The Curse – 1987, Italy/US, 92m. Director: David Keith. Streaming: Tubi
The Dead Pit – 1989, US, 95m. Director: Brett Leonard. Streaming: AMC/Prime, Shudder
Ghoulies – 1985, US, 81m. Director: Luca Bercovici. Streaming: Tubi
Prom Night – 1980, Canada/US, 92m. Director: Paul Lynch. Streaming: Peacock, AMC/Prime, Roku Channel, Shudder
THE CURSE (1987) An adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story, The Colour Out of Space, about a glowing meteor that crashes on a small Tennessee farm owned by a religious coot (Claude Akins) and his family. When the meteor liquifies and gets into the water supply, it turns the crops into putrified mush, the livestock violent, and slowly transforms most of Akins’s family into disfigured whack-jobs. An Italian-American co-production—Lucio Fulci served as associate producer—The Curse definitely lives up to its bad reputation. Flatly directed and poorly paced, the story never achieves any momentum, which is hindered further by uninteresting, unlikable characters, an inapt musical score, and some truly dismal make-up effects. A good cast is wasted, especially Wil Wheaton and Cooper Huckabee. Followed by three unrelated sequels, including Curse II: The Bite, which is far superior. Truly Dumb.
THE DEAD PIT (1989) This film has so much energy, imagination, and an inventive, low-budget filmmaking style, it reminds of Sam Raimi and The Evil Dead. Psychopathic M.D., Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer), who was shot dead by a colleague 20 years earlier in the basement of a mental hospital, resurrects as a red-eyed demon after the arrival of amnesiac, Jane Doe (Cheryl Lawson). Ramzi kills several hospital staffers and patients, and hides the bodies in a pit secreted away in the basement, where he eventually raises them as brain-tearing zombies. It sounds tacky, but The Dead Pit is handled with enough care by director Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man) to make it all highly effective. Fulci, Lovecraft, and Romero were possible inspirations, but the movie as a whole feels genuinely original, and features some impressive make-up FX. A longer than necessary runtime kills some of the pacing, but that’s a small price to pay for this slick production. B
GHOULIES (1985) “They’ll get you in the end!” So promised the tagline of this cheap Gremlins rip-off about the world’s oldest college student, Jonathan (Peter Liapis), who inherits a mansion that was once the site of a Satanic cult run by his father (Michael Des Barres). Naturally, Jonathan plays around with a dusty spell book he finds in the basement and becomes possessed—while also summoning forth several furry little creatures to do his bidding. But that’s not all! Jonathan also calls forth a pair of magical dwarfs who inform him he must make sacrifices in order to obtain the power he desires. One of Empire Pictures’ more famous titles, Ghoulies is at times amusing, but it’s also massively stupid and technically inept—at one point, the green contact lenses Liapis wears to suggest his possession are mismatched. The “ghoulies” are supposed to balance the scares and comedic factor just like the mutated mogwai of Gremlins, yet unlike Stripe and his fellow gremlins, these ghoulies lack a shred of personality. Budget restraints obviously played into the limitation of the creature FX, which look like hand puppets. Popular enough to be followed by Ghoulies II and Ghoulies Go to College. Go figure. C–
PROM NIGHT (1980) From it’s “killer-seeking-revenge-for-a-childhood-incident” storyline, to the decapitated head rolling on the disco dance floor, to iconic ’80s Scream Queen Jamie Lee Curtis, Prom Night is a quintessential slasher classic. The seniors of Hamilton High are being targeted by a balaclava-wearing killer, with the would-be victims all having a secret connection to the accidental death of their friend, Robin (Tammy Bourne), when they were children. The main suspect is an escaped murderer who was originally arrested for Robin’s death six years earlier, but the real maniac is most likely: a) Mr. Hammond (Leslie Nielsen), Robin’s father and Hamilton principle; b) Wendy (Anne-Marie Martin), the Queen Bee and organizer of Robin’s cover-up; c) Mr. Sykes (Robert Silverman), the horny groundskeeper who likes his tree saw; and d) Alex (Michael Tough), Robin’s younger, violent brother. The plot crescendos on the night of the spring prom when the maniac goes axe-happy, chopping the cast to pieces and going head-to-head with prom queen, Curtis. A good cast—Curtis gives one of her better post-Halloween performances—and well-paced direction by Paul Lynch help rise Prom Night above the typical psycho-horrors of its time. B+