1980s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Night of the Demons (1988)

Posted on October 30, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Eat a bowl of fuck! I am here to PARTY!

It’s Halloween night and a group of teens are ready to party. And when I say teens I mean actors in their mid 20s to 30s. The one who sticks out is none other than Angela (Amelia Kinkade), dressed as a gothic teen witch, a look that I’d guess was the inspiration for Nancy in The Craft (1995). Linnea Quigley is also here, all ready to distract the desk clerks by showing off her skinny ass in a pink princess Peach skirt so that Angela can steal some beer. Now, off we go to the old Hull House (and no, that was not a typo).

This Hull House, or mansion if you will, is a dusty rundown abandoned Victorian funeral parlor next to a cemetery, of course. And no, this is not the home of the Crypt Keeper, but where the owner killed his entire family before killing himself. OoOo, spooky… Couldn’t be a more perfect spot for a Halloween party. This place was shot on an actual location, by the way, that was also reused in the sequel before it was demolished and replaced by a Ralphs supermarket.

After settling in, amping up the delicious spooky atmosphere with candles and lighting the fireplace in the living room, someone has a great idea: let’s have a seance and conjure the demon that’s trapped in the crematorium chamber in the basement. But here’s the big question: what’s actually the difference between a ghost and a demon? Hmm… Angela, the true occultist that she is, has the answer, in the most serious, matter-of-fact way possible, and performs as if she has spent a whole weekend to finally learn the next few sentences by heart. Listen to this:

Ok, if you say so. I can also already say that the acting here is hilariously bad. It’s something between a porno and a high school play where Claudio Fragasso would pick the actors for his next movie. They summon a demon skull head through a mirror who first possesses Suzanne (Quigley), who then spreads the possession by making out with Angela, and so on. Lesbian tongue sex, yeaahh, far-fucking out! Trivia: According to screenwriter Joe Augustyn, the original script had a gay couple ready to kiss, but it was deemed too radical by some of the producers, as well as the director. Or because this was after all the 1980s where the worst thing you could be on planet Earth, aside from being a nerd, was a homosexual male. Anyway, the real party starts when Angela and Suzanne turn into something that looks more like deadites from The Evil Dead and hunts down the rest around the house in slasher fashion.

The tone and 80s greatness is already clear from the delightful animated opening with the catchy synth score, a tribute to the ‘Night on Bald Mountain‘ sequence from the 1940 Disney film Fantasia. The film is way sillier than I remembered it to be. The overall cartoonish vibe, the pure steamy 1980s schlockness, the goofy acting and stiff, delayed dialogue delivery is the comedy here, intentionally or not. And mixed with the fun they most assumingly had making the film, adds a special cute charm to it. It could very easily be set somewhere in the same universe as The Return of the Living Dead (1985), only here we have demons instead of zombies. And instead of a graveyard dance you have, of course, a wicked demon dance with the tunes of Stigmata Martyr, performed by the party host Angela herself before losing herself into full possession mode. She also choreographed the scene by herself. Impressive. The demon voice was dubbed over by veteran voice actor Frank Welker.

Then you have the classic cinematic moment where Linnea Quigley shows us a fascinating magic trick that includes a lipstick and her left boob. A weird combination, you say? Oh, just wait, cuz this will actually blow your mind. This scene is called “infamous“ for whatever reason, where a cast of her breast was made by FX artist Steve Johnson to do the lipstick effect. Aside from that, there’s a quick blink-and-you-miss-it shot of Quigly flashing her unshaved pussy. A middle-finger to the censor bureaucrats, I guess. The kills aren’t that special, even though the practical and make-up effects by Steve Johnson, as mentioned, are great. Tongues get ripped off, someone is missing an arm, and of course, eye-gauging. The demon-look of Angela, showcased on every movie posters, is iconic on its own.

Night of the Demons gets a bit formulaic during the last thirty minutes or so, but it’s overall a fun n’ tasty Halloween romp with the kind of spooky, dusty haunted house atmosphere that could only come out of the 1980s. A good time. There’s also a fun little side plot about a grumpy get-off-my-lawn type of neighbor who gets a pretty unexpected karma. Trick or treat, sucker!

Director: Kevin Tenney
Writer: Joe Augustyn
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Hal Havins, Allison Barron, Alvin Alexis, Amelia Kinkade, Linnea Quigley, Donnie Jeffcoat, Cathy Podewell, Karen Ericson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093624/

Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)

Posted on October 27, 2026October 28, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What the hell really happened to Return of the Living Dead Part II? It’s a movie that was made, that we at least can say for sure. But it’s certainly not a sequel, nor a prequel. I saw Part 2 on TV (on the Norwegian Broadcast channel, of all places) years before I saw the first film, and can say I got a little confused when I finally got to see it, even though it should have been the other way around. On the surface, this is more or less the same film all over again, a rerun, where Thom Matthews and James Karen reprise their roles in what we might call an alternate universe… something like that. A more fitting title would be Return of the Living Déjà vu.

Dan O’Bannon was not interested in making the sequel as he was moving on to developing his own project, that was The Resurrected. In comes Ken Wiederhorn, a frustrated and struggling director who was notoriously known for hating horror movies since he entered the business in 1977 with his nazi/zombie flick Shock Waves. He also made the sleazy drive-in thriller Eyes of a Stranger (1981) and was only seen as a schlocky horror movie director. He was so desperate to make this as his ultimate segway out of the horror genre that he took a writing class, so he finally could make real movies like William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese. The irony is that the result more or less ended up like a watered-down copy-and-paste version of the original, without the spicy satire. Wiederhorn originally wrote a stand-alone comedy horror which producer Tom Fox saw the big-dollar opportunity to slam Return of the Living Dead Part II on, or “The Police Academy of Horror Movies“, as Wiederhorn proudly called it. Fucking Christ, he should be forever glad that social media didn’t exist back then.

Tom Fox brought back Thom Matthews and James Karen to make some shallow connections to the first film, while the child actors would appeal to the younger audiences. Don Calfa, who played the mortician in the first film, auditioned to play the goofy doctor, but got rejected. The funny thing is that the production was such a miserable experience that Tom Matthews and James Karen told Don Calfa on the phone that he was lucky to not be a part of it.

And against all odds, the film was better than it had any right to be. Even Ken Wiederhorn was taken back of how well received it was. He never got the big break he wanted, though, and only directed some TV series in the early ’90s. His last film was the obscure romance/thriller A House in the Hills (1993), which is the one and only film he’s proud of.

The plot is as basic as it can get, where some canisters of the Trioxin gas/liquid falls off a military truck and into a river that finds its way into a drainpipe near a suburb. And that’s just fantastic, since drainpipes are an exciting place for kids to explore, especially in the 1980s. And speaking of kids, meet the twelve-year-old Jesse and the two bullies, Billy and Johnny, stumble upon the canister, tampering with it until they see a dead cadaver through its glass panel (hello, Tarman) and runs away. As the gas has already started to ooze, because of those damn kids, the damage is done, and it’s just a matter of time before it reaches the local cemetery, and it’s partytime once again (just without the punks and naked gravedancing).

There are several positives about Part 2, though. It’s a great-looking ’80s movie with some tasty atmospheric foggy night scenes and interesting-looking zombies. The dumb comedy really kicks in during the zombie resurrection scene where zombie aunt puts on her glasses, zombie uncle fixes his tie, while others gets stomped on. And if you’re watching this for the first time on DVD you’d go bruh? What’s this? Return of the Living Disco Zombies? The cheese really reeks hard at this cemetery. Even director Wiederhorn says in the commentary track that there’s something wrong with this music, but has no answer to why. Other sources say that there were some copyright disputes and a new score had to be added to the 2004 DVD release. The funny thing is that the original score is still on the French and Italian language track. I also read many years ago somewhere on the internet that the DVD was transferred from a Russian version. Another unsolved mystery is who actually made that awesome movie poster. Rumors says it’s by Peter Mueller who also did the very similar poster for Fright Night (1985) , but nothing has been confirmed.

Well, anyway…James Karen goes full force with the tiresome overacting. Some of the “highlights“ is where he holds a zombie head and let the indexfinger on his other arm get bitten. Just because. Hilarious (sarcasm). While we have lots of zombies shuffling around, there’s actually even less blood here than in the first film. It’s lighthearted, silly and pretty much on the level of gateway horror. And despite the turmoil behind the scenes, and a director that had no idea what made the first one so special, they at the very least managed to be professional and give us a false impression that the actors had fun on set. The slick and polished cinematography by Robert Elswit, is also a big plus, who later did Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Nightcrawler, to mention some. I also like the ending/climax with the sparkling, jiggling zombies where we have a quick cameo from none other than Michael Jackson. Aow!

Writer and director: Ken Wiederhorn
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Michael Kenworthy, Thor Van Lingen, Jason Hogan, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Suzanne Snyder, Marsha Dietlein, Hanala Sagal, Jonathan Terry, Philip Bruns, Allan Trautman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095990/

The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Posted on October 26, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

It’s the fourth of July, the year is 1984, and it’s time to get horny.

But before we get loose and festive, here are some important facts to know: because did you know that The Night of the Living Dead (1968), yes the George A. Romero classic, was actually based on a true case? Frank can tell. We’re at a medical supply warehouse somewhere in Louisville, Kentucky, where the two workers, Frank (James Karen) and the new, younger employee, Freddy (Thom Matthews) are about to get done for the day. Frank is supposed to be 45 years old, which has to be the most brutal 45 years I’ve ever seen. Bearing the guilt of being responsible for building houses on an unmarked cemetery maybe does that to you. Anyway: It all starts when Freddy asks Frank what’s the weirdest thing he’s ever seen in the warehouse. Oh, he’s surely seen some things, but nothing weirder than the Trioxin gas conspiracy. Because the true story is that in 1969 this chemical got leaked into a hospital in Pittsburgh, leaked down to the morgue and woke up the dead bodies into zombies. The Trioxin was originally developed for the Army, and if it was ever exposed in the movie, Romero and co would have their asses sued.

And given that this film is actually co-written by John A. Russo, who also co-wrote TNOTLD, the truth is finally coming out. Anyway, the Army sent all the contaminated bodies out, and some of them are in the basement, yes, in this building, with a can of the Trioxin. You wanna see? Of course you do.

The pompous dork that Frank is, takes a quick slam at the canister to show how strong and secure it is. Instead, the gas oozes out that eventually reeks out of the crematorium pipe and up in the air that makes the rain toxic enough to resurrect the dead at the local cemetery. And they want braaaaains! Why exactly brains though? You’ll see.

While Frank and Freddy get more and more sick after inhaling the gas, we meet a charming group of punks who just wanna party. And what could be a better spot to celebrate the fourth of July than in a cemetery? They all stick out in their own ways, but the one we would focus most on, is the redhead Trash (Linnea Quigley). Because when the sun has gone down, and it’s partytime, Trash gets aroused and horny with her own filthy sadomasochistic fantasies of being killed in all kinds of different ways by a bunch of men. Be careful what you wish for, hon. She rips off her clothes and dances on a gravestone, buck naked, which alone made the entire legacy of Linnea Quigley. Not bad. And she runs around naked for the rest of the movie. Quigley already had a background as a nude model, so that explains something.

Fun trivia time: The grave dance scene was as groundbreaking and controversial in American cinema as it was to show a toilet in Psycho (1960). This scene was shot two times. The second time was when they realized that they couldn’t show pubic hair without getting an X-rating. And an X-rating at that time meant zero advertisement other than a small black & white logo of the film’s title hidden in the newspaper. It wasn’t just enough to shave it, no no, she had to wear a prosthetic of her crotch to make her less exposed and make her more doll-like. The funny thing is that the actors had never seen a shaved pussy before, because this was after all the 1980s, and they were more confused about what they were watching. Pretty vacant, like Johnny Rotten would say.

According to the making-of-documentary More Brains! A Return to the Living Dead from 2011, the film was a brutal shoot, a war zone, someone even calls it. A lot of spontaneous rehearsal tapes ended in the final cut, which was usually unheard of. There’s a great chaotic atmosphere here, lots of raw punk rock vibes energy (yeah duh), and much is also due to the director Dan O’Bannon, who according to the actors, was a total punk himself who pushed the actors to the breaking point. Everything that could go wrong, could go seriously wrong and ruin the whole production. In this case, however, it seemed to make the film better. More chaos, more fun. Art by many accidents, or just having a relatively clear vision may help a lot. Even though this was Lloyd Kaufman, I mean Dan O’Bannon’s first time directing, he was the one who wrote Alien (1979), so he wasn’t exactly a nobody.

More fun trivia: One of the actresses had a very awkward meeting with Bannon over a script reading at his house, where he had guns all over his desk and hardcore porn showing on the TV. That’s Hollywood, baby, to quote R. Zegler. The best part of the documentary can be found in the deleted scenes section called “Researching the Dead“. The iconic movie poster was illustrated by Carl Ramsey (1946-2014). He also made the posters for Motel Hell (1980) and Beetlejuice (1988).

The soundtrack has a fitting playlist of some local punk bands such as The Cramps, The Damned, The Flesh Eaters and more. The most memorable will always be Party Time by 45 Grave, and the pop song Tonight We’ll Make Love Until We Die by SSQ is catchy as hell. The good ole’ 1980s. It also has to be said that this is far from a gore fest like Re Animator, which came out the same year as this. You have two scenes where skulls get eaten, more bloody than the other. The satire and the chaotic absurdity is what drives the film, with lots of memorable moments like the restrained zombie who explains why they need to eat brains, the first encounter with Tarman, “send more paramedics“, and the overall pure ’80s atmosphere.

I also like the concept of Frank and Freddy slowly dying while they’re still alive after they inhaled the Trioxin. Having to go through rigor mortis before death is a horror movie in itself. And there you have the irony of zombies running, which you’ll see later on. So no, Zack Snyder was far from the first. My favorite character here is the mortician with the big bulging eyes, Ernie (Don Calfa), who has some of the best reactions as he plays it all straight and rational, which is moons apart from all of the rest. The ending is what it is, because Bannon had no clue how to, well, end it.

Director: Dan O’Bannon
Writers: Rudy Ricci, John A. Russo, Russell Streiner
Country & year: USA, 1985
Actors: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph, John Philbin, Jewel Shepard, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Brian Peck, Linnea Quigley, Mark Venturini,
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089907/

The Pit (1981)

Posted on October 22, 2026October 22, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Jamie (Sammy Snyders) is a disturbed and socially stunned 12-year-old boy with only one friend: his teddy bear, who he has daily conversations with. When he tries to connect with other kids in the neighborhood, he only gets met with a suckerpunch or just public humiliation. He starts to show interest in girls, especially in the older psychology student Sandy (Jeannie Elias), a brunette curlyhead who gets the job of babysitting him when his parents go on a business trip. He falls madly in love with her and does creepy things such as watching her sleep, and writing “I love you“ with her lipstick on the bathroom mirror while she’s showering. Puberty is one helluva drug. And Sandy is just too young and naive to spot any red flags other than getting irritated by his creep behavior. Boys are just being boys, as they say.

Fun fact: The director, Lew Lehman, couldn’t direct the scene in the bathroom since his wife refused him to be in a same room with a naked actress. Lol. He should make a porn after this one, just out of spite.

Anyway: Jamie is also a prankster, who glues the face of the local librarian, Marg, on a page from a nude photography book. Har-har. If that sounds harmless, well, then listen to this: Jamie one night gives the woman a phone call, telling her that her niece has been kidnapped, and if she is going to be released, Marg has to strip in front of the window so he can snap some Polaroid photos of her.

And then there’s this mysterious pit out in the forest, hence the title, that only Jamie knows of. And at the bottom of the pit, which I’d guess is only three meters deep, live some small monstrous creatures who’ve escaped from the puppet storage of Charles Band. Joey calls them Tra-La-Logs and buys raw meat from the local butcher shop to feed them. Why? Who knows. Fun fact: the pit creatures were originally called Troglodytes, but were renamed after being misspelled as Tra-La-Logs. Sounds like something that Claudio Fragasso would name his beaver pet. Screenwriter Ian A. Stuart didn’t like that as it sounded silly. And if that sounds silly, regarding this film, then you’ve seen nothing yet. From here on I’d just recommend going into this strange anomaly of a film blind, because, well, just trust me.

When Jamie no longer can’t feed the Tra-La-Logs with meat, he tries to drag a cow to the pit with no success. The next option: bring people to the forest and push them into the pit. He even brings the pit an old lady in a wheelchair where the tone suddenly shifts to an absurd silly comedy where the only thing missing is the Benny Hill theme song. Yeah…

The Pit was originally meant to be a serious and realistic coming-of-age horror thriller about a preteen boy with murderous fantasies. Director Lew Lehman had other plans though, and wanted to make…god knows. Here we basically have three films: a dark psycho drama of a boy growing up to be a Ted Bundy, a silly comedy, and a standard creature feature like Critters. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. I’ve seen some wild tone-deaf horror movies, but so far, this one takes the cake. The wooden acting, the overly dramatic and sometimes goofy misplaced score doesn’t help much to take this seriously. It’s the pure definition of a Bruh what the fuck am I watching movie, plain and simple.

Director: Lew Lehman
Writer: Ian A. Stuart
Country & year: USA, 1981
Actors: Sammy Snyders, Jeannie Elias, Sonja Smits, Laura Hollingsworth, John Auten, Laura Press, Paul Grisham, Wendy Schmidt, Andrea Swartz, Edith Bedker, Lillian Graham
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086113/

The Seventh Curse (1986)

Posted on October 21, 2026October 21, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

A girl named Bachu is a member of the bloodthirsty “Worm Tribe“ in Thailand. She is about to be sacrificed to the demonic Old Ancestor, but is saved by Dr. Yuen. The evil sorcerer of the tribe gets really pissed off by this, and Yuen is given seven “Blood Curses“, which each burst through his leg periodically. When the seventh one bursts…well, then it’s game over for Yuen, no continue. Bachu manages to make an antidote for him, served from her own tit…but unfortunately this antidote will only last for a year. Yuen gets in contact with Wiseley, whose advice is to travel back to Thailand to find a cure that will rid him of all the curses. This won’t be easy, as the evil sorcerer of the Worm Tribe will do anything to stop him, with the help of strange creatures and ghoulies that you’ll only find in a wacky film like this.

The Seventh Curse is a Hong Kong action horror film from 1986, directed by Ngai Choi Lam. Yes, that guy, who later gave us more Hong Kong horror wackiness like Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) and The Cat (1991). That these two films became his last is such a shame. He just quietly retired from the film industry without giving any explanation, so who knows what the hell happened. There could have been so much more pure comedy horror gold from this guy, but alas. Let’s just appreciate what we got, and how it’s been made more available for us western audiences during the recent years.

The Cat, which we reviewed earlier here on Horror Ghouls, was based on Ni Kuang’s Wiseley novel series. The Seventh Curse is also based on another of Ni’s series: the Dr. Yuen Series. Wiseley actually appears as a supporting character in this film, just to tie the universes together. Ni even has a brief appearance in the movie, and also serves as the film’s narrator.

Now, if I were to try and explain this movie to someone in the simplest and shortest way possible, I’d say something like this: imagine the horror elements from the Indiana Jones movies, mixed with lots of crazy Hong Kong action. Sounds fun? Well, it sure as hell is! This movie is stocked with over-the-top crazy kung fu fighting, bizarre and goofy monsters, and even some insane body horror moments and a little bit of gore.

The main characters are for the most part rather bland, but that’s okay, as everything else is so crazy that I guess we need a more grounded protagonist at least. The guy playing the evil sorcerer is almost like a goofy villain from an animated Scooby Doo episode, extremely exaggerated in his expressions and antics, but it worked in what is already such a wild movie. What did become a little bit of a pet peeve, however, was the journalist character who is eager to get the scoop of this story and come to Thailand with Dr. Yeun. She mostly came off as a little too noisy and slightly annoying. I get that she’s supposed to be intentionally intrusive but yeesh…that being said, she also had some golden moments in the movie.

Many of the things happening in this movie is so bonkers that you pretty much can’t foresee what’s going to happen most of the time. There’s just one wild and incredible scene after another. The scene featuring a giant Buddha statue our protagonist must climb while fighting kung fu monks is something you would only see in a crazy Hong Kong movie, that’s for sure. My favorite amongst it all is the little “blood ghost“, which is a nasty lil’ fetus-like bugger that’s summoned by the evil sorcerer and made from the blood of 100 children. It looks so goofy, creepy-cute and silly that every second it’s on screen is pure gold! And let’s not forget the zombie skeleton, with its glowing blue eyes! Sure, it looks like a cheap halloween-prop and the budget limitations certainly is at full display here, but it’s so cheesy and filled with charm, and even leads to a rather gory scene and its second form. Yeah, just like a video game boss it’s got a second form which is, of course, much harder to beat! Especially when it looks like something that’s been crossed with a Xenomorph.

The Seventh Curse is pretty much everything you want from a wild Hong Kong martial arts horror movie. Lots of awesome old-school practical effects (this was made in the 80’s, after all), kung fu zombies, a fetus monster, and a wild climax!

Director: Ngai Choi Lam
Writers: Jing Wong, Kai-Chi Yuen
Original title: Yuen Chun Hap yu Wai See Lee
Country & year: Hong Kong, 1986
Actors: Chow Yun-Fat, Siu-Ho Chin, Maggie Cheung, Ken Boyle, Hung Chen, Bing-Chuen Cheung, Kwok-Keung Choi, Yuen Chor, Joyce Godenzi, Shu-Yuan Hsu, Sibelle Hu
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092273/

The Pied Piper (1986)

Posted on October 19, 2026October 21, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Welcome to the town of Hamelin, where the sun slowly rises above the horizon, and it’s time to begin a new day! Except, every new day in this town is one filled with misery and pettiness, as the townspeople of Hamelin are all a miserable, narcissistic bunch of lowlifes. Everything that matters in this town is money and social rank, and people’s gluttony and waste is enormous. The result is a rat infestation, where the rats are having their fun at night and steal both food and other valuables. Things get worse and worse, until a mysterious hooded man arrives in town. This man is a piper, and he demonstrates to the town leaders that the sound of his playing can entice rats to their deaths. How wonderful! The rat problem is soon to be gone an all the assholes in town can go back to their same shit as usual. They offer the piper 1000 gold coins as payment for the job, and so he starts playing and gets rid of the rats.

You probably know this story, of course. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an old tale dating back to the Middle ages, and have forever stood as a warning of the importance of paying your debts when due. Because the Piper, despite getting rid of the rats and doing the job, doesn’t get paid. When the townspeople have gotten their problem solved, they decide to not pay him after all, causing him to exact his revenge. In the original story he lures all the children away from town, in the same way he did with the rats. In this movie, there’s a different twist on this old tale.

This version of The Pied Piper (Czech title: Krysař) is a 1986 Czechoslovak animated dark fantasy film, directed by Jiří Barta. It was a very ambitious project, where other animation studios in Czechoslovakia mainly made short films for television, usually aimed at children. As someone born in the 80’s and growing up in Norway, these Czech animated shorts were often featured on our local children’s programs on TV, mainly our public broadcaster NRK, with some of the main ones being Krtek and Pat a Mat. Kratky Film was the production company behind The Pied Piper (which is also the company that helped produce Krtek and Pat a Mat). Research for the film took six months, while screenplay and technical preparations took a year.

This movie is certainly a gorgeous and artistic piece of work. The art design is heavily influenced by German Expressionism and medieval German art, which of course is perfect for this film. And the puppets – oh man – they really are something else! Pure nightmare fuel, but in the greatest sense. I can imagine if I saw this as a child, my dreams would probably be really, really weird for the next days. The people of Hamelin look just as ugly as their personalities, which I suppose is very much the point as they’re horrible people through and through. The puppets were also intentionally designed to appear very mechanical to make them even less human, a contrast to the use of several living rats in the film. This is of course an artistic choice to make the rats seem more alive than the humans. There’s no language in the film, so the “dialogue“ is delivered through physical gestures, grunts, mumblings and other sounds.

Aside from the pure uncanny valley territory from the puppets, the whole film has a certain dark and disturbing atmosphere all over. The backgrounds, puppets, rats, music and everything creates this weird and slightly surreal nightmare-feeling to it all. Just taking a quick look at it should make most people realize this isn’t something you put on for the kids, but it’s also not just because of the visual style. There’s several themes here, including some really dark ones when it comes to another of the Piper’s main reasons for taking revenge on the entire town, that’s definitely not suitable for a younger audience.

The Pied Piper is an awesome art-house stop-motion animated film for adults, and definitely one you should check out if you want something strange, nightmarish and oddly beautiful! The movie is available on some streaming sites, including Tubi. A restored version of the film was released in 2023 by Deaf Crocodile, which is the film’s first official Blu-Ray release.

Director: Jirí Barta
Writer: Kamil Pixa
Original title: Krysar
Country & year: Czechoslovakia/West Germany, 1986
Voice actor: Oldřich Kaiser, Jiří Lábus, Michal Pavlícek, Vilém Cok
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174834/

Warlock (1989)

Posted on October 10, 2026October 11, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

So, who’s this mysterious handsome Warlock guy with that soothing British accent? To quote the star himself, Julian Sands: he’s a man in black and white, who comes from the 17th century to the 20th century downtown Los Angeles. And he’s a malevolent person (and not here to audition for Calvin Klein). Sounds intriguing enough.

It all starts in the year of 1691 in Boston, Massachusetts, where the Warlock is chained at the top of an execution tower. He’s locked in a way that puts his thumbs and big toes together that would make him The Hunchback of Boston if he was stuck in that position long enough. When the witch hunter who caught him, Redferne (Richard E. Grant), comes in to witness the execution, the Warlock casts a spell and gets transformed into a cute little tornado, like in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, that warps him to present-day California. Redferne manages to jump into the spell at the last second. And a series of weird shit happens from here on.

Warlock swirls and crashes through a window into a house where the cuteface Kassandra (Lori Singer) and her landlord Chas live. They let him stay over for the night, because they are good people. The next morning after Kassandra goes to work, the Warlock spots a ring on Chas’ finger. He cuts off his finger with a kitchen knife before biting off his tongue and makes an omelet of it. Yum. Warlock visits a spiritualist lady whom I’d bet sits on a dildo saddle everytime she “goes into trance“. Warlock tells her to summon Zamiel, who tells him to find all the missing parts of The Grand Grimoire so he can learn to spell God backwards (don’t ask) and unmake Creation…something like that. The reward is to be the son of Satan. I’d just prefer a truckload of cash, but that’s just me. Warlock cuts out her eyes to use them as a compass to find the rest of the pieces.

The compass brings him back to Kassandra’s house, where he finds the first part of the Grimoire in an antique table. What a coincidence. Poor Kassandra, who just gets caught in the middle of this cosplay BS, tries to escape, but instead he does the worst thing you can ever do to a woman: by casting a spell on her that ages her to an ancient 40-year-old! And I find it funny that her “40-year-old hag makeup“ is just her, more or less, without any makeup, where I’d mistake her for being a witch from the Westboro Baptist Church. I’m sorry, that was rude of me to say. She eventually meets Redferne and, after clearing some misunderstandings (to put it lightly), helps him to track down Warlock because she is the one who knows how to drive a car. In return, he helps her to break the age curse. Sounds like a fair deal. So what we basically have here is a cheesy fantasy movie set in real time sprinkled with some mild horror elements, a road movie, and, well, it’s a movie. And the similarities to The Terminator are already obvious.

Warlock is an odd one which was supposed to be more of a horror movie than the final cut was. The story is very ambitious on paper, written by David Twohy (Pitch Black, Below, The Chronicles of Riddick), and with the horror director Steve Miner who did the first two Friday the 13th sequels, there were maybe some expectations. Instead, most of the horror elements got watered down and edited after a failed screen test. Some were cut out due to bad special effects and others because of the pure shock value. And the strained budget really shows in several places, especially the effects of Warlock flying which just looks comical and retarded.

A particular scene that was cut out was where Warlock meets the boy with the rugby ball and kills him. Since this boy was unbaptized, his boiled body fat would give Warlock the upgrade to fly like Superman. I like the dialogue leading up to this when Warlock asks the boy why he isn’t at the church given that it is Sunday. Not all Americans are Christians, believe it or not. Then the boy asks Warlock the same and the conversation goes like this:

– Warlock: No witch can set foot on church ground!
– Boy: You’re telling me you’re a witch? You ain’t no witch. Witches are GIRLS.
– Warlock: Some are MEN !
– Boy: Yeah..? Where’s your broomstick? Witches fly on broomsticks.
– Warlock: I need no broomstick to fly.
– Boy: Yeah..? What DO you need?

Then you have a sinister moment where Warlock just looks at him, starts to laugh like the evil super villain he is, and you can only imagine the rest. We see him shortly after drinking his boiled body fat while it got suggested that the boy got killed by the coyotes. Even though this part was cut down, film got blamed six years later for inspiring two Canadian teenage boys for killing and cut the skin off a seven-year-old, who believed they would be able to fly if they made a potion of it. Just too bad they didn’t jump off a cliff to see if it worked.

Despite the campy clumsiness and the weird tone, all the actors plays their roles straight. The one who plays it most straight of them all, is Richard E. Grant, as if his life actually depended on it. His intense and neurotic Shakespearian line-deliveries makes a fun contrast to modern day Kassandra while arguing with cab drivers in Boston. Fun fact: Basil Fawlty himself (John Cleese) was actually considered for the role of the evil Warlock. That would be Something Completely Different indeed, if you take the reference. Julian Sands, who was even hesitant to take a look at the script, plays the role as a slick, charismatic psychopath with the type of confident elegance that could only come from a Brit. Warlock is overall a fun watch, much thanks to our three lead actors who brings a lot of charm and personality to it. It’s not something I’d recommend for everyone, though, It’s feels very dated with schlocky effects, clunky tone and is way more a weird fantasy/action hybrid than horror. But then there’s the sequel.

Director: Steve Miner
Writer: David Twohy
Country & year: USA, 1989
Actors: Julian Sands, Lori Singer, Richard E. Grant, Mary Woronov, Kevin O’Brien, Richard Kuss, Allan Miller, Anna Thomson, David Carpenter, Kay E. Kuter
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098622/

Child’s Play (1988)

Posted on October 4, 2026October 9, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

Charles Lee Ray aka The Lakeshore Strangler is a serial killer who is fleeing from the police in Chicago. Police Detective Mike Norris is at his heels, and inside a toy store Norris manages to shoot him. Before dying from the gunshot wound, Ray invokes the power of Damballa, a serpent spirit in Haitian Voodoo, and asks to have his soul transferred into the “Good Guy“ doll nearby. A lightning strikes the building, and Ray now lies lifeless next to the doll. Looks like the serial killer’s murder spree has come to an end…unless perhaps the voodoo spell had some merit? Yeah, we know his spirit has been successfully transferred into the doll, of course we do.

Ray certainly chose his toy wisely, as the Good Guy talking dolls are very popular. And of course also expensive. Karen Barclay, a widow with a six year old son named Andy, struggles to save up money for one. Her friend from work suggests that she can buy a doll from a homeless peddler outside, who’s gotten his hands on one and sells it cheaply. Wonder why. Well, Karen decides to put her morals to the side for this little occasion in order to make her son happy. And of course Andy is over to moon, who is totally captivated by the doll who presents itself as Chucky. While all seems fine and well, the little boy Andy understands little about all the things the doll is saying to him. How could a little kid possibly know that his favorite toy is possessed by the soul of a dead serial killer? And Ray, now aka Chucky, isn’t too happy with his plastic body. He wants a new one…one made out of real flesh and blood.

Child’s Play is the 1988 killer doll film which doesn’t really need much presentation. We all know who Chucky is. The film was directed by Tom Holland, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Don Mancini and John Lafia. It was based on an original script by Mancini, which was first titled Batteries Not Included, then changed into Blood Buddy, and it was more a whodunit story which left the ending ambiguous as to whether it was the doll or the kid who killed people. Well, in the new script there’s no doubt from the very start that the doll is a serial killer, and a new horror star was thus born. The film has since spun several sequels, a reboot, a series, and tons of merchandise. Chucky, whether you like him or not, is one of the most iconic and popular horror film characters that just never seem to die.

The “Good Guy“ dolls were inspired by the actual My Buddy dolls by Hasbro, and you can definitely see the resemblance. In fact, Chucky’s name was originally Buddy in the script, which the writers decided to change into Chucky instead so they didn’t have to worry about Hasbro getting their lawyers involved. Better play it safe, buddy! And Chucky definitely is a blast to watch on screen, in all his practical glory. The doll was controlled by a whole team of nine puppeteers, led by Brock Winkless. Chucky’s mouth was moved via radio control, and in some scenes Chucky was also played by child actors. There’s no doubt that Chucky’s character is one filled with personality, a foul-mouthed killer doll who definitely slashed his place into the horror community, made at a perfect time when cheesiness could so easily fit into an otherwise serious story. Because yeah, the premise in Child’s Play is laughable and sounds schlocky as hell, but it all just, you know, works. The music for the film also fits really well with the electronic/orchestral mix. It was composed by Joseph Renzetti, using mostly electronic music with some orchestral elements. Originally Holland had planned for the film to have a fully orchestral score, but Renzetti thought the electronic soundtrack would be best.

Performances are overall pretty good, especially Brad Dourif who is voicing Chucky and delivers the perfect maniacal and sardonic performance. This, combined with the effects of the doll with its various facial expressions ironically makes Chucky looking more alive than many of the flesh ‘n blood slashers villains from other horror movies. Auditions for the film’s roles were held at the Hollywood United Methodist Church in 1987, where Tom Holland were quick to cast Chris Sarandon for the role of Detective Norris, as he had previously worked with him in his first feature film Fright Night (1985). As for Andy’s role, hundreds of kids were considered, and the role was given to Alex Vincent, despite the boy’s lack of acting experience compared to several of the other kids. The reason? Apparently their hearts melted a little when Alex pretended to forget his lines because he didn’t want to say any curse words in front of his mother. Aw. How cute and innocent. That being said, the performance does leave a little to be desired, especially when he’s supposed to be scared.

I think Child’s Play is a fun 80’s slasher psycho doll movie, one with that certain amount of charm that only the 80’s (and 90’s, for that matter) could produce. It’s cheesy and energetic, and Chucky and his foul-mouthed character is always fun to watch. I also liked the somewhat cheesy twist of involving the lesser known Voodoo spirit Damballa, rather than going for the usual satanic twist of making a deal with the devil.

Fun Fact: when the film was released, a crowd of worried people protested at the main entrance of MGM because they thought the film would “incite violence in children“, and wanted it to be banned. And it actually got banned in Finland for “excessive graphic violence“, a ban that was lifted in the early 2000’s.

Director: Tom Holland
Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Alex Vincent, Brad Dourif, Dinah Manoff, Tommy Swerdlow, Jack Colvin, Neil Giuntoli, Juan Ramírez, Alan Wilder
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094862/

Sequels:
– Curse of Chucky (2013)
– Seed of Chucky (2004)
– Bride of Chucky (1998)
– Child’s Play 3 (1991)
– Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Remake:
– Child’s Play (2019)

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Posted on October 2, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

In Hellbound: Hellraiser II, we shift our focus more on Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), the daughter we saw in the first film, after she’s been committed to a mental hospital because no one believes her story that her dad and stepmother were killed by a Pinhead and three S&M demons. Happy recovery. Yeah, you wish. Because her doctor, Dr. Channard, is a corrupt sadist (wow, what a shocker) who is interested in this mysterious puzzle box Kirsty is telling about. Warden takes one of the basement patients and places him on the bloody mattress where Julia died and gives him a razor so he can slice himself and the the maggots he sees crawling over his body. As he bleeds all over the mattress, Julia’s skinless body emerges, just like we saw with Frank in the first film, and kills the patient while the doctor is watching. She’s now reborn in full villain-mode. Congratulations.

Channard gets a mute girl, Tiffany, to solve the puzzle box, because she’s obsessed with puzzles. Pinhead and company show up, but instead of taking Tiffany, they take Channard, since he only used Tiffany to open the box for his own desires. Huh. Yes, there are rules here, but who would know. And since he’s already “corrupt” like a mofo, his suffering will be legendary, as Pinhead famously puts it.

Meanwhile, Kirsty sees a vision of a skinless ghoul with the text written in blood behind him on the wall: “please help me, I’m in Hell“. She believes that this is her dad, and when she gets the opportunity, she enters Hell to look for him and save his trapped soul, where she finds herself in an endless labyrinth. From here on, it’s mostly all about the nightmarish and surreal atmosphere that slides in a more what the fuck am I watching kind of movie. Kirsty goes from the one Hell scenario to the next, where she also stumbles upon Uncle Frank who lives through his own personal hell. And no, she never meets the Goblin King, unfortunately.

Hellraiser II is filled with cool ideas and some interesting concepts, such as seeing a quick backstory of Pinhead and how Cenobites are created. And like any birth, it sure looks painful. The one who gets a rebirth is the corrupt doctor, and his monster design is, well, something else. His fingers look like snakes/tentacles with razors and is a way more interesting villain than Uncle Frank ever was. The look of the Hell labyrinth was inspired by the Day and Night woodcut by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher and gives the film a bigger scope than the cramped attic we were stuck in the first film. The gore and prosthetic effects are both first-class and imaginative with even some use of stop-motion. Movie expert Roger Ebert was, of course, not impressed and called out the effect maker (Bob Keen) as a “perverted man“ while giving the film a half-star.

This sequel is not written nor directed by Clive Barker, but instead he worked as a producer and was heavily involved with the story and further concepts that he hadn’t the time or budget to expand in the first film. After Barker got burned-out, the direction job went to Tony Randel, who worked as an editor on the first film while the script was written by Peter Atkins (who later wrote the next two Hellraiser films and Wishmaster). Hellraiser II lands relatively successfully as a direct continuation with some inventive set-pieces, a dose of Lovecraftian, more lore, and of course, more gore.

Director: Tony Randel
Writer: Peter Atkins
Country & year: UK/USA, 1988
Actors: Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Kenneth Cranham, mogen Boorman, Sean Chapman, William Hope, Doug Bradley, Barbie Wilde, Simon Bamford, Nicholas Vince
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095294/

Hellraiser (1987)

Posted on October 1, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

I must say I felt a little ripped-off (no pun intended) after watching Hellraiser on VHS for the first time back in the ’90s. You have Pinhead on the cover, looking straight through your sorry soul while grinding his teeth, and he’s barely in the movie. Instead, we have Uncle Frank, a random slimeball who gets his flesh ripped apart with hooks and chains when he opens a mysterious puzzle box he bought at an antique shop in Marrocco — but will eventually return, with a boner, thanks to a cheating wife.

Everyone who solves the puzzle box opens a portal to Hell, of some sort, and out comes The Hell Priest himself, aka Pinhead (Doug Bradley) with his three Cenobites, Spencer, Chatter and Butterball, ready to fulfill your deepest desires. But the thing is, those who are “corrupt“ will die a gruesome, painful death (all politicians should be handed a puzzle box each, I would say). Then we have the husband/wife Larry and Julia who moves into the house Frank lived in, a shithole filled with cockroaches. But the worst thing is that Frank’s remains/corpse rots under the attic floor. After Larry cuts himself in a nasty way, his blood drips through the floor and onto the remains of Frank. He then reemerges as a skinless corpse, like a red skeleton from Castlevania.

And then it gets interesting: No, Pinhead doesn’t show up, but hear this — it appears that Julia and Frank had a wild affair (!) and was fucking like there was no tomorrow. The original cut of Hellraiser actually had so much fucking, or “erotism“ to put it in more polite English, that it got an X-rating. And Frank must really have a Master Cock from Fuck Forest and the erection like a grade A pornstar from Dimension XXX, because Julia will do everything to fix this boring loser, even if she has to walk over dead people. So if they’re ever gonna fuck again like they were teenagers, Julia has to lure men to the attic so Frank can feed on their flesh and blood. The poor individual who gets trapped in the crossfire is David’s teenage daughter Kirsty, who already has a strained relationship with her stepmother Julia. If Frank wasn’t already the villain, Julia is probably even worse, and the evil Disney stepmother-looks certainly suit her.

Trivia: Lance Henriksen was first offered to play the role of Frank, but turned it down. This was in his golden era when he still had the luxury to choose n’ pick roles. He later signed up for one of the shitty straight-to-DVD sequels, Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005). Isn’t that funny. Clare Higgings, who portrays the evil stepmother, has never seen the whole film since she hates horror movies, and already after the first ten minutes of its premiere she walked out. She still signed on to be in the sequel, which is way more gory.

Hellraiser is Clive Barker’s creation, from top to toe, his demon baby, based on his own novel The Hellbound Heart. And can you actually believe that the working title for the film was Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave? Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. The unique look of Pinhead and the Cenobites was inspired by Punk fashion, Catholicism, African fetish sculptures, and by Barker’s visits to the S&M clubs in New York and Amsterdam (mixed by some drug-induced fewer nightmares, if I have to guess).

The limited budget really shows, especially with the animated lightening sparks, which was already dated back then. Clive Barker and some “Greek guy“ (according to Barker himself) made it by hand over a drunk weekend, and…well, that’s good to know. Then there’s the “engineer“ monster that could be something from Dead Space or the later Resident Evil games. And while it looks cool by design, they had no clue how to utilize it and clashes with the dead-serious tone.

Where the movie shines is the practical/gore-effects, and the attic resurrection scene of Frank is a classic moment by itself. The dusty isolated atmosphere in Frank’s house, where we spend most of our time, is filthy and grimy and reeks of bad vibes, cheap perfume and god knows what else. The prosthetic makeup-designs of especially the three Cenobites are flawless and they still look terrifying and intimidating which blends perfectly in with the atmosphere. The main plot itself, with the two sleazy lovebirds, is something I never cared much for. More Pinhead and Cenobites, please.

That said, Hellraiser is an entertaining ’80s gore film with a tasteful blend of horror, S&M and even some nasty torture porn that still manages to rip some new assholes. And it also made a completely unknown British actor, Doug Bradley, into a horror icon as Pinhead, for better and worse.

Writer and director: Clive Barker
Country & year: UK, 1987
Actors: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence, Sean Chapman, Oliver Smith, Doug Bradley, Nicholas Vince, Simon Bamford, Grace Kirby
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/