Matt’s Horror Addiction

The Dark Side of the Moon – 1990, US, 87m. Director: D.J. Webster. Streaming: Tubi

Night of Bloody Horror – 1969, US, 77m. Director. Joy N. Houck, Jr. Streaming: Tubi

The Pack – 1977, US, 98m. Director: Robert Clouse. Streaming: N/A

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (1990) In the futuristic world of 2022 (oh, boy!) crews of “refabbers” are specialists in fixing nuclear-armed satellites. This line of work is very dangerous; we know this because the text crawl at the beginning informs us of said danger. Anyway, spaceship Discovery and its refab team are sent to work on a malfunctioning satellite but mechanical problems force the ship to drift towards the dark side of the moon. It’s there they encounter a derelict NASA spacecraft, which reportedly went missing near the Bermuda Triangle during an emergency crash landing in 1992. To further the mystery, the crew discover the dead body of the ship’s captain, who might not be as dead as he appears. The movie’s blueprint looks like Alien, but the script’s dense atmosphere of paranoia mirrors Carpenter’s The Thing. Add a splash of The Exorcist and you should get a sense of how The Dark Side of the Moon turns out—but I’m not knocking it. On the contrary: confident direction (by D.J. Webster) and a cast of likable characters make this fairly taut stuff, despite its limited production values. It wouldn’t surprise me if Paul W.S. Anderson was inspired by this to make Event Horizon. Friday the 13th alumni Camilla More (The Final Chapter) and Alan Blumenfeld (Jason Lives) fill out the good cast, which also includes Joe Turkel (The Shining) and veteran character actor John Diehl. Worth checking out. B

NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR (1969) An arty/psychedelic slasher-drama filmed in New Orleans and really only noteworthy for future Major Dad star Gerald McRaney’s good performance. Affected by the untimely death of his brother and father years earlier, troubled Wesley (McRaney) begins experiencing blackouts, which just happen to coincide with the gruesome murders of two of his girlfriends. Because of his stint in a mental hospital, the cops want Wesley for the crimes, but his doctor believes he can help Wesley and find out the truth. The film builds to a predictable reveal from the Psycho school of psycho-killer plots—the final ten minutes play out like mystery, but it’s very obvious who the murderer is. It’s just a shame the writers didn’t realize this. C

THE PACK (1977) A small island community is besieged by a horde of vicious dogs, which were left to fend for themselves in the nearby woods by their neglectful owners. The hungry dogs devour a whole horse before moving on to people, including a pompous banker (Richard O’Brien) and his nebbish son (Paul Willson) and secretary (Bibi Besch). The dogs make their way through the tiny population until marine biologist Joe Don Baker boards himself and the other survivors up inside his cabin and fight to the death. At first glance this seems like a typical nature-gone-crazy movie in the Birds/Jaws mold, but The Pack has a lot going for it. The cast is excellent, the Northern California location is beautiful, and the script offers several suspenseful moments that could give Cujo a run for its money. Good dog! B

Dreamcatcher – 2003, US, 134m. Director: Lawrence Kasdan. Streaming: N/A

The Evil – 1978, US, 89m. Director: Gus Trikonis. Streaming: Tubi

Srigala – 1981, Indonesia, 90m. Director: Sisworo Gautama Putra. Streaming: N/A

DREAMCATCHER (2003) Dreamcatcher is proof that not all books can be—or should be—translated into film. This is especially true with Stephen King novels, specifically Dreamcatcher, a novel King wrote while admittedly high on pain killers (and which explains this movie’s convoluted plot). Basically a Frankenstein’s monster of bits and pieces from other King stories, Dreamcatcher focuses on a band of lifelong friends, all of whom share a psychic link formed during childhood after encountering a strange young boy (Andrew Robb) with supernatural powers. During their annual log cabin get-together, the gang is terrorized by vicious, snake-like creatures that like to burrow inside people’s guts before ripping out of their backsides (played out in a scene that may have read as horrifying in the book but here comes off as unintentionally funny). There are also enormous bipedal aliens running amok, which the military have been secretly at war with for twenty-five years. Again, all this might have been engaging on paper, but on film Dreamcatcher is confusing and hollow, with too many ideas thrown into an overflowing, nonsensical pot that never gels. A good cast overacts on trite dialogue, but Thomas Jane wins in the end by giving the film way more legitimacy than it deserves. A movie that supplies more douche chills than the dreaded “ass weasels.” D

THE EVIL (1978) Psychiatrist Richard Crenna purchases a massive hilltop manor with plans to turn the place into a drug rehabilitation center. Soon after moving in, the doctor’s wife (Joanna Pettet) begins seeing a ghostly apparition walking about the place, which is followed by a series of bizarre incidents, including the fiery death of the groundskeeper. Things worsen when a trap door in the basement opens, unleashing pure evil and trapping Crenna and his students inside the house with the Devil himself (Victor Buono). A surprisingly good little flick, The Evil doesn’t contribute anything new to the cinematic haunted house realm, and most of the characters are boneheads, yet the film is well-paced, contains several inventive SFX set pieces, and is never dull. Buono, in a small part, is devilishly charming. Just don’t expect much. B

SRIGALA (1981) Treasure hunters seeking lost riches at the bottom of a backwoods lake are stalked by a killer in this Indonesian Friday the 13th rip-off, but the arrival of fun-seeking teenagers creates a high body count for the Jason-like menace, who goes about hacking and slashing their way through the cast of mostly amateur actors. After a pre-credits disemboweling, the movie is slow to get to any more sanguinary activities, with a whole lotta filler focused on skin diving, a boat chase, an elaborate dream sequence, and a completely ridiculous kung-fu catfight between two of the female campers. Once the killer is back in action, Srigala becomes an efficiently-made bloodbath, with the last 30 minutes being an almost shot-for-shot remake of Friday the 13th, right down to the “shock” ending. It’s slightly amusing, but in the end one can’t help feel cheated. C

The Crawlers – 1990, Italy/US, 91m. Director: Fabrizio Laurenti. Streaming: Tubi

The Devonsville Terror – 1983, US, 82m. Director: Ulli Lommel. Streaming: Shudder

Prey – 1977, UK, 85m. Director: Norman J. Warren. Streaming: N/A

Who Can Kill a Child? – 1976, Spain, 112m. Director: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador. Streaming: N/A

THE CRAWLERS (1990) Another bargain basement Italian loser from the makers of Witchery (a.k.a. La Casa 4), this was shot in Porterville, Utah, where the equally atrocious Troll 2 was filmed. Toxic waste dumping—a plot device in so many of these movies—turns the trees of the nearby forest into mutated killers, the roots of which drag people off to their (mostly) off-screen demise. As with the stalking scenes in Jaws, we’re greeted with lots of POV shots of the tree roots roaming the woods looking for victims, because we all know roots have eyes. Yikes. The zero-dimensional characters are a mix of country bumpkins, rednecks, a doofus sheriff, and a feather boa-wearing town prostitute whom two of the male leads confide in! Filmed as Contamination .7, The Crawlers is dumb stuff. Very dumb, with second-rate acting, feeble make-up FX, and incoherent writing (e.g. when questioning an old fart about a victim, the sheriff gives a completely different description of the actress who portrayed said victim). This might have been the result of new scenes written and shot by producer, Joe (Anthropophagus) D’Amato. A bungling bore. D–

THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR (1983) The title suggests a retread in the Amityville Horror realm, but The Devonsville Terror is more of a Dark Shadowsesque tale of witchcraft and reincarnation. In 1683, three women branded witches are brutally murdered by the puritanical villagers of Devonsville, New England—one poor woman is tied to a loose wagon wheel, set afire, and rolled down a hill, her face repeatedly splattering against the ground. Present day (well, 1983) Devonsville isn’t that much better. The townsfolk are still religious bigots and most of the men are misogynistic brutes who don’t take kindly to outsiders. This hateful ignorance escalates with the arrival of new schoolteacher, Jenny (Suzanna Love), a red-haired beauty who makes the mistake of telling her students God could be a woman. When two more female outsiders (an ecology student and a radio talk show host) move into the area, the superstitious Devonsvillians believe the new female transplants are the reincarnations of the trio killed in the 1683 inquisition and take deadly matters into their old-fashioned hands. It turns out Jenny is the reincarnation of the witch who cursed the family line of her executioner—and unleashes head-exploding powers (literally) in the movie’s gory climax. With an emphasis more on character and story than exploitative violence, The Devonsville Terror turns out to be a surprisingly subtle—but engaging—study in sexism, religious paranoia, and xenophobia. It’s also taut and tightly paced. Highly recommended. B+

PREY (1977) A vicious, flesh-eating alien arrives in the lush English countryside, where it immediately kills (and eats) a couple before taking the human form of the man (Barry Stokes). Calling himself Anders, the being roams the land in search of more food until he comes upon an estate occupied by scaredy cat Jessica (Glory Annen) and her man-hating lesbian friend/lover, Joe (Sally Faulkner). The fragile Jessica, who’s grieving the recent loss of her parents, takes a liking to the seemingly polite Anders, which sends sourpuss Joe into a rage, thinking the man is “contaminating the house” and out to steal Jessica away from her. In a plot to protect and manipulate Jessica, Joe’s psychopathic side comes out, proving she’s just as dangerous—and predatory—as the alien. A grim and, at times, unpleasant, little film, Prey is nonetheless interesting and works best as a character study, especially since most of the movie centers on just Jessica, Joe, and Anders. A lot of the characters are selfish and unlikable, but that seems to be the point, with the film building to an appropriately bleak ending. B

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? (1976) The titular question is meant to represent the metaphorical allegory within the plot, but don’t let that fool you—this is just a cheap exploitation flick wrapped in quasi-intellect. A married British couple (Lewis Fiander and Prunella Ransome) on vacation in Spain find themselves stranded on an island seemingly devoid of adults. That’s because all of the children have turned into psychopathic killers and have disposed of most of the 18-and-above crowd in gruesome fashion. After a good first half, the film meanders aimlessly with endless scenes of Fiander and Ransome (who looks like Amy Steel) wandering the island in a daze. There are some nice touches, such as a group of kids using the body of an old man as a piñata. But the movie is too slow to build much suspense, and the script plays fast and loose with the supernatural aspect—the kids are smart enough to trick the adults into their traps but dumb enough to allow themselves to get mowed down by a machine gun. The ending rips off Night of the Living Dead, which this Spanish shocker more than resembles. C

Creature from Black Lake – 1976, US, 94m. Director: Joy N. Houck Jr. Streaming: Tubi

Curse II: The Bite – 1989, Italy/US, 98m. Director: Frederico Prosperi. Streaming: N/A

Vacation of Terror – 1989, Mexico, 81m. Director: René Cardona III. Streaming: Tubi

CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE (1976) Two University of Chicago students—one of whom is named Pahoo!—travel to some Southern boondocks to investigate claims of a Sasquatch-type monster. After arriving in Oil City, Louisiana, they’re greeted by scared and hostile locals, including the sheriff (Bill Thurman, who also played the sheriff in the drive-in classic, ‘Gator Bait), who tells the two men to forget about looking for any swamp creature. The students soon come across a friendly redneck (Dub Taylor) who informs them of his encounter with the hairy beast, leading Pahoo (Dennis Fimple) and friend right into the claws of the Bigfoot. At first glance this Legend of Boggy Creek exploit seems like just another rip-off, but Creature from Black Lake is too effective to ignore, with a surprisingly witty screenplay that sustains both humor and scares throughout. The cast is good, with Fimple giving a charming and often quite funny performance, but it’s veteran character actor Jack Elam who steals the show as a paranoid drunken swamp rat. Definitely worth a look for the seventies Sasquatch fan. Released on VHS as Terror in the Swamp, which is not to be confused with a 1985 film also called Terror in the Swamp. B+

CURSE II: THE BITE (1989) Beware the sequel that has nothing to do with the original. Actually, Curse II is superior to 1987’s The Curse in almost every way. That is not to say Part 2 is good, because it’s not, exactly—but it is completely watchable hokum and sports some wild Screaming Mad George (Nightmare on Elm Street 4) make-up FX. While traveling through a defunct bomb testing site in the middle of the desert, a man (J. Eddie Peck) is bitten by a radioactive snake and slowly begins to mutate into a bizarre snake creature—the poor guy’s right arm basically transforms into a python. This proves bad news for the assortment of rednecks and backwoods cops the man’s deformed serpent-arm makes snake chow out of. Luckily, snake expert Jamie Farr (M*A*S*H) comes to the rescue, but not before love interest Jill Schoelen watches as her boyfriend’s body deteriorates into a puddle of gore, pus, and snakes in a scene that feels like a homage to Cronenberg’s The Fly. Filmed as just The Bite, this is a fairly well-executed movie with a simple plot, good acting, and an assortment of disgusting snake effects. B–

VACATION OF TERROR (1989) This Mexican haunted house vehicle was probably made by people who’d rented The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist one too many times. A family man (Julio Alemán) takes his wife and children on a weekend excursion to a spider-infested, dilapidated house in some backwoods, unaware the place was cursed by a witch before she sizzled at the stake. Soon after arriving, the youngest daughter begins talking to a toy doll, which is actually a conduit for the witch to enter the world of the living. The child’s interaction eventually releases the witch’s powers, making the pregnant mother sick and terrorizing the teenage niece and her boyfriend (Pedro Fernández)—who happens to be in possession of a talisman that will send the witch to Hell and restore order to the place. All of this could have been fun had the filmmakers bothered to pump any energy into the lifeless screenplay, which they didn’t. The film ends up feeling like a lazy carbon copy of its American counterparts. Naturally, Vacation of Terror was followed by a sequel. C–

Cruising – 1980, US, 102m. Director: William Friedkin. Streaming: N/A

Dark Tower – 1987, Spain/UK/US, 91m. Director: Ken Barnett. Streaming: Tubi

The Day of the Triffids – 1963, UK, 93m. Director: Steve Sekely, Freddie Francis. Streaming: Tubi

Inn of the Damned – 1975, Australia, 117m. Director: Terry Bourke. Streaming: Tubi

CRUISING (1980) Al Pacino’s rookie NYPD cop, Steve Burns, is finally promoted to detective—via an undercover assignment to flush out a slasher targeting the city’s gay-leather community. This proves an endurance test for Burns as he completely immerses himself within Manhattan’s seedy underworld of sex and drugs. When more murders ensue, Steve delves deeper into a world he’s unfamiliar with and begins mentally unraveling. As with his earlier work in The Exorcist, director William Friedkin applies his knowledge of psychological horror to Cruising, which at its core is really about humanity at its darkest. While the plot is about the hunt for a serial killer, the film is more interested in how society, relationships, and interactions can shape one’s mind and motivations. Haunting, bleak, but never disingenuous, Cruising has been accused of being homophobic in its portrayal of gay lifestyles. This seems presumptuous as the film’s true focus is on death and how it affects people differently—a theme corroborated by the script’s use of multiple killers. A complex and suspenseful film that gets under your skin. B+

DARK TOWER (1987) A nearly-constructed Barcelona high-rise is the target of a malevolent spirit, which starts picking off the building’s many maintenance workers. The first to go is a window washer, who plummets twenty-nine floors to his death—his body is clearly a dummy—but not before landing on one of the building’s fat cat investors. A security guard is next, pulverized when the elevator malfunctions. Site inspector Michael Moriarty thinks it’s all a coincidence, but architect Jenny Agutter believes there’s supernatural shenanigans afoot, especially after someone seemingly becomes possessed and tries to murder her. Could it all have something to do with Agutter’s husband, who died under mysterious circumstances years before? Moriarity wears a sour mug and Agutter is wasted in a one-dimensional role. Director Ken Barnett is actually Freddie Francis, who disavowed the film shortly before its release. A wise decision, Freddie. The participation of Kevin McCarthy is the most shocking aspect of this bloodless bore. D

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1963) When most of the world is struck blind after a strange meteor shower, a handful of survivors in London must not only navigate through a collapsing society, but fight off a breed of man-eating, walking plants grown from meteor spores. An effective adaptation of the popular novel, this is slightly hampered by stiff, unconvincing acting and an obvious lack in technological advances in special FX. Yet this first in a series of filmed adaptations of John Wyndham’s 1951 novel is undeniably fun and contains some impressive sequences of empty London streets that were perhaps inspiration for the opening shots of 28 Days Later. A subplot involving two scientists in a lighthouse was added later and directed by Freddie Francis. B–

INN OF THE DAMNED (1975) Bob Young’s soundtrack to Inn of the Damned is lively and exciting. It’s a shame the movie itself is so lifeless. An unfocused western-horror melodrama filmed in Australia, the film stars the great Dame Judith Anderson (Rebecca, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) as one half of an elderly married couple who, at the turn of the 20th century, operate a small inn in the Victorian outback. What the inn’s guests don’t realize is Anderson and hubby (Joseph Fürst) have gone completely nutty after the murder of their children years before and seek retribution by bumping off their clientele. It’s an intriguing idea bogged down by slack direction and a dull subplot involving an American bounty hunter (Alex Cord) and his very uninteresting interactions with slimy criminals. Anderson delivers an affecting performance, which gets repeatedly swallowed in a dopey plot that never successfully mixes its drama and horror elements. C–