90's American Horror Part Sixty-Four

THE SUCKLING

(1990)

Dir - Francis Teri

Overall: MEH

 

A D-grade exploitation movie set at a whore house abortion clinic of all things, The Suckling, (Sewage Baby), goes for a Night of the Living Dead type scenario where a bunch of people violently argue with each other while being stuck inside of a building that is under threat by a monstrous force.  The lone film from Francis Teri, it has a ridiculous mutated fetus abomination that terrorizes our crop of yelling, obnoxious characters, yet sadly, said creature is given a small amount of screen time.  In place of that, (i.e. the only thing that anyone coming into such a movie would be interested in), we have lousy-to-manageable no name actors embarrassing themselves as everyone systematically and of course boringly gets picked off.  The fleshy monster looks great, (and is performed in a suit by Fangoria editor Michael Gingold), plus Teri makes the most out of his single location by trying to find claustrophobic camera angles without any effective gore effects or atmospheric lighting at his disposal.  Still, watching miserable people act like raving assholes for just shy of ninety minutes in such bottom-barrel nonsense is hardly worth the effort.

 

VOODOO DAWN

(1991)

Dir - Steven Fierberg

Overall: MEH

Not to be confused with the 1998 bayou thriller with Michael Madsen and Rosanna Arquette that goes by the same name, this Voodoo Dawn was the debut from cinematographer Steven Fierberg and is an adaptation of John A. Russo's 1987 novel of the same name.  It also serves as an early starring vehicle for Tony Todd, who plays an intimidating voodoo practitioner that is hellbent on transforming Haitian plantation workers into zombie slaves.  Often in these types of stories, it is wealthy and morally deplorable Caucasians who use their finances to oppress the disenfranchised locals, but making Todd the mysterious bad guy at the helm of such a diabolical scheme, (and turning white guys into slaves as well), gives the story a differentiating race reversal.  Ultimately, folks from both skin colors reunite to take Todd down, plus Gina Gershon turns in one of her finer, (and comparatively less sexualized), performances as a Southern farm girl adoptee.  There are a few splashes of brutal violence and Fierberg turns South Carolina into an earthy, supernatural realm where forbidden magic is made manifest.  The movie is serviceable if not remarkable, dragging until the third act which is when the evil forces kick into higher gear, but it delivers a good amount of heavy atmosphere, plus Todd's wordless portrayal is a stand-out.

DOLLMAN VS. DEMONIC TOYS

(1993)

Dir - Charles Band

Overall: MEH

Charles Band himself takes the helm for the crossover Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, a film that does not only fuse together its two title properties, but also manages to shoehorn it into the Bad Channels universe.  We get the obligatory flashback sequences that recap the previous movies, all of which still pathetically only stretch this one out to sixty-four minutes.  On top of one of the tiny-sized ladies from Bad Channels, Tim Thomerson's Dollman title character, and the demonic toys of course, we also have the notable dwarf character Phil Fondacaro joining the ranks, making this, (along with the minuscule running time), the most small-themed Full Moon film since 2004's inevitable Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys hybrid.  Anyway you slice it, this is some dopey shit, and it is done on such a pathetic scale that even fans of these silly properties will be hopelessly underwhelmed.  There are no inventive set pieces or new ideas to further the mythos of anything going on in these franchises, just slight variations of the good and bad guys doing the same thing in an overall weaker film.  At least the Quiet Riot jams are appreciated though.

90's American Horror Part Sixty-Three

CHILD'S PLAY 3
(1991)
Dir - Jack Bender
Overall: MEH

By the time that they reached the third installment, the Child's Play franchise had not gone full self-aware comedy, but it sure was inching its way awfully close.  Child's Play 3 was released nine months after its predecessor and was a rushed job for series' creator Don Mancini, who was tasked with churning out the next script before Child's Play 2 had even wrapped up.  Taking place seven years in the future, it has a now teenage Andy enrolled in a military academy where other kids close to his age act like raving asshole drill sergeants and Andrew Robinson gets to chew the scenery in three scenes as a dog clipper-friendly barber.  While the setting is different by necessity, it is still the same ole gag of Brad Dourif's Chucky once again getting lazily resurrected and still trying to get himself into a human body while nobody believes that such a thing could possibly be happening.  Dourif is as effortlessly amusing as ever, pushing this into goofier terrain even as the tone still tries to balance its ridiculousness as a suspenseful slasher movie of sorts.  Sadly it does not go hard in either direction, coming off like the quick cash grab that it is and offering up nothing new or better in the process.

BAD CHANNELS

(1992)

Dir - Ted Nicolaou

Overall: MEH

 

Blue Oyster Cult and Charles Band collaborating?  What will they think of next?  Full Moon Entertainment's curious fascination with little things soldiers on with Bad Channels, a sci-fi/horror musical spoof with a wacky premise that is matched by a purposely silly presentation.  While the film is never funny, it is also never obnoxious or dull.  Subspecies director Ted Nicolaou was also behind the lens on 1986's unwatchablely grating TerrorVision, but thankfully the similar shtick is done without insulting the audience here.  An alien warrior and its cutesy robot invade a radio station in the middle of an elaborate promotion gimmick where the DJ is chained to his chair until a caller can guess the lock's combination and in turn win a free convertible.  Oh, and the aliens use some kind of fungus to capture women over the airwaves, but only after most of them witness a rockin' musical number just to stretch the run time out further.  Band and Jackson Barr's script has a barrage of desperate ideas, the characters are likeable, the cornball special effects are agreeable, Martha Quinn is adorable as a savvy news reporter, and the mostly Blue Oyster Cult soundtrack could be much worse.  It is the type of intentionally dopey movie that has its heart in the right place and does not overstay its welcome, but it also fails to deliver the nyuck nyucks and is only amusing on paper.

 

FREAKED

(1993)

Dir - Alex Winter/Tom Stern

Overall: MEH

The feature debut from writer/director/actors Alex Winter and Tom Stern, Freaked features a stacked cast, an A-team crop of special effects artists, and the Butthole Surfers, Parliament, and Henry Rollins providing some jams.  An absurdist gross-out black comedy in the vein of Winter and Stern's MTV sketch show The Idiot Box, the film was originally concocted as a full-length follow-up to Winter, Stern, and the Suffers' 1988 horror short Bar-B-Que Movie, but once a major studio was involved, the budget ballooned under the pretense that it qualify for a PG-13 rating, (which it barely does).  The film was ultimately and unceremoniously dumped once a new studio head took over and hated the results.  Such results are a big, loud, and aggressively stupid mess, loaded with juvenile, surreal, head-scratching, and forth-wall breaking gags that more often than not miss their mark.  On the plus side though, the tone is consistently over the top, the cartoonish production design is outstanding, and everyone on screen knows the assignment.  Randy Quaid, William Sadler, an uncredited Keanu Reeves, Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwait, and even Morgan Fairchild and Brooke Shields prove to be good sports along with even more recognizable faces.  The whole thing comes off like Tod Browning's Freaks if it was done by twelve year old Frank Henenlotter fans who think that farts and vomit are the world's greatest gift to comedy, but it is hard to hate the jacked-up enthusiasm on display.

90's American Horror Part Sixty-Two

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: THE INITIATION
(1990)
Dir - Brian Yuzna
Overall: MEH

 

A Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise installment in name only, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: The Initiation at least on paper sounds like it would be worth one's time.  It has none other than Brian Yuzna behind the lens, continues his collaboration with Screaming Mad George whose special bug effects are appropriately icky, plus Clint Howard and Reggie Bannister both show up.  Slugs, rats, maggots, cockroaches, jelly goo, Neith Hunter turning into a slimy mermaid or something, and a Rosemary's Baby-styled impregnation orgy scene with Howard thrusting away in a phallic-nosed mask, one cannot complain that the movie does not go for stomach-churning grossness.  While it flies off the rails appropriately with Yuzna and George concocting more nonsensical and nasty set pieces one after the other, there are several awkward moments scattered throughout, plus the allegory of women being oppressed in a male dominated society is laughably handled at best.  Still, as an entry in a film series that sets such a persistently low bar of quality, this one at least wins points for breaking the moronic slasher mold and throwing a bunch of weird bug cult, child sacrificing, female empowering, and gooey sex stuff into the mix.

 

DOLLMAN

(1991)

Dir - Albert Pyun

Overall: MEH

Continuing in their trajectory to make small people/creatures their main characters, Charles Band's Full Moon Entertainment teamed up with schlock meister Albert Pyun for Dollman; a knowingly preposterous action movie where Tim Thomerson plays a rogue cop who gets transported from his world where he is normal-sized to the Bronx where he is roughly Cabbage Patch kid height.  Besides such a goofy premise that should never be taken seriously under any circumstances, the film follows bog-standard R-rated, tough guy action tropes.  There is plenty of gratuitous murder, plenty of gratuitous profanity, and it is set in a neighborhood overrun with reckless crime that just needs a little guy with a little gun, (that still shoots regular-sized bullets mind you), to clean up the place.  A pre-pockmarked Jackie Earle Haley plays the main thug with a heavy New York accent to boot, plus Frank Collison joins the villainy as a disembodied head that wants to blow stuff up with a bomb really bad and is kept alive via alien technology.  Everyone pretends that they are not in a movie called Dollman, which is adorable to a point, but the usual B-grade production values prove insufficient to take advantage of any convincing or fun "little man in a big world" set pieces.  It is mostly just actors looking angry while saying "Fuck" a whole lot and Thomerson walking around in shots by himself where you cannot even tell that he is supposed to be itty bitty.

PET SEMATARY TWO

(1992)

Dir - Mary Lambert

Overall: WOOF

If a "kind of" Stephen King movie is so bad that King himself demands that his name be taken off of it, you know you are in for a rough ride.  Pet Sematary Two is the obligatory sequel to 1989's Pet Sematary, with director Mary Lambert returning and trying to craft something tolerable out of a hackneyed, cash-grab script.  Taking place in the same town as its predecessor, two underwritten teenagers nonchalantly make the terrible decision to first resurrect a dead dog and then one of the kid's scumbag stepdad who shot said dog in the first place.  We also have bog-standard high school bullies, (including Jared Rushton who may be the most punchable kid in the history of cinema), Clancy Brown fusing a Maine accent, Vincent D'Onofrio's bug man in Men in Black, a zombie, and Ace Ventura together, a soundtrack full of gen x alternative jams, laughable hallucination/nightmare sequences, and Edward Furlong screaming a lot.  Richard Outten's screenplay gets from point A to point B without considering any plausible logistics, and the tone is relentless D-grade schlock that would fit a Goosebumps episode if not for the gore, profanity, and occasional pair of naked boobs.  The only good thing that one can say about it is that they never made a Pet Sematary Three...yet.

90's American Horror Part Sixty-One

METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR

(1990)

Dir - Glenn Takakjian

Overall: MEH

Knowing schlock from director Glenn Takakjian and The Deadly Spawn producer Ted A. Bohus, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor, (The Deadly Spawn II), has the look and feel of a rushed Roger Corman production, just minus the boobs.  Set almost exclusively at a bio-research facility, (i.e. a local office building that the filmmakers were allowed to use during off-hours), it has adorable alien monsters, stop-motion animation, a cornball keyboard score, lousy acting from no-name thespians, a sleazy villain with a British accent, and a guy who turns into a slimy worm monstrosity that shoots tentacles and Silly Putty at people.  Everyone here seems to be enjoying themselves with such stupidity, plus the tone never once takes itself seriously since how could it?  That's good.  Yet all of the enthusiasm in the world cannot disguise the fact that this is a hunk of junk.  That's bad.  Yet again, this is the kind of ridiculous nonsense that can easily be laughed at.  That's good.  It goes hard with the special effects, (none of which are convincing yet all of which are elaborate), and there is something enduring about a film that pretends that it is done on a budget which exceeds its own means by tens of millions of dollars.

SHOCK 'EM DEAD
(1991)
Dir - Mark Freed
Overall: WOOF

Calling the harebrained doof-fest Shock 'Em Dead, (Rock 'Em Dead), the "best" heavy metal horror comedy would be like calling syphilis the "best" venereal disease.  In a sub-genre where every entry is different levels of embarrassing and horrible, this one is both the most horrible and the most embarrassing.  With a band name like Spastic Colon, a song titled "Hairy Cherry", and a lyric like "I'm in love with a slut!", all making an appearance, clearly much of the juvenile humor is intended.  While such moronic hair metal, boner comedy, and misogynistic/insensitive/scatological stereotypes are gleefully abused, no great terrible movie is complete without unintentional hilarity.  Thankfully there is plenty of that to be found here as well, from every bizarre set piece being awkwardly staged, to abysmal acting, uninspired cinematography, cringe-worthy music, and lousy special effects even by D-grade schlock standards.  The inexperience of director Mark Freed, (whose only previous film credit was being behind the lens on Jeff Porcaro's drum instructional video of all things), likely plays a role, but Martin Scorsese could hardly have done much better with such a meager budget and absurd material.  Still, a top-billed Traci Lords engages in a brief catfight and Michael Angelo Batio shows up as a guitar-shredding demon so, go sports!

DEMONIC TOYS

(1992)

Dir - Peter Manoogian

Overall: MEH

Full Moon Productions' Demonic Toys is notable for being one of the company's many "little terrors" schlock fests, as well as for having one of the first filmed screenplays from David S. Goyer.  Not that this is something which Goyer or anyone else involved should be proud of.  In typical Charles Band fashion, most of the movie takes place at a single indoor location and revolves around a small handful of actors, because you don't produce over four-hundred movies in a lifetime by spending unnecessary money.  The story is a more stupid version of Puppet Master, (saying something), and revolves around a storage warehouse where a demon wears the guise of a kid with neon green eyes who controls random killer toys because why would it control them to do anything else?  Characters act like idiots, they yell a lot, and one of them is plagued by hallucinations and nightmares revolving around the evil spirit that is fucking with everyone.  We get a sixty-six year old flashback that looks exactly like 1992, a keyboard score that never stops, melodramatic performances, some boobs, stop-motion animation, and the adorable monster toys have about an 18th of the charisma that Chucky does in Child's Play.

90's American Horror Part Sixty (The Sometimes They Come Back Series)

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK

(1991)

Dir - Tom McLoughlin

Overall: MEH

 

A movie about inescapable high school bullies sounds like torture and plenty of overplayed cliches do indeed run rampant in director Tom McLoughlin's Sometimes They Come Back; a television adaptation of Stephen King's 1974 short story of the same name.  Produced by Dino De Laurentiis for the small screen, this means that there is no gore, no profanity, and no nudity, but such exploitative elements are hardly necessary for a simple vengeful scumbag ghost story where a few pushing-thirty "teenagers" come back from the grave and terrorize the now grown kid that they blame for their untimely death years ago.  There are no surprises anywhere to be found here, with characters behaving in familiar patters that have been played out in an untold number of stories where a family moves into the boonies from the city, high school jocks think they run the school, ineffective law enforcement and school officials write-off a series of kid murders as suicides, the undead bad guys cackle obnoxiously and sometimes cannot be seen by anyone except who they terrorize while at other times can be seen by everyone, and the main protagonist is plagued by nightmares, flashbacks, hallucinations, and has a spouse that he fails to communicate with until things go too far.  There is also the usual simple-minded plot device of the main character having to "stop running away" and face his fears, and even though some of these professional folks turn in fine performances and we even get some decent zombie make-up, it is still forgettable tripe.

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...AGAIN

(1996)

Dir - Adam Grossman

Overall: MEH

 

How a short story got turned into a franchise, (let alone a short story that was initially only going be a a mere segment in Lewis Teague's Cat's Eye anthology movie), just shows the extents that production companies were willing to go in milking Stephen King properties for anything that they were worth.  Sometimes They Come Back...Again is an overall improvement over its made-for-TV predecessor, going straight-to-video and featuring more nastiness and special effects.  It is also still full of its own tired-out tropes, such as a desperate and ominous old guy who speaks cryptically instead of directly, characters witnessing inexplicable things and shrugging them off, cops rolling their eyes at clearly not important things like a pet's mutilation and a family's concern over it, and arbitrary supernatural powers that are granted to the evil greaser bad guys that bide their time for no reason than to get the movie to feature-length.  At least Alexis Arquette, (still Robert Arquette, pre-transition), is a charismatic if still dilly-dallying villain and not just a forgettable one-note scumbag who does bully things on the fly.  His agenda is purely demonic here, and we get some creative and brutal kill scenes, creature-summoning rituals, freaky sex nightmares, and body mutilation.  Molly Hagan, Michael Gross, and even Hilary Swank flesh-out the cast, and even if this is still just a schlocky cash-grab sequel, Arquette's scenery-chewing and the hard R-rating is appreciated.

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK...FOR MORE

(1998)

Dir - Daniel Zelik Berk

Overall: MEH

The Sometimes They Come Back franchise finally ran out of 50s greaser bullies to use as bad guys, switching gears completely with the final installment Sometimes They Come Back...for More.  Set at an illegal mining operation in Antarctica, two military police arrive to investigate one of the workers who apparently went violently AWOL.  Then some Latin-chanting Satan worshiping stuff and Clayton Rohner's evil brother get thrown into the mix, furthering removing this from Stephen King's source material to the point where why it was included in such a series in the first place is anyone's guess.  The minimal amount of brand recognition was apparently enough.  Besides Rohner, we have Chase Masterson and Damian Chapa joining the familiar players, and they all give the B-grade material their professional best.  First time director Daniel Zelik Berk competently stages this as a snowbound genre offering, throwing in some psychological torment amongst the demonic bad guy stuff and obvious setting comparisons to The Thing.  There is nothing remarkable or egregious here, plus the intense performances are probably enough to keep one invested, but it is still the type of schlocky stuff that is all to easy to forget mere seconds after finishing.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-NIne

HAUNTING FEAR
(1990)
Dir - Fred Olen Ray
Overall: MEH

Schlock maser Fred Olen Ray takes on Edgar Allan Poe as loosely as anyone else ever has with Haunting Fear, one of several collaborations between he and stars Brinke Stevens and John Henry Richardson.  Michael Berryman, Karen Black, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Robert Quarry even show up, and one has to wonder if Ray was able to film all of their scenes in one of the six days that the whole thing was shot in.  Ray's script is full of logical blunders surrounding Stevens troubled and rich housewife who suffers from vivid nightmares of being buried a live as her douchebag husband Richardson bangs his also douchebag secretary.  Why the sleazy couple decides to go full cartoon super villain by doing away with Stevens in the exact manner that she is terrified of in order to get her money instead of just drugging or even shooting her makes as much sense as why Stevens wakes up from her would-be entombment with supernatural powers and scary vampire make-up on when she was screaming normally without it a few seconds before.  These are just some of many examples of "Eh, whatever" screenwriting and to be fair, Ray knows that people want to see boobs, cliches, and a little gore, all of which he delivers.

 

MOLLY AND THE GHOST
(1991)
Dir - Don Jones
Overall: WOOF
 
For his final venture behind the lens, director Don Jones did the goofy sleaze-fest Molly and the Ghost; a comedy/horror/late night TV hybrid that fails on all fronts.  First off, none of the intended humor lands and the attempts at such are as clumsy as they get, something that is not helped by Jones' piss-pour sense of agency.  Scenes go on for too long and the first act could have easily been trimmed to get to the ghost mayhem at a more agreeable rate.  The actors stare blankly at things happening around them, with Ron Moriarty coming off the most embarrassing since his character has the same nonchalant response to everything, whether its his wife's underage sister seducing him, getting questioned about such seduction, the eventual poltergeist activity that terrorizes their home, or his wife getting possessed by her dead sister so he can get seduced again.  The horror bits are just as awkward since the script has no interesting ideas in how to parody its tropes, plus Ena O'Rourke's plans both before and after death are just as illogical, with no supernatural rules being upheld at any point.  Also, people looking for some T&A action will be equally disappointed since we only get a couple of brief scenes of the two lead female actors in their birthday suites.  When a cheap exploitation movie cannot even get its exploitation aspects right, you have a problem.

DRACULA RISING

(1993)

Dir - Fred Gallo

Overall: MEH

Another Roger Corman-produced B-movie, Dracula Rising was shot in Bulgaria with Corman protegee Fred Gallo at the helm, and it is a typical low-rent hack-job that takes itself seriously yet delivers mediocre results.  As a flowery romance, half of the movie is told in flashback when a monk falls for a woman during the plague, which is such a no-no that another monk easily decides to convince the townspeople to burn the harlot as a witch because we simply cannot have holy men having feelings for women and getting laid.  This ties into the contemporary setting where Stacey Travis plays a different character who looks exactly the same, plus the two monks, (who are both vampires now), end the movie by confronting each other in the desert.  The wild ideas are there, and cinematographer Ivan Varimezov keeps the camera moving by capturing fog, vivid backlighting, and some cornball special effects with the right level of schlocky pizzazz.  Christopher Atkins is miscast as the dashing undead lead, Doug Wert does a fake European accent, and the dialog is nothing but melodramatic fluff that does not save these poor actors from embarrassing themselves while delivering it.  Also and despite what is promised, no, Dracula is not in it.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Eight

ROCKULA
(1990)
Dir - Luca Bercovici
Overall: MEH
 

Cannon jumped on the horror comedy bandwagon with the apply-titled Rockula, staring none other than everyone's favorite party dude from the era who was not Pauly Shore, Dean Cameron.  Shot two years earlier yet left unreleased for a time due to Cannon's bankruptcy troubles, this vampire nyuck-fest has the distinction of also being a musical with none other than Bo Diddley joining the party as Cameron's guitar player.  Cannot blame a blues legend for collecting a paycheck.  Toni Basil and Susan Tyrell are also on board, so with its unlikely star power and plenty of terrible songs in tow, the movie proceeds with a rudimentary plot about a centuries old undead dweeb who get pestered by his more cool reflection and keeps falling for his resurrected true love every twenty-two years, only for a guy who is dressed as a pirate to swoop in and kill her every time with a ham-bone.  It is a whole thing.  All of the stupid components are in place and it knows what kind of movie it is, but despite everyone looking as if they are amusing themselves, the songs sure do suck and there sure are a lot of them.

DEAD SPACE
(1991)
Dir - Fred Gallo
Overall: MEH

Just what the world needed, an equally cheap remake of the Roger Corman-produced Forbidden World made only nine years later.  Dead Space has less nudity and less gore than its predecessor which was also shot in about the same number of days, (twenty-ish), plus the big extraterrestrial monster still looks stupid, but at least it is shown in quick cuts and shrouded in fog.  In fact fog it utilized to mask more than just the mutated puppet creature, drenching the sparse sets and even some outside desert shots, which is a solid move in an attempt to trick the audience into thinking that they are watching something with higher production values.  Marc Singer as the dashing space cowboy and Bryan Cranston as a super-serious scientist are nice additions to the retreaded story that was already a cliche-fest knock-off of Alien, except this time the research facility is working on a cure for AIDS because ya gotta stay topical.  Still, without the sleazier exploitation values in place, this is an even more pointless and lame-brained affair than the Allan Holzman-directed and dopey original, so it is not likely that anyone alive would prefer it.

 

DRAGONHEART
(1996)
Dir - Rob Cohen
Overall: MEH

Years after the sword and sorcery boom came and went, screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue and producer Raffaella De Laurentiis got enough momentum behind a buddy cop variant on age old Dungeons & Dragons motifs to get an A-level presentation.  The resulting DragonHeart is silly business by design, sticking to well-trotted-out fantasy cliches, endless nyuck nyucks, (to the point where this is as much a comedy as it is anything else), hammy acting with Saxon accents, and incessant orchestral accompaniment to slam home the schlock.  Because 1996, the CGI dragon looks absolutely terrible, but to be fair, its cartoon/PlayStation One aesthetic is at least fitting to when the movie sticks to its slapstick and kid-friendly tone.  On that note, such a tone is not diligently adhered to since we also have brutal violence, rape, and peasants who are subjected to various forms of brutality.  Dennis Quaid and the Sean Connery-voiced last dragon palling around while scheming villagers out of sacks of gold is an amusing concept though, and it serves the simplistic story well enough.  It is only when things keep circling back to David Thewlis' dipshit/hot-headed/weakling villain and the local uprising against him that the movie stalls into formulaic tripe.  Elsewhere, it is simply dated, childish, and harmless popcorn-munching hoopla.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Seven

THE HAUNTING OF MORELLA

(1990)
Dir - Jim Wynorski
Overall: MEH

Sexploitation schlock-peddler Jim Wynorski tackling Edgar Allan Poe?  This will either warrant a "Hard pass" or an enthusiastic "Sing me up!" from the viewer, both of which are acceptable responses.  The Haunting of Morella is based barely on Poe's 1835 short story "Morella", opening with a witch being condemned at the stake by a shirtless guy in an executioners mask who burns out her eyes with an iron spike, cue King Diamond scream. What follows is Wynorski's usual brand of well-endowed ladies taking their clothes off and doing softcore sexy things, period setting be damned.  Though Roger Corman is credited as producer, this bares no hallmarks to his influential and lauded Poe works with Vincent Price for American International Pictures three decades prior.  The plot concocted by Wyronoski and co-screenwriter R.J. Robertson has some forward momentum up until a point before it starts to spin its wheels towards the climax, and the set design is aesthetically in-line with Gothic doom and gloom, be it of the sexy B-movie variety.  The music is relentless, the acting ham-fisted, the dialog predictable and hackneyed, but hey, naked boobs and resurrected evil witch ladies doing horny things is what the good people want.

 

VAMPIRES AND OTHER STEREOTYPES

(1994)
Dir - Kevin J. Lindenmuth
Overall: WOOF

The first in a career's worth of no-budget dung heaps from "film"maker Kevin J. Lindenmuth, Vampires and Other Stereotypes is as bad as they get.  Shot almost entirely in a warehouse in New Jersey with a cast of shlubs that were presumably picked up at a gas station mere moments before the video cameras were turned on, (oh yes, this is a SOV production because of course it is), the hallmarks of clueless first-time movie-making are strongly represented.  No on on screen has any idea how to act, their dialog is redundant and loaded with cliches, said dialog is not properly recorded and completely unintelligible at times, the practical effects are bargain bin cheap, the story about being trapped in hell with different doors leading to different dimensions or who cares is too ambitious for the fifty cent budget, and it is inexplicably talky and ergo boring as all get out.  Lindenmuth seems to be trying to make a quirky horror comedy here, which would be adorable if anything that happened had a sense of pacing or was wacky enough to bypass the lifeless presentation.  Instead, everyone just seems as disinterested and confused as we are watching them suffer through such painful tripe.  Whatever bad movie charm or goofy ideas it has on paper all fail to translate, making this the cinematic equivalent to a rock in your shoe that is only going to make you more uncomfortable until you take it out.

HIDEOUS!

(1997)

Dir - Charles Band

Overall: MEH

Another Romanian-shot cheapie creature feature from Charles Band, Hideous! has the typical Full Moon hallmarks that one would come to expect.  The cast is minimal, the on location shooting utilizes few actual locations, the monsters are smaller than human size, and it is knowingly goofy.  There are less regular Full Moon players here than usual, sans for softcore scream queen Jacqueline Lovell who was in the similarly veined Head of the Family and The Killer Eye, once again providing some naked boobs as she spends the entire movie either topless or merely wearing an open leather vest, even when robbing a guy at gun point outside in the snow while also wearing a gorilla mask.  Always a trooper that Lovell.  Elsewhere, the shtick is mildly fun and concerns rival rare specimen collectors who double-cross and/or rob each other and wind up at one of their spacious castles to look for a bunch of tiny creatures that have escaped.  The slimy little monstrosities barely do anything and nobody dies until an hour and ten minutes in, so most of the running time amounts to nothing more than tedious bickering between everyone.  Even if some of that bickering is amusing, this is an underwhelming effort, which is saying something since it comes from a guy whose cinematic output should always be approached with low expectations.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Six

BURIED ALIVE
(1990)
Dir - Gérard Kikoïne
Overall: MEH

Not to be confused with the Frank Darabont-directed made-for-television film of the same name which featured Jennifer Jason Leigh and was released in the same year, this Buried Alive, (Edgar Allan Poe's Buried Alive), was the last full-length from French filmmaker Gérard Kikoïne.  Shot in South Africa two years before it was released direct-to-video, veterans Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence with a goofy accent and wig, and, (in his first of two posthumous releases following his death),  John Carradine all share screen credits with Ginger Lynn Allen and Karen Witter in what is a lackluster girls reform school slasher dud. As many genre films +.do, it throws the Poe name into the mix arbitrarily as this is neither an adaptation of any of the celebrated author's works nor does it bother to disguise itself as such, outside of one or two vague allusions to "The Premature Burial"and "The Black Cat".  Sleaze wise, the gore is appropriately grisly for the era and Kikoïne does not skimp on the nudity when it is called for, plus he and cinematographer Gerard Loubeau get flashy with the camera movements and Gothic atmosphere.  Mostly though, this is a low-rent B-movie with known actors who have all done better stuff and are merely collecting a paycheck/embarrassing themselves here.

 

NUDIST COLONY OF THE DEAD

(1991)

Dir - Mark Pirro
Overall: WOOF

Mark Pirro keeps his groan-worthy shtick going with Nudist Colony of the Dead; another D-grade bit of stupidity that is too amatuerish to be offensive.  As the title correctly advertises, the zombies here are all naked, making a pact to murder any religious folk who venture onto their land that was taken away legally by a bunch of zealots.  They do this after Jim Jonesing a bunch of spiked Kool-Aid, which then fasts forwards a few years to a buss full of wacky youths arriving there so that a lone park ranger can rap about their doom because he is played by a black man.  Worry not, a few other racial stereotypes are utilized for no-effort gags, but the primary focus is on making fun of religious people and bombarding the running time with the worst kind of musical numbers, meaning the kind that are annoyingly catchy.  As is always the case with Pirro's Super-8 crud rocks, some of the humor is ridiculous enough to land and it gets by to a degree on how not-at-all seriously it takes itself.  Still, most of the goofy attempts are just embarrassing and cheap, unless you think it is hilarious to watch an Asian/Mexican guy speak in an over-the-top accent, cringe-worthy mugging during the song and dance moments, an asshole who takes way too long to get killed starting every sentence with "The Bible says...", two hillbillies with single digit IQs talking about hot dogs and having to shit, and one of the nudists in a rubber skin suite who looks decades dead before she even becomes a zombie.

HEAD OF THE FAMILY
(1996)
Dir - Charles Band
Overall: MEH

One of the more ridiculous entries in Charles Band's vast filmography, (which is saying much), Head of the Family is the type of campy D-budgeted hogwash that makes no qualms about how stupid it is.  Southern accents, sparsely decorated sets, flat direction, naked boobs, and a family full of freaks which is HEADed by a wheelchair-bound, torso-less, mega-craniumed J.W. Perra, the presentation is well-suited to the blackmail/mad scientist plot by Band and Neal Marshall Stevens, (Benjamin Carr).  The cheap production values are more adorable than insulting, yet the make-up effects on Perra seem to have gotten the lion's share of whatever meager budget was available since he looks wonderfully demented and hilarious.  On that note, any movie with such an asinine plot and knowingly goofy tone is bound to land at least some of its intended laughs, and the cast thankfully rises to the occasion.  Besides the aforementioned Perra who chews the scenery with his syllable-heavy dialog, Blake Adams makes for a fun and sleazy conman, Gordon Jennison Noice also makes for a fun and sleazy conman, and the charming softcore B-queen Jacqueline Lovell manages to be both naked and funny in equal measures.  The movie is no masterpiece and no one of sound mind would label it as such, but it stays in its lane, plus everyone on board nails the oddball assignment.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Five - (Wes Craven Edition)

NIGHT VISIONS

(1990)

Overall: MEH

 

The only collaboration between Wes Craven and screenwriter Thomas Baum, (who specializes in horror material), Night Visions also doubles as the final made-for-television movie that the director would ever do.  As usual, Craven lets his actors indulge themselves in however much scenery-chewing they desire and for this round, James Remar gets to go full buffoon as a raving, gleefully provoking asshole detective who is about as realistic of a character as Powdered Toast Man is.  Otherwise, this is bog-standard TV thriller territory; a police procedural with a psychic thrown into the mix who is aiding the local depa

rtment in order to catch a serial killer.  Though Remar tones it down after his ridiculous introduction and Loryn Locklin turns in an impressive performance by wildly switching personalities and feeling the emotional weight of such an affliction, Baum's script never delivers on an already formulaic premise.  The killer reveal is immediately apparent once we meet who it is, plus the plot plays fast and loose with its logical liberties, indulging in some schlocky action movie cliches in the process.

 

WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE
(1994)
Overall: MEH

With Wes Craven's New Nightmare, said filmmaker returned to the franchise that he created in an attempt to wipe things like this permanently from filmgoer's memories.  Try as he might though, Craven still cannot resist the urge to scratch his inner schlock itch.  Freddie Kruger has been given a revamped look, but the fleshy claws and black trench coat still do not get in the way of him dropping one-liners and using his evil powers for comedic effect, like when his tongue protrudes as a strangulation devise, his mouth cartoonishly widens to swallow someone, and his arm stretches out like Mr. Fantastic.  There are other missteps besides these though.  Voice overs of things that the characters said earlier are generously used just in case the audience members are morons, the digital effects are laughable, and Miko Hughe is a textbook annoying horror movie kid who whispers nursery rhymes, sleepwalks, and frequently busts out his silly evil child voice while mugging it up.  Craven utilizes rare restraint in keeping Kruger's appearances to a minimum, (as he did in the initial A Nightmare on Elm Street), and whether intentionally or not, the film ends up being more about the difficulties of a mother's need to protect her children than anything "movie within a movie" related.  Still, (as is often the case with Craven's work), it is a missed opportunity with too many noticeable and unfortunate mistakes.

 

VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN
(1995)
Overall: GOOD
 
A pairing between Wes Craven and Eddie Murphy sounds less unusual on paper than it may otherwise seem.  Craven's films had and would continue to be inherently schlocky, (most of them in an unmistakably detrimental way), and at the time, Murphy was still a viable enough, box office draw with both comedic and acting chops in spades that helped streamline their combined powers.  It is therefor ironic that motivation wise, it was Craven who wanted to make a comedy and Murphy who wanted to make a straight horror film.  While this juxtaposition is occasionally jarring in such a setting, Vampire in Brooklyn mostly manages to balances its themes decently.  Though he throws a few of his textbook dual roles into the mix, (one as an oily overweight preacher and the other as a Italian lowlife), Murphy and also Angela Bassett keep things respectably grounded while minor players Kadeem Hardison and the late John Witherspoon actually provide most of the humor.  Sans a couple of jarring editing maneuvers and some convenient plot points, the camp value is acceptable for once coming from Craven, plus the script, (which was co-authored by Charlie Murphy) is tight enough for the material.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Four

SATAN'S PRINCESS

(1990)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH

The penultimate film from director Bert I. Gordon before he briefly reemerged in 2015 to make Secrets of a Psychopath for some reason, Satan's Princess, (Malediction), is a typical straight-to-video thriller in most respects, yet the presence of an overqualified Robert Forster and a handful of ridiculous moments make noteworthy.  For a police procedural, Stephen Katz' script has a fair amount of snappy and wise-ass dialog, most of which is given to Forster who does his professional best to pretend that he is in a better movie.  There are some surprisingly exploitative bouts of gore and sex, including a lesbian relationship spearheaded by Lydie Denier, who Forster also gets to roll in ze hay with while smacking her ass and engaging in dirty talk about wanting to see her tattoo.  The plot gets convoluted at points, throwing in murdered women, an immortal demon, possession, a kid with a mullet and a learning disability, and typical cop movie cliches like dead partners and "I quit the force yet am too obsessed with my job to actually quit" nonsense.  Sleazy in a late night cable kind of way, but Denier tries to drive away in a car in full monster mode after Forster shoots her into a pool with a flamethrower, so that is worth something.

THE DARK BACKWARD

(1991)
Dir - Adam Rifkin
Overall: GOOD

 

Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward, (The Man with Three Arms), follows up his doofy boner comedy/sci-fi hybrid The Invisible Maniac and is a deliberate midnight movie anomaly.  Accurately described as Eraserhead meets Pink Flamingos, the mark of John Waters is all over the production with its tacky and filth-ridden set design and top-to-bottom oddballs on the screen, not to mention a juvenile reveling in grossness that is as uncomfortable as it is hilarious.  Stylistically, Rifkin goes one further with garish, expressive, and colorful lighting which along with the head-scratching story line and kitschy cynicism, breathes grimy life into a script that the writer/director allegedly penned when he was only nineteen.  Of course the wide cast of familiar faces makes the whole thing even more strange than it unavoidably is.  Judd Nelson is as against type as a spineless protagonist as Bill Paxton is perfectly suited doing a Bill Paxton impression as his scumbag, "human cockroach" cheerleader sidekick, stealing all of his moments with the type of jacked-up hillbilly mugging that only Paxton can effortlessly dial in when called for.  James Caan, Wayne Newton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Claudia Christian, and a cameo by Rob Lowe as a sleazy TV executive, (a year before he would do the same thing in Wayne's World), round out an ensemble of thespians who one cannot believe actually signed on to such a project.

THE KILLER EYE

(1999)

Dir - David DeCoteau

Overall: WOOF

Even by Full Moon Features standards, The Killer Eye is some poorly executed crap.  As was often the case for no budget B-movies directed by David DeCoteau, (utilizing the alias Richard Chasen here), gratuitous nakedness and sex scenes are thrown into an idiotic story line that may as well have been made up on the fly.  DeConteau has proven himself capable of delivering a couple of purposeful nyuck nyucks in his wide assortment of boobie flicks, but his work here is pathetic.  Whatever jokes may be lurking around would take a diligent level of perception to detect as the plot just bounces between roughly three cheaply decorated rooms where characters talk, take their clothes off, and occasionally interact with the killer eye of the title.  Though both Nanette Bianchi and softcore mainstay Jacqueline Lovell show off their birthday suites at regular intervals, the film is oddly homoerotic with guys fondling their shaved chests, two of them hanging out in only their underwear while bro-ing it out with candy-colored drugs, a boy prostitute who becomes the first victim of the monstrous optical organ, and a Reg Park Hercules poster chilling in the background.  The premise is ridiculous and there is no attempt to hide the insufficient production values, but the whole thing is flatly delivered without emphasizing its camp appeal, completely missing the mark in the process.

90's American Horror Part Fifty-Three

SPIRITS
(1990)
Dir - Fred Olen Ray
Overall: WOOF

A hilariously awful and aggressive hodgepodge of all things hack is what makes up Fred Olen Ray's ridiculous Spirits; a movie that channels so many other movies that one could make a drinking game out of spotting the references.  This drinking game would result in alcohol poisoning to be sure, but such a low-rent and embarrassing conglomerate of cliches is exactly what makes it a fun, stupid mess.  The Amityville Horror, The Evil Dead, The Legend of Hell House, The Exorcist, nunsploitation, and good ole late night cable sleaze all come together with an unmistakably ill-equipped budget.  Ray even managed to score veterans Erick Estrada as a troubled priest and Robert Quarry as an inquisitive scientist, with the director's usual sidekicks Brinke Stevens and an uncredited Michelle Bauer showing up, though the later only does so to take off her clothes in one scene because of course.  Some naked boobs, prosthetic demon make-up, a little indoor fog, and an obnoxious cheap keyboard score that never once shuts the hell up provide some exploitative and atmospheric ingredients, but Ray's unabashed presentation is what beats the viewer over the head.  One can either applaud or feel sorry for these actors who get/have to chew the scenery in a cheap haunted house setting, but it never stops being ridiculous, which in this case, is as it should be.

 

HAUNTEDWEEN

(1991)

Dir - Doug Robertson

Overall: MEH

 

The only movie of any kind from Kentucky native Doug Robertson, HauntedWeen continues a long tradition of Z-rent regional horror movies made by nonprofessionals, with equally inexperienced people in front of the lens as well.  On paper, it has a typical "guy in a Halloween mask goes around murdering sexually promiscuous college kids" slasher framework, but it does not get to this until about fifty minutes in, that is unless you count a prologue where we meet our clandestine killer when he was a creepy kid that accidentally murders another kid when trying to scare her in a makeshift haunted house.  The majority of the proceedings is just a boner comedy with terrible music.  Shot on 16 mm, Robertson pulls off some acceptable results though, with plenty of fog, naked boobs, colorful atmospheric lighting, slow motion kill scenes, and competent if unremarkable cinematography.  Aside from some cringe dialog and one of the actors putting on an exaggerated cartoon-character hillbilly accent, the cast of unknowns handle the tongue-in-cheek material with a sense of surprising professionalism, plus the movie even manages to be intentionally funny at irregular intervals.  This can be said about the entire production actually which is far from great by its very design and meager means, yet also not as embarrassing as it has every right to be.

 

BLACK MAGIC

(1992)
Dir - Daniel Taplitz
Overall: MEH

Casting Judge Reinhold as the lead in a goofy witch movie seems logical enough, yet casting him as the romantic lead may teeter on the side of ill-advised. Black Magic was the second supernatural-themed made-for-TV comedy/horror film from writer/director Daniel Taplitz, which appeared on Showtime without making a memorable dent on anyone's radar.  This is easy to understand since the results are formulaic and forgettable, with a plot that takes a page out of John Landis' An American Werewolf in London by having Reinhold hounded by his presumably dead cousin, (Anthony LaPaglia), that keeps telling him that he will not leave him alone until he kills someone.  That someone is his old fling/Reinhold's new fling Rachel Ward, a smirking minx who runs a bowling alley and practices the mystical arts.  Brion James is also present and is either dubbed or does a smashing Ross Perot impression, but the minimal star power can only do so much with juvenile gags and a dragging plot that never seems to land its tone.  The attempted funny moments are hit or miss, and Reinhold and Ward, (though both professionals), play things more seriously than silly.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Twenty-Five

CLASH OF THE TITANS
(1981)
Dir - Desmond Davis
Overall: GOOD

Notable as the last film that famed stop-motion maverick Ray Harryhausen worked on, Clash of the Titans is an exemplary culmination of the man's abilities.  As is often the case with such fantasy films, Harryhausen's involvement is the main attraction.  This means that everything from Beverly Cross' script, to Desmond Davis' direction, to the Shakespearean performances by a mix of both lesser known and renowned thespians all play second fiddle to the spectacle of Medusa, the Kraken, Calibos, (also performed in close-up by character actor Neil McCarthy), the two-headed demon dog Dioskilos, a giant vulture, Bubo the R2-D2-esque owl, and Pegasus.  The film is thankfully light on story and even sparse on dialog for long portions as it throws in one special effects showcase after the other, appeasing any and everyone coming to such a movie in the first place.  As a big-budget retelling of the Greek myth Perseus, (played blandly enough by Harry Hamlin), it is faithful to a point and tells a proper tale of jealousy, revenge, heroic triumph, and true love winning the day.  Throw in Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom, Ursula Andress, and Burgess Meredith in togas, (plus some excellent location shooting in Italy), and this proves to be a cromulent epic.

 

LIQUID SKY

(1982)

Dir - Slava Tsukerman

Overall: MEH

 

Like most seminal midnight movies, Liquid Sky exists in its own universe.  The theatrical debut from Russian filmmaker Slava Tsukerman, (who had a lengthy career making documentaries and short films both in his homeland and Israel before moving to New York where this movie is set), it is a puzzling if not maddening watch that takes a singular look into the seedier aspects of Manhattan's New Wave culture.  It also does so via UFO voyeurism, as a toy-sized space ship lands on top of the Empire State Building and zaps anyone who reaches an orgasm.  There is a lot of goofiness to be found in the script, which is a combination of one from Tsukerman and another from his wife Nina V. Kerova and lead actor Anne Carlisle, the latter who portrays two different androgynous characters.  The dialog is hilariously vile and delivered with sterile matter of factness at times, plus the costume and set design is all German Expressionism by-way-of neon, drugged-out night life.  Sadly though, the presentation grows more aloof than fascinating and the excessive running time feels its length as unlikable characters persistently doom each other in their quest to get laid, get high, and reject the conformity of both vanilla-flavored society and their own anti-establishment clique.

 

SOLE SURVIVOR
(1984)
Dir - Thom Eberhardt
Overall: MEH
 
The full-length debut from director Thom Ederhardt, (whose Night of the Comet was released the same year), Sole Survivor wins points for adding some bizarre touches and atmosphere to a quasi-slasher framework, but its story is too flat.  Featuring no notable actors sans Brinke Stevens who shows up just to take her top off in a strip poker game, it has some Carnival of Souls/Messiah of Evil energy in fits in starts.  When Anita Skinner encounters motionless strangers who stare at her from a distance and David F. Anthony's musical score emits an ominous low-end hum, the film creates a creepy aura that is unfortunately unmatched by most of everything else that happens.  There is an unstable actor who gets premonitions and starts behaving erratically, a budding romance that goes nowhere, and people do not believe any of the mysterious tales that Skinner tells because A) she just underwent a trauma where she was the only one to walk away from a plane crash unscathed and B) she is a woman.  This is a shame since a handful of moments are chilling and the care was taken to give it a sinister and schlock-free mood, but the approach deserves a more engaging narrative.

80's American Horror Part One-Hundred and Twenty-Four

HOSPITAL MASSACRE

(1981)

Dir - Boaz Davidson

Overall: WOOF

 

A lone slasher film from Israeli B-movie director Boaz Davidson, Hospital Massacre, (X-Ray, Be My Valentine, Or Else, Ward 13), is as insultingly stupid and lazy as any of the other nine-hundred of them that came out in 1981.  This one has Barbi Benton stuck in a hospital by inconceivably flimsy means, spending most of the movie in a short patient gown and providing the obligatory nude scene that her protagonist only goes along with because the script says so.  Like most slasher garbage, the plot only gets from point A to point B if plausibility is ignored, and there are only so many predictable beats and moments where bodies drop like flies, women scream bloody murder, and nobody does anything about it that the audience can stand.  It is moronic enough to tiptoe into parody terrain, but the presentation plays itself too conventionally straight to excuse this as self-aware trash, plus the kill scenes are lame and mostly bloodless, so it could not even get that right.  The soundtrack is cool, but even Friday the 13th had a memorable score and that hardly saved it from also being a piece of shit.

 

THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET

(1984)
Dir - John Sayles
Overall: GOOD

In the annals of fish-out-of-water alien visitation films, John Sayles' The Brother from Another Planet is one of the more singular.  Made independently and shot on location in and around Harlem without such things as permits or passable special effects, Sayles instead goes for an intimate aesthetic which is benefited by future director Ernest R. Dickerson's unassuming cinematography.  The city here is technically depicted as naturalistic, but through Joe Morton's point of view, it is a puzzling landscape full of different languages, graffiti, record stores, pawn shops, arcades, bars, junkies, criminals, and benevolent types who spill their guts to him unsolicited.  Morton turns in an effective performance as the mute extraterrestrial who travels from one inconsequential vignette to the next like a curious puppy.  Having him crash land on Ellis Island from outer space gives the narrative a clear cultural appropriation trajectory, but for most of the running time, the story is more of a "fly on the wall" look at urban existence as opposed to a thought-provoking one.  This could be due to the light tone which does not get more potent until the closing moments, but its minimalist and unobtrusive approach is what makes it so interesting.

GRAVE SECRETS

(1989)

Dir - Donald P. Borchers

Overall: MEH

Though it continually spirals into unintentionally laughable schlock, Grave Secrets, (Secret Scream), has some interesting qualities to make it a notable oddity.  The first of three films directed by producer Donald P. Borchers, it has a wooden Paul Le Mat in the lead, Renée Soutendijk spending all of her scenes as if she is about to have a nervous breakdown, stuntman character actor Bob Herron as an odious dad, David Warner getting possessed by said odious dad, and Lee Ving as a redneck troublemaker who finds a buried severed head.  Borchers and cinematographer Jamie Thompson keep the camera angles inventive and there are curious editing techniques utilized, but these along with some head-scratching foibles gives it a clunky presentation to say the least.  The tone shifts frequently as some of the people on screen behave as if they are in a comedy while others are deadly serious at the same time, plus the music, garish monster make-up, amateurish special effects, arbitrary supernatural logic, disturbing plot points, pacing lulls, and hilarious set pieces, (that are probably not supposed to be hilarious), all create a cacophony of inconsistency.  Under a more skilled director's hands and with everyone in front of the screen getting on the same page, something agreeable could have been made with the ingredients here, but as it stands, this is messy stuff.