(1981)
Dir - James L. Conway
Overall: GOOD
A movie like The Boogens probably should not be as decent as it is. Boasting a silly premise of unleashed, cave-dwelling puppet monsters, made on a small budget with no A-listers, and having the look and feel of a made-for-television movie, it has enough low-rent hallmarks to make it a pretty forgettable affair. As it stands though, the film has two primary things going for it. One, the characters are all likeable and two, the performances are all strong. Neither of these things would really matter if the ninety-five minute running time was squarely focused on the title creatures running amok. Such is not that case though as James L. Conway keeps them off camera up until about the last ten minutes, which leaves the overwhelming bulk of the proceedings to familiarizing us with the small crop of men and women who ultimately fall victim to/face-off against said boogens. Teasing the monsters for so long may irk many horror fans waiting for the good stuff, but their mostly clandestine appearances are effectively staged and an effective level of dread is built up. The creature design is rather lame, (which could explain their minimal screen time), and cliches such as women falling down and doors inexplicably being locked from the inside unfortunately dumb things up a bit. It is fun though and impressively makes things work what would otherwise be limitations.
(1985)
Dir - Philippe Mora
Overall: WOOF
Something truly bizarre happened with Philippe Mora's first follow-up to Joe Dante's The Howling, a sequel that laughably implodes under multiple, horrendous attributes. With a title like Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, it clearly does not pretend to be anything but a camp-fueled comedy. While this sounds good on paper, the results are far more unintentional in their hilarity than not. Rob Bottin's era-defining special effects are gone and instead we get Sybil Danning growling and doing jazz hands in a chair while covered in yak hair. The script, (co-written by Gary Brandner, who authored the original The Howling novel), mishmashes vampire and werewolf cliches haphazardly and the film is just as jarringly edited by Charles Bornstein who comically cuts to the same random shots on the regular. Christopher Lee's respectable presence is quite baffling, made more so by the straight-up appalling performances everywhere else. Annie McEnroe may be the worst actress of all time and her boytoy Reb Brown lays on the same level of Big McLargehuge "charm" that he did in Space Mutiny three years later. The sound design is composed of terrible ADR line-readings, snorts and howls, stereotypical Eastern European music, and a song called "The Howling" by Goth band Babel that shows up half a dozen times within the first twenty minutes alone. Entertainingly awful, but awful all the same.
(1988)
Dir - John Carl Buechler
Overall: MEH
The 1980s produced a slew of silly creature features and John Carl Buechler's Cellar Dweller is one of the silliest indeed. Written by Don Mancini, (who would go on to pen every single movie in the Child's Play franchise sans the 2019 reboot), the film takes an already goofy premise of a comic book drawing coming to life and enhances such absurdity with a moronic script. It all takes place in the regular old house of a mysterious artist, now turned into an art institute with a small crop of completely random dingbats including a woman who videotapes things, one who does performance art, an older gentleman who writes pulp novels, and an idiot who does expressionist "art" that looks like child drawings. Haunted house noises regularly omit from the easily unlocked, off-limits-basement and any rules established by the flimsy mythology are regularly broken just to provide more limb-munching, screaming set pieces. Fortunately, such bloody moments are kind of fun and Buechler's monster design work is quite excellent. The movie does not take itself remotely serious and an opening cameo from none other than Jeffery Combs is a wonderful addition, one that is only hampered by the fact that he has no further screen time. If one can turn their brain off, much giggles can be had at the violent nonsense on full display here.
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