HOUSE OF DEATH
aka DEATH SCREAMS, apparently
but not to be confused with HOUSE OF THE DEAD, DEATH HOUSE or BLOODBATH IN THE HOUSE OF DEATH
My search for decent slasher movies of the ’70s and ’80s that I haven’t seen yet continues, but I decided I needed a shorter way of saying “my search for decent slasher movies of the ’70s and ’80s that I haven’t seen yet,” and MSFDSMOT78TIHSY looks too much like a confirmation number or one of those codes you have to type in when you’re buying tickets online or posting comments on Drew McWeeny’s blog. And I couldn’t come up with anything good so instead I just came up with “Slasher Search” and made a logo. Live with it.
This one’s from ‘82, another quick cash-in on FRIDAY THE 13TH, but I guess it’s more passable than that last one FINAL EXAM. I guess. The problem this time is not that stuff doesn’t happen, it’s that it’s hard to understand what the stuff is. (more…)
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Man, ZOMBIELAND was just begging for me to hate it. You know how picky I am about the balance between horror and comedy. And who the fuck makes a zombie comedy now? It feels exactly like that moment when somebody’s dad makes a reference to their favorite band from three grades ago, like he’s just catching on but he thinks he’s on the cutting edge. I was already sick of people talking about zombie movies back when SHAUN OF THE DEAD came out, and to be frankly honest even that one I didn’t really see what all the fuss was about.
I found EYES OF A STRANGER (1981) with the mystery and suspense movies at the video store. That got me thinking – how exactly do you draw the line between a thriller and a slasher movie? Is it because this guy’s a rapist, not just a killer? Is it because he’s not supernatural, deformed, masked or a redneck? You could say that about MANIAC too, but I think we all agree that’s a horror movie. Both have effects by Tom Savini, too. But MANIAC is way gorier, and the killer gets way more screen time. He’s the central character. Here the killer is often sneaking around just off camera, unseen, keeping us on a thread until he suddenly attacks, like Michael Myers. So if you’re watching a movie where there’s a killer like Michael Myers, but without a mask and not supernatural, that’s suspense. Except SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE. It’s horror if it has ‘massacre’ in the title I believe is the rule.
This year it was a rough start to my annual October quest for decent slasher movies of the ’70s and ’80s that I haven’t seen before. I checked the horror sections at the video store for VHS tapes, figuring if it’s not on DVD yet it’s gotta be obscure. The one I picked though was BLOOD LAKE. I was working on the theory that if it has “lake” in the title it must be a FRIDAY THE 13TH rip-off and therefore the kind of thing I’m looking for. Maybe something derivative but fun like THE BURNING. Wrong. I put it in and turned it off in about 20-30 seconds when I realized it was shot on camcorders. Sorry, I gotta draw a line somewhere. Affordable video cameras may have been democratizing… or maybe they were the first step toward anarchy.
You know how it is. You have low self-esteem, or you have to move alot so you don’t do good in school, or you do do good in school but people pick on you, or you get kicked out of school, or you don’t get along with your parents, or you don’t have any parents. But then you find out about breakdancing or karate or illegal street racing or lambada (the forbidden dance) or civil war re-enacting or vegetarianism or whatever. Your eyes are opened to an exciting new world, you meet colorful new friends and rivals, you work real hard and train and almost give up but you have to prove something to somebody or to yourself or to both, so you go to the big tournament or championship or whatever. Well, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut WHIP IT is about a girl finding herself through roller derby, and I was hoping it would be a little smarter version of that type of story. A generic plot that manipulates you in an obvious but enjoyable way, and that pays tribute to a sport I happen to enjoy. Like, say, DRUMLINE with girls on rollerskates. Or BRING IT ON with tattoos. That’s all I was hoping for, but WHIP IT turns out to be way better than I was hoping. 
Well, I don’t think it’s gonna last too long in theaters, so I wanted to hurry up and say a few things about JENNIFER’S BODY. That’s the new-a-couple-weeks-ago horror movie directed by Karyn Kusama (GIRLFIGHT and AEON FLUX), written by Diablo Cody (JUNO), and starring Amanda Seyfried (MEAN GIRLS, MAMMA MIA). You may be saying wait a minute, number one you said horror but those are all girl names, what in the hell is going on here, and #2 I never heard of a movie called JENNIFER’S BODY that came out in the ’70s or ’80s, so what did they remake this from? Is it a comic book?
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the best find of my Back To School Special. Maybe THE SUBSTITUTE is better, but I’d already seen that one before so I knew what to expect. This is a surprisingly natural hybrid of the inspirational teacher movie with the American martial arts star vehicle. It embraces the necessary corniness of both genres and seems a little more sincere about the turning kids around aspect than THE SUBSTITUTE does. And it came out in ‘93, three years earlier.
