I tell ya, I’m as shocked as you are that a movie called THE NIGHT BRINGS CHARLIE doesn’t turn out to be the great unknown slasher gem I’ve been searching for. I mean, people love a killer they can call by his first name, like Jason or Freddy. Informality = terror. And that’s what they got here, they got Charlie. It seemed like they thought of everything, but for some reason the world gave them the cold shoulder. I’m sure around ’88 they were kicking themselves that they didn’t call him Chucky and make him a killer doll and do a way better job.
(Oh wait – I just looked it up and this movie came out in 1990. Are you kidding me? As in the 1990s 1990? Incredible.) (read the rest of this shit…)
(this isn’t really a slasher movie, but I thought it was gonna be)
THE MEATEATER (1979) is a pretty good really bad one I found. I looked up the director, writer and lead actors and none of them have any other credits except the leading man Peter Spitzer had a small part in a Cannon movie the same year called GAS PUMP GIRLS. I can’t vouch for that one, but THE MEATEATER has a certain charm to it because you can tell they’re trying hard but the amateurish acting, dialogue and pacing make it feel more like an Ed Wood movie than like other low budget horror of the era.
The story is about a Florida traveling shoe salesman named Mitford Webster (Spitzer) who comes home one day, makes his wife come out on the porch (maybe they weren’t allowed to film inside?) and complains about being unfulfilled. Then he checks the mail and oh what a surprise, he bought a movie theater in some town somewhere. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE HILLS RUN RED probly isn’t a new classic, but I think it’s a solid DTV horror and a good take on the “meta-slasher” sub-subgenre that includes SCREAM and my unfavorite BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF etc. etc. This is another one about people making a documentary, but thank the Lord Christ it’s not presented as a documentary. Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrink, some guy from DISASTER MOVIE) is a film school nerd obsessed with a 1982 slasher movie called THE HILLS RUN RED (wait a minute… that’s what this movie is called! what on earth is going on here?). It was supposedly so horrifying it was pulled from release. The director and all prints of the movie have been missing for over 20 years. (read the rest of this shit…)
One year before PREDATOR, two years before DIE HARD, John McTiernan wrote and directed this unusual thriller about ghostly demons or demonic ghosts. (Actually I thought they were ghosts, but the back of the DVD calls them demons. So let’s split the difference.) NOMADS stars Lesley-Anne Down as Dr. Flax, recently moved to L.A. One night after 32 hours on shift she sees a patient covered in blood, babbling in French, so crazed that they have to cuff him. He’s played by “Pierce Brosnan, the star of REMINGTON STEELE like you’ve never seen him before” according to the trailer narrator.
His name is Pommier and as he’s convulsing he whispers to her, then bites her ear, wounding her bad. After a few moments of shock she tries to cut the tension with gallows humor, saying “Well, looks like he got me there, didn’t he?” But then Pommier dies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Well, say hello to the bad guy. The wet blanket, the party pooper, parade pisser, Gloomy Gus, Whiny Waldorf, Joyless Jim, Bum-out Benjamin. I’m talking about me here, the guy who achieved the dubious record of “First Person Not To Like [REC] Very Much.” Sorry guys. Didn’t think it would be me, so I didn’t prepare a speech.
If you’re not familiar with it, [REC] is the ’07 Spanish horror picture already remade in the U.S. as QUARANTINE. It’s a fakumentary/found footage one like BLAIR WITCH, CLOVERFIELD, THE OFFICE, etc. The premise is that a TV hostess and her cameraman are doing a story on firefighters when they respond to a building where a deadly 28 DAYS LATER type infection (zombies except in name) breaks out. They get trapped in the building and document the mayhem because the people have a right to know or whatever. (read the rest of this shit…)
Loosely based on Hanna-Barbera’s YOGI BEAR, GRIZZLY is the story of an uptight forest ranger (Christopher George) who just can’t stand that a bear is running around his woods living the free, unencumbered life of fun that his conformist philosophy won’t allow him. This is the more realistic BATMAN BEGINS version though so Yogi doesn’t talk or wear a hat or tie. Instead he’s 15 feet tall and weighs over a ton. Instead of stealing pic-a-nic baskets he steals people, by which I mean he eats them. Boo Boo is not a major character but is represented by a bear cub who some yokel hunters decide to capture and use as bait for Yogi. Yogi’s wiseass response? He eats Boo Boo. (read the rest of this shit…)
HALLOWEEN III isn’t the worst HALLOWEEN sequel, but it’s probly the most hated because it’s a new story unrelated to Michael Myers. Producer John Carpenter had this knuckleheaded idea that it was better to treat it like an anthology series, each one a new story having something to do with the holiday. What he didn’t consider seriously enough, maybe because he’s too modest, is that the first HALLOWEEN is a masterpiece and not a whole lot of stories or concepts feel worthy of being in the same series. Maybe if he’d done HALLOWEEN III: THE THING people would’ve gone for it, but not this.
I do know a cult of horror fans who swear by SEASON OF THE WITCH. Their numbers are smaller than the Thorn Cult from parts 5 and 6, and they’re probly just overcompensating for the people who hate the movie just for being a different story and not on its actual quality. And these cultists had me going a bit, I was starting to remember it as being kind of good. (read the rest of this shit…)
Here’s a pretty obscure one – a good kind of DELIVERANCE / TEXAS CHAIN SAW type inbreds-in-the-woods movie from director Jeff Lieberman (SQUIRM, SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER). Gregg Henry (Val Resnick from PAYBACK) plays a guy who’s inherited some undeveloped land in some mountains somewhere. So against the warnings of a park ranger (George Kennedy) he takes some friends up there to camp and check the place out.
I love this type of movie, and this has a good twist on the usual subtext. There’s the traditional class difference – Henry and friends drive into town in a top-of-the-line RV, listening to Blondie and snapping pictures of people like they’re tourist attractions. Henry wears a trucker cap and sleeveless shirt, so maybe he’s not a yuppie, or maybe he’s a yuppie and a poser. Either way you still get a feeling from that slick RV (I think Kennedy calls it “your fancy wagon” later) that he’s too arrogant about being able to overcome Mother Nature with his money and technology. He and his girlfriend fancy themselves climbers, but they’re kind of amateurs when it comes to camping. Which is allowed. But there’s that whole city-mouse/country-mouse tension, you know. (read the rest of this shit…)
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. (read the rest of this shit…)
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 would’ve been even more skeptical if I had read up on it before seeing it, because I would’ve known it was written originally as a TV show by reality show producers trying to cash in on the “fast zombie” love during that couple weeks after the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake came out. It’s two writers and one of them says he’d only seen a couple zombie movies before (didn’t specify which ones), the other one had only seen SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And the director isn’t big on them either and had only done commercials before. (read the rest of this shit…)
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I tell ya, I’m as shocked as you are that a movie called THE NIGHT BRINGS CHARLIE doesn’t turn out to be the great unknown slasher gem I’ve been searching for. I mean, people love a killer they can call by his first name, like Jason or Freddy. Informality = terror. And that’s what they got here, they got Charlie. It seemed like they thought of everything, but for some reason the world gave them the cold shoulder. I’m sure around ’88 they were kicking themselves that they didn’t call him Chucky and make him a killer doll and do a way better job.
THE HILLS RUN RED probly isn’t a new classic, but I think it’s a solid DTV horror and a good take on the “meta-slasher” sub-subgenre that includes SCREAM and my unfavorite BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF etc. etc. This is another one about people making a documentary, but thank the Lord Christ it’s not presented as a documentary. Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrink, some guy from DISASTER MOVIE) is a film school nerd obsessed with a 1982 slasher movie called THE HILLS RUN RED (wait a minute… that’s what this movie is called! what on earth is going on here?). It was supposedly so horrifying it was pulled from release. The director and all prints of the movie have been missing for over 20 years. 
One year before PREDATOR, two years before DIE HARD, John McTiernan wrote and directed this unusual thriller about ghostly demons or demonic ghosts. (Actually I thought they were ghosts, but the back of the DVD calls them demons. So let’s split the difference.) NOMADS stars Lesley-Anne Down as Dr. Flax, recently moved to L.A. One night after 32 hours on shift she sees a patient covered in blood, babbling in French, so crazed that they have to cuff him. He’s played by “Pierce Brosnan, the star of REMINGTON STEELE like you’ve never seen him before” according to the trailer narrator.
Well, say hello to the bad guy. The wet blanket, the party pooper, parade pisser, Gloomy Gus, Whiny Waldorf, Joyless Jim, Bum-out Benjamin. I’m talking about me here, the guy who achieved the dubious record of “First Person Not To Like [REC] Very Much.” Sorry guys. Didn’t think it would be me, so I didn’t prepare a speech.
Loosely based on Hanna-Barbera’s YOGI BEAR, GRIZZLY is the story of an uptight forest ranger (Christopher George) who just can’t stand that a bear is running around his woods living the free, unencumbered life of fun that his conformist philosophy won’t allow him. This is the more realistic BATMAN BEGINS version though so Yogi doesn’t talk or wear a hat or tie. Instead he’s 15 feet tall and weighs over a ton. Instead of stealing pic-a-nic baskets he steals people, by which I mean he eats them. Boo Boo is not a major character but is represented by a bear cub who some yokel hunters decide to capture and use as bait for Yogi. Yogi’s wiseass response? He eats Boo Boo. 
HALLOWEEN III isn’t the worst HALLOWEEN sequel, but it’s probly the most hated because it’s a new story unrelated to Michael Myers. Producer John Carpenter had this knuckleheaded idea that it was better to treat it like an anthology series, each one a new story having something to do with the holiday. What he didn’t consider seriously enough, maybe because he’s too modest, is that the first HALLOWEEN is a masterpiece and not a whole lot of stories or concepts feel worthy of being in the same series. Maybe if he’d done HALLOWEEN III: THE THING people would’ve gone for it, but not this.
Here’s a pretty obscure one – a good kind of DELIVERANCE / TEXAS CHAIN SAW type inbreds-in-the-woods movie from director Jeff Lieberman (SQUIRM, SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER). Gregg Henry (Val Resnick from PAYBACK) plays a guy who’s inherited some undeveloped land in some mountains somewhere. So against the warnings of a park ranger (George Kennedy) he takes some friends up there to camp and check the place out.
HOUSE OF DEATH
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.
