Horror Part 04

Sinthia: The Devil's Doll - C

Ray Dennis Steckler's first foray into the world of porno, or adult cinema as it was known in 1968 when Steckler made the movie. In short it is the movie about a woman who is having erotic dreams about murdering her parents and the psychiatrist who is trying to help her. This movie has some very original Steckler dream sequences. You can always tell a Steckler Dream sequence from others because of the tripping lighting, and he'll have lots of people just standing around looking at the camera, and there is always crazy music. Me thinks Ray Dennis Steckler enjoyed LSD in the 60s. The movie is really different but then again all Steckler movies are really different. This movie signals the end of his LA film career and starts the beginning of his Las Vegas career, after this also his movies didn't have the carefree insanity of his earlier movies, in fact as some Steckler experts have pointed out his movies get rather depressing like his 1971 feature the Chooper. This was the first of several porno movies Ray would make under a variety of aliases like Sven Christian, early porn career, Cindy Lou Sutters or Harry Nixon for his later more hardcore films. This is a hard movie to find and if you didn't see the picture I found it packaged with Satanis: The Devi's Mass, a documentary on Anton La Fey and his San Francisco Satanic Cult of the late 60s and early 70s. While these two movies involve the Devil, they have absolutely nothing to do with one another at all other than the fact that they are really out there. If you are a fan of Steckler like I am, then you will want to hunt this down, if not maybe give it a shot for a laugh.

Michael vs Jason - C

This is strictly as student film, and being a student film it lacks the quality of a polished professional film. It has more the feel of a fan fic from the Internet, and being some one who has a few amateur slasher movies rattling around in my brain I must give these guys credit for having the balls to go out and actually do it. It took me several attempts to actually watch through the entire 40 minutes worth of movie it is that difficult to sit through, it is the most amateurish quality makes it difficult to take for long periods of time. We learn that Michael Myers and Jason are related from Michael Myer's neice who is staying at Camp Crystal Lake. So Mikie and Jason start hacking their way through the survivors of their previous movies, although they look absolutely nothing like them, and they are woofully inadequate. Jason and Michael look pretty good but it isn't hard they had rather simple outfits. There are many things wrong with this movie but they guys who made it had the balls not only to make it but to put it on the Internet so the entire world could look at it and that kinda of balls deserves a C in my book especially when movies with actual budgets are often a lot worse.

House of Long Shadows - B

An American writer takes a bet from his English Publisher that he can write a spooky gothic novel in 24 hours provided he has the proper setting, so he travels to a gloomy castle in Wales which he thinks is uninhabited but it is actually inhabited with an unusal family with a strange secret in the attic. This is the first, last and only meeting of the four Horror Gods, Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and John Carradine. With the exception of Christopher Lee they were all in the twilight of their careers, John Carradine would live only three more years after this film, but they still show why they are Horror Gods each as a member of the eccentric Grisbane family. Everybody does a wonderful job, even Dezi Arnaz Jr. The story is a touch cliched but it was probably intended to play out like a Poe tale. Almost impossible to find anymore which is odd because it should have made it to DVD just for the novelty of having so many notable people in one movie. I liked it I'm such of fan of these four men that I wouldn't be able not to like it.

The Raven - B+

A Roger Corman, Vincent Price, Edgar Allen Poe comedic romp. Vincent Price is the son of a powerful wizard who gets a visit from a Raven who perches on the pallid bust of Pallus above his chamber door. The Raven is in fact Peter Lorre who lost a wizards duel against Boris Karloff, who is now the leader of the Council of Wizards. Vincent turns Peter Lorre back to his human form and with a very young Jack Nicholson go to confront Karloff in a Wizard's Duel. The movie is a lighthearted comedic romp that whose source was the Poe Poem. One of the interesting stories from this movie, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre often played off script and did their own thing with the scene and it drove Boris Karloff, a big method actor, absolutely insane. This is a very fun movie if you are a fan of the Corman Poe movies like Pet and Pendulum, or the Fall of the House of Usher and you can really tell that all the actors really had a lot of fun making this movie. It is kind interesting to see a young Jack Nicholson, everytime I see this movie with somebody else they always ask, 'Is That Jack Nicholson?', but it takes two scenes with him in it before they finally recognize him. Its cheesy, its light, its fun to watch.

Kwaidan - A

The literal translation for this title from Japanese into English is Ghost Stories and that is exactly what you get. This movie is made up four vignettes of old Japanese ghost stories. Each story is extremely fascinating, but what is more amazing about this movie is the stunning sets and visuals the movie provides. Watch the shadows in each scene, they are amazingly done. The movie uses a wide variety of colour for skies, backgrounds, colour is everywhere. It is really hard to explain the movies without giving away some of the good twists of each story but each is very good. My favorite is Number 3 the one about the blind Biwa (Japanese Guitar) player and the ghost royal court. The movie has the feel of a Japanese version of Tales From the Crypt but has ghosts rather than moldy ghouls as the main villains. I really loved this movie, you can rewatch each vignette and get something new each time. If you love ghost stories these are great ghost stories. This is a must watch, it is really great.

The Hazing - A

One part Evil Dead, One Part House on Haunted Hill, plus a healthy sprinkling of National Lampoons Animal House gives you an amazingly good synthesis of those classic films. On Halloween night Professor Cabb, played by the ever evil Brad Dourif, is trying to raise some hell demons with the use of a forbidden book and forbidden staff, think Evil Dead book and knife. But at the same time a group of kids who are pledging to a joint fratnerity sorority hazing initiation that involves a scavenger hunt. The top prize is the Book of Souls, the same book old Brad Dourif is using to conjure up them demons with the corpse of Brooke Burke. Well things go wrong, kids find Brad hacking Brooke up and he winds up impaled on one of his freak sculptures. Well they take the book with them, because without it you don't have a horror movie. Well they go to the old haunted house, a tradition in fraternity hazing rituals, and of course the presidents of the frat and sorority are planning on playing some good old haunted house jokes on them, much like the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill. Well Brad Dourif isn't exactly dead yet, you can never kill him that easily and his spirit comes looking for vengence. With that we got a horror movie, and a surprisingly good one at that. The movie starts out a little rough, the frat dialogue and scenes are a little stereotypical and it feels like the director, Rolfe Kanefsky, is falling back on his softcore porn beginnings but once they try and impale Brad Dourif the movie gets good. Cheers to Tyffany Shepis, who plays the spacegirl, she is definitely on the road to scream queen stardom and is very easy on the eyes. Also cheers to Charmaine De Grate, who plays the blonde bimbo in a bunny costume. This movie is good because it plays against some of the typical slasher ques, like the bunny suited bimbo bares breasts but survives, and one of the survivors at the end is a minority, in fact an Asian which I don't think has ever happened in the world of slashers, Asian are hard enough to find and to have one live is very unusual. Excellent cheap thrills slasher with good writing and some great sets.

The Prowler - C-

After recieving a Dear John Letter during World War 2, a jilted service man returns to the college were his ex-love is graduating and does whatever dumped guy really wants to do, drive a pitchfork through the girl and her new lover. If you've ever been dumped for another guy, trust me you've had this feeling. Now we fast forward ahead to 1981 and the same all girl's college is going to be hosting their first graduation party in 36 years and the killer from 1945 is back with a vengeance. This movie really highlights the eldery, you maybe in your late 50s but you can still go out and kill those sexy teens like you did when you were in your prime. It is up to the local deputy and his girlfriend to get to the bottom of this mystery before GI Joe kills them all. Solid Classic 80s Slasher but with one extra bonus these are some of the most brutal and bloody murders done in an American made slasher, nobody dies quick in this movie with one exception but his death his very bloody. Everybody thrashes, screams, and bleeds like mad before death finally overtakes them. This isn't any shadow knife stuff, this is straight up gore thanks to the master of gore Tom Savini whose special effects really shine in this film. The movie is solid slasher goodness, it isn't great and does drag a little between the 2nd and 3rd act but the exceptional gore, the pitchfork in the shower scene is still one the most famous images from any slasher movie ever. Definitely the underlooked classic of the Classic 80s run of Slasher movies.

Re-Animator - A

Roger Corman is to Edger Allen Poe like Stuart Gordon is to H.P. Lovecraft, too bad these type of questions weren't on the SATs, I would have passed easily. This movie is based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story called Re-Animator. The story is about Dr Herbert West and his day glow yellow formula that brings the dead back to life to a limited extent and the chaos that it brings to Miskatonic Medical University. This movie belongs entirely to Jeffrey Combs in his first role, he plays the mad scientist to an absolute T, the scene where he gets pissed because the freshly severed head of Dr Hill won't stay up right is priceless. True David Gale, who plays the truly creepy Dr Hill, wins the award for the most evil bastard of the film Jeffrey Combs still beats him in pure style. I feel sorry for Bruce Abbott who plays Dr David Cain, because he is trapped in this George Clooney style doctor role and you find yourself rooting for Jeffrey Combs more, at least I do. This movie is gory and has a very dark comedic feel through it, the fights with Rufus the Re-Animated Cat anyone? This movie has a very infamous scene, I won't spoil it for you but lets just say it is a sex scene that involves a head that is no longer attached but still can be frisky. These guys were really kinky sickos and here that scene alone is good enough to make this movie an A and recieve admiration from this reviewer for having the twisted imagination to come up with that. If you don't mind gore you'll love this movie, a true mad scientist classic.

Dagon - B+

Two couples are enjoying some relaxing sailing off the coast of Spain when a freak storm blows up and their boat is run on the rocks. So our hero Paul and his girlfriend Barbara go into the small fishing village for help. But the village is not where they want to be, the entire town is populated by these half sea monster people who want to sacrifice them to Dagon, their sea monster god. In short order Paul, a complete wimp, is all by himself and forced to trying against the deformed villagers and save the others before it is too late. This movie is another Stuard Gordon take on an H.P. Lovecraft tale that was supposed to be made 15 years ago after the success of Re-Animator but didn't materalize until 2001. Keeping this in mind the character of Paul was totally meant for a young Jeffrey Combs and the actor they found to play him has an uncanny resembelance to him. My favorite scene hands down involves the live skinning of a fat man, that was a wonderfully gory scene. This wasn't as good as Re-Animator because it relies on one character for about 90 percent of the movie and he isn't very likable, he is way too much of a wimp. I would have probably liked him better if he was played by Jeffery Combs but that is only because I am a bit biased towards him. Stuart Gordon does a good job of taking Lovecraft's work to the screen once again with plenty of freaky fish people and frightening moments to make a good but flawed movie.

Burial Ground - D

Burial Ground, aka Nights of Terror, aka the Zombie Dead, aka the Zombie Horror, this should tell you immediately that it is of course a zombie movie but also it is Italian. The story is pretty slim, a professor awakens some zombies in a crypt and being zombies they rampage on a bunch of proto-yuppies at a villa. The movie is pretty bad, the acting is way way over the top even for something from Italy. The zombies are nothing but really poorly made masks over some grips. But this movie shows a key moment in zombie evolution, it is the first zombie movie I've seen where the zombies use tools to kill the living, even at one point using a battering ram to try and take down the door. But more importantly this movie is infamous for a spookier more twisted sub-plot. There is a kid in the movie, Michael, who is 4 feet tall but looks like he is in his mid-30s and wearing a cheap wig. That is not the spooky part, although he is one creepy bastard, it is that he and his mom have an incestual thing going between them, at one point they go into a hallway and start making out where the kid starts groping his mom. But they save the best/worse/most twisted for last, Michael becomes a zombie and encounter his mother again. This time she pulls her shirt open and lets him suck on her breast before biting it off. It is the only Oedipus meets zombies plot line I've ever seen. I have search to try and find the kid's age when he made the film but have been unsuccessful, he might be actually in his mid-30s with a growth problem for all I know but it is still really messed up. With the incest exception this movie is a fairly bad zombie flick that should probably be avoided by all except hardcore splatter or incest fans.

Dead Alive - A

Before Peter Jackson was universally revered as the guy that made Lord of the Rings, he was revered to the horror world for this splatter-rific film. A young man's mother gets bitten by a rare monkey at the zoo which has some rather unfortunate consquences, she starts attacking everyone around her, animals, nurses, neighbors and the like. So he does what any good son does, hides his mother and all the people she has infected in his house until, you guessed it sports fans, something goes wrong. Now he must keep himself and his girlfriend alive from a horde of rampaging zombies. The movie is very funny because of how much gore is in the film. The best scene in the film hands down involves our hero trapped in his house full of marauding zombies and the only thing he has in his lawnmower, so like any good hero he picks up his lawnmower and attacks the zombies. The end result is about 300 pounds of uncooked Hormel Chili laying in a hallway. The movie is the finest New Zealand zombie movie and a real hoot to watch.

Alien - A

I will kindle the age old debate about which is better Alien or Aliens on this webpage. It will turn into a revolution that will bring the entire Internet to a crashing halt. While Alien and Aliens are two different movies with only a very few similarities, Alien is a better film. Aliens is still a great action movie, but it lacks atmosphere. Alien has enough atmosphere to spare. Alien really is a haunted house movie on a space ship, much like Below you are trapped in a place with something really evil and you can't escape because outside it hard vaccum which isn't meant for human existance. Ridley Scott is an amazing job of creating the claustraphobia of the the Nostromo, and it was claustraphobia that made the alien all the more terrifing. In Aliens, the Aliens aren't terrifing they have become a standard hard to kill bad guy, like Indians in a John Ford movie. The alien in Alien is a bad ass motherfucker, and the crew really has no weapons to fight it off with. Also the acting in Alien is stellar, every member of the crew gives an amazing preformance. From John Hurt, whose chest explodes in one of the most memoriable scenes in movie history, to Ian Holm who plays the science officer turned android Ash. This movie is the first to really show division, enthic identity and many other societal problems among the crew. Before it was Star Trek, and 2001 where the crew was cohensive and worked for the common good. The music by Jerry Goldsmith only adds to the tension in the movie. These are the features that Aliens lacked and that is why Alien is a better movie.

When A Stranger Calls - B

This movie has possibly the most intense opening of a movie ever. In the beginning Carol Kane, best known as Billy Crystal's Wife in the Princess Bride, is babysitting and starts getting creepy phone calls from a menacing voice asking if she's checked the children. When she get the cops to trace the calls she learns that they are coming from the house. The opening twenty minutes are amazing and so tense it even gave me the serious creeps. But that old urban legend filled up about twenty minutes of a 90 minute movie. It is here the movie basically crumbles, we are left with Charles Durning who plays a retired cop who investigated the original crime learning that the killer Kurt Duncan has escaped and is now out to serve a final justice to him. The middle hour of this movie turns into some weird town without pity as Kurt romances Colleen Dewhurst, a staple of the made for TV movie in the 70s and 80s. Charles Durning finally corners Kurt and then tries to chase him down and killed with lockpicks, the only problem is that Charles Durning is about 250 pounds of red meat and doughnut batter wrapped in a cheap sport coat so Kurt escapes and learns that Carol Kane is living a happy suburban life. So he does what any self respecting pyscho does to survivors of previous rampages, he tries to clean up. So after an entire hour we are reintroduced to Carol Kane who has two kids of her own now and goes out to dinner leaving another babysitter to get menacing phone calls. The circle is complete this time can Charles Durning set things right? The movie really falls flat after the first twenty minutes but those twenty minutes are some of the best in film making history and saves the movie from a C. It is kinda sad that you can't make this kind of movie anymore where somebody gets menacing phone calls because all she would have to do is dial *69 or look at the caller id, technology has this really bad habit of destroying great story ideas.

Strawberry Estate - F

I finally found something worse than the Blair Witch Project in the fake documentary horror department. This is your standard documentary crew going into a haunted asylum and then mysteriously disappear. The only problem is that nothing happens until the last ten minutes, the previous hour and thirty minutes is pure bullshit, absolute bullshit. They talk about religion, over and over. The movie has some sort of message about how the country needs to have more religion in it, and we're a religiously intolerate society. Look peddle your theological bullshit to somebody else, I'm not here to listen to a sermon I want a fucking horror movie, take your religious message to the 700 Club. The professor wanders about telling these crappy ghost stories. This guy would never make it as a story teller he has no clue how to read a ghost story, here is a hint fella when you read a ghost story it shouldn't sound like you're reading straight from the phone book. It is never scary, the only mildly interesting scene is a sex scene that gets cut immediately before anything actually happens. It is always a bad sign when I am watching your movie and I start fast forwarding through long parts of it. If I even think about using the fast forward button you movie will get nothing higher than a C. This movie was awful, much like the pain of being clubbed over the head repeated with a Fungo bat that has a sharp corner, while it doesn't kill you it makes you wish that you and basically everyone invovled with it was dead as well.

Bride of Re-Animator - A-

Its been 9 months since the last fiasco at Miskatonic University involving Herbert West and his neon green god juice. Dr Dan Cain is back too as Dr West's rather reluctant but still spineless partner. They spent the last 9 months in South America working as surgeons in a war zone, which gave Herbert plenty of fodder for his experiments. Upon returning to Miskatonic they of course start up their experiments once again but this time with a twist, instead of trying to bring back a whole human they are going to piece together the perfect woman. Of course Dr Cain finds himself another woman to romance while Herbert plays around piecing people and animals together from various pieces, my personal favorite involves a dog and a human hand, puts a totally new spin on the command shake. The head of Dr Hill, the truly evil character from the first movie comes back as well but is woefully under used in this movie. Everything comes to a head when Herbert and Dan complete their Bride of Frakenstein. This movie wasn't as good as the first but it still had enough sick humor and Jeffrey Combs to make it a really good movie. As expected Jeffery Combs as Dr Herbert West steals this movie lock stock and re-animated corpse, every joke in this movie comes from his dry flat one liners. The ending of the movie is so absolutely insane it really needs to be seen to be believed.

Toolbox Murders (2003) - A-

Tobe Hooper proves to the world that he is still a master of horror with this film. It is set in Lusman Arms Apartments, an old art deco apartment building in Hollywood that is under going renovations but the tenants are facing a rather severe atrition people as a mysterious figure keeps killing them with household tools. This is a wonderful remake of the 1978 Toolbox Murders which wasn't all that great but this was. It stars Angela Bettis who was in May, a movie I really didn't like. But in this one I really like Angela Farris, she has enough vulnerablity but still some spunk to make a very good horror movie heroine. She and her soon to be doctor husband move into the crumbling apartment building and she starts to investigate the weirdness of the building. I really like how Tobe took the killer and his motives in this movie, it really is twisted but in an odd sort of way more believable than Freddy or Jason. The building itself is a great character, played by the equally crumbling Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood. The movie's only problem is that Tobe ran out of money 2/3 of the way through production and they had to piece the last 1/3 together from stuff they already shot, this leds to see the world's longest stairway chase in movie history. She must climb up 80 flights of stairs in a 6 story building and you get to see the same rounding the corner 3 times. This is a wonderful movie that really should have been financed more because it is so good to butcher the end is unjust. This movie travels the film festival circuit unable to find a major distributor. It probably will never get a major theatrical release, and probably will get a crappy DVD release by Dimension or if I'm lucky a big deluxe release by Anchor Bay. This is a good movie that stumbles a bit due to forces outside of the movie's control, it is a definite must watch for horror fans, Tobe can really make you jump even without chainsaws.

Girls Nite Out - C

This is a pretty tame vanilla slasher movie from 1984, the heyday of slasher. During a scavanger hunt at some small college a killer stalks the sorority girls in a bear costume and uses several blades like bear claws to dispatch the girls. It certainly is the most cuddly of all slashers but the gore factor is rather low on this one so you really don't get to see the bear strut its stuff. Another oddity of this film that it has two Holbrooks in it, first we have Hal Holbrook playing the campus security chief whose daughter was killed by the psycho years earlier, and then we have David Holbrook playing the near psycho basketball player. There really isn't much to say about this film outside of it is vanilla as vanilla gets. It isn't a bad slasher but it doesn't take the sub-genre in any new directions outside of the killer in the bear costume. It is a rarity due to the fact that it never made it big and you'll probably never find it which isn't all that bad because you can miss this one and be able to call yourself a horror fan.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood - D

A group of college students spend Christmas Break closing down a dorm while a killer picks them off one by one. Wow this movie was bad, first off the cast was old enough that they could have had kids in college at this time. The only member of the cast to look remotely college aged was Daphen Zuniga who went on to Melrose Place and Spaceballs. The only reason why you know that this is a college setting is because of the title, the college is never mentioned at all. It would have made more sense to make it an apartment complex or maybe a retirement village but the Dorm That Dripped Blood is more alliterative I guess. This movie drags and stumbled through the darkness to give you a few decent gory deaths but the cast is more afraid of their dialogue than the killer. The killer does a decent job of convincing us he is rather unhinged but it is too little too late. The only thing that saves this movie from an F is the rather inventive direction the ending takes us. You don't think that they will go through with it but it does happen and that little attempt at being scary at the end saves the movie from a complete waste of time. This was written/directed/produced by Steven Carpenter, no relation to horror god John Carpenter, who other notable attempt at horror was the equally dismal Soul Survivors. My suggestion to Steven is to quit directing and go into chicken farming at least there he can rape the chickens and instead of movie patrons.

Pledge Night - C-

A group of fraternity pledges and their sadistic frat brothers plus a health smattering of New Jersey Grade Bimbos get hacked to pieces by an undead hippie who was killed in a frat prank years ago. Half this movie is a great explanation why no one should join a frat, it chronicles the homoerotic humilation they put them through. If anybody in that group really had a spine they would take one of the paddles and smack these twits on the head for this bullshit. But you don't join a frat if you have good self esteem. Once the killing starts the movie gets pretty tense and good, but the problem is you have to suffer through the first part. I liked the crazy frat brother subplot they had going, and how they moved it to the next level by having the undead hippie take him over but I wanted to see how, it just happened and you're never show how or why. The girls in this movie are all New Jersey product and like the adage goes, New Jersey Girls aren't trash, I will pick up trash, they aren't exactly raving beauties. A decent second half of a movie but the first half is almost enough to make you give up watching. They don't introduce the villain for almost forty minutes and this is a horror movie, maybe the homoerotic frat brothers are the real horror in this movie but at least they should have told the pledges the tale of Acid Sid to establish him in the mind of the audience. Not bad, not great, it has its moments.

Don't Answer the Phone - D-

A twisted Vietnam Vet and part time porno photographer is stalking and killing women in LA. Meanwhile too stereotypical gruff detectives are trying to find him while he sends phone calls to a radio psychologist in a strange Mexican accent. Of course the radio shrink and the lead detective fall in love and of course the psycho kidnaps the psychologist. The movie has a few good points, Nicholas Worth plays a good psycho, he is very believable. The other good point is the shots of Los Angeles circa 1980, it really gives you a feel for the seedy City of Angels. The story is very similar to the Hillside Strangler who terrorized LA in the late 70s and probably was the number 1 through 10 influences on the film. The biggest problem I had with the film was the version I saw, the DVD Release by Rhino is a horribly butchery of the film. It has been turned into a Made For TV Movie of the Week with all the tension of a Used Car Comercial and all the sexuality of the Underwear Page of the Sears Catalog. You never actually see any of the murders and your stuck with the actors telling you how horrible it was, it makes the deaths almost comical as the actors spit out the lines like they're reading from the phone book. When making a low budget hack and slash you don't want to rely on the ability of no name one time actors to convey horror. The earlier VHS version is uncut which is really unusual because most of the time it is the DVDs that are uncut but I guess not in the case of Rhino. Don't watch the DVD, if you want to watch it at all find the VHS version and watch that.

The Sentinel - A

A fashion model rents a beautiful Brooklyn Heights Brownstone apartment and meets her rather bizarre neighbors. She soon starts to act strangely as the apartment starts to have an affect on her. That is all I'm going to say about this amazing film, any more I would be giving too much away. This is an amazingly tense and creepy movie with the biggest cast of notables I've seen in a horror movie, this cast is more akin to the Disaster Movies or War Movies of the 70s than a little horror movie. The cast has Christopher Walken (You know him, love him and fear him) and Eli Wallach (The Ugly From The Good The Bad and The Ugly) as cops, Jeff Goldblum (Malcolm from Jurassic Park) and Jerry Orbach (yes Lennie from Law and Order) as fashion photographers, Burgess Meredith (Rocky's Trainer From Rocky), who is a hoot, and Beverly D'Angelo (Chevy Chase's Wife in National Lampoons Vacation) as the crazy neighbor, Martin Balsam (Admiral Kimmel From Tora Tora Tora) as a college professor, John Carridine (father of Keith and Bill... I mean David) and Jose Ferrer (Lieutenant Greenwald, the good lawyer from the Caine Mutiny and George Clooney's Uncle) as religious figures, Ava Gardner (Famous Musical Star of the 50s and once Frank Sinatra's wife) as the real estate broker, Chris Sarandon (Of course we all know him as Prince Humperdinck From the Princess Bride) as the lawyer boyfriend of the model, Tom Berenger (Sergeant Barnes from Platoon) and Nana Visitor (Kira from DS9) as the prospective tenants at the end of the movie, and last and my favorite William Hickey (Ubertino da Casale from the Name of the Rose) as a thief who is great in this movie. The only person that really doesn't have a great resume is the main girl Cristina Raines who hasn't stared in anything in about ten years, her only real claim to fame is that she is married to Christopher Cowe a TV producer and creator. This is a wonderful movie that keeps you constantly guessing. There is 70 Clothes Warning, Eli Wallach's tie is bigger than his head and tacky yellow. Fabulous movie must be seen for suspense fun.

Horror Express - B+

Christopher Lee is an archeologist who unearths a frozen half man half ape in Manchuria and takes it aboard the Trans-Siberia Railroad where he meet Peter Cushing and the beasts wakes up. This is a fun little Hammer Horror movie. You can never really dislike these movies because Lee and Cushing are so amazing together, you really can tell these guys are true master actors. The effects are a little cheap but these movies aren't made for effects it relies more on acting. The creature is in fact an alien akin to the creature in John Carpenter's The Thing. Telly Savalas has an rather humorous cameo as the captain of a group of Cossacks who board the train to investigate the killings. The killings are rather creepy, the beasts stares at you and you bleed from your eyes and they turn white. Also on the train is a cheaper version of Rasputin, I think they just recycled Christopher Lee's costume from Rasputin, The Mad Monk in this movie. He is exchange baggage but isn't out of place. This is a fun horror movie, it isn't overly scary or overly gory it is just simple fun.

Bloody Murder - D

Nice rip off of Friday the 13th down to the hockey mask and an abandoned summer camp complete with tramatic past. Only problem is that Friday the 13th was about 5 times better. This movie feels like it was made by MTV, lots of cute girls, sculpted dudes, relationship woes, angst all around, and not a drop of gore to be seen. The acting isn't bad, it really has that TV movie feel to the quality. My biggest problem is the logic in the film, between the first and the final fight there is about five days. Now normal people would flee after the second disappearence, not these morons they stay and go about their normal routine. I'm sorry when I'm in the isolated woods and people just start disappearing I leave I don't act like nothing happened. That is why Friday the 13th worked it all happened in one night and that is where Bloody Murder fails.

Bloody Murder 2 - A-

Wow talk about a turn around on a series, usually the sequel is supossed to suck but this time the sequel was dramatically better than the first. Again counselors are at Placid Pines camp, and again somebody starts hacking people apart in very gory ways. This movie at least shows the gore, best death involes a guy losing his legs to a machete. The star of the movie is okay, but her supporting cast is very strong including the next big Scream Queen, Tiffany Shepis, who plays the bad girl Angela. I like how the game really keeps you guessing about who is the killer. I like how this slasher series doesn't have an unstoppable killing machine but it is one of their lot. This is a good slasher movie with some good scary moments and some good misdirection, the only problem is the twists twist one too many times before the actual killer comes to light but it is pretty good and worth a shot if you like the slashing hacking fun.

Death Factory - B-

College kids decide that an abandoned factory is the perfect place for a party but then they learn it is first an abandoned chemical factory, and two it was abandoned because somebody or something killed 24 people there. This is another of a large series of horror movies from Sterling Productions, I know your probably thinking the same thing I am, Sterling Productions sounds like a porno company but it is a low budget gore feast company. The two best features of this movie are Ron Jeremy, who plays a hobo who gets knifed, and the killer played by the next big Scream Queen, Tiffany Shepis. Tiffany steals the show by playing the killer with metal teeth, she really seems to be enjoying herself even in this low budget movie. Ron Jeremy really is nothing but a cameo but he is Ron 'The Human Hedgehog' Jeremy, Guiness Book of World Records Holder for staring in the most porno movies, 1750. He's gone from porn to cameo appearences in horror flicks, which is great because he has lots of on stage charisma. The rest of the movie is pretty low budget, and you really need to turn your brain off to watch it, like why there is a four poster bed in a factory? Or when the kids are trapped at the door and they pound on it and the quarter inch plywood they use for a door nearly buckles then they say, we're trapped. It is cheap but Tiffany's preformance really saves this movie.

The Green Keeper - A-

This is the true satire of slasher movies, Scream was a self conscious slasher movie and Scary Movie was a satire of Scream which was a satire. Green Keeper or Greenskeeper as it is listed some places is made by Kevin Greene a one man movie band from Atlanta who takes the slasher to a novel place, the country club. This is the kind of place where black people are allowed to work there but not even Tiger Woods could play a round of golf on. Here is where we see the first positive point of the film, Kevin Greene has all the country club girls, these horrible self important dimwits all blondes and even in the background all the girls are blondes while the help are Hispanic. Our hero, Allan is a wannabe screen writer who is working at the country club owned by his step-father. I sense Allan is a cathartic character for Kevin. He dates Mary Beth, one of the blonde country club girls who the minute we meet here we are hoping for her death. Her and her country club pals, Mary with and Mary that, the boys Chip, Chet, and Champ, decide to throw a party at the country club after hours when Allan is wooing his squeeze the latina lovely Elana. A man dress in a green jumpsuit and wearing a bea catchers mask starts killing them one by one. The movie is a cross between Friday the 13th and Dazed and Confused. It has the feel of a Broken Lizards' movie but more emphasis on gore than jokes. I was very surprised with the film seeing that the last two horror comedies I have seen have been dismal. There are a few problems with the film, they don't use Allan's stoner friends at all, they just sit and watch a horror movie, and the death of Mary Beth isn't shown she just pops up dead. A good movie that manages to be both funny and scary.