the bait bucket. The heroine pulls back the bedcovers and screams at the sight of a severed head. Two corpses are found on the beach with black beetles feasting on them. A pitchfork is rammed into one woman’s back and the tines burst out through her breasts. Another victim is hooked in the neck with a fishing gaff. A would-be Good Samaritan has his chest blown open with a flare gun. Well-produced on a low budget, and one of the few splatter films in which dream sequences are actually effective. The hideous monster makeup is also impressive.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers

Nelson, 1988; Color, 81 minutes

Director: Michael A. Simpson Producers: Jerry Silva, Michael A Simpson Writer: Fritz Gordon With: Pamela Springsteen, Renee Estevez, Brian Patrick Clarke, Walter Gotell

The original Sleepaway Camp was about a shy fourteen-year-old boy (raised as a girl named Angela) who went berserk and committed a number of grisly murders. This one picks up the deranged Angela's (Springsteen) activities several years later at Camp Rolling Hills, where she is now a camp counselor. Even before the credits, she whacks one girl with a log (her weapon of choice) and cuts out her tongue. She’s very much a Puritan murderer: "There are lots of good kids,” she says, “You just have to weed out the bad.” Gotell is “Uncle John,” who ends up dismembered, along with most of the rest of the cast. Angela proceeds to barbecue two sisters who have a drug habit, admonishing them with “Just say no to drugs.” She drills a girl to death for exposing her breasts, slits throats, chainsaws abdomens, and counsels and comforts the one virgin around, while stabbing the camp “slut” and throwing her, still alive, into an outhouse toilet full of leeches. Angela keeps all the bodies in an old cabin, where she whacks a boy who discovers them with another log and throws battery acid in his face.

Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland

Nelson, 1988; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Michael A Simpson Producers: Jetty Silva, Michael A Simpson Writer: Fritz Gordon With: Pamela Springsteen, Tracy Griffith, Mark Oliver, Kim Wall, Michael J. Pollard

Apparently shot back-to-back with Sleepaway Camp II, this entry has a body count slightly less than that of the Vietnam War. The teaser features a girl run over by a garbage truck and ground up in a trash compactor. The girl, Maria, was on her way to Camp New Horizons but is now impersonated by our old friend Angela (Springsteen again). Pollard is Herman, one of the senior counselors. He and a buxom teenage camper have a fling, which annoys Springsteen enough to kill them both with sticks. Later, she puts a firecracker in a sleeping boy’s nose and blows half his face off. Then she beats his friend’s head in with a log. She puts their bodies into a tent, burns it, and then toasts marshmallows. Still later, she chops a girl’s head off with an axe, and generally kills anyone who might be a cheerleader, fornicator, or non-virgin drug-taker. She throws a counselor into a trash pit, buries her up to her neck while singing “Happy Camper,” then runs a lawnmower over her head. Angela also nails tent pegs into people’s heads very cheerfully. In short, fun for the whole family.

The Sleeping Car

Vidmark Entertainment, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Douglas Curtis Producers: Douglas Curtis, Bob Manning Writer: Greg O'Neill With: David Naughton, Judy Aranson, Jeff Conaway, Kevin McCarthy

Surprisingly witty and effective little shocker about (of all things) a haunted train car, marred only by Taxi’s Jeff Conaway as a wisecracking journalism professor. Whether Conaway is actually stoned or drunk throughout the film is open to question, but the relief felt when his character gets eaten by the film’s lethal hide-a-bed (no kidding) is undeniable. Otherwise, this is a tidy thriller with an above-average cast and sense of style. Naughton (of Dr. Pepper and American Werewolf fame) is a recently divorced, over-aged college student who rents the haunted sleeping car in question, thereby unleashing a frenzy of murderous activity by the spirit of its previous owner, a serial killer. Despite the overall quirky sense of humor evident in the film (Conaway meets his demise while listening to a phone sex practitioner, whose number, believe it or not, is 976-JIZZ!) and its genuinely likable characters, the best thing about The Sleeping Car is Kevin McCarthy as a part-time white magician and full-time writer of children’s books. To him go the film’s best lines and brightest moments, as when he assures Naughton that ghosts indeed can redecorate a room “when the moon is full—or when the colors clash.” The film itself manages to be reasonably convincing and involving, with some top-notch effects and a generous helping of the old blood and guts—nothing so outstanding that a second-year film student couldn’t master the methods, but then, application, as always, counts for more than mere technique. We're not talking Citizen Kane here by any means, but The Sleeping Car is certainly one of the most enjoyable and professional films of its type in some time.

Snake Eater

Cinepix Inc., 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: George Erschbamer Producer: John Dunning Writers: Michael Paseomek, John Dunning With: Lorenzo Lamas, Josie Bell, Robert Scott, Cheryl Jeans, Ben DiGregorio

Snake Eater is the kind of movie that is embarrassing to admit having liked. The script and direction are not exactly inspired, and the acting is competent but routine, yet the film is interesting throughout. The story moves along at a fairly good clip, with enough going on to keep viewers in their seats—if not exactly on the edge of them. TV heartthrob and second-generation actor Lorenzo Lamas plays an engaging character known simply as Soldier. Soldier’s parents and sister are vacationing on the family boat when they are attacked by a ruthless group of hillbillies. Mom and Dad are killed and Sis is taken captive. Soldier finds out that his sister may still be alive, and proceeds upriver into the backwoods to rescue his sibling. There are a number of real problems here. The hillbillies are stock villains, and this type of bad backwoods gang has been done much better in The Hills Have Eyes, among others. Sis is depicted as one of those unbelievably dumb characters who seem to have ample opportunity to escape but never stops feeling sorry for herself long enough to come up with a plan (the bad guys keep her in a shack that is so rickety-looking that she could easily manage to break out). Junior, the hillbillies’ leader, keeps threatening Sis sexually but puts it off so long that by the time Soldier comes to the rescue, her virtue is still intact. We are forced to accept much of the story on faith, and, like the writers, ignore logic when it gets in the way of the plot. However, we’re rewarded with some well-executed scenes of explicit gore. Surprising and refreshing in a film that seems to play it safe in so many other ways.

Sorority Babes In the Sllmeball Bowl-O-Rama

Titan Productions, 1987; Color, 77 minutes

Director: David DeCoteau Producers: David DeCoteau, John Schouweiler Writer: Sergei Hasenecz With: Linnea Quigley, Andras Jones, Robin Rochelle, Hal Havins, Brinke Stevens, Michelle McClellen, Kathi Obrecht, Carla Baron, John Stuart Wildman

“Abandon hope all ye gorehounds who enter here.” Even though people in this movie are decapitated, dismembered, strangled, shot, beaten, and fried on grills, there is no blood or really graphic gore to be seen. The film is like a female version of a Bowery-Boys-in-a-haunted-house movie. Three college nerds decide to spy on a sorority initiation. They are caught and forced to go with two pledges who have to break into a mall bowling alley and steal a trophy to join the sorority. The trophy imprisons an imp who makes all hell break loose when he is accidentally released. He turns three sorority sisters into a zombie, the bride of Frankenstein, and a leather-clad dominatrix, respectively. They stalk and kill the two pledges, two of the nerds, and a janitor. The last nerd (Jones) and a female punk-rock burglar (Quigley) finally finish off the demon sorority sisters, escape, and fall in love. There’s a lot more humor than horror in this picture. There’s also a fair amount of sex and sadism as the topless pledges have their panties paddled and are squirted with whipped cream. All in all, an innocent romp.

Stage Fright

Bioscope, 1983; Color, 82 minutes

Director: John Lammond Producers: John Lammond, Colin Eggleston Writer: Colin Eggleston With: Jenny Neumann, Gary Sweet, Nina Landis, Max Phipps, John Michael Howson

Almost willfully ugly (did these people go out of their way to find dreary locations and bad camera angles?), Aussie bloodletter Stage Fright suffers from delusions of plot and minor attacks of incipient artiness. Worse, it works on the wholly unfounded belief that the entire affair is some kind of whodunnit (the cinematic equivalent of a film’s imagining itself to be Napoleon). This illusion is hard to maintain, since all the point-of-view murders are littered with flashbacks to protagonist Jenny Neumann’s childhood trauma. Judging by this little opus and its filmic compatriot, Patrick, Australians harbor the belief that witnessing one’s parents in the throes of passion invariably triggers homicidal mania. The only new wrinkle is that La Neumann watches her mother do the evil deed twice (and not just with daddy) and inadvertently causes the libidinous lady to go hurtling through a windshield. This causes the young lass to develop a penchant for skewering various and sundry victims with shards of broken glass. (Frankly, we were a little disappointed that she adapted her modus operandi, since the image of a deranged killer toting around windshields as instruments of death holds a certain charm.) There really isn’t much more to the film than this, though the filmmakers insist on believing otherwise. True, the glass stabbings are quite graphic (and accompanied by what sounds like someone puncturing a large melon with a Mother Bates Special), and the film is full of uncommonly explicit sex scenes (usually with people you’d rather not see naked).

Stepfather 2: Make Room For Daddy

Millimeter Films, 1989; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Jeff Burr Producers: Darin Scott, William Burr Writer: John Auerbach With: Terry O'Quinn, Meg Foster, Caroline Williams, Jonathan Brandis, Mitchell Laurance

Terry O’Quinn was terrific as the title character in the 1987 sleeper The Stepfather, a tense, well made, non-splattery (except for the ending) shocker about a serial-killer family man. He’s just as good in the sequel, but the film itself doesn't seem to know where else to take his character, so it just goes for the gore. Though shot to death at the conclusion of the original, O’Quinn has mysteriously survived his massive wounds and been consigned to an asylum. He skewers his psychiatrist, dons the man’s clothes, and splits, establishing himself as a therapist in a far-away suburb so he can get on with his old tricks. He meets a divorcee (Foster) and her son, and woos the woman into marriage, gruesomely dispatching anyone who would spoil the pending nuptials. These victims include a friend (Williams) of his bride-to-be (who sees him for the ill-tempered psycho he truly is), and Foster’s blackmailing ex-husband. At the wedding, Foster catches on, and a blood bath ensues. By the time she kills her murderous beau (this time for real—but, then, it seemed that way at the close of the original, too), she looks like a pig’s-blood-drenched Carrie. This is just a tepid, splatter-filled rehash—which is too bad, for, based on his work in the offbeat and surprising first film, the excellent O’Quinn might have become the Anthony Perkins of the nineties.

Spontaneous Combustion

Media Home Entertainment, 1989, Color, 97 minutes

Director: Tobe Hooper Producers: Jim Rogers, Jerrold W. Lambert Writers: Tobe Hooper, Howard Goldberg With: Brad Dourif, Cynthia Bain, Jon Cypher, William Prince, Melinda Dillon

Garbled variation on Stephen King’s Firestarter with a dash of Altered States tossed in for bad measure (the ending is suggested, if not wholly lifted, from that film). This outing finds Tobe Hooper’s uneven talents as an auteur totally out to lunch. Dourif gives what can charitably be called an overwrought performance as the incendiary offspring of a couple who took part in a 1955 H-bomb experiment-gone-sour. The couple, locked in a shelter to test whether they can withstand the bomb’s blast and radiation, emerge unscathed but perish by spontaneous combustion following Dourif’s birth. In one of the most convoluted and loose-ended government conspiracy plots imaginable, the adult Dourif begins to learn the truth of his parentage and his terrible incendiary “gift.” Hooper’s talent with sequences of high-octane splatter does not desert him here. Bodies explode into flame, blood, and blisters with ferocious regularity. But the script is such a mess that the film failed to secure theatrical distribution and had to go straight to video. A disappointing follow-up to Chainsaw II. Look for director John Landis in a cameo role as one of Dourif’s many burn victims.

Slugs

New World Pictures, 1987; Color, 90 minutes

Director: J. P. Simon Producers: Francesca DeLaurentiis, J.P. Simon Writer: Ron Gantman With: Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip Machale, Alicia Moro, Santiago Alvarez, Concha Cuetos

This low-budget Spanish-American co-production, shot in upstate New York and Madrid, is based on one of British splatterpunk novelist Shaun Hutson’s most popular books, and is almost mesmerizing in its badness. The actors (half of whose voices are dubbed) are atrocious and the script is howlingly full of gaffes. For example, the town sanitation inspector (Machale) describes a particularly nasty killer-slug attack at a local restaurant that he wasn’t even there to witness. In fact, he and the listener were together at the time! The flesh-eating slugs of the title, mutant spawn of a toxic dumpsite, are nesting in the town’s drains. When they get hungry for flesh, they slither out en masse and devour anything that moves. This premise sets the stage for numerous splattery set pieces. A couple of naked teenage lovebirds are chewed to death in their bedroom by hordes of the marauding critters. Another victim accidentally consumes a slug with his salad, and the larvae oozes from his eye sockets. The stomach of a third victim explodes in a geyser of blood, as the ravenous slugs eat their way through it. The FX of these and other, nastier, slug banquets are suitably nauseating, but their level of technical sophistication is mostly on par with the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Star Slammer

Worldwide, 1986; Color, 84 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Jack H. Harris Writer: Michael Sonye With: Ross Hagen, Sandy Brooke, Susan Stokey, Marya Grant, Dawn Wildsmith, John Carradine. Bobbi Bresee, Johnny Legend, Aldo Ray

Ray’s homage to Star Wars is predictably sleazy and cheesy, divided into chapters with titles such as “Death on Planet Arous, Arena of Death,” etc. Brooke plays Taura, a shapely Luke Skywalker, who axes a soldier in the first scene and burns the flesh off Hagen’s hand. She's sentenced to prison on the ship Vehemence by judge Carradine, who is in this film for approximately thirty seconds but gets star billing. In short, this is a women’s-prison movie set in outer space, complete with Wildsmith as the one-eyed “Muffin,” the lesbian warden’s favorite pet. The great thing about Ray’s movies is that they’re so amateurish they make you feel, “if he can make movies and get them released, anyone can.” This home-movie feel spills over into the casting, with Ray’s son playing a small alien. Aldo Ray (no relation) plays Inquisitor number thirteen, who, in a supreme moment of high-tech torture, has the prisoners’ bottoms whipped. A.k.a. Prison Ship.

Stranger In the House

See Black Christmas

Street Trash

Lightning Pictures, 1986; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Jim Muro Producer: Roy Frumkes Writer: Roy Frumkes With: Bill Chepil, Mike Lackey, Mark Sterrazza, Vic Noto, Jane Arakawa, Nicole Potter, Miriam Zucker, R. L. Ryan

Two homeless brothers (Lackey & Sterrazza) live in a junkyard, aided by a young Asian woman (Arakawa) who works as a secretary to the junkyard owner. But the real king of this urban jungle is a psycho Vietnam vet named Bronson (Noto) who rules the junkyard with a small army of demented stooges. We are treated to a veritable catalogue of sadism and perversion: A face is smashed into a windshield, cracking the glass; a broken knife is pounded into a victim’s back; a woman is gang raped and killed, then raped again after death; and a penis is ripped off and used in a game of pitch and catch. After a run-in with a local mobster, the brothers defeat Bronson and save their female benefactor. This picture is very well produced. The cinematography is very good, especially the Vietnam-flashback dream sequences; an early chase scene during the credits is tautly edited; and Muro’s direction is right on track most of the time. The script, by Roy (Document of the Dead) Frumkes, is reasonably solid, but the plot as a whole is rather schizophrenic.

Summer Camp Nightmare

Embassy, 1987; Color, 87 minutes

Director: Bert L Dragin Producer: Robert T. Crow Writers: Bert L Dragin, Penelope Spheeris With: Chuck Connors, Charles Stratton, Adam Carl, Melissa Brennan, Nancy Calabrese

William Butler’s fine novel The Butterfly Revolution has been retitled to resemble a Friday the 13th clone; it then gets an eighties-punk treatment—and what a treatment it is. Connors gnashes the scenery as a tough camp director until the unhappy teenage campers take over and, faster than you can say Lord of the Flies, sink to savagery. Since they are a polyglot of jocks, punks, and stereotypical longhaired freaks left over from another era, their rapid degeneration is wholly believable. Less credible is the tepid treatment of Butler’s hard-hitting, emotional novel. What little mayhem there is was either shot for, or toned down to win, a PG-13 rating; ham-fisted editing is especially obvious in a scene where a live animal is roasted alive by the neo-Neanderthals. Fans of nasty-youth rampages are hereby referred to co-writer Spheeris’s ably executed and downright shocking (but non-splattery) film The Boys Next Door, which is everything Summer Camp Nightmare should have been.

Swinger's Massacre

A Cinema 70's/Dart Production, 1987; Color, 100 minutes

Director: Ron Garcia Producer: Ron Garcia Writer: Helene Arthur With: Jan Mitchell, Eastman Price, Ushi Digart, Gary Kent, Marsha Jordan, Phillip Luther, Ann Perry, Ron Darby, Rene Bond, Paul Oberon, Mickey Nadar

Price, a lawyer bored with his marriage to his wife Mitchell, wants to swing in the worst way. After a lot of pleading and cajoling, Mitchell accompanies him to a swinger’s club, where they meet several couples and go to a party at one of their homes. At the party Price is humiliated when he can’t get it up and decides he doesn’t like swinging at all. But by then, Mitchell has fallen in love with the swinging lifestyle and doesn’t want to quit. Humiliated again at a card party where the male swingers tell him how good his wife was in bed, Price flips out and starts killing them one by one. He offs the first with carbon monoxide, bludgeons the second, shoots the third with a high-powered rifle, and strangles the fourth. In the film’s greatest deviation from the standard splatter formula, Price only racks up one female victim (she caught him in the act of murder). There is very little actual gore and the film is very slowly paced. But the frequent nude scenes may keep you awake.

Tales from the Darkside—The Movie

Paramount Pictures, 1990; Color, 93 minutes

Director: John Harrison Producers: Richard P. Rubinstein, Mitchell Galin Writers: Michael McDowall, George A. Romero With: Deborah Harry, Christian Slater, Matthew Lawrence, William Hickey, James Remar, David Johanson, Rae Dawn Chong

Sleep-inducing anthology film inspired by the successful syndicated television series but owing a lot more to the EC horror comics of the fifties, one of splatter’s formative influences. In the wraparound tale, a variation on “Hansel and Cretel” (sans Gretel), Lawrence plays an oven-bound boy who fends off gourmet cook/horror fan Harry by reading her a trilogy of supposed spine-tinglers from a book called Tales From the Darkside. The first tale, “Lot 249” (from a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), tells of a resurrected mummy. The second, “Cat from Hell” (from a Stephen King story), is about a vengeful recluse (Hickey) who hires a hit man to kill the evil black cat that’s brought bad luck to his family. And the third, “Lover’s Vow” (from a story by Michael McDowell), depicts a gargoyle (Chong) who comes to life and falls in love with an artist (Remar), with dire consequences for each of them. This last boasts the snappiest gross-out FX and is arguably the best of the three tales (even Harry says so), but that’s faint praise considering the mediocrity of the other two. Catch the TV series instead.

The Tempter

Avco Embassy, 1974; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Alberto De Martino Producer: Edmondo Amati Writers: Alberto De Martino, Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino With: George Coulouris, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Carla Gravina. Alida Valli

The bitter, crippled daughter of an Italian nobleman admits to priest Kennedy that she loves Satan more than God. When he finds a beheaded toad atop the Communion wafers, things go from bad to worse. Gravina displays all the bad behavior so dear to the pea-soup-and-profanity crowd—spitting green, uttering blasphemy, and levitating her furniture. She also picks up a young stud who is later found with his head twisted around, sets Bibles afire, and copulates with an invisible demon. At one point her arm disappears, then rematerializes and chokes an amateur exorcist; he is then forced to lick her vomit. A neat orgy-in-Hell segment substitutes another headless toad for the Sacred Host. Old priest Coulouris is called in to clean up the demonic mess, amid sundry profanities and barfed-up snakes.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Tri-Star, 1991; Color, 110 minutes

Director: James Cameron Producer: James Cameron Writers: James Cameron, William Wisher With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton. Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong

“I’ll be back” Arnold Schwarzenegger threatened as the titular killing-machine-from-the-future in the 1984 hit The Terminator. What he didn’t say was that he’d be bringing an eighty million dollar budget with him (take that, Lee Majors), making Terminator 2 one of the biggest-budget splatter-minded films of all time. This time, the muscular machine has been sent back from 2029 to protect young John Connor (Furlong), who is to lead the human rebellion against the machines. What Connor needs protection from is a new and improved brand of Terminator, the T-1000 (Patrick), which consists of liquid metal and can change shape at will—sharp blades being his/its specialty. Linda Hamilton returns as a bulked-up Sarah Connor, whose complete conviction in humanity’s doomed future has landed her in the high security wing of a psychiatric institution. The plot is intense and exciting as ten-year-old Connor and good Terminator Arnold (who is under orders from the boy not to kill humans) rescue Sarah from the institution, then attempt to destroy all traces of the monstrous technology the Terminators have brought in hopes of thwarting humanity’s bleak future. The special FX are incomparable, the action relentless, the plot full of holes large enough to drive a truck through (particularly a conveniently-situated tanker of liquid nitrogen), the production values outstanding—and the flesh and blood variety of cinematic gore is minimal. There are vivid scenes of violence as the terminators wreak their cyborg havoc, and an effective nightmare vision of the future, but the grossest scene in the movie is one where a fat hospital intern licks Sarah Connor’s face as she sleeps. (Yecch!) Terminator 2 is one small step away from traditional splatter, and one fast ride into the future.

Terror

Crown International Pictures, 1978; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Norman J. Warren Producers: Les Young, Richard Crafter Writer: David McGillivray With: Carolyn Courage, John Nolan, Sarah Keller, James Aubrey, Milton Reid

Horror-movie director Nolan is shooting a semi-autobiographical film about the curse visited upon his family by a witch whom his ancestors sent to a flaming death 300 years earlier. As his film reconstruction of this dire event proceeds, reel life merges with real life, and the spirit of the avenging witch returns to claim several more victims. These include Nolan himself, the last in his family line. Impalings, throat-slittings, and other forms of splattery mayhem abound in this somewhat disjointed, but at times quite clever, British-made shocker, despite the formula plot.

Terror at the Opera

See Opera

To All a Good Night

International Releasing Corporation, 1980; Color, 85 minutes

Director: David Hess Producer: Jay Rasumny Writer: Alex Rebar With: Jennifer Runyon, Forrest Swanson, Linda Gentile, William Lauer

A girls’ school hazing leads to a mass murder on Christmas weekend many years later in this gore whodunnit, scripted by the star of The Incredible Melting Man and directed by the star of Last House on the Left. The killer wears a Santa Claus suit and wields a mean blade. Obnoxious collegians are garroted, stabbed, bludgeoned with rocks, and decapitated. One guy is shot through the skull with a crossbow bolt, another gets a too-close shave from an airplane propeller. The flick also rips off Hitchcock’s Psycho shower scene, with a severed head, an impaled corpse, and a stabbing victim all leaking bright-red stuff down the drain. Ho ho ho.

To Die For

Skouras, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Deran Serafian Producer: Barin Kumar Writer: Leslie King With: Brendan Hughes, Sydney Walsh, Amanda Wyss, Scott Jacoby, Michah Grant, Duane Jones, Steve Bond

John Buechler did the special FX for this loose, post-modern adaptation of Dracula featuring a bone-crushing vampire, yuppies versus the undead (hmm … tough to decide whom to root for) and the original Night of the Living Dead’s Duane Jones in his last film performance. He’s in one scene, as real-estate salesperson Walsh’s boss, sending her out to take care of Vlad’s (Hughes) new purchase in Beverly Hills. In essence, she’s the Harker and Mina characters rolled into one. Hughes has an archenemy in Tom (Bond), another vampire (it seems Vlad once stole his woman). Wyss, more or less the Lucy character, becomes predictably sleazy on her way to vampdom. She has the film’s best line, telling boyfriend Mike (Grant): “You fuck like you have your nose in a book." Speaking of books, Vlad Tepes, Prince of Wallachia is conveniently left lying around, mainly so Walsh’s would-be boyfriend (Jacoby) can figure out the plot. “Stoker only had the story half right," he says at one point. The actors are generally intense, and the film includes scenes from the source novel. For example, Hughes slices his chest open and has Walsh drink from the wound. But the vampires’ fighting becomes too silly toward the end of the film, and a Van Helsing character is sorely needed. We get one good scene in the last third of the picture, where Wyss gets staked and her head is sawed off. Vlad’s demise, like Paul Naschy’s in Count Dracula’s Great Love, involves suicide, but the scene is so abrupt (and clichéd) that it bears no emotional impact. A.k.a. Dracula: the Love Story. The film is dedicated to Duane Jones.

The Tomb

TWE, 1985; Color, 83 minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Fred Olen Ray, Ronnie Hadar Writers: Kenneth J. Hall, T.L. Lankford With: Cameron Mitchell, John Carradine. Michelle Bauer, Sybil Danning, Susan Stokey, Richard Alan Hench

Ray combines two horror motifs in this tale of fortune hunters who break into an Egyptian tomb and incur the wrath of resident-vampire Bauer. While the film pays tribute to the old Universal flicks, it revels in all the T & A and gore they couldn’t get away with in the 1940s. For splatter, the tomb-breakers find their guide’s torn-off head lying on the floor; there are several bloody neck-bitings, and the vampire, Nefratis, implants a scarab beetle in one victim’s chest in one especially disgusting scene. Her other bad habits include ripping out people’s hearts and shooting lightning from her finger-tips. During one slow stretch, she picks up a lesbian (played by Dawn Wildsmith) and feeds her to her pet snakes. Fairly entertaining, full of blatant anti-Arab jokes, in-jokes, and typical T.L. Lankford dialogue. The showdown is full of gems, such as “I’m here to kill you, you mummified bitch!” Originally so gory it had to be cut for an R rating, it’s pretty nasty in its present form, too. For acquired tastes.

Total Recall

Tri-Star Pictures, 1990; Color, 109 minutes

Director: Paul Verhoeven Producers: Buzz Feitshans, Ronald Shusett Writers: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Gary Goldman With: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside

This $60 million blood-and-guts potboiler is one of the most expensive splatter movies ever made (and you thought the genre was winding down)! Schwarzenegger plays a construction worker in need of a vacation who turns to ReKall, Inc., a high-tech travel agency that implants vacation scenarios into the skulls of those who can’t afford the real thing. Arnold selects colonized Mars for his imaginary getaway and secret agentry as his passport; once there, he finds himself embroiled in a revolution against the colony’s oppressive corporate regime. The blood flows thick and fast as Arnold fights for his life against the corporate bigwigs and their UZI-wielding army—as well as against his own wife (Stone), a leggy, deep-cover assassin who enjoys her kicks. Except in a couple of scenes, Philip K. Dick’s intriguing is-it-live-or-is-it-Memory-ex source novella disappears in a sea of gunfire and blood-spurting pyrotechnics, which Verhoeven directs like a restaging of Robocop—which, in fact, it is. The scenario—corrupt power structure versus personal freedom—and grimy, futuristic setting are basically the same as Robocop’s. The head villain’s motivation is identical, and he’s even played by the same actor (Cox). And the scene where Schwarzenegger’s hologram image is blasted by Cox’s goons is a direct replay of Peter Weller’s pre-Robo execution. Schwarzenegger delivers his Bondian one-liners as flatly as usual.

The Touch of Satan

Futurama International, 1971; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Don Henderson Producer: George E. Carey Writer: James McLarty With: Michael Berry, Emby Mellay, Lee Amber

A weird little film about witchcraft in a small California town. Berry is on a cross country jaunt when he runs into Mellay, an attractive but strange farm girl who takes him home to meet the family. Mellay’s mother and father seem normal enough, but the babbling old bag they keep locked in her room is another story. This character likes to break out every now and then to turn warm neighbors into cold ones. Berry eventually finds out that Mellay and the old woman are 127-year-old twins whose longevity involves a deal with Satan. The twist ending is a real corker. So is the violence, which is pretty strong for a GP-rated film. A farmer is stabbed several times with his own pitchfork and roasted in his flaming barn before the credits. A flashback features a band of torch-bearing villagers who try to burn Mellay’s sister at the stake; the horrific third-degree burn makeup was provided by the famed Joe Blasco. The scene where a deputy gets his throat torn out with a baling hook would probably rate an R today.

The Toxic Avenger

Troma, 1985; Color, 100 minutes

Directors: Michael Herz, Samuel Weil Producers: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz Writer: Joe Ritter With: Andree Maranda, Mitchell Cohen, Jennifer Babtist, Mark Torgi

A nerdy towel boy at a health club is persecuted by the resident jocks and their women. He flies out a window and lands in a convenient truckload of yucky toxic waste, then he mutates into a muscle-bound, monstrous superhero who gets even with the jocks—and every other scumball in Tromaville. While he takes time out to fall in love with the local blind girl, sentiment is secondary here; the film offers a veritable smorgasbord of splatter. The Toxic Avenger’s limb-wrenching, neck-twisting, gut-ripping techniques will surely remind underground comic fans of Gilbert Shelton’s Wonder Warthog. Other delights: A villain’s skull is pulped in a gym, and a typical jockette masturbates on photos of a decapitated hit-and-run victim. With all these goings-on, various technical gaffes may get lost in the shuffle until your ninth or tenth viewing. The mentality of this savage, enjoyable romp is captured in the exclamation of a would-be rapist: “I never corn-holed a blind bitch before!”

The Toxic Avenger Part II

Troma Team, 1990; Color, 96 minutes

Directors: Michael Herz, Lloyd Kaufman Producers: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz Writers: Gay Partington Terry, Lloyd Kaufman With: Ron Fazio, Phoebe Legere, John Altamura, Rick Collins, Rikiya Yosuoka

After ridding Tromaville of crime in Part 1, our Drano-eating superhero (Fazio Altamura) finds himself out of work, so he takes a job as concierge at Tromaville’s Center for the Blind, supervising the blind folks in demolition derby games of croquet and basketball, and taking them on rooftop nature walks. When a greedy, multi-national chemical conglomerate called Apocalypse Inc. moves in to transform Tromaville’s sunny orange groves into a repository for Agent Orange, Toxie goes back into action, battering, bludgeoning, squishing, and strangling the bad guys with rose bushes. To get him out of the way, the corporate types manipulate Toxie into going to Japan to seek out his long-lost father, a big cheese named Big Mac (Yosuoka), who smuggles cocaine to the U.S. inside fish. During Toxie’s absence, Apocalypse moves in and takes over the town completely. Realizing he’s been had, the none-too-bright Avenger rides the next wave home, rescues Tromaville from oblivion, and winds up in the searching arms of his ditzy blind girlfriend (Legere). Jokes about flatulence and every other bathroom product abound in this even-more-splattery sequel to Troma’s most popular film. (“Now you gotta deal with me, you toxic asshole,” one of the bad guys threatens with Shavian wit before getting his head Linda Blaired.) But the film really takes off into the splat-o-sphere during Toxie’s side-trip to a typical Japanese fish market. Severed fish eyeballs anyone?

Trap Them and Kill Them

Distributor unknown, 1977; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Joe DAmato (Aristide Massacessi) Producer: Gianfranco Couyoumdjian Writers: Aristide Massaccesi, Romano Scandariato With: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Susan Scott, Donald O'Brien

A girl rescued from the Amazon bites off her nurse’s breast and journalist Gemser investigates. She witnesses grainy documentary footage of cannibals beheading and castrating their victims, then eating their eyeballs. Naturally, she and her friends go to South America to look for them. With little opportunity for splatter in the first half beyond the initial attack, D’Amato inserts some token soft-core fornication, masturbation, voyeurism, and lesbianism to keep the audience occupied. In the second part, the expedition is, of course, overwhelmed eventually by the savages. A nun has her nipple carved off and eaten, then is disemboweled and decapitated. A guide is impaled on a spiked swing-trap. O’Brien is bisected in one of the worst gore effects of all time. A woman has her vagina cut out, and her intestines reeled out of the cavity. Rotten corpses and ritual rape are thrown in for good measure.

Tremors

Universal, 1989; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Ron Underwood Producers: S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock Writers: S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock With: Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Finn Carter, Michael Gross, Reba McEntire

This paean to fifties sci-fi movies in general and Jack Arnold’s desert-monster classics in particular is a real hoot. Bacon and Ward play a pair of itinerant jacks-of-all-trades who decide to pack up and skip their one-horse desert town (ironically called Perfection) on the wrong day. Giant, burrowing slugs (later termed “graboids” for lack of a scientific name) pop up out of nowhere to block their exit routes. Super-swift, with super hearing, the graboids then turn on the town itself, reducing its decrepit buildings to a shambles and cutting the census by half. There’s nasty scenes aplenty as the graboids suck people into the ground, spew forth body parts, uproot a grocery store, slam the shopkeeper to a pulp in a manner recalling Robert Shaw’s demise in Jaws, and get blown to gooey smithereens. Despite the high-tech carnage, however, the movie doesn’t have a nasty bone in it. Though all the acting is good McEntire and Gross are especially funny as married survivalists with a stockpile of firepower who are out to track the graboids’ spore. They can’t find it—causing Gross to remark, “You’d think with all the sheep they ate, they’d-a taken a dump somewhere.” Great fun!

Troma's War

Troma, 1988; Color, 105 minutes

Directors: Michael Herz, Samuel Weil Producers: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz Writers: Mitchell Dana, Lloyd Kaufman, Eric Hauler, Thomas Martinek With: Carolyn Beauchamp, Sean Bowen, Michael Ryder, Jessica Dublin

A passenger jet crashes on a Caribbean Island that bears a striking resemblance to the American East Coast. For the rest of the picture, the ornery survivors of the wreck tangle with an integrated army of foreign terrorists. Troma’s typical low budget may have risen to a whopping $3 million but the low-brow entertainment values remain the same. This film features a sordid smorgasbord of mutilated crash victims, racist and sexist humor, severed limbs, blasphemous humor, maggoty corpses, severed ears, torn-out tongues, rape, body-function jokes, groin-kicks, self-evisceration, blindness jokes, crossbow bolts to the crotch, grenades in peoples’ mouths, AIDS jokes, and hundreds of splattery bullet hits. Hit-or-miss pyrotechnic FX are prominent in a film that would have been loud and nasty even without them. In the final analysis, Troma’s War is puerile, putrid, lewd, rude and as subtle as an army-boot to the gonads. True splatter.

True Blood

Fries Distribution Co., 1989; Color, 100 minutes

Director: Frank Kerr Producer: Peter Maris Writer: Frank Kerr With: Jeff Fahey, Chad Lowe, Cherilyn Fenn, James Tolkan, Ken Foree, Billy Drago

Jeff Fahey (here looking even more like Rudolf Nureyev on speed than in he did Psycho III) is a long-haired street thug named Ray Trueblood (!), who is falsely accused of murdering the partner of detective James Tolkan, who wears a wig—almost worth the price of admission by itself. He escapes arrest and returns ten years later, after a stint in the Marines has turned him into an upright, short-haired citizen with a taste for the poetry of W.B. Yeats (oh, those bookish Marines)! Ah, what does he find when he comes back to New York but a little brother (Lowe) who is now a full-grown hood working for the real cop killer (Drago). Worse, Tolkan (now in his regular cue-ball form—passage of time, you know) and new partner, Ken Foree, are still after him. The rest of the story we leave to you, since you’ve seen it ten times or more. This movie is way too long, even though it is well produced. There’s a good bit of sickness here (mostly from Drago), but minimal graphic splatter until some Peckinpah-style shoot-outs near the end. The performances are definitely above average, but hardly provide a reason to give this one a go.

Turkey Shoot

See Escape 2000

Twice Dead

Concord Pictures, 1988; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Bert Dragin Producers: Guy J. Louthan, Robert McDonnell Writers: Bert Dragin, Robert McDonnell With: Tom Breznahan, Jill Whitlow, Jonathan Chapin, Christopher Burgard, Sam Melville, Brooke Bundy

Mom, Dad, and teenage kids Scott (Breznahan) and Robin (Whitlow) move into a decaying mansion they have inherited. Their new home is allegedly haunted by Tyler Walker, an actor from the 1930s, who killed himself when the love of his life left him for another man. As the ghostly presence begins to manifest itself, Scott becomes fascinated by the actor from a bygone day. Complicating matters, a local gang of toughs starts harassing the new kids on the block, and one of the punks, Crip (Chapin), becomes obsessed with Robin. Overall, Twice Dead is an excellent production, and one feels that both the filmmakers and the performers knew exactly what they were doing. Things get a bit far-fetched at times, but the story moves along at a fast enough clip and with enough surprises, twists and turns that any complaints seem petty. Good plotting and production values will please fans of classic thrillers. And there’s gore—a pet cat gets pinned to the front door with a knife; a copulating couple is electrocuted as the guy grabs the frayed, wet cord of an electric blanket; one of the punks gets his head smashed when a dumbwaiter comes crashing down—to please the most demanding splatter fan.

Two Evil Eyes

Distributor unknown, 1990; Color, 105 minutes

Directors: George A. Romero, Dario Argento Producers: Achille Manzotti, Dario Argento Writers: George A Romero, Dario Argento With: Adrienne Barbeau, Ramy Zada, E.G. Marshall, Bingo O'Malley. Harvey Keitel. Madeline Potter, John Amos, Martin Balsam, Kim Hunter, Tom Savini

This Italian-financed homage to Edgar Allan Poe by two of horror/splatterdom’s most celebrated talents has not been released theatrically in the U.S. as of this writing. It’s easy to see why. The film has a terrible (and quite meaningless) title, it’s overlong, and it’s dull. Even a retitled and shortened version, however, might not do the trick. Romero’s episode, an updated reworking of Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (with nods to Roger Corman’s 1962 adaptation of the same story in Tales of Terror) is the inferior of the two, perhaps because Poe’s original itself had so little meat on its bones, except for the finale where Valdemar (O’Malley) is awakened and rots into putrescent ooze (an FX sequence Romero handles with his usual skill). Argento’s episode, “The Black Cat,” on the other hand, is a soufflé overstuffed with nods to other Poe stories; even the characters’ names are lifted from other Poe tales (Rod Usher, Mr. Pym, etc.). On the plus side, it pours on the splatter (eviscerations, blood baths, rotting corpses, “Pit and the Pendulum”-style dismemberment, etc.) and is further bolstered by Argento’s typically dazzling use of color. But it is fatally weakened by Argento’s characteristic disregard for telling a story in a coherent manner. FX by Tom Savini.

The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II

Cinema Ventures, 1988; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Gerard Ciccoritti Producer: Michael Kravitz Writer: Gerard Ciccoritti With: Wendy Gazelle, Mark Soper, Silvio Oliviero, Ilse Von Glatz

In some ways, this earnest little venture replicates the pros and cons of its precursor. Like Graveyard Shift I (the story of an all-night cab driver who is also a vampire), it’s a good idea that gets a flat tire. Here, we meet another vampire who gradually dominates the set of a vampire movie in production. He bumps off the leading man and promises the leading lady, Camilla, an immortality that has nothing to do with stardom. Neat idea? Maybe. And the homage to great vampire films—from Dreyer’s Vampyr to Hammer’s Horror of Dracula—is evident. Yet in spite of good performances and a certain reverence for the bloodsucking tradition, Graveyard Shift II doesn’t take us anywhere we haven’t been before. Probably worth a look, but you might be better off sticking with the leads and not auditioning The Understudy.

Unhinged

Anavisio, 1985; Color, 70 minutes

Director: Don Gronquist Producer: Don Gronquist Writers: Don Gronquist, Reagan Ramsey With: Laurel Munson, J.E. Penner, Sara Ansley

This coarse little weirdo starts like Last House on the Left and takes a Psycho twist before the ending credits roll. In between, there is enough bitching, arguing, and misanthropy for five Andy Milligan flicks. Three college girls crack up their car and end up in a house inhabited by a man-hating matriarch, her persecuted daughter, and half-witted son. As well, a killer is prowling the grounds. In spite of its brief length Unhinged seems much longer due to endless jabber, broken up by an admittedly nasty scythe-in-the-stomach sequence. The ending, when it finally arrives, calls to mind the superior Three on a Meathook. One sleeping beauty has a hatchet buried in her head; the sheets are splattered red enough to pass for a Soviet flag. A guy is put out of commission with a bullet in the forehead. One of our heroines is pursued into a room full of bottled eyeballs, strewn guts, severed limbs, and heaped cadavers; she is then slowly hacked to death in a splattery scene somewhat hampered by the pervasive dark photography.

Uninvited

Amazing Movies, 1987; Color, 92 minutes

Director: Greydon Clark Producer: Greydon Clark Writer: Greydon Clark With: George Kennedy, Alex Cord, Clu Gulager, Toni Hudson, Eric Larson

A cat escapes from an experimental lab and stows aboard Wall Street crook Cord’s yacht. Bound for the Cayman Islands, Cord plans to empty his bank account there to escape SEC prosecution. But the tampered-with tabby has other plans for Cord and his cronies, as well as for some nubile college kids on spring break who have come on board for fun and frolic. The Jekyll-and-Hyde cat has a nasty habit of releasing a vicious inner self that likes to rend human flesh. The beast’s fangs also spew a deadly poison that causes its victims’ skin to swell until their veins burst. The cat wrecks the yacht’s drive system and contaminates the food supply, so that the fast-dwindling crew must survive on cornflakes and champagne. An uninspired plot and the amateurish FX don’t keep the film from reaching a few highs, as when Clark allows his three name actors to go over the top. Gulager is a riot as a bucktoothed hit man with a Don Knotts twitch who gets offed by drowning early on. “It’s a shame about Albert,” the conniving Cord laments in an infrequent moment of sincerity. “I liked him.” But the business-like Kennedy, who is used to cutting his losses and getting on with it, simply dismisses the tragedy with a deadpan, “Well, he’s shark bait now.” Worth a look when these three are on screen.

The Untouchables

Paramount Pictures, 1987; Color, 119 minutes

Director: Brian DePalma Producer: Art Linson Writer: David Mamet With: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, Richard Bradford, Billy Drago

De Niro’s “Scarface” Al Capone bashes a henchman’s brains in with a baseball bat. Cute and cuddly Charles Martin Smith is gutted like a pig and left to drip in an elevator. Sean Connery’s tough-as-nails but honest, nice-guy Chicago (by way of Edinburgh) cop is splattered to smithereens in a hail of mobster bullets. Billy Drago’s Frank Nitti is hurled from a building, his body pulverized as it crashes through the roof of a car. Kevin Costner’s tight-lipped, unsmiling Elliot Ness makes Robert Stack look positively charismatic. Brian DePalma pads the film by bloodily re-staging the classic “Odessa Steps” sequence from Eisenstein’s Potemkin in languorous slow motion. David Mamet’s script plays faster and looser with the facts than the TV series that spawned this splatter-filled extravaganza, which tells how the murderous Big Al was finally brought down on a tax-evasion charge. Connery won an Oscar for his performance—more out of nostalgia, we suspect, than the net worth of his role. Nevertheless, he is good. In fact, he’s the best thing about this violent historical cartoon.

Vampire at Midnight

Distributor unknown, 1987; Color, 93 minutes

Director: Gregory McClatchy Producers: Jason Williams, Tom Friedman Writer: Dulany Ross Clements With: Jason Williams, Gustav Vintas, Lesley Milne, Esther Alise

Probably not the best vampire film around, but it contains some clever plotting, devious ambiguities, and enough surprises to keep you from tapping Morse Code on the pause button of your video player. Our vampire is a New-Age sort, a hypnotherapist on the self-help lecture circuit. When he and a cop investigating a series of “vampire murders” find themselves competing for the same woman, the proverbial clot thickens, and it’s a duel to the living-death. Although gore, sadism, FX and perversion are not plentiful enough to classify this as a full-throttle splatter movie, Vampire at Midnight is well produced, stylish, classy, and ultimately good fun. Doctor Victor Radkof is a welcome alternative to Jason, Freddy, Michael, Ted, Alice, Bob, Carol, John-Boy, Benjy, and their uninspired clones.

Vampire Cop

Panorama Entertainment, 1990; Color, 82 minutes

Director: Don Farmer Producers: Max and Faye Chesney Writer: Don Farmer With: Melissa Moore, Ed Cannon, Mal Arnold

By day, he sleeps upside-down in his apartment like a bat; by night, this bloodsucker with a badge lays waste to, and inadvertently infects, the local drug dealers. This winner boasts all the jiggling flesh and gushing gore we’ve come to expect from a Farmer flick. A topless bikini-contest entrant is gut shot, point blank, with a .38. The vampire cop’s partner is blown away with a twelve-gauge charge to the chest. Our hero breaks a would-be rapist’s arm off. Mal (Blood Feast) Arnold, whose acting has improved maybe two percent in twenty-seven years, plays a profane police lieutenant who is beaten, tortured, and chainsawed by the bad guys. Traditional vampire mayhem such as throat-chompings and a sunlight disintegration add to the fun. The finale shamelessly rips off The Howling. The film’s duration is stretched to epic proportions (epic for Don, anyway) by incredibly long end credits. Farmer’s “best” feature would have been more effective if he’d hired actors, especially for the lead role. Before having his jugular gnawed, one character sputters, “I don’t believe this shit!” You won’t either.

Vampire Men of the Lost Planet

See Horror of the Blood Monsters

Vampyre

Panorama Entertainment, 1991; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Bruce G. Hallenbeck Producers: Bruce G. Hallenbeck, Antonio Panetta Writer: Bruce G. Hallenbeck With: Randy Scott Rozler, Cathy Seyler, John Brent, Greg Boggia, Marilyn Semerad, John L Gilson

A game attempt at doing something different, Vampyre suffers from an unfocused—often downright baffling—script, lame performances, and an overall amateurishness that even the best intentions cannot mask or overcome. What started out as an homage to Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Vampyr quickly becomes mired in the director’s all-too-obvious fondness for Hammer horrors—there are more buxom walking dead in push-up bras than you can comfortably shake a stick at. Worse, it attempts a slightly jokey style that neither the script nor the actors can sustain (“I’ve had dinner—now for dessert,” coos one of the busty undead early on as she prepares to savor a young victim). All of these weaknesses might be overlooked had the problems ended there. Unfortunately, the production’s need for an infusion of capital brought in one cook too many with the requirement that a little skin be dropped into the proceedings, which resulted in the chief lady vampire throwing away her Hammer outfits in favor of a kinky leather topless number that makes her look like a character out of a comic. (This also seems to have made the lady something of a menace to her fellow actors, since her semi-nude scenes were obviously shot in freezing weather, affording her a set of nipples that could easily put out an eye.) Add to this a relatively unlikable hero dressed (for no apparent reason) in a manner most suited to a John Waters impression, and you have a rough idea of Vampyre’s troubles. However, the little film has a few moments of doom-laden atmosphere, a few scenes (notably a village dance) actually have a genuinely professional feeling, and the nastier effects are good without drifting into the unnecessarily repellent. And after all, this is one of the few films in living memory where a bad guy is done in with his own wooden leg—and the only film to date that features our intrepid editor, John McCarty, being offed by some nubile lady vampires. The “King of Splatter” might have hoped for a flashier end, but this one will serve him for the time being.

The Velvet Vampire

New World, 1971; Color, 80 minutes

Director: Stephanie Rothman Producer: Charles S. Swartz Writers: Stephanie Rothman, Charles S. Swartz, Maurice Jules With: Sherry Miles, Michael Blodgett, Celeste Yarnall, Paul Prokop, Gene Shane, Jerry Daniels, Sandy Ward, Bob Tessler, Chris Woodley

A female vampire (Yarnall), apparently a relative of the Karnsteins (the vampire family in Hammer’s Carmilla trilogy), stalks her prey in modern-day California. She invites a “mod” seventies-style couple (Blodgett and Miles) to her house in the desert. Taking a liking to both of them, and in an amusing about-face, she saves Miles from a rattlesnake bite by sucking the poison from the wound. Miles finds herself attracted to the other woman, but that feeling quickly fades after she discovers that Yarnall has sucked Blodgett dry of blood. In a rather graphic scene, Miles thrusts a dagger through the vampire’s hand and escapes to Los Angeles. The finale is a nice twist on the cliché set piece of the vampire disintegrating in the sun.

Vengeance of the Zombies

ZIV, 1972; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Leon Klimovsky Producer: Jose Antonio Perez Giner Writer: Jacinto Molina With: Paul Naschy, Viv Winner, Mirta Miller, Maria Kosti

Trouble ensues when a British noblewoman falls in with Indian holy man Naschy. A sight to behold in his Asian get-up, he also plays Krishna’s disfigured brother, who commands a zombie army. This flick may be devoid of the cannibalism and disembowelment associated with zombies since 1968, but provides enough other violence to please gorehounds. A grave robber’s skull is cracked with a candelabra. One old man is strung up by the neck while another has an axe plunged into his forehead. Another poor sap is hanged head-down in a slaughterhouse and bled like a koshered steer; Naschy, doing triple-duty as a demon, sloppily guzzles the blood from a chalice. Idiot cops investigate, and one winds up transfixed with a wooden cross. A voodoo victim slits his own throat and paints his office bright red. Comic relief is provided by the anachronistic, jazzy dubbed music and the odd mixture of several horror motifs. Rare, red-drenched, and recommended.

Venus Flytrap

Campfire Video/Ken Glover Production, 1989; Color, 90 minutes

Director: T. Michael Producers: Kevin M. Glover, Steve Malis, Marvin Jones Writers: Marvin Jones, T. Michael With: Kimberley Laballe, Michael Capellupo, Deirdre West, Darlene Hartwell, Kevin Glover, Henry Harris, Garth Shaw, Steve Malis

This is one of the better direct-to-video productions. Punk rockers Malis, Capellupo, and Hartwell invade a record store at closing time and beat and tie up the hippie owner. They find a gun while looking for the cash, and when a couple walks in, intimidate the two into inviting them to a party. At the festivities, the couple introduces the punks to hosts Glover and West, who show them West’s prized Venus flytrap plant. The crew gets drunk, plays strip darts, and then a game of Russian Roulette. Mucho sex and violence break out, all of which is surreptitiously being videotaped by one of the party animals. The characters we think are the spiders turn into flies before our eyes, becoming flytrap food. The splatter FX are convincing but limited, mostly confined to the last third of the picture.

Vigilante

Artists Releasing Corp./Magnum Motion Pictures, 1983; Color, 90 minutes

Director: William Lustig Producers: William Lustig, Andrew Garroni Writer: Richard Vetere With: Robert Forster, Fred Williamson, Richard Bright, Rutanya Alda, Dawn Blakey, Carol Lynley, Woody Strode

The problem with a movie like Vigilante is that it is too good. Most such films depict vigilante justice as slightly larger than life. A character like Charles Bronson’s in Death Wish becomes “heroic,” allowing viewers to experience vicariously the visceral thrill of vigilantism, knowing fully that what they are watching is an oversimplification of a very real problem. In Vigilante, however, we are presented with a believably drawn set of characters—Eddie and his wife and young child, a family struggling to get ahead. Several of the men in the neighborhood have banded together to declare war on the local criminal element. When Eddie’s wife is brutally beaten by a gang of toughs and his son senselessly murdered, he eagerly pursues justice through the court system. The leader of the thugs is set free—his short sentence, the result of plea bargaining, is suspended—and Eddie’s rage lands him in jail for contempt of court. Upon his release, Eddie joins the other vigilantes and tracks down the perpetrators of the crime. Vigilante draws its power in the strength of its performances and the craftsmanship of its filmmaking. More seems to be at work here than the desire to provide a wish-fulfillment escapist fantasy for modem audiences frustrated with a system that literally allows people to get away with murder. Vigilante pulls no punches. It’s gritty and takes risks with what an audience will tolerate (while in jail, Eddie nearly gets raped in the shower by a huge black man). Though manipulative, it pleads its case with conviction. Unlike mainly-for-fun films like Death Wish, the film moves out of the realm of entertainment and into the area of social commentary.

The Vineyard

Northstar Entertainment Inc., 1989; Color, 95 minutes

Directors: William Rice, James Hong Producer: Harry Mok Writers: James Hong, Douglas Condo, James Marlowe With: James Hong, Karen Witter, Mike Wong, Cheryl Lawson

Credit-hog Hong stars as a sorcerer/scientist in search of immortality. After luring fifth-rate actors and actresses to his island, he works his old black magic on them, doing mumbo-jumbo with a jade amulet and guzzling human blood. Leftover women are chained in his cellar while zombified men are planted Motel Hell-style in the vineyard. Hong’s insane, half-dead old mother is imprisoned until the not-so-grand finale; then the zombies go on a rampage so lackluster it makes a Jess Franco-staged prison break seem exciting. Witter’s acting is better than average for a Playboy Playmate, especially considering the uninspiring script. Since she leaves her clothes on, only violence breaks the monotony. Offscreen stabbing and castration are weak even by R-rated standards; likewise decapitation, impalement, and some arrow attacks. An admittedly startling scene has Lawson barfing spiders; the film’s highlight is a long needle bursting from the throat of an acupuncture recipient.

The Virgin of Nuremburg

AIP, 1963; Color, 83 minutes

Director: Anthony Dawson (Antonio Margheriti) Producer: Marco Vicario Writers: Anthony Dawson, Edmond T. Greville, Gastad Green (Ernesto Gastaldi) With: Rosana Podesta, Georges Riviere, Christopher Lee, Jim Dolen, Anna delli Uberti, Luigi Severini, Luciana Milone, Mirko Valentin, Patrick Walton, Lucille Saint-Simon

Podesta is the new bride of a German nobleman (Riviere), who is understandably terrified of the “designer Iron Maiden” he keeps in his castle’s mandatory torture dungeon. Lee plays a scarred servant, (his voice is dubbed by another actor). Someone is putting the torture device to good use: a mystery figure who wears a hood. Lee’s character turns out to be a red herring; the real villain is Valentin, as a man whose flesh was surgically removed from his face by Nazis during World War Two, and who is understandably teed-off at the human race. The nastiest scene involves his placing a cage with a live rat in it over a woman’s face. In ghastly close-up, the rat nibbles off most of the woman’s nose; pretty strong stuff for 1963; still effective today.

Wanda, the Wicked Warden

See Ilsa, the Wicked Warden

Warlords

AIP, 1988; Color, 87 Minutes

Director: Fred Olen Ray Producer: Harel Goldstein Writer: Scott Ressler With: David Carradine, Sid Haig, Dawn Wildsmith, Ross Hagen, Fox Harris, Victoria Sellers

This movie exemplifies superbly the inadequacies of the English language; no words exist to describe how bad it is. A post-apocalyptic (read: low budget so we can film the whole thing in the desert) Mad Max rip-off about a synthetic man (Carradine) in search of his wife, who is being held by the ineptly sinister “Warlord.” Carradine travels with another mutant, a cartoon-voiced head in an ammunition box. Apparently they blew their special FX budget on this contraption. The creature looks like a basketball with chicken wings for arms. Along the way, the two rescue and team up with Wildsmith, a loud, abrasive, witless redhead with two big special FX (hey, nobody can be all bad). With the exception of a few topless scenes, this movie has absolutely nothing to recommend it—nothing new, nothing clever, nothing entertaining. There are some diverting pyrotechnics at the end—exploding cars, that sort of thing—but they had to have something to put in the film’s trailer.

Watchers

Concorde and Century Films, 1988; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Jon Hess Producers: Damian Lee, David Mitchell, Mary Eilts Writers: Bill Freed, Damian Lee With: Corey Haim, Barbara Williams, Michael Ironside, Lala, Sandy the Dog

Based on Dean R. Koontz’s best-selling thriller of the same name, Watchers retains so little of the source novel (save for its basic idea) one wonders why the filmmakers spent money to purchase the book's rights. The novel's main characters are eliminated, other major characters are combined or cut, and at least two-thirds of the original plot is wholly scrapped. What remains is a grade-B monster show about a boy and his mom, a dog, and a marauding beast that sounds like Warner Bros. Tasmanian Devil and, when we finally get a peek at it, looks like an ape-man from an old Monogram Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi programmer. The dog and the beast are products of a government experiment in genetic engineering, aimed at creating the ultimate secret weapon. The dog is super-smart and the beast is super-mean, with a propensity for ripping people's eyes out. The beast is supposed to use the dog as an ally, but instead wants to kill it. When both escape from a government installation, the beast leaves a wake of mutilations, electrocutions, and impalements as it pursues the dog. Ironside, ostensibly a government agent but actually a successfully engineered hybrid of the dog/beast, tries to track them down, killing even more people along the way. But the good guys save the day: The dog slays the beast and Haim, a teenaged Rambo, shoves a knife through Ironside’s throat.

Watchers II

Concorde/New Horizons Pictures, 1990; Color, 101 minutes

Director: Thierry Notz Producers: Roger Corman, Rodman Render Writer: Henry Dominic With: Marc Singer, Tracy Scoggins, Jonathan Farwell, Irene Miracle, Mary Woronov, Tom Poster

This follow-up to the 1988 screen adaptation of Dean R. Koontz’s best-selling novel is one of the more unusual sequels in movie history. It’s not only a better film than its predecessor (always unusual) but a more faithful rendering of the source novel as well. Credit Roger Corman, cinema’s King of the Bs, for thinking up what could become the cost-effective gimmick of the nineties: buying a best-seller for big bucks, then wringing every last dollar out of the transaction by making several movies based on the book instead of one. Though this version follows the same formula of cutting, changing, or combining characters, Watchers II wisely pretends Watchers I doesn’t exist. The super-smart dog Einstein and its malevolent sidekick the Outsider escape from the top-secret lab where they are being groomed for espionage work. Einstein is picked up by a vet on the lam (Singer) who joins with the dog’s scientist mistress (Scoggins) in stopping the Outsider before it lays waste to the entire community. The Outsider still sounds like the Tasmanian Devil, but we see more close-ups of it this time (it looks like a cross between The Hideous Sun Demon and It! The Terror From Beyond Space) as it goes about its flesh-ripping, eye-gouging, head-severing business. But the dog is great, the suspense well sustained, and the dialogue quite bright throughout. For example, Scoggins to Singer: “Dog spies and monster assassins? That’s insane!” Singer to Scoggins: “Yeah, but you get used to these things in the military.”

Waxworks

Vestron, 1988; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Anthony Hickox Producer: Stefan Ahrenberg Writer: Anthony Hickox With: Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, Dana Ashbrook, Miles O'Keefe, Patrick Macnee

Your basic “dead-teenager movie” is mixed with your basic “waxworks-come-to-life movie" in this gory spoof by British director Anthony Hickox, son of director Douglas Hickox (Theatre of Blood). Several obnoxious adolescents are shown through a wax museum by a dwarf; it is, of course, a gallery of horrors, and eventually the monsters come to life. What makes the movie fun is that the monsters are classics we’ve come to know and love: the werewolf, the mummy, et al. The twist: Instead of the creatures invading our world, the kids walk into theirs, giving the film the feel of a monster movie anthology. The best sequence is one in which Foreman walks into the castle of Count Dracula (Miles O’Keefe, Bo Derek’s Tarzan) and crashes a very weird (and exceedingly gruesome, at least in the unrated version) dinner party. Also good is Hickox’s homage to the Hammer mummy films. Macnee’s presence gives the film an even more British flavor, and the end credits thank, among others, Hammer and Dario Argento. Certainly no classic, but lots of fun for goreaholics everywhere.

Welcome to Arrow Beach

Warner Bros., 1974; Color, 99 minutes

Director: Laurence Harvey Producer: Laurence Harvey Writers: Wallace C. Bennett, Jack Gross, Jr. With: Laurence Harvey, Joanna Pettet, Stuart Whitman, Meg Foster

This low-rent cannibal movie, which sometimes appears on television in a truncated version called Tender Flesh (which deletes most of the film’s already minimal gore and equally minimal plot sense), was the cinematic good-bye of actor-director Harvey, who died before the film was released. He plays a Korean-War bomber pilot whose plane crashes on a remote Pacific island where he is forced to eat the corpses of his crew to survive, thereafter developing an insatiable appetite for human flesh. After the war, he settles down on another remote outpost with his sister (Pettet). Tasty morsel Foster stumbles into their lair and almost becomes a hot meal, but she escapes to bring back the authorities. When they refuse to believe her, however, she must take vengeance into her own hands. For Harvey, a real comedown from The Manchurian Candidate, where he played a very different but no less tormented and deadly Korean vet.

The Weirdo

Green Tiger, 1989; Color, 91 minutes

Director: Andy Milligan Producers: Kenneth Haker, Neva Friedenn Writer: Andy Milligan With: Steve Burington, Jessica Straus

Perennial doormats and high-school whipping boys will enjoy certain passages of Milligan’s latest West Coast horror. A down-and-out teenage nebbish divides his time between falling in love with a local handicapped girl and dodging the unwanted attention of three hulking bullies, who resemble refugees from any given Troma flick. Opening with a painfully real humiliation scene, and displaying Milligan’s realistic dark view of humanity, the bulk of the film is pretty slow going. Then the hero is pushed too far. He severs one villain’s head via meat cleaver and stuffs it in a garbage bag; another baddy is skewered with Andy M’s other pet weapon, a pitchfork. A woman is impaled with a cross in a church sanctuary while a priest is electrocuted with Christmas lights. These violent deaths read better than they play, thanks to Milligan’s cheap gore technology. Only he would allow a burned corpse’s eyes to blink in release prints, but then, other directors can afford retakes. Marred by a cliché twist ending. Strong hints abound that Weirdo II this way comes.

The Werewolf and the Yeti

See Night of the Howling Beast

What Have You Done to Solange?

ItalianInternational, 1971, Color, 103 minutes

Director: Massimo Dallamano Producer: Leonardo Pescarolo Writers: Bruno Di Geronimo, Massimo Dallamano With: Fabio Testi, Joachim Fuchsberger, Christine Galbo, Camille Keaton

A black-clad murderer prowls a girls’ school and cuts down the student population in this nasty, occasionally striking Italian/German co-production. The police are just dense and slow enough to ensure a high body count. Nubile girls are beaten, strangled, drowned in bathtubs—and worse. Misogynists will love the many shots of long-bladed knives being driven between the victims’ legs. Nearly as unsettling are gory police photos of the corpses, not to mention an X-ray of one girl’s pelvis with a knife crammed “way up there.” As in many slasher films, the present bloodletting all ties in to a crime of the past; in this case, it’s a primitive kitchen-table abortion. Talky and overlong, with Camille (I Spit on Your Grave) Keaton singularly unappealing as Solange.

When the Screaming Stops

Independent Artists, 1973; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Amando De Ossorio Producers: Ricardo Sanz, Ricardo Munoz Suay Writer: Amando De Ossorio With: Tony Kendall, Helga Line, Luis Induni

Rhine Valley residents are butchered by the Lorelei, a beautiful woman who lives in the river and mutates into a reptilian monster at each full moon. The local girls’ school hires a professional hunter to guard the students; he dresses like a reject from a tenth-rate disco and can’t hit the broad side of a barn even with a high-powered rifle. A blind man warns people about the Lorelei; in return, half his face is ripped off and his heart is torn out. A crazy professor is bullwhipped by the monster’s brutish servant, and his face is eaten down to the skull by acid. The hunter falls in love with the Lorelei—with tragic results. The legends of Siegfried and Wotan figure in the ending of this horrific, grim fairy tale. For the benefit of tender viewers, the screen goes red before violent scenes, which include numerous throat-clawings, facial mutilations, heart-rippings, and one female character’s left breast being torn open.

Whispers

ITC Entertainment Group/Cinepix, 1990; Color, 96 minutes

Director: Donald Jackson Producers: John Dunning, Don Carmody Writer: Anita Doohan With: Victoria Tennant, Chris Sarandon, Jean Lederc, Peter McNeill, Eric Christmas

Incest, child abuse, vampirism, killer twins, Satanism, possession, serial killing, drug dealers, cockroaches: This borderline splatter adaptation of a Dean R. Koontz novel has ’em all! What it doesn’t have are interesting and credible characters, an involving mystery, or enough diverting FX to take your mind off these liabilities. Tennant woodenly plays a writer repeatedly terrorized by a wooden serial killer (Leclerc), a man she once interviewed for a book—even after she stabs him to death in self-defense. Sarandon woodenly plays the cop assigned to the case. The two become wooden lovers, and woodenly unravel the mystery of how and why the seemingly undead psycho keeps coming back for more. See the opening sentence of this review for a hint to the convoluted answer. The ending is sequeamishly effective if you have a fear of being overrun by cockroaches. FX by Joe Blasco, assisted by Ed French. Made in Canada. Don’t be surprised if this one leaves you with splinters.

White Cannibal Queen

Filman, 1985; Color, 90 minutes

Director: Jess Franco Producer: Franco Prosperi Writer: None credited With: Al Cliver, Sabrina Siani, Yerome Foulon, Candy Coster

A white man whose daughter is abducted by cannibals goes back to rescue her in this jungle/action opus that pre-dated John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest by several years. Al (Zombie) Cliver is adequate as the distraught father who in the same cannibal attack not only loses his daughter, but has his arm lopped off with a machete. Franco, appropriately, plays a sleazy soldier of fortune. Too bad about the Spanish and Italian extras in black-and-brown-face. These savages speak English and, in some cases, wear gold wedding rings. The slow-motion cannibal feasts are gory enough, complete with torn flesh and glistening innards, but they look like inserts. One of Jess’s better films, for what that’s worth.

Wild at Heart

Polygram Pictures/Propaganda Films, 1990; Color, 125 minutes

Director: David Lynch Producers: Monty Montgomery, Steve Golin, Sigurjon Sighvatsson Writer: David Lynch With: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd, Crispin Glover, J. E. Freeman, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rosselini

Once upon a time, boys and girls, there was a very odd filmmaker who made interesting films. One of these works baffled and repelled the viewer (Eraserhead), one was baffling and moving (The Elephant Man), one was baffling and epic (Dune), and one was baffling and disturbing (Blue Velvet). None of them was without interest and they all attested to a single, unique vision. Then one day, the filmmaker started listening to his more rabid supporters. He heard all about his genius and all about the surface details that made him so very brilliant. And he believed. The result is a film that merely baffles. No, it is a bad, self-indulgent, silly, stilted, and unbelievably tedious film that merely baffles. The surface is there all right (too much so), but there’s nothing underneath—Wild at Heart is just one very long parade of weirdness and perversion for their own sake. For some reason, the former filmmaker opted to follow the path of the infamous Coen Brothers and create a work that glorifies that unappealing sub-species, Americanus Napus Rosa (the common or garden variety American redneck), resulting in a plethora of intensely unlikable characters about whose fates we quite frankly don’t give a shit. Then he cast Nicolas Cage as the lead redneck and had the actor play (and, yes, sing) the part as though he were an Elvis impersonator. The result is a little like Fun in Acapulco meets Blue Velvet and the joke (if that’s what it is) wears out its welcome about fifteen minutes into the film. The rest of the generally big-name cast is no better, and no better served as the ex-filmmaker goes about his merry way shooting gigantic wide-screen close-ups of matches being struck, littering the film with a barrage of silly, gratuitous references to the Wizard of Oz, and pausing occasionally for some over-the-top blood-and-guts violence. The highlight of the film’s carnage is undoubtedly a feed-store robbery in which a shotgun-blast victim crawls around looking for his severed hand, which is being carried off by a dog. (Indeed, this may be the highlight of the film itself.) There are attempts to add some depth to the willfully bizarre goings-on in the guise of all this Wizard of Oz nonsense, but by the time the film gets around to having its hero having a vision of Glinda, the Good Witch, it’s too late to be believable, and far more apt to evoke unwanted laughter than anything else. This is nothing but a con game—a filmic Emperor’s New Clothes. At least, that’s what we hope it is, because if this is truly how Lynch views the world, he must be one of the most unhappy human beings on the planet.

The Willies

Filmtown International, 1990, Color, 92 minutes

Director: Brian Peck Producer: Talaat Captan Writer: Brian Peck With: James Karen, Sean Astin, Kathleen Freeman, Jeremy Miller

A terrific hybrid of horror movie and comic book, this anthology’s a little gem that offers shudders, laughs, nausea, and a guaranteed case of “the willies.” The frame story involves three boys in a tent who take turns scaring each other with gross-out campfire tales. They start with oft-repeated urban legends about microwaved poodles and Kentucky-fried rats, unremarkable appetizers that might lead you to believe The Willies is going nowhere. But don’t be fooled; the two main courses are another kettle of ick! In Bad Apples, a nice little boy is humiliated by school bullies. Retreating to the restroom, he encounters a monster. Of course nobody believes him until body parts start to fly. School bathrooms are pretty gross on their own, but the demonic lurker among the toilet paper, hand towels, and graffiti makes a wonderfully gleeful mess! In Fly Boy, a disgusting fat kid named Gordy Belcher has a unique hobby: pulling the wings off flies and using their little bodies to fabricate Day-of-the-Dead dioramas (Hey, you gotta like a kid like that.). His parents have good reason to fear for his sanity, but there’s more to fear from the crazy old coot down the road and his agricultural experiments. Lots of good mean disgusting fun! Original and highly entertaining, The Willies has no shortage of the elevated elements that make splatter so dear to our hearts. Despite a slow start, it finishes with a double bang.

Witchcraft

Distributer: Vista Street Productions, 1988; Color 90 minutes

Director: Robert Spera Producers: Megan Barnett, Yoram Barzilai Writer: Jody Savin With: Anat Topol-Barzilai, Gary Sloan, Mary Shelley, Deborah Scott

Following the birth of their baby, John (Sloan) suggests that his wife (Topol-Barzilai) stay with his mother (Shelley). The unsuspecting wife gradually learns that something is very wrong, particularly after her priest/friend comes to bless the newborn baby and becomes ill before the blessing can take place. Eventually, she discovers that her husband and his mother are not mother and son at all, but husband and wife. It seems that centuries earlier, they had been burned at the stake as witches while the wife/witch was pregnant, and have now returned to claim the new baby as their own. This is a workable if somewhat shaky premise for a film script. What were the witch-couple doing in the intervening centuries? Oh well, no matter, they’re here, now—and full of evil intent. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Witchcraft is the three actresses in the major female roles. Anat Topol-Barzilai posesses a cool classic beauty and an understated acting style that lends credibility to the central role. Deborah Scott, who plays the plucky girlfriend, Linda, is attractive and interesting to watch. But the real scene-stealer is the aptly-named Mary Shelley, who plays Elizabeth, the mother/wife/witch, with such cunning charm and conviction that the film is worth watching for her performance alone. In one silent scene, Elizabeth is eating dinner (rare beef), carefully and slowly chewing each bite while her daughter-in-law watches. Suddenly, a sinister smile comes to Elizabeth’s face as blood runs from her mouth. Yes, the film is a bit slow and predictable at times, and the plot is too full of holes and unanswered questions (exactly what do the witch-couple plan on doing with the baby once they get rid of the mother?) to prevent Witchcraft from becoming a complete success, but the strength of the acting and the solid directing make this entertaining and worth your time.

Witchcraft II: The Temptress

Vista Street, 1989; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Mark Woods Producer: Feiffer/Miller Writers: Sal Manna, Jim Hanson With: Charles Solomon, Mia Ruiz, Delia Sheppard

Young Will (who looks oddly old for his age), the son of a powerful warlock, has been adopted by escapee witches who have seen the error of their ways. But poor Will is pursued by the temptress, who uses her ample charms (which include two large breasts, unintentionally comic mugging, and awkward gyrations) to coax Will back to the evil world that spawned him. When she utters an offer he must refuse (“Fuck me and our son will rule the world”), all hell tries to break loose. In spite of implied packaging promises, The Temptress fails miserably. Its unimaginative plot, uniformed script (the writers know nothing about real witchcraft, and less about character and dialogue), worse directing, editing, and music will teach you the meaning of the word suffer. In short, this movie is enough to convince you there really is a Hell, and that the duration of eternity is 88 minutes.

Witchery

Filmirage, 1988; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Martin Newland Producer: None credited Writer: None credited With: Linda Blair, David Hasselhoff, Catherine Hickland, Annie Ross, Hildegard Knef

It ain’t hard to figure out why neither the producer nor the writer are credited on this film—anonymity was easier than forcing their entire families to have their names changed. This is as indigestible film fare as you’ll find anywhere. After all, when Linda Blair turns in one of the film’s best performances… well, let’s just say it speaks volumes about the rest of the cast. It all has to do with a haunted hotel, a dead movie star/witch (Knef), and something called the witches’ light (in reality, a rainbow filter slapped on the camera). When the (inexplicably) pregnant Blair and her family visit the deserted (except for photographer Hasselhoff and psychic researcher Hickland) hotel Blair’s mother wants to buy, they end up stranded and subjected to all manner of bloody indignities as part of some spell Knef is trying to pull off. The very offensive mother gets eaten by a dumb-waiter (all but her red, fuck-me pumps) and ends up stuffed in a chimney and roasted alive by her nearest and dearest! The realtor gets crucified upside down and burned. The oversexed lady architect gets skewered with a swordfish. Dad unaccountably explodes in the obnoxious Hasselhoff’s face (very enjoyable, this). The professional-virgin psychic researcher gets laid by an Udo Kier look-a-like with old chewing gum for a mouth. Hasselhoff gets impaled with what appears to be a candelabra. Blair spends a good deal of time running about and talking with Knef’s voice before throwing herself out a window. Where is Mercedes McCambridge when you need her?

Women's Camp 119

Distributor unknown, 1976; Color, 85 minutes

Director: Bruno Mattei Producer: Marcello Berni Writers: Bruno Mattei, Aureliano Luppi, Giacinto Bonacquista With: Ivano Staccioli, Lorraine de Salle, Nello Rivie, Gabriele Carrera, Sonia Viviani

The sado-masochistic, Nazi-prisoner-of-war/death camp movie is a subgenre of splatter, like the mad slasher flick, though its makers are nowhere near as prolific. Its most infamous examples are the two Ilsa movies, but for pure puking sleaze, Women’s Camp 119 is right up (or down) there too. This virtually plotless sex-and-gorefest consists of one gruesomely staged atrocity and interlude of sexual degradation after another, as the requisite jackbooted Nazi assassins, sadistic medical men, and butch female guards go about their deranged business. Some examples: Women prisoners are stripped, raped, and whipped; two homosexual male prisoners are tortured into going “straight”; medical patients are slashed, gashed, and left to die as experimental guinea pigs in devil-knows-what experiments; prisoners are gassed to death, during which their bowels let loose. Just think, all this plus inserts of some real-life Nazi death-camp footage, too! The Nazi setting is designed to give these appalling proceedings an excusable validity (or what is often called “redeeming social value”), but, as with every other film in this scurrilous sub-genre, the aim is just exploitation—pure and simple.

Women's Prison Massacre

Beatrice Films, 1983; Color, 88 minutes

Director: Gilbert Roussel Producer: Jan Lefait Writers: Claudio Fragasso, Oliver Lefait With: Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Lorraine DaSelle

Gemser is a reporter who is framed and sent to a prison where catfights, bludgeoning, and water torture are the order of the day. With logic typical of this sort of film, Tinti and three other rapist-killers are brought to the all-female prison to await sentencing. During their takeover, a cop is wounded with a shotgun blast; one sadist later punches him in the wound. One of warden DaSelle’s cohorts has her neck torn open by a convict’s teeth. Gemser is raped by Tinti. Another female inmate is carved up with a razor blade. Tinti makes two women play Russian Roulette, the loser’s brains splatter all over his face. A woman surprises one of the rapists with a razor blade up her crotch; he lives long enough to be torn up by the other females. These atrocities are punctuated by the bloodiest of gunshot wounds. If nothing else, Women’s Prison Massacre will go down in history as the only Gemser flick in which she keeps her clothes on.

The Worm Eaters

T. V. Mikels Productions, 1978; Color, 75 minutes

Director: Herb Robins Producer: Ted V. Mikels Writers: Herb Robins, Nancy Kapner With: Herb Robins, Bany Hostetler, Lindsay Armstrong Black, Joseph Sacket, Robert Garrison

The best thing about this movie is “You’ll End Up Eating Worms,” its catchy title song, sung during the opening credits. The rest is a colossal monument to cheapness and ineptitude. A clubfooted hermit worm-fancier and a greedy small-town mayor battle over the use of some lake property. The mayor’s weapons are: corruption, thugs, arson, and murder. The hermit’s weapons are worms, with which he contaminates all of the town’s food. Many, many tight close-ups are offered of people masticating the wriggling worms mixed with their food. As we never see anyone actually swallow the creatures, perhaps they should have called the film, “The Worm Chewers.” Some of the worm eaters turn into “wormen" and “wormaids.” They’re human above the waist, with worm bodies below. No attempt is made to explain why. One scene in this picture deserves some praise. After the hermit finds a pet worm he thought was lost, it does a little worm dance in his hand, a very clever special effect. In the end, the hermit, now a “worman” too, is hit by a truck and splattered across the windshield. Some ending for a comedy.

Zombie 3

See Burial Ground

Zombie Creeping Flesh

See Zombie Inferno

Zombie Horror

See Burial Ground

Zombie Inferno

Distributor unknown, 1981; Color, 94 minutes

Director: Bruno Mattei Producer: Sergio Cortina Writers: Claudio Fragrasso, J.M. Cunilles With: Frank Garfield, Robert O'Neal, Margot Evelyn Newton, Selan Keray

Yet another Italian-made cannibal/zombie movie—a splatter movie sub-genre practically unto itself—churned out during the eighties to capitalize on the box-office success (and notoriety) of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Fulci’s Zombie. The look of the film and its somber, stomach-churning scenes of flesh-ripping and flesh-eating gore are reminiscent of Fulci, while its plot, which harkens back to The Crazies and looks forward to Day of the Dead, shows the Romero influence. The film takes place at an out-of-the-way, top-secret government installation where scientists are busy at work figuring a way to stem the tide of world hunger by solving overpopulation. Their solution: Develop a virus that makes people crave human flesh. In other words, don’t bury the dead, eat them. The experiment goes wrong when the zombies they’ve created to be feasted upon develop appetites of their own, and turn on the scientists and a group of visiting newspaper people. The installation is sealed off to prevent the zombie/cannibal contagion from spreading, and a commando squad is sent in to blow the zombies to pieces. A.k.a. Zombie Creeping Flesh.

Zombie Lake

Eurocine, 1980; Color, 86 minutes

Director: Jean Rollin Producer: Daniel Lesoeur Writer: A.L Mariaux With: Howard Vernon, Robert Foster, Marcia Sharif, Anouchka

German soldiers are killed by irate French villagers at the end of World War II, and their bodies thrown in the local pond. A decade later, they come back and kill a score of people before the fiery finish. The body count includes a skinny-dipping girls’ basketball team, shot underwater before the zombies strike from the depths. Certain convenient camera angles lead one to believe that Rollin is a would-be gynecologist. The film is full of the most comic gaffes imaginable. The German corpses sink without being weighed down. They are stripped of their footwear before being thrown in, then return from the dead in black jackboots. The daughter of one soldier is about ten, placing the main action in 1955, but the dress and vehicles are right out of the late 1970s. The green zombie makeup ends at the necklines. The violence includes a German shot in the eye, several more—living and undead—set afire, a few nasty throat-gnawings, and a communal blood-guzzling ritual by the zombies. Jess Franco was replaced by Rollin at the last minute.

APPENDIX A

The Great Unwatched Elusive and Recent Releases that May Be Worth a Look

Aftershock (1990)

Blood Bath (1976)

Bloody Mom (1982)

Blood Wednesday (1985)

B.O.R.N. (1988)

The Borrower (1989)

Blood Salvage (1990)

Body Parts (1991)

Cannibal Campout (1988)

Cheerleader Camp (1988)

Child’s Play 3 (1991)

Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town (1991)

Claws (1977)

Curse III (1990)

Dangerous Obsession (1988)

The Dead Next Door (1986)

Death Nurse (1987)

Edge of the Axe (1988)

Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

The Freeway Maniac (1988)

Girlfriend from Hell (1990)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Hell High (1986)

Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre (1977)

Howling VI (1991)

I Come in Peace (1990)

Invasion of the Dead (1972)

Maggots (1979)

Maniac Cop 2 (1991)

Miami Horror (1987)

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 6 (1991)

New House on the Left (1978)

A Night to Dismember (1984)

P.E.T.S. (1975)

The Pit and the Pendulum (1991)

Puppetmaster III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991)

Rattlers (1976)

Return of the Family Man (1989)

Robocop 3 (1991)

Schizoid (1971)

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1991)

Skinned Alive! (1990)

Slime City (1989)

Society (1990)

Steel and Lace (1991)

Unmasked: Part 25 (1985)

Witchcraft III (1991)

Woodchipper Massacre (1988)

Xtro 2 (1991)

APPENDIX B

A Directory of Directors

Acomba, David Night Life (1989)

Adams, Doug Blackout (1989)

Adamson, Al Blood of Ghastly Horror (1971) Brain of Blood (1971) Horror of the Blood

Monsters (1970) Nurse Sherri (1977) Satan’s Sadists (1969)

Adler, Joseph Scream Baby Scream (1969)

Adlum,Ed Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972)

Agrama, Frank Dawn of the Mummy (1981) (uncredited)

Aguirre, Javier Hunchback of the Morgue (1972)

Albright, Carlton J. Luther the Geek (1988)

Alderman, Thomas S. Severed Arm, The (1973)

Alex, Kirk Lunch Meat (1987)

Allen, David Puppetmaster II (1990)

Alston, Emmett New Year’s Evil (1980)

Alves, Joe Jaws 3-D (1983)

Anderson, Michael Orca (1977)

Angel, Mikel Love Butcher, The (1975) (with Oen Jones)

Aranda, Vincente Blood Spattered Bride, The (1974)

Argento, Dario Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The (1969) Cat O’Nine Tails, The (1971)

Creepers (1983) Deep Red (1976) Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) Inferno (1980) Opera

(1989) Suspiria (1976) Tenebrae (1982) Two Evil Eyes (1990) (with George Romero)

Arkush, Allan Death Sport (1978) (with Henry Suso)

Armstrong, Michael Mark of the Devil (1970)

Artzi, Ami Purgatory (1988)

Assonitis, Ovidio G. Madhouse (1981)

Attias, Daniel Silver Bullet (1985)

Aured, Carlos A. Curse of the Devil (1973) Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973) House of

Psychotic Women (1973) Mummy’s Revenge, The (1973)

Baker, Graham Final Conflict, The (1981)

Baker, Roy Ward Vault of Horror (1973)

Band, Albert Dracula’s Dog (1977) Ghoulies II (1987)

Band, Charles Parasite (1982)

Barker, Clive Hellraiser (1987) Night Breed (1990)

Barker, Graham Alien Nation (1988)

Barnett, Ken Dark Tower (1987)

Bartel, Paul Death Race 2000 (1975)

Bateman, Kent Headless Eyes (1971)

Bava, Lamberto Blade in the Dark, A (1983) Demons (1985) Demons 2 (1987) Macabro

(1980)

Bava, Mario Beyond the Door II (1979) Blood and Black Lace (1964) Hatchet for a

Honeymoon (1969) Twitch of the Death Nerve (1973)

Bechard, Gorman Cemetery High (1987) Disconnected (1984) Psychos in Love (1986)

Becker, Josh Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except (1985)

Becker, Terry Thirsty Dead, The (1974)

Bender, Joel Immortalizer, The (1988)

Bercovici, Luca Ghoulies (1984)

Bergonzelli, Sergio Folds of the Flesh (1970)

Berry, Tom Amityville Curse, The (1989)

Berwick, Wayne Microwave Massacre (1979)

Bianchi, Andrea Burial Ground (1980)

Bigelow, Kathryn Blue Steel (1990) Near Dark (1987)

Bigwood, Joseph Never Pick Up a Stranger (1984)

Birkinshaw, Alan House of Usher, The (1989) Killer’s Moon (1978) Masque of the Red

Death, The (1989)

Blake, T.C. Night Flyers (1987)

Bloom, George Jay, III Brothers in Arms (1989)

Bloom, Jeffery Blood Beach (1981)

Blythe, David Death Warmed Up (1984) Red Blooded American Girl (1990) Bonns, Miguel

Iglesias Night of the Howling Beasts (1975)

Boris, Robert Steel Justice (1987)

Bosch, Juan Exorcism (1975)

Bourke, Terry Inn of the Damned (1975) Lady, Stay Dead (1982)

Brass, Tinto Caligula (1980) (with Giancarlo Lui and Bob Guccione)

Braunstein, Joseph Rest in Pieces (1987)

Bravman, Jack Zombie Nightmare (1986)

Brinckerhoff, Burt Slaughter (1976)

Brismee, Jean Devil’s Nightmare, The (1971)

Brock, Deborah Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)

Brown, Clifford (Jess Franco) Demons, The (1972)

Brown, Edwin S. Prey, The (1980)

Brown, Gregory Dead Man Walking (1987)

Brownrigg, S.F. Don't Look in the Basement (1973) Keep My Grave Open (1980)

Bryan, James Don’t Go in the Woods (1981)

Buechler, John Carl Cellar Dweller (1987) Friday the 13th—Part VII: The New Blood

(1988)

Burr, Jeff Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1989) Offspring, The (1986)

Stepfather 2: Make Room For Daddy (1989)

Burrowes, Michael (Robert Hartford-Davis) Bloodsuckers (1970)

Buttgereit, Jorg Nekromantik (1989)

Cabot, Ellen Murder Weapon (1989)

Cameron, James Aliens (1986) Terminator, The (1984) Terminator 2: Judgment Day

(1991)

Campbell, Graeme Into the Fire (1989)

Cardona, Rene, Jr. Beaks (1987)

Cardona, Rena Night of the Bloody Apes (1968)

Cardone, J.S. Slayer, The (1982)

Cardos, John “Bud” Dark, The (1979)

Carpenter, John Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Christine (1983) Fog, The (1980)

Halloween (1978) Prince of Darkness (1987) They Live (1988) Thing, The (1982)

Carpenter, Stephen Kindred, The (1986) (with Jeffrey Obrow)

Carr, John Night Train to Terror (1985) (with Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, Philip Marshak,

Tom McGowan, and Grey Tallas)

Carreras, Michael Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972)

Carter, John N. Zombie Island Massacre (1983)

Carter, Peter Rituals (1978)

Carver, Steve Naked Warriors (1973)

Castleman, William A. Johnny Firecloud (1977)

Cheek, Douglas C.H.U.D. (1984)

Chiodo, Stephen Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)

Christian, Roger Sender, The (1982)

Christopher, Anthony J. Fatal Pulse (1987)

Ciccoritti, Gerard Graveyard Shift (1986) Understudy, The: Graveyard Shift II (1988)

Clark, B.D. Galaxy of Terror (1981)

Clark, Bob “Benjamin” Black Christmas (1974) Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead

Things (1972) Deathdream (1972)

Clark, Greydon Uninvited (1987) Without Warning (1981)

Clarke, James Kenelm House on Straw Hill, The (1975)

Clouse, Robert Deadly Eyes (1982)

Coe, Wayne Grim Prairie Tales (1990)

Cohen, Larry God Told Me To (1975) Island of the Alive (It’s Alive III) (1986) It Lives

Again (1978) It’s Alive (1974) Q—The Winged Serpent (1982) Stuff, The (1985)

Connor, Kevin Motel Hell (1980)

Cook, Bruce R. Nightwish (1988)

Coppola, Christopher Dracula’s Widow (1988)

Corona, Alfonso Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell (1988)

Coscarelli, Don Phantasm (1978) Phantasm II (1988)

Cosmatos, George Pan Leviathan (1989) Of Unknown Origin (1983)

Cozzi, Luigi Alien Contamination (1981)

Craven, Wes Deadly Friend (1986) Hills Have Eyes, The (1977) Hills Have Eyes, The—

Part II (1985) Last House on the Left (1972) Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984) Serpent
and the Rainbow, The (1988) Shocker (1989)

Crispini, Armando Autopsy (1978)

Cronenberg, David Brood, The (1979) Dead Ringers (1988) Fly, The (1986) Rabid (1977),

Scanners (1981), They Came from Within (1976), Videodrome (1983)

Crounse, Avery Eyes of Fire (1984)

Crow, Dean Backwoods (1986)

Cunningham, Sean S. Deepstar Six (1989) Friday the 13th (1980) Stranger Is Watching, A

(1982)

Curtis, Dan House of Dark Shadows (1970) Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

Curtis, Douglas Sleeping Car, The (1989)

Curtis, Jack Flesh Eaters, The (1964)

D’Amato, Joe (Aristide Massacessi:) Buried Alive (1979) Caligula—The Untold Story

(1982) Grim Reaper, The (1981) Trap Them and Kill Them (1977)

Daley, Tom Outing, The (1986)

Dallamano, Massimo What Have You Done to Solange? (1971)

Damiani, Damiano Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

Dante, Joe Gremlins (1984) Howling, The (1981) Piranha (1978)

Davenport, Harry Bromley Xtro (1982)

Davidson, Boaz X-Ray (1982)

Davidson, John (J.L. Merino) Hanging Woman, The (1971)

Davis, Andrew Final Terror, The (1981)

Dawn, Vincent (Bruno Mattei) Caged Women (1983) Night of the Zombies (1981)

Dawson, Anthony (Antonio Margheriti) Cannibal Massacre (1980) Killer Fish (1979)

Virgin of Nuremburg, The (1963)

De Martino, Alberto Tempter, The (1974)

De Ossorio, Amando Horror of the Zombies (1976) Night of the Death Cult (1985) Return
of the Blind Dead (1973) Tombs of the Blind Dead (1973) When the Screaming Stops

(1973)

De Palma, Brian Carrie (1976) Dressed to Kill (1980) Fury, The (1978) Scarface (1983)

Sisters (1973) Untouchables, The (1987)

DeCoteau, David Creepozoids (1987) Nightmare Sisters (1987) Sorority Babes in the

Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1987)

DeLeon, Geraldo Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) (with Eddie Romero)

DeSimone, Tom Hell Night (1981)

Dear, William Northville Cemetery Massacre (1974) (with Thomas L. Dyke)

Dekker, Fred Monster Squad (1987) Night of the Creeps (1986)

Delia, Francis Freeway (1988)

Delman, Jeffrey Dead Time Stories (1987)

Demme, Jonathan Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)

Densham, Ken Kiss, The (1989)

Deodato, Ruggero Cannibal Holocaust (1979) House on the Edge of the Park (1984) Jungle

Holocaust (1976)

Di Leo, Fernando Slaughter Hotel (1973)

Di Silverstro, Rino Legend of the Wolfwoman (1976)

Dohler, Don Nightbeast (1982)

Donen, Stanley Saturn 3 (1980)

Donnelly, Dennis Toolbox Murders, The (1977)

Donner, Richard Omen, The (1976)

Doran, Thomas Spookies (1985) (with Eugene Joseph and Brendan Faulkner)

Dragin, Bert L. Summer Camp Nightmare (1987) Twice Dead (1988)

Drake, Miller (with Sergio Martino) Screamers (1981)

Dugan, Michael Mausoleum (1983)

Dugdale, George Slaughter High (1987) (with Mark Ezra and Peter Litten)

Durston, David I Drink Your Blood (1971)

Dyke, Thomas L. Northville Cemetery Massacre (1974) (with William Dear)

Eastman, G.L. Metamorphosis (1990)

Edmonds, Don Ilsa—Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) Ilsa—She Wolf of the SS

(1974)

Eggleston, Colin Cassandra (1987)

Ellison, James Don’t Go into the House (1980)

Emery, Robert J. Scream Bloody Murder (1972)

Endelson, Robert A. Fight for Your Life (1977)

Englund, Robert 976-EVIL (1989)

Erschbamer, George Snake Eater (1989)

Evans, Roger Forever Evil (1987)

Eyres, John Goodnight God Bless (1987)

Ezra, Mark Slaughter High (1987) (with George Pugdale and Peter Litten)

Farmer, Donald Cannibal Hookers (1987) Demon Queen (1986) Vampire Cop (1990)

Farris, John Dear Dead Delilah (1972)

Fasano, John Black Roses (1988)

Faulkner, Brendan Spookies (1985) (with Eugenie Joseph and Thomas Doran)

Feazell, Jim Psycho from Texas (1981)

Ferrara, Abel Driller Killer (1979) Ms. 45 (1981)

Ferreti, Robert A. Fear (1988)

Findlay, Michael Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) Snuff (1974) (with Roberta Findlay)

Findlay, Roberta Prime Evil (1988) Snuff (1974) (with Michael Findlay)

Fisher, Terence Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)

Fleischer, Richard Amityville 3-D (1983)

Fleming, Andrew Bad Dreams (1988)

Foleg, Peter Unseen, The (1981)

Fox, Emerson Shocking Asia (1981)

Francis, Freddie Craze (1973) Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Franco, Jess (Jesus) Jack the Ripper (1978) Barbed Wire Dolls (1979) Bloodsucking Nazi

Zombies (1981) Deadly Sanctuary (1970) Ilsa, the Wicked Warden (1977) Screaming

Dead, The (1972) White Cannibal Queen (1985)

Frank, A.M. (Jess Franco) Blood Sucking Nazi Zombies (1981)

Frank, Carol Sorority House Massacre (1986)

Frankenheimer, John Challenge, The (1982) Prophesy (1979)

Franklin, Richard Psycho II (1983) Road Games (1981)

Freed, Mark Shock ’Em Dead (1990)

Freeman, Hal Blood Frenzy (1987)

Freidel, Frederick Axe, The (1977)

Friedkin, William Exorcist, The (1973) Guardian, The (1990)

Friedman, Richard Doom Asylum (1987) Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1988)

Froehlich, Bill Return to Horror High (1987)

Frost, Lee Black Gestapo (1975)

Fruet, William Blue Monkey (1987) Funeral Home (1980) House by the Lake (1977) Killer

Party (1986) Spasms (1983)

Fuest, Robert Devil’s Rain, The (1975)

Fulci, Lucio Beyond, The (1981) Black Cat, The (1981) Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)

Gates of Hell (1983) House by the Cemetery (1981) Manhattan Baby (1982) New York

Ripper, The (1982) Zombie (1980)

Furie, Sidney J. Entity, The (1983)

Garcia, Ron Swinger’s Massacre (1987)

Gariazzo, Mario Eerie Midnight Horror Show, The (1974)

George, Peter Surf Nazis Must Die (1986)

Gershuny, Theodore Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973)

Giannone, Joe Madman (1981)

Gibbins, Duncan Eve of Destruction (1991)

Gibson, Alan Satanic Rites of Dracula, The (1973)

Gibson, Brain Poltergeist II—The Other Side (1986)

Gilbert, Philip Blood and Lace (1971)

Gillen, Jeff Deranged (1974) (with Alan Ormsby)

Gilliam, Terry Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) (with Terry Jones)

Giovinazzo, Buddy Combat Shock (1984)

Girdler, William Three on a Meathook (1973)

Glaser, Paul Michael The Running Man (1987)

Glickenhaus, James Exterminator, The (1980) Soldier, The (1982)

Gochis, Constantine S. Redeemer, The (1978)

Goldblatt, Mark Dead Heat (1988)

Goodell, J. Gregory Human Experiments (1980)

Goodwin, Fred Curse II: The Bite (1988)

Gordon, Bert I. Food of the Gods (1976)

Gordon, Stuart Dolls (1987) From Beyond (1986) Re-Animator (1985)

Gomick, Michael Creepshow 2 (1987)

Governor, Richard Ghost Town (1988)

Graham, David C. Undertaker and His Pals, The (1967)

Grau, Jorge Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue (1975) Female Butcher, The (1972)

Graver, Gary Midnight Intruders (1987)

Green, Martin Dark Sanity (1981)

Grefe, William Stanley (1972)

Grinter, B. (Brad) F. Flesh Feast (1970)

Gronquist, Don Unhinged (1985)

Guccione, Bob Caligula (1980) (with Tinto Brass and Giancarlo Lui)

Haines, Richard W. Class of Nuke ’Em High (1987) (with Samuel Weil) Splatter

University (1984)

Hall, Kenneth J. Evil Spawn (1987)

Hallenbeck, Bruce G. Vampyre (1991)

Hammer, Robert Don’t Answer the Phone (1980)

Hanley, Jim Junior (1984)

Hanson, Tom Zodiac Killer, The (1985)

Harlin, Renny Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4: The Dream

Master (1988) Prison (1988)

Harmon, Robert Hitcher, The (1986)

Harrington, Curtis Ruby (1977) (with Stephanie Rothman)

Harris, Denny Silent Scream (1980)

Harrison, John Tales from the Darkside—The Movie (1990)

Harry, Lee Silent Night, Deadly Night—Part II (1986)

Hart, Harvey Shoot (1976)

Hartford, Kenneth Monster (1988)

Harvey, Laurence Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

Heavener, David Outlaw Force (1988)

Hedden, Rob Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Hellman, Monte Silent Night Deadly Night III—Better Watch Out! (1989)

Hellman, Oliver (Sonia Assonitis) Beyond the Door (1975)

Henderson, Don Touch of Satan, The (1971)

Henenlotter, Frank Basket Case (1982) Basket Case 2 (1990) Brain Damage (1988)

Frankenhooker (1990)

Herrier, Mark Popcorn (1991)

Herrington, Rowdy Jack’s Back (1988)

Herz, Michael The Toxic Avenger (1985) (with Samuel Weil) Toxic Avenger Part II, The

(1990) (with Lloyd Kaufman) Troma’s War (1988) (with Samuel Weil)

Hess, David To All a Good Night (1980)

Hess, Jon Watchers (1988)

Hickey, Bruce Necropolis (1987)

Hickox, Anthony Waxworks (1988)

Hickox, Douglas Theatre of Blood (1973)

Hill, Jack Coffy (1973) Foxy Brown (1974)

Hill, Walter Long Riders, The (1980) Southern Comfort (1981)

Hinzman, Bill Majorettes, The (1987) Revenge of the Living Zombies (1989)

Hirschman, Ray Plutonium Baby (1987)

Hitzik, Robert Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Hodi, Jeno Deadly Obsession (1988)

Holland, Tom Child’s Play (1988) Fright Night (1985)

Holt, Seth Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972) (uncredited)

Holzman, Allan Mutant (1982) Programmed to Kill (1986)

Hong, James Vineyard, The (1989) (with William Rice)

Hood, Randall Die Sister Die (1977)

Hooper, Tobe Eaten Alive (1976) Funhouse, The (1981) Lifeforce (1985) Poltergeist (1982)

Spontaneous Combustion (1989) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, The (1986) Texas Chainsaw

Massacre, The (1974)

Hopkins, Stephen Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5: The Dream Child (1989) Predator 2

(1990)

Houck, Joy N., Jr. Night of Bloody Horror (1969)

Hough,John American Gothic (1988) Howling IV, The: The Original Nightmare, (1988)

Incubus (1982)

Houston, Robert Shogun Assassin (1981)

Hovan, Adrian Mark of the Devil Part 2 (1972)

Howard, Frank Helter Skelter Murders, The (1988)

Hughes, Kenneth Night School (1981)

Hughes, Robert C. Hunter's Blood (1987) Memorial Valley Massacre (1988)

Humbert, Humphrey Ghosthouse (1987)

Hunt, Edward Bloody Birthday (1980) Brain, The (1988)

Hussein, Warris Possession of Joel Delaney (1972)

Hyams, Peter Outland (1981)

Irvin, John Ghost Story (1981)

Irving, David C.H.U.D. II—Bud the Chud (1988)

Isaac, James Horror Show, The (1989)

Jackson, Donald G. Demon Lover, The (1976) (with Jerry Younkins) Hell Comes to

Frogtown (1987) (with R.J. Kizer) Whispers (1990)

Jackson, Peter Bad Taste (1987)

Jacopetti, Gaultiero Africa: Blood and Guts (1970) (with Franco Prosperi)

Jeffries, Arthur Demented (1982)

Jewison, Norman Rollerball (1975)

Johnson, Jed “J.P.” Andy Warhol’s Bad (1971) Erotikill (1973)

Johnson, John H. Curse of the Blue Lights (1988)

Jones, Amy Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Jones, Brian Thomas Posed for Murder (1989) Rejuvenatrix (1988)

Jones, Don Love Butcher, The (1975) (with Mikel Angel)

Jones, Terry Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) (with Terry Gilliam) Monty

Python’s Meaning of Life (1983)

Jordan, Neil Company of Wolves, The (1984)

Joseph, Eugenie Spookies (1985) (with Thomas Doran and Eugenie Joseph)

Juno, Victor Last House on Dead End Street (1977)

Kaufman, Charles Mother’s Day (1980)

Kaufman, Lloyd Toxic Avenger Part II, The (1990) (with Michael Merz)

Kaufman, Philip Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Keeter, Worth, III Wolfman, The (1979)

Keith, David Curse, The (1987)

Kennedy, Burt Hannie Caulder (1972)

Kenner, Elly Black Room, The (1982) (with Norman Thaddeus Vane)

Kerr, Frank True Blood (1989)

Kershner, Irvin Eyes of Laura Mars, The (1978)

Kervyn, Emmanuel Rabid Grannies (1989)

Kessler, Bruce Simon—King of the Witches (1971)

Kiersch, Fritz Children of the Corn (1984)

Kikoine, Gerard Buried Alive (1989) Edge of Sanity (1988)

Kincaid, Tim Breeders (1985)

King, Stephen Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Kirk, Robert Destroyer (1988)

Kirshner, Irvin Robocop 2 (1990)

Kirtman, Leonard Carnival of Blood (1971)

Kizer, R.J. Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987) (with Donald G. Jackson)

Kleven, Max Bail Out (1988)

Klimovsky, Leon Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman (1971) Dracula: The Bloodline Continues

(1972) People Who Own the Dark (1975) Vengeance of the Zombies (1972) Werewolf vs.

the Vampire Woman, The (1970)

Kong, Jackie Being, The (1983) Blood Diner (1987)

Koz, Wally 555 (1988)

Krueger, Michael Mind Killer (1989)

La Loggia, Frank Fear No Evil (1981)

Lafia, John Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Lafleur, Jean Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia (1976)

Lambert, Mary Pet Sematery (1989)

Lammond, John Stage Fright (1983)

Landi, Mario Patrick 2 (1980)

Landis, John American Werewolf in London, An (1981)

Lawrence, John Savage Abduction (1972)

LeCerte, Jacques Love Me Deadly (1972)

LeCilaire, Conan Faces of Death (1978)

Leder, Paul I Dismember Mama (1974)

Lee, Damian Food of the Gods Part 2 (1988)

Lenzi, Umberto Eaten Alive (1980) Eyeball (1978) Make Them Die Slowly (1981) Man
from Deep River (1972)

Leonard, Brett Dead Pit, The (1989)

Leslie, Bill Nail Gun Massacre (1985) (with Terry Lofton)

Levesque, Michael Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

Levy, William A. Blackenstein (1973)

Lewis, Christopher Blood Cult (1985) Revenge (1986) Ripper, The (1986)

Lewis, Herschell Gordon 2000 Maniacs (1964) Blood Feast (1963) Color Me Blood Red

(1964) Gore Gore Girls, The (1972) Gruesome Twosome, The (1967) Moonshine Mountain

(1964) She-Devils on Wheels (1968) Taste of Blood, A (1967) This Stuffll Kill Ya! (1971)

Wizard of Gore, The (1970)

Lewnes, Pericles Redneck Zombies (1988)

Lieberman, Jeff Blue Sunshine (1977) Just Before Dawn (1980) Squirm (1976)

Ling, Pam Brutal Sorcery (1984)

Link, Ron Zombie High (1987)

Litten, Peter Slaughter High (1987)

Little, Dwight H. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Llosa,Luis Phantom of the Opera (1989) Crime Zone (1989)

Logan, Bob Repossessed (1990)

Logothetis, Dimitri Slaughterhouse Rock (1987)

Lofton, Terry Nail Gun Massacre (1975) (with Bill Leslie)

Lommel, Ulli Boogeyman, The (1980)

Lord, Jean Claude Visiting Hours (1982)

Lui, Giancarlo Caligula (1980) (with Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione)

Luna, Bigas Anguish (1987)

Lustig, William Maniac (1981) Maniac Cop (1988) Vigilante (1983)

Lynch, David Eraserhead (1978) Wild at Heart (1990)

Lynch, Paul Humongous (1981) Prom Night (1980)

Lyne, Adrian Fatal Attraction (1989)

Maas, Dick Lift, The (1983)

Mabe, Byron She Freak (1967)

Madrid, Jose Luis Jack the Ripper of London (1971)

Malanowski, Tony Curse of the Screaming Dead, The (1982)

Mancini, Mario Frankenstein 1980 (1973)

Mangine, Joseph Neon Maniacs (1985)

Manoogian, Peter Enemy Territory (1987)

Maris, Peter Ministry of Vengeance (1989)

Marquand, Richard Legacy, The (1979)

Marshak, Philip Cataclysm (1980) (with Tom McGowan and Grey Tallas) Night Train
to Terror (1985) (with John Carr, Tom McGowan, Jay Schlossbeiy-Cohen, and Greg

Tallas)

Marshall, Frank Arachnaphobia (1990)

Martin, Eugenio Nightmare Hotel (1973)

Martin, Frank Dr. Butcher, M.D. (1981)

Martin, James Aviles Flesh-Eating Mothers (1988)

Martino, Sergio Screamers (1981) (with Miller Drake) Slave of the Cannibal God (1978)

Torso (1974)

Mastroianni, Armand Cameron’s Closet (1987) He Knows You’re Alone (1980)

Supernaturals, The (1985)

Matalon, Eddy Cathy’s Curse (1980)

Mattei, Bruno Women’s Camp 119 (1976) Zombie Inferno (1981)

Maylam, Tony Burning, The (1981)

Mazo, Michael Possession—Until Death Do You Part (1987) (with Lloyd A. Simond)

McClatchy, Gregory Vampire at Midnight (1987)

McCrann, Chuck Bloodeaters (1980)

McCullough, Jim, Sr. Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1983)

McGowan, Tom Cataclysm (1980) (with Philip Marshak and Grey Tallas) Night Train
to Terror (1985) (with John Carr, Philip Marshak, Jay Schlossbery-Cohen, and Grey

Tallas)

McLoughlin, Tom Friday the 13th—Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

McNaughton, John Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1989)

McTiernan, John Die Hard (1988) Predator (1987)

Medford, Don Hunting Party, The (1971)

Merhi, Joseph Epitaph (1987) Fresh Kill (1987) Heat Street (1987) L.A. Crackdown (1987)

Mayhem (1986) Newly Deads, The (1988)

Meyer, Russ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966)

Michael, T. Venus Flytrap (1989)

Michalakis, John Elias I Was ATeenage Zombie (1986)

Mihalka, George Eternal Evil (1988) My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Mikels, Ted V. Blood Orgy of the She-Devils (1972) Corpse Grinders, The (1971) Doll

Squad, The (1973)

Milius, John Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Miller, George Witches of Eastwick, The (1987)

Milligan, Andy Blood (1974) Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970) Body Beneath, The (1971)

Carnage (1983) Ghastly Ones, The (1968) Legacy of Blood (1978) Man With Two Heads,

The (1972) Rats Are Coming!, The Werewolves Are Here! (1972) Torture Dungeon (1970)

Weirdo, The (1989)

Miner, Steve Friday the 13th—Part III (1982)

Mingozzi, Gianfranco Flavia, Priestess of Violence (1976)

Minion, Joe Daddy’s Boys (1988)

Misumi, Kenji Shogun Assassin (1981)

Moctezuma, Juan Lopez Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1974) Sisters of Satan (1975)

Moffitt, John Love at Stake (1988)

Molina, Jacinto (Paul Naschy) Craving, The (1980) Inquisition (1976)

Monson, Carl Blood Legacy (1971) Death Feud (1987)

Montero, Roberto Slasher, The (1976)

Moore, Charles Philip Demon Wind (1990)

Moore, Ronald W. Future-Kill (1986)

Mora, Philippe Beast Within, The (1982) Howling II, The (1984) Howling III, The (1987)

Morrissey, Paul Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1974) Blood for Dracula (1974) Mixed

Blood (1984)

Mulcahy, Russell Razorback (1984)

Mundhra, Jag Hack-O-Lantern (1988) Open House (1987)

Muro, Jim Street Trash (1986)

Murray, William Primal Scream (1988)

Nelson, Dusty Effects (1980)

Nelson, Ralph Soldier Blue (1970)

Newell, Mike Awakening, The (1979)

Newland, Martin Witchery (1988)

Notz, Thierry Watchers II (1990)

Noyce, Phillip Blind Fury (1989)

O’Bannon, Dan Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Oblowsky, Stefan Other Hell, The (1980)

Obrow, Jeffrey Kindred, The (1986) (with Stephen Carpenter)

O’Connelly, Jim Tower of Evil (1972)

Oliver, Robert H. Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1973)

Oliver, Ron Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1988) (with Peter Simpson)

Olivera, Hector Barbarian Queen (1986)

O’Neil, Robert Blood Mania (1970)

Ormsby, Alan Deranged (1974) (with Jeff Gillen)

Osborne, Kent Cain’s Cutthroats (1970)

Othenin-Girard, Dominique Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) Night

Angel (1989)

Oulette, Jean-Paul Unnameable, The (1988)

Paris, Dominic Dracula's Last Rites (1980)

Parker, Alan Angel Heart (1987) Wall, The (1982)

Parolini, Billy Igor and the Lunatics (1985)

Pataki, Michael Mansion of the Doomed (1976)

Patterson, J. G. “Pat” Dr. Gore (1972)

Patzak, Peter Slaughter Day (1976)

Paulsen, David Savage Weekend (1976) Schizoid (1980)

Pavlou, George Rawhead Rex (1986) Transmutations (1985)

Peck, Brian Willies, The (1990)

Peeters, Barbara Bury Me an Angel (1972) Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Perkins, Anthony Psycho III (1986)

Pittman, Bruce Hello Mary Lou—Prom Night II (1988)

Poe, Rodiger Monster High (1989)

Post, Ted Baby, The (1974)

Potts, Wallace Psycho Cop (1989)

Prior, David A. Lost Platoon, The (1989)

Prosperi, Franco Africa: Blood and Guts (1970) (with Gaultiero Jasopetti)

Prowse, Andrew "A.J.” Demonstone (1989) Driving Force (1989)

Puerto, Carlos Satan’s Blood (1977)

Purdom, Edmund Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984)

Pyun, Albert Sword and the Sorcerer, The (1982)

Rader, Peter Grandma’s House (1989)

Raimi, Sam Darkman (1990) Evil Dead II, The (1987) Evil Dead, The (1983)

Raley, Alice Movie House Massacre (1984)

Ray, Fred Olen Alienator, The (1989) Alien Dead, The (1979) Armed Response (1986)

Biohazard (1984) Deep Space (1988) Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) Star Slammer

(1986) Tomb, The (1985) Warlords (1988)

Reed, Herb Graduation Day (1981)

Reed, Joel M. Bloodsucking Freaks (1976)

Reiner, Rob Misery (1990)

Reitman, Ivan Cannibal Girls (1972)

Resnikoff, Robert First Power, The (1990)

Reynolds, Burt Sharkey’s Machine (1981)

Reynolds, Christopher Offerings (1988)

Rice, William Vineyard, The (1989) (with James Mong)

Richard, Jef Berserker (1987)

Richards, Dick Death Valley (1982)

Ritchie, Michael Island, The (1980) Prime Cut (1972)

Ritter, Tim Killing Spree (1990)

Robins, Herb Worm Eaters, The (1978)

Roessler, Rick Slaughterhouse (1987)

Rollin, Jean Zombie Lake (1980)

Romero, Eddie Beast of the Yellow Night (1971) Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969) (with

Geraldo DeLeon) Twilight People (1972)

Romero, George A. Crazies, The (1973) Creepshow (1982) Dawn of the Dead (1979) Day
of the Dead (1985) Martin (1978) Monkey Shines (1988) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Two Evil Eyes (1990) (with Dario Argento)

Romero, Joey Savage Justice (1988)

Rondinella, Thomas R. Blades (1990)

Roodt, Darrell City of Blood (1987)

Rose, Mickey Student Bodies (1981)

Rosenberg, Stuart Amityville Horror, The (1979)

Rosenthal, Rick Halloween II (1981)

Rosman, Mark House on Sorority Row, The (1983)

Rothman, Stephanie Ruby (1977) (with Curtis Harrington) Velvet Vampire, The (1971)

Roussel, Gilbert Womens’ Prison Massacre (1983)

Rudolph, Alan Barn of the Naked Dead (1973)

Russell, Chuck Blob, The (1988) Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors

(1987)

Russo, John A. Midnight (1981)

Sachs, William Incredible Melting Man, The (1978)

Saeta, Eddie Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls (1972)

Salva, Victor Clownhouse (1990)

Santiago, Cirio H. Naked Vengeance (1985) Nam Angels (1989)

Sargent, Joseph Jaws: the Revenge (1987)

Sasdy, Peter Countess Dracula (1970) Hands of the Ripper (1971)

Savage, Derek Meateater, The (1978)

Savini, Tom Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Sayadian, Stephen Dr. Caligari (1989)

Scardmaglia, Elio Murder Clinic, The (1966)

Scavolini, Romano Nightmare (1981)

Schaeffer, Francis Headhunter (1990)

Schlossberg-Cohen, Jay Night Train to Terror (1985) (with John Carr, Philip Marshak,

Tom McGowan, and Grey Tallas)

Schmidt, Wolfgang (Ray Dennis Steckler) Blood Shack (1980) Hollywood Strangler

Meets the Skid Row Slasher, The (1979)

Schmoeller, David Puppetmaster (1989) Seduction, The (1983) Tourist Trap (1979)

Schoolnik, Skip Hide and Go Shriek (1987)

Schrader, Paul Cat People (1982)

Schroeder, Michael Damned River (1989)

Schumacher, Joel Lost Boys, The (1987)

Scott, Ridley Alien (1979) Black Rain (1989) Blade Runner (1982)

Scott, Robert Video Dead, The (1987)

Sebastian, Beverly Gatorbait 2: Cajun Justice (1988) (with Ferd Sebastian)

Sebastian, Ferd Gatorbait 2: Cajun Justice (1988) (with Beverly Sebastian)

Segall, Stuart Drive-in Massacre (1976)

Sellier Jr., Charles E. Annihilators, The (1986) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Serafian, Deran To Die For (1988)

Sewell, Vernon Horrors of Burke and Hare, The (1971)

Shelach, Riki Mercenary Fighters

Sherman, Gary Dead and Buried (1981) Raw Meat (1973) Vice Squad (1982)

Sholder, Jack Alone in the Dark (1982) Hidden, The (1987) Nightmare on Elm Street Part

2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Shyman, James Slashdance (1990)

Simandl, Lloyd A. Possession—Until Death Do You Part (1987) (with Michael Mazo)

Simon, Adam Brain Dead (1989)

Simon, J. P. Pieces (1983) Slugs (1987)

Simpson, Michael A. Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) Sleepaway Camp III:

Teenage Wasteland (1988)

Simpson, Peter Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1988) (with Ron Oliver)

Singleton, Ralph S. Graveyard Shift (1990)

Smith, Charles Martin Trick or Treat (1986)

Soavi, Michele Church, The (1990)

Sole, Alfred Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

Solvay, Paul Devil’s Wedding Night, The (1973)

Somtow, S. P. Laughing Dead, The (1990)

Sotos, Jim Forced Entry (1981)

Spera, Robert Witchcraft (1988)

Spielberg, Steven Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom (1984) Jaws (1975) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Stanley, Michael Attack of the Beast Creatures (1983)

Stanley, Richard Hardware (1990)

Starr, Bruce Boogeyman II (1982)

Steinmann, Danny Friday the 13th—Part V: A New Beginning (1985) Savage Streets

(1984)

Stryker, Jonathan Curtains (1982)

Styles, Richard Shallow Grave (1987)

Sundstrom, Neal Howling V, The: The Rebirth

Suso, Henry Death Sport (1978) (with Allan Arkush)

Swan, Don Gore-Met, Zombie Chef from Hell (1986)

Szwarc, Jeannot Jaws 2 (1978)

Takacs, Tibor I, Madman (1989)

Tallas, Greg Cataclysm (1980) (with Philip Marshak and Tom McGowan) Night Train
to Terror (1985) (with John Carr, Philip Marshak, Tom McGowan and Jay

Schlossberg-Cohen)

Taylor, Don Damien—Omen II (1978)

Teague, Lewis Alligator (1980) Cujo (1983)

Tenney, Kevin S. Night of the Demon (1977) Witchboard (1986)

Thompson, J. Lee 10 to Midnight (1983) Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987) Happy

Birthday to Me (1981)

Tomatore, Joe Grotesque (1987)

Townsend, Bud Folks at the Red Wolfarm (1972)

Trenchard-Smith, Brian Dead-End Drive-In (1986) Escape 2000 (1981)

Trikonis, Gus Evil, The (1978)

Tyler, Stephen The Last Slumber Party (1987) Unclaimed Inhumanities (1988)

Underwood, Ron Tremors (1989)

Vane, Norman Thaddeus Black Room, The (1982) (with Elly Kenner)

Verhoeven, Paul Flesh and Blood (1985) Robocop (1987) Total Recall (1990)

Vila, Camilo Unholy, The (1988)

Voskanian, Robert Child, The (1977)

Wadleigh, Michael Wolfen (1981)

Walas, Chris Fly II, The (1989)

Walker, Peter Comeback, The (1977) Confessional, The (1975) Flesh and Blood Show, The

(1973) Frightmare (1974) House of Whipcord (1974) Schizo (1977)

Wallace, Tommy Lee Fright Night 2 (1988) Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1983)

Walton, Fred April Fool’s Day (1986) When a Stranger Calls (1979)

Warren, Deryn Dead of Night (1987)

Warren, Norman J. Alien Prey (1979) Bloody New Year (1987) Inseminoid (1981) Prey

(1977) Satan’s Slave (1979) Terror (1978)

Wasson, James C. Night of the Demon (1983)

Waters, John Desperate Living (1977) Female Trouble (1974) Mondo Trasho (1969)

Multiple Maniacs (1970) Pink Flamingos (1972)

Watkins, Peter War Came, The (1965)

Watson, John Deathstalker (1983)

Webster, D.J. Dark Side of the Moon, The (1989)

Weil, Samuel Class of Nuke ’Em High (1987) (with Richard W. Maines) Toxic Avenger,

The (1985) (with Michael Herz) Troma’s War (1988) (with Michael Herz)

Weir, Peter Cars that Ate Paris, The (1974)

Weis, Jack Mardi Gras Massacre (1981)

Welles, Mel Lady Frankenstein (1973)

Wellington, David Carpenter, The (1987)

Wesley, William Scarecrows (1988)

Weston, Armand Dawn of the Mummy (1987)

White, A. Frank Drew (Jess Franco) Angel of Death (1986)

Wiederhom, Ken Eyes of a Stranger (1980) Return of the Living Dead II (1988)

Williams, Tony Next of Kin (1982)

Wilson, James L. Screams of a Winter Night (1979)

Winkless, Terence H. Nest, The (1988)

Winner, Michael Death Wish 2 (1982) Death Wish 3 (1985) Scream for Help (1984)

Sentinel, The (1976)

Winston, Stan Pumpkinhead (1987)

Wintergate, Johnn Boarding House (1982)

Winters, David Last Horror Film, The (1983) Mission Kill (1987)

Woelfel, Jay Beyond Dream’s Door (1988)

Wood, James Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death (1979)

Woods, Mark Witchcraft II: The Temptress (1989)

Wynorski, Jim Chopping Mall (1986) Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1986) Not of This

Earth (1988)

Young, Robert Vampire Circus (1971)

Younkins, Jerry Demon Lover, The (1976) (with Donald G. Jackson)

Yuzna, Brian Bride of Re-Animator (1990) Silent Night Deadly Night 4—Initiation

(1990)

Zambala, J.M. Fury of the Wolfman (1970)

Zarchi, Meir I Spit on Your Grave (1980)

Zimmerman, Vernon Fade to Black (1980)

Zito, Joseph Friday the 13th—The Final Chapter (1984) Prowler, The (1981)

Zulawski, Andrzej Possession (1982)

Zurli, Guido Mad Butcher, The (1972)

APPENDIX C

Carnographic Pleasures

Editor John McCarty's Not-Even-Close-to-Comprehensive Compendium of Splatter Sub-Genres and Things We'd Like to See

Non-Humans from Outer Space

Alien, The Alienator, Alien Contamination, Alien Nation, Alien Prey, Aliens, Biohazard, The Blob, Blue Monkey, The Brain Creepozoids, The Dark, Dark Side of the Moon, Deep Space, Galaxy of Terror, The Hidden Inseminoid, Mutant, Nightbeast, Parasite, Predator, Predator 2, The Thing Without Warning

Girl Groups that Would Make Phil Spector Proud

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Cemetery High, The Doll Squad, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, She-Devils on Wheels, Slaughterhouse Rock, Slumber Party Massacre II, Sorority Babes in the Slime-ball Bowl-O-Rama

Simply Putrid

Andy Warhol’s Bad, Bad Taste, Anything by John Waters

Movies-wlthin-Movies

Anguish, Curtains, Drive-In Massacre, Effects, Fade to Black, He Knows You're Alone, The Last Horror Film, Last House on Dead End Street, The Meateater Movie House Massacre, Popcorn, Return to Horror High Terror

How Did Anyone So Dumb Get into College?

April Fool's Day, Fatal Pulse, Friday the 13th series, Frightmare, Ghosthouse, Hell Night, House on Sorority Row, Humongous, Pieces, Shallow Grave, Slaughter High, Sorority House Massacre, Splatter University

You Think Your Family's Dysfunctional?

American Gothic, Amityville II: The Possession, Barn of the Naked Dead, Beyond the Door, The Brood, Daddy’s Boys, Eraserhead, Flesh-Eating Mothers, Grandma’s House, Mother’s Day, Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I, II, III

We Spent 3 Bucks on This?

Too long a list!

Gee, Skipper, This Doesn't Look Like Our Island

American Gothic, April Fool’s Day, Attack of the Beast, Creatures Bloody New Year, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Death Warmed Up, The Flesh Eaters, Grim Reaper, The Island, Island of the Alive (It’s Alive III), Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Screamers, Shriek of the Mutilated, Slaughterhouse Rock, The Slayer, Tower of Evil, Troma’s War, Twilight People, Zombie, Zombie Island Massacre

The "Worst" Rapes

The Beast Within [swamp monster], Breeders, The Entity, The Evil Dead II, Forced Entry, Galaxy of Terror [giant worm], I Spit on Your Grave, Multiple Maniacs [giant lobster], Possession

Good Filipino Films

None

Read the Title. Forget the Film.

Don’t Torture a Duckling, Gore-Met, Zombie Chef from Hell, I Dismember Mama, The Rats Are Coming!, The Werewolves Are Here!, Sorority Babes in the Slime-Ball Bowl-O-Rama, Surf Nazis Must Die

Will the Future Be So Smoky?

Alien, Black Rain, Blade Runner, Crime Zone, Night Flyers, Prison

Vegetarians—Avoid I

Blood Diner, Blood Feast, Bloodthirsty Butchers, Cannibal Girls, Cannibal Holocaust, The Corpse Grinders, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Faces of Death, Flesh Feast, Folks of the Red Wolf Farm, The Gore Gore Girls, Gore-Met Zombie Chef from Hell, The Hills Have Eyes, The Hitcher, The Incredible Melting Man, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jungle Holocaust, Lunch Meat, The Mad Butcher, Microwave Massacre, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, Motel Hell, Night of the Living Dead 1 and 2, Nightmare Hotel, Prey, Prime Cut, Raw Meat, Shocking Asia, Slaughterhouse, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre I, II, III, The Undertaker and His Pals, Welcome to Arrow Beach, The Worm Eaters

Murderous Kids

Bloody Birthday, The Child, Creepers, Fear No Evil, Halloween, Offerings, The Omen, Damien—Omen II

… And How They Grow Up

Edge of Sanity, The Final Conflict, Friday the 13th series, Halloween I, II, III, IV, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer Junior, Mausoleum, Offerings, Pieces, Psycho II, III

Yes, Please Do Go In the Woods

The Axe, Backwoods, Berserker, Don't Go in the Woods, Final Terror, Last House on the Left, Just Before Dawn, Luther the Geek, Night of the Demon, Open Season, The Prey, Redneck Zombies, Rituals, Shoot, Southern Comfort, Three on a Meathook

Oh, Those Power Tools

Blades, The Carpenter, Driller Killer, The Exterminator, Halloween III, The House of Usher, The Nail Gun Massacre, Savage Weekend, The Toolbox Murders

The Ever-Popular Pitchfork

The Alien Dead*, The Boogeyman, The Curse, Frightmare, The Ghastly Ones, Halloween V, Igor and the Lunatics, The Love Butcher, Nurse Sherri, The Prowler, The Slayer, Torture Dungeon, The Touch of Satan, The Weirdo

*This one is special because we see a three-pronged pitchfork enter someone's back, and four prongs come out the front. Buy three—get one free.

Not Separated at Birth

Basket Case I, II; Dead Ringers, Madhouse, The Other Sisters, Twins of Evil, A Zed and Two Noughts

The Sequels that Should Never Have Been

The Boogeyman II, Child's Play 2, The Fly II, Fright Night II, Halloween III, The Hills Have Eyes II, The Howling II, III, IV, V, Predator 2, Robocop 2, Sleepaway Camp II, III, Witchcraft II: The Temptress

George Romero Oughta Sue

The Alien Dead, Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue, Burial Ground, Cannibal Massacre, The Dead Pit, Gates of Hell, Neon Maniacs, Redneck Zombies, Return of the Living Dead I, II, Revenge of the Living, Zombies, Zombie, Zombie Inferno

Summer-Camp Slaughters

The Burning, Friday the 13th II-VIII, Madman, Memorial Valley Massacre, Sleepaway Camp I-III, Summer Camp Nightmare

Ravenous Cars

The Cars that Ate Paris, Christine, The Lift, Maximum Overdrive

We've Had It Up to Here … And So Have They

Blood Beach, The Challenge, Creepshow, Killing Spree, Motel Hell, The Vineyard

Films in which Bob Geldof Is Menaced in His Underwear by a Giant Animated Flower-Woman-Vagina Monster

The Wall

Dangling from the Family Tree

Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Doom (grandson), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Dracula: The Bloodline Continues, Dracula’s Dog, Dracula’s Widow, Hands of the Ripper (daughter)

They're Not Supposed to Emote—They're Wooden

Child's Play I, II, Critters, Dolls, Ghoulies I, II, Gremlins, Puppetmaster I, II

Mad Slasher Flicks

Too many to list

Twelve Most Ripped-off Movies

Alien, The Birds, Deliverance, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Last House on the Left, Night of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street Psycho, The Shining, The Wild Bunch

Ain't Inter-Species Love Grand?

God Told Me To, Inseminoid, Possession, Xtro

Pigs Rampant

The Amityville Horror, Eyeball, Misery, Motel Hell, Prime Cut

Women's Lib? or We Burned Our Bras for This?

Alucarda, Barbarian Queen, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, Blue Steel, Bride of Re-Animator, Coffy, The Doll Squad, Dracula’s Widow, Flavia Priestess of Violence, Foxy Brown, Frankenhooker, Eve of Destruction, Lady Frankenstein, Legend of the Wolfwoman, Naked Warriors, Programmed to Kill, Rejuvenatrix, Sisters of Satan, Wolf Woman

Killer Fish and Some Cetaceans

Flesh Eaters, Humanoids From the Deep, Jaws 1-4, Killer Fish, Leviathan, Orca, Piranha

Fred Olen Ray's Son Plays a Four-Foot-Tall Monster

Biohazard

Fred Olen Ray's Son Plays a Four-Foot-Tall Alien

Star Slammer

Is This Really the Last?

Child’s Play 3, Friday The 13th Part VIII, A Nightmare on Elm Street 6, Robocop 2, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4

Killer Santas

Don’t Open Till Christmas, Silent Night Deadly Night 1-4, Tales from the Crypt, To All a Good Night

Transvestite Murders

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Dressed to Kill, The Newly Deads, Sleepaway Camp 1-3

Splatstick

Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, Blood Diner, Blood for Dracula, Darkman, Dawn of the Dead, The Evil Dead II, Frankenhooker, The Laughing Dead, Return of the Living Dead 1, 2

Zoom-happiest Directors

Jess Franco, Mario Bava, Leon Klimovsky

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Deaths:

Bludgeoned by a bathtub: American Gothic

Death by flaming incense: The Confessional

Death by snowblower: Ilsa, The Tigress of Siberia

Decapitation via basketball: Deadly Friend

Impalement on moose antlers: Silent Night, Deadly Night

Milkshake machine shoved through the head: Prom Night III: The Last Kiss

Tusked by a wild boar: Razorback

Exploding diaphragm upon orgasm: Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

Electrocution by hot tub: Blind Fury

Enema by sword: Caligula—The Untold Story

Impalement by shotgun: Halloween 4

Hokey Explanations of the Paranormal

Horror of the Zombies, The Lift

You'd Never Know the Book Inspired It

Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, The Awakening, Blood for Dracula, The Blood-Spattered Bride, Bloodsuckers, The Curse, Orgy of the Damned Watchers

Good Book, Good Movie (A Real Rarity)

Cujo, Dead Ringers, The Possession of Joel Delaney

Bad Book, Good Movie

Angel Heart

Are They Rats or Are They Dachshunds?

Deadly Eyes

Oops—We Forgot the Last One Existed I

Friday the 13th VI, The Howling II, III, IV, V, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Watchers II

Splatterbots

Chopping Mall, Eve of Destruction, Programmed to Kill, Robocop I, II Runaway, Saturn 3, The Terminator

Toxic Waste Films Not Made by Troma

The Being, C.H.U.D., C.H.U.D. II, The Crazies, Creepozoids, Curse II: The Bite, I Was a Teenage Zombie

Most Popular Real-Life Models

Sawney Bean [The Hills Have Eyes]

Burke & Hare [many]

Ed Gein [Deranged, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Three on a Meathook, and Psycho and its million clones]

John Hinckley [The Last Horror Film]

Charles Manson [The Helter Skelter Murders, Igor and the Lunatics, Though Shalt not Kill… Except]

Henry Lee Lucas [Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer]

Richard Speck [Slaughter Hotel]

??? [The Zodiac Killer]

Sweeney Todd [many]

Jack the Ripper [endless]

Our Favorite Use of a Pickle Jar

Foxy Brown

H.P. Lovecraft Returns From Beyond

Beyond Dream’s Door, Bride of Re-Animator, The Curse, Curse of the Blue Lights, Forever Evil, From Beyond, Re-Animator, The Unnameable

So Bad They're Good

Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls, Dr. Gore, Frankenstein 1980, Horror Express, Howling III, The Love Butcher, Scream For Help

Plot? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Plot (a.k.a Dario Argento and His Friends)

Beaks, Birdwith the Crystal Plumage, The Black Cat, Brothers in Arms, Deep Red, Eyes of Fire, Folds of the Flesh, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Gates of Hell, Inferno, Mixed Blood, Opera, Slaughter Day, Snuff, Suspiria, Tenebrae, Women’s Camp 119

Flicks Where Woman Show Unnatural Fondness Towards Torn-Out Hearts

Cannibal Hookers, Demon Queen

They Should Never Have Discovered Rap Music

Graveyard Shift, A Nightmare on Elm Street IV, A Nightmare on Elm Street V

Movies Shown on Donahue and Mentioned in American Psycho

The Toolbox Murders

Playboy Playmates Who Actually Can Act

Charlotte J. Helmkampt, Claudia Jennings, Connie Mason (Just kidding), Laura Misch, Patti Mullen, Ola Ray, Shannon Tweed, Karen Witter

’Gator Flicks

Alligator, Eaten Alive, Gatorbait II: Cajun Justice, Inhumanities, Jungle Holocaust, Man from Deep River

Gives New Meaning to “Pencil-Necked Geek"

The Annihilators

Brutal Bozos

Clownhouse, Killer Klowns from Outer Space

A Head Out of Time

The Brain that Would Not Die, Bride of Re-Animator, Macabro, Re-Animator

Yuppies Get Slaughtered

The Amityville Curse, Damned River, The Guardian, House on the Edge of the Park, Hunter’s Blood, Open House, Wolfen

Some Things We'd Like to See

Vampire Mermaids Triplets of Evil, The Unicorns of Gore, E.T. Gets Snuffed, A killer Rabbi (Orthodox, Conservative or Reform), ASPCA revenge flicks Bunnicula: The Movie, The Electric Can-Opener Murders, “Star Trek” splatter films, Trump’s Yacht Lands on Cannibal Island, Swamp Thing in a Vegamatic, Little Women in Chains (with Linnea Quigley, Sybil Danning, Brigitte Nielsen, Barbara Steele and—of course—Linda Blair), Zombies with rhythm Killer Capybara, A new MPAA rating to account for fat people wearing spandex, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Gets Hers, Gore-illas in the Mist, More movies from H.G. Lewis, Freddy the 13th (Krueger versus Jason for the Splatterweight Championship title)

Sequels that Repeat Number 1

Evil Dead II, Ghostbusters II, Jaws 2, Robocop 2

Great Filmic Techniques

Ghoul-O-Rama, Lightnin’ Color, Spectrum X, Violent Vision

Chainsaw Duels

Chainsaw Hookers, Motel Hell, Phantasm II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II

The Makeup Ends at Their Necks

Night of the Bloody Apes, Night of the Demon, White Cannibal Queen, Zombie Lake

Gee "Whiz"

Brothers in Arms, The Company of Wolves, House on the Edge of the Park, The Nail Gun Massacre, Nightbeast, Night of the Demon

Women Get Revenge!

The Carpenter, Cemetery High, The Company of Wolves, Dead of Night, Demented, Epitaph, Foxy Brown, Gatorbait II: Cajun Justice, Hannie Caulder, LA. Crackdown, I Spit on Your Grave, Mother’s Day, Ms. 45, Naked Vengeance, Savage Streets, She-Devils on Wheels

The South Rises Again

The Curse of the Screaming Dead, The Offspring, Scalps, Southern Comfort, Supernatural, 2000 Maniacs

Nurses Who Kill

Nurse Sherri

Why, Certainly You Can Rent a Room for the Night Mr. Bates

Inn of the Damned, Motel Hell, Mountaintop Motel Massacre, The Newly Deads, Nightmare Hotel

Former Defensive Ends-Turned-Villains

Lyle Alzado in Destroyer

Films In which Laura Gemser Keeps Her Clothes On

Women’s Prison Massacre

The Eyes Have It—Or Get It

Beaks, The Blind Dead series, Dead and Buried, Eyeballs, Eyes of Fire, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Eyes of a Stranger, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Friday the 13th, Halloween II, Headless Eyes, The Laughing Dead, Mansion of the Doomed, New York Ripper, Night of the Bloody Apes, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, Prom Night 2: Hello, Mary Lou

The What of the Who?

Shriek of the Mutilated, Island of the Alive, Barn of the Naked Dead, Night of the Demon, Night of the Demons, Legend of the Wolfman, Orgy of the Damned, Night of the Bloody Apes, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Hunchback of the Morgue, Attack of the Beast Creatures, Curse of the Devil, Cure of the Screaming Dead, Food of the Gods, Fury of the Wolfman, Horror of the Blood Monsters, Inn of the Damned, Mad Doctor of Blood Island, Mansion of the Doomed, Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Death Cult, Night of the Howling Beast, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Night of the Zombies, Return of the Blind Dead, Revenge of the Living Zombies, The Silence of the Lambs, Vengeance of the Zombies, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, Dawn of the Mummy, Ilsa—She Wolf of the SS, Ilsa—Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invasion of the Blood Farmers, Mark of the Devil, Return of the Living Dead, Revenge of the Dead, Tombs of the Blind Dead

Splattermentaries

Africa, Blood and Guts; Faces of Death, Shocking Asia, The War Game

Reviewers Who Have Seen Too Many of These Movies

John Brent, Joseph A. Citro, Walter L. Gay, Bruce G. Hallenbeck, Ken Hanke, Daniel Krogh, John McCarty

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- LICENSE NOTES
- Meet the Editor
- DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
- THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME I

- For Christopher and Jonathan—a book of your own; though it’s a strange one, I’ll admit.

- THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME I
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- Alien

- THE OFFICIAL SPLATTER MOVIE GUIDE, VOLUME II

- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- Africa: Blood and Guts
- APPENDIX A
- APPENDIX B
- APPENDIX C