(1982)
Dir - William Asher
Overall: MEH
Television veteran William Asher's Night Warning is frustrating in many respects and laughably offensive in others. In many ways this is the Birth of a Nation for the gay rights movement. Very liberal usage of the word "fag" is dropped by one of the worst characters in any movie, a cartoonishly homophobic, smirking police detective who comes awfully close to being so ridiculous and unlikable as to ruin the movie. Law enforcement officers who arrogantly scream at anyone with a perfectly logical thing to say to them are near the top of any horror movie no-nos, but the incessant gay-bashing at least unintentionally makes said character a total joke. Elsewhere, a young Bill Paxton has a brief role as a highschooler who already this early into his career is very Bill Paxtony and Susan Tyrell, (Andy Warhol's Bad, Forbidden Zone, Fire & Ice), is over the top in a far more effective way as a psychotic, incestuous, lunatic Aunt who does plenty of unsettling things to make her performance memorable. The movie's ending sadly goes full, generic slasher, irritatingly doing a number of cliche things, (the usual, boring chase scenes, the killer springs back to life when you are not looking, a victim gets bludgeoned in the head with both a mallet and a large rock numerous times only to emerge perfectly fine a few minutes later, etc). Still, it is nearly recommendable to see Tyrell go full psycho, witness all of the politically incorrect "fag" bombs, and have Bill Paxton be exactly like you would expect him to be.
(1988)
Dir - Chuck Russell
Overall: GOOD
The 1980's were a pretty solid decade for remaking 1950's sci-fi horror with John Carpanter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly both emerging before Chuck Russell likewise took on and largely improved upon The Blob. Though it is comparably less successful than those now iconic, aforementioned remakes, The Blob does handle its material appropriately and it is certainly good enough to warrant its existence. Taking the original film which was silly and only sporadically fun as its source, Russell and Frank Darabont's script throws in some government conspiracy elements and to a far less successful extent, some religious ones to differentiate/update the proceedings. That and the much more gruesome violence, (helped by Tony Gardner's excellent practical effects work), certainly make it a darker affair, but there is still plenty of schlocky humor to be found. Characters cannot help but to throw out action movie one-liners and early on there are the usual laughs with horny teenagers doing horny teenager things. To play it more straight and dire than it did though would probably have worked less since the basic premise of a purple mass of goo that eats people alive can only be so frightening before you remember how goofy it is.
(1989)
Dir - Scott Spiegel
Overall: WOOF
Scott Spiegel has made a career as a director/screenwriter/actor/producer of a number of mostly bottom barrel horror outings and his full-length debut Intruder is as bottom barrel as it gets. The film is appreciated for its flashy camera work and having a gimmick of the killer murdering everyone with grocery store equipment, but to appreciate it for that you have to ignore every other completely idiotic and stock aspect of it. The murderer defies the laws of physics by seemingly being in twelve places at once, having all the time in the world to display his victims in elaborately funny ways for the final girl to conveniently find later. There is also the ole "I stabbed him so I'll just leave him here and turn my back on him and oh wait, yeah he's not dead" scene and doors are inexplicably locked from the outside. The movie becomes simply a waiting game for each character to first be picked off and then be found, all before one of the most insulting twists you can imagine is dumped on us and the cat and mouse chase boringly continues anew. Before the awful, unnecessary, and catastrophically moronic twist was revealed, Intruder was just a straightforward and dumb slasher outing. Yet like many, many other films in this vein, it is despicably ruined by its last act and then quickly and terribly spirals further out of control from there.
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