LUTHER THE GEEK (1989) After 25 years inside, convicted murderer—and obvious psychopath—Luther Watts (Edward Terry), who uses homemade dentures to chomp his victims, is released for being a model prisoner. Minutes later, Luther viciously kills an elderly woman and then goes about terrorizing a family at their isolated farmhouse. So much for the parole board’s wise decision! Luther does all this while clucking like a chicken, because when he was a child Luther witnessed a circus performer biting the head of a live chicken. Luther the Geek has a paper-thin plot and transparent characters, but it’s surprisingly gripping. It’s also well-acted and directed (by Carlton J. Albright), and much bleaker then you’d expect from an ’80s slasher. If you can believe the sprightly Terry is supposed to be in his mid-50s, you might enjoy this 80-minute oddity. B
MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (1986) A ragtag group of people trapped inside a truck stop outside of Wilmington, North Carolina, are terrorized by all manner of self-driving automobiles when the planet’s machines begin to think for themselves—a phenomenon apparently caused by a passing comet—in this absurd but extremely entertaining adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “Trucks.” Directed and written by King, the movie makes no pretense of being anything other than what it is: a popcorn flick about killer trucks. After a spectacular opening depicting a malfunctioning drawbridge causing a massive pile-up, the movie is nonstop havoc as helpless people are picked off by trucks, lawnmowers, vending machines, and arcade games—until scrappy hero Emilio Estevez figures out a plan to escape the mayhem on an engine-free sailboat. King has called Maximum Overdrive “the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.” I wholeheartedly agree. B+
PHENOMENA (1985) A joyful sense of the absurdly fantastic keeps this silly but undeniably entertaining Dario Argento opus from collapsing on itself. Much like Suspiria, Phenomena feels like it takes place in a heightened, dream-like reality where nothing is what it seems. A small Swiss town lives in fear of a brutal killer who’s cutting off the heads of young women. This bodes badly for new arrival, Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly), an American sent to live at a nearby boarding school, who has a psychic connection with insects. Thinking her power can help catch the killer, Jennifer seeks the advice of an entomologist (Donald Pleasance), who just happens to live close to the school. Also, Jennifer can seem to do a form of astral projection, but the film never bothers to explain why, other than to offer a scene where she sleepwalks and witnesses a gruesome murder, all to the pounding rock score of Goblin. Oh—there’s also a chimpanzee wielding a razor! In other words, Phenomena is a beautifully photographed, typically bonkers Argento chiller that, made by any other filmmaker, would be classified a turkey. Funniest scene: when a teacher asks about the importance of Richard Wagner, a student shouts, “Richard Gere!” B