(1981)
Dir - Ovidio G. Assonitis
Overall: MEH
Egyptian-born, Italian filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis only directed six films in his career and the first of three of them to come out in 1981 was the rather stock slasher Madhouse, (There Was a Little Girl, And When She Was Bad). Though it is shot well with no signs of budgetary problems undermining anything, it still offers absolutely nothing interesting or unique to the remarkably over-saturated sub-genre. Every death is completely foreseeable and follows the usual structure of someone walking around quietly and alone before something comes out of nowhere to do them in. Also, hundreds of doors are locked from the outside, a woman is made to believe that she is imagining things, and the twist reveals that it is someone who likes to act playful with their victims and sing nursery rhymes. Groan. Dennis Robertson is as derivative as a psychopath as he is obnoxious and Trish Everly's acting chops as the main heroine leave a bit to be desired. There are a couple of individual moments that are fairly creepy, (a birthday party reveal and a "what in the hell was that" sound effect coming before a brutal killing), but these are rather rare. Even if they were not though, they still would not make up for the movie's overall unremarkable nature.
(1983)
Dir - Tony Scott
Overall: GOOD
Technically serving as Tony Scott's feature length debut, (since his previous two films chocked in at under an hour each), The Hunger is a loose adaptation of Whitley Strieber's novel of the same name. It plays like an 80s goth culture wet dream in some parts and a deliberately paced meditation on addiction, loneliness, and the fear of growing old in others. The erotic elements of vampirism in general are played up as the undead Catherine Deneuve gets a handful of scenes to be naked in slow motion in, with David Bowie and Susan Sarandon no less. The screenplay is not particularly tight and this seems to be intentional as Tony Scott is far more interested in making the film as stylish as possible. Generously using non-linear edits and framing literally every shot in only the faintest, greyest of lighting at best, The Hunger is both beautiful and occasionally frustrating to look at. This is not so much of a problem though as it certainly creates the desperate mood that it should, but one could argue that it may hurt the story and keep it from connecting as well as it could have. The ending is also a bit clunky, (with a final, forced tag added on by producers which is hardly ever a good idea), but the style over substance approach for the most part works. If anything else, it is one of the most unique vampire films in a decade that had many excellent ones.
(1986)
Dir - Tobe Hooper
Overall: WOOF
As truly awful of a sequel to an original, seminal horror film as has ever been made, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 makes so many bonehead moves that it is almost impressive. Tobe Hooper originally was set to merely produce and co-write the script, but he ended up being behind the lens as well. While this would seem promising, Hooper's decisions here are atrocious. He apparently was upset that more people did not find any humor in the first TCM, maybe because there wasn't any and that was precisely what made it so suffocatingly disturbing. So with George Lucas-worthy cluelessness as to what made his own property so great to begin with, he makes this one a comedy. Well, on paper at least. In actuality it is almost unwatchably annoying. Within the first three minutes we are introduced to two cackling college jack-asses more unpleasant than anyone in the Sawyer family and once we are about halfway in, it is just incessant screaming, laughing and headscratchingly "huh?" set pieces one after the next. Worse still, Hooper chooses to recreate some scenes from the first movie in this more deliberately "funny" tone. Instead of all of the over the top elements being viscerally frightening due to their cinéma vérité presentation then, here it becomes even worse than any of the hootin' and hollerin' redneck gore garbage that came in the wake of Hooper's landmark initial entry.
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