(1985)
Dir - Dan Attias
Overall: MEH
Here be another Stephen King adaptation where the author penned his own screenplay and the end result is a sloppy mess with oodles of tone and structural problems. Silver Bullet was based off off Cycle of the Werewolf, a story where very similarly to Salem's Lot, a small town is inhabited by people who know everyone with their own drama going on that now gets besieged upon by a supernatural menace that is up to a teenage boy and one lone adult that nobody believes to stop it. King's script is a borderline disaster here though. The dialog is exceptionally poor, characters are introduced and then forgotten about, the twist comes thirty minutes too early and completely changes the behavior of the antagonist, and other lazy, illogical scenarios are brought up. Like why would a kid who thinks a monster is murdering people every night willingly go out alone also at night and in the middle of nowhere to blow up fireworks? Also, if the werewolf has been a member of the town this whole time and presumably always a werewolf, why now all of a sudden is he murdering people? Also again, the usual four or five day long full moon cycle that only exists in lycanthropian horror movies is very much a thing here as well. Still, Gary Busey is an alcoholic hick, (i.e. not aware that he is in a movie), and the transformation effects look pretty good.
(1986)
Dir - Charles Martin Smith
Overall: GOOD
This is a positively strange debut for character actor/future kids movie director Charles Martin Smith, not just because it is a horror film, but because it is a rather singular one to say the least. Trick or Treat on paper sounds like the dumbest movie possible and one that should by all conceivably logic be front-to-back obnoxious. It has got another "kid gets picked on in high school by bullies that look like they are pushing 40 and he wants revenge on them" premise, plus with the added, eye-ball rolling fact that said teenager of the jock's scorn is an loner heavy metal fan. Such a premise certainly deserves a hard pass, (cough, Deathgasm, cough). Yet it is all in the presentation. You would assume that such uninspired cliches left and right coupled with a kid listening to Judas Priest and playing his records backwards while parents, concerned newscasters, and teachers act horrified and confused would be too much to bare, but the cast oddly plays everything very straight. Even the film's flamboyantly goofy monster/ghost/heavy metal drag queen villain astoundingly comes off kind of creepy by how he is gradually introduced. The fact that Smith takes his time with the material, letting many scenes play out with no cheap, keyboard-drenched music, and actually manages to build quite an eerie atmosphere even as the film's plot spirals into ridiculousness is quite remarkable. Throw in a funny cameo by Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne and this is indeed quite a good time.
(1988)
Dir - Frank Henenlotter
Overall: MEH
The sophomore effort from Frank Henenlotter, Brain Damage is sadly a disappointment compared to most of the filmmaker's other ridiculous work. The cameo by Kevin Van Hentenryck with his large basket in tow is amusing, but most of the other humor is more quirky and awkward than funny. Once again, Henenlotter has concocted a story about a guy living in Manhattan with a weird pet creature thing that he is essentially a slave to, but this one is even weirder and grosser than that in the Basket Case franchise. It is a problem Brain Damage is laughably amateurish from a visual perspective, even more so than many low-budget genre films of the time period. The monster looks like an icky Sesame Street puppet except less convincing. Performance wise, soap opera actor Rick Hearst does not posses any likeable charm and the rest of the cast is either clumsily hammy or clumsily stiff. More problems are apparent in the lazy ending and a silly exposition scene that seems forced to say the least. There is plenty of nasty, even x-rated set pieces though and the plot is so ridiculous that one might find themselves cackling at it periodically.
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