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domino harvey wrote:Tales From the Darkside: the Movie (John Harrison 1990) Well, it's only fitting that the movie expansion of the low-rent syndicated anthology horror show be equally pleased with low-hanging fruit even when given a semblance of a budget. When my most charitable response to the film's three tales is that they're dumb, that says a lot. Lots of inept stylistic choices abound, particularly in the absurd William Hickey segment, which reveal's most of the film's technicians spent their time turning dials on post-process filtering. Deborah Harry and Matthew Lawrence participate in the most ludicrous framing device of all time.

This one is perhaps most notable for featuring Julianne Moore's feature film debut (she had been in some TV movies before this), along with including one segment (the best one) that is an Americanised version of The Woman In The Snow from Kwaidan (with a flesh eating gargoyle in place of the snow woman).

And I quite like the wraparound story, a broadly comic take on Hansel and Gretel with Harry in the role of the witch being distracted from cooking the kid that she has captured by his storytelling skills!

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Bruce Pittman 1987) Few things are as frustrating for a filmgoer than a film that has a good premise and decent elements but fails to capitalize on its potential out of laziness, ineptness, or both. This sequel in name only (or so I'm told-- haven't seen the original Prom Night) has at the very least an entertaining opening ten minutes set in 1957, where the titular hellcat tears up her high school prom, only to meet a gruesome end at the hands of her jilted ex. Thirty years later her spirit is back to raise literal hell for denizens of the same high school. Great, sounds like an entertaining-enough premise for a fun slasher flick. However, the film, like many slashers that came up in the post Elm Street lottery, fills the running time with nonsensical scare sequences and dream-bound phantasms, and also inexplicably hides its vivacious villain in body possessions and hallucinations for most of the film. There are a couple great little moments that hint at the film this could be, as when Mary Lou invades the body of our boring good girl heroine and has her come onto her doting dad (and the dad's into it!), and the film has a surprisingly nasty anti-religious bent (Mary Lou attacks one of her former greaser boyfriends, who reformed as a priest following her death, by telling him there is no afterlife and then stabbing him in the mouth with a crucifix) that gives it a little something extra. And the film does its best to sidestep the obvious Carrie comparisons. But there's also nonsense kills (death by vote tallying computer?) and the characters all share a rather callous attitude towards each other (the previously likable goofball who forces a Prom Queen hopeful to blow him serves to provide what, exactly, besides an awful sexist punchline?). But when the ghoulish gal of the title finally reemerges, it makes one wish the film had followed through on its promise of a female villain in the spirit of Freddy or Jason-- that would have been actual novelty, though.

Domino wrote:But when the ghoulish gal of the title finally reemerges, it makes one wish the film had followed through on its promise of a female villain in the spirit of Freddy or Jason-- that would have been actual novelty, though.

The Sleepaway Camp films, or at least the second and third entries, did exactly this, albeit with tongue in cheek. The second one even went so far as to have the female killer don a hockey mask and wield Freddy gloves (stolen from some film buff campers) for a couple kills. The VHS cover that I always saw in video stores when I'd visit the horror section as a kid sort of states its intentions. Not great movies, but I found their cheerful sense of humour about their own bad taste infectious.

Bad link. Second that series good bad taste. I don't even know what to make morally of the end to the first one it's easily the strangest motive of any slasher.

knives wrote:Bad link. Second that series good bad taste. I don't even know what to make morally of the end to the first one it's easily the strangest motive of any slasher.

Does the link work now?

The end to Sleepaway Camp is still one of the most disturbing twists of any slasher I've seen, not just for what it reveals, but the creepy way it reveals it. It's definitely one of the more interesting slasher films for having the main character be a shy prepubescent girl. A better movie than petty much all of the camp-set Friday the 13th entries, even if it is totally ridiculous.

Nope on link. Agreed on Sleepaway Camp though. There are still aspects that I just can't wrap my head around. It really only needs a push, maybe not even that, to go straight into John Waters territory yet it manages to be so creepy for reasons I can't explain. I guess it just shows the power of a thought done with enough seriousness no matter how out there can succeed with just the right level of talent.

Seems like the perfect opportunity for these very brief slashernotes

THE BURNING Tony Maylam, 1981
As Friday the 13th rip-offs go, unusually well-crafted, visually rich, and concerned with genuine stakes in its violence. There’s only one kill in the first 45 minutes, and in very rare form for the genre, the interplay between the film’s characters is based less in a puritanical look-down on their rampaging libidos than in their adolescent devotion to each other. The geek who can’t swim encounters nothing but empathy and protective camaraderie from his peers and the lone lunkhead horndog is skewered as a parody of the comparatively dim view of adolescence taken by so many other slashers (and what a weird mix of tones that premature ejaculation sequence is...). When the slaughters do come, they’re in the form of some of Tom Savini’s best and most gruesome work, with Maylam displaying a knack for when to hold a single image in the midst of chaos for maximum effect (something also in abundance with his later Split Second, a very fun sci-fi/horror neo-noir with Rutger Hauer in peak 80s-hangover mode). A genuine surprise that stands an outside chance at making my list.

AMERICAN GOTHIC John Hough, 1987
Of all the VHS covers that inexplicably terrified me as a child, this one probably takes the cake, but I’m fairly certain it would have bored me to death if I ever bothered to watch it. Rod Steiger slums it, Michael J. Pollard acts weird, backwoods necrophilia, you get the picture.

DEADLY LESSONS William Wiard, 1983
Tame but passable TV slasher-w/out-the-slashing notable primarily for its cast of before-they-were-famouses (Bill Paxton, Ally Sheedy, Nancy Cartwright) and why-were-they-evers (Larry Wilcox). It takes great pleasure in introducing half a dozen first-act suspects and proceeding to build up ridiculous red herrings around them as the fabulously bitchy schoolgirl archetypes get PG-killed. Donna Reed has a lot of fun as the fascist headmistress (“right out of Oliver Twist!”).

The original Prom Night is a quite straight ahead Halloween slasher film rip-off, even to the extent of starring Jamie Lee Curtis. I've never seen the sequel but from domino's description it definitely sounds as if it stole quite a few cues from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise that came along in the interim.

The first film isn't anything particularly outstanding - it has one neat extended stalk and slash sequence that moves from the school bathroom through some of the darkened classrooms and janitor closets ending up in a parking garage and in one particular car. But it is really a non sequitur sequence, given that the character we have been following gets killed!

One of the major flaws of slasher films is that usually most of the 'interesting' characterisation (i.e. giving characters some slight moment of individuality that sets them apart from the crowd and simultaneously marks them for death) occurs in the pre-murder stalking sequences and then with the murders things get reset to the main branch of ongoing narrative. Something like Argento's Inferno or Suspiria makes that ongoing narrative interesting in its own right, but unfortunatey Prom Night just returns to the main hall of the school for some more disco dancing scenes until another character decides to wander off on their own and get murderered.

The disco dancing scenes are cheesy fun though. Jamie Lee Curtis is surprisingly subdued in the lead role (but does liven up during a couple of the dance scenes!), to the point where I cannot exactly say what the point of her being in the film was, except to bring the Halloween crowd into the theatre. Speaking of which Leslie Neilsen is in the pre-credits sequence of the film but his presence is nothing to get excited about - he is only there for a minute or two at most and while Prom Night was made the same year he got revitalised as a comic actor in Airplane!, his part here seems much more to be the very tail end of his 'serious' roles.

tarpilot wrote:THE BURNING Tony Maylam, 1981
As Friday the 13th rip-offs go, unusually well-crafted, visually rich, and concerned with genuine stakes in its violence. There’s only one kill in the first 45 minutes, and in very rare form for the genre, the interplay between the film’s characters is based less in a puritanical look-down on their rampaging libidos than in their adolescent devotion to each other. The geek who can’t swim encounters nothing but empathy and protective camaraderie from his peers and the lone lunkhead horndog is skewered as a parody of the comparatively dim view of adolescence taken by so many other slashers (and what a weird mix of tones that premature ejaculation sequence is...). When the slaughters do come, they’re in the form of some of Tom Savini’s best and most gruesome work, with Maylam displaying a knack for when to hold a single image in the midst of chaos for maximum effect (something also in abundance with his later Split Second, a very fun sci-fi/horror neo-noir with Rutger Hauer in peak 80s-hangover mode). A genuine surprise that stands an outside chance at making my list.

The Burning was the first film for (blink and you'll miss her) Holly Hunter and (he's in it much longer) Jason Alexander (aka George from Seinfeld). It is also one of only two films written by Harvey Weinstein! I like the film a lot - it is pure exploitation but handles its generic backstory and slasher murders a lot more effectively (and ruthlessly) than the Friday The 13th series does. The canoe/raft scene is perhaps one of the classic scenes of the genre for quickly taking out a whole swathe of the supporting characters in one fell swoop!

I suppose the ending is also all the more effective for actually being the end of Cropsy and not having had any sequels to dilute its impact.

Spoiler

In fact that whole ending is quite interesting - this guy is getting back at all teenagers in general for having been burned in a childish prank years before, and then our innocent teen heroes end up having to finish the job by burning him to death! Like fulfilling a inevitable prophecy in a way.

I also agree on Split Second - a very strange post-apocalyptic (the Thames Barrier wasn't very effective in this alternate reality) London serial killer film, sort of like The Element of Crime if Lars Von Trier had adhered more to well worn action movie tropes of grizzled cops paired up with rookie bookworm partners and had replaced the yellow filter with a moody dark blue one. It even includes a scene where Hauer has a fight with his boss at the police station over being such a maverick, which explains why he's ended up getting thrown off every police force in America and ended up in the hellhole that is London. But goddammit he gets the job done! *Bangs desk emphatically*

Tony Maylam seems a odd choice to have directed a American summer camp slasher film. He had previously done the extremely staid pre-First World War yachting film The Riddle of the Sands but it seems that other veteran British directors were also 'slumming it' with American slasher films at that time, most notably Ken Hughes (Cromwell, Trials of Oscar Wilde, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the 60s Casino Royale), whose last film was Night School (which was Rachel Ward's first film and under the title Terror Eyes also got caught up in the whole video nasty scare, just as The Burning did, although Night School didn't stay on the list).

Hey guys, I went to camp too!

the Burning (Tony Maylam 1981) Proof that a little goodwill goes a long way, this one fills its victims roster with teens who mildly engage the audience before getting offed in graphic and surprising ways. Though no doubt envisioned in a callous manner by the young Weinsteins as to how best exploit the market, this nonetheless works better than its immediate brethren thanks to a smart construction and some clever jump scares, my favorite being the superb misdirection of the contents of a floating canoe.

Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik 1983) So I liked your Burning movie, Board, but I hated your Sleepaway one. I spent most of the running time trying to figure out how to sum up the experience of this film in as few words as possible. Eventually I realized I could do it in one: abrasive. Every element of this movie, from the unphotogenic cast (who certainly weren't hired for their acting ability either) screaming tone def, obscenity-laden dialog at each other to the mean-spirited sexual politics and easy lobs at provocation, is sandpaper for the soul. If there were more than fifteen minutes left, I'd have stopped watching after the deplorable curling iron scene, and I always finish films. Sometimes enough is just enough. But to be honest, the putrid amateur-hour theatrics of every minute that came before it was just as offensive, if in a different fashion. I am glad to see the creative team behind this one had no hand in the immediate sequels, as otherwise I'd dump them from my unwatched pile now.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (Steve Miner 1981) I will begrudgingly admit I enjoyed this return bite at the apple which in all ways surpasses the original. I know, talk about damning with faint praise, but I thought it was a modestly clever commentary on not only the first film's shortcomings, but also the pop airport psychology that was popular at the time. Add to that a fairly innocuous approach to the depicted violence that never dwells and indeed seems disinterested in the gore and this went down much smoother than I'd have ever dreamed. Here's to hoping for more bright spots within the rest of the series.

There's really only one more bright spot to the series (unless you count Cronenberg's cameo) and it's this.

knives beat me to it. The Final Chapter is definitely the best entry and worth a watch, but what I remember of A New Beginning's excess might warrant a revisit.

I've always thought Part 6 was by far the best in the series. It showed just how far some professional cinematography and a modicum of timing goes. The referential humour, gothic trappings, better than usual cast, and a narrative structure that actually allowed for some momentum really ups its watchability.

domino wrote:Friday the 13th Part 2 (Steve Miner 1981) I will begrudgingly admit I enjoyed this return bite at the apple which in all ways surpasses the original. I know, talk about damning with faint praise, but I thought it was a modestly clever commentary on not only the first film's shortcomings, but also the pop airport psychology that was popular at the time. Add to that a fairly innocuous approach to the depicted violence that never dwells and indeed seems disinterested in the gore and this went down much smoother than I'd have ever dreamed. Here's to hoping for more bright spots within the rest of the series.

Sorry to say, the "disinterest in gore" here is owed solely to the MPAA, as they regularly took a hatchet to the various installments (number 7 got it particularly bad, to the point that Jaws probably has more blood and gore). Still, this one did outright steal two kills from Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve/Bay of Blood. I have to admit the commentary you found in this movie went completely unnoticed by me, as I always saw it as a boring retread of the already dire first film, with the only real amusement coming from the idea that someone actually thought a guy wearing overalls, cowboy boots, and a potato sack over his head would be frightening.

My favorite take down of part II basically called it a pornographic remake of the first with acts of violence replacing cum shots. I think it was the first movie I genuinely disliked.

knives wrote:My favorite take down of part II basically called it a pornographic remake of the first with acts of violence replacing cum shots. I think it was the first movie I genuinely disliked.

*shrugs* I've always thought the pornography argument against this or that slasher lazy, and not just because it's using pornography's negative connotations, which are taken for granted, to generate the argument. The similarity isn't so much in the content than the structure: a long build-up followed by a release. It's indicting the structure of suspense, basically, without realizing that that's what it's doing. It spins its argument off of a not-terribly-revealing comparison between a spurt of fake blood and a spurt of seminal fluid, but invariably ends up criticizing such a moment's structural purpose of capping off a lengthy build-up.

It was referring to the sex, not calling it pornographic in the sense you are thinking, but rather saying it acts out like a porno but instead of the sex scenes ending in a cum shot they end with a random act of violence with no suspence.

knives wrote:It was referring to the sex, not calling it pornographic in the sense you are thinking, but rather saying it acts out like a porno but instead of the sex scenes ending in a cum shot they end with a random act of violence with no suspence.

Ah, I see. They're probably referring mostly to the scene (lifted from the Bava film) where the couple are skewered by the spear while fucking.

Something I always found amusing about the first film is how overtly sexual Kevin Bacon's death is, and how it becomes an odd gender reversal, coming as it does right after he's finished having sex with the girl. I don't doubt that someone somewhere has written a thirty page academic paper on this, even tho' I'm pretty sure it was totally accidental (and incidental).

Watched a double bill of William Castle pics this weekend, MR. SARDONICUS and HOMICIDAL. While I don't know if HOMICIDAL would be considered pure horror, it has a great interesting premise, copious amounts of what must have been shocking violence and blood for the time period, an amusing twist ending (which really with the bad makeup and dubbing you can pretty much see from a mile away) and finally a spectacularly enigmatic leading actress. It was apparently Castle's answer to PSYCHO, and it really is effective in an almost surreal, very highly stylized way.
MR. SARDONICUS on the other hand is very gothic with over an unbelievably over the top story and actually very effective makeup work. I genuinely thought this one was creepy and effective in spite of how "big" the story can get at times. I definitely need to check out more Castle as I always really avoided him due to his reputation as being a campy "schlock-meister." Some pretty brilliant, brutal stuff.

YnEoS wrote:Pontypool - One of my favorite modern horror films and one of the few horror films that actually scares me. With this the less you know going in the better, but let's say it takes a whole new approach to the idea that showing less can be scarier.

This was wonderfully inventive, cerebral horror - I really enjoyed it! Its quite remarkable that a film with such a wild premise can feel so perfectly conceived, even in the smallest details, but this film succeeds with such panache that I was left speechless (ahem) at its end. Also, sequestered in with the actors as you are (who refreshingly, were all fully realized people, devoid of genre cliche), the tension really seeps into you on an intimate level. Thanks for recommending it, I'll find Pontypool a comfortable spot on my list.

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As a lover of languages, I really got a kick out of the offbeat humor embedded in their frenglish... "tu vas 'kill' le docteur", etc. If I were nominating a film to be included in my fantasy linguistics course, this would definitely be it.

Mr Sausage wrote:I have to admit the commentary you found in this movie went completely unnoticed by me, as I always saw it as a boring retread of the already dire first film, with the only real amusement coming from the idea that someone actually thought a guy wearing overalls, cowboy boots, and a potato sack over his head would be frightening.

Which is apparently a motif taken from The Town That Dreaded Sundown.

stroszeck wrote:While I don't know if HOMICIDAL would be considered pure horror, it has a great interesting premise, copious amounts of what must have been shocking violence and blood for the time period, an amusing twist ending (which really with the bad makeup and dubbing you can pretty much see from a mile away) and finally a spectacularly enigmatic leading actress. It was apparently Castle's answer to PSYCHO, and it really is effective in an almost surreal, very highly stylized way.

This is definitely a spoiler for that Bruce Willis erotic thriller Color of Night but:

Spoiler

Jane March in that film has to perform a very similar kind of dual role, and when she is in her highly amusing 'pretending to be a guy' garb is almost a dead ringer for Warren in Homicidal, to the extent that I wonder if the filmmakers were doing a homage to the Castle film!

I like Homicidal a lot, especially the novel murder method of trapping a wheelchair bound person on their stairlift and driving them towards your waiting knife! Plus the fright break here is great, obviously an influence on the very similar 'werewolf break' in The Beast Must Die!

EDIT: I forgot Seul contre tous!

Thought you meant the Charbrol The Beast Must Die (which will be appearing on my list probably) at first sending me into a light flight of confusion.

You missed the werewolf in the Chabrol film? It was driving the car that knocked the child down at the start! (Just kidding! But I have that title confusion problem too!)

I was weirdly relieved to discover that one of the "experts" on the series who pops up in a lot of the extras (God, I'd keep that off my CV) also considers the second installment of Friday the 13th to be the best (though I'm only 1/3 of the way through the whole saga-- yikes!), if just to give me some perspective outside of the microcosm of the forum.

Friday the 13th Part III (Steve Miner 1982) What a piece of shit. If there's an overarching theme to this film, it's "Don't give a fukk." No one involved can be bothered to be bothered and thus we get an hour and a half of 3-D sight gags so hackneyed that even Dr Tongue would be ashamed, and all in 'Scope for some unknown reason. Certainly not aesthetic. Minor points awarded for the disco theme song and the half-assed "badass" biker gang that consists of a middle-aged balding man and a woman wearing turquoise jewelry. Major points deducted for every other element of this piece of shit. Did I mention this film is a piece of shit?

Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter (Joseph Zito 1984) I mean, anything other than the previous film is a step in the right direction, but at least in the prior installments Jason seemed somewhat human and therefore vulnerable and therefore threatening. Here he's the Enerdiezer Bunny, crashing through doors and windows (Jason should be on the Sears payroll for the work he's providing in his wake), shrugging off his own vivisected appendages, and at least twice appearing in two places at the same time. And God what a yawn all that is. It's like watching someone try to outfight (and outrun) a wall. On some level I can appreciate that this film has more creative kills and attempts at characterization, sort of, and at the very least seems to be providing the excess gore and nudity the previous installments teased, but to what end?

domino, do you intend to watch any good films for this project?

Jason's seeming ability to teleport is something of a running joke among fans of the series. By number 8 they finally cave in and just literally give him the ability to teleport.

Also, domino, number 3 is going to look like a work of genius next to what you're about to experience.

Anyone else get Joseph Zito mixed with Joe Spinell? I blame that character from Maniac for that. By the way to get on good films any other Lustig fans here? I'll likely only be voting for Maniac, but all five of those horror films are pretty good. also a nice opening for people wanting to get into Larry Cohen.