Category: Capsule Reviews

The Alien Factor – 1978, US, 80m. Director: Don Dohler.

Ghostkeeper – 1981, Canada, 89m. DirectorL: Jim Makichuk.

Swingers Massacre – 1974, US, 100m. Director: Ronald Victor Garcia.

THE ALIEN FACTOR (1978) Inhabitants of a small town are stalked and maimed by a trio of stranded aliens that have crash landed in the nearby woods. Shotgun-toting hicks venture out to look for a missing friend and come face to face with one of the insect-like extraterrestrials that kills the humans within a few seconds. A friendly alien arrives in the form of a man to track and capture the rampaging beasties and discovers the murderous aliens were part of an intergalactic specimen convoy that got lost in transit before crashing to Earth. No-budget monster movie auteur Don Dohler’s first feature film is a wonder of inept backyard filmmaking, but much like the director’s later efforts, The Alien Factor is hypnotically entertaining—and would make a good double feature with Dohler’s own semi-remake, Nightbeast (1982). B–

GHOSTKEEPER (1981) Three boring friends on a boring snowmobile excursion find themselves stranded in an abandoned ski lodge in this boring Canadian hodgepodge that borrows heavily from The Sentinel and The Shining. The characters are forced to spend the night in the lodge unaware that the place is occupied by an old woman (Georgie Collins) and her sons—one of whom kills the travelers and uses their bodies as a food source for his disfigured brother who’s locked away in the basement. Throats are slashed and torsos are impaled until the last woman standing (Riva Spier) discovers she’s next in a long line of human guardians who must protect the population from the Wendigo, a cannibalistic spirit that is currently being kept at bay within the cellar-dwelling brother. Stiffly acted and flatly directed—don’t be surprised if this one puts you to sleep. C–

SWINGERS MASSACRE (1974) (AKA: Inside Amy) A lustful divorce lawyer (James R. Sweeney) brings his uptight wife (Jan Mitchell) to a swingers party where she becomes the star attraction—and he’s left with blue balls and jealous rage. The experience turns Sweeney impotent, fueling his psychosis and psychopathic urges, which he ultimately takes out on the men from the party. He straps two of them to the front seats of their cars and pumps in exhaust fumes. A detective asks the wife of one of the victims if her husband was involved in a homosexual suicide pact, to which the cop adds, “We’re living in the land of fruits and nuts.” (And that’s the best scene in the movie!) Sweeney continues his massacre while thoughts of his wife’s newfound sexuality run through his mind, culminating in Sweeney taking a sniper rifle to the man who called Mitchell an animal in the sack. Swingers Massacre is ugly, and not just because of the early seventies fashions. The screenplay is humorless and the characters are not worth giving a damn about, making the production feel like a pro-monogamy message movie, or an anti-feminism vehicle. Either way, the viewer loses. D

Frankenstein Unbound – 1990, Italy/US, 85m. Director: Roger Corman.

Lady in White – 1988, US, 113m. Director: Frank LaLoggia.

Nightbeast – 1982, US, 81m. Director: Don Dohler.

FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND (1990) A ridiculous interpretation of the Mary Shelley novel (based on a 1973 paperback) that involves everything from time travel to futuristic talking cars. Scientist John Hurt is zapped from 2031 Los Angeles to 1817 Switzerland where he meets Shelley (a miscast Bridget Fonda) just when she’s about to write her masterpiece, Frankenstein, or the Post Modern Prometheus—a novel based on the real Dr. Frankenstein (Raul Julia) and his monstrous creation (Nick Brimble). Naturally, the monster is just misunderstood and resents Dr. F for having created him, but that doesn’t stop Brimble from ripping people to pieces whenever he feels threatened, particularly in a scene where the monster is confronted by an angry mob. The monster threatens Frankenstein with more violence unless he’s given a female companion, something Frankenstein does begrudgingly before Hurt (who despises what Frankenstein represents) sends them through time with his computer-age tech. Julia and Hurt are good, but the story is mostly preposterous, and the monster’s makeup more distracting than effective—something that would be handled much better in the bloated 1994 Kenneth Branagh-directed version. Even Hammer’s splatter-strewn Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) has more soul than this empty vehicle. C–

LADY IN WHITE (1988) A well-done mystery in which horror writer Frankie Scarlatti recalls how in 1962 he saw a ghost and subsequently became embroiled in the activities of a child murderer. Witness‘s Lukas Haas plays young Frankie, a sweet-natured kid who’s locked in a school’s closet over Halloween night and sees the decades-old murder of a little girl reenacted by the spirit of the victim. As events unfold, Frankie believes he can identify the killer—and that he’s being watched over by an enigmatic (and possibly ghostly) woman in white (Katherine Helmond)—putting his life in danger. Haas is good, and the script, while often melodramatic, is effective, with an old fashioned storytelling narrative—a fact that may have led to the film’s failure to find an audience during the height of more FX-fueled fair like the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. A thoughtful, character-driven chiller. B

NIGHTBEAST (1982) A vicious alien crash-lands in the boonies and goes on a killing spree. A trio of flannel shirt-wearing bumpkins are vaporized by the alien’s ray gun, followed by a man getting his eye gouged out after he pulls over to take a leak. Another has his intestines ripped out right before a couple of kids are ray-gunned. And all of this is within the first fifteen minutes! After a failed gun battle with the extraterrestrial, the police accept their loses—which includes most of their deputies—and go back to the station for a cup of coffee before recruiting more good ol’ boys with shotguns. An obvious lack of finances keeps the majority of the action in the woods, including a brawl between the hero and a beer-guzzling hick. Most of the townsfolk are wiped out by the beast, leaving the sheriff and his deputy girlfriend—the two have a protracted and howlingly awful love scene—in charge of trying to destroy the creature with electricity. Like the acting and special effects, the production as a whole is strictly amateur, although one can appreciate the amount of care that went into the film no matter how bare-bones it may seem. It’s all sophomoric and dumb, but entertaining nonetheless. Lost‘s J.J. Abrams co-wrote Nightbeast‘s musical score when he was a teenager. B–

Bride of Re-Animator – 1990, US, 96m. Director: Brian Yuzna.

He Knows You’re Alone – 1980, US, 93m. Director: Armand Mastroianni.

The Night of the Werewolf – 1981, Spain, 92m. Director: Paul Naschy.

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1990) Demented Dr. Herbert West is up to his old tricks again in this lively but unnecessary sequel. Continuing his experiments in the creation of life, Dr. West (Jeffrey Combs) discovers that his “re-agent” serum works best in reanimating individual body parts, which gives him the idea of becoming a modern Dr. Frankenstein by building a female mate for his partner in crime (Bruce Abbott) by using the heart of Abbott’s deceased fiancée (played by Barbara Campton in the first film). Meanwhile, a nosy colleague over at West’s old stomping ground of Miskatonic University uses the serum to reanimate the rotting head of Dr. Hill (David Gale) to uncover the truth behind the events of Re-Animator. The special makeup effects supplied by Screaming Mad George and K.N.B. EFX are inventive and genuinely disgusting, but they don’t advance the plot like they did in the Stuart Gordon original, instead they serve to distract from the lack of story in the screenplay. The bride of the title doesn’t even appear until the last 20 minutes of the movie, but thanks to Kathleen Kinmont’s performance, it’s worth the wait—as is the appropriately gore-drenched climax. A worthy if underwhelming follow-up. C+

HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE (1980) A frightened woman watching a horror movie about a killer is murdered in the theater by someone with a large knife—he stabs her by pushing the blade through the back of her seat. This effective opening is one of the highlights of an otherwise routine slasher film about a maniac targeting brides-to-be. The killer (Tom Rolfing) escapes the theater and moves on to terrorizing a college student (Caitlin O’Heaney) who’s about to take her vows. The screenplay uses shadows and suggestion instead of graphic violence (a decapitation notwithstanding) to arouse suspense—a trick used more successfully in Halloween, which this film imitates in many ways. But that shouldn’t prevent one from enjoying He Knows You’re Alone, which is slickly directed and features more characterization than your normal body count production. B–

THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF (1981) (AKA: The Craving) This ninth entry in the Paul Naschy/Waldemar Daninsky werewolf saga from Spain offers fans something different in that Naschy himself wrote and directed Night of the Werewolf. Daninsky is a sixteenth century wolfman who’s brought back from the dead in modern times to once again serve his evil mistress, the infamous Elisabeth Bathory (Julia Saly). She’s also resurrected, and forms a small army of vampire servants to bring her fresh blood to bathe in. After many nights of feeding on peasants and grave robbers, Daninsky falls in love with a young traveler (Azucena Hernández) and, in a change of heart, turns against Bathory and her vampiric ways. A watchable concoction of gothic horror atmospherics and eighties splatter makeup that doesn’t always makes sense, but is nicely directed by Naschy and effectively photographed—the final showdown between Daninsky and Bathory is particularly exciting and well staged. B–

Deathmaster – 1972, US, 84m. Director: Ray Danton.

The House on Skull Mountain – 1974, US, 89m. Director: Ron Honthaner.

Winterbeast – 1992, US, 78m. Director: Christopher Thies.

DEATHMASTER (1972) Robert Quarry, who sank his fangs into audiences as Count Yorga, Vampire, once again returns to the role of bloodsucker in this deathly dull retread. Quarry is vampiric guru Khorda who, through spouting nonsensical free-thinking mumbo jumbo, brainwashes a group of empty-headed hippies into becoming his vamp followers. Quarry is good in the role, even though he’s given very little to do other than flash his fangs and make goo-goo eyes at the women, resulting in a movie that feels little more than a second-rate Count Yorga for the Manson generation. As it is, Deathmaster has no bite. C–

THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN (1974) Voodoo and mysticism are at the center of this And Then There Were None-inspired body count thriller shot in Atlanta. Relatives gathering at a hilltop mansion for the reading of a will are done in by black magic conjured by the place’s butler (Jean Durand), the first to go being The Jeffersons‘s Mike Evans, who plunges to his death in an elevator shaft. The next victim is chomped by a rattlesnake while snooping in a hidden bedroom laced with bones and animal parts. Little House on the Prairie‘s Victor French plays the wise anthropology professor who dabbles in the occult and tries to figure out the plot—with predictably bad results. Technically well done, but the movie is too deliberately paced and often feels like one of the weaker subplots from the Dark Shadows television series. C

WINTERBEAST (1992) A mountain range becomes host to a Native American curse, which terrorizes the residents in the form of demonic monsters. Tourist disappearances are investigated by a forest ranger (Tom R. Morgan) and his deputies but their characters don’t have much to do other than spout needless exposition and walk around the woods in a daze. Morgan tries to shut down a popular lodge, but in the tradition of Jaws is thwarted by the disgruntled owner. The demons are a variety of weird creations with no real comprehensible reason for why they exist other than to present a showcase for some truly bargain-basement stop-motion special effects. The rest of the film’s makeup is just as abysmal, as are the acting, editing, continuity, and basically everything that went into this incessantly bizarre production. But the most surprising aspect of Winterbeast is that it never fails to be entertaining. Even when it’s not working (which is quite often) the movie manages to keep the viewer interested. That’s either a testament to the filmmakers or just pure luck. The film was apparently shot on and off over the course of nearly a decade, which would explain the constant changes in hair styles, seasons, and film stock. The original video release’s tagline (“The Evil Dead meets Northern Exposure!”) is both hilarious and accurate. B–

Dark Places – 1974, UK, 91m. Director: Don Sharp.

The Living Dead Girl – 1982, France, 90m. Director: Jean Rollin.

Phase IV – 1974, US, 84m. Director: Saul Bass.

DARK PLACES (1974) Dr. Edward Foster (Robert Hardy) inherits dusty old Marr’s Grove (along with a stash of hidden cash) from his deceased patient, unaware of the place’s nefarious history. Foster’s search for the money is bamboozled by a local man (Christopher Lee) and his sister (Joan Collins) who’ve been after the lost loot for years. In between searching for treasure and bedding Collins, Foster is consumed by the place’s dark past and slowly transforms into the mansion’s original owner, Andrew Marr, and sees in visions Marr murdering his children after discovering they had dispatched their lustful nanny. Foster goes on a killing spree before the police burst in and save the day. Good acting from a robust cast, but the film is often too sluggishly paced to be exciting. C+

THE LIVING DEAD GIRL (1982) Leaking drums of toxic waste secreted in a crypt reanimate the body of a young woman (Françoise Blanchard). After she dispatches some grave robbers, Blanchard goes back to the family chateau, where she kills a couple having sex by stabbing them in the neck with her Nosferatu-like fingernails and feasting on their blood. Blanchard’s childhood friend (Marina Pierro) finds out about the slaughter but gives the living dead girl shelter and protection—she even feeds Blanchard her blood and aids in the massacre of others. Whether Blanchard is your garden variety vampire, zombie, or something in between is never explained in the flimsy screenplay, which spends a good amount of time finding ways to keep Blanchard either naked, obtusely staring off into space, or both. Blanchard is ultimately overcome by bloodlust and rips Pierro to pieces in the gory climax. Well-made but not entirely interesting French splatter film. C

PHASE IV (1974) Some sort of event in space causes Earth’s ants to become super-intelligent. Two scientists (Nigel Davenport and Michael Murphy) are sent to Arizona to study a particularly aggressive species that have crossbred and forced a small desert community to flee. The ants mobilize and take out most of the land’s livestock before they figure out how to immunize themselves against the scientists’ chemicals and declare all-out war. Cinematically, this film seems to have been inspired more by the zen calmness of 2001: A Space Odyssey than the H.G. Wells short story “Empire of the Ants,” which was later officially adapted by Bert I. Gordon. At least Gordon’s version had a sense of enjoyment, unlike the bulk of this “serious” bit of intellectual claptrap, the ending of which will most likely leave viewers scratching their heads. The sole directing credit of Oscar-winning graphic title designer Saul Bass. C–