Kategoria: Horror

#1830 Halloween 2023: Blood Beach (1980)

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Riding in the wake of Jaws, Blood Beach makes an attempt to frame the sand – or more precisely a creature therein – as the antagonist to fear.

…aaand it by large fails to do so. It is very hard to take this particular threat seriously.

On the positive side the movie itself, along with its early 80s beach scene and detective cast led by the late John Saxon and the Burt Young are all sufficiently entertaining to watch. All in all, Blood Beach is more of a mystery what dunnit story rather than a horror movie.

80s-o-meter: 72%

Total: 60%

#1829 Halloween 2023: Epitaph aka Mommy’s Epitaph (1987)

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For me the movies of a family member – someone you ought to trust – turning out to be evil is one of the most effective forms of horror. This is the premise Epitaph is built upon.

And there’s a lot going for the movie. The family protecting the secret of a psychopathic mother and hoping that everything will end up well, the young daughter balancing between the horrors of the family and making an attempting to fit into her new school all work well. The movie also invites the viewer to witness the madness as sort of a voyeuristic, documentary style.

It’s only too bad the movie isn’t very well made which unfortunately spoils a lot of what the movie could have offered. The pacing and endless zooms in and out of the mansion feels tiring and the feeling of the team working at the very edge of their skills steals the viewer’s focus of what could otherwise been a nice little horror story.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 58%

#1825 Halloween 2023: The Kindred (1987)

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On her deathbed, a scientist urges her son to destroy her lab notes from her experiments. As the son visits the her mother’s ancestral home, he uncovers the existence of a lost brother, and the horrifying secrets of genetic research gone wrong.

The Kindred is a horror creature movie whose strongest suit is by far the uncovering of the mystery and typical to the monster movies, the creature itself feels almost underwhelming compared to the mighty fine atmosphere the movie manages to create completely without its monster fx. In other words: here as well it’s more scary what you don’t see than rather than what you do see.

Also typical to the similar movies, it turns from a mystery horror thriller to a pretty standard action movie without managing to capitalise the original eery atmosphere. Still, there’s a lot to be liked here and The Kindred is a fine example of a horror movie done mostly right.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 75%

#1803 Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985)

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Based on the true story of Henry Lee Lucas, Confessions of a Serial Killer follows the interrogations of a serial killer speaking openly to the investigators about the horrific acts performed before getting caught.

The documentary style works well and the depictions of killing just for fun are quite devastating to watch, and especially the suspension in the last part of the movie is almost too much to take in.

80s-o-meter: 65%

Total: 72%

#1788 Girlfriend from Hell (1989)

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An evil spirit possesses a nerdy girls who becomes a vamp draining the life out of all the few guests taking part in a teen get together.

Here’s a part of Girlfriend from Hell that actually works to an extend, and I wished the movie would’ve double downed on this premise, with party guests missing one by one, upping the ante as the last few ones figure things out. Unfortunately the latter half of the movie concentrates on the God’s bounty hunter after the spirit, depicted in the spirit of a cheapo scifi movie.

The scifi part I don’t mind, but the character is just too weak and out of place to carry the movie that quite disappointingly comes to a total halt in a moment where it should really take off.

80s-o-meter: 92%

Total: 60%

#1786 Troll (1986)

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Do you know which movie stars the brown haired pre-teen boy called Harry Potter Jr who’s interested in all kinds of magical and superstitious and gets sucked into an adventure full of weird mystical creatures, witches and such.

If you answered Troll, you are quite right! If you answered something else, you must have mixed up this masterpiece with some less known trivial pulp.

The house getting overtaken by Trolls and other magic creatures is bit of a weird mix made a bit in the vein of Gremlins, but does not manage to hit the same buttons in terms of adventure, scares, thrill and humour – but it does a pretty good job attempting it. While the Troll figure is well made, it’s not a strong antagonist lead in any sense of the word, but the remaining visual effects are actually executed much better than in your average movie of the era. Speaking of humour, there is a little song with wonderfully weird atmosphere to it, performed by the Troll army – something I will be looking to listening soon again.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 71%

#1755 Luther the Geek (1989)

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Luther the Geek (geek referring to a circus freak) is a horror movie that revolves around a psychopathic killer released from prison, only to immediate resuming his killing spree.

The makers of the movie aimed to create a character that would be off-putting and revolting, and they certainly succeeded as Luther is one of the characters I hope never to see in another movie. His appearance is reminiscent of the classic movie villain, Nosferatu, but with a much more gruesome method of killing, as he bites off the heads of his victims and even chickens he catches.

But there are positives here as well: The movie really manages to create a haunting and suspenseful atmosphere and as such is an above the average horror movie. I have to say I was surprised to find the movie rated as comedy as I did not find anything comedic about, other than the almost ridiculous amount of gore presented.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 65%

#1711 Halloween 2022: Watchers (1988)

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Finally wrapping up this year’s Halloween with Watchers that I’ve had in my peripheral vision for a few years now, being one of the last Corey Haim movies of the 80s I haven’t yet seen.

My expectation was a supernatural movie with certain Watchers lurking in shadows, but to my surprise the movie was about a boy running into a stray dog whom he then adopts, later discovering that it is in fact a runaway experiment from a genetic research lab with mental powers equal to a human, being followed by a dangerous creature from the same lab.

And meeeeh, I did like my first impression better than this quite far fetched scifi story the movie presented to me. The movie is based on a seemingly solid book by Dean Koontz, so my only guess is that something got lost in translation here. The movie is ok, but its core audience leaves me puzzled as the movie feels thematically geared more towards 12-year olds, yet boasts R-rating.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 68%

#1710 Halloween 2022: My Demon Lover (1987)

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There’s little fun to be had with movies that introduce a concept doomed to fail, and then fail, but amazingly lot of entertainment when the opposite happens.

My Demon Lover is one of those cases where something I absolutely hated on paper – A street musician becoming a demon when sexually aroused and attacking women – surprises and finds an interesting tone of its own, ending up more of a romantic comedy, sprinkled with some dark, grim humour.

80s-o-meter: 90%

Total: 71%

#1709 Halloween 2022: The Immortalizer (1989)

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For the last two years I’ve plowed through an endless list of uninspired slashers, and it was this year that I got to reap the results of that sacrifice and got to see some horror movies with more interesting concepts.

If you’ve enjoyed action comedy horror movies similar to Dead Heat, the chances are high for you to find something to enjoy here as well. The Immortalizer is wonderfully 80s straight-to-video horror movie of bunch of evil scientist types sending out their mutant creations to kidnap young, beautiful people to give old ultra rich people a chance to live in their bodies through brain transplant.

Sure, it’s trashy and highly stupid movie – but also highly entertaining one, and the poor poster does not really give it the justice it deserves.

80s-o-meter: 94%

Total: 83%

#1708 Halloween 2022: The Cellar (1988)

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A nuclear family settles into a run-down house in the Texas desert, unaware that it is cursed by a Native American enchantment in the form of a terrifying, underground creature.

The Cellar’s theme centered on stereotypical, borderline racist Native American spirituality falls flat right from the start, and does not feel real nor plausible at all. The generic and forgettable underground monster, which could have easily been replaced with pretty much anything else like an alligator, fails to be scary or threatening.

It’s just so poor script and concept that even top-notch acting and effects couldn’t save this monster horror flick.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 31%

#1706 Halloween 2022: Redneck Zombies (1989)

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I’ve drawn the line to any movie to end up in my watching list to be shot in film as towards the end of the 80s the amount of VCR recorders skyrocketed and so did the bad movies made by amateur teams, especially in the horror genre.

But, although shot on video Redneck Zombies came with high recommendations from Troma Entertainment so there must be something they saw in the movie, right?

Redneck Zombies is funny, extremely gory and almost anarchistic in the same way that Bad Taste is, and the video treatment only adds to the atmosphere. It’s also shot and cut as a movie shot on a film would’ve, with some actual directing work done by Special Effects coordinator Pericles Lewnes. It’s odd, extremely poor in taste and utterly stupid, but for the people looking exactly for those things Redneck Zombies will provide in abudance.

80s-o-meter: 72%

Total: 63%

#1705 Halloween 2022: The Strangeness (1985)

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A low budget movie where a group of explorers in an abandoned gold mine get trapped in and haunted by a monster / entity.

This is one of those movie that can’t possible be rated very high because it’s not particularly good. But I appreciate the effort behind this shoelace budgeted movie and did enjoy many of the aspects here, how the clumsy stop motion monster was put together for example and how the movie manages to build a coherent feeling of wandering around in a endless mine when it was mostly shot in a small set build in a garage.

So The Strangeness definitely punches above its weight. But other than that it’s still quite shoddy, most of the scenes for example are lit so that it’s hard to see anything (and I was watching a proper copy of the movie). I will give the movie a few extra points though for having more stickyness than most of the copy pasted horror movies I’ve seen once again this year.

80s-o-meter: 42%

Total: 39%

#1704 Halloween 2022: Spellcaster (1988)

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Spellcaster is a horror movie that came to be after the executed producer bought an Italian castle for making films. They then quickly cooked up a story about random bunch of people taking part of a TV programme about finding a cheque hit somewhere in the aforementioned castle.

The poster for the movie features the British musician / actor Adam Ant, but his fans will be disappointed to hear that his actual role in the film is limited to just a few quick shots.

Spellcaster was shot already in 1988, but got its official release as late as 1992. And truth to be told, not much would have been robbed from humanity if this one was totally shelled instead.

80s-o-meter: 84%

Total: 32%

#1703 Halloween 2022: The Demons of Ludlow (1983)

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As per usual there hasn’t been a side of crappy horror movies this year either, and The Demons of Ludlow falls in there somewhere between bad and totally useless.

So there’s basically a haunted automatic piano and villagers getting attacked by people dressed in 19th century clothes apparently living inside the said piano – and it is all as lame as it sounds.

The Demons of Ludlow misses its mark pretty much on all ends, and does not even provide an intentional humour for those looking for giggles and laughs.

80s-o-meter: 1%

Total: 7%

#1702 Halloween 2022: The Hand (1981)

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As for someone who has plowed through most of the mainstream 80s horror movies a long time ago, and then having to had to settle for finding gems in an endless sea of cheapo horror movies not worth the raw film they’re on, finding a proper horror movie like The Hand with a notable names behind it is a real threat.

Directed by Oliver Stone as his first movie in a decade that turned out a heck of an era for him, The Hand follows Jon Lansdale (Michael Caine), who after struggling with his personal life loses his hands and career as a cartoonist. He finds himself terrorized by blackouts and nightmarish visions of his torn off hand still living a life of its own.

The premise of the movie takes some believing and could have easily gone unintentionally humorous with the lesser talented team, but Stone and Caine completely sell the viewer the idea, keeping everyone in the audience wonderfully in suspense until the end credits roll.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 90%

#1701 Halloween 2022: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II aka The Haunting of Hamilton High (1987)

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Canada produced a number of horror movies in the 80s, many of them mimicking having being shot in USA. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is one of these movies that deserve their place in this blog for a number of reasons. Shot as an independent movie but renamed as a sequel to the 1980 slasher Prom Night after being purchased by Samuel-Goldwyn Company, the movie really makes a good imitation of a an USA movie of the era, looking and feeling as American as an apple pie.

But first and foremostly: it is a solid horror movie in the best tradition of the 80s – and while not the most scariest movie out there, it is definitely one of the most entertaining ones.

The movie plays with many cliches successfully, but really finds its one tone of voice, and never feels tired of forced. The school party night is a great setting for the movie and only gets better with imaginative kills, dancing corpses and the always awesome Michael Ironside as the school principal thrown into the mix, making Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II one hard movie to pass.

80s-o-meter: 96%

Total: 87%

#1700 Halloween 2022: Twice Dead (1988)

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Here’s what I’m always looking forward with every movie I put in my VCR to be watched for this blog: a movie that just oozes 80s in some wonderful way.

This definitely holds true with Twice Dead that delivers wonderfully all that 80s goodness a bit in the vein of The Return of the Living Dead, although in a bit less outrageous fashion. The story of a Colorado family moving into a house possessed by ghost of an old is non-sensical, but all that’s besides the point anyway as nobody is here for that: the real entertainment factor of Twice Dead is all in its stereotypes and overall cheesiness.

It’s no The Return of the Living Dead, but those who enjoyed it will likely find themselves right at home the Twice Dead.

80s-o-meter: 91%

Total: 80%

#1699 Halloween 2022: The Oracle (1985)

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The Oracle is a movie with an interesting idea – a woman finding an automatic writing device called The Oracle, which she uses to speak with the spirit world. What follows is a complex plot about her being contacted by a murdered man who demands justice for his death that is often hard to follow and doesn’t always make sense.

Production wise the movie is of an ok quality and has some visually captivating elements, notably the haunting hand holding a quill writing words on paper that should have had even more central piece in the movie in my opinion – instead of focusing on a thousand other, less interesting and spooky aspects.

The Oracle takes place during the Christmas season, which adds a nice thematic touch for those in the holiday spirit.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 55%