80's American Horror Part Seventy

RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE

(1982)

Dir - Mike Cartel

Overall: WOOF

What happens when you have a surreal/exploitation/buddy sex comedy with horror, gangster, and Western elements thrown in, all made by nonprofessionals who have no idea how movies work?  Runaway Nightmare is what happens.  An obscure, absolutely asinine oddity and the only directorial effort from occasional actor Mike Cartel, this is a textbook example of something so incompetently made that it is impossible to decipher what humor is intended verses what ends up being accidental.  The project got underway in a manner of two days after a previous one fell through, with Cartel shooting additional scenes over the next two years, all with non-actors whose collective lack of experience is unmistakable.  Everything from the way it is shot, dubbed, "written", and performed make for a perpetually bizarre viewing experience that is equally aggravating and fascinating.  Scenes of characters delivering asinine, mostly ADRed dialog in as wooden a fashion as possible, (emoting, what's that?), to persistent, awkward silence with no sense of pacing, all while the plot is so mishmash that is it legitimately futile to follow.  It may cause an aneurysm for anyone brave enough to endure whatever the hell is going on here.  For those that survive, it is surely a reminder that at the end of the day, truly anyone can make a movie.

 

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

(1985)

Dir - Jack Bender

Overall: MEH

One of the better TV horror movies from the 1980s though still too derivative to bypass the sterile medium, The Midnight Hour is a sort of drive-in, B-movie throwback with zombies, vampires, werewolves, a sorceress' curse, and even a Michael Jackson's Thriller-esque musical number thrown in for good measure.  The second television genre film from director Jack Bender, (the other, Deadly Messages, likewise airing on ABC in the same year), there is obviously no gore or otherwise exploitative value, both of which are substituted by a comedic approach that leans into its cliches wholeheartedly.  It gets by OK on such innocently spooky charm, but the story stagnates during the second act and overall offers up absolutely zero surprises at any interval.  The cast has numerous familiar faces with LeVar Burton, Caddyshack's Cindy Morgan, Kevin McCarthy, Kurtwood Smith, Dick Van Patten, Shari Belafonte, and Wolfman Jack of course providing the voice of the radio DJ.  The soundtrack is just as noticeable with "How Soon Is Now?", "Bad Moon Rising", two versions of "Sea of Love", and of course Wilson Picket's "In the Midnight Hour" all showing up, to name but a few.  For a goofy Halloween movie that one barely has to pay attention to, it suffices just fine.

THE LAUGHING DEAD

(1989)

Dir - Somtow Sucharitkul

Overall: MEH

An American horror comedy set in Mexico about Mayan superstitions and directed by a Thai filmmaker, The Laughing Dead is an understandably bizarre one.  Somtow Sucharikul, was generally a screenwriter and composer and this is his first of only two films where he got behind the lens.  The strangeness stems from the awkward presentation of it all, which is borderline ingenious in its ridiculousness.  A horrible brat kid spews profanity in every sentence he utters, a New Age couple goes way over the top in their meditation breathing practices, a zombie basketball game breaks out, people's internal organs and hearts routinely get removed by force, a Mayan priest casually wise-cracks as he scarifies children, and a possessed/faith-losing priest punches through a woman's face and then rips a guy's arm off before shoving it in his mouth so that the fingers protrude from the neck.  Meanwhile, the plot is all over the place in trying to balance the rag-tag group of characters and the movie frequently feels as if numerous scenes were left on the cutting room floor in order to keep the pace up.  Primarily crap, but there are plenty of ghoulish sets, hilarious gore, outrageous set pieces, and both intentionally and unintentionally goofy performances to delight the oddity film buff.