serial killers – Horror Ghouls

Strange Darling (2023)

Posted on March 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A woman is hunted by what appears to be a deranged killer, who is hellbent on taking her down. Who are these people, and what connection do they have? Well, we are soon to find out more but not in a chronological order. What we see in the opening is very much the middle of the film, and after an action-filled chase scene we backtrack to an earlier chapter where we find out that the woman meets the guy in order to hook up for sex in a local motel. Something is off right from the start, of course, and everything keeps spiraling into what ends up as a crazy cat ‘n mouse chase where you’re going to keep guessing.

Strange Darling is a thriller from 2023, written and directed by JT Mollner. The movie is told in a non-linear fashion, with 6 chapters, and very much centers around keeping you wondering what is going on, except the early understanding of this being a story about a serial killer. The movie was shot on location in Oregon on 35 mm film by Giovanni Ribisi.

When Mollner had completed the script for the film, he got three different offers and decided to meet up with Miramax first, where he wasn’t even three minutes into his pitch before Bill Block told him they had a deal. Things didn’t exactly go as smooth from thereon, however. It was shut down two days into filming due to some executives suddenly deciding to throw a fit, and stated “we hate everything about what you’re sending us. We’re not enjoying this at all. And we’re not sure if this is going to work“. They also wanted Willa Fitzgerald to be recast (who was excellent in the role) and hated that the movie was told in a non-linear way. Why they suddenly started to act like someone shoved a cactus up their ass is anyone’s guess, but it actually went as far as Miramax hiring another editor to recut the film as a linear story, to which Mollner clearly stated that he then would have his name removed from the film. He utilized a clause in his contract that stipulated that he could demand there to be a test screening of his director’s cut, and during this test screening the crowd started being very enthusiastic about the way the story was told, and Miramax finally let Mollner keep his final cut. Bill Block also later apologized to Mollner for the shitstorm during the film’s production.

While I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about stories not being told in a non-linear way (sometimes it works perfectly, other times it might just befuddle everything), this movie is a perfect example of how the non-linear storytelling heightens the experience. Yeah…I gotta admit that certain things were a little obvious already from the early part of the movie, but not being entirely sure what is going to happen and what has already happened, that is part of the viewing experience here. It’s entertaining and suspenseful, and the performances from both Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are really well done and the cinematography is vibrant and beautiful.

Strange Darling is one of those movies that is hard to write very much about since it really is a movie where you need to go in as blind as possible, and while the “twist“ or whatever could be seen from a mile away (or at least from very early in the movie), it was still a very fun experience.

Writer and director: JT Mollner
Country & year: USA, 2023
Actors: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey, Madisen Beaty, Bianca A. Santos, Steven Michael Quezada
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22375054/

Trap (2024)

Posted on November 19, 2024November 21, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Cooper and his daughter Riley is going to Lady Raven’s concert, which is Riley’s reward for getting good grades. Cooper notices something strange about the place, though…there’s police everywhere, and when chatting up a guy selling merchandise he learns that the FBI is out to catch a serial killer known as “The Butcher“, because they have for some reason become aware that he will be at this concert. And this serial killer is none other than Cooper himself, of course. While trying to pretend everything is alright while his daughter is having the time of her life, Cooper manipulates and tricks his way into what he hopes will be an escape from the concert without getting caught.

Trap is a psychological thriller by M. Night Shyamalan, starring his own daughter Saleka as Lady Raven. Saleka is a singer-songwriter, and the idea for the film came when father and daughter one day had a conversation about combining a concert and a theatrical experience similar to Prince’s musical film Purple Rain (1984). The script was inspired by the Washington D.C. “Operation Flagship“ sting operation in 1985, where fugitives were lured to the Washington Convention Center under the pretense of free tickets, which resulted in 101 arrests. The songs in this film were also performed on stage as if in a real concert, and the shoot thus involved thousands of extras.

The concept of Trap is interesting enough, and when it became available on streaming we just decided to check it out. None of us had high expectations, but found ourselves to be entertained throughout the entire film, and sometimes that’s simply enough. It’s a somewhat simple cat ‘n mouse story where we witness the scenes unfold through the serial killer’s perspective, and it’s suspenseful enough while also having a slightly goofy vibe throughout. It’s definitely one of Shyamalan’s more carefree narratives, focusing more on pure thrills and fun instead of his usual cerebral and serious fare.

This being an M. Night Shyamalan movie you’re bound to wait for that plot twist to come which will turn everything on its head…but here’s pretty much a plot-twist in itself: there isn’t any. In a Shyamalan movie! Who would’ve thought. The movie does offer some twists and turns throughout the ride though, and some reveals and such, but none of what Shyamalan’s movies have become known (and often ridiculed) for. Not saying that his twists are always bad, because they really aren’t (just take his first horror movie The Sixth Sense for example), but this movie didn’t need any of that and is all the better for it.

Overall, Trap is one of those dumbly fun movies which is offering just enough thrills and suspense. Nothing groundbreaking and by no means a masterpiece, but all in all just an easy-going and fun thriller.

Writer and director: M. Night Shyamalan
Country & year: USA, 2024
Actors: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett, Vanessa Smythe
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26753003/

Piggy (2022)

Posted on July 5, 2024July 5, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Sara is an overweight girl who gets constantly bullied by a group of other teenage girls: Maca, Roci and Claudia. One of these girls even used to be her friend. They call her Cerdita (Piggy), and she can’t get a moment of peace no matter where she goes. On a hot summer day, she decides to visit the local swimming pool, where there’s no one else except another man who leaves shortly after. The peace doesn’t last long, though, because of course the three bullies comes along and ruins everything for her and also ends up stealing her backpack and clothes. Wearing nothing but her bikini, she has to walk home and gets harassed by a group of men who makes fun of her weight. Devastated, she escapes onto a side road, where she sees a parked van. Suddenly, a bloodied Claudia appears in the window of the van, screaming and begging for Sara to help her. Struck with fear, she freezes when realizing that the driver of the van has kidnapped those girls. Then, the kidnapper locks gazes with her, and she recognizes him as the man who was by the swimming pool earlier. He drops off her towel so she can cover herself, and drives off. Returning home, Sara finds herself conflicted as the kidnapper is one of the very few people in her life who have shown her some kindness and respect, and she decides to not tell anyone about what happened. Things escalate as the search for the missing girls are put into force, and other people are found dead. Sara is not sure how long she can keep her mouth shut in allegiance with the serial killer…

Piggy (original title: Cerdita) was released in 2022 and is Carlota Pereda’s feature film debut, and based on the short film by the same name from 2018. Both the feature film and the short film features Laura Galán in the leading role, and the shooting locations included the village of Villanueva de la Vera and the surrounding areas.

Now, looking at some of the posters for this film, where Sara is covered in blood on a hot Spanish summer day, and others where she’s been edited to be wielding a knife in her hand, one might think this is a typical revenge thriller movie. It’s not. Setting the film off by showing how Sara is bullied by people left and right while getting to meet an actual serial killer who – ironically – is the only person who shows her some kind of affection, really does set the mood. Yes, we sympathize with Sara and what she’s going through, and yeah…we don’t really feel too bad for those girls who are simply portrayed as a group of mean bitches. The exception is supposed to be Claudia, who used to be Sara’s friend, but who now enjoys being with the “cool” girls instead. We can see that she initially hesitates when seeing how the others treat Sara, but she soon joins in and does absolutely nothing to stop them. Despite being somewhat portrayed as the “lesser evil” among the girls, I honestly think she’s just as bad, maybe even worse. So yeah, we want to see Sara getting justice, but it plays out more as a drama thriller where the heroine is constantly plagued with differing feelings of both guilt and loyalty to the man who kidnapped her tormentors. And the majority of the villagers are also portrayed as people who aren’t exactly easy to like, including Sara’s own family, with the exception of her dad who seems to be the only person she’s got an okay relationship with.

Piggy aka Cerdita is a not a typical revenge film or slasher, but as a drama thriller about a bullied girl who ends up fighting quite the dilemma. Who to choose: the serial killer who saved you from your bullies, or the bullies and villagers who couldn’t really give a shit about you? In a regular slasher the answer to that question would have been obvious, but this movie is taking a more realistic approach. Sara never turns into some kind of badass heroine, but instead she’s coming to her own decisions despite her conflicting feelings. Definitely worth a watch, and an interesting take on how a bullied person would deal with having an evil savior.

Writer and director: Carlota Pereda
Country & year: Spain, 2023
Original title: Cerdita
Actors: Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro, Camille Aguilar, Claudia Salas, José Pastor, Fernando Delgado-Hierro, Julián Valcárcel, Amets Otxoa
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10399608/

I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)

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

John Wayne Cleaver (yeah, not Gacy, this movie is not about that guy) is a teenager who’s struggling with homicidal impulses. He’s going to a therapist, a man named Grant, who has diagnosed John as a sociopath. John is also helping his mother with work at her funeral home, having a rather distanced and curious view on the bodies there. When there’s talk about a serial killer in John’s hometown, his interest is of course piqued. One day John witnesses his friendly elderly neighbour Crowley (Christopher Lloyd, from Back to the Future) asking a drifter to join him on an ice fishing trip, and he decides to follow them. The elderly man appears at first to be in danger, and the drifter is about to attack him when things take a sudden u-turn and Crowley ends up killing the man with only his hand. Surprised and full of awe, John witnesses the scene from behind a tree, seeing how old man Mr. Crowley is cutting out the drifter’s lungs. Well, now he knows who the serial killer in town is. Instead of heading straight for the police, however, the sociopathic boy creates a profile for the killer, noting how earlier victims also had organs removed. He starts spying on Crowley, and offers to help Crowley and his wife shoveling their walkway for snow in order to get a bit closer. What ensues is a kind of cat and mouse game, only this is more like a predator vs predator game.. and John has no clue what he’s started meddling with.

I Am Not a Serial Killer is a horror film from 2016, directed by Billy O’Brien and based on a novel from 2009 of the same name by Dan Wells. Funding for the film was provided by the Irish Film Board, The Fyzz Facility and Quickfire Films, and its budget was a meager $1.45 million.

The film is deliberately slow-paced with a combination of drama and thriller. Since we’re being shown exactly who the killer is on a very early stage there’s no real mystery about it, the boy spying on the killer doesn’t do it in investigative Summer of 84-style because he’s unsure, he knows. He literally witnessed his neighbour committing murder in broad daylight. He investigates him because he wants to know more, he’s simply fascinated! This makes you wonder what direction the movie will take, as we also got to know early on that the boy is more than just a little troubled. It often offers an interesting peek into the troubled teenager’s dark thoughts, and it works well as a variation of the youngster vs the serial killer neighbour. There is a kind of unusual vibe throughout, where certain things that happen are steeped in seriousness, while having a certain indistinct silliness over it. Max Records is also doing great in the performance of the sociopathic teenager trying to keep his urges in check, and seeing Christopher Lloyd as the seemingly charming yet very deadly elderly man certainly gives the movie a heightened efficacy.

There are also some fun easter eggs: Dan Wells, the author of the novel has a cameo near the end of the film, as a police officer. Crowley, played by Christopher Lloyd, is suspected of being a missing person whose name is Emmet (a nudge to Lloyd’s character in the Back to the Future films, as Dr. Emmet Brown). There’s also some gameplay footage where John’s friend is gaming, and this is from a game called The Order: 1886 by Ready At Dawn, which is a game that features a protagonist battling against a hidden evil, which is very much what is also happening in this film.

I Am Not a Serial Killer is a fun experience, and certainly one of those films where it’s best to walk in blind for the best experience.

Director: Billy O’Brien
Writers: Billy O’Brien, Christopher Hyde
Country & year: Ireland, USA, United Kingdom, 2016
Actors: Max Records, Christopher Lloyd, Laura Fraser, Christina Baldwin, Karl Geary, Dee Noah, Lucy Lawton, Anna Sundberg, Raymond Brandstrom, Michael Paul Levin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4303340/

Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door (2024)

Posted on March 26, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

I don’t think John Wayne Gacy needs much of an introduction, but I’ll give a quick one anyway. When we’re not talking about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein or Henry Lee Lucas and numerous other well-documented psychos, he’s known for being the most notorious serial killer of all time in America. Yes, THE most of ALL time. Ever.

So we’re more or less talking about the king himself of the serial killers’ hall of fame – an average bulky and outgoing man living in an ordinary house in the suburbs who was loved by the community and who gladly entertained the locals with his iconic clown persona Pongo under festive circumstances. Also a top tier master manipulator who appeared like a wolf in sheep’s clothing like most of his like-minded in the life of serial killing. At night, he spent his double-life by living out his murdering fetish fantasies as a closet gay and picking up male prostitutes to take home and show them his infamous handcuff trick. He killed up to over thirty young men and buried them under his house crawlspace during the late 1970s, until the smell couldn’t be held back much longer. He got sentenced to death by lethal injection and got executed on May 10, 1994, notably the same day Jeffrey Dahmer was baptized in prison.

Gacy was 52 when he met his maker and his last words were short, sweet and simple: “kiss my ass!”

There are three or four films based on John W. Gacy, as far as I know. And while we’re at it, I can mention two earlier films I’ve seen so far that are based on the killer clown. The first one is To Catch a Killer from 1992, a low-budget miniseries in two parts made for TV. This was made while Gacy was still alive, and he didn’t like hearing the news that a film based on him was in the works. And the one and only interesting thing here is that Gacy wrote a letter to actor Brian Dennehy and begged him not to portray him. Dennehy didn’t respond and, to Gacy’s relief, I suppose, the three-hour long miniseries hardly focuses on Gacy at all. What we have is a complete nothing-burger where we follow a dull, sleepwalking police lieutenant with the personality of a bread who tries to collect enough evidence to finally catch him. Gacy himself appears almost as a guest here and the whole thing is so dreadfully boring and something that David Fincher would make while being in a deep coma. Why this one is so highly praised by the majority is beyond me.

The second one is Gacy from 2002, here with Mark Holton in the title role. If he had a few pounds less, he would look exactly like Gacy. Nothing more to say about this one other than it was a boring, unfocused mess.

Gacy: The Serial Killer Next Door is the newest one, released back in January – written and directed by Michael Feifer, the unknown brother of Saul Goodman. And judging from the trailer, this one at least seemed to be entertaining with the funny-bad vibes bouncing all over the place. Good enough for me. Here we follow the teenager Bobby who lives across the street from Gacy in a quiet, boring suburb. Bobby knows that there is something off with this guy as he’s witnessing Gacy taking young men into his house at night, who never seem to leave. He’s glued to his bedroom window to spy on him and tries to convince his parents that the police have to check this shady neighbor. The parents just scoff it off and don’t believe any of it because he’s just a dumb teenager who has seen too many movies.

The plot starts to thicken when Gacy knows that Bobby knows and Bobby has to do whatever he can to finally expose him before becoming the next victim.

Even though the film has a polished look, the thick layer of amateurish overtones reeks all over the place as much it does from Gacy’s crawlspace. It’s very low-budget with acting that smells like wet farts filled with laughable NPC dialogue. The film’s protagonist Bobby (played by Mason McNulty) does the best he can while his parents are not believable for one second. And I could not avoid getting distracted by the over-sized upper lips of the actress who plays Bobby’s mom. I don’t wanna be mean, but seriously… Enough with that plastic surgery boolshit!

We have a couple of scenes where Bobby hangs out with his friends to convince them about Gacy, also after he has witnessed one of his murders. And woof, the acting here is really rough with some bonkers dialogues:

– What is it like to see someone die?

– It’s really… it’s not like the movies. It’s really sad.

Is it? Really? Aww. Bobbe also have the balls to sneak into Gacy’s graveyard crawlspace where he tries to take some pictures for evidence. Here we see some glimpses of the most fake, clean plastic Halloween prop skeletons lying around. I don’t think the police would be very convinced.

The only slightly positive thing here is Mike Korich as Gacy. But that’s only on the surface level. His scenes where he’s dressed as Pogo and laughing in the victim’s face look more like a parody and there’s not much more character depth to explore. Still, Mike Korich is the only reason to give the film a watch, as he at least seems to have some fun here. I also see what they tried with Disturbia (2007) and The Summer of 84 spin, but it didn’t land well at all as the last portion of the film couldn’t be more predictable. Not the most memorable film, but lowbrow entertainment with enough of the funny-bad moments to kill some time with as long as it lasts. Nothing more, nothing less.

Gacy: Serial Killer Next Door is available on Tubi.

Writer and director: Michael Feifer
Country & year: US, 2024
Actors: Mason McNulty, Mike Korich, Brock Burnett, Caia Coley, Gordon Hinchen, Shelby Janes, Nick Stellate, Michael Boutell, Izabellah Diez, Lilo Baier, Ashley Ray Keefe
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23736318/

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part 2 (1996)

Posted on May 26, 2023July 18, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

There’s a lot of people who hate Henry and he can’t let them win.

Part 2 of Henry’s Portrait of a Serial Killer, or just simply Henry the 2nd starts off not so long after the first one ended (I assume). Ottis is dead as his headless corpse is floating in a river somewhere while Becky is chopped to pieces and stuffed in a bag suit, discarded at the side of a rural road. Nothing but happy memories all around. Now Henry is a homeless drifter wandering aimlessly through the streets of a nameless, midwestern town and sleeps at various homeless shelters. One day he’s applying for a job on a port-o-john company where he gets the lovely task to clean and empty the porta potties (or the shitters as cousin Eddie would simply say).

Here he meets Kai and his wife Crickets, a lower-middle class couple who allows Henry to stay at their house after they feel sorry for him for being homeless. They are a shady couple that fits perfectly within Henry’s beacon of bad vibes. They also have a mentally unhinged teenage niece in the house, Louisa, who suffers from some severe BPD and that starts to creep on Henry (not the other way around). We learn that Kai and Crickets has a pretty dysfunctional relationship as Kai is a moody alcoholic, who also practice some really shady side job as an arsonist to set up some insurance scam to make money for their slobby boss, Rooter. After Henry finds out and becomes a liability, he joins Kai to fire up one building after another as the nights goes on. Things seems to go smooth until they stumble upon a couple of squatters in one of the buildings. Henry finally does what he does best by pulling out his gun and killing one of them while he forces Kai to kill the other one. I’ve never killed anyone before, Kai nervously says. Sounds familiar? Can’t have any of that if you wanna be buddy with Henry, you know.

This relatively obscure sequel was a mild surprise, given that Michael Rooker declined to reprise his debut role and John Mc Naughton is not in the directing chair. Writer and director Chuck Parello (who also made Ed Gein and Hillside Strangler) was clearly a big fan of the original and manages to duplicate much of the same cold and downbeat tone, although the visuals are more flat and melancholic. Like its predecessor the film follows most of the same narrative with slices of life and death and the psychological aspects with the tense buildup around the chaotic relationship between Henry and Kai, which is getting dragged more and more into the hopeless pit of empty and meaningless life of serial killing. Nothing more, nothing less. All actors were unknown faces for my part and the task to fill the shoes of Michael Rooker went to Neil Giuntoli, who does a good performance, far better than I expected. He has the same lost boyish look with empty death stares and the raw intensity when he kills random victims for the kicks. Here we also briefly see some new sides from him to learn some of his motivations.

Overall Henry the 2nd is nothing too special but an OK sequel at best with a sharp knife and dedicated actors.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part 2

Writer and director: Chuck Parello
Also known as: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 2 – Mask of Sanity
Country & year: USA, 1996
Actors: Neil Giuntoli, Rich Komenich, Kate Walsh, Carri Levinson, Daniel Allar, Marco Santucci, Rich Wilkie, Kevin Hurley, Richard Henzel, Fran Smith
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0116516/

Prequel: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Posted on May 23, 2023July 18, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were two middle-aged fugly-looking serial killers, which I would never guess after glancing at a picture of them. Huh… looks can be deceiving. Henry had the distinct dead rigor mortis eye and his epic Bugs Bunny grin, while Ottis looked like a white trash side character from a Rob Zombie film that I would guess had liked to dip his mosquito-nibbled penis into a chicken’s butthole. And among most of the classic and glorified serial killers like Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and let’s also throw Fritz Honka in the club while we’re at it, they eventually got their hook in the mainstream pop-culture with a dedicated fanbase. Because serial killers fascinates us and we can’t get enough of them, it’s as simple as that.

Henry was especially a popular figure in Japan. A four-hour long documentary split into four episodes was released in 2019, titled The Confession Killer, where we see a film crew from Japan that were totally starstruck by finally meeting the legend. They even gave him a present after shaking hands and the ecstatic fanboys were all smiling ear to ear until Henry said I’ve been in your country, too. Har har. Henry was eventually proven to be a compulsive liar (wow, what a shocker) who hadn’t been in an airplane once in his life and didn’t even know that Japan is an island nation. The documentary is available on Netflix.

Henry has already been in and out of prison like a ping-pong ball, once for killing his mother at age 24, before he met his boyfriend and partner-in crime Ottis Toole in the mid 1970s. Their victims were mostly women as Henry hated them with a passion. If we put on the Dr. Phil glasses for a second we can assume that his hatred for women may stem from him allegedly being abused as a kid by his mother. Together the couple killed over hundreds of people, which Toole claimed after being arrested in ’83. When Henry got arrested some months after, he took the confession a bit further, to put it mildly, by claiming he’d killed well over 600 (!) people and went on a quiet bizarre confession-circus tour around the country with the law enforcement dangling clueless by his tail, all of which left more questions than answers. Only three (yes 3) of his victims were found and the whole thing happened to be a big, monumental prank/scam by Henry just to get more juicy media attention by falsely confessing a bunch of killings while the police wasted god know how much time, money and resources. A complete shitshow. Ottis died in 1996, age 49 while Henry got his last laugh in 2001, age 63.

Fun fact: Henry was one of the very first who got the “serial killer“ description after the FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler coined the term in the 1970s.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial killer starts direct and brutal with some graphic images of Henry’s recent victims who’s suffered painful deaths, as we dive straight into his grim world filled with depravity, rage and nihilism. We spend the first ten minutes with Henry (played by the young aspiring actor Michael Rooker in his first movie role) as he’s roaming the suburban streets of Chicago with his rusty car, scouting for his next victim like an emotionless Terminator. He finally catch a victim when he picks up a hitchhiker, a young lady with a guitar. And that’s good for the day. The next thing we see is Henry entering his apartment – a crampy, stinky shithole he shares with his friend Ottis (Tom Towles). He’a an older dude with a comb-over and bad teeth. They’re not a gay couple here though as they were in the real life, just some buddies who met in prison. When they’re not out to fuck some hookers in their car, who normally ends up getting killed by Henry’s lack of impulse control, they have at least a TV to watch, only until Ottis, that clumsy buffoon, smashes it.

Anyway, Ottis’ sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) comes to stay for a while after being on the run from a violent relationship. As Henry and Becky both shares trauma, they connect and she gets aroused by hearing how Henry killed his mother. This monologue alone, which starts with she was a whore shows what a top tier and intense actor Michael Rooker is by displaying his inner, explosive rage just with facial expressions while showing vulnerability like a lost child.

Ottis has never killed anyone but that’s about to change when he one day gets punched in the face by a teenage kid. I wanna kill somebody he says to Henry who then takes him out for a killing spree to teach him how to be a serial killer. It builds up to a home invasion scene where Henry has gotten the absolute worst out of Ottis as he snaps some woman’s neck like a deranged caveman in a pure gleeful psychosis and starts to show some tendencies of necrophilia, which even gets too much for Henry. A nasty scene that truly rips, much because of how we see the whole act through the grainy lens of Ottis’ camcorder like a snuff film.

The film is not heavy on plot, like most of the films in this subgenre, as it works more like a slice of life and death, and a psychological study of serial killers’ empty and nihilistic existence from their own perspective. We see the daily (and nightly activity) with Henry and Ottis as the time goes by, all filmed handheld on 16mm like a pseudo-documentary with a layer of unfiltered grittyness, surrounded with urban decay and dark, piss-smelling alleys – where also two serial killers happen to be lurking around, killing people just for the thrills. Nothing but bad vibes all over the place and not so far from William Lustig’s Maniac (1980) when it comes to the vacant tone and the overall grim atmosphere. Both Michael Rooker and Tom Towles are just fabulous in their role as a deadly and self-destructive duo, the one more sick in the head than the other, with a fucked-up dynamic which makes them amusing and entertaining to watch, just like two train-wrecks coming together with Ottis’ poor sister Becky being a clueless passenger.

And like Henry would say to sum up it all up in only three words: Fuck the Bears.

Director: John McNaughton
Writers: Richard Fire, John McNaughton
Country & year: USA, 1986
Actors: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracy Arnold, Mary Demas, Anne Bartoletti, Elizabeth Kaden, Ted Kaden, Denise Sullivan
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0099763/

Sequel: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part 2 (1996)

Night Killer (1990)

Posted on December 23, 2022June 22, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Night Killah … cool title, though. And by taking a look at the tasty cover art for the dvd, you get the impression of some body-horror going on. We also see a house in the night with a big full moon. If the cover itself couldn’t lie more, the title is as misleading as it can get. But this is first and foremost an Italian produced low-budget schlock film. And with that being said, Italian distributors have for a long time been notoriously known for using some of the most misleading titles possible and promote genre films in the home country as a sequel to a more known franchise in hopes of cashing in some more bucks. The most known example is probably Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2 (a great film, by the way) which tried to cash in on Dario Argento’s cut of Dawn of the Dead, released as simply Zombi in Italy. I can also mention fake clickbait titles as Cannibal Holocaust II (1988), Changeling II: The Revenge (1989), Terminator II (1989), Evil Dead 5 (1990) and the list goes on.

In this case Night Killer was promoted as – and I kid you not – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 in Italy, just prior to Leatherface: The Texas Chaisaw Masscare III which was already released seven months before. So, watching this film must have been like being pranked or Rick Rolled for 85 minutes straight. The distributors must think that the Italian horror audience have mushy pasta for braincells and they should be glad that the internet wasn’t a household thing back then. And of course we have the unofficial sequel of the more obscure 80s horror/fantasy Troll, completely overshadowed by Troll 2 which was made by the same director as Night Killer. We’re of course talking of no one other than the man, the myth and one of the legends of Italians so-bad-it’s good-movies, Claudio Fragasso himself. (Applause)

The film starts off in the middle of an aerobic dance practice where the stressed and unhinged female instructor is far from impressed by the dancers. She has a quick hilarious meltdown, then goes to the bathroom where she encounters a person with a black coat and a face covered by a cheap Freddy Krueger-like mask. He’s already killed one of the dancers by shoving his rubber claws straight through her torso. While it sounds brutal on paper, the effects are, how should I even try to describe it…it’s pure hot garbage and not even on an amateur level, it’s beyond that and filmed in such a close-up and edited down to a split-second, that you’ll miss it if you blink.

Anyway… the instructor gets her throat slit by the killer’s rubber claws. And if you want blood, just forget it. There’s hardly any blood pouring from her throat, as if someone just squeezed the last drops from a ketchup bottle and used the cheapest prosthetic make up one can buy from the discount bin at Walmart. It’s the laziest shit ever. And the funniest thing is that this opening sequence was directed by Bruno Mattei because the studio wanted more gore. He didn’t add anything new other than more inept filmmaking and a perfect foretaste of what to expect for the next 80 minutes. The most notable thing in this opening is that we clearly see that the fresh cut on her throat is magically gone when she is supposed to bleed to death. Continuity error on its finest.

The “plot”, which could be hidden here somewhere, goes something like this: After the extended opening scene we’re in the sunny beachside of Virgina) in the holiday season (oh, how convenient) where we meet the middle-aged Melanie (Tara Buckam) living in her upper-class house. She is soon to be one of the targets of our mysterious Freddy Krueger-masked serial killer. But first she gets a phone call from her ex. He’s drunk and sitting in a bar. She hangs up. Then she stands in front of a mirror with a blank stare, talking to herself while she’s touching her breasts. The phone rings again, this time by the masked killer that has picked her as the new victim. He then says with a slow and cheesy distorted voice “I won’t kill you straight awayyy, first I’m going to fuck your braaains ooouuut. ” She calls the police and the police do what the police does best: nothing. He invades her home, backs her against the wall while pointing a knife to her face. She screams while looking at the camera and… we cut to the next scene where she wakes up in the hospital. Her daughter asks her, with emotions like a robot, when she’s coming home. Soon, she says. When Melanie is suddenly out from the hospital, she’s being stalked and kidnapped by some random dude (Peter Hooten) which I thought was Steve Guttenberg as first glance. While she seems to develop a bizarre stockholm syndrome to this guy in which they have several cringy scenes together, the masked killer continues his business with other victims. It’s like watching two separate movies from here on: a soap opera and something that tries to resemble a slasher film. Confused? There’s also a sideplot with a policeman trying to finally catch the killer.

Bruh … What the fuck is this whack bullshit even supposed to be, you may ask. According to the director himself, who made it under the pseudonym Clyde Anderson, this is actually a psychoanalytical, intimate horror movie, didn’t you already know that? He’s also so proud of the idea of the film which he calls “a brilliant idea, an incredible mental masturbation.” During the interview on the DVD’s extras he says with a straight face that he wanted to make something like an Ingmar Bergman film. I’ve seen some interviews of Mr. Fragasso and there’s just something about him that doesn’t make him easy to read, yet I can catch glimpses of sharp, ironic detachment within his eyes. I’m not a body language expert nor Dr. Phil, but I’ve had this theory that he’s quite self-aware and just trolling us (no pun intended). Because there’s just no way a director in his age can sit and reflect on a complete demented and incomprehensible schlock 30 years later and view it as a flawless piece of cinema work while putting the cherry on top by comparing himself to Steven Spielberg. I just can’t buy it. Sorry. I believe more in Loch Nessie having a baby with Bigfoot.

We can also just speculate how Mr. Fragasso instructs his actors, or if he just pours some green shrooms from Nilbog in their drinks before shooting. The way he makes them perform and convey emotions is nothing but absurd, if not unique, and nothing you see everyday. It’s like watching a bunch of retarded aliens in disguise trying to behave like normal human beings, or human beans like Tommy Wiseau would say. Just like Troll 2, it’s the acting that really does the film with the bonkers line deliveries, stiff, delayed reactions like Oh My GoooooooOOOOD while the actors can’t hide their confused facial expression of “what the hell did I really sign up for? Will this be my legacy?” Fragasso knows exactly what they signed up for and he has the first laugh while he thinks to himself: I now own you forever, bitch.

And then we have the title itself, Night Killer. There was no chainsaw to be see in the Italian release but here we at least have a killer, even though there isn’t much killing to see. There’s only three body counts (as I remember) and they are as tame, weightless and ridiculously ineptly shot that they could easily fit in as segments in Sesame Street between Elmo and Abby’s Flying Fairy School. There’s not a single night scene here either, not even close to it. Every scene is shot like it was either a soap opera or a sitcom with its heavy use of light where in the outdoors scenes the sky is always blue and the sun is shining. Not a single shred of atmosphere or the feeling of looming threat. And then there’s a twist. No spoilers, of course, but when you thought you’ve seen it all and just thought the film couldn’t be more absurd, the twist will make your brain and head shrink (like the Goombas in Super Mario Bros) and leave you speechless. Not even M. Night Shyamalan in his wildest fever dreams could make this shit up. The film also ends with a cliffhanger, or sort of. And since Fragasso are hinting about a comeback as Clyde Anderson in the DVD interview, well, what are you waiting for, maestro? Gives us the sequel so I, among others, finally can recover and grow our heads back, per favore! Until then: Merry Christmas.

Writer and director: Claudio Fragasso
Original title: Non aprite quella porta 3
Country & year: Italy, USA, 1990
Actors: Peter Hooten, Tara Buckman, Richard Foster, Mel Davis, Lee Lively, Tova Sardot, Gaby Ford
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0401696/

Angst (1983)

Posted on November 11, 2022February 18, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

“I just love it when women shiver in deadly fear because of me. It’s like an addiction, that will never stop.”

That’s a real quote said in front of the judge by the Austrian triple-murderer Werner Kniesek, which this film is based on.

In Angst we follow a young man on a crispy day in November as he gets released from a ten years-prison sentence after killing a 70-year old woman. We don’t know his actual name, so we just call him K (short for killer). And prior to this he’d already been behind bars for four years after a failed attempt to kill his mother with a knife. The film starts with his last minutes in prison before he gets released to the society. We hear a voice-over narration that speaks his thoughts while he walks through the streets of the local town. We learn about his dark past, how he started off killing animals as a kid, and that he’s the same killer he always was. And he’s eager as a kid on Christmas to find a new victim. That’s all that matters. To torture someone.

Not a single form of treatment seemed to have been given to this man. It’s as if Ed Gein was to be released the day after he got prosecuted, only with a quick slap on the wrist, hoping he would behave and finally clean up his house. Ha-ha! If this was a subtle message to the psychiatric healthcare in Austria, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised if so.

Anyway: Mr. K is already scanning the surroundings for a new victim. There’s no time to waste other than visiting a coffee shop to eat a big sausage with a chunk of mustard (serial killers have to eat too), while giving two young ladies some creepy death stares. He then jumps into a taxi, and after a clumsy and failed attempt to strangle the female driver with a shoelace, he runs out and flees hysterically through some wooded area, like a headless chicken. As most of the serial killers come across as calculated and with a certain sense of control, and a manipulative charm to their great advantage, this guy is the straight opposite. He’s a frantic loose cannon with zero social skills, driven by a legion of inner raging demons, probably on crystal meth mixed with a toxic cocktail of explosive compulsive disorders and the intense urge to terrorize whoever he can – and make his victims feel what he chronically seems to feel: Angst.

But it seems to be his lucky day, after all, as he breaks into a house where his three new victims live. Needless to say, it gets really ugly from here on.

On paper, Angst seems as a pretty straight-forward home invasion thriller/slasher with few surprises. That being said, what makes this one stand out is much thanks to Erwin Leder as Mr. K. I haven’t seen a more perfect individual playing a role like this. He makes an electric performance and looks like a sickly and more ghoulish version of Bill Skarsgård, and his face alone with its intense, creepy eyes is an epitome of horror. An interesting trivia is that Erwin grew up in a mental institution where his parents worked. Throughout his childhood he would play and hang around with several patients, and there’s no doubt he must have taken some inspirations from these experiences. The most surprising thing is that he was able to keep his sanity. Or did he, really..? He has before and since this film been a dedicated working actor, most known on the mainstream surface with Das Boot as an mental unstable mechanic, and as a mad Lycan scientist in Underworld.

Another strong aspect is the visuals. Director Gerald Kargl and the cinematographer Zbigniew Rybczyński experiments a lot with the camera which is mostly handheld. In several scenes the camera is attached to the antagonist which gives us a view of him in all angles. A pretty unique technique that also gives us a sense of the chaotic, frantic nature of the killer. The soundtrack by Klaus Schulze (RIP) from Tangerine Dream enhances the bleak and isolated atmosphere with the use of ambience and electronic tunes.

Overall, Angst is a raw, nasty, morbid and frantic experience with not a single moment of peace. It’s filled with an atmosphere of bleakness from the very start, which expands quickly into a downward spiral of dread, nihilism, misery and pure hell with uncontrolled mental illness on full display. It will, regardless of how prone you’re to the genre, trigger one or another angst-related emotion in you. For my own part, as the cynical misanthrope I am, I couldn’t avoid to feel mostly for the dog, the family’s little dachshund. He sporadically shows waddling around in the house while the killer is causing hell. He’s just a random, defenceless observer, trapped in the middle of the mayhem, and all you can do is hope for the best. That dog seemed to be a champ during filming, and also earned his own IMDb page, credited as Kuba. The rest of the few actors also does a great, convincing job, by the way, considering buckets of pig blood was used during the most brutal scenes.

Director Gerald Kargl stated that he did his very best to avoid any form of entertainment since his view is that such elements through stalk & slash would be cynical. Huh, okey… if this is entertainment or just pure anti-entertainment, is always up the the viewer to decide. Gaspar Noé, the master provocateur himself, is a huge fan, if that tells you something. But anyhow, if the sub-genre of home invasion is your thing, this will for certain entertain and thrill you for sure. If Henry: Portrail of a Serial killer (another great film in its own right) was more than enough for you to handle, you wouldn’t sit through this one, I can bet my angsty, sweaty balls on that.

The film has been an obscure rarity for decades, but is now available both on Blu-ray and DVD from Cult Epics, packed with extra stuff. Note: The booklet only arrives with the Blu-ray.

Director: Gerald Kargl
Writers: Zbigniew Rybczynski, Gerald Kargl
Country & year: Austria, 1983
Actors: Erwin Leder, Robert Hunger-Bühler, Silvia Ryder, Karin Springer, Edith Rosset, Josefine Lakatha, Rudolf Götz, Kuba, Renate Kastelik
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0165623/

Lucker (1986)

Posted on September 9, 2022March 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

It’s the 1980’s and the place is Belgium, where the young upcoming filmmaker Johan Vandewoestijne had the rebellious desire to show the government and the strict censor board the middle finger with his slasher film Lucker. It’s the similar premise that the like-minded Jörg Buttgereit and Andreas Schnaas did in Germany some years later. And with that being said, you would already know by now what kind of territory this is. This is also the one and only horror film made in Belgium during the whole 1980s, and it’s a product that shouldn’t even exist after the film’s unnamed producer destroyed all the negatives. The only surviving material was a VHS copy that was bootlegged to shreds in the underground horror circle throughout the years – and the only source for director Vandewoestijne to make a Director’s Cut for the 2007-DVD release by Synapse Films.

In Lucker (also known as Lucker the Necrophagous), or a more fitting title which could’ve been Lucker The Corpse Fucker, we follow the morbid journey of the serial killer John Lucker (Nick Van Suyt) – a middle-aged, bulky guy with a double-chin, thin hairline and overall the perfect look for a deranged homicidal madman. After ending up unconscious in a clinic after a suicide attempt to escape from the police, one of the nurses asks (with a cheesy and stiff, cartoonish dub) while standing over his bed:

– Hmm..? Who is this guy ANYway?
– His name is John Lucker. A few years ago, he murdered eight girls. Raped them afterwards. And when I say afterwards, some of the corpses were decomposing.
– A guy like that should be in a MENTAL institution.

Huh, no shit, Sheri Holmes! Anyways … he wakes up, sneaks out of the clinic, body counts two people on the way, steals a car and heads out to the nearest town. He tails one of the first women that appears on his radar and kills her in some…weird way. The filming is too inept to really see what’s going on, but her entrails get spilled out of her stomach, or maybe a fetus if we use a little morbid imagination. He later hooks up with a young chick from a bar, ties her up in a bed in some apartment and … well, while she gets aggravated and deliver a line such as: Untie me … I hate creeps like you … Untie me … Lucker sits on a rocking chair next to her, swinging back and forth like an old demented doofus, while he gives her the silent treatment, only to drag out the running time. After he finally kills her, we jump four weeks later where her body has been decomposed to a slimy maggot infested corpse and fuckable enough for lucky Lucker to finally give us Jörg Buttgereit’s favorite scene of all time.

So … where do we go from here? To get the run time going forward to at least the 45 minute mark, Lucker gets his eyes on one of his former victims, a walking trophy, that got away from him, and of course he can’t have any of that.

There’s two versions of Lucker, the VHS version and the Director’s Cut version, and both of them are available on the Special Edition DVD from Synapse Films. The VHS version, with its runtime on 74 minutes, is a tedious slog of a chore to sit through. There’s an endless scene with Lucker just walking on an empty road. After he hitchhikes to a town, there’s more walking. And … even more walking. Lucker The Walking Man. There’s zero pace and you’ve already dozed off when something interesting is about to happen.

Then we have the Director’s Cut version presented in 16:9 ratio and cut down to 68 minutes. It’s still trash, but better edited. And I have to give director Vandewoestijne some credit for at least for trying his best to stitch together a barely watchable film from the VHS material. He’s also filmed a new opening title for the occasion. Even though there’s less mindless walking and more pacing, there’s still a lot of drawn-out scenes. There’s especially this shot where Lucker ties up a woman, then sits down and just stares at her while she screams like she’s faking an orgasm, which is copy-pasted to make the running time reach its milestone of 60 minutes.

And yeah, both versions contain the corpse fucking scene, so don’t you worry ’bout that.

Director: Johan Vandewoestijne
Writers: Johan Vandewoestijne, John Kupferschmidt
Also known as: Lucker the Necrophagous
Country & year: Belgium, 1986
Actors: Nick Van Suyt, Helga Vandevelde, Let Jotts, Marie Claes, Martine Scherre, Carry Van Middel, John Edwards, Tony Castillo
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0091446/