Category: Capsule Reviews

Bug – 2006, Germany/US, 102m. Director: William Friedkin.

Popcorn – 1991, Canada/US, 91m. Director: Mark Herrier.

Zombie Island Massacre – 1984, US, 88m. Director: John Carter.

BUG (2006) Damaged waitress Agnes (Ashley Judd), haunted by the disappearance of her child a decade earlier, fears for her safety (and sanity) when she learns of the release of her abusive ex-husband (Harry Connick Jr.) from prison. In need of some company, Agnes shacks up in a seedy motel room with a drifter named Peter (Michael Shannon), an AWOL soldier who was part of a secret government science project that infected him with microscopic bugs. Agnes allows Peter’s paranoia to “infect” her, and the two begin to develop mysterious skin rashes, which Peter says are caused by the bugs and must be cut out—in one harrowing scene, Peter removes several teeth with pliers. Ultimately, Peter and Agnes cover their room in tinfoil and bug zappers, fall in love, and the two realize they were just made for each other. An unconventional film (based on Tracy Letts’s stage play), Bug might have been ignored by audiences upon release, but proves a rewarding experience for the adventurous viewer. Judd sheds her Hollywood glamor (and clothes) to deliver a powerhouse performance. B (Currently streaming on Pluto TV.)

POPCORN (1991) A Charles Manson-like filmmaker named Lanyard Gates doesn’t take kindly to his critics and in retaliation kills his family on stage at a screening of his latest work—before burning down the theater. Fifteen years later, a group of film students holding an all-night horror movie marathon at the abandoned Dreamland theater are targeted by the apparently still-alive Gates, who turns the likenesses of his victims into masks in order to hide his Freddy Kruegeresque visage. Aspiring filmmaker Maggie (Jill Schoelen)—whose dreams bare a striking resemblance to Gates’s unfinished movie, Possessor—comes to the realization she’s Gates’s long lost daughter, and Daddy has returned to finish his cinematic masterpiece. Or has he? Style is something Popcorn has a lot of, which is good since the film doesn’t make a lick of sense and raises more questions than it answers. How does the killer seemingly obtain supernatural powers? Where did he get all of the advanced equipment to fashion his high-tech masks? In what world would a Southern California college’s film department only house seven students? The viewer can ultimately forgive the writers for their lack of logic because the film is entertaining and often suspenseful. An uncredited Alan Ormsby (who’s written everything from Paul Schrader’s Cat People to Porky’s II) directed the films-within-the-film, as well as wrote the screenplay under the name Tod Hackett—undoubtedly a loving tribute to Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust. B (Currently streaming on AMC/Prime and Shudder.)

ZOMBIE ISLAND MASSACRE (1984) Several nondescript couples on vacation are witness to a Caribbean voodoo ceremony where a dead body is brought back to life. One of the couples wonders off into the nearby jungle for some unscheduled nooky, but is killed off by an unseen figure with a wheezing problem. The rest of the vacationers get stranded when their bus breaks down, giving the mysterious wheezer prime opportunity to dispatch more victims. In a truly bogus twist, the noisy killer turns out not to be a zombie but a plot orchestrated by a local drug cartel—the voodoo ceremony was a ruse created to spike tourism. The biggest sin Zombie Island Massacre commits isn’t its misleading title but the listless plot that meanders to the point of exhaustion—the movie’s relatively scant 88 minutes feels like 128. Snails move faster than this snoozer. A Current Affair reporter Rita Jenrette bares her breasts, but her real claim to fame is ex-husband John Jenrette, a former politician involved in the Abscam scandal of the late seventies. D– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Body Count – 1986, Italy, 87m. Director: Ruggero Deodato.

Night of the Demons – 1988, US, 90m. Director: Kevin Tenney

Night Swim – 2024, US, 98m. Director: Bryce McGuire.

BODY COUNT (1986) A group of monotonous friends on a wilderness excursion in the Colorado Rockies happen to pick the same campground where fifteen years earlier two teens were slaughtered by a masked madman. The land’s owner (David Hess) believes the place is haunted by the spirit of a Native American shaman, but when more bodies start to pile up it’s clear the killer is flesh and blood. A young woman is stabbed to death in an abandoned cabin while her boyfriend is thrown off a cliff—the actor has blond hair but his stunt double has black. The characters are too stupid to notice their missing friends, and the sheriff (Charles Napier) is too busy sleeping with Hess’s wife (Mimsy Farmer) to care. Two additional characters engage in sexual acrobatics in the same cabin, but the makers of this limp noodle have no idea how to film the scene and rob the viewer of some much needed excitement. Those lovers are dispatched, but not before the woman discovers the killer’s hideout, complete with the requisite head-in-a-jar gag. More people are chopped up while the synth-rock music blares on the soundtrack and director Ruggero Deodato loses any credibility he build around his cult classic, Cannibal Holocaust. Body Count is an Italian production masquerading as an American slasher (the video release even used the tagline, “In the tradition of Friday the 13th and Halloween“) created by people who don’t understand how American teens—or humans—behave. D– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988) Teenagers looking for something to do on Halloween night are invited to a party at an abandoned, supposedly haunted funeral parlor. The teens are an assortment of typical horror movie personalities found throughout the eighties, including the virgin, the jock, the bimbo, the outcast, etc. Fortunately for the viewer, the material is written with care and the characters are played by a likable cast, most of whom become possessed, mangled, terrorized, and gored by demonic entities. Unfortunately for the viewer, the film takes too long to get going—but once it does, the story delivers plenty of imaginative makeup FX, though not many surprises. Linnea Quigley provides the best moment when she’s turned into a “lipstick demon” and shoves the tube into her nipple—this delightful scene is preceded by the gouging out of her date’s eyes as Quigley grunts, “Don’t look at me!” The plot is taken from The Evil Dead, and especially Demons, as the cast is slowly transformed into disfigured monsters who go about turning their friends into bloody stumps. Steve Johnson (Fright Night) supplied the top-notch special effects, but in the end, one can’t help wishing they were part of a better movie. C+ (Currently streaming on Freevee, Peacock, Shudder, Tubi.)

NIGHT SWIM (2024) Psycho screenwriter Robert Bloch once wrote an article about real horror lying in the out-of-place: a clown is just a clown—but a clown outside your house is horrifying. This seems to have been the idea behind Night Swim, in which a malevolent entity uses the mundanity of a suburban swimming pool as a place to hide. Unfortunately for the makers of Night Swim, the idea proves fruitless. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an ex-baseball pro (Wyatt Russell, Kurt’s son) makes a fresh start with his family by moving into a picturesque two-story house complete with a backyard pool. At first the pool seems like the perfect form of physical therapy for Russell—until his disease miraculously begins healing and his children start seeing specters around the water. It turns out the pool is a conduit for a parasitic, supernatural being that possesses the sick and drags others to a watery grave filled with otherworldly spirits—sort of a soggy version of the Further from Insidious. As with most family-oriented ghost tales, love wins in the end, but that doesn’t keep the viewer from suffering at the hands of waterlogged writers who infuse the movie with predictable jump scares and a formulaic story structure. Stale and utterly uninvolving. D+ (Currently streaming on Peacock.)

Return to Sleepaway Camp – 2008, US, 86m. Director: Robert Hiltzik.

Shallow Grave – 1987, US, 89m. Director: Richard Styles.

Whispers – 1990, US, 100m. Director: Douglas Jackson.

RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP (2008) This “official” sequel to the 1983 slasher classic bypasses Sleepaway Camps 2 and 3 and brings back original director, Robert Hiltzik—but it’s all the more disappointing when Return to Sleepaway Camp ends up being just a cheap and uninspired remake. Campers are turning up murdered at Camp Manabe—and all the victims are part of a bully squad who’ve been making camp hell for the local black sheep (Michael Gibney), an obnoxious slob who, quite frankly, deserves every whupping he gets. The bloodshed is revealed to be the work of Angela (Felissa Rose), back to continue where she left off in the first film by punishing the popular troublemakers and rule-breakers. Moronic characters, juvenile humor, and cut-rate gore effects abound. The only thing Return to Sleepaway Camp will have you longing for is the fast-forward button. Felissa Rose deserves much better. D– (Not currently streaming.)

SHALLOW GRAVE (1987) This tongue-in-cheek slasher opens with a spirited tribute to cinema’s all-time greatest slashing—the shower scene from Psycho—when a pretty coed is prank shish kebobbed in the shower by her rowdy classmates. Moments later, the four women pile into a convertible and head south for a fun-filled spring break. Unfortunately for our spunky protagonists, they take a wrong turn in a backwoods Georgia town where they end up being witnesses to a murder committed by the psychopathic sheriff (Tony March). The film then turns into a semi rip-off of Macon County Line as the women try to escape before becoming the sheriff’s next victims. After a terrific first act, Shallow Grave stumbles when the screenplay (by George Edward Fernandez) becomes unsure of what to do with the characters. Fortunately, the film’s final act is suspenseful enough to grab the viewer’s attention and maintain it until the bleak ending. An imperfect but entertaining little B-movie. B (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

WHISPERS (1990) Writer Victoria Tennant is repeatedly attacked by a maniac (Jean LeClerc) who seems to have supernatural ways of defying death. The local police think she’s crying wolf, but good cop Chris Sarandon believes her and tries to help. She finally kills the psychopathic stalker, but Tennant finds herself in a living nightmare when LeClerc returns from the grave, sending her and Sarandon down a rabbit hole of Satanic cults and a lot of other uninteresting mumbo jumbo that never gels into a cohesive plot. The script is based on a Dean Koontz book, and Whispers is so proud of its literary inspiration that it flagrantly states as much in the opening credits with the title “Dean Koontz’s Whispers“—although I highly doubt the author would have approved. Sarandon gives a good cop-in-distress performance, but Tennant is stiff and wholly unsympathetic. A bloodless bore with very little redeeming qualities besides the odd joke or two. D (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (1990) It’s just as well this Canadian production didn’t return to Toms River, New Jersey, where the previous four Amityville movies were shot. Based on a fictionalized story involving the notorious Long Island house, the film’s new location and structure lend this completely different tale a little more credence—but only so much. A pompous psychiatrist (David Stein) and his semi-psychic wife (Dawna Wightman) buy the Amityville house as a fixer-upper for them and their friends, unaware that it harbors the vengeful spirit of a priest who was murdered twelve years earlier. The friends unknowingly expose themselves to the place’s “curse,” manifested through various bizarre incidents, including a nail gun that powers on by itself, strange noises in the basement, and the slow possession of one of their party (Kim Coates) that’s essentially just a replay of George Lutz from The Amityville Horror. Spiders seem to have replaced flies to signify the house’s evil, but one can’t help feel it was easier (and cheaper) for the filmmakers to use the same tarantula over and over instead of wrangling hundreds of flies. The Lutzes don’t seem to exist in this alternative Amityville timeline—a townsperson mentions the DeFeo murders, although its referred to as the “possessed boy who killed his family.” None of this would be a deterrent hadn’t the filmmakers created such a lifeless film. Coates (Sons of Anarchy) gives a decent performance, but the rest of the cast is stiff and unconvincing, just like this movie. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE 1992: IT’S ABOUT TIME (1992) A California tract house (not unlike that in Poltergeist) becomes the scene of supernatural horrors thanks to a haunted antique clock. If you’re wondering what this has to do with the Amityville timeline you’re not alone. Actually, the L.A. location was most likely due to convenience on the part of the filmmakers, as well as the apparent decline in budget. Architect Stephen Macht returns from a business trip to New York, where his company has just demolished the street on which the notorious Amityville house was standing. He brings back with him an ugly clock from the old Amityville digs, which immediately takes control of Macht by turning him into a temperamental jerk. Macht’s teen daughter (Megan Ward) turns into an evil seductress, while his son (Damon Martin) finds out the clock was the creation of a 15th century Satan-worshipper and used to open a portal to Hell. The director (Tony Randall—Hellbound: Hellraiser II) is striving for something different, and several scenes are visually impressive, including the climax where Macht’s live-in girlfriend (Shawn Weatherly), in an effort to destroy the evil, reveals the clock’s internal gears are growing inside the house’s walls like a parasitic organism. The writers drop the ball on the clock’s backstory—how and why it ended up in Amityville is never explained—but the characters are mostly intelligent, and the pacing good. Most surprising is the fact Amityville 1992 ends up being one of the better entries in the series. B– (Currently streaming on AMC, Shudder, Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE: A NEW GENERATION (1993) A skid row apartment building occupied by pretentious artists and yuppies—do I detect an anti-gentrification message?—falls under the influence of an evil mirror in this needless but well-acted hodgepodge of every other Amityville movie on the market. Struggling photographer Keyes (Ross Partridge) is given a mirror by a mysterious vagrant, igniting artistic inspiration in Keyes’s neighbor, Suki (Julia Nickson), a painter. It seems anyone who looks into the reflecting glass perishes—the first victim being Suki’s douchebag ex-beau (Robert Rustler), who’s slashed to ribbons after he does the same to one of her paintings. Predictably, Suki’s work begins to manifest into images of demonic creatures as the Amityville house reflects from the mirror’s glass, and more people end up looking like they stepped out of a Picasso portrait, sans canvas. Why is all of this happening? Because the mirror hung in the Amityville homestead the night of the infamous 1974 massacre, although here the family name has been changed from DeFeo to Bronner. Don’t worry—I doubt even the writers can make sense of it. A good cast tries its best, but even the likes of Terry O’Quinn, Richard Roundtree, and David Naughton can’t save Amityville: A New Generation from descending into woeful sequel overkill. C (Currently streaming on Freevee, Shudder, Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE (1996) Yet another dysfunctional family is used as puppets by the Amityville evil, this time emanating from a miniature replica of the Long Island House of Horrors. A Brady Bunch-like family composed of a father (Robin Thomas), his two kids, and his new bride (Starr Andreeff) and her son move into a house in the middle of the desert. The structure comes complete with a haggard work shed left by the previous owner, which contains the usual assortment of bizarro items, including a dollhouse modeled after 112 Ocean Avenue. Thomas gifts his daughter the dollhouse for her birthday and—wouldn’t ya know it?—strange things immediately take shape. The pet mouse grows to the size of a pit bull, teen Allen Culter’s girlfriend is barbecued in the fireplace, and the youngest (Jarrett Lennon) makes friends with his deceased dad, who fills the boy’s head with murderous thoughts. But it just so happens that Thomas’s sister (Lenore Kasdorf) dabbles in the occult, and her investigation opens a can of worms in the form of demonic activity. It might be the eighth entry in the series but Amityville: Dollhouse‘s inherent stupidity gives the movie a boost of brainless entertainment that was missing from the majority of the other, more “serious” sequels. In fact, the film’s ostentatious visual flare—culminating in a monster-infused climax—is a welcome sight and helps to create a fun little flick that’ll most likely kill some brain cells along the way. B (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Blood Shack – 1971, US, 55m. Director: Ray Dennis Steckler.

Deadtime Stories – 1986, US, 82m. Director: Jeffrey Delman.

Spellbinder – 1988, US, 99m. Director: Janet Greek.

BLOOD SHACK (1971) Carol (Carolyn Brandt) inherits a dilapidated two-room shack in the middle of some Nevada dust bowl. Unfortunately, the property is haunted by a “ghost” called The Chooper, which takes pleasure in killing passersby with a sword. We know this because in the opening scene a scantily-clad woman spending the night in the shack is slain by the all-black-wearing specter. (If you’re thinking there’s a twist coming, you’re not wrong.) Despite Carol’s voice-over narration, which supplies the viewer with needless (and dull) exposition about the history of the shack and surrounding land, Blood Shack can’t hide its ramshackle story structure and sluggish pacing. Even at just 55 minutes this movie feels too long. Never a good sign. An additional ten minutes of rodeo stock footage was tacked on to secure theatrical distribution, which doesn’t help in the slightest. From the director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Become Mixed-Up Zombies; a must-miss. D– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

DEADTIME STORIES (1986) Deadtime Stories does for children’s fairy tales what Creepshow did for E.C. Comics, but not as successfully. In order to put his tempestuous nephew to sleep, a man tells the kid three bedtime stories. The first tale stars Scott Valentine of Family Ties fame as a peasant sold to a pair of murderous sisters who use the young man to aid them in the resurrection of a powerful witch. Tale two is a spin on Little Red Riding Hood, as a man (Matt Mitler) pursues a sexed-up teen (Nicole Picard)—decked out in a red jogging suit—after she accidentally takes his anti-wolf medication from the pharmacist. The final (and most cartoonish) story depicts the escape of the murderous Baer family from an asylum, who discover serial killer Goldi Lox (Cathryn de Prume) is using their hideaway to store the bodies of her many male victims. The sense of humor actually saves a lot of the movie from its obvious poverty row origins, as does some impressive Ed French makeup, especially in the first segment. Look for Oscar-winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) in a small role. Funniest bit: When a woman is confronted while taking a shower, her response is: “You were expecting perhaps Janet Leigh?” C+ (Currently streaming on Freevee, Pluto TV, and Tubi.)

SPELLBINDER (1988) Los Angeles lawyer—and all around nice guy—Jeff Mills (Tim Daly) rescues damsel-in-distress Miranda (Kelly Preston) from her abusive boyfriend and ends up in a whirlwind romance with the beautiful young woman. Miranda eventually moves in with Jeff and life seems too good to be true. That is until Miranda’s mysterious past comes knocking and pulls Jeff into a dangerous world of black magic. Miranda just happens to be part of a Satanic cult, and they want her back by the next lunar moon in order to complete an ancient prophecy—and guess who’s the sacrificial pig? Cue the overplayed scene in which our straight-laced hero gets in over his head at the stereotypical occult book store. All of this is predictable and the execution is strictly by-the-book, leaving very little in terms of surprises. Still, Spellbinder is harmless and enjoyable for the most part, featuring a good performance by the late Preston and a downbeat ending not typically found in films as mainstream as this. B– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Axe – 1977, US, 68/72m. Director: Frederick R. Friedel. Streaming: N/A

The Convent – 2000, US, 78m. Director: Mike Mendez. Streaming: AMC, Shudder, Tubi

The Love Butcher – 1975, US, 85m. Director: Mikel Angel, Don Jones. Streaming: N/A

AXE (1977) (AKA: California Axe Massacre, Lisa Lisa) A thug named Steel (Jack Canon) and his two henchmen break into a hotel room to torture and kill a gay man who cheated them out of money. After they shove a lit cigar into the man’s mouth, his horrified lover jumps out of the window and plunges to his death. In response to questioning why someone would jump twelve stories down, one of Steel’s henchmen answers: “It’s only nine.” These are clearly criminal masterminds. After Steel humiliates a cashier at a convenient store because the apples weren’t fresh, the trio invade an isolated farmhouse where the occupants—young Lisa (Leslie Lee) and her paralyzed grandfather—don’t conform to their liking. That’s because Lisa is on the brink of mental collapse and has probably seen Last House on the Left one too many times. Using her expertise at chopping off the heads of chickens, Lisa wields her large axe and enacts bloody revenge. A gritty, ultra-low budget curiosity that’s not the gore-drenched epic its title suggests. That’s not to say Axe is a serious character study, because it ain’t. It does achieve a level of morbid entertainment, and a scene in which Lisa fights off a sexual attack by Steel is cleverly married with the voiceover narration of a football game playing on the background TV. A slightly amusing hodgepodge of oddly endearing trash cinema. B–

THE CONVENT (2000) This movie has more energy packed into its 78 minutes than most mainstream Hollywood films combined. A group of frat guys and their sorority girlfriends break into the neighborhood haunted house (in this case, an abandoned convent) for some late night fun. Along the way, they pick up goth queen Mo (Meghan Perry), who informs the college pals of the convent’s unsavory history—in which a Bettie Page-like woman named Christine slaughtered all of the nuns and priests inside the place forty years earlier. Unbeknownst to our protagonists, the convent has already been invaded by Satanists who conjure forth demons that systematically possess the characters. If you’re thinking you’ve heard this one before, you’re not wrong. Fortunately, The Convent is a hoot—a flashy throwback to splatter movies like The Evil Dead, Demons, and specifically Night of the Demons, which the makers of this flick are obviously fans of. Unlike the majority of those titles, The Convent never takes itself seriously and flourishes in its perverse sense of humor and comic book-style visuals. Unreleased until 2002, this demands cult classic status. B+

THE LOVE BUTCHER (1975) Caleb is a chrome-domed simpleton in Coke bottle glasses and overalls who speaks in a “yes’m” southern accent despite living in Southern California. He spends his days being berated by the women whose yards he attends to in an upscale suburban neighborhood (after Caleb asks his employer for a glass of water she calls him an irritation). Little do they know Caleb is a psychopath who takes on the personality of his “brother,” Lester, when he feels unjustly treated by society. A suave ladies’ man, Lester seduces the women who’ve treated Caleb like garbage and ultimately takes a knife/shears/pitchfork to them. Sort of the slasher movie version of Ethan Hunt, Caleb/Lester (both played by James Lemp) takes on disguises in order to infiltrate the homes of his victims. As if performing an overzealous theater pantomime, Lemp’s acting choices are often so hysterically overwrought the movie becomes almost mesmerizing in its awfulness. And Lemp is probably the best thing about the film! The rest of the story is filled with a typically dry police/newspaper investigation of the murders, in which the hard-boiled police captain and the overworked reporter scream their lines at each other until the veins in their foreheads nearly burst. The Love Butcher is either a misanthropic commentary on the seventies, an anti-feminist story, or a spoof of both. Either way, the viewer loses. C–