80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Six

TROLL

(1986)

Dir - John Carl Buechler

Overall: MEH

Unfocused at best, special make-up artist-turned director John Carl Buechler's Troll is an odd bird, coming off like a children's fantasy movie with head-scratching set pieces and starling practical effects.  On that note, Buechler and his FX team do solid work, utilizing various puppets that range from weird, to gross, to adorable.  Sonny Bono has a sleazy cameo and gets the most ridiculous scene where he transforms into an explody fairy tree or something after various green bladder effects pulsate and ooze.  Besides Bono, there are several recognizable faces such as Phil Fondacaro in a dual roll as both the title creature and just a regular guy living in the film's apartment setting, plus ex Saturday Night Live players Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall, Michael Moriarty, and the mother/daughter team of June and Anne Lockhart playing older and younger versions of a mysterious sorceress.  The script by Ed Naha and Oliver Gonzalez is either ingenious or moronic as it concerns a mystical and malevolent takeover of a tenant building because reasons, but the tonal shifts and bizarre goofiness like Dreyfus prancing around as a half-naked pixie, Moriarty dad-rocking out to "Summertime Blues", and Fondacaro turning people into things with a glowing ring at least keep the movie from being boring.

THE UNDERTAKER

(1988)

Dir - Franco Steffanino

Overall: WOOF

A film that is more interesting in a behind the scenes capacity than anything else, The Undertaker was a long-unfinished project that was to be the penultimate movie appearance of Joe Spinell.  To say that the film's star looks worse for wear is a mute point since Spinell made a career out of playing schlubs, but his performance here could lead some to believe that the man was suffering a rough patch.  Profusely sweaty and mumbly, Spinell looks lost most of the time and his staggering line-readings come off as rehearsals instead of anything that should have made the final cut.  He occasionally widens his eyes, cries, or goes for scenery-chewing gusto, but the man mostly comes off as bored, drunk, and confused.  Not that we can blame him since the film's story is both heavy padded and laughably underwritten.  None of the characters are fleshed-out, least of all Spinell's who murders people at random for any multitude of reasons.  The credited director Franco Steffanino is a pseudonym for the producers, screenwriter, and cinematographer who all played a part in getting the film shot and doing a piss-pour job in the process.  There is no sense of pacing, actors fumble through awkward scenes that go on for too long, the background noise is either distracting or non-existent in mid-scene, and the script becomes more incomprehensible as it goes on.  Yet if you are in the mood for a sweaty, violent, incompetent, and rambling mess, this is the trash heap for you.

COMMUNION

(1989)

Dir - Philippe Mora

Overall: GOOD

For the generous viewer, Communion can be seen as a movie that turns its multitude of bizarre choices into saving graces.  An adaptation of Whitley Strieber's alleged autobiographical book of the same name, the author penned the script himself and Christopher Walken plays him on screen, doing a fascinating job in the process.  According to some sources, the crew and cast took potshots at Strieber and his material, and this makes sense upon seeing the finished product where Walken rides a razor-thin line by playing the eccentric novelist with a nod and wink to how absurd his alleged "true" story is.  At the same time though, Walken effortlessly comes off as a man who is broken down by his unexplained experience, venturing into random hallucinations, (or something), while laughing, rambling, and even dancing with his extraterrestrial abductees.  It is a baffling watch in this respect, made more singular by Eric Clapton's Lethal Weapon guitar licks on the soundtrack, little alien men who look laugh-out-loud ridiculous, and a tone that seems more accidentally surreal than purposely head-trippy.  This is likely due to the fact that Philippe Mora was behind the lens, who had recently done the first two sequels to The Howling which were each the opposite of critically hailed.  This film here though is a more interesting mess, sort of like if The Amityville Horror and Fire in the Sky smooshed together with Walken bringing his A-game to the party.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Five

EVIL STALKS THIS HOUSE

(1981)

Dir - Gordon Hessler

Overall: WOOF

Originally planned as a television series to be called Tales of the Haunted, (and to be hosted by none other than Christopher Lee), the resulting Evil Stalks This House was allegedly the only segment that was produced.  The shot-on-tape production values are unmistakably cheap, looking like your bog-standard BBC program, but the inclusion of Jack Palance in all of his sinister, nervous, and whispery scenery-chewing glory gives it an edge over how forgettable it deserves to be.  Louis M. Heyward's script is ludicrous and involves Palance easily settling into two old lady's house so that he can openly ramshackle the place, only for another sleazy drifter to just as simply weasel his way in on his action.  The fact that some kids and dim-witted guy are also involved is never convincingly explained, plus the "scary" set pieces are arbitrary and silly instead of effectively sinister, (a plot of quick sand in a basement and a fully-dressed mannequin in a rocking chair, sure whatever).  It ends with just as random of a twist that is almost ridiculous enough to be worth the price of admission, but even for the era where Palance was stuck taking any paycheck that came his way, this is embarrassing stuff.

 

THE FINAL TERROR

(1983)

Dir - Andrew Davis
Overall: MEH

Prolific American International Pictures producer Samuel Z. Arkoff goes solo and jumps on the early 80s slasher boom with The Final Terror, getting the Deliverance-meets-Friday the 13th project off the ground with a few notable names involved.  This was the second feature for director Andrew Davis, (who would go on to work well enough in the action movie field throughout his career), plus Ronald Shusett was one of the three credited screenwriters and producer Joe Roth would eventually co-found Morgan Creek Productions.  Like many slasher films from the era though, it is the cast of then-unknowns who may spark the most interest, including Mark Metcalf, Rachael Ward, Daryl Hannah, and Joe Pantoliano to name a few.  The movie itself is running uphill from the onset though, introducing us with underwritten and mostly unlikable characters who decide to go camping where some kind of feral hunter stalks them.  While it is not as derivative as its more blatantly exploitative contemporaries with its low body count, low nudity count, and low amount of gore, it is still a chore to just watch good-looking assholes argue with each other, even in such a nature setting.  The stakes are only dire on paper since the presentation is mediocre at best, plus the screaming, crying, and mugging dirtbag performances only become more and more grating instead of suspenseful.

CURSE OF THE QUEERWOLF
(1988)
Dir - Mark Pirro
Overall: MEH

A companion piece/quasi-sequel to his own ridiculous A Polish Vampire in Burbank, Curse of the Queerwolf finds Z-rent schlock peddler Mark Pirro grabbing another classic movie monster to spoof in the most juvenile fashion possible, with piss-pour production values and jarring ADRed dialog to boot.  The title character made an appearance in the aforementioned vampire yarn and the premise here is legitimately ingenious in some instances as far as low-brow offensiveness goes.  As one could guess, this is a parody of Universal's The Wolf Man where instead of turning into a fury were-beast, the character of Larry Smalbut, (get it?), accidentally engages in some hanky-panky with a female actor who is supposed to be a transvestite and then turns into a crossdresser during the full moon.  Every conceivable gay joke is utilized here, many tied into horror films with a fagorcist, (get it?), who uses Budweiser as holy water, queerwolf hunters who flash a silver dildo as a crucifix, a John Wayne medallion to keep the homosexual transformation at bay, and a homoside, (get it?) detective who investigates the deaths of sissies.  Some may seethe with anger at how this paints such a relentless, unflattering, and insensitive picture of an era when the gay community was full-range cannon fodder for nyuck nyucks.  At the same time though, it is too stupid to take seriously and fans of embarrassing, groan-worthy puns and innuendos as well as just bad no budget movie making will find plenty to point and laugh at.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Four

SORCERESS
(1982)
Dir - Jack Hill
Overall: MEH
 
After the success of John Milius' Conan the Barbarian, Roger Corman quickly and unsurprisingly put into production a cheapo bit of sword and sorcery silliness with Sorceress, doubling as the last film that Jack Hill would ever be behind the lens on.  After Hill and up-and-coming B-movie peddler Jim Wynorski concocted a screenplay inspired by Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novella The Corsican Brothers, the production switched to Mexico at the last minute and was plagued by issues.  Fires, weather, crew difficulties, criminal activity, and of course Corman skimping on the budget as much as was humanly possible, it all culminated in the actors allegedly being dubbed by random office workers and the like, which hilariously shows in the oddly flat ADRed performances.  On paper though, there is plenty of wackiness here, like people in bad monkey suits, a horny satyr, Leigh and Lynette Harris playing naive and mostly naked barbarian babes with magical powers, zombies, evil wizards, hippy wizards, a viking who goes bare-ass, rape, sacrifices, and a lion creature doing battle with a monstrous head in the sky.  Far from a masterpiece and jarring in its shoddy craftsmanship, but it is a goofy watch with some unintended chuckles to enjoy.

 

CURSE OF THE BLUE LIGHTS

(1988)

Dir - John Henry Johnson

Overall: MEH

Despite its overwhelming ineptitude, John Henry Johnson's Z-grade Curse of the Blue Lights has some unintended and ridiculous charm.  A regional crud rock that was shot in Colorado with a bunch of people that were likely never seen again on screen, (and for good reason), it is a little-movie-that-could production, with a shameless, cheap Halloween haunted house aesthetic and a moronic plot that is brimful of cliches.  It is also so stupid as to be surreal.  A network of ghouls in obvious yet elaborate make-up have some scheme to resurrect a guy in a laughably lousy rubber monster costume, all while teenagers who are pushing thirty can annoy a cop, haphazardly get separated, bounce back and forth between locations, and go find one of the most over-acting gypsies in cinema history.  On that note, the performances are either scenery-chewing extravaganzas or of the clumsy and sterile variety where people lazily stumble their dialog; dialog that is consistently redundant with people saying a slight variation of the same sentence more often than not.  Johnson's direction does not match his ambitions as he lets his camera linger on the actors until they are done embarrassing themselves, causing the film to feel eight hours long.  Though it does everything incorrectly, its relentless tackiness and "eyes bigger than its stomach" trajectory still comes off as adorably amusing at times.

TEEN VAMP
(1989)
Dir - Samuel Bradford
Overall: WOOF

Out of the many, many, many, MANY vampire comedies that emerged during the 1980s, Teen Vamp if not the lamest, (OK, it is the lamest), is easily the most awkward.  The first of only two movies to be directed by Samuel Bradford and shot in Louisiana with local actors, (sans Clu Galager who embarrasses himself for a paycheck), it is the usual regional travesty that fails almost exclusively because of the inexperience of the person behind the lens.  While the performers struggle with such cliche-ridden material and would have came off as such even with Martin Scorsese at the helm, Bradford stages everything in a clumsy manner that does nobody any favors.  On paper, such 1950s throwback high school tropes mixed with undead ones sound like they would gel as well as any, but it is all in the execution and the execution here routinely falls down the stairs.  Flat shots, characters prattling on, scenes that linger for too long; it all makes such lazy material that much more pathetically realized.  For 1989, it seems particularly out of phase, not only by lacking the flair and gore that the kids like, but by not even taking advantage of boner comedy tropes that were running rampant at the time.  So in addition to being moronic, badly acted, and unprofessionally directed, it is also about as hip as peanut brittle.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Three

THE BEASTMASTER

(1982)

Dir - Don Coscarelli

Overall: GOOD

 

Filmmaker Don Coscarelli elevated his game with the follow-up to the insultingly idiotic Phantasm, kind of adapting Andre Norton's 1959 novel The Beast Master into a sword and sorcery movie that represents one of the best from the sub-genre's early 80s heyday.  Coscarelli and co-screenwriter/producer Paul Pepperman made enough significant changes to Norton's source material that she had her name taken off the credits, but while it jettisons the initial science fiction elements, it makes up for them with sexy ogre witches, lighthearted sexism, a leather gimp chasing ferrets, flesh-eating batmen, and of course Rip Torn's cartoonishly evil high priest Maax recklessly throwing live children into a pit of fire.  While Torn steals all of his scenes, Marc Singer makes a solid title hero with his never-explained superpower of communicating, controlling, and seeing through the eyes of various animals, which he uses as much to impress/get rapey with Tanya Roberts as he does to save himself and others from Torn's wrath.  The movie has been rightly criticized for its excessive length and piss-pour ADRed dialog, but its production values are still of a high enough quality to save it.

DEADLY LOVE
(1987)
Dir - Michael S. O'Rourke
Overall: WOOF

One of countless, rightfully forgettable regional horror piles of garbage that were made and released on VHS in droves during the 1980s, Deadly Love was the first of thankfully only two such "movies" from Michael S. O'Rourke.  Shot in Nevada, it goes for a bog-standard revenge from beyond the grave scenario which on paper is fine, but O'Rourke has both the production means and the filmmaking capabilities of a high school janitor that lives in his parent's basement eating paint chips.  First off, these poor actors, (or more accurately, poor nobodies who are trying to act), do nothing but embarrass themselves with wretched dialog and bad wigs.  Secondly, it is noticeably padded to the ninety-minute mark with numerous flashbacks and dead air moments, not to mention a plot that offers up no set pieces of any kind for the entire middle hour.  Lastly and most importantly though, the movie's theme song "Forever" is played no less than eighteen-hundred times and good luck not wanting to strangle a baby kitten by the last time that it invades your eardrums.  The worst kind of terrible cinema is inept without being amusing, as well as boring without being forgivable.  This piece of shit falls into such a lot and even for purveyors of bad movies, it is hard to imagine that any such trash aficionado could fine one thing redeemable here.

 

DEEPSTAR SIX
(1989)
Dir - Sean S. Cunningham
Overall: MEH

Sean S. Cunningham's DeepStar Six, (Alien from the Deep), is a by-the-books B-movie that is a couple of notches above a Roger Corman production yet still schlocky in the most lackluster of fashions.  Cunningham originally envisioned it as the first in a series of sci-fi/horror/actions films to be set in the open seas, yet this was the only one that came to fruition.  While Chris Walas does his usual superb work with the practical effects monster, it is granted little screen time and takes until the third act to show itself in the first place.  Even though this movie predated James Cameron's The Abyss by several months, it still serves as the more D-rent version of the two, with the same concept of an underwater crew encountering something unexplainable and terrifying, only for one of them to go rogue under the pressure and doom everyone in the process.  Miguel Ferrer fulfills that role here, turning in one of his many hot-headed performances, yet it is one that is laced with some sympathetic nuance and vulnerably.  Everyone else on screen is instantly forgettable, and the story follows formulaic plotting with no surprises and almost zero action for the majority of its running time.  At least the giant crab creature looks great though.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Two

THE CURSE OF KING TUT'S TOMB
(1980)
Dir - Philip Leacock
Overall: MEH

A British/American, co-production television movie that was largely filmed in Egypt, The Curse of King Tut's Tomb is a fictionalized account of Barry Wynne's book Behind the Mask of Tutankhamen.  On the one hand, there is an aura of authenticity to the production due to the on location shooting and actual closeups of the unearthed treasure found by archeologist Howard Carter in November of 1922.  As the title would suggest, there is also a vague supernatural undercurrent to the proceedings where a handful of characters die due to some mysterious and unseen force, but these moments are few and far between as well as poorly staged.  Veteran TV director Philip Leacock takes a talky approach to the material where most of the focus is on Carter's love life and some ultimately pointless drama between his excavation employer and a local art collector who wants more of the Tutankhamen goodies for himself.  Both Raymond Burr and Tom Baker appear in brown face, (the latter daftly showing up in such a small role as he was nearing the end of his seven season tenure as the Fourth Doctor), but this at least provides a mild, politically incorrect chuckle to what is otherwise a forgettable yawn.

 

2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT
(1984)
Dir - Peter Hyams
Overall: MEH

One of the more frustrating sequels to a beloved and critically hailed initial property, 2010: The Year We Make Contact picks up nine years after Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey left off.  An adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's second novel in the series 2010: Odyssey Two, writer/director Peter Hyams does as good of a job as can be expected in some areas.  The film has acceptable if not exceptional visuals, solid performances from a few A-listers, and some nifty ideas that were taken from Clarke's source material, throwing it all in a Cold War backdrop that is more palpable than the enigmatic space opera of Kubrick's original.  This can equally be seen as both a detriment and a necessary distinguishing factor since such a project had less than a snowball's chance in hell of matching any of the majesty or technical astonishment of its game-changing predecessor.  In this respect, Hyams palpable and dialog-heavy approach allows this to be its own thing, making it a popcorn ready bit of contemporary sci-fi for its day.  Roy Scheider, Bob Balaban, John Lithgow, and a Russian-speaking Helen Mirren do their usual reliable work with the material, but unfortunately, the entire movie gets deflated with an unacceptably disappointing ending that misses the mark and is insulting in its ridiculous simplicity and faux sense of wonder.

 

WICKED STEPMOTHER

(1989)

Dir - Larry Cohen

Overall: MEH

 

Larry Cohen closed out the 1980s with the goofy witch comedy Wicked Stepmother, doubling as the final film that Bette Davis was ever in.  Eighty-one at the time, Davis looks like she is a hundred and eighty-one, chain-smoking, slurring her dialog, and being rail-thin with several gallons of make-up on to give her a garish appearance that causes most characters to do a double take when she randomly shows up as grandpa Lionel Sander's new wife.  The plot, as one could imagine, is both asinine and loaded with logistical holes, which is nothing new for a Cohen script.  Depending on what story that you want to believe, Davis either left the production due to illness or from being her usual prima-donna self and clashing with everyone on set.  Her minimal screen presence is noticeable, disappearing entirely after the first act which necessitates Barbara Carrera to step in as her daughter/another witch inhabiting the same essence or whatever.  There are a couple of amusing in-jokes, (a framed Joan Crawford picture presented as Colleen Camp's dead mother being the best of them), but the film seems to be struggling to make itself work, stumbling down the stairs annoyingly in the process.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and One

NIGHT SCHOOL

(1981)

Dir - Ken Hughes

Overall: MEH

 

British filmmaker Ken Hughes ended his career across the Atlantic with the formulaic slasher dud Night School, (Terror Eyes).  Shot on location in Boston, this is the only screen credit for producer/screenwriter Ruth Avergon who sticks to a tired police procedural/masked killer framework with most of the predictable twists and turns in tow.  A detective gets called in on his day off, two different college educators engage in affairs with their students, (one of them, the administrator, being a woman), the murdering psycho obscures their face with a motorcycle helmet, the cops make constant wise cracks while uncovering severed heads and talking to upset bystanders, and all of the kills lack suspense due to their drawn-out nature as well as every victim having a big red target on their back as soon as the scene starts.  Even with one or two tweaks scattered about, the killer reveal is predictable and ergo anticlimactic, plus the dialog is exclusively made-up of things that only people in hackneyed screenplays would say.  Most of the people on screen act like dumb-dumbs, but there is not an extreme enough level of stupidity to either be insulted by or laugh at.  In other words, it is just dull.

 

THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER

(1982)

Dir - Albert Pyun

Overall: GOOD

 

The debut from schlock-peddler extraordinaire Albert Pyun arrived during the early 80s post-Conan the Barbarian/Excalibur boom, and it has endured longer than most, basking in its cornball sword and sorcery charm with a level of proper production values that other cheaper offerings of its kind lacked.  Apply titled The Sword and the Sorcerer, it is a shameless pastiche of barbarian fantasy the indulges itself in misogyny from both sides of the good and evil spectrum, one-note characters, ham-fisted scenery chewing, incessant champion music from David Whitaker, sweaty violence, an aesthetic made up entirely of reds, browns, and gold, dialog that a child would be embarrassed by, some sparse yet wonderful make-up effects, and a story that is endlessly predictable in its adherence to juvenile Dungeons & Dragons cliches.  A large assortment of character actors know the assignment and one could argue that Richard Lynch was born to play a power-hungry throne-usurper, to the point where he would do so again five years later in Ruggero Deodato's even more childish The Barbarians.  Popcorn silliness that no one could possibly take seriously, (least of all anyone involved in the production itself), it is both as dumb and fun as such movies get.

I MARRIED A VAMPIRE
(1987)
Dir - Jay Raskin
Overall: WOOF

Some regional SOV hogwash from Massachusetts, I Married a Vampire is the first of only two movies from director Jay Raskin.  It is also one that frequently begs the questions "Wait, is this supposed to be funny?" as well as "Wait, where's the vampire?".  An answer arrives for that second question fifty minutes in when our poor frumpy protagonist Rachel Golden meets her coworker's brother and suspects that they are members of the undead because she sees a broken mirror in their bathroom.  This is after a string of miserable events are suffered by Golden when she moves to the big city with big dreams and gets taken advantage of by every last person that she meets until she is raped by a guy who gives her a gig cleaning floors and computers in an office building.  This is followed by even more of the universe shitting on her until the last twenty minutes when Golden and her new blood-sucking friend unleash some comeuppance.  So in other words, comedy!  The film is painfully awkward and unprofessional from top to bottom, played so dryly that its tone is impossible to decipher.  Is it a noble cautionary tale?  A contemporary feminist empowerment fable?  A humble satire of arthouse cinema?  A piece of shit that has no idea what it is doing?  Yeah, lets go with the latter.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred

A POLISH VAMPIRE IN BURBANK

(1983)
Dir - Mark Pirro
Overall: MEH

As dumb as it sounds if not dumber, A Polish Vampire in Burbank is the sophomore effort from writer/director/star Mark Pirro who plays a dweebish undead named Dupah, which is the extent of Polish jokes to be found here, ("Dupah" translates to "ass" BTW).  Made with as little money as possible, ($2,500 allegedly), it unfortunately features the least funny man who ever lived Eddie Deezen as Pirro's even bigger dipshit brother Sphincter who spends most of the movie as a talking skeleton.  At least some footage of Elvira makes its way into the proceedings to cleanse the pallet.  The sub-par production values are serviceable yet impossible to miss and they are also wisely played for laughs, though how "funny" they are is debatable at best. Pirro knows what type of juvenile, pun-heavy, and self-depreciating tone he is going for, cramming his little-movie-that-could with one groan-worthy gag after the other.  The meta jokes fare best, (like when the characters chalk up the lazy plot maneuvers to "poetic license"), but several moments are more head-scratching than amusing, like two people doing a Sonny and Cher routine and someone pretending to be an actor in a hot tub, (don't ask).

 

THE TERMINATOR
(1984)
Dir - James Cameron
Overall: GREAT

A solid contender for the most influential and, (arguably), finest 80s action movie ever made, James Cameron's The Terminator was a game-changer for both its personnel and the rest of the decade's testosterone-ridden blockbusters.  Since the series would not get convoluted and redundant for another two decades, Cameron and producer/collaborator Gale Anne Hurd's script crosses its Ts and dots its Is here, which would have been a satisfactory one-and-done entry in hindsight if not for how solid the 1991 sequel turned out.  Even the best time traveling stories struggle to maintain plausibility, but there is just enough details dished out to hold this one together.  Cameron and crew turn a seedy LA and some dystopian war zone flashes into a perfectly gritty landscape for Arnold Schwarzenegger to relentlessly chase Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn around in.  The fact that they did it on a barely-sufficient budget is even more impressive, loading the movie with one memorable and intense action sequence after the other, all within a slasher framework that is actually nail-biting.  Even if the stop-motion animation and the close-ups of Arnold's animatronic cyborg head have not aged as well as the rest, it remains an iconic and ahead of its time realization of an AI thriller, chase movie, apocalyptic sci-fi, and high-body count shoot-em-up.

 

OUTLAW OF GOR

(1989)

Dir - John "Bud" Cardos
Overall: WOOF

It may be hyperbolic to proclaim the Gor sequel Outlaw of Gor, (Gor II), as the worst sword and sorcery film ever made, but man, it sure tries hard to earn that mantle.  Presumably, the only reason that a second movie was even released is because it was shot concurrently with the first one; the first one being a box office bomb that has continued to live in infamy.  So instead of burying this one in a landfill like an E.T. Atari game, Cannon International unceremoniously unleashed it on the masses.  It is the same shtick, different bad movie, except with no Oliver Reed to chew some villainous scenery.  Instead, we have more Jack Palance than the first round who looks equally bored and miserable collecting a paycheck in something that he probably prayed would be forgotten about as quickly as possible.  There is also an evil queen whose dialog is exclusively made up of evil queen cliches, everyone running around half-naked, a relentless keyboard score, some horny schlub who joins Urbano Barberini' "hero" as he returns to the land of misogyny and slaves, ADRed line-readings that are not fooling anybody, and a story line that has nothing to do with John Norman's source material and is somehow even more juvenile.

80's American Horror Part Ninety-Nine

BURNED AT THE STAKE

(1981)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH

B-movie director extraordinaire Bert I. Gordon took a five year break after the one-two punch of American International Pictures' The Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants, reemerging with Burned at the Stake, (The Coming); a tweak on the bog-standard "condemned witch back for vengeance against the town's descendants" premise.  Here, it is not an actual female practitioner of the occult who reemerges in modern times, but a stupid little brat that accused an innocent girl of witchcraft back during the Salem trials, even though the not-witch actually possess witch powers while possessing Susan Swift, (who plays both roles).  There is also a modern day witch, the Puritan father of the aforementioned innocent girl inexplicably shows up in his original body instead of possessing anyone, plus a handful of other head-scratching things happen to add to the confusion.  Whatever Gordon was going for gets lost in the weeds, and the neutered, TV movie-style presentation leaves much to be desired, especially emerging in the year where about seven-hundred and eighty-five violent slasher films were barfed out onto the masses.

 

GOR
(1987)
Dir - Fritz Kiersch
Overall: MEH
 
An adaptation of John Norman's first novel Tarnsman of Gor in his sword and sorcery Gorean Saga series, Gor is a deliciously stupid Cannon production that basically plays out as if a socially awkward thirteen year-old Dungeons & Dragons fan with uncontrollable hard-ons somehow managed to get a movie made with both Oliver Reed and nine seconds of Jack Palance on board.  Shot in South Africa with an international cast, (most of whom are dubbed more distractingly than in Italian giallos), it throws college teacher Urbano Barberini into a barbarian world where shades of brown are the only colors, women are objectified to parody levels, and everyone yells, fucks, tortures, and kills like such things are going out of style.  Director George Fritz Kiersch keeps the pacing up with plenty of brawls and scantily-clad actors showing off their tans, plus the rocky desert landscape is well utilized for such a hare-brained story that is miles away from anything intellectual or modernized.  This is even more confounding in considering that the source material was authored by a philosophy professor, but the resulting film is good "bad movie" fun for those who like their 80s fantasy with an extra dose of stupid.

 

MY MOM'S A WEREWOLF

(1989)

Dir - Michael Fischa

Overall: MEH

Director Michael Fischa's follow-up to Death Spa was the even more deliberately childish and stupid My Mom's a Werewolf, which tries and fails to be as funny as one would presume from the title.  Written by Mark Pirro who made a small handful of horror comedies around such a time, it throws a smorgasbord of cliches into the mix, like the neglected housewife, the schlubby husband who is all about work and watching the game, a crappy version of "Little Red Ridding Hood" which is an already crappy song, plus obvious jokes about PMS, sex, how men never leave the toilet seat up, and how much the dentist sucks.  At least they tweaked the horror movie nerd gag by making her a girl instead of a dweebish boy, and John Saxon plays a ladies man werewolf pet store owner instead of a cop.  Otherwise though, surprises are few and far between.  A companion piece to Jimmy Huston's 1987 nyuck-fest My Best Friend is a Vampire except not as charming, it borrows a few undead motifs like werewolves being immortal and having hypnotizing powers.  Saxon seems to be enjoying himself in a hammier role than he was usually allowed, but few if any of the film's intended humor lands,  and when Susan Blakely and Saxon finally show their full bestial forms at an hour and ten minutes in, their cheap Halloween masks underscore an already low-rent affair.

80's Wes Craven Part Two

CHILLER
(1985)
Overall: MEH

Looking back, 1985 was a daft year for Wes Craven.  The previous one saw the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street which at least financially established him as a viable commodity for genre films, but then came the wretched The Hills Have Eyes sequel as well as this rightfully forgettable television movie Chiller.  Airing in May on CBS and featuring a rare role for Paul Sorvino as a reverend of all things, it has a passable premise of a trust fund brat returning to life without his soul after being cryogenically preserved for a decade.  Unfortunately, things play out in the predictable fashion, and Michael Beck's antagonist is more obnoxiously unpleasant than threatening.  Naturally, the TV format does not allow for any of Craven's usual gore tactic, so he is reduced to merely using menacing musical cues and predictable psych-outs, (two of which happen almost back to back in the final showdown scene).  With such a mediocre story and also by the books performances, there is little here for anyone besides Craven completists.

 

DEADLY FRIEND
(1986)
Overall: MEH

Though not littered with the usual drawbacks of Wes Craven's work, Deadly Friend ends up being a different kind of botched effort anyway.  Originally designed to be a PG teen thriller with a subdued technological horror angle, the studio forced the director and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin to concoct and then re-shoot a number of explicitly gory death sequences.  While this provides the movie with its most memorable moments, (including a ridiculous head exploding scene that is probably second of all time next to the one in David Cronenberg's Scanners), they jive curiously with the rest of the material.  Due to the heavy re-edits, a number of plot holes are now present as well, but on the plus side, Craven's deliberate attempts to differentiate this from his more schlockier movies is appreciated.  The cast is solid too, with a sixteen year-old Kristy Swanson making a modern day, sympathetic "villain" that is somewhat akin to the classic Frankenstein monster.  The movie is too much of a mess to properly recommend, but it is an interesting experiment that tries to make the best of its ill-conceived shortcomings.

 

SHOCKER
(1989)
Overall: WOOF

Out of Wes Craven's largely inconsistent filmography, Shocker is probably the biggest, dumbest, and loudest entry, aggressively embracing the schlock elements in the director's shtick.  This could be seen as a good thing for Craven fans, but for those with little to no tolerance for such insultingly stupid nonsense, be warned.  Essentially a poor man's A Nightmare on Elm Street except made by the same guy, it is groan-worthy stupidity from front to back, with a wise-cracking supernaturally powered killer, moments of emotional intensity that clash hopelessly with everything else going on, a monotonous structure, arbitrary universe rules that are never explained and rarely if at all followed, a bloated running time, and characters yelling embarrassing dialog while often times also trying to sound like a total badass.  So basically, a parody of a Wes Craven movie.  Except made by the same guy.  Though hey, at least the heavy metal soundtrack is bangin', with everyone from Paul Stanley, Desmond Child, Kane Roberts, and of course Megadeth's hilariously goofy cover of "No More Mr. Nice Guy" making an appearance.

80's Wes Craven Part One

DEADLY BLESSING
(1981)
Overall: MEH
 
This early effort from Wes Craven is an atypical one in several respects for the filmmaker.  Professional and clean, filmed on location in the bright and sunny farmlands of Waxahachie, Texas and equipped with a sweeping, often busy and romantic score by James Horner, Deadly Blessing has the persistent look and feel of a made for TV movie.  Though Michael Berryman briefly returns from The Hills Have Eyes, the last two minutes are supernaturally eye-popping, and it occasionally adheres to the slasher framework, hardly any other standard Craven trappings are present.  Most noticeable is a lack of purposeful schlock, which is the director's usual stock and trade.  Though it therefor boasts a consistent, serious tone for a change and the accidental silliness is kept to a minimum, that leaves the humdrum story to play out unremarkably.  Ernest Borgnine camps it up as an ubber-Amish family leader, plus a twenty-three year old Sharon Stone gets terrorized by spiders for some reason, so there is that.  Also, watch out for a recognizable bathtub shot that Craven would use again in A Nightmare on Elm Street, replacing a snake in this instance with Freddy's claws in the latter.

 

SWAMP THING
(1982)
Overall: MEH
 
The only comic book action film from Wes Craven was Swamp Thing; a low budget offering that is passable if ultimately lackluster.  Long before superhero movies were taken remotely seriously and a few years before Alan Moore would embark on his legendary Swamp Thing run for DC, this is essentially a by-the-books, misunderstood monster in a rubber suite interpretation of the character.  It is also one with less than exemplary production values.  Dick Durock looks more silly than intimidating as the title character, but he is nowhere near as embarrassing as when Louis Jordan goes full sword-wielding werewolf in a Gorn-worthy costume that ups the camp value tenfold.  The second act brings everything to a meandering stand-still, but the finale is nothing to write home about either, being both sappy, (pardon the pun), and underwhelming.  Adrienne Barbeau makes a bosomy scream queen and treats the material more sincere than it deserves, but her commitment is not enough to elevate the film above being just a forgettable example of when such movies were mere disposable cheapies.

 

INVITATION TO HELL
(1984)
Overall: GOOD
 
The same year that A Nightmare on Elm Street was released, Wes Craven delivered the less famous made for television film Invitation to Hell for ABC.  With a well-maintained and eerie tone that is more level-headed than the director's bombastic and camp-fueled works, the script by Richard Rothstein heavily recalls the type of cultish, suburbanite paranoia found in The Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except with a supernatural slant.  As is usually the case, the network television presentation neuters certain aspects, but the sterile look actually suits the material where upper middle class conformity and ambition is critiqued.  There is no gore or disturbing nastiness, but the final set piece is effectively strange and creepy, even if it is also silly and dated.  The cast has a hefty number of familiar faces as well, with a pre-Punky Brewster Soleil Moon Frye and a pre-The Neverending Story Barret Oliver showing up as Robert Urich and Joanna Cassidy's kids.  Kevin McCarthy and Michael Berryman drop in for a couple of seconds as well.

 

THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II
(1985)
Overall: MEH

Accounts vary as to what went wrong with Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes Part II, a sequel to his flawed yet more enduring original.  While the movie is not as abysmal as its long-standing reputation dictates, (Craven has done far worse), it is still problematic.   It could be that the production ran out of money, that it was heavily tampered with after the fact, or that Craven was simply in a financial pickle and knocked-out such a lazy follow-up for a quick paycheck.  In any event, the film was shelved for two years, only emerging in a post A Nightmare on Elm Street landscape and appearing that much more amatuerish and lame because of it.  In an attempt to stretch out the running time, significant amounts of footage is taken from the first movie in the form of arbitrary flashbacks.  Yet it is also padded with boring dirt bike races and awful pacing, with mostly obnoxious male characters and comparatively more likeable female ones prattling on and slowly walking around.  Once the sun goes down and things get drenched in darkness, Craven does manage to stir up a little atmosphere.  Unfortunately though, he endlessly interrupts it with cheap jump scares and sloppy tonal shifts.  It is more boring than anything and easily one of the most unnecessary and lackluster sequels of its kind, which is saying a lot.

80's British Horror Part Eleven

SCREAMTIME
(1983)
Dir - Michael Armstrong/Stanley A. Long
Overall: MEH

The British and American co-production Screamtime comes from director Stanley A. Long and Michael Armstrong, serving as the latter's final time from behind the lens.  A clunky anthology movie, we have a wrap-around segment with two dipshits who steal some VHS tapes, each one containing a different story.  The first concerns a puppeteer who goes loco after his bitchy wife and stepson keep acting like unreasonable assholes, the second one cobbles together premonition and slasher motifs, and the last has another two disphits that decide to rob some old ladies only to come face to face with sinister garden gnomes.  While none of the vignettes are terrible, all of them are also not any good. Budgetary constraints provide the usual issues since Armstrong and Long are only able to cobble together the most minimal amount of spooky atmosphere.  Two of the stories are more ridiculous than creepy anyway, but the lack of star power and the D-rent presentation makes this instantly forgettable.  At least the dad joke worthy title is clever.

 

THREADS
(1984)
Dir - Mick Jackson
Overall: GOOD

This famed nuclear fallout drama from the BBC, Nine Network, and Australia Western-World Television Inc remains arguably the most harrowing that has ever been made.  Inspired by the 1966 pseudo-documentary The War Game, (which was initially banned in its native U.K.), amongst other apocalyptic fare, Threads arrived near the peak of Soviet tensions throughout Europe, the Middle East, and America. Sheffield provides the natural working class industrial site for nuclear bombing, which when hit, instantaneously eliminated of all semblance of functioning society.  It takes until the fifty-five minute mark for such ruination to land, but that still leaves a full hour of unrelenting turmoil, confusion, and hopelessness to absorb.  Director Mick Jackson and screenwriter Barry Hines establish a minute amount of characters early on, (in order to give us some individuals to follow as the world they know and the plans that they laid cease to exist), but the film would be just as powerful if it merely showed us the unorganized downfall of humankind, which it still does in spades.  The drama is inter cut with typed screen text, Paul Vaughan's narration, and still shots of obliterated urban devastation, emancipated bodies, dead animals, and rotten crops.  It is a weighty watch that admirably pulls no punches, deglamorizing a post World War II threat that has remained steady every since.

 

BILLY THE KID AND THE GREEN BAIZE VAMPIRE
(1985)
Dir - Alan Clarke
Overall: MEH

An undead billiards musical, (Wait, what?), Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire comes from veteran television writer directors Trever Preston and Alan Clarke, respectfully.  The fact that it also manages to throw Thatcher-era class struggles into the mix on top of its snooker sports movie foundation is even more impressive and ridiculous.  While composer George Fenton has plenty of notable works on his resume, the songs here are mostly terrible as well as large in frequency.  What few blood-sucker motifs are present are inconsequential to a tale of the dignified elite vs the underdog, (both of whom play right into the media's hands of over-zealous competitiveness), and it slams home its point long before the last act arrives, which is exclusively dedicated to the big bout between Phil Daniels and Bruce Payne.  Clarke's presentation is surreal and claustrophobic as there are a minimal amount of sets and no location shooting, but the art decoration lacks flair, as do the musical numbers which are minimal on choreography.  Even if it fails to live up to the more showy standards of your Tommys and Rocky Horror Picture Shows, the film is still strange enough to warrant a gander.

80's British Horror Part Ten

KRULL

(1983)

Dir - Peter Yates

Overall: MEH

A large-budgeted British production from Columbia Pictures, Krull stands out from the horde of sword and sorcery films that were made at the turn of the 1980s due both to its impressive scale and melding of science fantasy with medieval archetypes.  Though it has some inventive set pieces and a propelling musical score from James Horner, the film never captures that necessary sense of mystical whimsy.  This is because of bland characters, (including Ken Marshall's dashing hero who acts like a kid in a candy story throughout his adventure even though his enchanting bride is in desperate peril the entire time), stock storytelling, and director Peter Yates' sluggish pacing.  By Yates' own admission, he was overwhelmed with the undertaking as this bares no resemblance to the filmmaker's usual, modestly-scaled and unassuming dramas.  In hindsight, it may have been a mistake to put such a director in charge of a Arthurian space opera with a thirty million dollar price tag, but the film nearly gets by on its visual scope alone.  Largely shot at Pinewood Studios, the massive sets are spectacular, plus the special effects team does top-notch work for the era.  Only some rear projection and stop-motion animation comes off as dated, with everything else standing up against the best practical movie magic out there.  It is a shame that these positives are the only ones that is has to offer, but for popcorn fantasy, it may just be enough.

 

SCREAM FOR HELP
(1984)
Dir - Michael Winner
Overall: WOOF

Notable for featuring the last screenplay that Tom Holland would pen before making his directorial debut Fright Night, as well as being John Paul Jones first film work as a composer, Scream for Help is an odd exploitation movie that is almost worth tilting one's head at due to the moronic story, wretched performances, and confused tone.  A British production that is set in the US with American actors, it concerns an annoying teenager who is convinced that her douchebag stepfather David Allen Brooks is not on the up and up.  Even though her suspicious are validated halfway through, the diabolical plot that she uncovers has enough holes in it to sail a yacht through.  It involves said stepfather teaming up with two slimy criminals who pretend to be brother and sister yet are actually lovers, and even once Brooks finds out that he is being played, he still goes along with the plan that spirals out of control in unintentionally laughable fashion.  Everyone here performs like they are in a comedy even though they are not, but one could argue that such embarrassing acting is fitting for the character's baffling behavior.

BORN OF FIRE
(1987)
Dir - Jamil Dehlavi
Overall: MEH
 
An exercise in stylistically nebulous storytelling, Jamil Dehlavi's Born of Fire is visually compelling and has atmosphere to spare, even if its Middle Eastern mysticism never connects with a compelling narrative.  Shot in Turkey and making gorgeous use out of fire-lit caves and haunting deserts, (captured by Bruce McGowan's vivid cinematography), it concerns a professional flutist who undergoes a mysterious journey after the death of his mother and the arrival of an astronomer whose personality leans toward supernatural possession at regular intervals.  It all seems to tie around said musician's father, Djinns, and a bald, creepy-looking Master who dwells in the Arabic wilderness and shoots fire out of his eyes.  Shots of snakes, maggots, pool worms, erupting volcanoes, skulls, a wailing dwarf, lizards crawling on the ceiling, a slug baby thing, and other such random flourishes mix with pretentiously vague dialog and spell-binding music to create a cacophony of oddness that is slow if not impossible to make heads or tails out of.  This is a shame since it is more excessive than quirky, void of humor and lacking in any type of human element to make its evocative scenery and sounds come off as anything but aloof.

80's Mexican Horror Part Five

EL MALEFICICO 2: LOS ENVIADOS DEL INFERNO

(1986)
Dir - Raúl Araiza
Overall: MEH

A feature-length continuation of writer/director Raúl Araiza's supernatural soap opera El maleficio, El maleficio 2: Los enviados del infierno, (The Hex 2: Messengers of Hell), takes its cue from Dan Curtis' The House of Dark Shadows, which retooled plot points from its daytime program for the movie version.T  he story here focuses on one of the series' main bad guys, Ernesto Alonso who portrays a practitioner of the black arts that is on a quest to find his Bael-worshiping successor.  Unfortunately for him, the young chosen one is a teenager that is in love with his own sister and because Alonso also has the hots for said woman, things do not go according to plan. Arbitrary telekinetic powers, The Omen-styled "accidental" death sequences, a continuously ominous musical score, and two different paintings that seem to omit unholy power, there are a number of fun genre elements thrown into the mix.  As far as Araiza's presentation though, the word "fun" is not as fitting as one would hope since it plays its cards too seriously to lean into any of its inherent silliness or exploitative value.  Humorless and dour, it gets points for sticking to its macabre tone, but it also feels its length and only delivers in fits and starts.

THE INFERNAL RAPIST
(1988)
Dir - Damián Acosta Esparza
Overall: WOOF

Arguably the sleaziest film to ever come out of Mexico, The Infernal Rapist, (El violador infernal), lives up to its apt title.  This is the type of gutter trash that one can skip over large portions of, (if not the entire movie), while also ignoring subtitles since it follows a rinse and repeat framework for eighty-three minutes that consists of nothing more than some guy chatting up his victims, giving them drugs, raping them, and then killing them.  Said hopeless romantic is played by Noé Murayama, who has all of the charisma of your creepy uncle that should be kept away from children.  His title character is a convicted murderer that is left alone in his electric chair immediately after getting fried, only for three fabulously dressed female demons to show up and grant him immortality, drugs, and pleasure so long as he continuously rapes, murders, and carves "666" into the flesh of his conquests.  He definitely does this and the entire ordeal is sporadically broken up with hot-headed police officers who rough up "fags" and make the usual complaints that the media is laughing at them and blah, blah, blah.  How a dead man waltzed out of jail and roams around freely on a murder spree for so long is left hilariously unexplained, but anyone coming to this expecting narrative coherence is watching the wrong movie.  It is cheap, boring, painfully moronic, and pathetically offensive, but for those who are in the mood for garbage, you cannot do worse than this.

 

HELL'S TRAP

(1989)

Dir - Pedro Galindo III

Overall: WOOF

Slasher movies suck for a number of reasons and one of the primary ones is that it is impossible to give a shit about characters who are A) all idiots and B) exist in a universe that runs on arbitrary logic.  Pedro Galindo III's Hell's Trap, (Trampa Infernal), pits its cast of morons against a Vietnam vet who went loco in the woods; woods that everyone ventures into on a dare as to which group of friends/enemies can kill a bear first.  The flimsy jumping-off point is made worse by a drawn-out sense of pacing that will lose most viewers long before the first kill happens at about thirty minutes in.  Once these dumb-dumbs realize that they are being picked off, instead of fleeing their isolated location in their properly working automobiles, they insist on staying put because the killer has traps everywhere, (traps that in no way hindered their arrival on road), thus we settle into a mind-numbingly boring and unimaginative "picking everyone off one-by-one" framework.  On paper, mixing First Blood with your typical masked slasher piece of garbage might sound like a fun bit of stupid to indulge in, but all of the existing problems render this a forgettable and insulting waste of time.  So in other words, it is just another 80s slasher movie.

80's Spanish Horror Part Seven

REGRESO DEL MÁS ALLÁ
(1982)
Dir - Juan José Porto
Overall: MEH

The second of only two horror movies from Spanish filmmaker Juan José Porto, Regreso del más allá, (Back from Beyond, Return from Beyond), is an obscure and clearly minuscule-budgeted one. Set almost entirely at a contemporary-styled mansion that a couple rents to work on their novel and thesis respectfully, it has a redundant nature where the woman incessantly has visions of the three people who were brutally murdered there. Save for one or two hazy framing effects, the ghosts are just actors in pale zombie make-up who either merely stand still or slowly walk up to Ana Obregón as she stares wide-eyed, cries, screams, and still insists on staying there because the movie needs to be longer than twelve minutes. The husband never sees anything of course, but at least he does not gaslight his partner, plus Porto goes for a curious stillness in the presentation. There is little incidental music and the numerous supernatural scenes play out in a calm and matter-of-fact manner. While the approach is unique and seems to be going for a sense of low-key and eerie intimacy, it unfortunately results in a sterile watch.  The twist ends up  being both predictable and logically undermines the long wait to get there, but at least some exploitative gore, nudity, and a genuine attempt at spookiness is appreciated.

 

AKELARRE

(1984)

Dir - Pedro Olea
Overall: MEH

A witch trial drama from filmmaker Pedro Olea, Akelarre, (Witches' Sabbath), hits all of the miserable and predictable beats even if it is presented sincerely instead of being merely exploitative.  Set during the end of the 16th century in Navarre, Spain and apparently shot on location there, it concerns your usual crop of corrupt clergyman and town officials who squash the peasants pre-Christian traditions by striking fear into the village with preposterous witch accusations.  It has false confessions brought on by torture, a Don's son who tries to free a condemned tavern maid after making repeated sexual advances towards her, (and then raping her anyway), plus the Catholic church depicted in the bog-standard and unflattering light where they go from town to town murdering innocent members of the lower class in the name of the Jesus.  As stock as the story and black and white as the characters may be depicted, Olea presents it as a timely tragedy where paranoia and superstition make natural bedfellows with corruption and class dynamics.  The pacing is without agency, but José Luis Alcaine's cinematography utilizes natural lighting to ideally capture the rustic setting.

 

THE SEA SERPENT

(1985)

Dir - Amando de Ossorio

Overall: MEH

Doubling as the final theatrically-released film from Spanish writer/director Amando de Ossorio as well as veteran actor Ray Milland, The Sea Serpent, (Serpiente de mar), is a rightfully neglected nature horror dud, one of oodles that sprung forth in the wake of Stephen Spielberg's Jaws.  There is no killer shark, but the creature that we do get is hilariously unconvincing.  The filmography of de Ossorio was always ill-equipped budget wise and this, (his only giant monster movie), is no different.  The creature resembles that "What! What'll come out no more!" stop-motion thing that shows up for one shot in John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, if only it was made with papier-mâché for a third grade school art project.  Hardly a proper Loch Ness Monster stand-in, it is delegated to little screen time anyway.  In fact, it disappears for almost the entire second act which allows for the hackneyed plot to unfold as a series of frustrated people trying to convince other frustrated people that an oversized sea beast exists.  Besides Milland, Jack Taylor, Victor Israel, and even Spanish horror director León Klimovsky make appearances, but this and the stupid looking title monster are hardly enough to maintain interest.