1980s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

TerrorVision (1986)

Posted on October 29, 2024October 30, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

– Hey, remember that movie? You know, the one about the little space guy. Made you cry like a butthole?

After the insanely catchy theme song, we get the pleasure of meeting the Puttermans. They are… uhm, well, a lot could be said about the Puttermans, but first and foremost, they are a family. And not just a family, but an American family, living in Los Angeles. They’re THE most American family of all time. And the year is also 1986, with its peak of technology, and being a wealthy upper-class, what can be more perfect than that? Here we have mom Raquel and dad Stan, a swinger-couple, living the American dream with their two kids, a wacky survivalist/doomsday prepper grandpa and some other middle-aged dude who should be in jail for his fashion choice. The family’s daughter, Suzy, likes to dress up as Cyndi Lauper and dates a stoner dude named O.D. (overdose). He’s an over-the-top stereotypical metal head who’d make Beavis and Butt-Head look like Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The family dad puts up a big satellite dish with no success. It isn’t after a lightning bolt hits the dish from the blue sky when the family can enjoy Channel 69, MTV and Medusa’s Midnight Horrorthon. C o o l. The lighting comes from a garbage disposal on the distant planet Pluton, by the way, that teleported a “Hungry Beast“ to eventually come out of the Putterman’s TV and terrorize the family. But you just wait, cuz it gets crazier. The best way to describe TerrorVision is a live-action Saturday-morning cartoon on mushrooms, shot like a demented sitcom with three episodes stitched together. Absolute zero logic and all over the place. The only thing missing here, to put the satirical cherry on top, is a laugh track.

TerrorVision is written and directed by the Full Moon bat Ted Nicolaou, here under the banner of Empire Pictures. This is his directorial debut after working over a decade as sound engineer and editor on films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and with his first collab with Charles Band on Tourist Trap (1979). The monster design was made by John Carl Buechler, who also made Troll the same year, another Charles Band production. Nicolaou said to Buechler as he was making the monster: “make it look really stupid“. The result is something that looks like if Sloth from The Goonies was mutated with a dog, Pizza the Hutt and one of my classmates from elementary school. So, mission accomplished, I’d say. The youngest actor who plays the family’s son was permitted by his Christian parents to be in the film on one condition: to not have him in the same frame with the nude paintings which you’ll see everywhere in the house. And Mr. Nicolaou sure broke that promise more than one or three/four times.

The film was panned by the critics upon its release, where we have a quote from Time Out Film Guide saying: — The aesthetics of trash sink to new depths of delirium in this kooky sitcom variant of Poltergeist. Couldn’t be more true though. It wasn’t until years later it found its niche audience and is viewed as a so-bad-it’s-good film, which I beg to differ. Yes, it has its clear elements of such, but it’s way too self-aware to fully earn a spot in that category. Not for everyone, but sure a wild, doozy ride if you’re in for it. It’s basically the best and worst of the pop-cultural 1980s in a nutshell, exaggerated up to the max. Maybe some Aha..hahaha’s for the adults and just mesmerizing birthday party schlockfest for the kids with some gooey light-hearted gore. It will leave an impact, nevertheless, even in the year of 2024 where 1980s throwback films are more popular than ever.

TerrorVision is available on a DVD/Blu-ray double feature with The Video Dead from Shout! Factory.

Writer and director: Ted Nicolaou
Country & year: USA/Italy, 1986
Actors: Diane Franklin, Gerrit Graham, Mary Woronov, Chad Allen, Jon Gries, Bert Remsen, Alejandro Rey, Randi Brooks, Jennifer Richards, Sonny Carl Davis, Ian Patrick Williams, William Paulson, John Leamer
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092074/

Dolls (1987)

Posted on October 28, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Young Judy has brought along her beloved teddybear, Teddy, on a trip together with her father and stepmother. And Teddy is pretty much the only comfort she’s got, as both her father and stepmother sees her as nothing but an inconvenience. A thunderstorm leaves them stranded as their car gets stuck, and in frustration the stepmother takes Teddy from Judy and throws him far into the bushes, where Judy can’t get to him. This then leads to a strange scene where Judy actually imagines that Teddy comes back as a giant monster-teddy and kills both her stepmother and her father. Yeah, there ain’t any happy family vibes to find around here, that’s for sure, but who can really blame the little girl, both her stepmother and her father are assholes.

The trio ends up seeking shelter by getting into a nearby mansion, owned by a charming elderly couple named Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke. The couple immediately takes to young Judy, and when learning that she “lost“ her teddybear, Gabriel gives her a Jester-doll whose name is Mr. Punch. Then, three more people also arrive at the mansion, seeking shelter from the weather: Ralph, a very kind-hearted dude who maybe suffers from being a tad bit naive, and two hitchhikers named Isabel and Enid, who are two more additions to the asshole-group. So, we have an innocent little girl, a nice man with a good heart, and four douchebags who are now invited to stay by the elderly couple, who are both dollmakers. The mansion is filled with toys and dolls, but these soon prove to be anything but harmless.

Dolls is a horror film from 1987, directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak), written by Ed Naha, and produced by Charles Band and Brian Yuzna through Empire Pictures. The story was inspired by a book called The Uses of Enchantment, by Brunio Bettelheim. The film was shot in Italy at Empire Studios, prior to the director’s next film From Beyond. However, due to all the effects for the dolls that were added in post-production, the movie wasn’t released until almost a year later.

Now, what could possibly be the highlight in a movie from the 80’s titled Dolls? Take a wild guess. This was released before any Child Play‘s, and way before any Annabelle‘s. One could look at it as a little precursor to a certain film series involving puppets, though: the Puppet Master franchise, where the first movie was released in 1989. Because this movie, just like the Puppet Master films, uses a mix of stop motion animation, puppets and animatronics for the dolls by David W. Allen, who worked on special effects for numerous films and especially several Empire/Full Moon movies. He unfortunately died from cancer in 1999, and had been intermittently working on stop motion effects for a film called The Primevals, which was actually his own production, a true passion project of his. Despite seeming like what would be a lost project for so many years, The Primevals was actually completed and released in 2023.

There aren’t any big names on the cast list here, but the actors are a mix of people whom you may have seen in other movies and TV Series, so it’s far from being a no-name actors movie either. The one playing Isabel for example, is Bunty Bailey, who plays the girl in the famous music video for the Norwegian pop group A-Ha’s Take on Me from 1985. Dolls was her feature film debut. Their performances are solid enough for a movie like this, which is overall childishly cheesy and with that strange tone you mostly only find in movies made during the 80’s. It’s whimsical and slightly goofy, and the effects for the dolls and puppets are of course the raison d’être for the movie.

Despite being a pretty fun movie, Dolls wasn’t well received by the viewers, and the fans of Stuart Gordon in particular thought it was tame and lacking in gore compared to his previous works. Well…this one’s quite different for sure, where despite the little bit of gore there is it could have been a cute little horror movie for kids. It’s charming in its own way, and overall a fun little film where the baddies gets their comeuppance and the goodies can have their happily ever after.

Stuart Gordon was initially interested on making a sequel for the film, but that never came to be.

Director: Stuart Gordon
Writer: Ed Naha
Country & year: USA/Italy, 1986
Actors: Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason, Bunty Bailey, Cassie Stuart, Stephen Lee
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092906/

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Posted on October 25, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Mike Tobacco and his girlfriend Debbie Stone have gone to the local lover’s lane to make out. Suddenly, they spot a strange glowing object falling down from the sky. They’re not the only ones who saw that, as the farmer Gene Green decides to find the impact site as he believes it to be Halley’s Comet. Well, he finds something quite different. A large circus tent has been raised in the place where the “comet“ landed, and the poor farmer and his dog are captured by aliens looking like clowns. What they are? Killer Klowns, of course! Mike and Debbie arrive at the place and decide to enter the strange-looking circus, and find themselves in a bizarre place with an interior that resembles a spaceship. They’re discovered, and after being able to flee they try reporting the incident to the local police station. A large circus in the forest, and alien clowns from outer space? Yeah, that’s believable of course. Or not. But even the police must realize that something funny is happening around here, when the Klowns begin attacking the townspeople. Why they’re attacking people? Because they’re hungry! And the people they capture are encased in large cotton-candy cocoons, where they drink the mushed-up fluids from inside in true spider-style (well, not exactly, they use drinking straws). Mike and Debbie know they must defeat the Klowns, but how? The answer is simple, of course: you need to shoot them in their red nose!

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is a colorful sci-fi horror comedy from 1988, written and directed by the Chiodo Brothers. They also made the practical effects and makeup for the movie, much of it also carried out by other artists. Thus, there’s a ton of practical effects, rubber suits and masks. It was filmed in Watsonville, California and at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and have pretty much been considered a cult classic for quite some time. There’s been talk of sequels, but they’ve been in development hell since the original film’s release. If there should ever be some kind of sequel, though, then at least it would be one people have wanted for some time, just like the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice movie.

Just looking at the title, the description, and the images of the Killer Klowns themselves, you can’t blame anyone but yourself if you watch this and expect something different than what it is. It’s pure childish, silly nonsense. Originally, the film was supposed to just be called Killer Klowns, but in order to prevent people from assuming it was a simple slasher film, they added the “from Outer Space“ just to let people know what they were in for. Good choice. It’s obviously both a parody and a homage to the 50’s and early 60’s sci-fi classics about alien and monster invasions.

The special effects are the movie’s most admirable part, where the Killer Klown costumes look pretty darn good. The acting is, well, very typical B-movie fare, which suits a film like this perfectly. And as you might expect, this being alien clowns and all, there’s gags aplenty and a lot of wild stupidity with popcorn-guns, shadow puppets eating people, and a lot of other loony stuff. While it’s hard to imagine anyone finding any moments in this movie to be scary in any way, the cotton-candy cocoons with melted human bodies inside is a little bit nasty. And yeah, there is a bit of gore here but there’s nothing really over the top. The film also has a pretty cool and campy theme song called Killer Klowns, performed by the pop/punk band The Dickies. Ah, theme songs! Those were the days.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is just as deranged, absurd, childish and sickly sweet as you can imagine. You can almost feel a sugar-overdose after watching it, despite not having eaten any candy or ice cream at all. And in space no one can eat ice cream, or so the film’s slogan says. It’s had several DVD and Blu-ray releases over the years, and can be seen on several streaming sites.

Director: Stephen Chiodo
Writer: Charles Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo, Edward Chiodo
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Grant Cramer, Suzanne Snyder, John Allen Nelson, John Vernon, Michael S. Siegel, Peter Licassi, Royal Dano, Christopher Titus, Irene Michaels, Irene Michaels, Karla Sue Krull
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095444/

House III: The Horror Show (1989)

Posted on October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

House III, aka The Horror Show, aka House III: The Horror Show has nothing to do with the House franchise. So what the hell is this supposed to be? Well, it’s a horror movie, I can say that. And like the second film, the house from Psycho is also displayed on the DVD cover, just to make you even more confused. This was actually also the official theatrical release poster. Now it just starts to look like a parody of the Italian films that capitalized on cheap, faux sequels. But the story behind this messy production is a tale of itself, which I’ll come back to.

In this relative faux sequel, we’re in a far more gritty, urban surroundings that center around the detective Lucas McCarthy (Lance Henriksen). He and his partner are on the huntdown of the deranged serial killer Max Jenke (Brion James). He goes by the nickname “Meat Cleaver Max“ and he has body counted the city for too long. The party’s over when he gets captured and thrown in the electric chair and fried to the nether. And as Lucas has dedicated too much time and mental health to this homicidal clown, he can now at least take a deep breath, relax and maybe spend some more time with his family. Dream on, pal, because the horror show is far from over.

Because you see, Mr. Meat Cleaver comes back as a trickster demon with a mix of Beetlejuice and Freddy Krueger to fuck so much with his head to the point that the line between reality and not becomes a big fat blur. And since Lance Henriksen is a top tier working actor who can say a thousand words just with his facial expressions alone, it’s hard not to believe all the fucked-up visions he starts to see while he tries his very best to be in the moment with the family. He already struggles with PTSD and nightmares where our killer chops the head off a young girl, which he blames himself for. Now it’s up to Lucas to call a ghostbuster and chase down the ghost of Mr. Meat Cleaver, before he goes totally insane and loses both his mind and his family.

The strongest cards here are Lance Henriksen and Brion James. They’re both very intense and intimidating actors who are like thunder and lightning on screen, and give their 100%. Brion James is maybe not the most familiar name, but you certainly know his face. A great, charismatic character actor who died way too early at the age of 54 of a heart attack. RIP. There’s also some fun, practical effects here which gives some Elm Street vibes, that also the DVD covers refer to and actually got right. An overall entertaining supernatural slasher worth watching with a strong beer and fresh-made popcorn. Just make sure to pick up the Blu-ray from Arrow Videos for the complete uncut version.

So, House III/The Horror Show is far from the shitshow you’d expect considering the circumstances – especially when one of the screenwriters is credited as the legendary, the one and only Alan Smithee himself. The film manages to stand on its own feet for what it is. So what did actually go so horribly wrong here, apart from the fake, clickbait title? The film was originally going to be a third entry in the House franchise, but when a new distributor came on board (MGM) they wanted to go for another approach with killer Max, where they saw a new potential iconic villain like Freddy Krueger. Yeah, you don’t say. They were maybe into something here though, as this was Brion Jame’s favorite acting gig of all the 178 films he starred in. That never happened, of course.

Director David Blyth (Death Warmed Up) from New Zealand was fired a short time after the production started and was replaced with newcomer James Isaac. And again, despite the circumstances, he does a decent job, I would say. He also made the schlock classic Jason X (2002) and a couple of other obscure horror films before he died of blood cancer at age 51. RIP. The script was changed to the point that the original screenwriter, Allyn Warner, had no interest in being associated with the film, and thus painted himself behind the notorious Allan Smithee pseudonym. And since both Allan and Allyn sounded too similar, and Alan was at that time apparently written with two L’s, he was credited with one L. Just in case.

The film was released as The Horror Show in America, and as House III in other countries. And of course, it was a flop, despite having the same modest budget, of 3 million dollars, as the previous two films. House III/The Horror Show followed up with House IV in 1992, a direct-to-video sequel to the first film. I’ve yet to see that one, so maybe another time.

Director: James Isaac
Writers: Allyn Warner (as Alan Smithee), Leslie Bohem
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Lance Henriksen, Brion James, Rita Taggart, Dedee Pfeiffer, Aron Eisenberg, Thom Bray, Matt Clark, David Oliver, Lewis Arquette, Terry Alexander, Armand Asselin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097527/

Prequels:
– House II: The Second Story (1987)
– House (1985)

House II: The Second Story (1987)

Posted on October 23, 2024October 24, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In this odd little sequel we meet the young couple, Jesse and Kate, who move into an old mansion, which is not the same house we saw in the first film, just to point that out. The house has been a multigenerational home for Jesse’s bloodline, and I can bet I’ve seen the exteriors of that building in numerous movies, without being able to mention a single one. Anyway – Jesse’s parents were murdered when he was a kid, and after some exploring they find an old picture of his great-great-grandfather where he’s holding a crystal skull while standing in front of an old temple. OK, he was the real Indiana Jones. C o o l.

And things slide straight into weird land when Jesse and his best friend Charlie decide to…uhm…dig up his dusty corpse to get the crystal skull. Because why not. After some digging, they get met with a skeletal zombie simply credited as Gramps, but no need to worry, cuz he’s friendly, even though they tried to steal the crystal skull from him. Whatever, because nothing here makes any sense either way. Now that he’s been resurrected, barely, he joins the life of Jesse and Charlie and lives in the house’s basement.

And… lives go on, until things get even weirder. Because we also need a kind of a villain shoe-horned in here, and Gramps has a nemesis from the old west who also wants to claim this crystal skull. And now that the house has opened several portals to alternative dimensions, it’s a matter of time before our villain finds his way inside the house.

House II: The Second (NeverEnding) Story is a cluttered mess overstuffed with camp, molded cheese and zero logic. The most noteworthy is the horror elements that are mostly wiped out. We have two half-rotted skeletons, one friendly and the other not so much with his skeleton horse, and that’s pretty much as far as the horror goes. The first one also had its overtly goofy aspects, but here it goes overboard with childish acting, a series of nonsensical scenes just thrown at each other. Several sets and scenes also gave me some Full Moon/Empire vibes, which is not a bad thing. And then we have some innocent, cute-looking claymation puppets, one of which looks too alike the Luck Dragon from The NeverEnding Story (1984). The only link this sequel has to the original is a house that has portals to other dimensions.

And what is up with the old DVDs that display the house from Psycho on the covers? And if my ghoulish little brain isn’t already confused, the cover says “Endelig uklippet!” which is Norwegian for “The uncut version!“. Huh, yeah right. I assume they misunderstood this for being House III: The Horror Show, which ironically didn’t get a fully uncut release until 2017.

House II is overall a fun, charming little whimsical 80s cheese flick most suitable for the youngest audiences. Very light-hearted, oddly entertaining, and family-friendly that could easily be aired on Disney Channel alongside with Mr. Boogedy. The polar opposite could be said about the unofficial sequel that is the aforementioned House III: The Horror Show. Because when that film starts rolling, it’s time to get the kids in bed.

Writer and director: Ethan Wiley
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano, Bill Maher, John Ratzenberger, Lar Park-Lincoln, Amy Yasbeck, Gregory Walcott, Dwier Brown, Lenora May
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093220/

Prequel:
– House (1985)

Sequel:
– House III: The Horror Show (1989)

House (1985)

Posted on October 22, 2024October 24, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Roger Cobb is an author who has just inherited his deceased aunt’s house. The same house where his only son Jimmy once disappeared without a trace, and where his aunt died by hanging herself. Nice. Must be a place full of wonderful memories. Aside from also being separated from his wife, his publisher keeps pressing him to write another book, and he plans to write a novel based on his experiences in the Vietnam war in the hopes of using this experience to deal with some of the trauma. He decides to live in his aunt’s house in order to start working on said novel. Soon after moving in, he begins having nightmares about his dead comrade from the war, and strange phenomena occur in the house. He also starts having flashbacks of Jimmy’s disappearance, where he saw something pulling him down the swimming pool. His late aunt claimed that it was the house itself that took him, which does sound preposterous, but being inside that house now and experiencing all these strange things, Roger is not so sure his old aunt wasn’t right after all.

House is a comedy horror film from 1985, directed by Steve Miner with screenplay by Ethan Wiley, based on an original story written by Fred Dekker. The film is produced by Sean S. Cunningham (the man behind the original Friday the 13th) and is the first in the House film series. The exterior shooting was done at an estate now known as Mills View, a Victorian style home built in 1887. At the time, the house was owned by two Los Angeles firemen. The production designer and crew spent about four weeks on modifying the manor, where they repainted the entire exterior, set up a wrought iron fence, and attached foam spires to the roof. Seven monsters were designed for the film, including a zombie, demonic kids, a flying skull-faced monster and all kinds of ghoulish creatures. Both puppetry and animatronics were used in the film, and also some stop-motion and the good old actors in rubber suits.

This movie is from the 80s, and like so many films from this decade, it’s filled with the most delicious-tasting cheese. The tone is for the most part quite jovial and lighthearted, where our protagonist gets haunted by all kinds of strange monsters popping out from here and there. It’s kind of a goofy mess, but never gets boring. The monsters in the movie are definitely the highlight, with some really inventive ideas. While it does go for a darker approach with the zombiefied version of Roger’s former Vietnam war buddy, it also goes totally bonkers with a funny ghoulish monster-version of his ex-wife. Too bad the crazy creatures didn’t give us some gory death scenes, as the film is a lot more closer to a family-friendly approach than a full-out horror one.

House is definitely a cheesy and fun horror comedy movie, which spun two “sequels“ that doesn’t really have jack shit to do with each other. So in that regard, they’re not movies you have to watch in sequence, as they are actually quite dissimilar. This one is perfect if you want some mindless old-school fun with a typical 80’s charm.

Director: Steve Miner
Writers: Fred Dekker, Ethan Wiley
Country & year: USA, 1985
Actors: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, Mary Stavin, Michael Ensign, Erik Silver, Mark Silver, Susan French, Alan Autry, Steven Williams, James Calvert, Mindy Sterling
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091223/

Sequels:
– House II: The Second Story (1987)
– House III: The Horror Show (1989)

Dr. Caligari (1989)

Posted on October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Dr. Caligari is experimenting with her patients at the Caligari Insane Asylum (or the C.I.A. for short). Among her many crazy patients, there’s Mr Pratt who is a cannibalistic serial killer, and then Mrs. Van Houten who is a nymphomaniac housewife. The doctor’s treatment? Mindswapping, of course! All done by transferring glandular brain fluids from one patient to the other. Nothing could go wrong here, nope, nothing at all. Of course, Dr. Caligari (who is, naturally, described as the descendant of the original Dr. Caligari from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) has her enemies like all geniuses do, and the married couple Mr. and Mrs. Lodger wants her experiments to stop and turn to their father for help. Problem is, that their father has a very high opinion of the doctor, and refuses to do anything to stop her. At least not at first. And when he becomes another victim to her mindswapping techniques which turns him onto a nymphomaniac transvestite, there’s not many people left to stop her. Except…maybe the patients themselves…

Dr. Caligari is a really, really bizarre thing to watch. It’s an avant-garde horror film with a lot of erotic scenes, released in 1989 and directed by Stephen Sayadian. As you can expect from the title, it’s some kind of pseudo-sequel to the famous film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari from 1920. It was originally billed as Dr. Caligari 3000 for a short time when it debuted in select theaters, but after being released on VHS and Betamax, the title was shortened down. While it’s mostly a very obscure movie, it’s gotten a cult classic status. Despite the movie quickly falling into obscurity after its release, which shouldn’t be a surprise since this is so far from mainstream as you can get, Stephen Sayadian continued to direct X-rated movies up until 1993. As should probably be expected, several of the actors here also didn’t star in many other films after the 90s, including the lead actress Madeleine Reynal who only played in one movie prior to this one.

Now, how to properly explain this movie…well, what should be obvious is that the film is very much all about sex and deviance, but it never gets too graphic to be considered more than an R-rating. There’s some tits and nudity here and there, but nothing outright explicit. But one thing is for sure: everything here, and I mean absolutely everything, is totally fucknuts bonkers bizarre, with characters, scenery and dialogue that’s completely over the top in absurdity most of the time. Pretty much everything that’s said here is delivered in what I assume must be practiced monotony, especially the lines delivered by the titular character herself, and you’ll easily lose count of how many times the fourth wall is broken. Whenever a character opens their mouth to talk, it’s all a bunch of strained and artificial lines with very weird facial expressions to follow, often looking straight at the viewer. Mostly this was done on purpose, I guess, which adds to the very odd vibe throughout and gives a theater-play feeling to it. I have to give props when it comes to the special effects and scenery, the surrealistic insanity displayed here is something that must be seen to be believed. After all, a woman getting licked by a gigantic tongue sticking out from a wall of flesh isn’t something you see every day.

Dr. Caligari feels like some kind of wet fever dream Tim Burton could’ve had if he was locked up in a madhouse together with John Waters. If you want something truly bizarre that’s filled to the brim with naughty absurdities, then this one’s for you!

The movie was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD by Mondo Macabro. It is also available on Shudder.

Director: Stephen Sayadian
Writers: Stephen Sayadian, Jerry Stahl
Country & year: USA, 1989
Actors: Madeleine Reynal, Fox Harris, Laura Albert, Jennifer Balgobin, John Durbin, Gene Zerna, David Parry, Barry Phillips, Magie Song, Jennifer Miro, Stephen Quadros, Carol Albright
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097228/

FleshEater (1988)

Posted on October 17, 2024October 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s a crisp and sunny day in late October in the deep redneck lands of Pennsylvania where a group of college kids are getting ready to celebrate Halloween somewhere in the woods. Meanwhile, some redneck farmer is trying to get rid of a treestump with his tractor. That was more easer said than done. Under the treestump he finds a wooden casket with a pentagram mark and some cryptic letters that says something like “do not open“. Of course, he opens it and in the casket lies the one and only – The Flesheater.

He’s played by S. William Hinzman, or more simply Bill Hinzman (1936-2012) and while his name maybe doesn’t ring any hells bells, you surely know his face. Because, you see, he was the very first zombie we saw in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). He’s the one who pops up right after the classic line “They’re coming to get you, Barbara…“. So we’re talking about a true legend here, where it was just a matter of time when he got his own spinoff, even though it isn’t officially connected with Living Dead.

The Flesheater attacks the tractor redneck guy right away, which turns him into a zombie. What a shocker. Back to our college teens (who appears to be actors in their early 30s) are getting ready to find their own fuck spot. A couple finds a barn where they eventually get attacked by Mr. Flesheater, and it snowballs from here on with more random rednecks getting their flesh chewed off and turning into flesheaters. And since it’s Halloween, the dispatcher at the local sheriff’s department scoffs off the concerned phone calls as a series of pranks. So, Happy Halloween and enjoy the feast!

The FleshEater is also written, produced, directed and edited by Bill Hinzman himself. A little grassroot passion project made in the rural countryside area of Pennsylvania, where Romero’s Dead trilogy also was made. The actors consist of all from local amateurs to family members who gladly let themselves get killed brutally on screen. The little girl who’s dressed as an angel, who also gets killed, not once but twice (!), is the ten-year old daughter of Bill Hinzman, while the actress who plays her mother is actually her mother and Bill’s wife. What a cute family production and what some cool, wholesome parents this girl must have had.

Hinzman does a fun and entertaining screen presence, although he comes across more like a drunk, unhinged uncle who just wants to score some pussy. The amount of gore is impressively high with some great effects and the film clearly checks all the points to piss the ratings board straight in their faces and shove in as much graphic content as possible. We also have some bushy full-frontal nudity here, cringe foreplay sex scenes, and kids getting killed, as mentioned, where a speed dial to the whambulance may be necessary. Har-har, that was, of course, sarcasm.

This being said, I would lie if I said that the film is on the same level of production value as Romero’s films. It’s a far cry with only a quick paper thin backstory of The Flesheater character, and no character developments other than they’re body-counts in line to be killed off. We jump from one scenario to the next where random people get killed. I call this the Andreas Schnaas of filmmaking. The only thing missing here is someone taking a piss right before getting killed. The acting is lousy, the dialogues even worse. But I can’t say I was bored. It has its shoe-string low budget charm with a certain naive energy to it with a thick layer of redneck atmosphere, and it got several laughs from me. Also, watch Redneck Zombies while you’re in the right mood.

The film has several alternative titles such as Zombie Nosh and Revenge of the Living Dead. The original title is FleshEater, while the full title is actually FleshEater – Revenge of the Living Dead. It’s known as Zombie Flesh Eater – Revenge of the Living Dead in Germany, not directed by Lucio Fulci. And enough confusion for now. The film was released in 2022 by Vinegar Syndrome in both 4K UHD and Blu-ray, and guess what: it’s also on Tubi.

Director: S. William Hinzman
Writers: S. William Hinzman, Bill Randolph
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: S. William Hinzman, John Mowod, Leslie Ann Wick, Kevin Kindlin, Charis Kirkpatrik Acuff, James J. Rutan, Lisa Smith, Denise Morrone, Heidi Hinzman, Bonnie Hinzman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109809/

Frankenstein Island (1981)

Posted on October 13, 2024October 17, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

The director, Jerry Warren, woke up one day and saw some hot air balloons from his window. He picked up his potato camera, pushed the rec-button, and maybe hoped he could use it in some future project. And so he did. C o o l.

Then we cut to a group of middle-aged men who have crash-landed with the balloons on some island. After some exploring, they stumble into some natives who only consist of young, slim ladies. They only cover their tits and asses with some leopard-bikini-clad. And they seem to have easy access to shampoo. Welcome to the wildlife.

You are pretty, one of the ladies says. And no, this is not really a porno, this is supposed to be a Sci-Fi horror film, if you haven’t already figured it out. They have some weird ritualistic dances as if they were high on bath salt while our group of men drools at them. Every man’s wet fantasy seems to have come true … or maybe not. Because there is a shocking secret to be revealed about these ladies later. One of the ladies gets suddenly kidnapped by a goofy-looking guy in jeans and a beanie who looks pretty much like the twin brother of Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.

It’s impossible to try explaining what’s really happening here. The film is so bafflingly absurd that anyone would get a serious brain fart if trying to find a breadcrumb of logic.

Our men get met by two other dudes who just randomly pop up behind some bushes – one old bearded grandpa with a cane and a guy with a pirate patch. And both of these guys look like two hardcore alcoholics who have zero business being on a movie set. The strong odor of piss, sweat, booze and old spice really reeks. The one with the patch laughs all the time, drinks from every bottle he can find, and I would assume that the guy was completely hammered for real during the filming. Oliver Reed would be impressed. Because there is no freaking way that any actors near this production could act drunk so naturally as we see here. There’s also a scene where he seems to black-out as he sits by a table and the camera just keeps rolling in case he wakes up. Spoiler alert: some ten moments later he wakes up, just barely.

400 words in, and I haven’t even got to break down the premise. Maybe because there hardly aren’t any. But like in a crowded bar somewhere in Wisconsin on a Wednesday night, a lot of unpredictable shit is bound to happen. And if a celluloid can get drunk, here you have the result. It’s incoherent, messy, absurd, bizarre and out-of-control all the way to the very last pub goer who refuses to leave after closing time. Just one more drink. One more. Burp. Okay then: We have a cheap-looking lab where an old and-ready-to-die Dr. Von (yes, with an o) Helsing lies in a hospital bed, looking confused. Who could blame him. We have some random silly scenes with more Trailer Park Boys-looking weirdos who swing with the cheapest Halloween Devil Fork the budget allowed to spend. We see a glimpse of some creepy mannequin, just because, some drops of acid-trip images, and, of course, we have Dr. Frankenstein, the man of the hour himself. Here he’s played by John Carradine, where he only pops up randomly as a hologram while he’s rambling a string of demented and nonsensical words. If his lines weren’t cryptic enough, they always end with The power… The power… The power… The power…!

Man, this movie…

And yes, we actually have a Frankenstein monster shoe-horned in here, just to put the little, golden raspberry on the top. He pops up randomly just in time to join the classic fight scene in the laboratory. And this fight scene is something else, where the retard-o-meter goes all up and even through the ceiling. It’s even worse than the catfight scene in Manos: The Hands of Fate. The best way to describe the insanity is as if there was a blind dance coordinator on the set instead of a stunt/fight coordinator. The monster also keeps arm-swatting constantly as if there was a fly in front of his face that wouldn’t leave him alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if he accidentally smacked several of his co-actors. And the legend says that he’s still to this day trying to swat that fly.

The film is written, directed and produced by the same mastermind who made Teenage Zombies (1959), The Wild World of Batwoman (1966) and other public-domain classics. The most amusing thing here is that Frankenstein Island was made after Jerry Warren took a ten-year hiatus from filmmaking. And during those ten years, plus five years prior, he didn’t watch a single film and had zero sense of the pulse of the horror movie business – other than he had heard rumors that horror films were profitable again (thanks to the rise of the slasher genre). The guy clearly lived in his own small bubble, completely out of touch deep in a fantasy world where the only movies that existed were his own, and thought that a film like Frankenstein Island would rise his ego. Never heard the term zeitgeist either, I would guess. The even more amusing, if not just tragicomic, is the matter of fact that Frankenstein Island looks like something from the 1950s alongside with Teenage Zombies, produced by Ed Wood. It’s so hilariously and just painfully dated, almost to an impressive level. Without knowing any of this beforehand, I’d rather believe that the Earth is flat than that this was made the same year as Halloween II.

Warren also wanted to make a sequel to Frankenstein Island which he described as “more up-to-date, not so campy and old-time.“ I would even pay a hundred bucks to see that film, but unfortunately Warren died in 1988, two months before John Carradine. Double RIP. The one and only DVD release of the film is out of print and very pricey. It’s also available on Tubi.

Writer and director: Jerry Warren
Country & year: USA, 1981
Actors: Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Christopher, Tain Bodkin, Patrick O’Neil, Andrew Duggan, John Carradine, Katherine Victor, G.J. Mitchell
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082410/

Grandmother’s House (1988)

Posted on October 9, 2024October 7, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Two siblings, David and Lynn, are orphaned after their father dies unexpectedly. They are sent to live with their grandparents who resides in a victorian home somewhere in rural California. When David and Lynn were very young, they lived in that house together with their mother, but of this they have few memories and everything from that time is a blur. When they travel to their new home, a creepy woman is standing in the middle of the road and almost causes the bus driver to have an accident. Weird…but nothing much to reflect on, right? Creepy people are everywhere. And talking about creepy people, when the siblings meet with their grandparents, they feel that something is very, very off about them. Sure, they’re sweet and nice and all that, just like grandparents ought to be, but…something’s not right. And during their first night in the house, David has a nightmare where he witnesses his grandfather killing a woman.

Grandmother’s House (aka Grandma’s House) is a slasher film from 1988 directed by Peter Rader (writer of Waterworld) as his directorial debut. And it sure is a little bit of an oddball movie, with twists and turns that makes it an unpredictable watch, at least if you haven’t read any spoilers beforehand. I’ll do my best to avoid them here in the review.

The movie starts off with a well-trodden trope: children lose their parent, and must come and live somewhere else where things are strange and unfamiliar. A setup like this has often been used in everything from children’s movies to horror, so nothing new here. And while the grandparents seem loving and sweet, you notice that something is off, of course. It plays along with a mystery-fueled setting where certain scenes and character behavior makes everything seem even more off. While it’s apparent after watching it that several scenes and setups are made to deliberately confuse you, with the bright setting of sunlit days and a beautiful orange orchards and other picturesque locations. Yup, the countryside is indeed beautiful. It does actually feel a bit dreamlike at times, and while the mystery keeps building and you feel you know what it’s going to reveal, it still ends up surprising you. And yes, despite a somewhat slow build-up it eventually slams into full psycho-killer territory.

Overall, Grandmother’s House is an obscure slasher flick that despite a bit of clunkiness, provides enough surprises and twists to be entertaining and worth a watch. Best to go in blind, though, as knowing too much about the plot and turn of events beforehand is likely to ruin the experience a bit.

Grandmother’s House was restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome and 88 Films.

Director: Peter Rader
Writers: Peter Jensen, Gayle Jensen,
Country & year: USA, 1988
Actors: Eric Foster, Kim Valentine, Len Lesser, Ida Lee, Brinke Stevens, Michael Robinson, Craig Yerman, David Donham, Joan-Carol Bensen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097455/