1980s Rapi Films Horror Part Two

SUNDELBOLONG

(1981)

Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra

Overall: MEH

 

Though it is laborious in the pacing department, Sundelbolong, (Sundel Bolong, Devil Woman), still offers up another crop of ridiculous and striking supernatural sequences, plus a wonderfully committed performance from Indonesian scream queen Suzzanna.  Aside from the cannibal movie Primitif which was also produced by Rapi Films, this is the first straight horror vehicle from director Sisworo Gautama Putra who would also go onto make Satan's Slave the following year.  The story and structure here is much more aligned with The Queen of Black Magic though, which immediately proceeded this one and had Suzzanna back in the lead.  Based off of Javanese mythology, the title spectre is an archipelago prostitute ghost with a large hole in her back for some reason, who we see raped as a living woman, committing suicide, and then reaping revenge from the grave.  One guy trips balls thinking that he is in an enclosed room with cardboard brick walls surrounding him before he impales himself on a gravestone and in the finale, Suzanna's arms project from her body and turn into several arms that stab people.  Unfortunately, such wonderfully quirky and macabre elements take a long time to show up with too much downtime in between, but it still packs a goofy punch when it tries.

SRIGALA

(1981)

Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra

Overall: MEH

Eventually transforming into an Indonesian Friday the 13th, Srigata, (The Fox, Wolf), forces its derivative slasher elements into an altogether uninteresting story to begin with.  Three scuba-diving gold-seekers and another three vacationing dingbats inadvertently meet up in a jungle setting where hardly anything happens for an hour besides a motorboat chase, (even though one such motorboat is destroyed on camera only to miraculously be in one piece again in the following scene), zombies that only show up in a dream sequence, and a random kung-fu fight between two of the women.  The last act hilariously recreates the same finale in Friday as a shot-for-shot remake, down to the deranged older lady chasing the final girl in a cabin; a final girl that also gets pulled into the water by a deformed person and then wakes up in a hospital.  With blatant plagiarism in tow, the script is otherwise flimsy at best in trying to sandwich its various components together, plus spontaneous outbursts of goofy humor help to further thwart the tone.  Both boring and awkwardly confused, it is a dud from front to back, with just a few outbursts of unintentional, copy-cat hi-jinks thrown in for good, (bad), measure.

 

NYI BLORONG

(1982)

Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra

Overall: MEH

 

Fusing fantasy and horror in both a ridiculous and underwhelming fashion, Nyi Blorong, (The Snake Queen), is another starring vehicle for Indonesia's premier genre darling Suzzanna.  As the title goddess, she gets to wear outrageous costumes while men find her irresistible, and after falling in love herself with a human man for a couple of minutes before deciding to change her mind, she ultimately does spontaneous battle with a cackling witch in the finale.  Considering that said witch was only introduced once far earlier in the movie and that the majority of the film haphazardly bounces between being a combination of love triangle, possession story, and cautionary tale, it seems to be persistently firing in several directions at once.  Though the, (presumably added after the fact), narration makes it easy enough to follow, the jumbled plotting is still a mess and undermines many of the set pieces which are absurd and inconsistent.  Things do get sluggish at times as well, though director Sisworo Gautama Putra still maintains an eye for stylish visuals in spite of the usual, low-end Rapi Films budget that he has to work with.

1980s Rapi Films Horror - Part One

SATAN'S SLAVE

(1980)

Dir - Sisworo Gautama Putra

Overall: MEH

 

A notable entry in the Rapi Film cannon for featuring Muslim religious concepts in place of the tradition Christian or even Buddhist ones found in various other Eastern horror films, Satan's Slave, (Pengabdi Setan), has an aloof, low-budget charm to it despite some unintentionally funny blunders along the way.  Tonally, director Sisworo Gautama Putra, (who had already been behind the lens on two other horror movies in as many years), sets up an eerie atmosphere, opening with a somber funeral and then a scene right out of the Salem's Lot television miniseries before any dialog is even uttered.  The undead ghouls here could be vampires, ghosts, or demons for all that we know, but they have a unique, fun look to them with their white contact lenses, pasty faces, and dirty, off-white robes.  They also move as slow as Lucio Fulci zombies and therefor fail hilariously as a threatening menace.  Occasional scenes are drenched in unnatural lights and/or make use of creepy shadows, but other moments are shot in broad daylight or fully lit rooms that unfortunately enhance the low production values.  The story is as simple as they come and does not offer up any surprises, but genre fans will get a kick out of certain elements that are here.

THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC

(1981)

Dir - Liliek Sudjio

Overall: GOOD

 

The only of Rapi Films' horror products to be directed by Liliek Sudjio, The Queen of Black Magic, (Ratu ilmu hitam, Black Magic 3), is a memorable tale of vengeance with plenty of outrageous supernatural sequences and a consistently serious tone despite its humble production values.  Taking its cue from the Shaw Brothers' two Black Magic movies from a few years prior, this is an appropriate starring vehicle for Indonesia's "Queen of Horror" Suzzanna, whose tragic title character is pitted against a small village that has lost its faith and given into mob justice, learning the black arts from W.D. Mochtar's practitioner who has a revenge scheme of his own underway.  Wonderfully gruesome moments take center stage, like a guy ripping his own head off which then flies around and bites people, character's boiled flesh bursting right off of their bodies, a guy's stomach ballooning to full-blown pregnancy, and live bees, worms, and snakes all interacting with any manor of actor, (including a small infant).  Occasional moments in between do meander, but Sudjio does a better job than most with maintaining a momentum that makes the rudimentary plot just inciting enough to stick around with.  He also manages to stage some striking cinematic images that are equal parts amusing, weird, and creepy.

 

THE DEVIL'S SWORD

(1984)

Dir - Ratno Timoer

Overall: WOOF

 

For anyone hoping that an Indonesian sword and sorcery epic made in the niche genre's camp-fueld heyday would wield enduring results, the embarrassing turkey that is The Devil's Sword, (Golok Setan), will sadly crush such expectations.  While there are occasional bouts of hilarity which generally stem from absurd, awkwardly stilted dialog such as "You nymphomaniac!  With all of these handsome young men around you, you must have more of them.  So you steal my husband!  Bitch!", the movie's plot line is Neanderthal-brained and is played out in a ceaselessly boring manner.  If the long, nudity-less orgies do not put one to sleep, then either the snore-inducing fight scenes or endless amounts of characters simply standing around and saying nothing to each will act as the equivalent of taking a Xanax to veer off to Lala Land.  Considering that the movie is exclusively filled with nothing BUT these long, nudity-less orgies, snore-inducing fight scenes, and characters saying nothing while staring each other down in uncomfortable close-ups, good luck being entertained by the abysmal production values and accidental moments of laugh-out-loud stupidity.  Speaking of which, there are also alligator people who spring up out of the earth with rubber reptilian helmets on their heads that Star Trek's Gorn would be humiliated by.

1980s Mexican Horror Part Four

LA TÍA ALEJANDRA

(1980)
Dir - Arturo Ripstein
Overall: MEH

A low-key bit of supernaturally-tinged Mexican horror, La tía Alejandra, (Aunt Alejandra), has a repetitious and foreseeable plot, yet its somber tone still manages to offer up some jarring creepiness.   Focusing on the wealthy title character played by veteran actor Isabela Corona who arrives at her relative's house with mysterious, arbitrary witchcraft powers at her disposal, it eventually turns into a game of picking off those who upset or offend her in anyway. Such events are presented as accidental, yet her nieces and nephews grow more frightened of her which naturally puts a big fat target on their back for Corona to do away with them via some unexplained form of Brujería.  She is able start fires, drown a guy in his own bed, make one person fall down a flight of stairs, probably possess a small child from beyond the grave, and, (in the most hilarious instance), make a set of puppets violently attack.  Director Arturo Ripstein utilizes little incidental music, instead relying on eerie silence and synthesizer ambience here or there which compliments Corona's downplayed and therefor unnerving performance.  The ending offers up some shocks in its matter-of-fact brutality, but the structure is too meandering to hold things together.

 

DEMON HUNTER

(1983)

Dir - Gilberto de Anda

Overall: MEH

 

One of the first films to be directed by Gilberto de Anda who rarely worked behind the lens in the horror genre, Demon Hunter, (Cazador de demonios), is a properly atmospheric Satanic werewolf movie that unfortunately loses its footing along the way.  Set contemporarily in a rural Mexican village, it concerns a recently murdered, up-to-no-good-shaman who comes back from the dead as both his normal-looking self and as a murderous beast, depending on what the plot needs to make happen.  It has the usual superstition vs. logic cliches where the town sheriff is under pressure to keep everyone safe and is unwilling to accept the, (of course completely correct), theories of the local priest who knows full well that Beelzebub is the culprit.  Most of the set pieces are well executed, as is Antonio de Anda's cinematography which keeps the monster off screen until the very end where he makes an impressive enough appearance.  The pacing drags though as characters argue with each other in order to solve a mystery that the audience is already privy to, plus de Anda throws in oddly placed, horny comic relief and some unnecessary side-arcs that further get in the way of the diabolical mayhem.

VACACIONES DE TERROR

(1989)

Dir - René Cardona III

Overall: MEH

The Mexican Poltergeist i.e. Vacaciones de terror, (Vacations of Terror), sees René Cardona III following in his grandfather and father's footsteps, making his first horror movie in a family lineage of them.  Unfortunately, the effort that he chose is undone by a wretchedly repetitive and hilariously arbitrary second half.  As is the usual norm in haunted house films, (for whatever reason), all ghost-like activity follows little to no logical pattern and merely provides the movie with a handful of set pieces that are creepy for the mere sake of being creepy.  In other words, every supernatural moment that transpires here seems as if Cardona and co-screenwriter Santiago Galindo merely threw a bunch of ideas into a hat, drew them at random, and then filmed the results.  The laziest of cliches abound here as a family moves into a dilapidated, inherited, and remote vacation home that just the father and beneficiary of thinks is charming, only for the little daughter to find a doll that is possessed by a condemned witch.  You can fill in the blanks from there and despite likeable characters and some steady momentum early on, the movie becomes a colossal bore once the doll shows up and the whole thing ends on a predictable whimper that of course would still wield an even worse sequel two years later.

1980s Mexican Horror Part Three - (Rubén Galindo Jr. Edition)

CEMETERY OF TERROR
(1985)
Overall: MEH

Noteworthy for using a bonafide, sloppy hodgepodge of horror styles to suit its corny needs, writer/director Rubén Galindo Jr's debut Cemetery of Terror, (Cementerio del terror, Zombie Apocalypse), only occasionally comes close to being an enjoyable schlock ride.  This is one in a long tradition of such genre movies where logic and plausibility is not a concern and instead, it is of paramount importance to throw in as many cliche-ridden set pieces as the running time will allow.  Some of these moments are enjoyable though, like an excellent "zombies rising from their graves" scene, some clever cinematography, and creepy supernatural details.  It clearly stylizes itself on the Spanish and Italian tropes of the 1970s and on this note, one of the most true and steady such examples is terrible, terrible pacing.  The movie could afford to be at least twenty minutes shorter and though it is a visually macabre hoot, it can only be seen as a success if one is willing to tune out at regular intervals and taking a couple of bathroom breaks while waiting for the next macabre scene to get going already.

 

DON'T PANIC

(1987)

Overall: MEH

A hilariously ridiculous, supernatural quasi-slasher effort from writer/director Rubén Galindo Jr. and his third full-length from behind the lens, Don't Panic, (Dimensiones ocultas, El secreto de la ouija), is an unintentional laugh fest that unfortunately loses momentum as often as it delivers the stupid.  Filmed on location in a Mexico City that is meant to be an anywhere US town, it is one of many schlocky B-movies from the era to channel A Nightmare on Elm Street, except with the bizarre consequences that are only found in foreign knock-offs.  The most glaring example of such is an older-than-seventeen-looking Jon Michael Bischoff spending upwards of seventy-five percent of the movie in dinosaur pajamas, even as he has red demon eyes, sex with his girlfriend, and clearly is not meant to be in the third grade.  Despite Galindo being unsure as to what age his protagonist was supposed to be, his script has the usual amount of head-scratching silliness found in movies that ride a razor-thin line of trippy scariness and absurdity.  The dialog, musical cues, dubbing, and editing all jive together in a hilarious fashion to the point where paying attention to whatever the hell the story was supposed to be is both a futile and unnecessary effort.  Still, an awkward, curly-haired manchild, a lame Freddy Krueger stand-in who says "Bitch" in a distorted voice, and one or two lovely gore effects from Screaming Mad George all have their merit.

 

GRAVE ROBBERS

(1989)

Overall: MEH

 

The last of three notable, B-level horror works from Mexican filmmaker Rubén Galindo Jr., Grave Robbers, (Ladrones de tumbas), has its fair share of outrageous gore, cliches, and obnoxious characters to appease both slasher and 70s Euro-horror fans, even if this comes a decade later.  It also technically adheres to 80's motifs where a supernaturally-charged, weapon-wielding maniac does not bother with speaking any dialog while slowly picking off his victims in elaborate, messy ways.  At the same time, the story fits right into those that have a condemned person vowing vengeance via their executioner's descendants and there are subtle nods to Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead series thrown in for good measure.  It does not create the unique hodgepodge that one would hope for since the pacing cannot overcome a repetitive, "cat and mouse" plot, but most people coming into such a violent, schlocky affair are doing so to see people get murdered in physics-defying fashion.  The movie delivers there with some hilarious death scenes like a full-grown hand bursting through a guy's chest and a woman who gets her face forcibly smooched into a handrail.  Everywhere else, it is a lot of back and forth yelling from people that are barely worth paying attention to, but when the film goes off the rails with arbitrary silliness of the macabre variety, it is a fun watch.

1980s Mexican Horror Part Two

DYNASTY OF DRACULA

(1980)

Dir - Alfredo B. Crevenna/Claudia Becker

Overall: MEH

Though it was released in 1980 and is a Mexican production from top to bottom, Dynasty of Dracula, (La dinastía de Dracula), strictly adheres to early 70s, Gothic Euro-horror motifs with a plot that heavily borrows bullet points from Bram Stoker's Dracula without it being a direct adaptation.  In fact, the script by Jorge Patiño throws in the ole "condemned for blasphemous dealings with Satan" prologue as well, where a vampire/witch/whatever vows revenge centuries later; revenge that must be taken out on a specific day at a specific hour involving genetic decedents and whatnot.  In other words, this is an unabashed cliche fest and not just where the narrative is concerned.  Roberto Nelson's head vampire dons the high-collared cape and suave mannerisms as he plays it all off as being just another aristocrat from a superstitious, foreign country.  The undead rules are the commonly established ones where they are vulnerable to a barrage of things while also having the ability to turn into animals and mist, which they only sometimes do at highly opportune times.  Oodles of camera zooms, predictably blaring musical cues, drunk editing, and a hilariously pathetic looking rubber bat round out the cheap aesthetics, but the whole thing is also way too talky and lifeless despite its handful of quirky, unintentionally silly elements.

 

TO KILL A STRANGER

(1983)

Dir - Juan López Moctezuma

Overall: MEH

 

Juan López Moctezuma's first of only two films made in the 1980s, To Kill a Stranger, (Secuestrada), is a stark departure from the goofy mental illness romp The Mansion of Madness, the sluggish vampire slasher Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary, and the gonzo blasphemy of Alucarda.  Unfortunately, it is a borderline terrible departure as well.  Both Dean Stockwell and Donald Pleasence are on board with the former sounding as if he was dubbed by another actor and the later making a pivotal cameo doing a silly foreigner accent.  All production aspects are awkard at best, with deafening music playing at inopportune times while characters are trying to deliver their dialog, an asinine plot, tonal inconsistencies, and unintentionally off-putting ADR readings.  Pleasence's scene is virtually the only one that is overtly violent, but it is just one of many haphazard things that happen with no warning or satisfying explanation throughout the film.  What seals the deal though is the arduous pacing.  It becomes difficult to both understand or care about what is even going on as an American journalist, his wife, a police inspector, and the military junta do everything in their power to not move things along in an enticingly dramatic fashion.  Clearly Moctezuma needed more lesbian Satanists and batshit crazy lunatics posing as doctors to liven things up here.

 

BEAKS: THE MOVIE

(1987)

Dir - René Cardona Jr.

Overall: WOOF

 

A wretched knock-off of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Beaks: The Movie, (El ataque de los pájaros, The Attack of the Birds, Birds of Prey, Beaks: The Birds 2, Evil Birds), only occasionally springs to life with a few gory set pieces.  One of many low-budget works from Mexican filmmaker René Cardona Jr., it is typically D-rent and unintentionally humorous due to its aggressive lack of plotting, unlikable characters, idiotic dialog, non-existent production values, lousy performances, and eyeball gouging scenes.  There is a pathetically vague "nature vs man" angle thrown in where the airborne assailants decide to attack humans out of possible revenge, (an opening sequence where a guy is shooting pigeons for sport and some shots of rotisserie chickens are about all that we have to go on to prove such a theory).  The story stops dead in its tracks less than halfway through where we follow several groups of annoying characters who get real live birds thrown at them in violent fashion, which is a more horrific display of animal cruelty than anything else.  Say what you want about the shoestring budget being glaringly obvious throughout, but there are no special effects afforded here; just good ole putting real live actors in real live danger by also putting real live animals in real live danger.

1980s Spanish Horror Part Six

BLOODY SECT

(1982)

Dir - Ignacio F. Iquino

Overall: WOOF

 

Largely working in the Spanish Western and erotic genres, filmmaker Ignacio F. Iquino made a rare horror exploitation oddity near the end of his career with Bloody Sect, (Secta siniestra); a nonsensical and dull kind-of Antichrist workout with more nutty things on paper than on screen.  It is readily apparent that Iquino was unaccustomed to the horror genre as he has no sense of macabre atmosphere, instead leaving everything flatly shot with a handful of prerequisite camera zooms and garish gore sequences thrown in to disguise how unexciting the whole thing is to look at.  The pacing is as bad as any other no budget bit of Euro-crap, resulting in lame set pieces aside from gross ones like a guy's eyeballs getting stabbed, a real live frog getting stabbed, and gynecologist exams shown in a fully-lit interior that makes it look more like a tutorial video for doctors than something out of a "scary" movie about an evil cult that artificially knocks-up a woman so that a demon baby or whatever can be born.  There is plenty of nudity, laughably mugging performances, (especially from Diana Conca as a nut-job ex wife), and tedious sequences that go absolutely nowhere, so it is a mess of a film that may only please the most patient of trash fans.

 

ALIEN PREDATOR

(1986)

Dir - Deran Sarafian

Overall: MEH

The first credited directorial job for Deran Sarafian was the American/Spanish co-production Alien Predator, (Alien Predators, The Falling, Mutant 2); a limp and small-scale virus outbreak movie that fails to deliver on its knock-off title.  Shot in Madrid, Spain in 1984 and featuring three Americans in the leads, (including Fade to Black's Dennis Christopher playing against-type as a lady's man broski), the film allegedly went over-budget and had financial issues which resulted in a delayed release, landing with a whimper on the home video market amongst hordes of better, worse, and more ridiculous genre vehicles.  While some of the gore sequences are wonderfully realized by special effects man Mark Shostrom and the character's love triangle is adorable, the pacing is dreadful and almost entirely void of action save for a couple of snooze-worthy car chases and an adorable alien puppet causing mayhem.  Christopher's Elmer Fudd and Martin Hewitt's Rod Serling impression could fairly be categorized as "cringe-worthy", but the performances are otherwise acceptable, even if the story line is both derivative and lackluster.  The aforementioned extraterrestrial critter aside, the aliens prefer to let their presence be known by mutilating a couple of animals and people from the inside out, with the movie omitting predators entirely.

TIE ME UP!  TIE ME DOWN!

(1989)

Dir - Pedro Almodóvar

Overall: GOOD

Frequently one to play the provocative contrarian game against social norms and toxic behavior, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, (Átame!), works as a romantic comedy satire that is bound to aggravate those who take its depiction of Stockholm syndrome adoration seriously.  Actors Loles León, Antonio Bandaras, and Victoria Abril had all appeared in Almodóvar's films to varying capacities, with Bandaras and Abril continuing a partnership with the director going forward.  For Bandras' part, he gets the challenging role of a kidnapper with a heart of gold or in other words, the role of a person who does not technically exist in the real world and therefor is a difficult character for an audience to fall for.  Playing off of Beauty and Beast motifs which have been used in various cinematic and literature works before, Abril's abductee is gradually blindsided by Bandaras' charms, sob story, sexual abilities, and her own mental gymnastics in order to cope with her present situation in a manner that does not result in crippling madness.  Almodóvar is aware of the button-pushing material that he is utilizing though, slyly letting the viewer in on the joke with a musical score that bounces between being whimsical and suspenseful, a movie-within-a-movie sub-plot that directly points out the fine line between horror and love story, the relationship commitment pun of the title, plus some sexual taboo pushing that is quirky enough to laugh at.

1980s Spanish Horror Part Five - (José Ramón Larraz Edition)

ESTIGMA

(1980)

Overall: MEH

After spending the majority of the 1970s with erotic thrillers and the like, writer/director José Ramón Larraz returned to supernatural, psychological horror with Estigma, (Stigma), his first such film since 1974's Symptoms.  Here, the focus is on a creepy looking young man Sebastián, played by Christian Borromeo who could easily be Cillian Murphy's older brother.  Perfectly cast, the actor has a naturally off-putting charm even as he spends large portions of the movie silently smirking or simply conveying a plethora of disturbed emotions.  These involve a past life and psychic abilities that can will someone who makes him angry to death and then makes him bleed from his mouth, hence the title of the film which is a reworking of the term "stigmata".  An interesting enough premise to be sure and Larraz keeps the atmosphere mysterious and visually interesting. with distorted shots and a few dream sequences played for unwholesomeness.  Speaking of which, there are incestuous elements to Borromeo's character that while never graphic, are still capable of making the more squeamish of viewers uncomfortable.  It does not graduate into memorable territory and has a half-baked ending, but it is also not without some effectively unnerving qualities.

 

BLACK CANDLES

(1982)

Overall: MEH

Notable for its exceptional sleaze factor, José Ramón Larraz's Black Candles, (Los ritos sexuales del diablo, The Sexual Rites of the Devil), is a ridiculous occult romp that embraces the type of sexy demonic boundary pushing inherent in many exploitation movies.  Though it was released in the early 80s, it is unholy soulmates with many other 1970s films that explored identical subject matter, with male and especially female nudity everywhere, alms to Satan being uttered, unwilling participants ushered into such devilish hedonism, etc.  Larraz was no stranger to such softcore pornographic aesthetics as he had made the notable British lesbian undead film Vampyres eight years later.  Back to his own native, Spanish turf at this point, Euro-genre fans will welcome the veteran, top-billed scream queen Helga Liné who is predominantly naked and sultry in prime, black magic form at the impressive age of fifty no less.  The story is interchangeable nonsense that is hardly if at all important and it only serves a purpose to offer up set pieces like a woman lustfully fornicating with a goat in a barn, a man getting his asshole penetrated by a sword, and sex scene after sex scene after sex scene.  For people who like boobs, soft focus photography, unshaven pubic hair, lots of Satan, and essentially no story whatsoever, Larraz has you covered here.

 

REST IN PIECES

(1987)

Overall: MEH

A ridiculous entry in José Ramón Larraz's often sleazy catalog, Rest in Pieces, (Descanse en piezas, Ruhe in Frieden), is more like a hilariously asinine Claudio Fragasso movie than something that came from the guy who made the low-key and atmospheric British films Vampyres and Symptoms a decade and some change earlier.  The script from Santiago Moncada hinges on the wacky premise of a rich old Auntie who, (inspired by the need to be immortal, as well as the need to reap vengeance on her sister that presumably stole her man years earlier), leaves her entire estate and wealth to said sister's only daughter, only to have that daughter then deal with a small community full of wackadoo zombie/former mental patients under her Aunt's financial protection.  Convoluted in all of the proper, hilariously nonsensical ways, few of the details are properly fleshed out which is of little importance anyway considering that it is all played for campy macabreness.  Dorthy Malone, Jack Taylor, and Patty Shepard will be familiar to most viewers who are interested in such Euro-silliness in the first place, but rightfully unknown Lorin Jean Vail "steals" the show in a outrageously inept and wooden performance that is bound to delight bad cinema enthusiasts everywhere.

EDGE OF THE AXE
(1988)
Overall: MEH

A Spanish and American co-production that was filmed in Mexico, Edge of the Axe, (Al Filo del Hacha), is a rare television slasher from director José Ramón Larraz.  Coming late in the game for the sub-genre's boom, it unfortunately bares its own problems devoid of the standard ones found in typical cut-and-paste slasher movies.  While not filled with moronic, obnoxious characters and obviously absent of any nudity due to it being a TV production, it is also incredibly sluggish and confused.  There are moments of "Wait, who the hell is this again?" characters showing up and doing things, plus the film lackadaisically crawls along with all of the stock kills happening in a typically uninspired fashion.  Because the pacing makes it so tough to relate to anybody on screen or even relate to the basic plot, you are left with dated, goofy music at regular intervals, another masked killer, another twist ending, some daft dialog, and a bunch of victims whose demises barely register with the viewer on any kind of emotional level.  Larraz still had one more horror movie in his system to nearly go out on, but this one is tame, redundant, and more silly than memorable.