Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987)

Posted on October 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

rock n roll nightmare 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rock band gets slaughtered.

In a remote Canadian farmhouse a family is killed by some evil spirits from hell. Now, years later a rock band called The Tritons uses the place as a recording studio, but soon both they and their girlfriends start getting killed off one-by-one by the same spirits. Eventually only lead singer John (Jon Mikl Thor) remains and with his big muscular physique and fashionably long hair decides to take them on singlehandedly.

This low budget cheapie was shot at an isolated farmhouse near Markham, Ontario in a mere seven days and suffers from an excessive amount of footage on stuff that doesn’t matter like spending the first five minutes watching the group’s van driving down the highway. The dialogue and characters are predictably cardboard and the special effects unimpressive except for the moment where a monster’s hand pops out of a guy’s stomach, which wasn’t bad.

The film, which ends up being nothing more than a vanity project of its star who also wrote and produced it, has a million and one holes. For one thing it is never explained why these spirits attack this farmhouse or why a big sound studio was built in a place that had a family slaughtered in it or even why the people that constructed the studio weren’t killed just like the family and band members were.

If you are going to watch it then do like I did with a few beers at hand and a group of people who make jokes at it much of which are  far more entertaining than anything on the screen.

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My Rating: 1 out of 10

Alternate Title: The Edge of Hell

Released: July, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Fasano

Studio: Shapiro Entertainment

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Killer Workout (1987)

Posted on October 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

killer workout 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Safety pins aren’t safe.

Years earlier a woman is badly burned during a tanning salon mishap. Now her sister Rhonda (Marcia Karr) is running a fitness center where the women are systematically being killed off. Could the two be in some way connected? Detective Morgan (David James Campbell) thinks so and will stop at nothing to get the truth out of his main suspect even if it means resorting to unethical methods.

This cliché ridden formulaic late 80’s slasher has achieved some cult status simply for its mind numbing stupidity. The film’s most ridiculous aspect is that the killer murders his victims with a SAFETY PIN! That’s right a safety pin that is a little bit larger than your typical one, but not by much. Some of the victims go down after being stabbed by it only a couple of times and in one instance it manages to somehow go through a man’s skull!

killer workout 1

You have to wonder why no one on the cast or crew alerted the director to how stupid this was, or who even came up with the insane idea, but it does to some degree ponder the imagination and the only thing one goes away thinking about afterwards.

There are a lot of shots of female derrieres in thong bikinis, which normally for most male viewers is a good thing and certainly something that the producers thought would be enough to hide its otherwise lame production values, but it isn’t. Only for those who get a kick out of cheesy 80’s fashions and attitudes of which there is plenty.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Alternate Title: Aerobicide

Released: April 16, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark A. Prior

Studio: Shapiro Entertainment

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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Willard (1971)

Posted on October 25, 2014 | 3 comments

willard 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: He likes his rats.

Willard Stiles (Bruce Davison) is a young man still living at home with his domineering mother (Elsa Lanchester) and dealing with a demanding boss (Ernest Borgnine) at work. To escape his loneliness and frustration he befriends some rats that he finds in his backyard and starts training them to do his bidding. Soon he is getting revenge on all those who have wronged him by having his rats attack them, but ultimately the rats have an agenda of their own.

The film starts out poorly and doesn’t improve as it goes along. The main character seems too old for this type of thing and would be better suited for a bullied teen looking for revenge instead of a 27-year-old that’s still strangely living at home even though he has a job and could be out on his own. The idea that he would become so obsessed with rats after seeing one in his backyard and then be able to somehow ‘communicate’ with them and train them is highly farfetched and happens much too quickly.

The rats themselves aren’t very scary and in fact—I can’t believe I’m saying this either—they really kind of seemed cute most of the time and when Willard initially tries drowning them in a pool I was starting to feel sorry for them as I did when the Borgnine character kills one in the office. When Willard has them invade a party with snooty guests I found it to be quite funny and not ‘horrifying’ at all. The only thing I didn’t like about them was their incessant high-pitched screeching, which eventually becomes irritating.

Daniel Mann’s sterile direction lacks atmosphere or style and the film has a very cheap and dated look even for 1971. Alex North’s musical score is much too soft, melodic and playful for a horror film and at times seemed better suited for a Disney movie.

Davison with his blonde, blue-eyed all-American looks doesn’t have the right menacing quality for the part and Crispin Glover who played the role in the 2003 remake is a much better choice. Lanchester is fun as the overbearing mother as is Jody Gilbert as a meddlesome aunt who looks much more frightening than any of the rats. Borgnine adds some spunk and I loved the way his eyes grow big and round when he sees the rats invading his office and the part where he gets attacked by them is the best moment in the film.

Why this movie became the big hit that it did is a mystery to me. Only at the very end when we see hundreds of rats running across the floor does it ever get even slightly creepy, but overall it is lame and boring and a good candidate for Bad Movie honors.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 18, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Daniel Mann

Studio: Cinema Releasing Corporation

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies

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The Collector (1965)

Posted on October 23, 2014 | 3 comments

the collector 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Collecting women like butterflies.

Freddie (Terence Stamp) is a withdrawn loner who collects butterflies for a hobby. One day he manages to win a lot of money in a football pool and uses it buy an old, isolated house in the English countryside. The place has a very large cellar, which gives him the idea that it can be used as a prison. It is then that he decides to kidnap beautiful art student Miranda (Samantha Eggar). He keeps her in the cellar, but fixes it up making it seem almost like an apartment. He treats her with the upmost respect and even knocks before entering her room. He buys her art supplies so she can continue her work and makes an agreement with her that he will let her go after 4-weeks, but hopes in between then that she will fall in love with him.

The film puts an interesting spin on the old ‘psycho kidnapping a beautiful woman’ theme and for the most part succeeds. The viewer ends up feeling almost as sorry for Freddie as they do his victim as it becomes clear that through his social awkwardness he is in even more of a prison than she. The way the two try to communicate and connect, which only ends up driving the them further apart is fascinating and their contrasting views about the book ‘Catcher in the Rye’ as well as the paintings of Picasso are equally revealing.

Stamp gives one of his greatest performances in his already illustrious career playing a character who weaves from being menacing to vulnerable and childlike. Eggar makes for an appealing victim and apparently turned Stamp down years earlier when he had asked for her date while the two were students in acting school.

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William Wyler’s direction is perfect as he wisely decides to pull back without adding any unnecessary Hitchcock touches and thus allowing the interactions between the two characters to propel the film. His superimposed, colorful shots of butterflies seen over the closing credits are a nice added touch. My only minor grievance is the Maurice Jarre score, which seemed too melodic without enough of the dark foreboding undertones that music for a thriller should have.

If you’re looking for the conventional thriller you may be disappointed as the emphasis is more on the psychological than the suspenseful. There are a few good tense moments including Miranda’s final attempt to escape during a nighttime rain storm, but for the most part the compelling element comes from the way these two multi-layered people deal with each other and ultimately reveal things about themselves that they didn’t know existed. The story also makes an excellent point of how everyone to a certain degree is trapped in a prison and the challenging if not impossible effort it can sometimes be to bond with others especially when reaching across different social-economic lines. The only thing that does get ruined is the ending, which no longer has the novelty or shock value that it once did.

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My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 17, 1965

Runtime: 1Hour 59Minutes

Not Rated

Director: William Wyler

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Psychological, Thrillers/Suspense

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Wolfen (1981)

Posted on October 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

wolfen 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wolves on the attack.

Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is assigned to investigate a particularly savage attack that occurred in Battery Park in New York City where a real estate magnate and his wife and bodyguard where gruesomely killed by some mysterious being that the police initially peg as a terrorist act. As Wilson investigates further and in talking with some experts he comes to the opinion that it may be wolves that killed them, but not the everyday wolf instead they are ghostly spirits intent on protecting their sacred ground. As the body count continues Wilson tries unorthodox methods to understand and stop these strange animals that remain invisible and elusive to the human eye.

For a horror film, which is based on the novel by Whitley Streiber, it has a refreshingly different approach to the material making it seem more like a modern-day drama and character study. Director Michael Wadleigh nicely captures the ambience and attitude of the city. The authentic feel and multi-dimensional lead character helps make the story more compelling. The use of showing things from the wolves’ point-of-view that gets captured through a unique colored lens is initially captivating and creepy.

Unfortunately the film does the P.O.V. thing too often, which eventually becomes redundant and boring. The genteel tone does not create enough tension and the film is barely ever suspenseful. There is one good decapitation scene, but otherwise the gore and special effects are minimal. The runtime is too long and the pacing could have been better. A good horror film or even a thriller needs a good scary image of the threat at hand to hold onto and create the fear for the viewer, but we are never shown the wolves at all until the very end. I did like the one part where the Diane Venora character goes roaming around an abandoned church and almost gets attacked by one of the wolves whose red eyes we see, but I wanted to see more of this since it was the only time I got even slightly frightened.

Finney is an odd choice for the lead. Simply because he has a reputation as being a great actor does not mean he is perfect for every role and having a grizzled New York cop speak with a British accent is off-putting. He is also too old and his relationship with a female cop that is clearly 20 years younger looks weird. I did like Edward James Olmos who takes off his clothes at one point and effectively acts like a real wolf and the scene where he has a menacing conversation with Finney while high on top of a bridge is memorable.

Spoiler Alert!!

My biggest beef comes with the ending in which Finney finds himself surrounded by the wolves and in an attempt to appease them smashes the model of the construction site that was going to be built on their sacred ground, which satisfies them enough to leave him alone and go away, but it came off as corny, farfetched and anti-climactic to me. It also makes the wolves who the viewer has feared throughout the film suddenly look like the ‘good guy’  and thus stripping all the ‘horror’ from this supposed thriller and makes sitting through it a pointless waste of time.

End of Spoiler Alert!!

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 24, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Wadleigh

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Police Drama

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The Night God Screamed (1971)

Posted on October 16, 2014 | 1 comment

the night God screamed 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Nailed to the cross.

Willis and Fanny Pierce (Alex Nicol, Jeanne Crain) are an older, spiritual couple who drive along the national highways with a giant cross stuck to the top of their car. They come to a small town where Willis decides to start up a church. Unfortunately they get the unwanted attention of Billy Joe (Michael Sugich) who runs a Manson-like religious cult filled with drugged-out hippies. He feels Willis is potential competition, so late one night he and his cohorts sneak into the church and nail Willis to the cross all to the horror of Fanny who is so frightened she doesn’t do anything and instead hides in a closet. Billy Joe is later convicted of the crime and sent to prison, but his followers are not happy and seek revenge. When Fanny is hired to ‘babysit’ a group of older teens they go on the attack creating one long night of terror for Fanny and the teens.

Clearly this is a rip-off of the Charles Manson crimes, but for all of the films from that period that tried to capitalize on the fear that those crimes brought this has to be one of the better ones. The electronic music score, camera angles and shadowy lighting create an effective eerie feeling. The movie moves at a decent pace and the shot of Willis crucified to the cross is shocking and edgier than most other films from that period. The second half, which features Crain and the teens trapped in a house with the hooligans harassing them from outside manages to build up some decent tension.

Crain looks and behaves as if she were snatched directly out of the 1940’s and seems completely out-of-place with the period or other characters and yet the extreme contrast actually makes it more interesting. Sugich is great as the cult leader and it’s unfortunate he wasn’t on for the entire duration. I did think it was unrealistic though that he is seen at his trial without handcuffs, or a prison suit or even having his hair cut, which in reality I think would have happened and probably made him look even creepier.

Although the film is low budget and terribly dated I did think is was entertaining enough to be passable especially for fans of 70’s schlock. My biggest complaint comes with the twist ending, which although surprising isn’t completely plausible and leaves open too many loose ends. It reminded me too much of those ghost stories kids like to tell around a campfire that would always hinge on some unexpected ending and made this entire production seem more like a cutesy concept than an actual story.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: June 4, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 26Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Lee Madden

Studio: Cinemation Industries

Available: VHS, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Obscure Movies

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Terror Train (1980)

Posted on October 13, 2014 | 1 comment

terror train 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer wears different disguises.

Some frat boys decide to play a nasty prank on a vulnerable student named Kenny Hampson (Derek McKinnon) which causes him to have a mental breakdown and be sent away. Now, three years later the same group of college kids gets together on a train for a raucous New Year’s Eve costume party. The problem is so does a mysterious killer who after killing each of his victims puts on the disguise that they were wearing making it impossible to track him.

Supposedly the idea for the film is the brainstorm of executive producer Daniel Grodnik who after seeing both Halloween and Silver Streak woke up one night with the inspiration of combining the two films and making a slasher movie aboard a train.  I admit when I first saw this film many years ago I thought it was pretty cool, but now upon second viewing it seems formulaic and predictable. It takes too long to get going with the first hour spent focusing on the doings of stereotypically jaded college kids who aren’t very appealing. The scares are few with the only real intense part coming at the end when the Jaimie Lee Curtis character locks herself in a cage and the killer tries desperately to get into it. The gore is also sparse and not impressive including a decapitated head that doesn’t look anything like the victim’s.

There is also a lot of glaring loopholes including having the killer murder someone inside one of the train’s cramped bathrooms and then managing to clean up all the blood, which would have taken a lot of time seeing how much there was of it, and then carting off the dead body without anyone noticing. During the climactic sequence Curtis’s character stabs the psycho in his eye, but later when the killer gets unmasked his eye and face look fine without any indication of scratches or cuts.

Curtis is a fine actress, but her presence did nothing but remind me of Halloween and they would have been better off casting someone else. Ben Johnson, who is technically listed as the star, adds some much needed stature and it is nice having a middle-aged character not portrayed as a clueless out-of-touch drip like they usually are in these types of films. Hart Bochner looks and acts like the perfect caricature of a smart-ass frat boy and its fun seeing him turn from cocky and arrogant at the beginning to desperate and frightened at the end. Magician David Copperfield is on hand essentially playing himself and some of his magic tricks are the most interesting part of the movie.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Rated R

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, College Life, Horror, Movies with a train setting, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Slasher/Gore

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The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975)

Posted on October 12, 2014 | 1 comment

the reincarnation of peter proud

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Reliving a past life.

College professor Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin) starts having reoccurring dreams where he sees himself living a past life somewhere in a small New England town and killed by a woman (Margot Kidder) while out on a lake. The dreams become so strong that they interfere with his job and even his relationship with his girlfriend Nora (Cornelia Sharpe). He travels to Massachusetts in search of the place and finally finds it and even starts a relationship with Ann (Jennifer O’Neill) who may be his daughter from the previous incarnation. He also meets her mother Marcia who is the same woman who he sees killing him in a past life during his dreams. As the three get to know each other tensions and dark secrets eventually begin to surface.

The idea has some potential, but director J. Lee Thompson gives the material a very standard treatment making it seem almost like a pedestrian drama. The dialogue is dull and corny, the characters cardboard and the storyline is predictable and formulaic. For what is supposed to be a horror movie/mystery it is not very compelling or intense. The visions that Peter sees in his dream are quite ordinary and generic and eventually become redundant. In fact the film’s only twisted moment, which is when Peter makes love to Ann, who is technically his daughter from a past life, gets treated like a sweet romantic scene instead of the underlying perverse act that it really is.

The story also gets farfetched including having Peter drives through every town in Massachusetts until he finds the one he is looking for. The character of the dream researcher, which is played by actor Paul Hecht, gets overly enthusiastic about Peter’s statements regarding experiencing reincarnation and becomes almost wide-eyed at the idea of writing a book about it and making millions even though a true researcher would be much more reserved about what Peter was saying and realize it would entail much more years of study before it could even be termed a reality. I also thought it was strange that when they put Peter into a sleep study the machine is unable to read the dreams that Peter is having about his past life. Supposedly this is because they are not dreams, but ‘visions’ of some sort, but wouldn’t that still create brain activity in order for Peter to see them and thus still get recorded on the machine?

Jennifer O’Neill is always great to watch simply because of her beautiful face and Cornelia Sharpe has a few choice nude scenes as Peter’s sarcastic girlfriend, but Margot Kidder is miscast as O’Neill’s mother. For one thing she is the same age as O’Neill and although they try to make her look older by putting some gray streaks in her hair her skin is still quite smooth and in need of some age lines in order to look more authentic. However, the scene where she masturbates while naked in a tub isn’t bad.

The ending is terrible and makes having to sit through this thing a complete waste of time.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: April 25, 1975

Runtime: 1Hour 45Minutes

Rated R

Director: J. Lee Thompson

Studio: American International Pictures (AIP)

Available: VHS

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Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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The Hearse (1980)

Posted on October 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

the hearse 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Haunted by a hearse.

Jane (Trish Van Devere) is recuperating from a nervous breakdown and decides to move away from the bustle of big city life into a home left to her from her recently deceased aunt, which is situated in a small town. Unfortunately things do not go smoothly. The townspeople are reticent to Jane’s presence and weird things begin to occur including a mysterious big, black hearse that appears late at night and seemingly intent on running Jane over.

I remember I first heard of this film when it was shown on Showtime during the early 80’s as part of their ‘After Hours’ films, which typically amounted to soft core sex flicks and gory horror. However, this film was only rate PG, which always made me wonder how ‘adult’ or scary could it really be.

To some degree this fares slightly better than the usual low budget horror flick at least at the beginning. There are some nice on-location shots of the San Francisco bay area and the main character is likable enough. The production values are decent and the story, as thin as it is, has a certain intriguing quality to it.

Van Devere makes for a strong female protagonist as she is quite practical and doesn’t allow herself to scare easily and seeing a female character that is confident and poised and not used simply as a sex object especially in these types of films is a refreshing change. After a while though I started to think that the character became a little too stubborn as there were so many bad things that started to occur that I think I would have left and not come back and the fact that she stays past when most other people wouldn’t makes her seem a bit irrational.

The atmosphere is minimal and the scares are almost non-existent and depend almost completely on a few doors slamming and windows bursting open for no reason. Moments of intruders breaking into the home and shots of their feet silently creeping up the stairs starts to become redundant and dull. A dream-like funeral sequence can’t save what is otherwise a slow moving plot. The ‘secret’ behind the hearse’s presence isn’t very imaginative and the film borrows too many elements from other cheesy haunted house films without adding anything unique or distinctive in the process.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: June 5, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 39Minutes

Rated PG

Director: George Bowers

Studio: Crown International Pictures

Available: DVD (Drive-In Cult Classics Vol. 2)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Ghost Story, Horror, Movies with a rural setting

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Bells (1982)

Posted on October 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

bells 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Don’t answer the phone.

People are being killed throughout the city of Toronto by simply answering the phone. Apparently someone has come up with a device that can create a massive electronic blast that can go through the phone lines and kill anyone listening on the other end. The blast is so strong that it can even melt the receiver. Nat Bridger (Richard Chamberlain) who is a professor at a local college decides to take matters into his own hands and investigate on his own after one of his students is killed and the police seem to do nothing about it.

Initially I found this idea to be intriguing and original, but unfortunately it throws credibility completely out the window. Had it worked more with the idea of sending some loud noise at an extremely high decibel over the phone, which would then blow out the person’s ear drum, or something of that nature then I might have bought into it. Instead it has some sort of unexplained blast that literally makes the person at the other end blow off of their seat and fly backwards crashing into walls and windows, which seems utterly ridiculous and cartoonish. The film also offers no scientific explanation to how this device was created or done, which makes it farfetched and pointless.

Chamberlain’s one-dimensional acting doesn’t help and his presence in the lead role is quite generic as he plays a character that shows the street smarts and fighting ability of a seasoned cop instead of that of a college professor making things even more unrealistic. John Houseman gets a rather thankless supporting role as Chamberlain’s mentor and is pretty much wasted except for a bit where he disrupts a guided tour through a phone company which proves mildly amusing.

The technology is horribly dated making the entire thing a relic of a bygone era and irrelevant to today’s audiences.  The climatic sequence dealing with Chamberlain’s attempts to keep the bad guy on the phone while the police try to trace the number is highly clichéd and more boring than intense. Director Michael Anderson’s attempts to jazz things up a bit by photographing phones in intimidating ways with ominous music playing in the background comes off as unintentionally funny instead of scary.

This Canadian made thriller was originally released under the title above and ran for 95 minutes, but the Warner Home Video version, which was released in 1998 and goes under the title of Murder by Phone was trimmed by 15 minutes. The version reviewed here is from the original release although the film is so silly that watching the shorter cut might be preferred simply because it would mean less time wasted.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Alternate Title: Murder by Phone

Released: May 11, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Anderson

Studio: Canadian Film Development Corporation

Available: VHS (as Murder by Phone)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Foreign Films, Horror, Low Budget, Movies from Canada, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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