1980 – Horror Ghouls

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Posted on August 6, 2024September 18, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s summer and the place is a sleepy hillbilly fishing town, Noyo, in northern California, where the local women are starting to get raped by humanoid fish monsters. Some context: it all starts with a fishing trip going horribly wrong when they catch one of the humanoids in their fishnets. It goes from bad to worse when the fisherman’s young son falls overboard and gets pulled under the water and killed. The boat gets blown to pieces when a flare gun accidentally fires into the gasoline-soaked deck.

Fishmonsters must be on everyone’s mind who witnessed it, right? Of course not. The locals suspect Johnny to have caused the explosion, because he’s an Indian and those who died on the boat didn’t like those kinds of people. Racist alarm. Well, there’s not much of a mystery here as the viewer is fully aware of what really happened. A dog disappears and gets found by the shore, totally mangled. Poor doggie. But that’s not the only one, as all the dogs in town have been brutally killed overnight and discarded like trash by the docks. And the only dog left alive is Johnny’s, the Indian guy. Not the greatest start when the town is preparing for a festival, sponsored by the legendary Olympia Brewing Company.

It gets more serious when more townspeople are getting killed. The schlock elements really kicks in with a teenage couple having a swim at the beach and getting attacked by some humanoids. Here we see them in full costume, which actually doesn’t look too bad. But that’s until we see them in motion, because actors in big, heavy rubber costume suits are not a good combination. A scientist, Dr. Susan Drake, enters the scene to get to the bottom of the case and her research can inform us that the town is being plagued by mutated salmons.

Killing dogs is one thing, but the most alarming thing must be that the humanoids rape the female victims, something that was not originally included in the rough cut. First-time film director Barbara thought a rape scene with a rubber-looking fishmonster would look dumb. She has a point, though. And her being a feminist, she refused to film such a scene. Roger Corman (RIP) was a producer on this thing, which explains a lot as his fingerprints are spotted all over the place. But why he hired a female feminist to direct under his New World Picture company is a ball-scratcher. Well, he never hired a woman to direct again. So, he fired Barbara (even though she’d already completed the principal shooting) and hired Jimmy T. Murakami (Battle Beyond the Stars, When the Wind Blows) to shoot the scene. Corman got some backlash for this, so for the hell of it, he recycled it one year later in Galaxy of Terror with a giant, horny maggot.

Another fun trivia: actress Ann Turkel, who plays the scientist, once said why she chose to do this film: “It was an intelligent suspenseful science-fiction story with a basis in fact and no sex“. It also had the working title Beneath The Darkness, which she loved. Oof, talk about being totally duped. Roger Corman, you little rascal. Because, not only did Corman add more scenes of graphic nudity, and spiced up the sleazy nature and monster rapes to amp up the schlock elements, he also changed the title to Humanoids from the Deep, which Turkel of course hated.

The script is very unfocused which blends some out of place slasher elements with melodrama between the Indian and the other locals that escalates into cheesy mass-fistfights while we’re waiting for some fishmonster action. It’s still a silly, entertaining and campy B movie that walks the tiny line between the more wooden Z movie territory. Surely not a masterpiece. The climax at the carnival is a highlight where we have some really bad acting to laugh at, and the film is as cheesy and fun as the title suggests. The awesome cover art for the Blu-ray does not lie, in other words. The gore is minimal, though, so don’t get too excited. But the little we have is pretty solid. Some of the makeup crew later worked on films like Cocoon, RoboCop, The Blob, Night of the Creeps, Blade II and more, so that should say something. It’s also worth mentioning that the film has the first musical score by James Horner, who was to become one of the most prolific composers in Tinseltown.

Director: Barbara Peeters
Writers: Frank Arnold, Martin B. Cohen, William Martin
Country & year: USA, 1980
Actors: Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, Vic Morrow, Cindy Weintraub, Anthony Pena, Denise Galik, Lynn Theel, Meegan King, Breck Costin, Hoke Howell, Don Maxwell, David Strassman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080904/

Antropophagus (1980)

Posted on July 16, 2024July 23, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

It’s summer, the sun is shining and that means: vacation time. How about traveling to an obscure, exotic Greek Island out in the middle of nowhere. We can take along our heavily pregnant friend who’s just minutes from giving birth. Yeah, that’s a great idea, because nothing bad could happen to her.

As soon as our group of friends arrives at the island, things doesn’t seem to be right. The old town nearby is eerily quiet where all the townsfolk just seem to have vanished in thin air. After some exploring, they stumble upon a rotten corpse which should be enough to take a U-turn and maybe visit Disneyland instead. Whoops, too late, cause their boat has been attacked and is adrift. The pregnant woman, who stayed on the boat, has been captured by a grunting man which we so far has only seen from his POV view. Turns out that he’s a deranged cannibal who’s eaten the whole island where the only survivor is a blind girl drenched in blood, hiding in a basement. Have a nice stay.

Antropophagus, or AntHropophagus. or AntHropophagOus, or just I Eat Your Fetus. Yum is Joe D’Amato’s filthy and notorious Eurotrash magnum opus which is most known for one particular scene (or maybe two). The odd title stems from anthropophagy, a doctor term which in English simply means cannibalism. And with that being said, the film is far from as gory as as it’ll make you to believe. We have the half-classic scene of the cannibal eating his own intestines, a severed head in a bucket, a pretty sloppy kill with a meatcleaver, and of course the film’s big selling point: the very juicy fetus scene which made the film earn its spot on the list of Video nasty, and banned in most countries. But don’t worry, the effect of the fetus was a skinned rabbit covered in blood. Poor rabbit, though.

The pacing is slow, especially in the middle-part where the film really uses its precious time to build up the atmosphere. The characters are bland and boring which makes the slow build-up seem longer than it should. A familiar face among the body-counts would be Tisa Farrow, most known from Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh-Eaters (1979). This was her final acting gig before she retired from the film biz to pursue a career as a nurse. She died early this year at age 72. RIP.

The film is pretty tame compared with today’s standards, to be honest. There’s also some very bizarre circus/clown music to be heard during the first half. The film’s strong suit is the thick, raw and sticky atmosphere. George Eastman as the bulky and tall cannibal is also a big plus here, even though he walks slower than a lobotomized zombie on Zoloft. So despite its flaws and clunkiness, the film has its unique vibe and distinctiveness, maybe much thanks to the primitive surroundings and the old European buildings with the overall strong odor of death and decay everywhere. It’s also a technically solid film with some really great ghoulish sceneries – the most memorable being in a moist catacomb where the film’s crew mixed real skeletons with fake ones.

And that segways us to the IMDb’s trivia section: because according to the director, some of the heads and bones in the catacombs were plastic imitations, as mentioned. Upon collecting them after the scenes had been shot, the crew accidentally took with them some real bones. Since D’Amato did not dare to return them, he let them make a “pilgrimage” to his house. Horns up!

I’m also a sucker for that deliciously tasty movie poster, by the way, which is definitively something to have framed in your living room just to piss of your mum and dad every time they visit. That one is made by Enzo Sciotti (1944 – 2021) who also illustrated movie posters for Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, David Lynch, George A. Romero and more. Movie poster designers, and illustrators in general, get little to no credit, and with the rise of AI junk, I hope that will change. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that, though.

Antropophagus has gotten numerous releases throughout the years, all from cut-down versions to bootlegs with even more numerous alternative titles to keep you confused. It was for the first time released in full uncut version in 2005 by Shriek Show with both Italian and English dub. The Italian version is laughably bad, so rather stick with the English one. Eastman and D’Amato followed-up with a so-called “spiritual sequel“ a year later called Absurd, which is just dull and painfully boring. The remake Anthropophagous 2000 (1999) by Andreas Schnaas is way more fun. An unofficial sequel was spat out in 2022, simply called Antropophagus II, which I hadn’t heard of until now.

Director: Joe D’Amato
Writer: George Eastman, Joe D’Amato
Country & year: Italy, 1980
Also known as: The Grim Reaper, The Savage Island, The Beast, The Zombie’s Rage, Man-Eater
Actors: Tisa Farrow, Saverio Vallone, Serena Grandi, Margaret Mazzantini, Mark Bodin, George Eastman
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082479/

Remake:
– Anthropophagous 2000 (1999)

Faux sequel:
– Anthropophagus II (2022)

The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

Posted on February 2, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Paul and Helen Curtis moves into a manor located in rural England, together with their two daughters Jan and Ellie. The manor is owned by an elderly woman named Mrs. Aylwood, and she lives in the guest house next door. Mrs. Aylwood once had a daughter, Karen, but she disappeared in an abandoned chapel in the woods thirty years ago. Upon seeing a photo of Karen, Jan notices that she actually looks a lot like this girl. And she also starts sensing something strange about the place, witnessing strange lights in the woods, glowing objects, and visions of a blindfolded girl in the mirror. When getting to know some of the townspeople, Jan wants to find out more about Karen’s mysterious disappearance in the woods all those years ago, and finds that she was together with a bunch of friends that night. What they were up to and what happened to Karen is something only they would know, but none of them are willing to talk about it.

The Watcher in the Woods is a supernatural film from 1980, directed by John Hough and Vincent McEveety, and Produced by Walt Disney Productions, being one of several live-action films from a time when the studio focused on targeting young adult audiences. It is based on a novel from 1976 by Florence Engel Randall, and it was filmed at Pinewood Studios and the surrounding areas in Buckinghamshire, England. The building that’s being used in the film is called Ettington Park Manor, and it was also used in The Haunting (1963).

Upon its release, the film had to be pulled from the theaters pretty fast as the response was overwhelmingly negative, both from critics and audiences, and many considered it “too dark”. Thus, the studio made the decision to make changes to the movie, with extensive reshoots and a brand new ending, and re-released it eighteen months later in 1981. Despite the critical response being so harsh, the film still ended up gaining a cult following over the years.

Now, this movie is certainly not one to watch if you want something scary. It’s from a time when Disney started dipping their toes into PG-rated films, with…well…rather mixed results. Something Wicked This Way Comes is probably one of their best and most memorable efforts among these. While The Watcher in the Woods is more aimed at a young audience, it still does have a certain appeal with a gothic teenage mystery vibe to it, and it is of course heightened by the performance of Bette Davis, who plays Mrs. Aylwood. There are some spooky goings-on, with some charming old-school supernatural effects, and I can easily imagine that seeing this as a kid during the 80’s would make a certain impact. Then again, the director John Hough previously directed the 1973 horror film The Legend of Hell House, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is at least some spookiness here.

So I’d say that overall, The Watcher in the Woods works as a family suspense thriller, layered with a certain old-school charm.

Director: John Hough
Writers: Brian Clemens, Harry Spalding, Rosemary Anne Sisson
Country & year: UK, US, 1980
Actors: Bette Davis, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Carroll Baker, David McCallum, Benedict Taylor, Frances Cuka, Richard Pasco, Ian Bannen, Katharine Levy, Eleanor Summerfield, Georgina Hale
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081738/

Night of the Demon (1980)

Posted on November 7, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Night of the ~~Demon~~ Bigfoot is an amateur monster schlock from 1980, which starts off with a wounded dude, Bill Nugent, lying in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors and a police inspector. He’s an anthropology professor, you see, and here’s his fascinating story you wouldn’t believe, which is about his adventure with a group of his students to track down Bigfoot in the woods of Northern California. And he has to convince the doctors that he’s not insane and that he was the only one who survived Bigfoot after the monster killed all of the students.

And good-fucking luck with that, my dude. Mr. Kallen from Slapped Ham would have loved to have you on his first podcast.

Bill starts with the first story, the first series of flashback scenes where we see Bigfoot killing random people. The first victim is some guy in the forest who’s getting ready to fish by a river. In order to have some suspense here, the monster is shown through POV and off-screen and, just like in the great classic Blackenstein, we have a moment where we see the monster rip his arm off with zero force in silhouette. Someone has clearly taken notes from the very best. While he bleeds to death with the use of the thinnest cranberry juice streaming from his ripped arm, the blood streams down to fill one of Bigfoot’s footprints, following the opening credits.

As Bill and his group of students head into the forest to find our mythic creature, they hear about this lady Wanda. She’s a mysterious outcast who lives as a hermit in a cabin deep in the woods, and the legend says that she knows where Bigfoot is. Okay, then. In the meanwhile, as they’re heading for Wanda’s cabin, we get some more flashback scenes told by Bill as they sit around the campfire to remind us how dangerous this Bigfoot is. All these campfire scenes were shot and added during the post production because the producer wanted to amp up the gore. We see Bigfoot killing people in different ways, but don’t get too excited. In one scene, he even uses an axe and the effect is the cheapest-looking rubber wound sticker they could afford.

The most memorable scene is the biker dude who gets his dick ripped off when he’s about to take a piss. Because this is no laughing matter. This is serious. Dead serious. Just look at the deadpan seriousness on Bill’s face when he tells the story. Don’t you dare to even chuckle or roll your eyes in disbelief. Show some respect for the poor guy.

We also have a campfire story about this random couple who’s about to have sex in a van. This is also the only body count flashback scene (as far as I remember) that was not shot in broad daylight. This is one of the more what-the-fuck-moments where the guy gets dragged by Bigfoot up to the top of the car while the lady can’t decide how to react as she makes orgasms sounds and looks confused rather than terrified. It’s noteworthy to mention that director James C. Wasson mainly produced porn films, so maybe there are some connections there.

Then there’s the star of the film, the man, myth and the legend himself: Bigfoot… and I have to be honest and say that the face-makeup is not the worst I’ve seen. Some effort went in here for sure, and I would assume the make-up artists took some inspiration from the creation of Michael Myer’s mask in Halloween, only here based on the face of Mick Jagger. And I don’t think anything can really top that.

Night of the Demon is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Severin Films, restored and uncut. A fun time for all lovers of schlock and funny-bad movies.

Director: James C. Wasson
Writers: Mike Williams, Jim L. Ball
Country & year: US, 1980
Actors: Michael Cutt, Joy Allen, Bob Collins, Jody Lazarus, Rick Fields, Michael Lang, Melanie Graham, Shannon Cooper, Paul Kelleher, Ray Jarris
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0081229/

Zombi Holocaust (1980)

Posted on January 16, 2021August 23, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We’re at a hospital in New York at night, where someone is stealing body-parts from the cadavers. One of the doctors is able to catch the body-snatcher as he is about to eat one of the cadaver’s heart, but then quickly commits suicide by jumping out of a window. Well, case closed, then? Well, no, he doesn’t die right away, and says his last word “Kitoh ordered it”, and we soon learn that he was a part of a cannibalistic cult from an obscure island in Asia, also named Kitoh.

A trip to this island gets arranged with Lori, a journalist, and some other dude in order to meet a doctor named Dr. Obrero, while they get to the source of the cannibal cult. As soon as they enter the island, one of the bearers goes missing, and after a quick search for him the next morning they find him mutilated, and soon surrounded by a horde of cannibals and a doctor with some really shady practices. And yes, there’s also some zombies wandering around.

As you already know by reading the title, Cannibal Holocaust comes to mind. I assume that Zombi Holocaust was an attempt to do some sort of a crossover with the wave of Italian cannibal films that came and went in the late 70’s and early 80’s with the rise of zombie films after Lucio Fulci’s success with Zombi 2. Most of the film is pretty tedious and sloppy with dry dialogues, boring characters, cheesy undressing-scenes with porn music, plot holes and nothing much that keeps the pacing or interest up.

The title is also a head-scratcher since the zombies are far in the backseat and appears in only a scene or two. The film was released under several titles and most known as Doctor Butcher M.D. in the states, which is probably more fitting, I guess. However, the most entertaining moments are when the cannibals show up and provides some really grotesque death scenes. The last act is the best part where we finally get some interesting scenes with Dr. Obrero/Butcher, and a pointless ritual-scene with some blurry nudity. So yeah, Zombi Holocaust isn’t much as a whole, unless you’re only in for the goryness.

Director: Marino Girolami
Country & year: Italy, 1980
Actors: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan, Peter O’Neal, Donald O’Brien, Dakar, Walter Patriarca
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0079788/

City of the Living Dead (1980)

Posted on March 23, 2020August 30, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

City of the Living Dead is the first part of the Lucio Fulci Gates of Hell trilogy, which followed up with The Beyond and House By the Cemetery. But apart from sharing the theme of the dead being brought to life, with some small doses of inspiration from H.P Lovecraft and with actress Catriona MacColl starring in all three, they work well as separate films.

The film starts at a cemetery in the small town of Dunwich where a priest hangs himself, and reappears as an evil deathstaring zombie. At the same time, Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) witnesses a New York apartment suicide during a vision under a seance, which scares her to death. Yes, literally to death. And why, you might ask? Well, because his act of sin causes all the dead in the cemetery of Dunwich to rise from the dead as zombies. And these are not the traditional carnivorous zombies…here, they have the ability to teleport themselves and use telekinesis to make people bleed tears and spew up their own inner organs. Miss Woodhouse’s death is seen as a mysterious case, which captures the curiosity of newspaper journalist Peter Bell (Christopher George). The day she is to be buried, he sneaks around the cemetery when she suddenly comes alive in the coffin and screams. Peter hacks up the coffin to save her, but unlike the ordinary dead who resurrects as zombies, Mary wakes up like from a normal night’s sleep and is straight back into her old self again. Well, good for her. After they learn that the gates of hell must be closed and this evil priest must be stopped, they take a roadtrip to Dunwich. And this must happen before All Saint’s Day. If not, the dead will take over the world.

Meanwhile, the evil priest has already started terrorizing Dunwich, while rubbing mud filled with worms in peoples faces as he teleports around the city. While strange and macabre things continue to happen in the city, a group of men sit in the local pub, suspecting Bob, the city’s outcast who has a taste for inflatable sex dolls, to be behind all of this. And this side plot with Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) is completely useless which is nothing but filler scenes that could easily have been cut out. Even though City of the Living Dead doesn’t work all that well with its serious pacing issues, the film has some great ghoulish atmosphere with a fitting soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi, who’s scored several of Fulci’s films. There’s also several memorable gory scenes to enjoy, and some of the actors were dedicated enough to get isolated in a room to be attacked by ten kilos of maggots via two wind machines. Trivia: one of the crew members decided to pull a prank on Mr. Fulci by stuffing some of the maggots in his pipe tobacco. Everyone but Fulci found it funny and he blamed the incident on the heart surgery he had years later with health problems that escalated to ventricular aneurysm, contracted viral hepatitis and liver cirrhosis. No more maggots on set, I guess. And of course don’t forget the drinking game: take a shot every time there’s a close-up of the actors eyes, and you’ll surely die of alcohol poisoning before the first twenty minutes. In advance, rest in peace.

Director: Lu ci o Fulci
Original title: Paura nella città dei morti viventi
Country & year: Italy, 1980
Actors: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Daniela Doria, Fabrizio Jovine, Luca Venantini, Michele Soavi, Venantino Venantini, Enzo D’Ausilio, Adelaide Aste, Luciano Rossi, Robert Sampson, Janet Agren
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0081318/

Related reviews:
– The Beyond (1981)
– The House by the Cemetery (1981)