1980s American Horror Part Forty-Five

FUTURE-KILL
(1985)
Dir - Ronald W. Moore
Overall: MEH

A daft pairing of dystopian sci-fi action and college boner comedy, Future-Kill, (Night of the Alien), is the only directorial effort from Ronald W. Moore and may be of interest to genre fans for containing both Edwin Neal and Marilyn Burns from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Also, H.R. Giger did the poster art because money is a necessary evil in Switzerland too.  Otherwise, we have a cast of nobodies roaming around Austin, Texas who are getting picked off by a toxic-poisoned protestor named Splatter who is dressed like a Mad Max villain, has a penchant for reckless and anti-authoritarian murder, plus he calls a prostitute a "worthless shit cunt" for having the audacity of wanting to give him head.  Because 1985, there is liberal use of the word "faggot", a musical sequence in a punk rock club, and if one is generous, they can see this as a timely commentary on the class struggles inherent in the Reagan era where privileged frat boys ultimately team up with the less fortunate city folk who use theatricality and tattered costumes to make a statement against...something.  Though Moore tries to interject a little post-apocalyptic atmosphere with rubbery armor, colorful fog, people with Lone Ranger-worthy mascara on, and streets littered with trash, the minuscule budget sticks out every step of the way and it comes off as a dopey and sluggish exorcise in D-rent exploitation.

PSYCHO III

(1986)

Dir - Anthony Perkins

Overall: GOOD

 

The first of only two directorial efforts from Anthony Perkins, Psycho III naturally finds him reprising his role as Norman Bates in full-blown cuckoo mode.  Fresh off the moderately well-received Psycho II from four years prior, Perkins is still effortlessly disturbed, be it less sympathetically than before and Jeff Fahey makes for a charming and genuinely amusing scumbag as well.  As far as Perkins' directorial skills go, they are admirable and flashy, ultimately providing a more interesting selling point than simply furthering the franchise with yet another excuse to have a bunch more murders go down at the Bates Motel.  There are some fun, ambitious camera angles and stylized visuals, making it is a shame that the film garnished such a lukewarm box office reception as to limit Perkins' future chances to prove himself from the director's chair.  He and screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue throw some dark humor into the mix, like early on during Bates' first scene where he uses the same spoon to stuff sawdust into a dead bird as he does peanut-butter onto a cracker, as well as later where he tries to nonchalantly hide a dead body in an ice cooler.  It gets heavy handed at times with religious themes, plus the script's attempts at deepening the mythology are unfortunate at best, yet the film is well realized for what could have been instantly forgettable at best.

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE

(1988)

Dir - Stephen Chiodo

Overall: GOOD

One of the 1980's best of many deliberately campy, tailor-made cult films was the Chiodo brothers' Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  The only full-length project that was written, directed and produced by the special effects brother team of Stephen, Edward, and Charles Chiodo, it parodies many of the drive-in sci-fi and monster movie tropes from the 50s and 60s.  This includes the predictable plot structure and formulaic characters who fall victim to one clown-related gag after the other.  The title tells one everything that they need to know in this regard, plus endless mileage is gotten out of wacky set pieces like human cotton candy cocoons, a balloon animal sniffing dog, deadly popcorn guns, a flying saucer shaped like a circus tent, killer shadow puppets, and a police chief turned into a ventriloquist dummy, to name but a few.  Coming from a creative team who worked on everything from Pee-wee's Big Adventure, to Critters, to Team America: World Police, the design work is endlessly inventive.  Each title alien is uniquely and grotesquely stylized and along with the It miniseries from two years later, it was probably enough to help permanently transform clowns into the things of nightmares. As they should be.

1980s American Horror Part Forty-Four

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

(1982)

Dir - Tommy Lee Wallace

Overall: MEH

Though it was not a financially viable move and ultimately did not stick, it is at least an interesting one to make the third installment in the Halloween franchise a stand-alone entry which was meant to establish the series as an anthology.  Halloween III: Season of the Witch infamously has no Michael Myers and thankfully is not a slasher movie.  Instead, it concocts a truly bizarre story originally conceived by prolific British science fiction writer Nigel Kneale, who had his name removed after script tampering took place.  Director Tommy Lee Wallace then stepped into to rework it and the result mixes Celtic witchcraft, robots, brainwashing, and Jack-o'-lantern masks or something.  It gets as many points as possible for being unique and Wallace even manages to stage a few genuinely creepy as well as inventive and weird gross-out moments throughout.  Much of this is helped by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's typically fantastic synth score which sets a deliberately eerie mood.  Genre favorite Tom Atkins is compelling enough in the lead, especially in the third act when the film becomes a frantic race against the clock.  Sadly, the script is ridiculous and the large bulk of the movie is poorly paced.  The consistently low-key approach, though admirable, simply does not carry it through and the plot holes jive all the more because of this.

DEADTIME STORIES

(1986)

Dir - Jeffrey Delman

Overall: WOOF

Inconsistently is usually a given with anthology movies as the quality of each individual narrative can fluctuate even within the best of them.  Rarer and much worse is when these films are front-to-back terrible, and such is the case with Jeffrey Delman's directorial debut Deadtime Stories, (Freaky Fairy-Tales, The Griebels from Deadtime Stories).  A horror comedy that is tonally askew, things start off straight-forward yet boringly enough with a segment about Scott Valentine being used as an errand boy for two witches, followed by two contemporary reworkings of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Goldilocks".  The zaniness is awkwardly escalated to the point where the aforementioned "Goldi Lox and the Three Baers" is equipped with fast-forward shenanigans and cartoon noises when characters make goofy faces and fall down.  The whole thing is structured around some annoying kid who refuses to go to bed, with his even more idiotic uncle thinking that telling him scary stories will somehow make his nephew's fears of there being a monster in his room go away.  Even with some mild nudity, boner humor, a skeleton oozing back to fleshy life, a werewolf, and a puppet goblin thing, it is all an embarrassing mess that manages to be persistently dull.

HIGH SPIRITS

(1988)

Dir - Neil Jordan

Overall: GOOD

 

The first foray into comedy from filmmaker Neil Jordan, High Spirits was allegedly manhandled in the editing room, which Jordan and many others involved have blamed on the movie's poor box office and critical reception.  It does have a disjointed feel, but the duel-premise of a wife-swapping love story mixed with an Irish haunted castle scam turning into a real one is solid enough.  Jordan and Michael McDowell's script does a poor job of establishing its supernatural rules though.  Things increasingly go off the rails and many of the set pieces would be funnier if not for how nonsensical and random they are.  Part of the charm is indeed how loud and goofy everything gets, and the solid, largely recognizable cast helps said charm along.  Peter O'Toole is delightful as the perpetually shitfaced castle owner Peter Plunkett and Steve Guttenberg, Daryl Hannah, Liam Neeson, and Beverely D'Angelo are just a few of the other big names that are in top form.  For horror fans, there is plenty of fun Gothic atmosphere, some solid ghoulish makeup, and laughably dated special effects.  The story-line is an absolute mess and so is the entire film really, but it is an entertaining mess to be sure.

1980s American Horror Part Forty-Three

SATURDAY THE 14TH

(1981)

Dir - Howard R. Cohen

Overall: WOOF

 

The only thing really worse than a horror movie with no scares is a comedy with no laughs.  Writer/director Howard R. Cohen's debut Saturday the 14th rather miraculously pulls off dropping the ball in such a way where both genres are concerned.  Produced by Julie Corman and staring husband and wife team Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, the movie plays a one-note, would-be gag of a family not noticing that their house is overrun by an endless stream of supernatural occurrences and creatures.  Except when they do notice it, no one believes them, they convince themselves they were dreaming, or just do not say anything to anyone for no decipherable reason.  While it spoofs a random hodgepodge of horror tropes, Cohen's particular style of humor is groan-inducing in its simplicity.  Jokes are attempted at an aggressive rate, but they all rely on both the audience and the characters to be operating at the lowest possible brain capacity.  Even the makeup and costume designs are as D-rent as you would expect and provide probably the only chuckles in the whole film, be it of the unintended variety.  It all gets old before it even gets going and though it is a brisk seventy-six minutes in length, one is likely to wish it was seventy-six minutes shorter.

THE BEING

(1983)

Dir - Jackie Kong

Overall: MEH

 

The filmmaking debut from a fresh out of college Jackie Kong, The Being has some mild references to the comedic hallmarks apparent in her future work.  That said, one could hardly mistake this as coming from the same person who brought us Blood Diner.  Made in 1981 though it did not see a release until two years later, it is a cheap monster movie from top to bottom yet also one that somehow snagged Martin Landau, Dorothy Malone, and José Ferrer.  In typical fashion, said monster looks pretty unconvincing and is primarily kept off screen until the last twenty minutes, though it comes off as more effective when lurking in heavy shadows and in close-ups.  The film is largely unremarkable to look at as Kong this early in her career does not showcase a keen eye for visuals or pacing for that matter.  Featuring poorly-lit, standard shot construction coupled with the highly generic story line and uninteresting characters, there is very little present to keep the viewer's thoughts from persistently drifting.  Other amatuerish qualities such as an abandoned narration track halfway through help make it more of an unorthodox curiosity really.  Though incidental music is used sparingly, this unfortunately does not create an engaging, suspenseful atmosphere either, as perhaps was intended.  Commendable maybe as a first try, but quite forgettable all the same.

GHOULIES

(1985)

Dir - Luca Bercovici

Overall: MEH

Somehow, actor-turned-director Luca Bercovici's behind the lens debut manages to be both camp-fueled and boring at the same time.  Though it was part of the tiny monster boom that began with the previous year's Gremlins, (and went into production around the same time), Ghoulies hardly emphasizes such mini-creatures.  They instead appear more as an afterthought, showing up halfway through the movie and ultimately only attacking about two characters.  It is more of an occult film really and a botched one at that.  The premise is quite simple, but the story breaks its own rules frequently and is hardly that interesting to begin with.  Though it stickily adheres to a very silly tone, most of the characters are more obnoxious than funny, which makes the persistent over-acting something which fails to deliver its intended chuckles.  On paper, summoning small puppet demons and two midgets, having your eyes glow green while you yell demonic chants, and resurrecting your dead and equally demonic dad who wants to kiss you to suck out all your life-force or something should be far more of a hoot that this.  At least Jack Nance makes a small appearance and narrates occasionally so there is that.

1980s American Horror Part Forty-Two

THE BEAST WITHIN

(1982)

Dir - Philippe Mora

Overall: MEH

For a horror movie, forgoing story and character development for gruesomeness and making the death scenes as memorable as possible is a common route to take.  The Beast Within was rushed into production before Edward Levy's novel that it was supposed to be based on was even finished, with future filmmaker Tom Holland here screenwriting to the best of his abilities by basically only being able to go off of the title.  There is a beast and he does seem to lurk within one of the characters so, job well done there.  Director Philippe Mora digs up some textbook atmosphere throughout, but the plotting is meandering.  Everyone on screen is either boring or unlikable, so nothing that they are engaged in is all that interesting.  It is basically people going missing, other people going to look for them, violently murdered bodies being found, then rinse and repeat.  It does not help much when up until the last twenty minutes, your villain is just a sweaty teenager who opens his eyes wide and yells really loud.  When he does go full air bladder monster transformation, it is a fun scene even if logically it is ridiculous that a room full of people just stand there watching it when one of them is armed and was fully intent on shooting him beforehand anyway.

GHOST FEVER
(1987)
Dir - Lee Madden
Overall: WOOF

Lee Madden's final directorial effort was one of many that was credited to Alan Smithee which as history usually dictates, is not a good sign.  Another lighthearted horror comedy from the era, Ghost Fever has a wacky enough premise of television mainstays Sherman Hemsley and Luis Ávalos buddy-copping it through a haunted Southern mansion, but the humor itself leaves everything to be desired.  A low budget production to begin with that was kept from being released for two years allegedly due to various re-edits and re-shoots, the finished product is coherent yet also relentlessly lousy.  The novelty of seeing an African American and a Latino man square-off against a bigoted plantation owner from beyond the grave means that racism is played for laughs, but so is slavery torture, groin humor, mild profanity, an embarrassing dance-off, and lots of people falling down.  As far as ghoulish elements go, there is a voodoo curse, a vampire, some ghosts that are visible for no reason, ghosts that are invisible for no reason and have to dress as a mummy to be seen, zombies, a séance, fog, a dungeon, crumbling catacombs, and ectoplasm pills.  Also, heavyweight champ Joe Frazier.  The whole thing is neither spooky enough to be fun, dumb enough to be funny, or funny enough to be funny.

HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS

(1988)

Dir - Fred Olen Ray

Overall: GOOD

Prolific B-movie maverick Fred Olen Ray delivered one of the most truth-in-advertising exploitation films of the decade with the gleefully stupid Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, (Hollywood Hookers in the UK since the word "chainsaw" was outlawed by censors).  Made on a budget that looks like some pocket change at best, the entire premise is ridiculous on paper and just as ridiculous on camera.  The cast is delightfully in on it and features scream queens Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer as well as Leatherface himself Gunnar Hansen as a mild-mannered, chainsaw cult leader because that is a thing in this movie.  Ray keeps the proceedings bloody, naked, and silly throughout, stylizing everything as an classic noir, with Jay Richardson's hard boiled private eye, (or private "dick" which gets as many jokes out of it as you would guess), narrating everything.  It drags in a few places and many of the gags are more funny due to how purposely groan-worthy they are than anything else, but the movie basks in its absurdity and juvenile sleaze.  Naked ladies of the evening eagerly chop up their clients with a generous amount of blood-splatter and limb-tossing carnage, plus the movie spoofs multiple genres in the most intentionally low-rent way possible.  What more could anyone want based on such ingredients?  Not bloody well much.

1980s American Horror Part Forty-One

NIGHTBEAST

(1982)

Dir - Don Dohler

Overall: WOOF

 

This no budget, no talent crap-job from amateur filmmaker Don Dohler acts as a part remake to his debut The Alien Factor.  Done with some of the same "actors" and about ten thousand extra dollars, (not that you would notice), Nightbeast is embarrassing from top to bottom.  Dohler has absolutely no sense of pacing or staging and not one line reading from his unprofessional, unphotogenic, and uncharasmatic cast comes off as anything except unintentionally hilarious.  The cinematography is exclusively flat and made up of nothing except stock wide shots and closeups, all of which garnish no atmosphere whatsoever.  When the movie does try and spice things up with a strobe-light and some slow motion, the results are just as laughably pathetic.  Same goes for some limb-ripping gore and occasional nudity, including a sex scene that is just as laugh-out-loud awkward as it is random.  The creature design is also quite lame, but the movie may be of some interest for having a musical score done by a sixteen year-old J.J. Abrams which is probably the only moderately acceptable production aspect present.

VAMP

(1986)

Dir - Richard Wenk

Overall: MEH

 

The first full-length from writer/director Richard Wenk, Vamp is an average, occasionally clever vampire comedy from a decade ripe with them.  The premise of an undead-infested strip club would be put to far more outrageous and better use in Robert Rodriguez' From Dusk till Dawn ten years later, but Wenk gets some solid mileage out of it here, (even if this fits into that rather silly category of strippers who never actually get naked).  The art direction and set design is fantastic, with fog-drenched, vivid greens and purples constantly playing against each other.  There is hardly a shot in the film that is not atmospheric and stylized, plus Grace Jones as the non-speaking, head vampiress is perfectly cast in such a regard.  While some of the jokes land and most of the horror set pieces deliver, the script just as frequently loses its footing.  Things meander a bit in the third act, some characters are given underdeveloped quirks, plot holes are present, and there are a handful of would-be funny gags that instead lean on the side of groan-worthy.  It is frequently entertaining, but nevertheless falls short of the seminal status your Fright Nights and Lost Boys far more prominently achieve.

NIGHTMARE AT NOON

(1988)

Dir - Nico Mastorakis

Overall: MEH

 

Another half-baked genre attempt from co-writer/director Nico Mastorakis, Nightmare at Noon, (Death Street USA), has some nice, rural Utah location shooting, a hilariously forced "case of the not-gays", Brion James as an albino/government agent mute, Wings Hauser being an asshole, and green slime that shoots out of people when bullets hit them.  Despite such factors making it all sound like a hoot, it is actually a monotonous slog, with one of the least exciting final acts in B-movie history that sees Bo Hopkins venturing into the desert to have a shoot-out which is boring enough to sleep through, followed by a helicopter chase that is equally as stodgy.  George Kennedy seemed hellbent on appearing in as many horror movies as he was offered during the 1980s and he fits the small town sheriff tag well enough here, but he and rest of the cast are powerless against such a bare-bones story that never picks up momentum and blows its initial premise where random citizens start turning into rage zombies.  Characters seem to hate each other until they do not, Hopskins is frustratingly aloof as a drifter ex-cop who is too old fashioned to settle down, (and is also apparently irresistible to women who look half his age), James is completely wasted, and it all ends as if the creative parties involved hardly cared about what they were making in the first place.

1980s American Horror Part Forty

THE BOOGENS

(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.

HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF

(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.

CELLAR DWELLER

(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.

1980s American Horror Part Thirty-Nine

GHOST STORY

(1981)

Dir - John Irvin

Overall: MEH

John Irvin's adaptation of Peter Straub's novel Ghost Story is mostly noticeable as the final screen performance for Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks, and Melvyn Douglas.  A studio horror film made at the height of the slasher boom and staring elderly white men in the leads, featuring a lush, romantic musical score, and told twice in elongated flashbacks sounds positively old fashioned on paper.  It does have some fantastic, practical ghoulish makeup effects, (and dated visual ones), to help contemporize it, but the overall structure and story are a far cry from campgrounds, high school dances, and slumber parties getting terrorized by masked murderers.  The veteran actors bring an unmistakable class to the proceedings, but the film primarily belongs to Alice Krige who turns in her first but not last thoroughly creepy screen performance.  She is ideally cast as the haunting and alluring Eva Galli, conveying a natural presence of sinister mystery that becomes more macabre as things progress.  Director John Irvin does not necessarily keep up the most brisk pace though and the first act is choppy and borderline incomprehensible.  It ultimately feels its running time too much, only delivering a couple memorable chills in fleeting moments.

CUJO

(1983)

Dir - Lewis Teague

Overall: MEH

 

The fundamental problem with a film like Cujo is that the entire price of admission is predicated on one moment.  Though that moment takes up the last forty-minutes of the movie, that leaves the first fifty to be dedicated to character establishing that ultimately matters not at all.  Stephen King's novel was able to use such a build up to flesh-out the characters to a point that once the dog attack takes over, we were still treated to the inner monologue of Donna Trenton, (played quite excellently here by everyone's favorite 80s mom Dee Wallace).  In cinematic form though, everything playing out as a part waiting game rather lulls the viewer to sleep before stuff get heart-racing.  Once it does kick into gear, it progress rather satisfyingly though.  Director Lewis Teague does decent work with the St. Bernard as monster premise, making such scenes thoroughly intense even if they are technically rather monotonous.  For animal lovers, it does get depressing to see a big, lovable K9 go insane with rabies, but considering that it is the entire hook of the story itself, anyone partaking would be fully aware of what they are getting into.  In that respect, Cujo kind of works even if it is low on story and high on boredom for half the running time.

CRITTERS 2: THE MAIN COURSE

(1986)

Dir - Mick Garris

Overall: GOOD

The second entry in the Critters franchise Critters 2: The Main Course is a goofy, kindred spirit to the original as well as a marked improvement overall.  Mick Garris steps in, getting his second chance to be behind the lens after his kiddie TV movie Fuzzbucket and he and fellow screenwriter David Twohy, (who also wrote Warlock and The Fugitive before going onto the Riddick series), come up with a couple amusing set pieces.  A guy in an Easter bunny costume gets his crotch attacked by the title monsters, one of the alien/doppelganger bounty hunters turns into a Playboy centerfold, (with the staple from the magazine pages in tow), a Critter massacre goes down in a burger joint, and then there is the giant Critter ball of course.  The tone is considerably more ridiculous than the first film, which is very much a good thing.  Garris gets the introductory first act out of the way rather quickly, keeping up a steady pace of cartoon-level, juvenile gags and violence from there on out.  Formulaic and purposely stupid yes, but a good amount of fun at being so.