(1981)
Dir - Jeff Lieberman
Overall: MEH
An 80's slasher movie that owes even more to The Hills Have Eyes and Deliverance than it does Friday the 13th specifically, Just Before Dawn is mostly forgettable sans one significant detail. This would be the film's soundtrack which is decent in and of itself, but far more effective when it is surprisingly and completely absent during long, key sections including almost the entire last act. To say this makes the movie appear more realistic and grounded though is not necessarily accurate as nearly everywhere else it is young attractive people getting picked off, "rednecks in the woods", "I warned you not to go up there", by numbers type stuff. Also, it is far too boring, particularly during the final showdown which peculiarly slows down to a near detrimental crawl and has an odd, "Are the cameras still on?" type feel. Director Jeff Lieberman heavily re-wrote the script which originally had a fanatically religious family as its main attracting. Removing every last trace of this was probably a swell move even if it made the result mostly generic. For people who rigorously follow the slasher genre, Just Before Dawn is probably recommendable, but one viewing is certainly enough for others.
(1983)
Dir - Avery Crounse
Overall: MEH
Eyes of Fire is a baffling, aggravating film that is either made in such an avant-garde style as to deliberately ignore any coherence or it is borderline incompetent. The debut from writer/director Avery Crounse, (who has only made three movies and none since 1996), Eyes of Fire is loaded with problems that most filmmakers do not particularly adhere to. Yet it also has more startling, creepy visuals than most horror films ever muster. The story is nearly incomprehensible though. Essentially a flashback told through occasional narration, it is incredibly difficult to keep a single character straight and even after reading the plot synopsis after the fact, numerous things are undetectable. Now whether this has to do with the sluggish pace, (particularly during the first half), and sloppy editing or if instead the movie indeed is severely underwritten, in either case it is a faulty presentation. The film would be an atrocious waste of time if not for the fact that it is brimful of spooky ideas that would actually come off as such if we had any kind of footing as to what was going on. With no investment or even proper understanding of the story, these macabre, eye-popping horror moments are more or less just window dressing when they could have been much more powerful.
(1987)
Dir - Jackie Kong
Overall: GREAT
An unofficial sequel to Herschell Gordon Lewis' seminal gorefest Blood Feast that utilizes the same Ishtar, (here named Sheetar), cannibal-goddess -raising premise, Jackie Kong's Blood Diner is everything ridiculous, over the top, outrageously offensive 80's video nastys were meant to be. You could fairly dub this the most Troma movie Troma never made as it seems hellbent on throwing in as many distasteful things for laughs as it possibly can. *SPOILER ALERT* There is a wrestler named Little Jimmy Hitler, an entire band dressed as Hitler, people obliviously eating and enjoying fried human fingers, people getting run over by cars, (multiple times), a topless video shoot, a talking, horny brain that yells at its nephews and calls them "fags", a naked lady getting her head deep fried, a talking dummy for no reason, farts, and a hunger pill that turns a dance club into zombies. There are a handful of foreign actors whose accents are either exaggerated or laughably slip while trying to come off as American, and most if not all of the dialog is post-dubbed. All of these elements plus non-stop, slapstick gore make it barely possible to catch your breath either laughing or shaking your head in befuddled amusement at everything you are witnessing. For a film whose goal is to be exactly what it is and thoroughly, absurdly enjoyable in the process, Blood Diner is a trash masterpiece.
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