DEATH SCREAMS (1982) d: David Nelson. c: Susan Kiger, Jennifer Chase, Martin Tucker, Jody Kay, Andria Savio, William T. Hicks. Offbeat southern slasher about a small North Carolina town stalked by a killer during the final days of summer and who targets a group of high school friends. Does orphaned shop girl, Lily’s (Kiger), past have something to do with the murders? Agatha Christie was said to be the inspiration for this gory whodunit, and it’s better written and acted than you’d think, featuring a surprisingly good cast and a wonderful sense of humor injected throughout. Some might be put off by the lack of plot – it’s slim even for a slasher flick – and most of the splatter is saved for the final 15 minutes, yet this has plenty of charm to spare and, at times, feels like an early H. G. Lewis movie by the way of John Waters. AKA House of Death. B
THE FUNHOUSE (1981) d: Tobe Hooper. c: Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Kevin Conway, Miles Chapin, Largo Woodruff, William Finley. Hooper followed up Salem’s Lot with this terrific chiller about four friends who decide to spend the night inside a traveling carnival funhouse and are subsequently terrorized by a mutated carny who lives in the basement. As with most of his films Hooper spends time on well-written characters and building tension, and here creates an otherworldly, unsettling atmosphere. The characters are likable and feel genuine, the carnival environment is a character unto itself, and John Beal’s operatic musical score gives the movie another dimension. Finley steals it as a drunken second-rate magician. B+
THE HITCHER (1986) d: Robert Harmon. c: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jeffrey DeMunn. A young man (Howell) driving through a desert town picks up a hitchhiker (Hauer), unaware he’s a psychopathic killer. When Howell escapes his clutches, Hauer obsessively stalks and frames the teen for a series of murders. Fast-paced and often exciting, this has good performances, especially Hauer, and direction from Harmon. Unfortunately the entire foundation of the screenplay (by Eric Red) is built exclusively on a series of unbelievable plot twists and conveniences, ridding the film of any sort of logic until it nearly collapses on itself like a house of cards. C+
HOUSE OF WAX (2005) d: Jaume Collet-Serra. c: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Jared Padalecki, Paris Hilton, Brian Van Holt. Taking only a basic element from the classic Vincent Price film and transforming it into a slick slasher movie, this polished revamp is flawed by harmless fun. A group of friends on their way to a football game get stranded in a remote town where the only living soul seems to be a gas station attendant (Van Holt) who may have a connection with the local wax museum. This gets points for not being yet another post-Scream clone and having more of an imagination than many of the slashers from the early 2000s, and while it takes a bit too long to get going it ultimately delivers, especially during the crackerjack climax. The cast is good with Cuthbert and Murray portraying sympathetic siblings, while Hilton displays a sense of self-referential humor by playing a pampered rich girl who can’t escape her pervy friend’s videocamera. B