1980s horror

Doomed Discussiethon: Zombie Death House

Zombie Death House

Directed by John Saxon

1987

90 minutes

Plot: Vietnam vet Derek Keillor (Dennis Cole) pays the bills by working as a driver for mob boss Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa). When Vic discovers that his driver has been sleeping with his wife, he kills her and frames Derek for the crime. The jail he is sent to houses Vic’s brother Franco (Michael Pataki) and which also happens to be the most corrupt prison in the world. Colonel Gordon Burgess (John Saxon) is using the inmates to test a mind control virus. He calls in scientist Tanya Karrington (Tane McClure) to confirm and report on the success of his research. But everything goes wrong, the inmates turn into zombies and it is up to Tanya and Derek to come up with a cure. When Burgess begins to fear that he can’t contain the virus, he sends in the military to blow up the joint. Will anyone survive? Will anyone notice that I just skipped over about 90% of the plot of this convoluted ass movie?

[Please note: There are spoilers in this article because the warden short-sheeted us.]

Nafa: Right from the get-go you know you are in for a treat when the title screen pops up with the words ‘Zombie Death House’ but you notice the word ‘Zombie’ was added at some point later, probably for DVD release . Rather than make a completely new title screen they just threw the word ‘Zombie’ in with a similar but not matching font. They could have used a scary font or a different font, or played it off as intentionally different, but no- the viewer won’t notice, they’ll be too busy marking out for John Saxon (which I always have, but only because his name in the ‘80s reminded me of the video game Zaxxon). But we’ll deal with the cast in a moment. The other 800-lb. gorilla in the room is the feeling that you’re watching a made-for-TV film. I’m thinking one episode of “Hardcastle & McCormick” probably had a bigger budget, not that that’s a bad thing. Herr Sliz?

Richard: Duder, are we connected at the butt or what? Oh sorry, this is a prison film after all. But I did notice the font change. I think it was intentional. The slightly different font just makes the inclusion of the word ‘Zombie’ all the more terrifying. The next thing that struck me (slightly more interesting than fonts anyway) is the music by Chuck Cirino. Check out this dude’s IMDB page and bear witness to the supremely awesome movies he has lent sassy keyboard skills to (Chopping Mall, Sorority House Massacre II, etc.). All we need to know about our main character Derek Keillor is that he’s a Vietnam vet. I freakin’ love that about 80s movies. Just show that the duder was in ‘Nam and you can flush all that unnecessary character exposition right down the shitter. Instant depth!

Nafa: I am soooooo not buying the intentional font change theory. It’s totally there to appeal to a bigger audience on DVD. But I digest. ‘Nam vets make the best -erm- everything. There wasn’t an ‘80s action flick or TV show that didn’t have at least one kick ass guy who served in ‘Nam-Rambo, the “A-Team”, the soldiers from the original Predator, Sloth from The Goonies. The formulaic thing about these HollywoodNam vets is that they always end up working for a bad Italianesque mobster. I don’t know if there is a hook-up book for these pairings but it seems like a thing with them all. Oh, and hot, if not dated (in the fashion sense), blondes.

Richard: The blond women of Zombie Death House are pretty amazing. First up is Genelle (Dana Lis Mason) who has this really odious make-out scene with her gangster boyfriend Vic Moretti (Anthony Franciosa). Of course, Genelle hooks up with Derek “I just drive” Keillor and the sparks fly. And by sparks I mean awful sex scenes. This affair leads to Genelle’s untimely drowning in the bathtub by Vic. And just like this movie, she’s a floater.

The most significant hottie in the film is Tanya Karrington or TK for short. Tanya is played by Tane McClure, who is the daughter of actor Doug McClure and the inspiration for Journey’s classic piece of shit “Faithfully”. Useless trivia? Not at all. I couldn’t figure out if TK was a scientist or a journalist. I guess she’s kind of both but whatever, the main thing is that TK has trust issues. You see, she got burned by Colonel Burgess (John Saxon) before when they were working together on the previous version of the mind control virus. You just can’t trust da gubment.

And finally, we have the soul-crushing, ball-busting, mega supreme power of Warden Hagen’s wife, Mary (June Chandler, who portrayed Barbara Walters in the Mike Tyson made-for-TV biography). She threatens to take away Christmas if Hagen doesn’t abandon his job for some family time. Okay, I’ve spent too much time talking about chicks. Nafa, would you care to enlighten us on some of the fabulous dudes in this film?

Nafa: The cast is a veritable who’s who of people you think you’ve seen in other roles but can’t quite place. There’s the head guard, Raker (Howard George, best known in recent years for his work as ‘Stripper Auditioner’ on “Roswell”), who brings new meaning to the word ‘corrupt’- if the new meaning meant the same as the old meaning. Then there’s the “guy you want to survive to the end but know won’t though he gets his revenge” Adams (Earl Johnson), a Rastafarian sage and the only thing with even a vague sense of a spiritual soul in this film. And then there’s Franco Moretti (Michael Pataki), flamboyant brother of Vic Moretti, who runs his brother’s business inside the big house. He proves that behind every good man is another man doing his hair. The rest of the cast is consists of people who you’d use other celebrities to reference- such as the gang duder in the red headband who looks like George Lopez, the soldier with one scene who looks like Michael Ian Black, or Colonel Burgess’ assistant who I swear is Andy Richter.

Richard: That guy is so Andy Richter. Awesome. Hey, is the phrase “tearing him a new asshole” code for something? Michael Pataki (of Sidehackers) is a god among other gods in this movie. Franco Moretti is such a fancy character. I have to agree with you about Adams. He’s my favorite character in the movie and he gets killed off way too soon. It’s actually pretty sad: “They stuck me!” The guy who looks like George Lopez is Rickey Pardon and he plays Hector, the kickass bastard who says “Hey mamacita, I’m you’re date for the prom!” Raker seemed pretty harmless and ineffectual until he RAPES Franco’s cellmate/life partner. His best line: “Save your spit, you’re gonna need it in Hell.”

Anthony Franciosa (of Tenebre) is the real catch here. The guy has the most fascinating voice ever to slide its way out of a human head (with awesome immovable hair). He is completely committed to this role and exudes evil in every scene. John Saxon (also of Tenebre) is in pretty amazing form here as well. The dude is in the director’s chair for this one and his character is the mastermind behind all this mind control zombie nuttiness. Of course, Saxon ensured that Colonel Burgess would get a monologue that is nothing short of breathtaking.

[The rest of this very Doomed Discussiethon is being written literally 3 and a half months later.]

Nafa: Have we watched this film yet?

Richard: Oops! Yeah, we totally watched this film already. I guess the holidays kind of put a screeching halt on this discussion. Let me refer to my notes and see what we haven’t talked about yet.

Nafa: Yeah, I’m sorry about that- I totally dropped the ball on this. I guess the terrorists win.

Richard: We need to talk about the chef. “Don’t touch my twinkies!”

Nafa: Ah yes, the chef. Probably one of the most expected-yet-unexpected scenes in the film and by far the best line in the film. The thing that creeped me out most about the chef is that I started to think that he wasn’t a zombie, just a Twinkie-lover (wow, that last word pairing was very close to another prison term, though not entirely divergent). The thought that he was cooking the food just as he is makes it all the better in my mind. Re-butt-al?

Richard: Yeah, I foolishly assumed that the chef duder was a zombie. But he could have just been a total dick with a skin condition. I wanted him to kill that fucking annoying Luke look-at-me-I-can-has-skateboard-kid. Did I mention that dream sequence yet? Oh my god. You think that we’re going to get some R rated lovin’ between hero Derek and TK the sexy scientist but oh no, that’s just a dream. Like the duder didn’t get enough action from his boss’s wife (which landed him in jail in the first dang place), now he has to have the hots for the heroine. What a pig! But he gets his when her face is all zombified which probably wouldn’t slow me down in a fantasy sequence.

Nafa: Which reminds me of another point. I sort of got confused with the blondes once they were thrown into the mix together. That happens sometimes, but I sort of lost track which was which. Maybe I’m thinking of another movie, but probably not. Probably both. That’s the thing about 1970s-1980s films like this, sometimes the characters aren’t all that indistinguishable. Just like having a cave in a mountain for a prison that’s located in the middle of the desert (smooth segue, no?).

Richard: Don’t worry. You’re just having a perfectly normal reaction to what some doctors refer to as TERRIBLE or CHILDLIKE screenwriting. Don’t get me wrong, I frickin’ love the cheese and the whole quasi-epic nature of Zombie Death House but I was perfectly satisfied and ready for this shit to be over. And then it goes on for another 19 minutes! The army gets called in and instead of just nuking the fucking prison off the map, they send in a squad to plant bombs. Timed bombs?!?! As if we weren’t bored enough; now we have to wait for a bunch of clocks?

Nafa: I was about to skip all the wait to the very end, but the bomb squad- and not the music producers for Public Enemy kind- what was that all about? Were they Special Forces? Spetsnaz? Tzahal? I mean, what was that? They weren’t very good, but they were awfully special. Urgh. OK, the end. We can assume that this prison in the middle of the desert was at least 12 miles away from any isolated caves or mountains. If not, then this was the worst protected prison ever. (And why did it remind me of the end of Silent Rage?) I think I was watching this ending and making up a different one in my head to go along with it. Bah, I’ve got no more to say. I’m thoroughly spent on this film. Can you put a bow and name tag on this for us, Sliz? Any thoughts on the ending?

Richard: It sucks and it takes forever? Hmm, I will admit to the overall awesomeness of the entirety of Zombie Death House but with the CAVEAT that the shit is just too friggin’ long. And then the weirdest non sequitur of all: they play Dead Kennedys over the end credits! Even that can’t help John Saxon recover. I can only hope that the duder will return to directing and give this gig another go. The writers shouldn’t ever write again though. I’m assuming that they are probably in their mid-20s by now. I guess what I really want to say is that Zombie Death House is what Missing in Action could have been or perhaps what that “Oz” show could have been. Sigh.

Goodnight, folks!

Say Uh… Phenomena!

[Reader beware. There are major spoilers coming up.]

Whenever the wind is in the trees, I think of Phenomena and nothing feels right or normal in the best way. Released in 1985, Dario Argento’s twisted fairy-tale masterpiece has always had a strange effect on me. It’s a ridiculous world of tangible impossibilities with an atmosphere of doom and insanity hanging around every corner. Imagine if your fantasy world got caught in the kitchen disposal and then you were able to film it; the end result would look a whole lot like Phenomena.

The film starts as Jennifer Corvino (played by Jennifer Connelly), the daughter of a famous actor, arrives at a Swiss boarding school. Jennifer has a sleepwalking problem and one night while she is wandering around the closed section of the school, she witnesses a girl being murdered by a psychotic killer. She meets wheelchair bound Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence), an entomologist living with his helper chimpanzee who’s been enlisted by the police to help track down the murderer. He seems to think that Jennifer’s sleepwalking is a symptom of burgeoning mental powers. McGregor’s hypothesis proves to be true as Jennifer soon realizes that she can communicate with insects. They decide to use her strange gift to catch the killer.

When the unlikely duo gets too close to discovering the truth, the killer comes after Professor McGregor. Now alone against a sadistic psychopath, Jennifer mistakenly takes shelter with Frau Brückner (Daria Nicolodi) who turns out to be the mother of the deformed creature that has been doing all the killing. With the help of a detective (Patrick Bauchau) and her insect helpers, Jennifer just barely escapes with her life. Frau Brückner kills the detective and comes looking for our young heroine. Jennifer’s ultimate rescue comes in the form of John McGregor’s chimpanzee that gets revenge for its slain master by taking a straight razor to the insane woman.

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I was intrigued by a segment on an MTV show called “Stephen King’s World of Horror” about Dario Argento. It talked about a film called Creepers and I sought it out. The cover of the VHS tape entitled Creepers really blew my mind. It features a painting of Jennifer Connelly (“The chick from Labyrinth!” I thought to myself) holding a handful of flies and other insects. These creepy crawlies were flying out of her half rotted face and I was completely mesmerized by the sickening beauty of this image. At this point in my young life, my parents were allowing me to rent whatever horror films I pleased. They had given me their old VCR to hook up in my room so I had absolutely no trouble getting this particular flick by them. There was a mix-up at the video store and the film Creeper (AKA In the Devil’s Garden AKA Assault from 1971) was in the Creepers case by mistake. Once that was resolved, I finally had the film in my hands.

Little did I know what awaited me on that tape. Creepers is actually Dario Argento’s giallo-fantastico masterpiece Phenomena, minus about 28 minutes of footage. A few very brief shots of gore had been trimmed but most of the cuts had to do with the plot and Jennifer Corvino’s character development. The most shocking moments in the film: the big reveal of Frau Brückner’s murderous and hideously deformed child and Jennifer falling into a pit of rotting corpses, remained intact on the rental copy I watched back in the day.

I love Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini’s childish plot. Everything that takes place in Phenomena, no matter how ludicrous, made perfect sense to my young mind. Even now, I’ll catch myself just nodding and smiling as the events unfold that would likely cause most rational folks to start throwing furniture at the screen. How is it that a girl with the ability to communicate telepathically with insects just happens to become best buds with a crippled entomologist who just happens to have been researching the psychic powers of insects throughout his career? I guess that is a small concession in a film that also features a dang chimpanzee armed with a straight razor that brutally savages his master’s murderer.

I especially love the film’s minimalist set design of the finale. The brilliantly lit monochromatic and sparsely decorated walls help focus the viewer’s attention on the action and give it a stark bleakness. Phenomena also has a hypnotic quality, a morbid melancholy (a little something which I call “The Vibe”) that I’ve rarely found in American horror films. Similarly, Joe D’Amato’s horror films often have little to no set design and I can’t help but feel this perfectly communicated sense of claustrophobia and horror in my bones. I’m sure one could assume these things were kept simple to keep production costs low but so be it, I’m already smitten.

The music of Phenomena ranges from spectacular to totally inappropriate. Simon Boswell and Goblin contribute the ethereal pieces and the horror stingers. And though they sound great where they are placed within the film, “Flash of the Blade” by Iron Maiden and “Locomotive” by Motörhead are disruptive to the flow of the rest of the soundtrack. Now don’t get me wrong, I was a metalhead during my early teens and the inclusion of these songs only made me love this movie all the more. But even as a youngster, I knew that “Flash of the Blade” has nothing lyrically that fits with what’s happening onscreen. Argento’s indiscriminate love of (often cheesy) heavy metal rears its ugly head again in his next film Opera but with less or more success depending entirely on your taste in metal.

A classic Italian horror film needs a great cast and Phenomena is certainly no slouch in that department. Leading the cast is a young Jennifer Connelly (who Argento spotted in Once Upon a Time in America and decided to cast her) and Donald Pleasence who was serving time in Italy between Halloween sequels. Daria Nicolodi is totally batshit crazy as Frau Brückner, one of my favorite villainesses ever captured on film. Belgian born actor Patrick Bauchau (of “Carnivale”) plays Inspector Geiger, the detective who almost saves the day but who dies horribly (off camera).

Sadly, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly has since distanced herself from Phenomena and her time spent in Italy. In a 2004 interview with Vogue, she disses the film and her performance in it saying it was little more than an excuse to vacation in Europe. I can’t help but laugh at this because this is best thing Connelly has ever done or ever will do. No, I’m not kidding. As far as I’m concerned, Jennifer Connelly’s career tanked in 1986 with only a few minor points of interest since (Mulholland Falls, Dark City and the Dark Water remake). There’s still a chance for her to redeem herself but only if she returns to Italian horror.

One of the greatest character actors of all time, Donald Pleasence, delivers his performance of Professor John McGregor with his usual morbid sincerity. Pleasence is totally convincing as the renowned entomologist even while he is dishing up the corniest dialogue. He easily mesmerizes the viewer into believing his every word. In an interview in Profondo Argento, the actor mentions that Phenomena had one of the silliest scripts he’d ever read. I find this very curious. Perhaps he’d forgotten about Paganini Horror and Fatal Frames of hadn’t made them yet at the time of the interview. Those two totally wacko Italian horror films are easily sillier than Phenomena.

Near the end of the film, we have traveled with Jennifer through windswept Sweden, entered a girls’ school with almost no discernible curriculum, been knocked with her into a pit full of carrion and squirming larvae, and joined in her desperate psychic cry to her insect brethren to chew the face off her diminutive tormentor. Moments later, everything changes as Jennifer is swimming to shore thus washing away the horror (and filth from the corpse pit) and we’re led to believe that the horror is finally over. For me, this ethereal scene is the most resplendent of the film and is a transcendent landmark for Italian horror. This peaceful moment  is interrupted when Jennifer’s father’s lawyer who shows up to take her home. No easy denouement here as Argento has one more showstopping setpiece tucked up his sleeve.

Phenomena is a feverish, outrageous, and gory maggot party that will always be at the top of the list of my favorite horror movies of all time. I cannot stress enough how badly you need to see this film or see it again if you’ve already taken the plunge. There’s a whole lot of ugly, a whole lot of weird, and a whole lot of beauty packed into Argento’s whacked out beast. This film stands very tall among the dozen or so horror flicks that had a huge impact on my young brain. Phenomena’s somnambulistic evil grows as the years go by and every time I am drawn back in, I get just a little closer to happily losing my mind.

Slashers in the Night II: The Death Kill

slashersinthenight2

It seemed like I had nothing but excuses for putting off this moviethon. The next thing I knew, several months had passed since I’d made my initial playlist and my annoyance with myself was too much to bear. “That’s it, we’re doing this!” I screamed into the night. The unseen rule of the first Slashers in the Night was off the table so this left me free to choose whatever the dang hell I wanted (though I prefer to pass on anything released after 1989 for this series). What transpired was easily one of my favorite moviethons of all time. Here we go!

Friday

I get off work and arrive at home to find my wife LeEtta –who had had the day off today- taking my advice and watching whatever she pleased since I would be hogging our primary visual entertainment device for the next 54 hours or so. As I bring the trashcans in from the street, I couldn’t help but notice that the weather is typically Florida as hell meaning sunny and muggy. There was an apocalyptic thunderstorm earlier this afternoon and it left everything hopelessly funky.

While LeEtta makes dinner, I fall asleep on the recliner while some random home design show on Netflix babbles on in the background. LeEtta wakes me up several minutes later to tell me that dinner is ready. One of her old standards, couscous, asparagus, and a fried egg awaited me. She’s way, way too good to me. Feeling refreshed and full, I pour myself an unsweet iced tea and pick the first movie.

nightscreams

“A really nice place? God, what a dickhead!”

6:17pm

Night Screams (1987)

This jumps right into things with a girl changing in a locker room. Her boobs are exposed before I even have time to process what is going on. This flashes between her friends scaring her and a couple watching TV on the couch. Are they watching a movie or are we? Oh wait, they’re watching the gory bits of Graduation Day! Spoilers much? Jeez. While the husband is outside cooking burgers on a grill -that isn’t even lit- someone takes a butcher knife and his kills his lady friend. Then he gets it. The killer plays chopsticks on the piano and we get the title screen.

LeEtta and I debate about how I’m collating the body count. I say that every murder that happens on screen gets counted and every corpse that is the result of an offscreen kill gets counted. Oh my goodness, this score is peppy and delightful. A bearded psychiatrist is talking into a tape recorder about releasing a patient and then we cut hard to a high school football game with some very passionate fans. Everything has just been confusing and fun so far. I already have high hopes for this film.

Some escaped lunatics kill a couple of cops and then destroy a diner with lots of squibs exploding willy-nilly. More importantly, we get not one but two locker room scenes. One with the guys where they talk about dicks and someone gets a wedgie. And another with the girls where they talk vaguely about sex. This movie is dripping with the 1980s. The music, the hair, the clothes, the dance sequence, etc. There’s also a bevy of characters played by utter cheeseballs spouting off droll dialogue that is making me giggle with delight. I’ve already forgotten this is supposed to be a slasher.

The whole gaggle of partying kids head out to a remote house for some sexy shenanigans, burgeoning alcoholism, and melodrama. The script is setting up some really obvious red herrings and there are still those two escaped convicts hiding in the basement. Uh oh, someone just cut the phone line! The most ridiculous thing in this movie is instead of having the actresses in the movie get naked, the producers keep cutting in scenes from a porno movie. That’s just wacky. Swimming pool at night? Yes. Huge body count? Yes. That’s it, I’m calling it, Night Screams is a new favorite. Wichita seems like a lovely place.

mountaintopmotelmassacre

“I’m so horny, I can’t stand it!”

8:02pm

Mountaintop Motel Massacre (1986)

This has been on and off (mostly off) my radar for many years. The movie tells us about Evelyn, owner of the Mountaintop Motel, who was in an institution for three years. Now she’s out and having trouble coping with her daughter Lorri’s guinea pig  and hobby of invoking the spirit of her dead father. With all the amazing lighting, piles of baby dolls, and broken strangeness, it’s immediately apparent that I should’ve watched this ages ago. Evelyn accidentally kills Lorri with a scythe during a violent rage but she convinces the cops it was an accident. Wait what?

This has a completely different vibe from Night Screams and that makes me very happy. The rundown look of the motel and all the countrified accents are simply to die for. ­­­Evelyn gingerly handling a rubber snake like it was going to come to life bite her is friggin’ genius. The random strangers heading to the motel are so hilarious in their quaint little introductory scenes. There’s a gentleman carpenter, a pair of sexy singing cousins, hillbilly newlyweds, a sleazy salesman, and a drunk preacher. The sound effects of the storm that traps the guests in the motel is making our cats, especially Crisco, very nervous

Anna Chappell is trying to chew the scenery a new one with her bizarre performance as Evelyn. She seems to think she’s an avenging angel for the Lord so she’s using snakes, rats, and roaches to annoy her guests. I feel really bad for the actor who has a roach crawling on his goddam face! Around the time that Evelyn starts dispatching mofos with her trusty scythe (at the behest of the disembodied voice of her dead daughter), I start scrounging through our Japanese candy stash. While I chew some orange-flavored gum, I decide that I waited way too long to check this charming and odd movie out.

Saturday

Okay, that wasn’t a great way to start a moviethon. The films were two unseens and two fantastic discoveries but by the time Mountaintop Motel Massacre was over, I felt like crap. I decided to call it a night with the intention of getting a goodnight’s sleep. That was an excellent plan! With the bonkers plot of Night Screams still doing impossible algebra in my head, I fell into a deep sleep with crazy dreams.

By morning, I felt refreshed and ready to tear into some movies! Well, after chores anyway. I made bagels and cream cheese for LeEtta and I. I also peeled an enormous orange for us to split while she made coffee. We realized that we had accidentally bought fat free coffee creamer and we both made faces at each other while drinking our caffeine down. Rookie mistake! All of this is taking place while my LP of The George Shearing Quintet’s Satin Affair plays smoothly on in the background. After I vacuum the house, I pour some more iced coffee for myself, and pick the first movie of the day.

bloodtracks

“If you fear God then you’ll want this madness to end.”

9:52am

Blood Tracks (1985)

I found a VHS copy of this film at a flea market, burned it to DVD, and then sold the tape on eBay for a nice profit! That’s why I’m independently wealthy these days. Oh and then I forgot to watch it! The moment this starts, I immediately realize that we are in dubbed country here. The director of this is Swedish and that’s all the trivia you’ll get from me today. A family squabble turns deadly when mommy gets stabby. The family is forced to flee and a helpful narrator tells us that they have been hiding out for the last forty years in “the middle of nowhere”. A rock band and film crew are heading into the snowy mountains to film a music video. I’m practically wringing my hands with excitement over this one.

The family is living in an old hazardous waste factory out in “the middle of nowhere” and they’ve gone practically feral. They’re monster makeup is pretty frickin’ cool. Me thinks they’re not going to get along with a bunch of shithead music and film industry types. Beautiful people and mutants go together like oil and grease. There’s an avalanche and everyone is stranded up on the mountain. Between the dubbing, the cave-people that look vaguely like George Eastman in Antropophagus (1980), a high body count, and the drug-addled antics of the band, this is a lot of fun so far.

Blood Tracks does something really inventive. In spite of the danger of getting lost or killed, people start splitting up into smaller and smaller groups. I think this might be one of the single most cleverest ways of moving the action along in a slasher film. You are a true original, Blood Tracks! One of the kills was so confusing that I have to assume that it was cut to heck. Ooh, I really like some of the tense synthesizer music in this one. This movie sets itself up for a sequel very nicely. I don’t think that ever happened. LeEtta has come and gone to the grocery store and the liquor store for our very important supplies like food and rum. I married very well.

mutilator

“I’m gonna set a new high score on the video machine.”

11:28am

The Mutilator (1984)

And the unseens just keep on rolling out. Special thanks to my pal Scott MacDonald for sending me this one. The Mutilator opens with a bang as a kid named Ed accidentally blows his mother away with his dad’s rifle. Woops! Gun help is help. Dad doesn’t take this birthday surprise very well. Years later, little Ed is all grown up and hanging out with his college buddies. The single most important thing is that they are trying to figure out what to do on their fall break. Matt Farley has spoken very highly of the “Fall Break” song that plays in this movie. It does not disappoint.

The characters are kooky as fuck and way likeable. Ed and these jokers are heading out to his dad’s isolated beach house to get it ready for the winter and get some serious partying done. This is what fall break is all about, bitches. Ed’s dad is a real weirdo. He’s got hunting trophies all over the house as well as a sacrificial mask AND a huge battle-axe that has gone missing. Uh oh. Dad is hiding in the house and having fantasies about killing Ed when he was a kid. Yikes!

I’m loving the beach location in this one and the weird percussion sound on the score. It sounds like someone throwing a basketball against a concrete wall. There’s some great atmosphere in the pool scene from some awesome lighting and slow motion camerawork. Wow! The Mutilator is really living up to its title. Sam has texted me to say that he and his lady friend Laura will meet us at Señor Tequila, a fine Mexican restaurant. I feel bad because they’re missing this. The hide and seek scene is one for the ages.

Lunch

Señor Tequila is fun times with Sam and Laura. LeEtta gets fish tacos, I get tacos al pastor, Sam gets a quesadilla, and Laura gets veggie fajitas. As I have found with this restaurant every time I’ve gone there, the food is excellent! Of course, the place is a madhouse and we’re there for nearly 2 hours but it was worth it. Afterwards, Sam and I jam. We run through about 6 GYROJETS songs and then it’s time for some movie watching!

evillaugh

“I’m not playing with your butt.”

Evil Laugh

3:45pm

We’re off to a great start! This DVD is tore up and ridiculous. In the film, there’s a house in the middle of nowhere and a killer just ripped some yuppy’s heart out. Three dorks are cruising in their convertible when it breaks down. Barney is reading a Fangoria. Johnny has gotta go “drain the lizard”. He pees on a couple taking a nap in the dunes. Almost-comedy ensues. The realtor is the best character ever. I think his name is Mr. Burns.

They play the boombox and a cleaning-the-house dance montage starts. So far, both the dialog and the plot are brilliant. All of the acting is extra brilliant. Mr. Burns almost rapes his wife for our amusement. Tina says, “Just give me some sandpaper and send me to the nursery.” How much of this is meant to be funny and how much of this is meant to be serious? I think the filmmakers probably thought they were being much funnier than they actually were. Barney needs to die. He represents everything I hate though I will concede that he is proto-Randy for all you Scream fans out there.

There’s another swimming pool at night scene. I almost forgot to note it. Those are my jam, yo. When Connie gets scared, she whips out a gun that is bigger than her head. She shoots into a room and screams even though no one’s in there. It’s fantastic and silly. The ending is utterly insane and I loved it. If only the entire movie had been that on point.

graduationday

“You know something, Mr. Guglione? You’re a real bastard!”

Graduation Day (1981)

5:26pm

Sam and Laura leave but I know that Evil Laugh has forever changed them as people. Graduation Day starts and I’m ready for some teen sports, y’all! Um, you guys. Laura (the movie one, not Sam’s Laura) doesn’t look so good. The opening song is saying that “everyone wants to be the winner” but Laura looks like she just wants to live until the end of the race. It’s important to note here that not everyone gets what they want.

Oh boy, that first murder was pretty weak. The knife was bleeding before it hit the blonde jogger chick’s throat. It splashed her to death. Christopher George is in this and honestly, that’s all you need to know about this film. His gravelly voice is just so sexy and he plays an utter dickbagel. Laura’s sister Anne comes home from the navy to see her family, collect her sister’s honorary trophy (I actually LOL’d while typing that), and- BEEGEES POSTER! Anne’s stepdad Ronald is a real fucking asshole. Anne herself is a badass but she’s also rather creepy like in a “Hi! I could be the killer” kind of a way.

Oh snap. Michael Pataki plays the principal in this and big surprise, the senior class collectively loathes him. Those fools! I love Michael Pataki. This stalking scene looks familiar. Could it be because Night Screams already showed it to me!? The editor likes to cause seizures in the audience. Linnea Quigley just showed up in a scene that was already nuts to begin with. Now she’s seducing the cornball music teacher.

The cop busts some teenagers for smoking dope and then he himself smokes some dope. That’s what they call simile in the screenwriting industry. After the quarterback is killed by a sword-football, the film cuts to Laura’s boyfriend playing harmonica and entertaining the girls while some joker plays “The Graduation Blues” on guitar. He looks forty. The band playing the graduation dance is outstanding. Nafa and Amanda stop by to drop off a Boogeyman and Friday the 13th Part II CEDs (those are Capacitance Electronic Discs, by the way) that he picked up at a thrift store for me. I’m going to send the Friday the 13th one to Brad. The killer in this movie gets two monologues. TWO. Classic.

girlsschoolscreamers

“Liz, you are one crazy lady and I think you oughta cool your jets!”

 Girls School Screamers

8:02pm

Here’s another film I bought on tape and converted to DVD. After a pair of ridiculous Troma previews, this movie starts so nonchalantly that I couldn’t tell if it was actually happening or not. On a dare by his friends, young Billy goes snooping in a house and is confronted by a nasty ghost. He ends up in the hospital in shock. Now we jump to the reading of a will and we jump yet again to some Catholic school girls being silly. This gang of cuties gets called to the principal’s office. He wants them to catalog the art collection of the school’s greatest benefactor in the same house that nearly killed young Billy.

13 minutes in and they’ve already made fun of the “fat girl” Rosemary twice. Of course, she’s the hottest one. LeEtta has made me my first mojito of the night. This could be trouble. Rum says yes! Just like Blood Tracks, I never actually watched this one until now. I sure hope it’s a slasher movie! The girls are certainly catty enough for my standards. During a game of hide and seek, Jackie finds the diary of Jennifer Wells, one of the girls who used to live in the house. The nun gets really upset when Jackie asks her about it but they figure that Jennifer must have died mysteriously. Time to have a séance. The only thing I love more than nighttime swimming pool sequences is séances!

They find a portrait of Jennifer Wells and -gasp- it looks like Jackie! During an extended flashback to young Jennifer Wells, the dialog gets even more stilted. This is how old timey people talked! We finally get our first kill with a meat cleaver and damn it to hell, it’s “fat” Rosemary. I miss her already. A couple of the girls’ goofy boyfriends show up to mess with them. This is getting good. And my fingers are numb from the mojito. LeEtta strikes again. Supernatural slasher for the win! Son of a bitch. Troma just talked over the last shot of the movie. Fuck you, Troma. Fuck you.

toallagoodnight

“Tom, will you stop messing around and take me to bed like a real man?”

To All a Goodnight

9:36pm

A bunch of moronic girls chase their friend through the finishing school with knives and an axe. She falls to her death over the edge of a balcony during Christmas vacation. What the heck was gonna happen if they caught her? Unlikely prank fail! It’s 2 years later and a killer is getting ready to kill some girls at the same school. Man oh man, I needed another Christmas-themed slasher in my life and this will do nicely. Lots of bitchy chicks and a creepy groundskeeper. Hallelujah!

The goofy dude characters show up to party with the girls via plane and things get even sillier! Trisha the sassy Brit gets killed but her skirt already had blood all over it before the killer even got in the room. This movie is so fun. There’s an excellent double whammy kill scene that made me cheer. Then it’s the next day and everything just slows down while the cast goofs off. Even the detective is kind of off somehow but in a good way. Wow, David Hess could direct a frickin’ slasher! I’m not gonna lie but I’m pretty buzzed right now. If this movie was 9 hours long I’d be fine with that.

Sunday

In case you were wondering, I’m a lightweight when it comes to booze. I woke up in the middle of the night with an incredible hangover and had to trudge to the kitchen for some ibuprofen. Despite our cat Sparkles’ best efforts to wake me up before my alarm, I slept rather well. In the morning, I went out to Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast substance for us in the form of bacon, egg, and cheese croissants. LeEtta doesn’t like their coffee so she started brewing a pot while I was gone.

After breakfast, I put on the first movie. It’s called Attack of the Lawnmower starring LeEtta and Richard. Ah yes, yardwork. Now that we own a home and it’s Florida, we have yardwork every weekend between the months of April and November every damn year. Once that is done, we shower, and head out to lunch. The always reliable Burger 21 is a goodtime place, especially on Sunday before everyone gets out of church. I’m wearing my Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt so people know I’m not fucking around. I have a hotdog with bacon and an espresso milkshake while LeEtta gets a bean burger. We’re literally the best people in the world.

slumberpartymassacre3

“Did somebody mention hips? Here come the cookies!”

Slumber Party Massacre III (1990)

12:34pm

Son of a bitch! I’m breaking my 1989 rule. Woops. This eerie opening theme is so good that it puts my mind at ease. We’re on the beach for some volleyball fun but there’s a creepy Kurt Cobain Lookalike Dude watching this group of teens who are about to die horribly. Too cynical? Jeffrey Canino warned me about this movie. The first kill with the drill happens and some seriously noodly guitar solo plays over the top. I love it. We go right into some subpar Bananarama song as the girls cruise in a convertible. So far, so good.

LeEtta appreciates the checklist being marked off for things that you need in a Slumber Party Massacre sequel. 1. Teens. 2. A slumber party. 3. A drill. 4. A creepy neighbor. 5. Shower scene in the first 15 minutes. One of the girls looks like Peggy from “Married with Children” by way of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. She’s dating a 50 year old!? The freakazoid neighbor is some next level shit here. He’s stalking the house like a complete psycho, making creepy phone calls, and reading a book on human anatomy. Leather Jacket Frank is my new favorite character. He is way too cool for this movie.

The girls’ striptease action is interrupted when the boys sneak in and scare them. It’s pretty frickin’ great. Whoa, the killer is like a dang ninja. He dispatches our only black character with a realty sign. Two more items on the Slumber Party Massacre list: 6. Pizza delivery shenanigans. 7. Horny friend invites a boy over. The nerd character looks like Code Red Bill. Because Jackie left her address book at the beach, Kurt Cobain Lookalike Dude is snooping around now too. I just love teenagers so much.

Juliet tries to sleep with a dude but he was impotent so it’s inferred that he went down on her. Then she gets electrocuted in the bath by a plugin dildo. The list continues to grow. 8. Dead girl stuffed in a garment bag. 9. Useless boys go run for help. And this movie just got crazy. The only person who’s a bigger asshole than the killer is the cop who won’t send a damn patrol car around to the house. This movie has a really bleak edge to it. The killer in part III is crazy in a real-life serial killer kind of a way. Yikes! That’s what Jeffrey was warning me about. The faux Billy Idol song at the end is just disturbing enough to go along with the movie.

boogeyman

“I never seen a kiss this long!”

The Boogey Man (1980)

2:07pm

Now here’s another one that I’ve actually seen but not for many, many years. Wow, the Carpenter-esque score for this is kicking my ass! A typical scene from any American home in the 1950s starts when naughty mommy lets her skeevy boyfriend terrorize her children. Little sis helps her bro out by giving him a butcher knife and he makes them sandwiches for her with the crusts cut off. The end. Just kidding! Little Willy stabs the shithead duder to death and that makes me smile. I believe the children are our future.

Years later, Willy and his sister Lacey are all grown up and living in what looks like the Amityville Horror house! Willy is mute but he’s got nice overalls. Lacey has a kid and a loving husband but she’s been able to suppress her terrible sexual kinkiness that obviously runs in her family so I guess she’s kind of okay. Shit starts getting weird when their naughty mommy writes a letter to Lacey and Willy. Both kids are haunted by the memories of that night. I guess I would be too. I have always liked this one but man oh man, The Boogey Man is way better than I remember it. Fuck that lazy ass sequel.

Supernatural slasher! John Carradine! Exclamation points! Some horny chick is hitting on Willy and he nearly strangles her to death. What the pliggity plot is going on here? Plot? When Lacey and her husband visit her childhood home, she goes bananas after she sees that the man that Willy killed is staring at her from inside her mom’s old mirror. Her dumbass husband brings the offending reflective device home to help cure her and Willy of their trauma. Now a bunch of murders start happening when sharp and blunt objects start coming to life. Luckily, there’s some jerky teenagers lined up and ready to add to the body count. This is aggressively batshit crazy. I’ll say it again. Fuck that lazy ass sequel.

satansblade

“I just hope I have better luck with my first murder case than you had with yours.”

Satan’s Blade

3:37pm

Brad speaks very highly of this one so I’m pretty darn stoked. A knife flies into frame from nowhere and sticks into a tree and I ask, “Is that the Satan’s blade?” When it starts glowing red, I know that it’s not. The stilted acting kicks in almost immediately. Then a bank robbery ensues and a girl gets menaced with a blade that may be Satan’s blade but possibly not. Next, a girl gets shot and she milks her death scene for all it’s worth, taking several hours to fall down. This is friggin’ great so far! The bank robbers flee to their hideout and surprise, they’re all women. Grrl power!  Oh wait, is the leader of their gang a man? Boo! That’s penis power. And there’s the double cross. Or is that a triple cross?

Oh my God, this is getting better and better as each new goofball character shows up to drop a ton of exposition on us. The old lady who owns the lodge where all these fools are staying is simply outstanding. Where’s her damn Oscar? There’s an old local legend that is just ridiculous. We pause the film for dinner and it doesn’t go very well. I’m sure LeEtta won’t want me recording a rare culinary failure here but it was pretty funny. Orangey-brown zesty slime and okra over mushy rice is a dish that will probably never come back to the Schmidt house.

All of the women in this are just phenomenal, especially Rita who may not be from Earth. While the guys are busy getting drunk, she has a nightmare of a deranged killer stabbing friends to death. A prank is pulled and everyone ends up in their nighties wrestling in the snow. This film is probably going to be the best thing I watch in my entire life. Even the cops are perfect. Much like To All a Goodnight, I really like these characters and don’t want anything bad to happen to them. Why so much killing? That final title screen is so boss.

Smoke Break

Even though I’m feeling the moviethon haze creeping in and I just want to finish this damn thing, it’s time for a smoke. I grab a pipe, a tin of tobacco, and some Gatorade I didn’t finish during yardwork today. While the wind is blowing and the clouds are flying, I’m melting away in the deliciousness of pipe smoke. I shoot some texts back and forth with Brad about future moviethons and just enjoy watching the world go by. Okay, it’s time to start up again and finish this thing before I’m cut into little tiny pieces.

terrorattenkiller

“I try to help Leslie out but sometimes I feel… she’s just a born victim.”

Terror at Tenkiller (1986)

6:30pm

I have heard this is a piece of crap but once that drum machine kicks in, I’m very confident in my choice. A girl named Denise gets her throat slit and then her body is dumped in the lake while the soundtrack plays a warbling lament. After that, a busty girl named Leslie is swimming in a pool and some jerk named Josh wants to talk things over with her. Guess what I’ve never used… a frickin’ public shower! Her friend Jana scares the living daylights out of her. Guess what I’ve never had… a friend! Leslie wants to break up with Josh and I wholeheartedly endorse this.

They head out to a place called “Tenkiller” for some lakeside fun and all kinds of jaunty music follows them there. The girls are going swimming and just sunning themselves while an air of lingering dread creeps in. Maybe I’m imagining that lingering dread. This movie excels in melodrama and lady talk. Just like Satan’s Blade, there’s a legend or some such that might be important later. We follow a girl who works at a diner while a mysterious figure is stalking around outside. He’s Mister Canadian Tuxedo and he just killed her. Oh diner girl, we hardly knew ye.

The girls rent a boat from a dirty old man named Preacher and a young guy named Tor -who just killed the diner girl- and head out to the middle of nowhere to stay in a cabin. Things take a turn for the classy when I see they’re sharing a can of Slice. During some real talk about Josh from Jana, Leslie looks absolutely shell-shocked. The plot gets really complicated when the girls talk about working at the diner. Major revelation! On the first night, Preacher invites himself in but Jana says no. Then he stalks around smoking and watching the cabin. Tor shows up and he and Preacher have a conversation that is un-fucking-believable. It doesn’t end well for Preacher.

Tor gives us an eyeful from his short shorts when he sits on the lanai. LeEtta is not impressed. In an unexpectedly atmospheric scene, Leslie has a dream where Josh is playing a harmonica and beckoning to her from the woods. She goes outside and everything is foggy and eerie. I loved it! I’m way past the hour mark with this one and I don’t understand this movie’s bad reputation. While working late at the diner, Leslie is reading The Stand and that made me giggle. Tor kills people because his harmonica commands him? Maybe. Now I’m not saying it’s a necessity or anything -and it should in a no way speak to the quality of this film- but I needed to drink iced coffee during Terror at Tenkiller. This is an awesome movie.

lastslumberparty

“Let’s go rustle up some menfolk.”

The Last Slumber Party

8:20pm

Even though my brain feels like an old milkshake, I start the final film of the moviethon. I have heard lots of great things about The Last Slumber Party and that’s why I saved it for last. This opens with some serious rock music while a deranged mental patient who’s dressed like a surgeon is running amok. We cut to a high school classroom and the movie opens up its wonders to LeEtta and me. At the mental hospital, some funny dialog about a violent lunatic is just outrageous and grand. Then I notice this seems to have been shot on both video AND on film which makes it feel like two movies stitched together.

The teen slumber party elements mixed with the hospital stuff is making for a very intriguing concoction. LeEtta noticed that the girls are having a slumber party while the girl’s parents are home. I suggest that this is The Last Chaperoned Slumber Party. All of the guy characters are real cockfaces except for the class nerd. They pick on him and call him “Science”. Back at the slumber party, the girls are goofing off and drinking booze while the psycho surgeon is creeping about. The worst character just got killed and I cheered. The movie just improved substantially!

That’s the second Beegees poster in this moviethon! And the first Sesame Street poster. I can’t even process what’s going on in this movie. The girls are watching Forever Evil, one of my childhood trauma films! Dear reader, you need to see The Last Slumber Party for yourself. If you open up your heart to it, you will live forever, I promise. Between the multiple film stocks and cameras and stupendously baffling bullshit of the screenplay, my mind has been dismantled and reassembled incorrectly. I hope there’s a 1-800 number at the end of the film to some kind of Last Slumber Party support network.

Conclusion

Slasher movies are just good melodramas with a couple of murders thrown in. For instance, Terror at Tenkiller felt exactly like a Me Generation leftover like Savage Weekend but way, way more sedate or possibly in a coma. I can’t believe so many unseen films ended up being so rewarding. That being said, The Boogey Man and Graduation Day have inspired me to make sure that next time the old favorites will be populating the playlist in a big way. Everything went perfectly this time around except for the sleaze factor of Slumber Party Massacre III. That one was just gross. See you next time, you dang murderers.

Final Stats

Boobies: 34

Butts: 5

Wieners: 0

Body Count: 120