(1980)
Overall: WOOF
A psycho-biddy slasher snore-fest from Canadian filmmaker William Fruet, Funeral Home, (Cries in the Night), arrived with a whimper during the sub-genre's heyday. A talky affair with boring and underwritten characters as well as equally boring set pieces that are too few and far between, the small scale budget is detrimentally noticeable at every turn. Kay Hawtrey turns in an appropriately crotchety performance as a bitter and self-righteous lady who has fallen on financial hardships, therefor turning her spacious house/former funeral home into a bed and breakfast. While it is refreshing that Hawtrey's character is not exclusively bitchy and exhibits moments of tenderness towards her newly-arrived granddaughter, (played by minor Canadian scream queen Lesleh Donaldson), her suspicious behavior wields predictable results. As we all know, any time that someone vehemently forbids anyone from venturing into a locked room, (in this case, the basement), clearly that is where all of the malevolent secrets lie. Such pieces are in place here to deliver something that is merely mildly acceptable, meaning that it lacks the necessary exploitative pizazz to differentiate it from both worse and more ridiculous slasher crap.
(1982)
Overall: MEH
Low-budget director William Fruet and slasher screenwriter John Beaird team up for the ugly hicksploitation romp Trapped, (Baker County, U.S.A., The Killer Instinct), which hinges its suspense on both the odious and moronic decisions that every character in it continually makes. Set in a mountain village that runs its own form of redneck justice that cherry picks the Biblical vengeance verses while ignoring all of the "love they neighbor" ones, we know from the get-go that a small crop of happy-go-lucky yet ignorant college kids are going to have a run in with Henry Silva's inbreed flock of violent bumpkins. This makes the general structure inherently nail-biting, but it also means that we have to endure people poking the tiger and testing fate with their idiotic actions; actions that only make things worse for themselves. This includes the bad guys and the hapless victims alike, crossing the whole thing into torture porn at times that does not make for an easy watch. On the plus side though, Silva, (as he is wont to do), is ideally cast as the diabolical ringleader who oozes the type of "do not fuck with this psycho" intimidation with a professional level of scenery-chewing confidence. His villain gets a fitting and nasty comeuppance too, which should relieve everyone watching. Now if only the trek to get there was peppered with some more humor or not-stupid behavior from everyone on screen.
(1983)
Overall: MEH
Despite the presence of noted thespians Peter Fonda and Oliver Reed, Spasms ends up being a poorly-executed killer snake movie. Adapted from the novel Death Bite by Michael Maryk and Brent Monahan, the production was wrought with issues. The original company behind it went bankrupt, various directors were allegedly attached, numerous rewrites ultimately threw in supernatural elements not found in the book, and the idea to utilize live stakes was abandoned for awful puppet ones that looked so poor on camera that director William Fruet chose to eliminate their screen time almost entirely. This makes the final showdown between Reed and a taipan serpent more laughable than intense, not just because of the goofy creature design, but because flashback footage is spliced in to cover up said goofy creature design. Uninteresting and loaded with distracting and obvious ADRed dialog, at least noted special effects makeup men Dick Smith and Stephan Dupuis were able to pull off some always-appreciated icky bladder effects. Say what you want about this period in Reed's career where he was almost certainly pickled in alcohol, but his sweaty intensity is ideally-suited for a character whose psychic link to reptiles results in the overpowering spasms that the title alludes to.
(1986)
Overall: WOOF
Ill-conceived and tonally imbalanced, William Fruet's Killer Party dumps a handful of cliches into a confused mess of a final product. Opening with a double "movie-within-a-movie" psyche-out, such a gimmick lends itself logically enough to a series of pranks that are pulled both on the audience and the people on screen. A sorority hazing backdrop means that we have a crop of characters who are either assholes or nerds, and though the three leads are more likeable than usual as far as 80s slasher garbage is concerned, good luck telling them apart aside from their hair color or the fact that one of them wears glasses and seems to be handy with a guillotine. While everyone's forgettable banter with each other is lousy enough, the biggest blunder is the malevolent possession angle that is awkwardly thrown in, largely because this does not even become readily apparent until the last ten minutes. Until then, everyone's goofy mannerisms continually undercut some snore-inducing murders that no one seems to either be aware of or take that seriously. By trying to play in the horror comedy pool without committing enough to either genre, it just comes off as a boring hodgepodge that has many of the usual ingredients for such films while simultaneously having no idea what to do with any of them.
(1987)
Overall: MEH
A bog-standard mutant larva bug virus alien thing B-movie, Blue Monkey, (Insect), was the last full-length project from Canadian director William Fruet for some time, at least for the next twenty years of his career which was spent exclusively in television. All of the hallmarks of straight-to-video productions are there; mostly no-name actors, mediocre-at-best special effects, an incessant and cheap keyboard score, and it being predominantly shot at a single location, likely without any sets. Though he rarely if ever worked with interesting material, (which includes the uninspired script here by George Goldsmith and Chris Kosulek), Fruet had enough experience and chops from behind the lens to make the proceedings at least visually acceptable. The giant ant creature does look inescapably ridiculous, but he keeps it off screen until the third act when it is fully matured, shooting it with minimal dark blue lighting and bathing the scenery with shadows. Some nifty POV camerawork and squishy cocoon close-ups also make up for the still noticeable lack of a budget, but the film's biggest issue is in its sluggish first half and the overall pedestrian nature. Cameos by SCTV's Robin Duke and Joe Flaherty, plus a supporting part for John Vernon are appreciated, but this is otherwise forgettable, mid-level monster tripe.
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