1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Seven

MAUSOLEUM

(1983)

Dir - Michael Dugan

Overall: WOOF

 

Certainly in the realm of "so bad it's still bad but hilarious", Mausoleum rather consistently delivers in unintended hysterics.  Written by producers Robert Barich and Robert Madero, (the former also serving as cinematographer), it is a standard possession story on paper.  In execution though, a series of baffling choices elevate it into something cartoonishly stupid.  Though it is an American movie, the ADR dubbing is worse and more awkward then what is commonly found in the worst and most awkward foreign film, the editing has a handful of noticeable mistakes, the performances are alarmingly ridiculous, and the conventional horror score is interrupted by a new jack swing song during a sex scene, Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me", and the Sanford and Son theme during a purposely funny moment where LaWanda Page says "good googly moogly" and runs out of a house scared.  In her screen debut, buxom Bobbie Bresee goes for broke as a scene-chewing, demonic, horned-up trophy wife and spends more scenes bugging her eyes out and barring her teeth than is usually permitted.  The practical effects and death scenes are pretty wild as well and though it is all too accidentally inept to legitimately champion, it is definitely fun for all of the wrong reasons.

 

ZOMBIE HIGH

(1987)

Dir - Rob Link
Overall: MEH

 

One of the most forgettable films to misleadingly label itself as a horror comedy, (especially coming from an era that was brimful of them), Zombie High, (The School That Ate My Brain), quite daftly blows its potential at delivering whatever one would expect from the goofy title.  The sole directorial effort of any kind from Rob Link, (whose only other IMDB entry is appearing in Andy Warhol's never released Batman Dracula), the movie practically forgets the "high" part as it takes place at a boarding school that is more like a university than anything else.  The "zombies" show up for about five seconds and not until there is twelve minutes left in the running time.  By then, things do finally get slightly campy, but the sluggish slog to get there that treats the material like it is some kind of genuine suspense thriller is absolutely not worth it.  Why Sherilyn Fenn and especially Virginia Madsen signed on is anybody's guess, though it is slightly amusing to spot Paul Feig in a minor role as a dork that cannot get a date to save his life.  Still, the script sucks, the special effects suck, and the music really sucks so the only reputation it deserves is "next please".

PHANTOM OF THE MALL: ERIC'S REVENGE

(1989)

Dir - Richard Friedman

Overall: MEH

A particularly boring slasher variant of the Phantom of the Opera motif, Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge blows nearly all of its potential as a valley girl spoof on the formula.  Judging by the title, one would assume that it would play up the schlock yet instead, director Richard Friedman stages everything as if it is an engaging, sinister drama.  The still lame yet comparatively superior Chopping Mall had much more fun with its setting as well as boasting a more singular premise.  Here, there is just some guy boringly killing people that he wants revenge on while leaving clues for his girlfriend who presumes that he died in a fire.  The performances are in keeping with the lackluster presentation and even Pauly Shore tones down his "hey buuuudy" surfer vibe and just comes off like a run of the mill fast food employee.  There is a mild attempt at making the kill scenes memorable, but so many movies like this had tried to one-up each other in such a regard throughout the decade that again, it is simply not over the top enough.  Without leaning into any of the would-be inherent silliness plus barely servicing as a homage to old school monster movies, what is left is just something that can far too easily be forgotten about seconds after the credits role.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Six

THE UNSEEN

(1980)

Dir - Danny Steinmann

Overall: MEH

 

The first non-porno film from director Danny Steinmann, (who would go on to do Savage Streets and the fifth Friday the 13th installment), The Unseen is a mediocre, predictable, quasi-slasher offering.  Featuring Barbara Bach and an amusingly hammy performance from character actor Sydney Lassick as a deranged museum curator, it has familiar aspects to David Schmoeller's Tourist Trap yet it is hardly as inventive.  There are some perverse elements to please exploitation fans though, (incest, nudity), but the gore factor is relatively tame.  Besides one or two eccentric scene-chewing moments with Lassick, the movie is predominately dull.  Bach's character is given a side-arc with an ex boyfriend that brings everything to a boring stand still and the entire last act is incredibly monotonous and one-note.  Nothing here is particularly bad and it is certainly passable for a low-expectation, sleazy B-movie, but it is a lot of the same stuff that has been done more memorably elsewhere.

DEAD OF WINTER

(1987)

Dir - Arthur Penn

Overall: MEH

 

This quasi-remake of the 1945 noir film My Name Is Julia Ross has an interesting build up with a hum-drum resolution.  Dead of Winter was initially directed by co-screenwriter Marc Shmuger, then producer John Bloomgarden, and finally Arthur Penn who was given official and sole credit.  Despite the changing of behind the camera personnel, it is tight from a production standpoint.  Mary Steenbergen technically plays three roles, though only one of them as a duped actress is given primarily screen time and she makes a solid victim there.  Roddy McDowell is his always excellent self in a more sinister turn than usual, though his polite, English charm still manages to come through, (which in fact makes him all the more unsettling).  A few tense revelations are well staged and it successfully plays off of the "no one believes a hysterical woman" motif, yet once Steenbergen gets the upper hand against her two kidnappers as well as herself, (long story), it delivers more of a yawn than a gasp.  It is still enjoyable in normal doses if one can forgive some more forgettable aspects.

CREEPOZOIDS

(1987)

Dir - David DeCoteau

Overall: MEH

The first horror movie from the ridiculously prolific, D-rent schlock peddler David DeCoteau was the ultra cheap, ultra dumb Alien knock-off Creepozoids.  DeCoteau was one of countless Roger Corman protegees and it certainly shows as his work here is more a triumph of low-budget will than anything else.  Filmed entirely in a warehouse over a fifteen day shooting schedule and with a minimal cast of the world's most sort of passable actors, (including the always charming Linnea Quigley who of course delivers her obligatory nude scene), it has a serious tone which is probably the oddest thing about it.  The creature effects are certainly embarrassing, (sans a weird, creepy monster baby at the end), yet DeCoteau at least tries to obscure them in darkness and through quick cuts.  It is only atmospheric in an amateur hour sense though as the director's chosen style is primarily to stage long takes in boring mid-shots and with standard lighting.  If the film leaned into its stupidity a bit more as several of DeCoteau's other entries in his exclusively B-movie filmography would, then it could be more of a hoot.  Instead, it is just kind of cheap and pathetic.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Five

FULL MOON HIGH

(1981)

Dir - Larry Cohen

Overall: MEH

 

Pre-dating the somewhat similar premised Teen Wolf by four years, (except the teenage protagonist here is a football player instead of a basketball one), Larry Cohen's Full Moon High is the only bonafide comedy in his filmography.  More aggressively moronic than actually funny, it has an intentional B-movie spoof vibe that is similar to John DeBello's Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and falls flat nearly half as much.  Adam Arkin's lead werewolf makes lame wise-cracks as he is transforming and every other character regularly behaves in as unnatural of a manner as possible, with cartoon-level silliness going on in every scene.  Being an early 80s comedy, there are several hardly subtle gay jokes of the flamboyant variety thrown in that have not aged well, but they are at least not mean spirited.  Cameos by Pat Morita, Demond Wilson, Arkin's dad Alan, and even Bob Saget playing a teenager for five seconds are kind of fun to spot, plus Ed McMahon of all people seems to be enjoying himself as a bizarre, anticommunist father with a bomb shelter and a busy libido.  The wolfman makeup is as lousy as the pedestrian jokes are and the rapid-fire, slice and dice pace gets a bit irksome when the entire movie consistently does everything it can to not be clever.

NOMADS

(1986)

Dir - John McTiernan

Overall: MEH

 

The debut Nomads from legendary action director John McTiernan is quite a different endeavor than his more famous movies, both in subject matter and quality.  Admirably bold for his first time behind the lens, the filmmaker goes for a surreal, thriller atmosphere that unfortunately becomes incomprehensible along the way.  Both Irish-born Pierce Brosnan and Australian Anna Maria Monticelli speak in French accents that are difficult to make out and ultimately not integral to the story, a story that has a nifty premise at least where one woman relives the memory of a dead man, regaining consciousness in the actual location that her mysterious visions leave off.  All of this coupled with the flashy editing give it an impenetrable feel though, perhaps intentionally yet ultimately frustratingly as well.  Also the supernatural components are repressed and left vague with McTiernan not seeming too interested in creating a frightening mood in the first place.  The guitar heavy soundtrack is kind of cool and both Adam Ant and Mary Woronov have small, non-speaking parts as the mysterious title "spirits", but nothing else is really all that memorable.

FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC

(1987)

Dir - Jeffrey Bloom

Overall: MEH

 

Writer/director Jeffrey Bloom's adaptation of V.C. Andrews' novel Flowers in the Attic seems to have sincere, chilling intentions, but it ends up being merely unpleasant with occasional flourishes of accidental camp.  The screenplay went through several authors before Andrews, (who had final approval), chose Bloom, having previously turned down an interpretation from Wes Craven that was naturally more graphic.  Issues continued once production was properly underway as well, with Bloom leaving the project and having no involvement with the final edit.  Producers also chose to shoot an entirely different ending, plus nudity and incest elements were removed to secure a less harsh rating.  With such tampering in place, the movie has a disjointed feel.  Louis Fletcher is set up to be an imposing, evil psycho-biddy villainess, yet her intimidating nature is presented unevenly and she all but vanishes throughout the last half of the film.  The plot becomes more implausible than disturbing as things go on, (not to mention tedious), and by the time it all wrap up, the finale is predictably underwhelming.  Too lightweight to be properly scary and too depressing to be melodramatically schlocky, it just falls somewhere lukewarm in the middle.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Four

NIGHTMARES

(1983)

Dir - Joseph Sargent

Overall: MEH

 

The television pilot turned feature length anthology film Nightmares from prolific television director Joseph Sargent is not a particularly good one, which would explain it not getting picked up as a series.  Comprised of four unrelated stories that were authored by Jeffrey Bloom and Christopher Crowe, the premises of each range from lackluster to goofy, though there are occasional moments that are worth the price of admission.  "The Bishop of Battle" has a young Emilio Estevez as an arcade-addicted teenager and it has a fun if foreseeable conclusion.  The opening "Terror in Topanga" is the shortest and most forgettable with "The Benediction" being nothing more than a religious-themed re-working of Steven Spielberg's debut Duel.  "Night of the Rat" is probably the most ridiculous and clumsy, which provides an unfortunate entry to go out on.  Besides Estevez, there are appearances from genre regulars Lance Henricksen, Veronica Cartwright, Cristina Raines, and Anthony James, with Lee Ving and Moon Unit Zappa even cameoing for good measure.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

(1986)

Dir - Frank Oz

Overall: GOOD

Critically and commercially successful, the big screen adaptation of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's off-Broadway Little Shop of Horrors, (itself based on Roger Corman's ultra cheap, 1960 B-movie of the same name), is quite the well-crafted genre mash-up.  Originally attached to Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, Frank Oz ultimately made it his The Muppets Take Manhattan follow-up after he re-worked the initial script.  Heavy on the catchy songs which appear sometimes every couple of minutes, it was shot entirely at Pinewood Studios in England and has a big-budget, decorative style that fits the throwback, doo-wop musical aesthetics from the 1960s.  Though gore-less, it still has some gruesome details and macabre humor, both with the flesh-eating, extraterrestrial plant and Steve Martin's sadistic dentist.  Cameos by Jim Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Guest, and Bill Murray are a hoot, plus Rick Moranis plays his textbook, mild-mannered underdog while Ellen Greene, (who appeared in the stage production), basically steals the show as his squeaky-talking-voiced/huge-singing-voiced love interest.  Well, steals the show along with the animatronic masterpiece that is Audrey II, voiced hilariously by The Four Tops' Levi Stubs.

BAD BLOOD
(1988)
Dir - Chuck Vincent
Overall: MEH

For anyone who is wondering if Linda Blair and pornstars Georgina Spelvin and Randy Spears ever appeared in a movie together, the answer is yes, yes they did.  Bad Blood, (A Woman Obsessed), is that movie and it is one of several mainstream genre offerings from Chuck Vincent who made a consistent switch to non-adult films in the latter part of his career.  Never one to skimp on the scenery-chewing, Spelvin was at an appropriate age here to portray a psycho-biddy baddie who manipulates her long lost son into her Misery-style clutches and she delivers the raving, wide-eyed mugging as delightfully as can be expected.  The story by Vincent's frequent collaborator Craig Horrall gets plenty icky in the second half where all of our unwholesome, incestuous suspicions of Spelvin's lunatic character are justified.  Blair unfortunately gets sidetracked early on as she was delegated to such inconsequential B-movie parts at this point in her career, but Spears holds his own in the victim role where he has to remain tied to a bed while his biological mother tortures and has her lustful ways with him.  Ewwww.  Well made if not exceptional, it suffices as a bit of straight-to-video, sick camp.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Three

HARD ROCK ZOMBIES

(1985)

Dir - Krishna Shah

Overall: GOOD

 

Bollywood filmmaker Krishna Shah's Hard Rock Zombies is the type of deliberately absurd "bad" movie that seems as if it was made on another planet.  Part Ed Wood incompetence, part John Waters offensiveness for the sake of it, part rock musical, part accidental avant-garde film, and all with Troma-style anti-production values, it has cult movie written in bold, garish handwriting all over it.  Predating Jackie Kong's similarly hilarious, rotten taste masterpiece Blood Diner by two years, this is a much more shoddy and even more nonsensical endeavor with a front-to-back mangled tone.  It is difficult to tell what exactly Shah was going for as opposed to what ends up coming off on screen, which of course is a great deal of the fun.  While it occasionally drags and becomes monotonous just like most terrible, z-grade movies do, there are plenty of head-scratchingly ridiculous moments to laugh at/with.  Any movie with Hitler raising a Texas Chainsaw worthy dysfunctional family with two midgets in masks and a hot babe, plus the world's worst pop rock band in corpse paint should probably be experienced at least once.

INVADERS FROM MARS

(1986)

Dir - Tobe Hooper

Overall: MEH

Dumb and awkward at regular intervals, Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars continued the 1980s trend of B-movie sci-fi remakes, this one with mediocre yet at least forgivable results.  Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby's screenplay adheres to the same silliness as the original where a twelve-year old boy collaborates with the US military in defeating the hostile alien intruders, but at least Hooper is in on the joke and seems to be managing the proceedings with an innocent, sentimental agenda.  It is a shameless throwback vehicle in this sense, but fans of 1950s monsters from outer space movies will have little to complain about since the updated special effects by John Dykstra and Stan Winston plus the quicker pace are both more user friendly, let alone certainly less dated.  The first two acts are somewhat suspenseful and moody, yet things collapse into dullsville once everything degenerates into a big, loud, exploding spectacle at the end.  James Karen, Laraine Newman, Louis Fletcher, and Karen Black give the knowingly goofy material a solid go, but Hunter Carson makes a typical annoying movie kid just as Jimmy Hunt did in the 1953 version.

PULSE

(1988)

Dir - Paul Golding

Overall: MEH

 

The only directorial effort from screenwriter Paul Golding, Pulse is a pretty bog-standard, PG-13 horror film that is mostly of note for containing an early performance from child actors Joey and Matthew Lawrence.  On paper, the concept of malevolent poltergeist activity via electricity might seem interesting enough to make a movie out of, but in actuality, the result is pretty consistently low on chills or much of any pizzazz whatsoever.  The strained father/son dynamic provides a fine emotional backbone for when things become mildly threatening and one could perhaps see this as a cautionary tale of man's over-reliance on modern conveniences representing some kind of vague threat.  Hardly the most profound or even amusing angle to take for a run-of-the-mill genre film, yet Golding plays everything remarkably straight.  This is often the kiss of death when it comes to technological horror, but comparing this to something like Maximum Overdrive which took the schlock factor and rammed it full-tilt into the wall, merely throwing sinister music over shots of electoral circuits sparking and melting will hardly get the viewer's heart-racing.  At least there is a scene where the Lawrence brothers play with the Cobra Terror Drome though.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-Two

THE BOOGEYMAN

(1980)

Dir - Ulli Lommel

Overall: MEH

The generically titled The Boogeyman from German actor/filmmaker Ulli Lommel may not be exclusively formulaic in its execution, but it is an unmistakable dud all the same.  Lommel's script was inspired by some personal, childhood fears and throws in references to The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, and various other slasher motifs in a vague, stylistic sense.  Speaking of vague, none of the supernatural elements seem coherently placed, with wishy-washy Freudian subtext and superstition based folklore mucking up a series of murders and fantastical encounters.  Sadly, Lommel is not a skilled enough director to make the unfocused plot work and nearly all of the frightful scenes are accidentally hilarious instead.  This includes an evil "possessed voice" that sounds like a five year old trying to intimidate their parents into giving them more ice cream for dessert.  Such attempts at frightening atmospherics also fall flat due to the low-end production values and sub-par cast which includes a small role for John Carradine who sadly was very much in the "anything for a paycheck" stage of his career.

HAUNTED HONEYMOON

(1986)

Dir - Gene Wilder

Overall: GOOD

 

Gene Wilder closed out the directorial end of his filmography with the throwback, self-proclaimed comedy chiller Haunted Honeymoon.  Set during the 1930s in which movies that directly inspired it like The Old Dark House and The Cat and the Canary were made, it is a shameless homage to juvenile wackiness and retro spook show tactics that Wilder and his likeable cast seem mutually fond of.  Also doubling as a couples vehicle for he and wife Gilda Radner, (in her final film role before succumbing to ovarian cancer three years later), their cutesy chemistry unmistakably comes through and one or two song and dance numbers help keep things solely on the lighter side.  Both Dom DeLuise and Roger Ashton-Griffiths perform in drag, the latter as a corpse and the former as a wailing old Auntie.  Even with the rest of the cast mostly playing it straight, the silly factor is cranked all the way up and Wilder throws enough puns and illogical haunted house gags at the audience to forgive the ridiculously convoluted, short-sighted plot.  It certainly delivers on its intentions and has a goofball charm that is easy to fall for.  They also remembered to throw a werewolf into the proceedings because why would they not?

A RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT

(1987)

Dir - Larry Cohen

Overall: WOOF

Joining the ranks of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, American Werewolf in Paris, and Exorcist II: The Heretic as one of the worst horror sequels ever made, A Return to Salem's Lot is a continuation of the outstanding 1979 miniseries in name only.  Larry Cohen had penned a rejected screenplay for the aforementioned Stephen King adaptation and finally took on a follow-up project when Warner Bros. approached him years later to make something on the cheap.  This certainly qualifies but problems persist far beyond the shoddy production values.  Cohen at his worst was a tonally inept filmmaker; one that combined humor, strangeness, absurd plotting, and gore in an aggravatingly awkward fashion.  His trademark weaknesses are in "peak" form here as the movie fumbles all of its comedic intentions with a presentation that seems to be half purposely "bad movie terrible" and half tongue-in-cheek camp.  Maybe those two are the same things though.  Throw in a foul-mouthed kid who never stops deserving to be smacked, a foul-mouthed Samuel Fuller who tries desperately to schlock-up the proceedings, yet another aloof performance from Cohen's inexplicably favorite leading man Michael Moriarty, and a musical score that is so repetitive as to cause nausea, and everything here deserves to be erased from one's memory.

1980s American Horror Part Fifty-One

THE NINTH CONFIGURATION

(1980)

Dir - William Peter Blatty

Overall: GOOD

While it is not a horror film, William Peter Blatty's directorial debut The Ninth Configuration is based off of his own novel of the same name, a novel that is the second installment of the author's "Faith trilogy" which could be seen to coexist in the same universe as The Exorcist.   A bizarre and challenging work, it is littered with colorful performances that range from pure, excitable eccentricity to zen-like, deliberate contemplative states where a Pacific Northwestern castle is home to Vietnam vets that have suffered mental breakdowns.  The plot is elaborate and before it introduces the foreseeable twist in the third act where it get streamlined a bit, things are difficult to come to terms with.  The dialog is uniquely rich though; both funny and philosophical as it takes on a hypnotic quality after awhile where just watching the crop of top-notch actors sink their teeth into their roles is more enticing than actually following the narrative.  Stacy Keach, Jason Miller, Ed Flanders, and particularly Scott Wilson as a bitter, traumatized former astronaut are all in peak form, with minor roles from Tom Atkins, Robert Loggia, Steven Sandor, Richard Lynch, and Neville Brand providing plenty of memorable moments of their own.

A STRANGER IS WATCHING
(1982)
Dir - Sean S. Cunningham
Overall: GOOD

Sean S. Cunningham's follow-up to the initial Friday the 13th is the gritty adaptation of Mary Higgins Clark's 1977 novel A Stranger Is Watching.  Largely set in the grime-covered underbelly of Grand Central Station, it features command performances from all involved, with Shawn von Schreiber, (in her only acting role ever), as a terrified eleven year old, Rip Torn being particularly odious as her rotten-mouthed kidnapper, and Captain Janeway herself Kate Mulgrew making a resourceful news anchor who gets caught up in the scheme.  The plot manages to be suspenseful without being loaded with surprises, though the combination of disturbing subject matter and a relentless stream of close calls may prove to be too ugly and frustrating for most viewers.  Still, Cunningham handles the proceedings with a keen sense of pacing, the location shooting provides the right ominous atmosphere, and there is at least a naturalistic brutality to it that steers light years away from the director's aforementioned, moronic Friday the 13th predecessor that inexplicably spawned a franchise.

CREEPSHOW 2

(1987)

Dir - Michael Gornick

Overall: MEH

Though technically sub-par, there are still moments of gleefully ghoulish, 80s horror fun in Creepshow 2, the sequel to the beloved and, (universally considered), superior initial Creepshow from 1982.  The first film's cinematographer Michael Gornick takes over for George A. Romero in the director's chair, though the latter stuck around to pen the screenplay along with an uncredited Lucille Fletcher.  Featuring only three stories instead of five to save on production costs, all of them are once again Stephen King adaptations, with the author himself making a cameo appearance as a truck driver.  The tone is perfectly in keeping with what had already been established and most of the humor comes from Joe Silver's Creep narration between segments, (the Creep himself being played under heavy guise by Tom Savini).  Because there are merely three segments, each one could do with some trimming to keep the momentum going, but they all have some nasty gore to please the intended fanbase.  It is certainly not a bad anthology outing; it is just cheaper and duller than what could otherwise be hoped for.