1990s horror movies – Horror Ghouls

The Cat (1991)

Posted on October 21, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Li Tung is sleep deprived and near a mental breakdown from the constant noise his neighbor is making, hammering all night. He decides that enough is enough, time to deal with this noisy neighbor! He confronts the man, and when getting a little peek into his neighbor’s apartment, Li Tung notices that there’s a beautiful young woman inside, holding a fluffy black cat. Aww. The next day, Li Tung witnesses his neighbors departing in a moving van. Well, at least now he can get some peace and quiet at night.

Curious, he decides to enter the ex-neighbor’s empty apartment, only to notice it’s…not so empty, after all. There’s a pile of newspaper on the floor…bloodied. Underneath he discovers what appears to be human guts, and he freaks out and calls the police. Plot twist: the police deducts that they were not from a human, but fresh cat intestines. And then they laugh at silly Li Tung for the false alarm. Uhm…encountering a pile of cat intestines in an apartment is a laughing matter…? What the actual fuck.

Li Tung is then having dinner with police inspector Wang Chieh-Mei, the adventure novelist Wisely, and his partner Pai So. Wisely is convinced that the girl and her black fluffy cat are aliens. And who are they, exactly? Wisely has no proper clue (yet) but we learn that the girl and the cat who is called The General are indeed aliens, and the man with them is Errol, the girl’s protective knight. They need to obtain some octagonal artifacts which will help them defeat “The Star Killer“, which is a large, fungus-blob monster with some kind of electricity superpower. The problem is: these octagons are in museums, so they need to steal them…and The Star Killer tries to hunt them down while killing everything that stands in its way in the most gruesome ways possible, zombiefying them in the process and taking control over their bodies, making them its minions. Wisley might be the only one who can help the aliens…

The Cat (衛斯理之老貓 Wèisīlǐ Zhī Lǎomāo, lit. “Wisely’s Old Cat“), aka The 1000 Years Cat, is a Hong Kong science-fiction action horror film from 1992. It was directed by Lam Ngai Kai (known for Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky which we have yet to see but looks just as bonkers as this one), and based on a novel called Old Cat which is an installment in the Wisely series by Ni Kuang, which consists of sci-fi adventure novels with the character Wisely as the protagonist. Ni Kuang actually has a cameo in this film, as a dog owner named Mr. Chen.

If you want some crazy Hong Kong sci-fi action horror, then look no further. The Cat delivers and more than lived up to our expectations! An extraterrestrial feline with kung-fu powers that aids a pretty alien girl in battling a cosmic blob monster that turns its victims into controlled zombies? Yeah, you already know you’re in for a ride! Whenever the fluffy black cat is on screen, you know there will be some pure goodness to witness. It’s either something totally cheesy (like the scene where the girl and the cat are “playing around“ by levitating around in the street), something cute like the cat snuggling the actress, or there’s some wild creature feature effects mostly followed by even wilder gore scenes. The cute and the macabre in such a balanced unison!

As the story progresses, and Wisley teams up with the aliens, The Star Killer manages to control even more bodies. One of The Star Killer’s controlled bodies is that of the cop Wang, who turns on a full Terminator-mode and gets himself a load of guns and blasts the hell out of everything. As if this wasn’t wild enough we also get a scene at the end of the movie with some of the craziest giant blob monster effects, where our protagonists are on the rooftop to fight it off.

If you’re still not sold in on this movie, then at least watch it for the most legendary fight scene in all of movie history. Yes, I’m talking about the Cat vs. Dog fight. I’m even struggling with how in the hell I could possibly describe this scene and make you realize just how intensely insane it actually is, but no…you just gotta see it for yourself. And it was just as hard to pull off this fight scene as it looks…it took a whole six months to complete it, with seven trained cats. The special effects director who was originally hired to create these scenes was fired after just three days due to animal endangerment, and instead they got Japanese effects artist Shinji Higuchi onboard.

The Cat is a wild ride with so many insane and crazy elements that the day after watching it you may find yourself wondering if you just dreamt up the entire thing. It’s really that bizarre. From the one crazy scene to the other, with puppetry, inspired practical effects, absurd fight scenes and overall cozy tone that adds to the already bizarre vibe, this movie is sure to stick with you as one of the weirdest things you’ve witnessed.

The Cat is available on 2K restored blu-ray from 88 Films.

Director: Ngai Choi Lam
Writers: Gordon Chan, Hing-Ka Chan, Kuang Ni
Original title: Lo mau
Country & year: Hong Kong, Japan, 1991
Actors: Gloria Yip, Waise Lee, Christine Ng, Yee Cheng, Yuk-San Cheung, Liang Chiang, Lam Chua and a big solid black fluffy cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105796/

Beyond Darkness (1990)

Posted on October 18, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Beyond Darkness aka La Casa 5 is…uh, wait a minute, hold on…La Casa 5? Huh? You haven’t heard of the legendary Italian La Casa franchise? And you call yourself a horror fan?! Because who would know about this franchise that barely exists.

So, here’s La Casa explained: La Casa is the Italian title for The Evil Dead (1981) and La Casa 2 for Evil Dead II (1987). Ok, so where do we go from here, then? We make a fake clickbait sequel that capitalizes on the big success of the two previous La Casas, of course. Ah. Clever. Because if you loved Evil Dead II, you’ll surely love the dull, uninspired, boring and lazy Ghosthouse (1988) aka La Casa 3, directed by the one and only Humphrey Humbert aka Umberto Lenzi.

And already next year we have Witchery aka La Casa 4, which will have zero excuse for being boring and unfunny despite having Linda Blair and David Hasselhoff in the main roles! Then, the year after that, we have the one and only “original La Casa film“ that will be worth watching, Beyond Darkness. Because when we have a director like Clyde Anderson, aka Claudio Fragasso, you know you’ll at least get some showtime in one way or another. We can always count on our man Fragasso, even if he makes a bad movie. Capisci?

The last two, La Casa 6 and La Casa 7 are the Italian titles of House II: The Second Story (1987), and House III: The Horror Show (1989). And no, I’m not making this shit up, La Casa 6 came somehow before La Casa 5, possibly in an alternative dimension called La Planeto Bizarro. The series never made its comeback with the Paranormal Activities, weirdly enough.

Now, back to Beyond Darkness aka La Casa 5 and not aka The Conjuring, and also not to be confused with Joe D’Amato’s Beyond the Darkness aka Buio Omega aka Buried Alive aka House 6. The film starts with Father George giving the last rites to a bald Sinéad O’Connor-lookalike who’s ready to be fried in the chair after killing a bunch of children in the name of Satan. As she walks through death row, the priest sees a vision of her with the ghosts of the children she killed. She then says: Priest! I want you to witness my last orgasm. Uuhm… no comment.

Then we cut to a regular happy-go-lucky American Christian family who moves into a nice old big house. Say hello to Peter, his wife Annie and their two kids, Martin and Carole. And yep, the kid who plays Martin is the same one who made himself a living film legend after pissing on hospitality in Troll 2. Anyway, Peter is a priest, so there’s no chance in blue heaven that they have just moved into a house built on an ancient burial ground. Right? But things already seem to look ominous when Peter’s Holy Bible falls into a pile of mud. The kids discover a hole in the wall with some lightning beaming through. They also have a big black swan rocking chair in the bedroom, and not even the most competent use of light and shadow could make that thing look spooky.

The priest and his wife are about to have sex just when the evil wind from the west blows into the room and rips away all the pages from the freshly-ironed bible. The only page that’s left is an image of Baphomet. The family gets attacked one evening when they get chased by a flying meatcleaver, Evil Dead-style. A legion of ghouls n’ demons emerges in the house as Claudio Fragasso’s favorite fog machine is already working overtime. The soundtrack is overblown with some intense loud organ synth. And yeah, an old antique radio gets possessed, soon ready to be placed in a certain occult museum in Connecticut. OoO the horror! One of the demons looks like a mishmash of Darth Maul and The Lipstick Demon, by the way. Luckily, the priest’s bible has somehow fixed itself so he can chant some prayers to cast them out. Works for a short while, until the boy, Martin, gets captured and dragged to The Other Side by the ghost of the evil lady we saw in the beginning.

Now it’s time for some professional assistance from Ed and Lorraine or Father Russel Crowe.

Instead we have the priest who said the final rites to the evil lady before her execution. And his encounter with her has turned him into a traumatized alcoholic as he shambles through the streets with his moldy bible, acting like a schizophrenic lunatic and dressed like Castiel from Supernatural. Life’s tough. There’s some back and forth bullshit with some older minister at the local church before Father George puts his collar back on and pays a visit to our haunted family to give us the shocking news: This house is cursed! Huh, you don’t say. I seriously thought everything was just a Halloween role-play with all that fake fog. Mom Annie spots Martin in a mirror and…well, just like any mom would have done to save her boy, she dives into the mirror that leads her to The Other Side where she eventually finds him in a casket. She brings him back to the living just as if she went outside on the porch. No ropes needed. The bad news is; Martin is possessed. Now, let the exorcism begin.

By just looking at the cheesy n’ tasty poster and seeing the name Claudio Fragasso as director, the expectations go a certain way. But this is not at the same level as Troll 2, or Night Killer, which both were released the same year as Beyond Darkness. This is actually his most (if not only) professionally-made film, with the most professional actors he ever had the privilege to have on set. And when I say “professional“ I only mean in contrast to Fragasso’s other horror films, like the low bar it already is. Because there are a lot of hiccups here where the clownish aura and energy of Fragasso oozes all over the place like his fog machines. And with a script filled with plot holes driven by hazy, incoherent dream logic, also written by Fragasso and his recently deceased wife Rossella Drudi (RIP) it’s near to impossible, even for the most pro actor, to deliver dumb and cheesy lines without looking like a simpleton.

Then we have the obvious riffing of Poltergeist, Amityville, The Exorcist, Phantasm and The Conjuring before The Conjuring. If James Wan directed the aforementioned movie high on laughter gas from the dentist combined with some early dementia, something like Beyond Darkness would probably be the result: messy, tone-deaf, oddly entertaining, and maybe suitable enough for a goofy and mesmerizing gateway horror.

Director: Claudio Fragasso
Writers: Claudio Fragasso, Rossella Drudi
Also known as: La Casa 5
Country & year: USA/Italy, 1990
Actors: Gene LeBrock, David Brandon, Barbara Bingham, Michael Paul Stephenson, Theresa Walker, Stephen Brown, Mary Coulson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103802/

Braindead (1992)

Posted on October 10, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

There’s actually “film experts“ out there that are snobby enough to flat-out refuse to acknowledge Peter Jackson’s horror films pre Lord of the Rings. Well, more carnage goodies for the rest of us.

This unhinged goreshow from New Zealand starts at Skull Island, of all places, shot at the famous Pūtangirua Pinnacles. The year is 1957 and a team from Wellington Zoo has just trapped a Sumatran rat monkey in a small wooden crate. As they hurry back to the jeep, they get stopped by a group of natives who strongly advise them to not bring the monkey to the mainland. Because this is The Skull Island, after all. After they’ve run to the jeep with the natives on their tails, Stewart, the zoo official, gets bitten. “The little bugger bit me“, he says. Uh-oh. And the only cure for that is…singaya! His local guide kicks him off the jeep, picks up a machete and chops him to pieces after a scar pops up from his hands to his forehead. The gory cartoonish title card for Braindead, which alone sets the whole tone for what to expect, spatters to the screen just when they chop the poor man’s skull. What an intro!

After the rat monkey has been brought safely to New Zealand, we get introduced to the young and handsome, yet clumsy and awkward man Lionel, who lives with his mum, Vera, at a big house in the hills of Wellington. And we quickly learn that his mother is a guilt-tripping, narcissistic, bitter old hag who wants her boy all to herself. Yes, she’s one of those. Things change when he meets Paquita, a Spanish bird who works as a clerk in the local grocery store, and probably the very first female he ever had an interaction with. Love is finally in the air for Lionel as they go on a date to the zoo.

Jealous mum Vera spies on them around the zoo until she suddenly slips on a banana peel, holds on to some iron bars which are far enough from each other for the rat-monkey to take a good bite of her left arm. Her screams can be heard all up to North Korea. And, seriously, if it was that easy for the deadly monkey to reach that far from the cage, this would already happen on day one. Mum slams the monkey down with her purse and plunges the poor bugger to death with her high heels. And mum now has a new great excuse to keep her boy to herself as she needs daily medical care. So, love is in the backburner, for now.

The disease spreads slowly enough, so mum can have a painful death as she falls apart and transforms into a rabid zombie while poor Lionel does everything in his naive power to help her. Mum almost rips the head off nurse Tavish with her bare hands, which makes her head hanging upside-down from her neck. Lionel quickly throws her and mum in the basement, where he soon will have a fine collection of other stiffs. But as we say: context is everything. Mum manages to escape and shuffles her way into town where she gets hit by a tram and finally dies. Well, so we thought. The next on schedule is a messy, disastrous funeral where the scummy, sleazy and sadistic uncle Les is having a big fat schadenfreude belly-laugh. And we’ll see more of Uncle Les, you can bet on that. Poor Lionel.

After she gets put to the ground, Lionel pays a visit the same night to pull an Ed Gein and dig her up. Because he believes that she’s still alive and, like the good loyal son that he is, he has to take care of her. A group of drunk hooligans pops up and get the funny idea by pissing on Vera’s grave. “It’s my mother you’re pissing on“, says Lionel, as he just expects what to happen next. Mum’s hand burst out of the soil, grabs the dick, and…well, the juice is loose! Lionel injects the zombies with some strong sedatives that he bought on the black market from a neo-Nazi and hides them back home in the basement. Uncle Les throws a big house party after that greasy slob has ensured himself to inherit the house after some blackmailing. And of course, the stiffs downstairs want to chime in. This will be a fun night to remember. Oh yes, indeed.

There’s so much insane shit going on here where we have the one classic moment after another. We have two dinner scenes, the one more gross than the other. And all I can say is not to eat custard pudding while watching. Stick to popcorn or something very crisp. Just trust me on that one. The I Kick Ass for the Lord scene alone is Oscar worthy, and that the Kung fu priest looks like Father Ted, makes the icing on the cake. This Uncle Les guy also reminds me of someone but I can’t quite put the finger on it. Maybe you can (haha). A zombie baby is born where we have a wholesome moment where Lionel is out with the newborn in a park, hidden behind a net of bar wires in his carriage. This scene is Peter Jackson’s own favorite. The 1950s setting with its rockabilly atmosphere also gives Braindead its own unique flair and some extra charm. The effects, which are all from stop-motion, practical to puppetry, are top-tier with a handful of gleefully morbid gags.

Overall, there isn’t a single dull moment here, and Peter Jackson’s unique directing style, his great sense of morbid, absurd gallows splatstick humor, makes it worth quoting narrator Percy Rodriguez, who says it best in the trailer: a modern masterpiece of horror. Well, not so modern anymore, but still a masterpiece.

And then we have the big question: is this the goriest film ever made? Could be. Just in the final scene alone, the one with the lawnmower, 300 liters of fake blood was used, five gallons per second. The legend says that they’re still cleaning up the sets. All the leftovers that weren’t used were pumped into the Hutt river not so far from Wellington, and the production got into trouble when the residents saw the river turning red and contacted the authorities as they thought there was a serious massacre going on. Well, that wasn’t too far from the truth. So, with that trivia gold-nugget alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is actually the goriest film ever made. Premutos – The Fallen Angel (1997) is maybe the one who comes closest.

Braindead isn’t available on any streaming services as far as I know, and the old DVD’s that were released way back in the day are out-of-print. And the talks and rumors of an official 4K UHD release, along with Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, have been going on for so many years now with a numerous of “coming next year“ announcements that we just have to see it to believe it. The only thing to dig up is a Spanish DVD/Blu-ray and I have no idea what that one looks like.

Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson
Also known as: Dead Alive (North America)
Country & year: New Zealand, 1992
Actors: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin, Brenda Kendall, Stuart Devenie, Jed Brophy, Elizabeth Brimilcombe, Stephen Papps, Murray Keane, Glenis Levestam, Lewis Rowe
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103873/

Brainscan (1994)

Posted on October 9, 2025October 9, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Micheal Brower is a teen who lives a very lonely life. His mother was killed in a car accident, where his leg was permanently injured, and nowadays his father is mostly absent. He spends most of his days alone in the house, watching horror movies and playing video games, and spying on his neighbor crush Kimberly. His only friend, Kyle, is a misfit just like himself, and they’re both members of the school’s “Horror Club“. One day, Kyle tells Michael about this ultra-realistic horror game called Brainscan. Michael, of course, gets interested and soon has the first disc of the game in his mail. Upon starting the game, he is warned that the game is using what is similar to hypnotism, and soon Michael finds himself in a “game“ that looks just as real as life itself. The game’s host, simply referred to as “Trickster“, greets him in an exaggerated and almost clownish way, and encourages him to go on a psycho-murder spree. Why not…it’s just a game, right? The first level of the game includes Michael going into a stranger’s home, murdering him and taking the man’s foot as a trophy. Then, after finishing the game’s current mission and getting back to “real life“, he finds himself both a little confused and thrilled about the experience. That is…until the next day, when he discovers that the exact same murder happened close to his home. Did he really kill someone that night? When Michael refuses to continue playing the game, the Trickster materializes and torments him, until he’s got no choice but to continue playing…

Brainscan is a horror film from 1994, directed by John Flynn and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The script for the movie was originally centered around a VHS tape, but producer Michel Roy did some uncredited re-writes which turned the VHS into a CD-ROM video game, which would suit the times better with the growing fascination of virtual reality. Even the Trickster was Michel Roy’s invention, as the original script only included a voice that kept calling Michael by phone.

The premise of Brainscan is definitely intriguing. Virtual Reality had its real take-off in popularity during the early 90’s, despite there being several other attempts much earlier, like Morton Heilig’s Sensorama from the 1950’s, which was an arcade-style theatre cabinet with stereo speakers, stereoscopic 3D display, generators for smells and a vibrating chair (ladies must’ve loved that particular feature), and Ivan Sutherland’s “Ultimate Display“ concept, for example. For a very long time, we have been fascinated with the idea of experiencing some kind of reality where one could experience things that are not possible in the real world…or do things without any consequences. So the idea of a Virtual Reality game, so real that it feels like life itself, is a concept that probably felt both near and far in the early 90’s. And this movie really tries to show Michael off as some real high-tech boy with all the latest gadgets, having a large room in the attic/upper floor filled with video game, heavy metal and horror memorabilia. He even has his own computer-“Igor“ answering his phone calls and all (if I had watched this movie as a kid, I would’ve been envious as fuck). Still, it’s one of those typical 90’s movie settings where the “high tech“ almost seem a little alternative-reality like…there’s just something so weird about movies where “imagined near future technology“ is presented in such an odd old-fashioned way. I kind of find it a little charming, in its own peculiar way.

While the video game itself is more or less the “villain“ here, there’s a personification of it through the character Trickster who looks like a mishmash of Alice Cooper, Freddy Krueger, Steven Tyler and Mok Swagger. Mostly an overtly jolly (and somewhat obnoxious) character that is all in for the fun and games, as long as you still wanna play. Once Michael wants out, it becomes clear that this is a game you’ll have to play until the end. Whether that means the game’s end or your own…

While the movie is cheesy as hell, it manages to be suspenseful enough during the scenes where Michael is trying to figure out what really happened and how he can possibly get out of this mess. It’s a fun ride from start to finish, and then, of course, the movie also offers a little bit of a surprise in the ending, which ought to get a little chuckle out of most people. Too bad we didn’t get the sequel.

Brainscan is one of those rather hidden 90’s horror gems, not a classic by any means, but one that has more than enough cheesy fun for you to enjoy which undoubtedly also plays in a bit on the nostalgia…at least for us older ghouls.

Director: John Flynn
Writers: Brian Owens, Andrew Kevin Walker
Country & year: USA, 1994
Actors: Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, T. Ryder Smith, Amy Hargreaves, Jamie Galen, Victor Ertmanis, David Hemblen, Vlasta Vrana
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109327/

Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Waxwork II starts immediately where the first film left us (spoiler alert if you haven’t already seen the first movie!) where Mark and Sarah are escaping the waxwork that’s burning down to the ground. While they board a taxi and get the hell out of there, we see that they’re not the only ones who were able to escape: the severed hand from the zombie exhibit is crawling out of the space, Thing-style, and follows Sarah to her home. There, we get introduced to her abusive a-hole stepfather, who gets killed by the zombie hand with a hammer. Who gets the blame? Sarah, of course, and then everything is turned into some murder-trial-defense scenario. Mark, desperate to save his girlfriend, tries to find a way to convince the jury that a zombie hand really killed her stepfather, but in order to do so he needs to prove that such a Thing exists in the first place, and thus Mark must travel through several worlds in order to gather evidence that can save Sarah. Aaand here we go into total sci-fi/fantasy/cosmic/something-something hodgepodge that only makes the slightest sense if you’ve been dosing on some magic mushrooms.

Waxwork II: Lost in Time is a dark fantasy comedy horror film from 1992, written and directed by Anthony Hickox who also wrote and directed the first film, Waxwork (1988). It premiered in the Philippines on March 26, 1992, and got a direct-to-video release in the US later that year despite originally having been intended as a theatrical release like its predecessor.

Like the first movie, there’s some familiar faces to see. Zach Gilligan reprises his role as Mark, the protagonist. David Carradine (well known as Bill in the Kill Bill movies) also has a role here as a beggar, and we have Bruce Campbell in possibly the best segment in the movie, shot in black & white which is a homage to The Haunting from 1963 (the segment even has the same title).

Overall, the movie is complete nonsense from start to finish. It’s a lot more goofy than the first, and paying tons more homages to horror classics of all kinds with more than a few nods to multiple fantasy films as well. Unlike the first film, there’s no Wax Museum here, just…portals to other dimensions or something like that, which are all homages to other films. And there’s sooo much here: nods to Nosferatu, Godzilla, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, etc. etc. Just like the first, it isn’t afraid to spill a bit of blood for us gorehounds, sometimes doused with a good amount of cheese, like the scene with Bruce Campbell getting his ribcage exposed, and Frankenstein doing a good old head-smashing with popping eyeballs and a brain flying straight out of the top of the skull. Great times! There’s also a rather lengthy medieval segment which does outstay its welcome a bit, but it’s also where most of the (nonsensical) story is progressing, and where the villain, Lord Scarabus, resides.

It’s hard to really get much into this movie plot-wise as it’s so all over the place and so silly and nonsensical that just trying to think too much about it makes me feel like my brain is going to take a flight just like in the Frankenstein scene. If you thought the first movie was too asinine for your taste, then gee whiz, are you going to have some trouble with this one…

Overall, Waxwork II: Lost in Time is a fun watch if you’ve already seen the first and can enjoy movies that are utter silliness. It’s got its fair share of charm and entertainment value despite being somewhat of a mess. One of the major highlights in the movie are the tons of horror references that’s bound to be a fun watch for most horror fans.

Writer and director: Anthony Hickox
Country & year: USA, 1992
Actors: Zach Galligan, Monika Schnarre, Martin Kemp, Bruce Campbell, Michael Des Barres, Jim Metzler, Sophie Ward, Marina Sirtis, David Carradine, Alexander Godunov, George ‘Buck’ Flower
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105792/

Phantasm III (1994)

Posted on October 3, 2025October 4, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

– What tha FUCK was THAT??

– That’s… kinda hard to explain.

Just like the previous one, Phantasm III, also known as Lord of the Dead BooooOOOOYS, picks up right after the previous ended. So no, it wasn’t all a dream, after all. Or maybe a dream within a dream…who the hell knows. Reggie gets out of The Tall Man’s hearse while it’s moving, all messy and bloody before the car suddenly explodes. Liz dies instantly while Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) survives but gets knocked unconsciously. Reggie and Mike get surrounded by the evil Jawas and The Tall Man, who holds the severed head of Liz. Reggie unlocks a timer grenade to just end it all. I don’t want him in pieces (Mike), The Tall Man says. Well, as it looks like now, that’s the only way he’s gonna get him. The Tall Man backs off before he tells Reggie to take good care of Mike while he waits.

Mike gets taken to the hospital where he falls into a coma. It doesn’t look too good, as he’s walking towards the light in a bright blue hallway among other dead silhouettes. And I’m sure I spotted Tangina and Kane for a second. But one particular sticks out. It’s… Jodi, Mike’s dead big brother, again played by Bill Thornbury. And he looks bored of his mind. After a quick reunion, Jodi tells Mike to stay away from the light and go back. The Tall man shows up and orders him with his strict boooOOOY line delivery to turn back since he wants him alive. Mike wakes up only to get attacked by a ghoulish nurse. Mike shoves a metal pipe through her neck. Reggie comes in and gets her yellow blood spurted all over his face. A sphere forces itself out of her scalp and flies in front of Mike. An eye comes out of the Sphere (yes, they have eyes now) to take a good look at Mike before it flies out of the window. WTF. Just another day in Phantasm land.

Mike and Reg drive away to find an abandoned house to take shelter for the night. Jodi pops up again and transforms himself into a sphere. Why? Who knows. Reg is fed up with the bullshit and just wants to shoot it right away. Can’t you hear it? It’s Jodi. He’s in the ball, talking to me, says a robotic and not-so convincing A. Michael Baldwin. This is certainly not the same Baldwin we saw in the first film. His replacement from Phantasm II must have broken him. And now that Mike finally stands on his feet again, The Tall Man walks in to claim him. It’s time now, boy! Jody, or JodySphere, gets transformed by a rusty useless ball by The Tall Man, before he and Mike disappear into a dimension far, far away. Reggie takes JodySphere with him, drives through abandoned ghost towns, once again in Supernatural-style, with his 1971 Cuda to track down The Tall Man and save Mike.

A. Michael Baldwin’s return as Mike gets rather cut short as the plot takes a complete detour with a bloated but entertaining sideplot where Reggie joins forces with the boy Tim (Kevin Connors), the tough nunchaku chick Rocky (Gloria Lynne Henry) and gets some bumps in the road by a small gang of scavengers. The aspects with Tim is pretty fun though, as he lives alone in his house after his parents got killed by, yeah you guess it, The Tall Man, and rigged the whole place with death traps and small escape doorways. The idea with Tim could have worked as a movie by itself or a spin-off. There’s an awkward non-romance moment with Reg and Rocky at a motel where he gets tricked into having some kink time in handcuffs, only to dupe him so she can have a good night’s sleep. Then we have the obligatory mausoleum scenes where spheres show up and make a bloody mess. The spheres have gotten more upgrades, like eyes used as surveillance cameras, and they also have Homer Simpson-sized brains that are small enough to fit.

After the previous film underperformed, Don Coscarelli was back on the independent playground. Whether that was for the best or worse, is another question. Bringing back A. Michael Baldwin and Bill Thornbury was an obvious choice now that Coscarelli was free to do what the hell he wanted. Just too bad that the chemistry between the two brothers is like two wet socks. Things are far from what they once were in 1979, and not just with Baldwin. I bet that Coscarelli got cold feet, tossed the brothers in the backburner, rewrote the script and placed Reggie in the front seat with brand new colorful characters.

As a direct-to-video, Phantasm III looks pretty polished with some fun action, wild car chases, explosions, gore, zany sci-fi moments, nods to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and, overall, what makes a great Phantasm film. It doesn’t have much of the spooky atmosphere as the first two, but is still an entertaining ride with lots of 1990s charm. The leftovers of the bigger WTFs get saved for the last 15 minutes or so, where we only get more cryptic questions than answers just to open the doors for a quick cliffhanger. And honestly, the franchise could as well just have ended here, because the next two installments we got are just … bollocks. If you thought that these films weren’t confusing enough, you’ve seen nothing yet.

Just to quote The Tall Man himself: It’s Never Over!

Don Coscaralli followed up with Phantasm IV: Oblivion four years later. The only significant thing we get is a quick backstory to The Tall Man, which isn’t that interesting. Some regard this as the best in the series, for some reason, and others as the worst (that was until we got the fifth film). My main issue is that this is just a dull movie that tries to go back to its roots with a slowburn pace that goes nowhere. Poor Reggie gets a flat tire (if I remember right) and has a long dull fight scene with a zombie cop. And Mike? He’s… somewhere.

There’s no set-pieces here, just the empty desert environment of Death Valley, where Mike just drives through the dark ether, sleeps in the car and walks aimlessly in the sunny desert as if he is just having an existential midlife crisis. And maybe that’s the case. What the hell do I know. The leftover scenes from the first film, that were used for time traveling, could be a great idea if we got some more than just dead meat and fillertime to close the whole blurry mess with It was just the wind.

Then, after 17 years, we finally got Phantasm: Ravager. And, oh man… The “plot“ here is that Reggie is withering away in a nursing home with dementia where he dips in and out of dreamland where we follow him in different random scenarios to look for Mike… even though Mike visits Reggie regularly while he’s lying in his bed and looking confused. And drawing the parallels between the real Reggie Bannister’s unfortunate health condition makes this even more sad. Melancholia isn’t an unknown thick layer for the Phantasm universe, but this is just depressing, in a bad way. Another day in Phantasm land or not, I wanna go home now.

We have lots of terrible green screens in the most classy SyFy Channel-style, where you’re almost expecting David Hasselhoff to pop out and sing Hooked on a Feeling any minute. This is the worst kind of fan fiction slop one can shart out. Ravager was originally meant to be a series of short films with no other ambitions than dump it on YouTube. And it clearly shows and explains everything. The film was directed by David Hartman, and I’m a little shocked that Don Coscarelli actually was involved with the writing process here. Angus Scrimm died some months after the film was released, at the age of 89. RIP.

Sorry for closing the Phantasm reviews with such a sour note, but it is what it is. Watch the first three. They’re great. That being said, keep the balls in the air and peace out.

Writer and director: Don Coscarelli
Country & year: USA, 1994
Also known as: Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Actors: Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm, Bill Thornbury, Gloria Lynne Henry, Kevin Connors, Cindy Ambuehl, John Davis Chandler, Brooks Gardner, Irene Roseen
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110823/

Prequels:
– Phantasm (1979)
– Phantasm II (1988)

Bad Moon (1996)

Posted on July 8, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Ted Harrison is a photo journalist who’s on an expedition in Nepal, together with his girlfriend Marjorie. While making out in the tent, they get attacked by a werewolf who rips the tent open and snatches Marjorie out from it. Ted tries to save her, but the werewolf bites him. It then kills Marjorie, before the injured Ted manages to shoot it with his shotgun. Then, we head over to the States where his sister Janet lives together with her son Brett and their dog Thor. Then Ted suddenly contacts her and invites them over to his “home“ by the lake (he’s living in a camper trailer). When they get there, Thor is immediately picking up some strange scents and scurries off into the forest. There we see some severely mauled human remains hanging from a tree branch. And just where Ted has relocated, what a coincidence! Or not. It’s very obvious that Ted is now a werewolf since he got bitten.

When the authorities start investigations after finding the remains of several hikers and a forest ranger, all found in the woods where Ted has been staying, he gets afraid he’ll become a suspect, and decides to stay at Janet’s property. She senses no danger, of course…but Thor, on the other hand, can sniff out the threat immediately. While Ted is trying to keep his dark side under control by handcuffing himself to a tree in the forest at night (because here’s a twist: he doesn’t just turn into a werewolf every full moon, but every single night), this doesn’t always work and the consequences are…bloody. And messy. Thor is trying desperately to make Janet realize the danger they’re in, and is hellbent on protecting his family from this wild beast.

Bad Moon is a Canadian-American werewolf horror film from 1996, written and directed by Eric Red and produced by James G. Robinson. It is based on a novel by Wayne Smith, called Thor. And yes, this story is actually told mostly from the dog’s perspective, and this mixed with a score where several scenes have a slightly kitschy soundtrack, the result produces an odd family-movie-night vibe. But don’t be fooled, because this werewolf movie actually has both teeth and a bite to it (which unfortunately cannot be said about this year’s Wolfman movie). There’s some really vicious gore and kill scenes here, and despite some not-so-good CGI effects in a scene later on, the movie doesn’t have many issues in the visual part. I also found the “dog perspective“ to be both charming and fun, giving the movie a personal flair. This works especially well since Ted, whom I guess would have been the natural protagonist otherwise, is kind of a mixed bag when it comes to having any sympathy for him. While he struggles with his urges and tries some half-assed attempts to chain himself up at night, he also shows no restraints when it comes to putting his loved ones in danger. Like his wants and needs should conquer everyone else’s safety. Like in most werewolf movies, you do kind of feel for the character since what they’re going through is more or less out of their control, but Ted is going too far in the “ah well, can’t help this shit anyway“ direction. Or maybe the werewolf part has gotten too much control over him. So, Thor: go ahead and sic him, boy!

Bad Moon wasn’t received well upon its release. On a budget of $7 million, it only earned back $1.1. million. And despite some really bad CGI effects in a scene that was reminiscent of what you could see in Sleepwalkers, I think the remaining werewolf effects and costume were pretty neat, and that goes for the gore effects as well. I found the movie to be some nice, cheesy fun with a cute doggy hero in one of the leading roles. A werewolf horror movie with an odd charm to it. Well worth a watch!

Writer and director: Eric Red
Country & year: USA, 1996
Actors: Mariel Hemingway, Michael Paré, Mason Gamble, Ken Pogue, Hrothgar Mathews, Johanna Marlowe, Gavin Buhr, Julia Montgomery Brown, Primo
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115610/

Shakma (1990)

Posted on March 28, 2025March 29, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

You mad, bro? Shakma the baboon clearly is, that’s for sure. And who can really blame him, as he’s trapped inside a tiresome office building with a bunch of bland NPC characters that you rather want to flush down the toilet before you take the weekend off. Cuz this fluffy firecracker has zero tolerances for stupid people… and doors. Especially doors.

The story is even more simple than any of the Friday the 13th films: A group of young medical students are preparing themselves to be locked in a lab building during one night to role-play Dungeons and Dragons. And instead of a serial killer lurking around, we have a baboon named Shakma who starts to body-count them. And if baboons weren’t hostile enough animals already, this one has just been injected with an experimental serum that increases his aggression even more. If you play with fire, you’ll get burned, as we say, and Shakma will make sure of that.

Shakma is a very cheap-looking film, even for a budget of 1,500,000 bucks. The setting here, with the grey office environment, is as dull as it can get with the esthetics and vibes that ooze like a cancelled sitcom where the actors, who’s just graduated from the Disney Channel School of Acting, have to deliver lines such as You are soooooo male! Well, excuuuuuuse me, princess…

And speaking of: the one and only reason to give this silly B(aboon) movie a watch is thanks to Shakma himself. He’s “played“ by Typhoon – a real, unstoppable, demonic force of nature who’d bite off both of the ears of Mike Tyson in a heartbeat. Typhoon is not just the most badass name ever, but the most fitting, as he literally typhoons himself throughout the whole film, where you almost feel more sorry for the doors he tries to break, as his own life was depending on it. Fluffboy is so fucking pissed and full of rage that he makes Alec Baldwin look like Postman Pat, and no one can convince me that he was a joy to work with. I bet the feelings from Typhoon were mutual. At least he got snacks constantly between the takes to calm him down and was carefully instructed by his trainer, Gerry Therrien, so he didn’t murder the whole film crew. Baboons are, after all, nothing to joke with as they’re the most aggressive monkey species out there. The actors did what they could to not make eye contact with Typhoon as that was enough to trigger him. Actress Amanda Wyss, most known for being the first victim of Freddy Krueger back in 1984, was especially very afraid of the fluffy co-star. And I’m just assuming that most of the budget went to the doors. I’d love to see an hour of B-rolls of this, which I’d guess would be more amusing than the film itself.

That being said, Shakma works fine for what it is, and there’s enough of monkey rage, body-counts, some cheap gore and some even cheaper laughs, if you’re in the right mood, to keep you entertained. This was also David Lynch’s favorite film of 1990. And after learning that, I just can’t stop picturing a little, cute, fluffy baboon dancing in a certain red room.

Directors: Hugh Parks, Tom Logan
Writer: Roger Engle
Country & year: USA, 1990
Actors: Typhoon, Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers, Roddy McDowall, Robb Edward Morris, Tre Laughlin, Greg Flowers, Ann Kymberlie, Donna Jarrett
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100589/

Baby Blood (1990)

Posted on March 21, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

We’re somewhere in central Africa where a tiger has been captured to be a new supplement for a local circus in France. The circus is run by Mr. Lohman, an abusing scumbag who should be fed to the lions. The staff would agree, especially the young tiger trainer’s assistant, Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou). One night the new tiger explodes/bursts. Splat. Just like that. And out of the tiger we see a snake-looking parasite who slimes its way into Yanka’s trailer while she’s sleeping, and crawls into her vagina. I guess Aylmer would be jealous.

As she wakes up with morning sickness, she gets confirmed from a lab that she’s pregnant. And who’s the father? Yanka have a suspicion, but little did she know. The daily life at the circus goes as normal where Lohman acts like an unhinged lunatic who wants to pick fights with the whole staff. Yanka has had enough of the abuse and dead-end career bollshit, packs a bag, steals some cash and flees to the big open world of France.

We jump to one month later where Yanka has taken shelter in a rundown crack house apartment where she has lost her mind. I bet that happens when you have a monster baby parasite in your womb that speaks to you with a distorted telekinesis voice, and tells you to kill people so that it can feed on blood to grow. She gets an unexpected visit from Lohman, who’s tracked her down, only to be the first victim. At least, this one deserved it.

From here on we follow Yanka as she goes on a murder spree where she jumps from job to job, from the one scenario to the next. Prostitution would probably be the easiest choice to lure men, but she’s way too classy for that. She goes from being a part-time waitress to a taxi driver to, much later, becoming a police woman (in the sequel. Yes, really). Not much logic here, in other words, and the film doesn’t take itself seriously. The distinct tone is pretty clear from the start where we have a quick opening monologue from the parasite itself.

80 women auditioned for the role of Yanka, and it’s easy to see what director Alain Robak was looking for. Emmanuelle Escourrou is quite a remarkable sight, the camera is sure to show us that, but she can also act and gives a pretty raw performance. The film also has some stylish flavor to it and a uniqueness that makes it stand out rather than just being another low-budget schlock. And if you’re in for the gore, you won’t be disappointed as the film has the word blood in the title for a reason. No click-bait title, just to make that clear. Despite a middle-part that drags a bit, it gets pretty wild, and Baby Blood is overall a fun, zany and a tasteful little exploitation classic with its own spin on the pregnancy horror sub-genre.

The film became an urban hit as it sold exactly 10381 tickets in Paris before it grew up to be a half-obscure cult-classic. And speaking of obscure, in one scene we can actually spot an easter egg poster for Baby Blood 2, even though it took 19 years to make the sequel, titled Lady Blood – which, judging from the trailer, looks like an Uwe Boll film. No wonder why it has a solid 2.7 rating on IMDb from only 188 users. So… nah. I’d probably check it out if it sharts out on streaming.

Baby Blood is available on Blu-ray, also with the English dub version where you can hear Gary Oldman as the parasite.

Director: Alain Robak
Writers: Serge Cukier, Alain Robak
Country & year: France, 1990
Actors: Emmanuelle Escourrou, Christian Sinniger, Jean-François Gallotte, Roselyne Geslot, François Frapier, Thierry Le Portier, Rémy Roubakha, Eric Averlant, Alain Robak, Alain Chabat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096871/

Fallen (1998)

Posted on March 7, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

John Hobbes is a Philadelphia Police Detective, who is about to visit the serial killer Edgar Reese who is on death row. Despite this, Reese is in a pretty good mood, and during their conversation he grabs Hobbes’ hand and says something that at first is assumed to be pure gobbledygook, but is later identified as Syrian Aramaic. Later, when Reese is about to be executed, he mocks everyone who is watching. Not in Gacy-style by telling them to kiss his ass, but by singing “Time Is on My Side“ by The Rolling Stones. When the show is over, the world is one psychopath less. Or is it? Shortly afterwards, Hobbes and his partner Jonesy investigates a string of new murders which is reminiscent of Reese’s style, making them think there’s a copycat on the loose. As Hobbes digs further, he finds that something demonic is pulling the strings.

Fallen is a supernatural horror thriller from 1998, directed by Gregory Hoblit and stars Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeht Davidtz, James Gandolfini and Elias Koteas. It received mixed reviews, and earned only $25.2 million on a $46 million budget. It has later started gaining a bit of a cult following where the common audience appears to be a lot more appreciative than the critics.

Supernatural horror movies about demon hunting and possessions are a dime a dozen, and if you’ve also seen the Supernatural TV series, this movie will feel like very familiar and well-trodden territory. Now, with this being a movie from 1998, it’s kind of fun to check out something that precedes the others and it definitely holds up well on its own. The supernatural elements are for the most part portrayed as a more mysterious part of the movie, mixing well with the detective elements. There’s no graphic violence or any actual scares here, but the mystery entwined with the supernatural elements makes it exciting enough for a popcorn evening. There’s also a fair amount of familiar faces here: Donald Sutherland plays a grumpy no-bullshit kind of guy as usual, and John Goodman fits well as the upbeat and jolly policeman. James Gandolfini, most known for his role as the mafia boss Tony in the TV series The Sopranos, hasn’t become the well-known mafia character yet and here he is walking around with a 70s mustache. Denzel Washington who is playing the protagonist is also doing a good job at playing a rational character who is very much forced to believe all the strange stuff that keeps happening around him.

Those who watched Nefarious (2023) saw the similarities to Fallen, and I also think that the Supernatural series might’ve been inspired as well. Still, the plot of Fallen is also similar to a movie from 1990 called The First Power, where a policeman hunts a serial killer called the Pentagram Killer, who’s been brought back to life by Satan. That movie received mostly negative reception, but ended up being a financial success anyway (then again, it had a much lower budget).

Overall, Fallen is a pretty nice supernatural thriller, which will probably feel a bit familiar if you’ve ever seen Supernatural or any of the demon-hunting movies or series that’s been released over the years. The movie is, however, pretty easy to feel comfortable with as it doesn’t overplay the supernatural events to the point of it becoming too cheesy, and it’s fast paced enough to have a lasting popcorn-entertainment effect. It also has a pretty nice twist at the end, and while I’ve gotten a bit tired of movies focusing too much on leading up to a twist, this one came more like a sly little surprise, and that’s something I can appreciate.

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Writer: Nicolas Kazan
Country & year: USA, 1998
Actors: Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, Embeth Davidtz, James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas, Gabriel Casseus, Michael J. Pagan, Robert Joy, Frank Medrano
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119099/