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Summer Camp Slashers Part 2: Cheerleader Camp and Sleepaway Camp

This post contains spoilers!

Summer camp has long been a traditional place for deformed, masked killers to do their slicing ‘n’ dicing. Thanks to Friday the 13th, the slasher film found a home away from home, an isolated location where there would be 1) plenty of nubile young people roaming the area, 2) separation from any sort of protective adult authorities, 3) forest terrain in which the mysterious killer could massacre a handful of pretty, bikini-clad cheerleaders and their horny boyfriends without anyone catching wise—until it’s too late.

One of the most (in)famous summer camp slashers is undoubtedly 1983’s Sleepaway Camp. Several years after witnessing her father’s death in a boating accident, mentally damaged teenager, Angela (Felissa Rose)—now living with her kooky aunt (Desiree Gould)—is, along with her cousin, Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten), sent to Camp Arawak for a summer of fun and sun. Once there, Angela is introduced to an assortment of characters: Judy (Karen Fields), the camp tramp; Meg (Katherine Kamhi), the eternal sourpuss; Paul (Christopher Collet), the love interest; Mel (Mike Kellin), the camp owner; and Artie (Owen Hughes), the cook-slash-pervert.

Most of these lively characters exist to make the severely shy Angela’s time at camp a living hell, especially the bitchy duo of Judy and Meg. But when those who are mean to Angela—which seems to be just about everyone—begin turning up mangled and dead, all fingers point to Ricky, Angela’s protector. It’s no surprise to anyone reading this that the assailant is Angela, who’s actually a boy named Peter, a secret revealed in the film’s shocking twist ending: Angela, standing butt-naked on the moonlit lake shore, bloody knife in one hand, a decapitated head in the other. . . dick and balls out. The shot has become the stuff of slasher movie legend. (Interesting tidbit: Sleepaway Camp might be the only ’80s slasher to feature exclusively all-male nudity.)

Sleepaway Camp is in a category by itself. It took a theme Friday the 13th introduced—a killer at summer camp— which SC mirrors, but elevates it to the level of absurdist masterpiece. No other slasher flick of the time period captures the wonderfully ostentatious essence of the pure, unadulterated ’80s like Sleepaway Camp. The movie doesn’t try to be another Friday, yet it’s obviously aware of the footsteps its following. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime work of genius that can’t be replicated. Director and writer, Robert Hiltzik, wisely handed over the Felissa-less Sleepaway Camps 2 and 3 to Michael A. Simpson and Michael Hitchcock, possibly with the realization that he wouldn’t be able to top himself—and he didn’t. Hiltzik returned in 2008 to direct the “official” sequel, Return to Sleepaway Camp, which is, despite Rose’s participation, an unfortunate failure.

Coming on the tail end of the Golden Age of slashers is 1988’s Cheerleader Camp. Set at an isolated, pom-pom-waving getaway called Camp Hurrah, a competition for the upcoming state finals is interrupted by the apparent suicide of popular Suzy (Krista Pflanzer), which is followed by a series of murders. Could the killer be Pop (George Flower), the creepy camp custodian? Or maybe Pam (Teri Weigel), the jealous, booby-flashing Queen Bee? There’s also Brent (Leif Garrett), the horny cheer coach whose advances were turned down by Suzy hours before her death. But what about Alison (Betsy Russell), the nightmare-plagued, emotionally fragile protagonist who just happens to be Brent’s girlfriend?

The story crescendos during the crowning of the Camp Queen when bodies start piling up, including amateur videographer, Timmy (Travis McKenna), whose disemboweling is recorded over his homemade porn. The major red herring is Brent, but the killer is actually Cory (Lucinda Dickey, Ninja III: The Domination), the dowdy team mascot who, in the final scene, frames Alison for the murders before donning a cheerleader uniform and breaking into a cheer, asking the audience to, “Give me a C-O-R-Y!”

Filmed as Bloody Pom-Poms, Cheerleader Camp is a cheesy good time. Never taking itself seriously, the movie functions as a whodunit, all the while being playfully humorous—this is a flick that knows it’s silly. All the characters are fun and likable, and the plot moves quickly. Russell (Saw III-V) makes a sympathetic leading lady, and McKenna is a lovable horn-dog. It’s not going to be remembered in the annals of slasher movie history, but for us hardcore ’80s slasher aficionados, Cheerleader Camp is a cheerfully trashy delight. Cheerleader Camp: B Sleepaway Camp: A

Please check out Part 1 of Summer Camp Slashers

And, let’s not forget the Sleepaway Camp sequels…

SLEEPAWAY CAMP 2: UNHAPPY CAMPERS (1988) The years after the massacre at Camp Arawak have been enlightening for Angela, a.k.a. Peter Baker, the 14-year-old who killed all those who made his/her life hell at camp. Having seen the errors of her ways, Angela is now more of a Puritan killer, bumping off teenagers who indulge in swearing, drinking, fornicating, drug-taking, and generally bad behavior. Moments after cutting out a girl’s tongue, Angela cheerfully tells someone, “There’s plenty of good kids. You’ve just got to weed out the bad!” Having had gender reassignment surgery and using the surname Johnson, Angela is now a counselor at Camp Rolling Hills, where the usual assortment of foul-mouthed campers become fodder for Angela’s array of weapons, including knives, drills, battery acid, and a guitar string she uses to garrote a poor girl who talks too much. Tonally different from Sleepaway Camp, Unhappy Campers is a straightforward parody of ’80s slasher movies—and of itself—right down to its jokey, self-referential nature; in order to give Angela a scare, two boys dress up as Freddy and Jason, but end up on the wrong side of Angela’s Leatherface-inspired chainsaw. And it all works extremely well, offering plenty of laughs and some juicy deaths. The cast is first-rate, with Renée Estevez (Emilio’s sis) a sympathetic Final Girl, but kudos goes to Pamela Springsteen (Bruce’s sis), whose adult Angela is both likable and nasty. B+

SLEEPAWAY CAMP 3: TEENAGE WASTELAND (1989) Having “slummed it” in the year following her bloody escape at Camp Rolling Hills, Angela (Pamela Springsteen), runs over a city girl on her way to camp with a Mack 10. The eternal moralist, Angela impersonates the dead girl and immediately goes to work eliminating those she feels are a bad influence, including a drug-taking news reporter to whom Angela gives a gram of Ajax while informing the TV correspondent, “It’ll really clean your pipes!” The camp in question is an experimental program mixing inner city and suburban teens, operated by a stingy layabout (Sandra Dorsey) and her lecherous husband (Michael J. Pollard), whose fling with one of the camping bimbos sends Angela into a tizzy—so she mutilates him with a tree branch. One of horror cinema’s most prolific serial killers, Angela wipes out the entire cast until a showdown with Last Woman Standing, Tracy Griffith, sends Angela off in an ambulance. Even more of a comedy than Part 2, Teenage Wasteland doesn’t contain the magic of its predecessors—the exhausting back-to-back shooting of this film with Sleepaway Camp 2 results in a clear disintegration in quality—with a majority of the characters being too imbecilic to care about. Most of the gore FX were trimmed, making the death scenes less enticing than Angela’s post-kill quips, the best of which comes after she rips the arms off an S&M enthusiast who plans on running for office: “Thank God there’ll be one less idiot in politics.” B–

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Crawlspace, Fear No Evil, FleshEater, The Majorettes, and Primal Rage

Crawlspace – 1986, US, 80m. Director: David Schmoeller. Streaming: Tubi

Fear No Evil – 1981, US, 99m. Director: Frank LaLoggia. Streaming: Shudder

FleshEater – 1988, US, 89m. Director: S. William Hinzman. Streaming: N/A

The Majorettes – 1986, US, 92m. Director: S. William Hinzman. Streaming: Tubi

Primal Rage – 1988, Italy/US, 91m. Director: Vittorio Rambaldi. Streaming: AMC/Prime, Shudder

CRAWLSPACE (1986) Infamously volatile thespian, Klaus Kinski, gives a typically creepy/looney performance in this slick Charles Band-produced Hitchcock riff. The one-time Herzog muse plays Karl Gunther, a former Nazi youth and overall medical deviant who owns and maintains an apartment building occupied mostly by beautiful young women. That’s because quiet Karl likes to spy on his nubile tenants in varies stages of undress through the air ducts; he even lets rats loose in their quarters and delights in their screams of terror. When he’s not watching from a distance, Karl is playing Russian Roulette with his gun, creating diabolical devices of death, and cutting off body parts of his tenant’s lustful boyfriends. This is bad news for new arrival, Lori (Talia Balsam, Mad Men), who becomes Karl’s newest subject. Solid direction from David Schmoeller (Tourist Trap), a terrific Pino Donaggio score, and a suspenseful cat-and-mouse finale make Crawlspace a nice surprise. B

FEAR NO EVIL (1981) An overwrought mess, this directorial debut of actor Frank LaLoggia is one of the most misguided horror films of the early 1980s. Eighteen-year-old Andrew (Stefan Arngrim) has more on his mind than graduating high school and dating girls. You see, Andrew just happens to be the Antichrist and he’s been keeping his parents hostage in their dilapidated seaside house since his birth. But fear not; God’s archangel, Gabrielle, has been reborn as a beautiful teen (Kathleen Rowe McAllen) who just happens to go to Andrew’s school. When Andrew’s classmates and teachers annoy him, he uses his ever-growing powers to cause creative deaths. The movie is striving to be more than another teens-in-peril flick, but when you strip it of its pretenses it’s just an Omen rip-off, with elements taken from Carrie, The Exorcist, and Dawn of the Dead. In the end, Fear No Evil doesn’t know what it is, but it’s filled with hammy acting, long stretches of boredom, and some dismal make-up FX. It get slight points for a completely bizarre and out of nowhere homoerotic all-male nude shower sequence where the local bully (Daniel Eden), under supernatural influence, kisses Andrew in front of their peers. Also, once fully overtaken by Lucifer, why does Andrew look like Gary Glitter? D+

FLESHEATER (1988) Bill Hinzman—the original graveyard zombie from Night of the Living Dead—wrote, directed, and stars in this spirited semi-remake/tribute to the Romero classic. When a farmer unearths a satanic tomb on his property, he lets loose an ashen-faced ghoul (Hinzman) that bites a chunk out of the farmer’s neck, transforming him into a zombie. Soon the living dead multiply and take over the land, which is bad news for a group of friends celebrating Halloween in the nearby woods. In Living Dead fashion, the survivors hold up in a farmhouse and try to fend off the hungry horde, ultimately realizing you gotta shoot ’em in the head! Since FleshEater is an ’80s zombie flick, the gore runs thick and fast, with plenty of juicy flesh-ripping, a disemboweled cop, and one poor schlub who gets his head cracked open with a hatchet. Even little trick-or-treaters aren’t safe from the zombie mayhem, including Bill’s real life daughter, Heidi Hinzman. The acting is strictly amateur and Hinzman’s direction lacks punch, but in terms of nonstop zombie action, the movie delivers. Technically unimpressive, FleshEater is a fun little gore flick, but recommended only for the low-budget zombie enthusiast. Funniest scene: a man at a costume party mistakes a zombie for a guest and gets his nose bitten off. B

THE MAJORETTES (1986) The members of a high school majorette squad are being targeted by a knife-happy killer in this very mid-80s slasher/crime thriller, which is based on the book by Night of the Living Dead‘s writer, John A. Russo. Shot outside of Pittsburgh, the story centers on a handful of students from said high school whose lives are complicated by the sudden murder of their friend, who was pregnant by local drug dealer, Mace (Tom E. Desrocher). Mace, and his T-Bird-wannabe leather-clad posse, spend their days plotting revenge against the school quarterback and harassing the janitor-slash-idiot, whose mother (Denise Huot) is scheming to murder one of the majorettes and steal her inheritance. This flick juggles more subplots than it knows what to do with, which is a shame because the cast is likable and the kill scenes fairly well-executed. Inevitably, The Majorettes gets lost in a sea of confusing character arcs and unfocused story structure. This does gets points for trying to add some suspense to the mix. C+

PRIMAL RAGE (1988) Strange things are going on in the science lab at a Southern Florida university. Lorded over by the unethical Dr. Ethridge (Bo Svenson, in weird ponytail), the lab is researching restorative brain tissue by doing the usual diabolical experiments found in these types of films—in this case, a baboon infected with some kind of rage virus. When campus journalist, Frank (Mitch Watson), breaks into the lab to document Ethridge’s work, he’s bitten by the baboon and turns into a blood-oozing psychopath who spreads the virus to his date (Sarah Buxton), ad nauseam. You can see where this is going. Goody Two Shoes Sam (Patrick Lowe) seeks the help of Ethridge to stop the virus, but the good ol’ Doc just ends up getting his eye gouged out by an infected student. Oh, well. Primal Rage is so well made it’s a shame the story doesn’t live up to its potential. The script (written by Umberto Lenzi under his American alias, James Justice) borrows elements from Demons, The Evil Dead, and several zombie movies, but at its heart it feels like a typical slasher with the rage virus simply being an excuse for a gory body count. Cheryl Arutt makes a spunky Final Girl, but boyfriend and hero, Lowe, is too pompous and whiny to care about. A well-intended but somewhat lackluster Italian-made gore job. Look for Ted Raimi. C+

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Don’t Answer the Phone while Going into the House in the Woods…

Don’t Answer the Phone – 1980, US, 94m. Director: Robert Hammer. Streaming: N/A

Don’t Go in the House – 1980, US, 82m, 92m (integral cut). Director: Joseph Ellison. Streaming: Roku Channel, Tubi

Don’t Go in the Woods – 1981, US, 81m. Director: James Bryan. Streaming: Tubi

DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE (1980) Kirk Smith (Nicholas Worth) is a giggling, mentally disturbed, father-obsessed Vietnam vet who goes around Los Angeles strangling and raping woman, and then calling and tormenting radio psychologist, Dr. Gale (Flo Gerrish), with his exploits. When Smith murders one of Gale’s patients she’s partnered with brutish cop, McCabe (James Westmoreland)—who just happens to hate psychology—to try and catch him. Much like Lustig’s Maniac, Don’t Answer the Phone tries to make us sympathize with the killer by painting him as a victim of society; war and toxic masculinity are the obvious themes the screenplay (by director Robert Hammer, and Michael D. Castle) is kicking around. Despite its limitations, DATP is surprisingly tense and much grittier than your post-Friday the 13th slashers. The acting is above par and the L.A. locations lend the film a sense of authenticity. Unfortunately, a needless subplot involving an investigation into a drug ring and a stupid romance between Gale and McCabe—surprise!—kills a lot of the momentum. C+

DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE (1980) The Psycho influences run thick and fast in this bleak slasher. Donny (Dan Grimaldi) is an emotionally scarred man-child who lives in a decaying hilltop house with his sick mother. Sound familiar? When Mommie Dearest dies in her sleep it sends Donny into a tailspin of emotions. Naturally, he builds a fireproof room in his house for which he can burn alive women who remind him of mother—cue the flashback of Mom holding young Donny’s arms over an open flame. A particularly brutal flick, Don’t Go in the House doesn’t tread lightly and presents its subject matter seriously, with Grimaldi giving a restrained but effective performance, even when delivering a ham-fisted monologue about his bullied existence to a room of charred corpses. Like Don’t Answer the Phone, the movie spends too much time trying to paint Donny as a victim of his environment, but nobody watching is going to sympathize with someone who kills simply because the screenplay calls for it. A flawed but gripping shocker. Also known as The Burning. B

DON’T GO IN THE WOODS (1981) A good example of the term “so bad it’s good.” Filmed in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Utah, the movie follows four backpackers who run into a murderous wild man while camping in the nearby forest. The movie jettisons story and character and goes straight for the jugular, delivering a badly directed and edited mess of nonstop carnage and misplaced humor—within the first ten minutes four hikers are hacked to pieces, including a poor birdwatcher who gets his arm lopped off. Within this bloody hodgepodge is a genuine sense of joy from the filmmakers and cast, all of whom seem to be having a great time. Among the many OTT moments include an artist who is repeatedly stabbed and pinned to her canvas, a camper strung up inside her sleeping bag and impaled multiple times, a man beheaded in his own wheelchair, and a victim who stumbles upon the maniac’s dilapidated cabin and is shish kabob’d with a machete. Continuity errors and some truly bizarre music aside, DGITW is too much fun to ignore—it’s actually very hard not to like. Make sure you stick around for the closing credits song. B+

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The Curse, The Dead Pit, Ghoulies, and Prom Night

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+

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Luther the Geek, Maximum Overdrive, and Phenomena

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

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Parents, Puppet Master, Rabid Grannies, and Rawhead Rex

PARENTS (1989) Committing to neither the horror nor comedy aspects of horror-comedy, Parents is a curious movie that skates the border of its genres by being consistently weird. In the 1950s, a morose kid, Michael (Bryan Madorsky), moves into a cheery suburban home with his aggressively oddball parents, Nick (Randy Quaid) and Lily (Mary Beth Hurt), both of whom are large consumers of meat. When Michael witnesses his parents performing a bizarre ritual involving blood, he comes to believe they’re cannibalistic killers. An unfocused satire on suburban Americana that never rises to the occasion, Parents feels sedate from beginning to end, with a particularly emotionless performance by Madorsky that makes the viewer not care what happens to him. Quaid and Hurt are good, as is Sandy Dennis as a school social worker who, in the film’s only energetic scene, is attacked with a knife while locked in Lily’s pantry. Better written characters and some actual suspense (or laughs) might have made this a winner. It’s not. C–

PUPPET MASTER (1989) One of the first of the Child’s Play clones, this expensive-looking production is easy on the eyes but it’s unfortunately saddled with an unnecessarily complicated plot. Four psychics are summoned to a cliffside hotel in California where they discover their friend, Neil (Jimmie F. Skaggs), has killed himself. While the psychics try to figure out what’s going on, they’re attacked by a horde of murderous puppets that were secreted away decades earlier, when their maker (William Hickey) committed suicide to avoid capture by the Nazis. The puppet FX are good and fun to watch whenever they’re on screen, but weak acting and uninteresting characters make the first half of the movie drag considerably. Thankfully, the last 30 minutes come alive as the demented puppets pick off the boneheaded cast—most memorably a man (Matt Roe) tied to a bedpost who’s forced to watch the Leech Woman puppet vomit a load of bloodsuckers onto his chest. Followed by several sequels. C+

RABID GRANNIES (1988) This bait-and-switcher was marketed as a Troma-released, American-style horror-comedy—but it’s actually a surreal French film resembling the early movies of Peter Jackson by way of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie). Two wealthy, elderly sisters are cursed by a witchcraft-practicing family member and turned into deformed, monster-like killers who go about terrorizing the rest of their family during a birthday party at their large country estate. There’s some truly unique and disturbing elements to the story, including a scene were a mother stumbles upon her child being eaten alive by the grannies. Unfortunately, the film is quite dull whenever the grannies aren’t on screen. We’re mostly forced to watch bad overacting (and dubbing) from uninteresting characters—one who looks exactly like Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life!—and incessantly bad comedy. Good makeup FX, but Rabid Grannies should be put down. D+

RAWHEAD REX (1986) Removing a large stone from his field proves dire for a farmer and the surrounding Irish village when the act awakens a demonic creature from its ancient slumber. Known as Rawhead, the carnivorous beast (Heinrich von Schellendorf) goes on a rampage, tearing off human limbs and feasting on the remains—and even possessing people to do its bidding—until an American historian (David Dukes) doing research on the local church discovers the truth and tries to stop it. Adapted by Clive Barker from one of his short stories, Rawhead Rex is a fun monster flick with a good amount of energy and some nifty makeup FX and sequences—the caravan carnage scene is a highlight. A lack of interesting characters—protagonist Dukes is unlikable—and weak acting hinders the story of some suspense, but that’s a small price to pay. Be sure to stick around for the bonkers climax. B

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Ghostwatch, The Vampire’s Ghost, and White Zombie

GHOSTWATCH (1992) Before The Blair Witch Project came this superlative journey into home video horror, in which the crew of a BBC television series airs a live show from a reportedly haunted house in North London. Real-life TV personality, Sarah Greene, along with her cameramen, spend the night in the small home of the Early family, whose mother (Brid Brennan) claims she and her two daughters (Michelle Wesson and Cherise Wesson) have been continually terrorized by a malignant presence that smells of rotten cabbage. Highly creative and genuinely chilling, Ghostwatch was groundbreaking in its day—and ridiculed when people felt fooled by the “reality” aspect!—and remains an excellent piece of early POV horror. Twenty-plus years after its release, it’s still influencing a new generation of found footage films, including (and most obviously) Paranormal Activity, REC, Lake Mungo, and director Rob Savage, who has stated Ghostwatch was a direct inspiration for his terrific 2020 homage, Host. A pioneering must-see for the found footage fan. A–

THE VAMPIRE’S GHOST (1945) What if Humphrey Bogart’s Rick from Casablanca was a vampire? This is essentially the plot of The Vampire’s Ghost. A curious take on the vampire film, it’s the story of 400-year-old Fallon (John Abbot), who runs a bar in a small African village and begins to grow tired of his blood-drinking ways. When Fallon falls in love with his friend’s gal pal (Peggy Steward), he decides to make her his immortal companion and flee the country. The film follows the typical vampire lore (fangs, crucifixes, etc.), but in an interesting twist, Fallon is presented as more human than vampire, being able to walk in the daylight and, hypnotism aside, can’t transform into a bat or wolf. While not perfect, Vampire’s Ghost is surprisingly good, with an excellent performance by Abbot and a screenplay that focuses more on well-written characters than cheap shocks, feeling inspired more by Val Lewton than Todd Browning. Definitely worth seeking out for the 1940s horror fan. B

WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) Hot off the success of Dracula, Bela Lugosi made several low-budget horror vehicles, but none in that time period—aside from Dracula—have attained the legacy of White Zombie. On his wedding night, a young man (John Harron) is plunged into a nightmare when his new bride (Madge Bellamy) is turned into a mind-controlled zombie by Haitian witch doctor, Murder Legendre (Lugosi). Having originally done the deed for a lovelorn plantation owner (Charles Frazer), Legendre ultimately falls in love with the young woman and takes her for himself to his cliffside abode where his army of zombified servants do his biding. Although often heralded as the first zombie film, White Zombie is more of a supernatural melodrama, and its Dracula inspirations are obvious—mysterious foreign man with powers; damsel-in-distress; cobweb-filled castle, etc. Lugosi’s presence, a dense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere, and a surprisingly violent end help make this a slick, but slight, little flick. B–

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Evil Dead Rise, First Man into Space, and Uncle Sam

EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) Another Evil Dead reboot to emerge after the 2013 remake failed to reignite the franchise, this appropriately gnarly reimagining of the original 1981 horror classic moves the action to Los Angeles, where the teens of a single-parent family discover the dreaded Book of the Dead in a hidden vault under their apartment complex. It isn’t long until Deadites are possessing the inhabits of the building and turning the place into a blood-covered hellhole. The first movie in the series to abandon the cabin-in-the-woods scenario since Army of Darkness, Evil Dead Rise works surprisingly well, especially in the third act when things go completely batshit crazy—but it wouldn’t be an Evil Dead movie any other way. You won’t feel a thing for the lifeless characters—who spend most of the film looking as if their Deadite Mommy just returned home with a bad haircut—but this is a fun and cheerfully gruesome return to form for the long-running series. Burning question: Why is there an industrial-size woodchipper in the basement of an L.A. apartment building? B

FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959) Reckless test pilot, Lt. Prescott (Bill Edwards), working for a military-backed space exploration project, becomes the first person to leave the planet’s atmosphere, only to vanish without a trace after his rocket is found abandoned at a crash site back on Earth. Unbeknownst to Dan’s brother (Marshall Thompson) and girlfriend (Marla Landi), Prescott roams the area as a blood-craving, deformed creature, transformed by microscopic space dust. Slight but mildly amusing low-budget sci-fi/horror that gets by because of a good cast and a couple of gory moments. Just don’t expect much and you might enjoy yourself. C+

UNCLE SAM (1997) “Don’t be afraid. It’s just friendly fire!” So says the charred body of Desert Storm soldier Sam Harper (David “Shark” Fralick), who puts a round of bullets in his fellow soldiers just before he dies in the wreckage of a helicopter downed by—yes—friendly fire. But that isn’t the end of Harper, a man who was filled with so much American patriotism he comes back from the grave like an EC Comics character to punish the wrongdoers of his hometown of Twin Rivers. Decked out in a gaudy Uncle Sam costume, Harper goes about dispatching those who are unpatriotic, rude, or just plain jerks—something the incredibly small town of Twin Rivers seem to be overflowing with—during the town’s Fourth of July festivities. A fun concept for a slasher, Uncle Sam is disappointingly flat, lacking the energy found in director William Lustig’s earlier movies (Maniac, Vigilante, Maniac Cop 1 and 2). The characters are dull and don’t add any sparks to the lazy screenplay, which spends too much time on a subplot involving Harper’s snot-nosed nephew (Christopher Ogden). The silly freeze-frame ending is a groaner. C–

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The Pope’s Exorcist, Scream VI, and Son of Frankenstein

THE POPE’S EXORCIST (2023) Taking a stab at the “based on real case files” scenario The Conjuring made popular ten years earlier, The Pope’s Exorcist delivers a “true” chapter out of Father Gabriel Amorth’s (Russell Crowe) book of paranormal activity. The only official head exorcist to the Vatican, Father Amorth tries to help a small American family whose young son (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) becomes possessed by a demonic force after they relocate to an inherited piece of property in Spain, 1987. Upon investigation of the site—a decaying abbey—Amorth, along with a local priest (Daniel Zovatto), discovers the place harbors an evil secret that connects back to the Catholic Church. While the possession plot takes center stage, the film feels more like an epic haunted house movie, complete with dark corridors, mysterious knocking at night, and a grandiose finale taking place in a corpse-laden cellar. It’s all fairly familiar territory, but director Julius Avery (Overlord) infuses the movie with energy, humor, and a lightening-quick pace. Crowe has obvious fun with the material in a role that practically begs for its own Netflix series. B

SCREAM VI (2023) It’s not out of the ordinary for long-running horror franchises to eventually wind up in either (1) space or (2) Manhattan. Going the Jason Voorhees route, Ghostface targets the bustling avenues of the Big Apple in the latest installment of the Scream series. Picking up a few years after the the events of the last Woodsboro slashings, sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega), along with the remainder of their still-breathing friends, leave home for campus life in New York City, only to have their studies interrupted by a new series of Ghostface killings. A step in the right direction after last year’s misguided reboot, Scream VI helps the series feel fresh again—removing the plot (and characters) from Woodsboro is a risk that pays off for most of the runtime. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett offer some terrific suspense set pieces—the makeshift catwalk escape sequence is a highlight—and the gore runs thick and fast. The script, unfortunately, spends too much time on the newer, duller characters and doesn’t give the legacy survivors from past Screams enough screen time; fan-favorite Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) from Scream 4 feels wasted in a bit part. By now you’d think the makers of these movies would realize you don’t need that many red herrings! B–

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) Years after Bride of Frankenstein left the Monster (Boris Karloff) for dead, the son of Dr. Frankenstein, Baron Wolf (Basil Rathbone), moves his family into Castle Frankenstein, only to be met with hostility by the villagers. When Baron discovers the semiconscious body of the Monster in his family’s crypt, he becomes inspired to continue his dad’s work and—with the help of disgraced blacksmith, Ygor (Bela Lugosi)—brings the creature back to full life. While easily the weakest of the Karloff-era Frankenstein films, Son of Frankenstein is solid stuff thanks to good direction by Rowland Lee, but mostly because of the movie’s first-rate cast, including a scene-stealing Lugosi, whose role, according to Lugosi: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Dracula by Koren Shadmi, was re-written and expanded by Lee without Karloff’s knowledge—an act that ultimately lead to Karloff’s decision to abandon the role. Karloff would return as Dr. Niemann in House of Frankenstein. B

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Antibirth, Doom Asylum, and Nightwish

DOOM ASYLUM (1988) Friday the 13th by way of John Waters, this garish—but quite funny—comedy-horror centers on young Kiki (future Frankenhooker Patty Mullens) and her quartet of cartoonish friends who take a day trip to an abandoned hospital where the demented Mitch Hansen (Michael Rogen) lives and kills. You see, 10 years earlier Hansen killed Kiki’s mother (also Mullens) in a car accident and was himself severally scarred, which naturally turned him into a raving maniac. Doom Asylum isn’t pretty, but its lampooning of ’80s slashers is highly amusing—right down to its pack of horror stock characters (the jock, the nerd, the ditz, etc.)—and it features some low-budget but inventive make-up effects. Funniest scene: Just before Hansen shoves her face into a vat of acid, a punk rocker admits, “I voted for Reagan!” Future Sex and the City star Kristin Davis plays a psych major who believes Hansen is a form of mass delusion, ultimately getting her face sliced open with a bone saw. Massively idiotic, but so much fun. B+

NIGHTWISH (1989) Grad students doing research on dreams and fear are assigned by their clearly unstable professor (Jack Starrett) to investigate a desert house supposedly loaded with paranormal—and UFO!—activity. After a couple of (what the professor calls) “demonic encounters,” the students become distrustful of their teacher’s intentions, especially when he chains them up in the cellar and his Igor-like simpleton assistant (Robert Tessier) begins cutting off fingers. There’s also dead bodies with pustulating sores in an underground tunnel. Are these bizarre events really happening, or is it all part of some elaborate dream study? With so many possibilities thrown into the already confusing story, the viewer gets a sense the writer (and director, Bruce R. Cook) was also confused. The questions get somewhat answered in the bogus ending, where one of the traumatized students states, “I don’t need a college degree this badly!” Or, she could just change her major. A good cast, as well as some gooey KNB effects, are wasted on bland, uninspired material. C–

ANTIBIRTH (2016) A movie that’s stillborn. Lou (Natasha Lyonne), a burned-out party girl living in a dying, drug-riddled military town, wakes up after a night of drinking with a strange illness. Her friend, Sadie (Chloë Sevigny), believes Lou is pregnant, but Lou swears she hasn’t had sex in months. When a mysterious woman (Meg Tilly) shows up claiming to have had similar symptoms as Lou, the three investigate and discover Lou may had been given an experimental drug by Sadie’s pimp boyfriend (Mark Webber). A wannabe Cronenberg horror-art film that doesn’t work on any level, Antibirth offers up supremely outrageous ideas but never follows through with a coherent—or interesting—story. The movie instead drags along to a brainless ending that’s so out of control it comes off more as unintentional comedy than horror. Serving an underwritten role with a good performance, Tilly is wasted. D–