Deadly Manor (1990)

Here we have another Spanish production shot in upstate New York with an American cast. These can either be fun or a complete mess. Sometimes like in the case of Pieces it is both! I suppose it is time to see where Deadly Manor will land on that scale.

This “late to the game feels like an eighties horror flick” kicks off interestingly enough. We see some naked bodies lying on the side of the road from an apparent motorcycle accident. Were they riding naked? What happened? Why does a car speed off? Warning guys this is the sort of movie that will drive you nuts if you try and apply logic to. After this interesting bit and some credits, we get to the main story.

There are some annoying young adults driving to the lake for vacation. They get lost and pick up a hitchhiker named Jack who claims to know his way around. Because picking up hitchhikers in horror movies never goes wrong… It gets dark so they drive off on a side road before finding a creepy old house. Seems like a nice place to spend the night. You know because trespassing in a creepy old house never ends up badly in a horror movie… I think that the scriptwriters for Deadly Manor had a checklist and were determined to hit all the tropes. People wander off to eventually get killed (more on that later) before we figure out who is killing them and why. Then the police show up and the movie mercifully ends.

This was painful. I’ve seen much worse flicks as far as execution. The shots are in frame, the cast delivers lines, and there is kind of a story that makes sense. But the pacing is the worst. After an opening scene that got my attention, we are treated to forty minutes of characters talking and arguing while the hitchhiker glares at them and looks suspicious. The first kill does only take twenty minutes, but we don’t see it and don’t know that it is a kill until much later. All the mayhem is concentrated in the last thirty minutes of the movie. This means that by the time anything of note actually happens I had long stopped caring about what I was watching.

If this wasn’t bad enough, we have characters disappear only to reappear much later without explanation. There is a bit of dialogue where someone is concerned that they can find Peter and Anne but the next time we see them they are still sleeping in the same room that the concerned character just stepped out of! Also does Jack die? He just disappears and is only mentioned because the cops that show up to save the day were looking for him as he was an escaped convict. There is even a dream sequence to further muddle things as I was thinking this was some sort of haunting movie. But later we find out it is a just a crazy man and his disfigured wife. So does that mean the character was just having a “grown up” dream of the woman? If so then why do we see her disfigured face and all stroll up to the bed. We don’t find out about the accident until much later so the character couldn’t possibly have known this.

See what happens when your movie is so boring I start to pay attention to the details? It doesn’t end well. Toss in some subpar gore with most of the kills being offscreen and what we do see nothing more than simple throat cuttings for the cherry on top of this turd sundae. I know that sounds a bit harsh but there is such a minimal effort put into Deadly Manor that I’m annoyed enough to go there. Obviously, I’m not going to recommend this one.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

The Alien Within (1995)

There were a ton of Alien knock off movies set in the deep sea that came out in the late eighties and thru most of the nineties. The best of them is probably Deep Star Six but there were a lot of lower budget efforts as well. The Alien Within is one of those and has the added bonus of being made under the Roger Corman Presents banner. If you aren’t familiar with that it was Showtime’s attempt to get into the low budget cheesy movie business. These lower budgeted flicks were made to go directly to the cable channel’s lineup. I should cover more of these as a few of them are a lot of fun. And as a double bonus this also checks another off my Roddy McDowall movie list. I will watch everything he did in his career damn it! But enough of that lets get to the good stuff here.

The movie opens with the crew of an underwater mining operation talking about being behind schedule and having to pull double shifts to meet their quota. This leads to an accident where one of the miners, Louis, gets hurt and suffers Uranium poisoning. Before that can settle in they get a distress call from a nearby Russian mining facility and go to help. When the arrive the crew is mostly dead, one of them that is alive tries to kill the other survivor before being gunned down, and there is evidence of a spaceship being found. Sound familiar? I think someone watched The Thing before writing this script.

McDowall is awesome as always!

The crew takes some of the bodies and the survivor back to their ship. Another crewmember breaks quarantine letting the Alien hiding inside out to infect others. This leads the crew to grab improvised weapons like flamethrowers and cobble together motion sensors to go on a bug hunt. Okay maybe they also watched the first couple Alien movies as well. There is also a lot of paranoia as they bicker over who is infected and dangerous. Which goes back to The Thing. Damn movie do you have an original idea? Spoilers… the answer to that is no! This all leads to a twist ending that I didn’t like all that much but also wasn’t too invested to be that annoyed by.

The Alien Within is exactly what I thought it would be. A completely derivative cheapie made to fill seventy five minutes. When you see the Concorde-New Horizons logo and realize that Roger Corman is involved then be assured that this isn’t going to be groundbreaking. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. While I’ve seen everything here done better in other movies this one isn’t too bad. The story moves along quickly and checks all the boxes you would expect. We get some over the top acting and goofy dialogue. This is delivered by the expected cast of “B” actors such as Melanie Shatner (Cthulhu Mansion), Don Stroud (too many to mention), Richard Biggs (Babylon 5), and my personal favorite Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night Franchise, The Legend of Hell House, and so many more). McDowall in particular is clearly having some fun playing the scientist that wants to save the “scientific find of the century” regardless of the danger.

The monster is an appropriately weird looking bit of latex that crawls in and out of the cast members. This allows you to see the monster without them having to create a giant creature effect. Instead, much of the big action sequences are left up to the cast members who are possessed. Leave it up to an old pro like Corman to keep his costs down. Along those lines it was also amusing that I recognized the sub and exterior footage from an earlier movie Lords of the Deep. Yeah, I’m a huge Corman nerd so I noticed things like this.

You get all the tropes in this one but packaged in a way that it gets to the fun and keeps it going until the end credits. Clearly this isn’t the kind of movie that you will want or need to rewatch like those it “borrows” from are. But if you grab a few friends and a couple adult beverages it can make for a nice evening. As of the writing of this review the movie is a bit hard to find but I did notice that is seems to show up now and again on various streaming services. If you see it give The Alien Within a chance.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Komodo (1999)

The movie opens with a ship unloading illegal animals on an island off of the coast of North Carolina. Some of those are mysterious looking eggs that the hippie (how they billed him, no judgement from me) drops. Nineteen years later, which we find out thanks to a nice crawl on the screen, a young boy named Patrick arrives on the island with his parents and his dog Buster. God Damn it movie don’t do it… After some exploring something chases him and yes they kill the dog. And his parents too! But I'm really sad about the dog. 

Things move to a time after that where we meet a therapist named Victoria who is trying to help Patrick. He has blocked out what happened and is suffering from PTSD. Her bright idea is to take him back on the island to see if they can trigger his memories and get him some resolution. The island is now off limits or at least I think it is. There is some question about that. What is obvious is the only people on the island are the oil company employees, specifically a couple of men hired to kill on the creatures running around on it. See those eggs from earlier were Komodo Dragons, which are endangered. If it were to get out that there was a colony of them on the island it would mean the company would have to stop drilling.

This led them to not telling anyone of the danger which the evil boss doubles down on when he callously gives the “no witnesses” order. Yep, everyone must die. Thankfully Oates, one of the hunters, saves Victoria and Patrick by flying them off in a helicopter to live happily ever after. Well other than the PTSD from all the other friends and relatives that Patrick just saw torn apart and eaten.

Komodo is one of those movies that you don’t want to overthink if you want to enjoy it. There are obvious plot holes that the audience needs to accept, and the movie has a sort of nonending that is a bit annoying. But what it lacks it more than makes up for by checking all the creature feature boxes. It establishes that there is something going on quickly and as much as I hate them killing the dog right off it does let you know that no one is safe. I mean honestly, they killed the dog! It is also a neat trick that they keep the creatures hidden for the first half hour or so while again letting the viewer know that there is danger. Showing the monster too early is a mistake that far too many of these movies commit.

When we do see the Komodo Dragons they look pretty good. They are brought to the screen with a combination of CGI and practical effects work. We get many closeups of the monster attacking the cast and it put a smile on my face to see the latex and rubber doing their thing. The appliances look great. When it is CGI, mostly for the long shots and them moving around the screen, it is also pretty good. CGI, especially in the late nineties, can be hit or miss but here they hit. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise since the director, Michael Lantieri, was a special effects guy on lots of movies including the first couple Jurassic Park flicks. When a guy comes from that side of the house it normally means that the creature effects will at least be good.

The cast has a couple familiar faces. Jill Hennessy is mostly known for her work on television but does a decent job here playing Victoria. She isn’t given much to do but does her best to bring what has to be the worst therapist ever to the screen. Billy Burke who I guess is best known to a certain crowd from the Twilight series is our heroic hunter who refuses to commit murder. They do try to shoehorn a backstory about a dead wife and being on the run in a ham-fisted way but again he isn’t given much to do other than shoot a shotgun and be heroic. Again, this isn’t the kind of movie you watch for plot and character development. Nope this is all about the big ass lizards!

While not a perfect movie this is a perfectly watchable creature feature. Manage your expectations and I think you will have fun with Komodo. This seems to be streaming all over the internet on various services as of the writing of this review so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Alien Escape (1997)

There is something comfortable and almost innocent about the straight to home video science fiction flicks of the mid to late nineties. I mean if anything that focuses on getting as many lovely ladies topless while connecting those scenes with a paper thin alien invasion story can be innocent. More on that later.

Things open with a naked lady in a shower. I did sort of warn you… Something is outside spying on her. She gets out of the shower and eventually is attacked by a black glove with I’m guessing someone attached to it. Then we see three ladies in a convertible. After trying to convince us that one of them is a lawyer they stop because you know girls have to pee in the woods. Hey man I’m sure that happens! Eventually they arrive at a resort aka. the house they rented to shoot the movie and find that the person they were expecting, Janet is missing. Yeah, she was the naked lady from earlier. But they do find another naked lady named Laticia who talks to them.

Later two of the girls get naked and get into a bathtub to soap each other up. Hey, I did tell you what to expect a couple of times already! The third, Cindy, goes for a walk. In the dark woods all alone. Then a lady hiker shows up… after getting naked in the stream to take a bath… and asks for a glass of water. The lawyer lady’s boss shows up and acts like a creep. He and the lady hiker get killed by the same black glove. Then Cindy finds a spaceship, shows the other girls. A car explodes they meet Matt, who is an alien, and the girls with Cindy get killed. Then Cindy gets naked with Matt, and they fight the bad alien that was killing everyone. The end.

This isn’t a good movie, but I was entertained. When I was younger all the ladies would have been the reason I liked Alien Escape, but an older and much more jaded (thanks internet) me had to find other reasons to like this flick. Luckily, this is the sort of movie that embraces the silliness and piles on a lot of laughs. While the plot is thin and the dialogue rough there are a lot of pop culture references and intentionally (I think) lines that had me giggling.

The best example of this is legendary no budget filmmakers Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski showing up in acting roles as a couple of locals working road construction. They go all redneck when the “city folk” are around but then shift back to wine sipping intellectuals who discuss art as soon as they are out of earshot. Silly? Yes, but I think that the filmmakers were playing with the prototypical stereotypes present in the more serious attempts to tell stories like this. There is also a much less funny bit with some government agents tracking the aliens, but I will give them an “A” for effort.

For a movie with little to no budget they do a decent job with the alien. Sure, it is a guy wearing a suite topped off with a cheesy rubber mask, but it works fine. We also get some movie magic where characters climb into the “hatch” of the ship in the woods to clearly be climbing down a ladder in some industrial location located elsewhere. But that kind of movie “magic” is what low budget filmmakers must use to make things happen. And it wasn’t too bad. The kills are tame and well that is about all I have to say.

Alien Escape isn’t a good movie. I’ll freely admit that. It may also seem weird that I describe a flick that uses nudity and titillation as a selling point innocent. But when I watch a flick like this one, I get very nostalgic for the days of renting crap at my local video store. Despite watching a digital copy I swear I could hear my VCR chugging along. If you have the same sort of memories or are looking for something silly, then check this one out. I think you might get a kick out of it.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Haunted (1995)

The movie starts off in the early nineteen hundreds with a little boy and girl, twins, running and playing on a large English estate. They are having fun, but the little girl hits her head and falls into a pond. Her brother tries to save her but is unsuccessful. That little brother grows up to be a professor of psychology who investigates psychic phenomenon. He mostly does this to expose fakers. After seeing him bust a séance we follow as he goes to an isolated estate at the behest of Nanny Webb.

He is picked up by a beautiful woman named Christina who drives him to the rambling old house. There he meets Nanny Webb as well as Christina’s brothers Robert and Simon. There is an odd dynamic between the siblings as they are overly affectionate with each other. Like to creepy levels. Nanny claims that she is being haunted, though not without a lot of prompting from the professor. That night spooky stuff starts to happen and David, the professor, is convinced that one of the brothers is responsible for it. Things ramp up and Nanny Webb becomes very disturbed, which leads to the family calling in Doctor Doyle. She doesn’t like that much at all.

After arriving we also see that David begins seeing what appears to be the ghost of his sister in the distance. As if she was trying to lead him to something but can’t quite communicate with him. Is Nanny Webb crazy? Did David catch her crazy? Or is someone messing with both of them? In the end all is explained and we are given some closure… with a twist!  

I’m trying to keep this review as spoiler free as possible because I really liked Haunted and don’t want to ruin it for anyone. The movie is paced decently, though at times is a slow burn. But if you pay attention there are clues and all sorts of spooky shit happening. I could give examples but then I would be giving hints that might spoil things for you. Trust me though that you will want to pay close attention to enjoy the movie. Not only because of the clues but also the things that are happening. The movie is packed with lots of visual tricks mostly in camera. Again, you really need to pay attention to Haunted to get the most out of it. If you only half watch it, then you might as well skip it altogether.

The decision to introduce the house to both the audience as well as the professor in the daylight was a cool choice. In a way it makes the later scenes in the dark all that much spookier and more surreal since we have some idea of how things are. There aren’t any real jump scares as the story leans more heavily into creeping you out with odd noises, doors that seem to open by themselves, and shadows that seem to have things moving in them. Like I said you really need to keep your eyes on the screen with this one.

When I was doing my research on this movie I found a lot of folks talking about Kate Beckinsale and how naked she is in it. Before you go off Googling for images I have bad news, it was all a body double. One that isn’t even close to her appearance in other scenes. Same goes for Aidan Quinn. It seems as if either they had no nudity clauses, or the producers went back afterwards to spice things up. Funny thing is you keep seeing their faces so clearly not them. That said both Quinn (playing the professor) and Beckinsale are great in their roles. They have some actual chemistry, and their relationship drives the ending of the movie. Can’t say much more than that. Spoiler free, remember?

While I did guess at the big twist I still was interested in Haunted until the very end. To be honest it was a guess and they kept it vague enough that I wasn’t sure I was right. It wasn’t until after the movie was over that I realized it was based on a novel from James Herbert, who wrote some very cool horror stories. Not sure if it follows his book closely but having read may of his other books (I’ve reviewed The Fog and The Spear here at the site) it doesn’t surprise me that the plot was so engaging and fun. I recommend tracking down a copy of Haunted and giving it a watch.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (1995)

I’ve been meaning to check this one out for a few years now. I remember when this came out seventeen years after it was made there was a lot of buzz around it. It was billed as the Japanese Evil Dead, which is probably a disservice since those are big shoes to fill. But I can see why that was done since there are several gags that clearly were inspired by Rami’s classic. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The movie opens with a man being attacked by a woman who he is attempting to break up with so that he can marry another. She loses her mind and swears if he can’t be hers then he will be no ones. This leads to her attacking and when he defends himself, she is killed. Rather than call the authorities the man just buries her body under the floor of the house. Then the action moves to more than twenty years later.

Shinji, the man’s son from earlier, is working out. He apparently has quit his job and become obsessed with bodybuilding when his lady, Mika broke up with him. She is an aspiring journalist who is doing stories on haunted locations, so she shows up at his house. After some awkward small talk, the subject of the “house” comes up. Seems Shinji had told her some spooky stories about the house his father owned, and she wants to investigate it. He agrees and the pair, along with a medium, head out. After the tour things start to get crazy as the medium is attacked by a wall clock, becomes possessed by the vengeful ghost of the murdered woman, and goes on the attack. Much mayhem ensues and sure enough Shinji grabs a shotgun and drops “groovy”. Hey, I did say there were some familiar gags.

This low budget horror flick is a prime example of what you can do with a little bit of planning and a cohesive script. Clocking in at just over an hour long they waste little time establishing the characters before setting off to the house. Really, we only have the three characters and I suppose the ghost so not wasting too much time on them is a good idea. There are some wisecracks from the skeptic Shinji before things begin to get spooky. The character does feel inspired by Ash based on his hijinks and reactions to the situation. And of course, the fact that the only weapon he has against the angry ghost is his… you guessed it Muscles! While not terribly original I will give the filmmakers credit for making a movie that does have some twists and is entertaining.

Deadite on  budget!

The ghost and the possessed tend to pop into screen from odd angles and while not at all scary there is a fun vibe to their appearance. This is enhanced by the odd camera angles that the director chooses giving the movie a unique visual style that is reminiscent of Evil Dead without feeling like an exact copy. There is only one gory gag seen onscreen and that involves a knife to the back of the noggin’ with a protruding eyeball. It is goofy and fun and made me laugh. I also enjoyed that Shinji has to suck the demon out of Mika to save her from being possessed.

Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell isn’t a perfect movie, but I enjoyed it. The runtime is tight, the cast small, and we have one location. These are all key to staying in the budget and control of a micro production. The fact that it was shot on Super 8 also gives the movie a certain grainy charm that took me back to the good old days of independent movies. This is currently streaming on Shudder, and I think is worth a watch. Just keep in mind that it isn’t Evil Dead and to manage your expectations.

 

© Copyright 2023 John Shatzer

Winterbeast (1992)

Let me start off this review by telling you that this isn’t a good movie. I say this because when you try to follow my plot synopsis that is going to become obvious. But please stick around to the end because I have some things to say about Winterbeast that need to be heard. 

The movie opens with a park ranger walking into a room and asking a guy if he is okay. But he obviously isn’t when he turns and starts to peel bits of himself off! Then there is a stop motion monster that attacks. But don’t worry this is a dream, though it isn’t obvious at the time due to some bad editing. That same ranger, who is named Bill, goes to work, and talks to his partner who is looking at old girly magazines. There is a lady park ranger who was brought down the mountain by a good Samaritan. She and her partner were up there marking trails, but something happened. What? I’m not sure because the movie doesn’t tell us! 

The rest of the movie is them walking in the woods, talking to a lodge owner who refuses to shut down because of tourists, bodies are found on a totem pole, and lots of different stop motion monsters’ attack. Finally, it is explained… sort of… that there is a demon on the mountain that I think wants to make more demons or at least let them in. That explains all the different creatures attacking folks. Also, somehow the lodge owner is involved, but this isn’t explained. He does get to put on a plastic mask and dance though so that is a thing. This is a confusing movie.

This is the kind of movie that is more fun than it should be. Like I think I’ve already shown the plot as it is makes little to no sense. It seems that they sort of had an idea but instead of referencing and connecting scenes together the filmmakers just float stuff out there and let it be. We also get the sort of terrible acting that I expect out of a low budget flick like this. To their credit everyone manages to spit the lines out but much of it is flat. Basically the story and performances aren’t the selling point. 

There is a lot of charm to how the movie was made. It was shot on film, mostly 16 mm but I think that there was some 8 mm mixed in as well. This gives Winterbeast a silly seventies vibe that caught my attention and put a smile on my face. Then they double down with that by adding four or five stop motion monsters attacking the characters. Does it make any sense that they show up for a scene or two and then aren’t mentioned again? Nope. But the minute one of them picks up a character and we are treated to a Gumby like death scene as they are animated as well had me laughing… not giggling… but laughing out loud! 

There are also some props that apparently came from a Dokken video. Not sure if that is a real thing but if it is then cool. The movie only clocks in at an hour and seventeen minutes which helps. I think this is one that could have worn on me if it overstayed it’s welcome. And while the plot makes zero sense, they keep throwing silly shit at you, so I sort of just shrugged and enjoyed myself.  Finally, there is a sweet ass Datsun pickup truck! Okay that last one only means something to me. If you understand what you are getting yourself into and are willing to turn your brain off Winterbeast is worth a watch. It is currently on Shudder, but I see that it has popped up many other places as well. It shouldn’t be hard to find. 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Steel and Lace (1991)

This movie starts off in a courtroom with a rich boy on trial for raping a concert pianist named Gaily. His boys cover for him and with their testimony he is found not guilty. Though we see in a flashback that he and his friends are most certainly guilty of the horrible crime. In the chaos after the verdict Gaily is chased to the room of the courthouse and to the horror of her brother, Albert, jumps to her death.

The action moves to five years later and we see that Daniel, the scumbag who raped her, and his friends are now real estate tycoons forcing old folks out of their homes. After intimidating their latest victim, they all take off in different cars when one of them breaks down. He is picked up by a hottie who takes him to a no tell motel that rents the rooms by the hour. The action he gets isn’t what he expected though, which is when we meet Dunn the cop. He is investigating the murder and then the other murders as someone is tearing thru Daniel’s friends. Dunn, with the help of his artist girlfriend Alison eventually figures out that Albert is getting revenge for his sister’s death. And since he is a scientist, he has built a robotic version of her that is going all terminator on their collective asses!

This is a fun bit of early nineties low budget filmmaking that is way better than it should be. The story is predictable but paced quickly and pays off the revenge storyline in a satisfying way. The bad guys are cardboard cutouts, especially Daniel who is portrayed as a two dimensional evil guy who has somehow managed to survive and be successful in the world. His friend’s border on overly aggressive to downright cowardly as they get picked off one at a time. But this flick isn’t about the characters or the plot. Instead, the focus is on getting the men setup to be killed off in interesting and different ways. That it does quite well.

There are six kills, with five being shown on screen. We get a drill thru the chest, a head getting ripped off (one of the best), a dude gets “drained” of his bodily fluids in a most unpleasant way, and yet another gets zapped with a laser beam that turns him into a torch. But the best and most creative of the kills is when our killer lady robot lifts a guy headfirst into a spinning rotor blade. His noggin’ gets split in half with part of it flying away. Toss in some goofy but workable effects gags of our killer robot wearing disguises to lure her victims to their doom and you get a lot of practical work on a lower budget. While not perfect it looks good enough and I dug what they were going for.

The cast is solid with Stacy Haiduk (Super Boy), Brian Backer (Sleepaway Camp), David L. Lander (Squiggy from Lavern and Shirley), Bruce Davison (X-Men), and several other familiar faces. For the most part they do a decent job, especially Lander as a wise cracking coroner that acts as comic relief. The one thing that shocked me was the performance of David Naughton as the police officer Dunn. He is utterly bland and has no onscreen chemistry with his love interest Haiduk. I feel like he phoned it in on this one. But other than that, it was fun to see some familiar faces chewing some scenery and having a good time.

Is Steel and Lace a great movie? Not really. But it does have enough going for it to justify at least a single watch. Also, if you grew up watching made for HBO or Cinemax flicks then I bet you are going to get a kick out of it.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville 8 aka. Amityville Dollhouse (1996)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the shit show continues with yet another entry into the Amityville franchise. This time we have a new family that builds their house on the foundations of the infamous haunted house that we all know and love. There is also a shed outback that has a dollhouse that looks awfully familiar. When the car mysteriously starts and smashes the youngest daughter’s birthday bicycle the quick-thinking parents swap out the dollhouse as her gift. Those tricky ghosts!

Things start to get strange when the dollhouse begins to take over. There are demons that seemingly can bounce between both places. Initially they don’t notice the changes happening but then the cracks begin to show. This is also a blended family with one young son wishing he could see his real dad, who he apparently remembers more fondly than he should. I’m sure that the ghosts/demons won’t take advantage of that! There is also a spiritualist sister and her husband who are able to lend a hand when shit gets really weird.

Just in case you haven’t noticed yet I do like a cheesy movie. Amityville Dollhouse is certainly that. The story is utterly predictable as it zips thru the runtime checking all the boxes that we would expect from a movie in this franchise. And yes, that does include some alluded to incest feelings, this time stepmom to stepson… so I guess it really isn’t. Though it is still creepy. There are the bumps in the night and some scares, though I was a little disappointed in the latter. We do get a funny gag with a wasp cockblocking a dude with the only way to save him is by pouring booze down his ear hole. I’ve not seen that before so kudos movie. And of course, the dead ghost dad tries to get his son to kill the family. I mean that is an Amityville tradition.

I realize that the review doesn’t sound terribly positive at this point. But here is the thing about this one. It never for a minute takes itself seriously and like I said before is cheesy from start to finish. The acting borders on goofy with some of the cast chewing on the scenery. We get some gratuitous gore with a crispy girlfriend that I found fun. The creature design of the demons when we eventually see them is my old favorite “guy in a rubber suit” model. I mean they didn’t overthink this one. It also helps that the pacing is spot on with something interesting happening every minute the movie rolling. Not once in the ninety-two-minute runtime was I bored or looking at my watch. I can’t say that about many of these Amityville flicks so far.

In the end is this a good movie? No probably not. But as a fun way to kill an hour and a half I’ve seen much worse ideas. So far in the franchise this might be my favorite of the bunch. Again, these are all new to me from here on out… except for the remake that is. I’m hoping for some hidden gems over the next thirty-five or so movies. This might have been a terrible idea.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville: A New Generation (1993)

Time to check out Amityville: A New Generation aka. Amityville 7. This movie is set in a shitty neighborhood on the west coast. There is a warehouse that has been split up into artists flats with one of them being occupied by a guy named Keyes, who is a photographer. He is shooting some pictures when he sees an old homeless guy. He takes his picture and then tries to give him some money which is when the man gives him back a mirror. A creepy mirror. Soon that homeless guy is dead, and Keyes is interviewed by the police.

Spooky shit starts to happen when Keyes' downstairs neighbor, Suki, takes the mirror. It causes her to make these freaky painting as well as causing her abusive ex-boyfriend to run his head thru some glass. What is up? The mirror is from the Amityville house and Keyes’ father was the dude who killed his family there and after getting released brought the mirror out to his son so that he could be possessed by the demon that was in it. This happens because… I have no freaking clue!

Sooner or later I’m going to have to like one of these Amityville flicks, right? Well, this isn’t going to be it. The pacing of the movie is dreadful with long stretches of overly stylized shots of nothing happening. Okay I get it some of the paintings are very colorful, but how about we get some plot and characters up in here? The plot is very thin and easy to figure out. As soon as the homeless guy hands the mirror to Keyes, I knew it must have come from the house and that he was likely connected to both it and the man giving it to him. I do appreciate that he basically wants nothing to do with it and lets Suki take it, but then when she kills herself, he takes it back. Dude if it was already creeping you out why bring it home after your friend has died? This is the sort of nonsense that passes for a story, and I didn’t like it.

The dialogue is stilted and odd in that overly stylized nineties shot for cable way. It doesn’t feel natural and forces the cast of decent actors to struggle to spit it out. The cast features David Naughton, Richard Roundtree, and Terry O’Quinn in supporting roles. We even get a small appearance from Lin Shaye as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. They are all wasted by this movie. Yes, Amityville: A New Generation manages to give Shaft and the Stepfather absolutely nothing to do! That is unforgivable. Instead, we get a bunch of young actors that clearly have no clue what they are doing and haven’t done much in the almost thirty years since.

We get a lame three kills with little to no gore. The best gag in the movie is zombie Suki and even that is only okay. The budget is obviously very low which caused some very odd decisions. In typical movie fashion we have our romantic leads getting frisky not once but twice. Now in a classy flick they would shoot this in front of a roaring fire, but here they choose to do so in front of a shitty space heater. I kid you not! The evil mirror looks like a cheap prop you can pick up every October from Spirit Halloween so not great.

The best thing I can say about Amityville: A New Generation is that it is very silly. I laughed at it more than once, though I don’t believe that was their intent. This isn’t enough to save the flick and I can’t recommend it. Well, I guess we are on to the next one… Amityville Dollhouse.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Amityville 1992: It’s About Time (1992)

Remember a couple reviews ago when I was asking what could be worse than a haunted lamp and I derisively said something about a clock? Well, here we are… The story kicks off with dad coming home from a business trip with a mantle clock he picked up on the east coast aka. Amityville. He seems very proud of it and immediately unpacks it setting it up in the living room. When no one is looking a little drill pops out of the bottom of the clock and I guess it possesses the house.

Suddenly everyone starts to hallucinate, rooms shift back and forth in time, a neighborhood dog goes bonkers, and evil runs amok! The woman who is in “the know” and could possibly stop things from happening gets “storked” and the ex-girlfriend who was watching his kids ends up doing battle with him and the house to save them. I mean she totally fails but no worries since Amityville 1992 decides to use the old “hey it never happened” trope to reset back to the beginning and lets her prevent it from every happening. You know because time travel and stuff.

How do these movies continually fail? The story is a little better than the previous installment and does have a narrative that you can follow. Things are spaced out evenly and while not a thrill ride it isn’t boring either. I thought that the time travel element was an interesting twist to the story and allowed them to do some world building. But instead of focusing on that we also get a love triangle between the dad, his ex-girlfriend, and her new guy. I did find it amusing that the new boyfriend was played by Jonathan Penner who is best know for being a contestant on survivor. They also write the characters to be very unlikeable. There is no one to root for except maybe the clock. And I can’t stress enough how much I hate the “it never happened trope” which wipes away everything we just watched. I can only think of one movie where it worked, and this isn’t Wishmaster!

Here you have another good cast with Megan Ward, Nita Talbot, Shawn Weatherly, and genre favorite Stephen Macht. Other than Macht, who gets to chew some scenery, they are all wasted with little or nothing of interest to do. Like I’ve already mentioned above the script does them no favors. No matter how professional and talented your cast is they need something on the page to work with. We do get a brief but appreciated Dick Miller sighting though, so that is cool.

The kills are tame, and I have to say that I don’t think that whoever wrote this script has a good understanding how guitar amps work. And while I’ve been fairly negative in my review, I will give the movie credit for the title. It really is about time… heh I made a funny. My final thought before declaring you should not watch Amityville It’s About Time is this. People need to stop going to yard sales at the murder house! That is all. Now onto Amityville: A New Generation.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

 

The Amityville Curse (1990)

This fifth installment into the Amityville franchise is set in the same town and is tenuously at best connected to the earlier movies. Mostly in the fact that they mention it and that is about all. The story kicks off with a couple looking for an investment property when the woman, who we are led to believe is psychic or at least sensitive, directs them to a different house for sale. We know that this was the home to the local priest who years earlier was shot and killed in the confessional. Seriously this town has some issues!

They buy the house and show up with their friends who also invested to fix it up so they can flip it. We get to see a lot of character development and home improvement stuff. There is also a gag with a nail gun that is okay I suppose. Things get creepy with a disappearing man and his dog. We also have the creepy lady who used to work with the priest showing up with a crucifix and telling them that all will be revealed. Also, there is a spooky basement, plumbing issues, and someone gets their hand cut. Thrilling stuff, right? In the end there is a twist that throws everything into doubt. Was there something supernatural or do we just have a bunch of people with mental health issues? I’m still not sure.

This is the first movie in the franchise that has nothing to do with the house or any haunted item coming from it. Instead, we have a totally different haunting of sorts. Be warned some spoilers are coming so if you don’t like that sort of thing then stop reading. But honestly this is such a terrible movie I’d recommend reading my spoiler and then skipping The Amityville Curse. You have been warned!

The characters seem as bored as I was!

Here is the scoop and what annoyed me about the movie. We are led to believe that there is some force haunting the confessional, which was inexplicably moved to the basement of the house and hidden behind a boarded-up door. But in the end, we find out that one of the people working on the house was the killer of the priest. He has blocked out the memory of what he did and was motivated to do so because he was the priest’s child from an illicit affair. So not a ghost but a mentally unstable guy with daddy issues. Um… okay, I guess. I mean they tried something different and tried to fool the audience. It isn’t so much the twist that annoyed me but the execution of it.

This movie is painfully slow. Nothing happens for the majority of the story as we see people fixing up a house, talking about their issues, and drinking wine. This feels less like a failed attempt at character development and more like they didn’t have enough story to fill up the ninety-minute runtime. I can’t stress enough that except for the last ten or fifteen minutes nothing happens! The sad fact is the cast is solid and The Amityville Curse is shot well.

What is the moral to the story? Have a damn script before rolling the cameras! I can’t recommend this one either. Sooner or later, I have to find an Amityville movie that I really like. I mean the laws of averages would dictate that. Next up is Amityville 1992: It’s About Time.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

4 Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse (1997)

This has been an almost impossible review to finish. I’ve found myself arguing back and forth in my head about this flick. On one hand the critical part of my brain is shouting that it is awful, on the other hand I kind of dug it. I sincerely hope that what follows may make some sense to you.

The movie starts off with a bubbly cheerleader getting gunned down by some annoyed folks. Don’t worry this won’t be referenced again so just enjoy it and move on. Then we see a farmer run thru with a pitchfork. This is important as he was also the local science teacher at the vocational school. His replacement, Alex, forms a relationship with the dead teacher’s stepdaughter who is also the new coach of the four-person cheerleader squad. Her name is Rebecca, and she is a mom, but don’t worry that doesn’t matter either. When we first meet her she is wearing a bunny costume and is puking her guts out after partying too hard the night before.

The rest of the movie is the pair, Alex and Rebecca, trying to figure out why people are being killed in horrific ways. They eventually sort out that the local agricultural corporation’ Golden Harvest, was doing experiments, which Rebecca’s stepfather was involved in. These experiments have made anyone exposed to the chemical go a bit homicidal as well as kicking their sex drive up to eleven. Did I forget to mention that Elvis lives in the town and gives the occasional sage advice while fixing a car without an engine? Weird flick.

This movie is shot on video with terrible picture and audio quality. The narrative is almost nonexistent as we jump from one random scene to another with just a basic story struggling to connect them. There are dream sequences that aren’t explained, and the pacing suffers from unnecessarily repetitive gags that lose their edge on reuse. With all that out of the way I’m struggling to explain why I like 4 Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse.

The dubbing is intentionally bad, and the music choices were hopefully made to lean into the laughs. Alex does narration to fill in the gaps and while that normally annoys me as it is lazy filmmaking, he randomly switches to his best Forest Gump impression. I felt like this was an acknowledgement of how cheap and bad of a filmmaking tool this is and that had me smiling. I also enjoyed the random Magnum P.I. references that I’m sure very few people got, even in the late nineties. Toss in the goofy autopsies with spraying blood and the chain-smoking zombified school principal and you have a movie that isn’t like anything else I’ve seen before. I also totally forgot the gratuitous car wash butt closeups!

If what I’ve written intrigues you then you are probably going to have fun with 4 Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse. On the other hand, if this sounds boring then I can guarantee you that it will be a miserable slog to get thru. I can see both opinions to be valid. See why this was a hard review for me to write. I just don’t know what to think.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Uncle Sam (1996)

Time to be honest with you the readers. I thought that I had already covered this one for the website, but it turns out that I haven’t. With the 4^th of July just past I figured it was about time that I talk a bit about Uncle Sam, the most patriotic of slasher flicks.

A young boy named Jody idolizes his dead uncle for his military service. Of course, his uncle was named Sam, so the title works in a couple of ways. Year after being killed in the Gulf War his body is found and returned home. The chopper that Sam piloted was shot down by friendly fire, which may be why he comes back to life. Not sure about that. But the important thing is that Sam climbs out of his coffin and decides to punish those unpatriotic locals by killing them. But then he also starts randomly killing people too. Who the heck really cares since this is about his zombie looking butt dressing up as Uncle Sam and going on a killing spree. Eventually Jody sees the truth and with the help of a veteran, played by Isaac Hayes, he puts an end to things.

This is a solidly made and fun flick. The story is paced evenly with enough kills spaced out to keep things rolling along. The characters are decent despite the script being a bit weak. They never explain the how and why of Sam’s return which might have made the movie all the more entertaining. I get that this is about a zombified killer and isn’t based in reality, but I like my horror flicks to have rules I can predict. Though the filmmakers make the brilliant decision of filling the cast out with some awesome character actors that I think make up for the deficiencies in the plot.

I’ve already mentioned Isaac Hayes, who has a decent role. But we also get the likes of William Smith, Bo Hopkins, Timothy Bottoms, P.J. Soles, and the amazing Robert Forster in small parts. Though each of them is given something fun to do whether it is dropping some great lines or getting a cool death scene. I’m not too surprised since this is directed by William Lustig from a script by Larry Cohen. Just read thru the names I mentioned. These actors, writers, and director are responsible for some of my favorite movies. Though if I’m going to be completely honest, and I always am, this is also a bit disappointing. While I dig it this could have been a top-notch horror flick if they had spent just a bit more time polishing the script.

The kills are rather tame, but fun. There is a snapped neck, a face on a grill, some handgun action, some cannon action, and some garden shear action. Though my favorite kills are the patriotic themed death by flagpole thru the chest and the fireworks explosion! The movie tends to pull away from the good stuff so don’t set your expectations too high. But then this was the mid to late nineties, so the days of in-your-face gore hadn’t returned yet.

Uncle Sam is a frustrating flick. It could have been an excellent last hurrah from some killer actors and one of the best director/writer duos of the eighties. Instead, it comes off more as a neutered not quite as good as what came before horror movie that sadly fits in with most of what that decade of meh (aka. the nineties) gave us. There is some fun here but also many missed opportunities. If you haven’t seen this one then give it a chance, just manage your expectations.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer

Bloodmoon (1990)

This slasher flick is totally new to me. That is surprising because after years of digging thru the shelves of various video stores I’ve seen most of them. Toss in the fact that this is an Australian production and I’m very excited to check it out. Let’s not waste any more time.

The movie opens with a crucifix hanging in the woods with blood slowly dripping down it. Okay that is a good way to kick things off. Then we get a bit of catholic girls in choir followed by a shower/locker room scene with lots of nudity. Damn movie you get the formula! One of the girls dries off and goes looking for her boyfriend, who is the source of the blood on the crucifix. She gets chased and eliminated by the killer with a barbed wire garrote. The killer even buries the bodies to keep them hidden.

Sadly, after that awesome start we get an extended bit with the townies and locals hating each other. There are fights, pranks, and shenanigans that have nothing to do with the killings or what should be the main plot. Hell, the locals don’t even figure into the murders at all and as some point sort of disappear never to be seen again. Well, there is one of them who likes one of the schoolgirls who is important later. But for the most part I don’t get why they spent so much time on the rivalry.

After seeing some more deaths, the identity of the killer is revealed, way too early, and then the rest of the movie is him trying to draw our main female lead, Mary, into a trap so she can be killed. I won’t spoil who the killer is here, though it is kind of obvious. There is some running around the woods, an unexpected hero, and some marriage counseling with a shotgun before the end credits roll.

I’m disappointed with Bloodmoon. It started out with a bang but then quickly spent most of the middle of the movie bouncing between teen angst and sophomoric humor. We get a couple of kills sprinkled in, but it drags a lot. When they finally do get back to the killings the movie does get better, but then they spoil who the killer is in a really dumb way. Toss in some generic characters with the meandering story that takes up the hour and forty-minute runtime for a terribly way to kill a couple of hours.

The kills are plentiful but not memorable. We get a girl choked out with barbed wire that cuts away when things get good. A stabbing in a phonebooth that is okay, another stabbing off camera with blood splashing on the window that disappoints. Really the best kill in the movie is a head getting smashed repeatedly on a table and even that switches to an obvious dummy at some point. The best effect isn’t a kill but is a bottle of acid to the face. I read that the filmmakers had to make some cuts to tone things down on initial release, but I can only judge what is left.

Bloodmoon had potential but then failed to deliver. If you are a hard-core slasher completest that needs to see everything then sure track this one down and watch it. But for most fans who just want to scratch that teenage body count itch there are way better options. Personally, I never need to watch it again.

 

© Copyright 2022 John Shatzer