Posts Tagged ‘Slasher Search’
Thursday, October 10th, 2024
A couple years ago, you may remember, I was kind of giving up on my Slasher Search tradition, because the pickings were getting really slim when it came to the type of undiscovered ‘80s slasher I was looking for. Some of you talked me into broadening or adjusting the criteria, so I’ve been experimenting with the mostly more modern horror obscurities that can be found scrolling through the horror sections on Tubi and similar free streaming services. That’s been going okay so far, so I’ll try dipping in a little again this year and see what happens.
For today’s special programming I tried out two movies that stretch the definition of “slasher,” but they seem at least tangentially related to supernatural slashers like Freddy and Candyman. Or at least one of them has Tony Todd in it. Okay, these are not really slashers, they’re action horror. Instead of a final girl running from a killer they have a martial artist who falls into monster troubles and has to fight.
HELLKAT (2021) stars Sarah T. Cohen (EASTER BUNNY MASSACRE) as Katrina “HellKat” Bash, a former champion fighter who, after a career ending loss, goes on a road trip, gets stranded, finds herself at a mysterious bar with an unholy secret. I was a little worried when Katrina’s “fall from grace” in the ring was depicted with voiceover only, no fighting seen. No ring. Then some pretty rough green screen driving and cg smoke. But that’s okay. That’s what we’re dealing with. Cohen at least has a good tough girl presence to go with her neck tattoos, chainsmoking, fishnets and Doc Martens. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrian Bouchet, Andrea Langi, Becca Hirani, Bill Hinzman, Carla Greene, Derek Wan, Erin Brown, Media Blasters, Michael Gingold, Michael Quinlan, Nina Hodoruk, Richard Siegel, Ryan Davies, Sarah T. Cohen, Scott Chambers, Slasher Search, Tony Leung Siu Hung, Tony Todd, Vernon Reid, women in prison, zombies
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 31 Comments »
Monday, November 7th, 2022
THE DEADLY INTRUDER (1985) is not a very good horror movie, but it’s a pretty good Slasher Search find. It’s an obscure only-on-VHS one from not-prolific filmmakers, but watchable due to okay production values, competent acting, a catchy synth score by director John McCauley (whose only other directing credit is a 1976 snake movie called RATTLERS), and a pretty fun (but very easy to see coming) twist. It’s fairly low rent, but it does have a Hollywood veteran (Stuart Whitman, EATEN ALIVE, THE WHITE BUFFALO) as the police chief and a TV star (Danny Bonaduce, H.O.T.S.) as one of the main characters, so I’m sure it fulfilled its modest intent of putting those names on the ads, circulating drive-ins for a while, and making a few bucks from people with nothing else to do.
It uses the most generic premise of post-HALLOWEEN slashers: a maniac has escaped from a mental hospital and is on a killing spree that intersects with the lives of random residents of a small town. They don’t bother with any type of holiday, anniversary or backstory besides some cops saying he killed his wife and kid. He escapes at night, and the next morning he walks up to a random house and murders a woman (a disturbing and sleazy scene where her breasts pop out of her bathrobe as he dunks her head in the kitchen sink) and steals some clothes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Dover, Christopher Holder, Danny Bonaduce, Molly Cheek, slasher, Slasher Search, Stuart Whitman, Tony Crupi
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, October 19th, 2022
“Motherfucker, there are coffins in the basement!”
SAVAGE LUST (1989) is a terrible title, and I’m not gonna claim the movie is much better. But as far as a first Slasher Search title of ’22 – and maybe the last if I can’t find anything else that seems to fit the bill – it’s surprisingly watchable. I got through it in one sitting!
This is not an official announcement of an ending to Slasher Search – just a realistic assessment that there aren’t many more of what I’m searching for out there. So I’ll share them with you when I find them, but I hope you won’t be disappointed if they end up being few and far between.
I’ll always be open to recommendations for good slashers and other horror I’ve missed from any era. But the idea of Slasher Search is to discover things too obscure to be recommended to me. But the window for finding vintage slasher movies that I haven’t already seen, and that haven’t already been dug up by somebody else, gets narrower by the week. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Clark Tufts, Greg Rhodes, Jennifer Delora, Jerry Kernion, Jose Ramon Larraz, Slasher Search, slashers, William Russell
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Monday, November 15th, 2021
I think you can see why I’d assume a movie called MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE would qualify as a slasher movie, or at least a chopper movie. Surprisingly, if there is a meatcleaver anywhere in the movie I missed it. There is a massacre, but it’s the inciting incident, and the story is about a series of killings to avenge the massacre. I’m using title on the VHS box, but the opening credits expand it to THE HOLLYWOOD MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE, and it does indeed take place in Hollywood. So at least one third, arguably two thirds of the title is accurate in that iteration.
It’s from 1977, before the slasher craze took off, and it’s about a supernatural force killing people, but there are definitely some parallels to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, so if that counts as a slasher maybe this could too. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Lee, Doug Senior, Ed Wood, Guerdon Trueblood, Paul Kelleher, Ray Atherton, Slasher Search
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 4th, 2021
THE SLEEPING CAR (1990) is not exactly a slasher movie, but because it says “Forget Freddy. Forget Jason. Here Comes The Mister!” on the cover it officially qualifies for Slasher Search. Congratulations, THE SLEEPING CAR!
When I saw that title I thought, “huh?” but then I saw the train on the cover and I thought oh, I get it, not a passed out automobile, but the place on a train where you sleep. Okay. I’ll go with it. Actually, this looks kinda good.
But it does not open promisingly. Some guy is making out with some woman in a train car. She strips down to her historical panties and giant boobs and they giggle and make out while the score by Ray Colcord (My Two Dads, AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE) erupts into erotic saxophone. The engineer (John Carl Buechler, director of FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE NEW BLOOD) comes in and yells at the guy to stop fornicating and do his job. He chooses instead to continue with the fornicating, and then the engineer jumps off the train right before it crashes head on with another train and then he yells into the sky like newly minted Darth Vader when he finds out Padme is dead. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Naughton, Douglas Curtis, Ernestine Mercer, Gary Brockette, Greg Collins O'Neill, Jeff Conaway, John Carl Buechler, Judie Aronson, Kevin McCarthy, Nicole Hansen, Ray Colcord, Slasher Search, VHS
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Thursday, October 21st, 2021
“I don’t want to go out like that. I mean, when I die I wanna look pretty, I want to go down into the ground clean, one piece.”
Sometimes a good movie producer is a mastermind. Other times they don’t have an artistic vision themselves, but they have an eye for up and coming talent, for how to nurture them, give them opportunities to shine, protect them, help them bring their vision to life. Maybe Moustapha Akkad was one or all of those things, or maybe he just got really fuckin lucky and the kid he chose to direct “The Babysitter Murders” happened to be a genius who turned the gig into HALLOWEEN, a timeless horror masterpiece and the highest grossing independent movie of all time. I have no idea.
Whatever Akkad’s deal was, he never hit another one out of the park like the first HALLOWEEN. Eight of his twelve credits are on HALLOWEEN movies, none of them half as good as Carpenter’s. But I didn’t know what to expect from his one non-HALLOWEEN horror production, 1985’s APPOINTMENT WITH FEAR. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Smithee, Andrea Saparoff, Bruce Meade, Danny Dayton, Deborah Voorhees, Douglas Rowe, Fairlight CMI, Garrick Dowhen, Kerry Remsen, Malek Akkad, Michael Wyle, Michele Little, Mike Gomez, Moustapha Akkad, Nicholas von Sternberg, Ramzi Thomas, Slasher Search, Vincent Barbour
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 29 Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2020
THE MAN NEXT DOOR is a 1997 film that only came out on VHS. The cover has a big skull, a scary house and a very dated font choice. It’s written and directed by Rod C. Spence, known for his raw suspense. Or perhaps he’s known for editing 2000s reality TV shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, American Chopper and Jersey Shore, which he did for a while after this (and his websight says he writes screenplays and novels).
It was released as part of First Rites, which was an imprint from Hollywood Video (the biggest American video store chain besides Blockbuster) for low budget independent movies from new directors. Showcasing new voices or whatever. It fascinates me because it doesn’t seem to me like they would earn any more money from having THE MAN NEXT DOOR available than just having more copies of CON AIR or whatever. With some research I learned that it was someone else’s deal that partnered with Hollywood in the U.S. and Rogers in Canada, but still, there must’ve been someone within the shitty corporate structure of Hollywood Video that really believed in this mission and convinced someone to get behind it. That’s pretty cool. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Huddleston, First Rites, Rod C. Spence, Slasher Search, Virginia Mayo, Zero External Reviews on IMDb
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 4 Comments »
Friday, October 9th, 2020
It’s the dystopian year of 2020 and I’m still trying to do Slasher Search – looking for interesting, obscure slasher movies that I haven’t heard of and that don’t seem to already have a following, preferably from the FRIDAY THE 13TH era. It gets harder with each review I do, as the chances become slimmer that there’s anything left that I haven’t already seen and hasn’t been dug up by Arrow or Vinegar Syndrome or somebody. It might be a snipe hunt at this point.
The best method I know is to look for things that were released on VHS and never made it to DVD or blu-ray. That’s how I found OPEN HOUSE (1987), which is clearly not one of the weird regional ones I tend to find, since it’s legit enough to have Adrienne Barbeau in it. Seven years after THE FOG she’s no longer playing the radio DJ hero – she’s the girlfriend to one. She gets tied up and he has to rescue her. Not as cool. Joseph Bottoms (THE BLACK HOLE) plays Dr. David Kelley, famed KDRX talk radio therapist. The original Frasier. Barbeau’s Lisa is a Beverly Hills realtor, and therefore one of the doctor’s two connections to a series of murders of Beverly Hills realtors. The other connection is that someone he thinks may be the killer keeps calling in to his show. But the authorities won’t listen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adrienne Barbeau, David Mickey Evans, Jag Mundhra, John Stewart, Joseph Bottoms, Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, October 29th, 2019
HELLBENT (2004) opens with your traditional lovers lane murder, well shot with colorful tinting that seems to come from a light shining through a bouquet of helium balloons they have in the car. The two lovers are beheaded by a dude (Nick Name, who also provides some of the soundtrack with his band Nick Name and the Normals) with a scythe and devil mask/helmet thing. We’ve seen a million scenes like this, but there are two things unusual about this version:
1. the lovers are both men
2. the killer is shirtless
Well, mostly #1. The 2014 remaquel of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN had a male-male couple killed in a lovers lane, but this one takes place entirely in the gay community in West Hollywood, so it’s fair to call it a gay slasher movie. The hero – Final Boy? – is Eddie (Dylan Fergus), who works a desk job at the police station. He’s not an officer – an injury prevented him from finishing the training. He gets recruited to pass out flyers warning people in West Hollywood that there’s a murderer loose, and uses Halloween as an excuse to wear his dad’s old uniform when he does it. (Strangely he won’t get into any kind of impersonating-an-officer trouble while wearing it. But I guess it reminds him of the shoes he’s trying to fill.)
At night he goes to a Halloween carnival with some friends, where you have your typical slasher movie debauchery (except gay) while the devil mask guy follows them around looking for a window to behead them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Halloween, Paul Etheredge, Slasher Search, slashers
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
Monday, October 28th, 2019
SHREDDER is a snowboarding-themed slasher movie that I never heard of until now, but apparently somebody had, because RoninFlix put it out on blu-ray with a nice painted cover by Devon Whitehead (designer of many fine t-shirts from Fright Rags and Cavity Colors). It’s from 2001 (shelved until 2003 in the U.S.), but seems late-‘80s in its “we know this is dumb, but we’ll take it seriously because that’s more fun” spirit. It’s clearly not made by a studio, and shows very little of the SCREAM-inspired postmodern attitude of its actual era.
It’s about a mysterious skier (disguised only by normal ski gear) who murders snowboarders who trespass in a closed pass where a fatal accident once happened. Like my other recent 2003 Slasher Search entry, SIMON SAYS, it has a vanload of young people on a trip, slathering the screen with unadulterated obnoxiousness. The stuck up/aggressive girl is trip-arranger Kimberly Van Arx (Lindsey McKeon, Saved by the Bell: The New Class), whose rich dad is buying the resort, and has a quick trigger finger when it comes to asserting “do you know who I am!?” privileges. Her boyfriend Cole (Scott Weinger) seems kind of square and has a has kind of a Steve-on-90210 older-out-of-place-guy vibe. I was excited to learn that he’s the guy who did the voice of Disney’s Aladdin! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Billy O', Brad Hawkins, Greg Huson, Lindsey McKeon, Scott Weinger, Slasher Search, slashers, snowboarding
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 5 Comments »
