
Blood Tracks – 1985, Sweden/UK, 82m. Director: Mats Helge Olsson, Derek Ford.
House on the Edge of the Park – 1980, Italy, 91m. Director: Ruggero Deodato.
Tales from the Crypt – 1972, UK, 93m. Director: Freddie Francis.

BLOOD TRACKS (1985) Hair band Solid Gold get more than they bargained for after an avalanche strands them in the middle of nowhere while on location for a music video shoot. Things go from bad to worse when the band members and their crew fall prey to a feral family of savage killers who see the outsiders as a threat to their existence. Most of the wild family look like rejects from The Hills Have Eyes, with pustules and pockmarks the common choice for facial deformities. The musicians are portrayed by real-life Swedish rockers Easy Action, but they and their entourage are a pack of personality-free dolts who never come off as anything other than cannon fodder for a mediocre body count movie. Even the splatter isn’t anything to get excited over—a bisection by steel cable is the only original and gruesome moment in the film, but it’s so roughly edited it’s difficult to tell what’s happening. The dumb screenplay takes itself too seriously and the lack of any sort of humor (intentional or otherwise) makes Blood Tracks a missed opportunity. C– (Currently not available.)

HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK (1980) A sleazoid named Alex (David Hess) and his dimwitted friend (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) crash a party occupied by upper-class snobs who indulge in making fools out of the two working class dolts. This doesn’t sit well with Alex, who turns the tables on the yuppies by indulging in rape and murder. Alex beats one of the partygoers and pees on the guy for no reason. He rapes one of the women (Annie Bell), who then tries to play mind games with the brute only to get her virginal friend sexually humiliated and slashed with a razor. After Alex terrorizes and fondles most of the female cast he’s executed point blank by Bell—with a hand gun that was conveniently out of frame for 75 minutes. Hess played the lead psychopath in Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left (1972), which this Italian production resembles in many ways, although in terms of quality the two films have very little in common. Hess is charismatic, but as with the majority of the characters in House on the Edge of the Park, his role is underwritten. None of the victims have much personality and the actors portraying them are stiff—made worse by weak dubbing. If you’re going to visit a house I recommend sticking to the one on the left. C– (Currently streaming on Plex.)

TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) One of the best (if not the best) anthology titles released in the ’70s by prolific British production company Amicus. Five strangers gather inside the catacombs of a graveyard where their fates are put into motion by the mysterious Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson), who spills their secrets of debauchery, greed, and murder. The movie’s first and most famous segment features a murderess (Joan Collins) pursued by a homicidal Santa Claus. A philanderer returns from the beyond a hideous ghoul after dying in the car crash that blinded his mistress. A kindly toy maker (Peter Cushing) seeks revenge on those who caused his death through wrongful accusations. A variation on “The Monkey’s Paw” takes a twisted turn for a married couple who wish for great fortune. The brutish director (Nigel Patrick) of a home for the blind is given his comeuppance by the place’s spiteful residents in the excellent concluding chapter. Highly influential, and followed by Vault of Horror (1973). B+ (Currently streaming on Roku and Plex.)