Category: Capsule Reviews

Return to Sleepaway Camp – 2008, US, 86m. Director: Robert Hiltzik.

Shallow Grave – 1987, US, 89m. Director: Richard Styles.

Whispers – 1990, US, 100m. Director: Douglas Jackson.

RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP (2008) This “official” sequel to the 1983 slasher classic bypasses Sleepaway Camps 2 and 3 and brings back original director, Robert Hiltzik—but it’s all the more disappointing when Return to Sleepaway Camp ends up being just a cheap and uninspired remake. Campers are turning up murdered at Camp Manabe—and all the victims are part of a bully squad who’ve been making camp hell for the local black sheep (Michael Gibney), an obnoxious slob who, quite frankly, deserves every whupping he gets. The bloodshed is revealed to be the work of Angela (Felissa Rose), back to continue where she left off in the first film by punishing the popular troublemakers and rule-breakers. Moronic characters, juvenile humor, and cut-rate gore effects abound. The only thing Return to Sleepaway Camp will have you longing for is the fast-forward button. Felissa Rose deserves much better. D– (Not currently streaming.)

SHALLOW GRAVE (1987) This tongue-in-cheek slasher opens with a spirited tribute to cinema’s all-time greatest slashing—the shower scene from Psycho—when a pretty coed is prank shish kebobbed in the shower by her rowdy classmates. Moments later, the four women pile into a convertible and head south for a fun-filled spring break. Unfortunately for our spunky protagonists, they take a wrong turn in a backwoods Georgia town where they end up being witnesses to a murder committed by the psychopathic sheriff (Tony March). The film then turns into a semi rip-off of Macon County Line as the women try to escape before becoming the sheriff’s next victims. After a terrific first act, Shallow Grave stumbles when the screenplay (by George Edward Fernandez) becomes unsure of what to do with the characters. Fortunately, the film’s final act is suspenseful enough to grab the viewer’s attention and maintain it until the bleak ending. An imperfect but entertaining little B-movie. B (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

WHISPERS (1990) Writer Victoria Tennant is repeatedly attacked by a maniac (Jean LeClerc) who seems to have supernatural ways of defying death. The local police think she’s crying wolf, but good cop Chris Sarandon believes her and tries to help. She finally kills the psychopathic stalker, but Tennant finds herself in a living nightmare when LeClerc returns from the grave, sending her and Sarandon down a rabbit hole of Satanic cults and a lot of other uninteresting mumbo jumbo that never gels into a cohesive plot. The script is based on a Dean Koontz book, and Whispers is so proud of its literary inspiration that it flagrantly states as much in the opening credits with the title “Dean Koontz’s Whispers“—although I highly doubt the author would have approved. Sarandon gives a good cop-in-distress performance, but Tennant is stiff and wholly unsympathetic. A bloodless bore with very little redeeming qualities besides the odd joke or two. D (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

THE AMITYVILLE CURSE (1990) It’s just as well this Canadian production didn’t return to Toms River, New Jersey, where the previous four Amityville movies were shot. Based on a fictionalized story involving the notorious Long Island house, the film’s new location and structure lend this completely different tale a little more credence—but only so much. A pompous psychiatrist (David Stein) and his semi-psychic wife (Dawna Wightman) buy the Amityville house as a fixer-upper for them and their friends, unaware that it harbors the vengeful spirit of a priest who was murdered twelve years earlier. The friends unknowingly expose themselves to the place’s “curse,” manifested through various bizarre incidents, including a nail gun that powers on by itself, strange noises in the basement, and the slow possession of one of their party (Kim Coates) that’s essentially just a replay of George Lutz from The Amityville Horror. Spiders seem to have replaced flies to signify the house’s evil, but one can’t help feel it was easier (and cheaper) for the filmmakers to use the same tarantula over and over instead of wrangling hundreds of flies. The Lutzes don’t seem to exist in this alternative Amityville timeline—a townsperson mentions the DeFeo murders, although its referred to as the “possessed boy who killed his family.” None of this would be a deterrent hadn’t the filmmakers created such a lifeless film. Coates (Sons of Anarchy) gives a decent performance, but the rest of the cast is stiff and unconvincing, just like this movie. C– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE 1992: IT’S ABOUT TIME (1992) A California tract house (not unlike that in Poltergeist) becomes the scene of supernatural horrors thanks to a haunted antique clock. If you’re wondering what this has to do with the Amityville timeline you’re not alone. Actually, the L.A. location was most likely due to convenience on the part of the filmmakers, as well as the apparent decline in budget. Architect Stephen Macht returns from a business trip to New York, where his company has just demolished the street on which the notorious Amityville house was standing. He brings back with him an ugly clock from the old Amityville digs, which immediately takes control of Macht by turning him into a temperamental jerk. Macht’s teen daughter (Megan Ward) turns into an evil seductress, while his son (Damon Martin) finds out the clock was the creation of a 15th century Satan-worshipper and used to open a portal to Hell. The director (Tony Randall—Hellbound: Hellraiser II) is striving for something different, and several scenes are visually impressive, including the climax where Macht’s live-in girlfriend (Shawn Weatherly), in an effort to destroy the evil, reveals the clock’s internal gears are growing inside the house’s walls like a parasitic organism. The writers drop the ball on the clock’s backstory—how and why it ended up in Amityville is never explained—but the characters are mostly intelligent, and the pacing good. Most surprising is the fact Amityville 1992 ends up being one of the better entries in the series. B– (Currently streaming on AMC, Shudder, Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE: A NEW GENERATION (1993) A skid row apartment building occupied by pretentious artists and yuppies—do I detect an anti-gentrification message?—falls under the influence of an evil mirror in this needless but well-acted hodgepodge of every other Amityville movie on the market. Struggling photographer Keyes (Ross Partridge) is given a mirror by a mysterious vagrant, igniting artistic inspiration in Keyes’s neighbor, Suki (Julia Nickson), a painter. It seems anyone who looks into the reflecting glass perishes—the first victim being Suki’s douchebag ex-beau (Robert Rustler), who’s slashed to ribbons after he does the same to one of her paintings. Predictably, Suki’s work begins to manifest into images of demonic creatures as the Amityville house reflects from the mirror’s glass, and more people end up looking like they stepped out of a Picasso portrait, sans canvas. Why is all of this happening? Because the mirror hung in the Amityville homestead the night of the infamous 1974 massacre, although here the family name has been changed from DeFeo to Bronner. Don’t worry—I doubt even the writers can make sense of it. A good cast tries its best, but even the likes of Terry O’Quinn, Richard Roundtree, and David Naughton can’t save Amityville: A New Generation from descending into woeful sequel overkill. C (Currently streaming on Freevee, Shudder, Tubi.)

AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE (1996) Yet another dysfunctional family is used as puppets by the Amityville evil, this time emanating from a miniature replica of the Long Island House of Horrors. A Brady Bunch-like family composed of a father (Robin Thomas), his two kids, and his new bride (Starr Andreeff) and her son move into a house in the middle of the desert. The structure comes complete with a haggard work shed left by the previous owner, which contains the usual assortment of bizarro items, including a dollhouse modeled after 112 Ocean Avenue. Thomas gifts his daughter the dollhouse for her birthday and—wouldn’t ya know it?—strange things immediately take shape. The pet mouse grows to the size of a pit bull, teen Allen Culter’s girlfriend is barbecued in the fireplace, and the youngest (Jarrett Lennon) makes friends with his deceased dad, who fills the boy’s head with murderous thoughts. But it just so happens that Thomas’s sister (Lenore Kasdorf) dabbles in the occult, and her investigation opens a can of worms in the form of demonic activity. It might be the eighth entry in the series but Amityville: Dollhouse‘s inherent stupidity gives the movie a boost of brainless entertainment that was missing from the majority of the other, more “serious” sequels. In fact, the film’s ostentatious visual flare—culminating in a monster-infused climax—is a welcome sight and helps to create a fun little flick that’ll most likely kill some brain cells along the way. B (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Blood Shack – 1971, US, 55m. Director: Ray Dennis Steckler.

Deadtime Stories – 1986, US, 82m. Director: Jeffrey Delman.

Spellbinder – 1988, US, 99m. Director: Janet Greek.

BLOOD SHACK (1971) Carol (Carolyn Brandt) inherits a dilapidated two-room shack in the middle of some Nevada dust bowl. Unfortunately, the property is haunted by a “ghost” called The Chooper, which takes pleasure in killing passersby with a sword. We know this because in the opening scene a scantily-clad woman spending the night in the shack is slain by the all-black-wearing specter. (If you’re thinking there’s a twist coming, you’re not wrong.) Despite Carol’s voice-over narration, which supplies the viewer with needless (and dull) exposition about the history of the shack and surrounding land, Blood Shack can’t hide its ramshackle story structure and sluggish pacing. Even at just 55 minutes this movie feels too long. Never a good sign. An additional ten minutes of rodeo stock footage was tacked on to secure theatrical distribution, which doesn’t help in the slightest. From the director of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Become Mixed-Up Zombies; a must-miss. D– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

DEADTIME STORIES (1986) Deadtime Stories does for children’s fairy tales what Creepshow did for E.C. Comics, but not as successfully. In order to put his tempestuous nephew to sleep, a man tells the kid three bedtime stories. The first tale stars Scott Valentine of Family Ties fame as a peasant sold to a pair of murderous sisters who use the young man to aid them in the resurrection of a powerful witch. Tale two is a spin on Little Red Riding Hood, as a man (Matt Mitler) pursues a sexed-up teen (Nicole Picard)—decked out in a red jogging suit—after she accidentally takes his anti-wolf medication from the pharmacist. The final (and most cartoonish) story depicts the escape of the murderous Baer family from an asylum, who discover serial killer Goldi Lox (Cathryn de Prume) is using their hideaway to store the bodies of her many male victims. The sense of humor actually saves a lot of the movie from its obvious poverty row origins, as does some impressive Ed French makeup, especially in the first segment. Look for Oscar-winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) in a small role. Funniest bit: When a woman is confronted while taking a shower, her response is: “You were expecting perhaps Janet Leigh?” C+ (Currently streaming on Freevee, Pluto TV, and Tubi.)

SPELLBINDER (1988) Los Angeles lawyer—and all around nice guy—Jeff Mills (Tim Daly) rescues damsel-in-distress Miranda (Kelly Preston) from her abusive boyfriend and ends up in a whirlwind romance with the beautiful young woman. Miranda eventually moves in with Jeff and life seems too good to be true. That is until Miranda’s mysterious past comes knocking and pulls Jeff into a dangerous world of black magic. Miranda just happens to be part of a Satanic cult, and they want her back by the next lunar moon in order to complete an ancient prophecy—and guess who’s the sacrificial pig? Cue the overplayed scene in which our straight-laced hero gets in over his head at the stereotypical occult book store. All of this is predictable and the execution is strictly by-the-book, leaving very little in terms of surprises. Still, Spellbinder is harmless and enjoyable for the most part, featuring a good performance by the late Preston and a downbeat ending not typically found in films as mainstream as this. B– (Currently streaming on Tubi.)

Axe – 1977, US, 68/72m. Director: Frederick R. Friedel. Streaming: N/A

The Convent – 2000, US, 78m. Director: Mike Mendez. Streaming: AMC, Shudder, Tubi

The Love Butcher – 1975, US, 85m. Director: Mikel Angel, Don Jones. Streaming: N/A

AXE (1977) (AKA: California Axe Massacre, Lisa Lisa) A thug named Steel (Jack Canon) and his two henchmen break into a hotel room to torture and kill a gay man who cheated them out of money. After they shove a lit cigar into the man’s mouth, his horrified lover jumps out of the window and plunges to his death. In response to questioning why someone would jump twelve stories down, one of Steel’s henchmen answers: “It’s only nine.” These are clearly criminal masterminds. After Steel humiliates a cashier at a convenient store because the apples weren’t fresh, the trio invade an isolated farmhouse where the occupants—young Lisa (Leslie Lee) and her paralyzed grandfather—don’t conform to their liking. That’s because Lisa is on the brink of mental collapse and has probably seen Last House on the Left one too many times. Using her expertise at chopping off the heads of chickens, Lisa wields her large axe and enacts bloody revenge. A gritty, ultra-low budget curiosity that’s not the gore-drenched epic its title suggests. That’s not to say Axe is a serious character study, because it ain’t. It does achieve a level of morbid entertainment, and a scene in which Lisa fights off a sexual attack by Steel is cleverly married with the voiceover narration of a football game playing on the background TV. A slightly amusing hodgepodge of oddly endearing trash cinema. B–

THE CONVENT (2000) This movie has more energy packed into its 78 minutes than most mainstream Hollywood films combined. A group of frat guys and their sorority girlfriends break into the neighborhood haunted house (in this case, an abandoned convent) for some late night fun. Along the way, they pick up goth queen Mo (Meghan Perry), who informs the college pals of the convent’s unsavory history—in which a Bettie Page-like woman named Christine slaughtered all of the nuns and priests inside the place forty years earlier. Unbeknownst to our protagonists, the convent has already been invaded by Satanists who conjure forth demons that systematically possess the characters. If you’re thinking you’ve heard this one before, you’re not wrong. Fortunately, The Convent is a hoot—a flashy throwback to splatter movies like The Evil Dead, Demons, and specifically Night of the Demons, which the makers of this flick are obviously fans of. Unlike the majority of those titles, The Convent never takes itself seriously and flourishes in its perverse sense of humor and comic book-style visuals. Unreleased until 2002, this demands cult classic status. B+

THE LOVE BUTCHER (1975) Caleb is a chrome-domed simpleton in Coke bottle glasses and overalls who speaks in a “yes’m” southern accent despite living in Southern California. He spends his days being berated by the women whose yards he attends to in an upscale suburban neighborhood (after Caleb asks his employer for a glass of water she calls him an irritation). Little do they know Caleb is a psychopath who takes on the personality of his “brother,” Lester, when he feels unjustly treated by society. A suave ladies’ man, Lester seduces the women who’ve treated Caleb like garbage and ultimately takes a knife/shears/pitchfork to them. Sort of the slasher movie version of Ethan Hunt, Caleb/Lester (both played by James Lemp) takes on disguises in order to infiltrate the homes of his victims. As if performing an overzealous theater pantomime, Lemp’s acting choices are often so hysterically overwrought the movie becomes almost mesmerizing in its awfulness. And Lemp is probably the best thing about the film! The rest of the story is filled with a typically dry police/newspaper investigation of the murders, in which the hard-boiled police captain and the overworked reporter scream their lines at each other until the veins in their foreheads nearly burst. The Love Butcher is either a misanthropic commentary on the seventies, an anti-feminist story, or a spoof of both. Either way, the viewer loses. C–

Horror Castle – 1963, Italy, 84m. Director: Anthony Dawson (Antonio Margheriti). Streaming: YouTube

Junior – 1985, US, 82m. Director: Jim Hanley. Streaming: YouTube

The Orphan – 1979, US, 83m. Director: John Ballard. Streaming: YouTube

HORROR CASTLE (1963) (AKA: The Virgin of Nuremberg) A married couple, traveling to Germany, stay at the husband’s ancestral home, a massive castle with a grim past. On their first night there, the wife (Rossana Rodestà) discovers the mutilated body of a woman inside the place’s pristine 200-year-old iron maiden. When the body seemingly vanishes, the husband (George Rivière) dismisses his wife’s claims as the result of exhaustion—but the housekeeper (Laura Nucci) believes the spirit of an infamous hooded torturer/murderer has returned to continue his diabolical work. This is half-truth as a flesh-and-blood hooded menace is running around the property abducting women and subjecting them to grueling torture—one poor victim has her nose chewed off by a caged rat strapped to her face. An obvious precursor to the giallo, Horror Castle is just entertaining enough to get past its threadbare plot. A good cast (including Christopher Lee as the castle’s deformed red herring) and a genuinely suspenseful climax help to create a nice little Italian oddity. B

JUNIOR (1985) (AKA: Hot Water) Curvaceous ex-cons K.C. (Suzanne DeLaurentiis) and Jo (Linda Singer) seek out a fresh start in Texas—they’ve obviously never seen The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Macon County Line, or many other Southern-fried horrors. Once they arrive in the boonies, K.C. and Jo set up shop in a dilapidated lake house only to be bombarded by a gaggle of hillbillies lead by the sociopathic Junior (Jeremy Ratchford). Junior spends his days raping, terrorizing, and engaging in general depravity, after which he runs home and brags about his exploits to his even more demented mother. After the requisite T&A shots and sex scenes, Junior’s rampage of terror turns to murder, sending K.C. and Jo into full I Spit On Your Grave mode. Junior is too goofy to be taken seriously, but that seems to be intentional; the film’s tacky appeal provides a likability factor that would pair it nicely alongside the similarly-themed and equally rambunctious ‘Gator Bait 2: Cajun Justice. If you like your roughneck revenge sagas with a side of cornball humor, you could do much worse than Junior. C+

THE ORPHAN (1979) (AKA: Friday the 13th: The Orphan) A young boy, David (Mark Owens), is left an orphan after his mother shoots and kills his father before committing suicide. David’s aunt (Peggy Feury) promptly moves into the family estate and begins running the show, keeping everything under her strict thumb and turning David into a sociopathic brat. When the aunt orders the destruction of David’s makeshift shrine (where he prays at the altar of a stuffed chimpanzee called Charlie) and accidentally kills his dog, David snaps and transforms into a bad seed—as if he wasn’t one already! A knife soon starts slashing and the bodies start piling up, with no mystery as to who is conducting the reign of terror. In the end, David brushes off the bloodshed and happily goes about eating his toast and jam in peace. The only thing viewers will get in return is an understanding of the word “suffering.” A ceaseless and bewildering bore. D–

The Children – 1980, US, 93m. Director: Max Kalmanowicz. Streaming: Peacock, Prime, Tubi

Curtains – 1983, Canada, 89m. Director: Jonathan Stryker (Richard Ciupka). Streaming: Peacock, Roku

Hannibal Rising – 2007, Czech Republic/Italy/UK/US, 121m. Director: Peter Webber. Streaming: Tubi

THE CHILDREN (1980) A cloud of toxic pollution emanating from a nuclear power plant transforms a busload of kids into zombified killers. One of the the parents is hugged by her nuclear-powered son and microwaved into a pile of charred, bloody pulp. The local sheriff (Gil Rogers) deputizes a couple of nogoodniks to be stationed at a roadblock, which proves fruitless as the children continue to cook their way through the small town’s populace. Much like the zombies in a George Romero film—which The Children resembles quite often—the youngsters cannot be stopped by simple gunfire, but one of the survivors realizes cutting off their hands seems to put them down for good. Its nonsensical plot does little to dissuade one from viewing The Children as nothing more than silly entertainment, made by a handful of crew members who would later work on Friday the 13th, including cinematographer Barry Abrams and composer Harry Manfredini. B–

CURTAINS (1983) In order to prepare for an upcoming role, renowned actress Samantha Sherwood (Samantha Eggar) voluntarily checks herself into a mental hospital. Weeks of enduring the asylum don’t pay off when Samantha is stabbed in the back by her filmmaker lover, Jonathan Stryker (John Vernon), who leaves her in the nuthouse and holds a casting session at his country estate for more youthful actresses. Stryker’s plans are foiled when Samantha escapes from the hospital and does a bit of impromptu backstabbing herself—literally. Or so the viewer is led to believe when someone in a hag mask begins cutting down the competition with a razor-sharp scythe. Eggars is good but her character is too obtuse to care about. Most of the auditioning actresses are nondescript; that includes the real actors portraying them. The sole exception is Lynne Griffin (Black Christmas), whose bubbly comedian, Patti O’Connor, failing to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress by her peers is the only character trait that rings true in the film. Robert Guza, Jr. was a prevalent soap opera writer and his experience in that medium shows within Curtain‘s flashy theatrics, which for most of its running time are ridiculously contrived—but undeniably enjoyable. B–

HANNIBAL RISING (2007) The laborious and often needless origin story assigned to so many popular fictional figures is here given to everybody’s favorite cinematic serial killer—Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter. In war-torn Lithuania, 1944, young Hannibal witnesses the massacre of his parents at the hands of Nazis. Hannibal and his younger sister, Mischa, are held captive by local SS soldiers, including the wild-eyed psychopath, Grutas (Rhys Ifans, not dialing it down), who after ripping into the carcass of a pheasant with his teeth uses Mischa as a food source for his hungry comrades. The traumatic event turns Hannibal (the late Gaspard Ulliel) into a mild-mannered young man who harbors violent aggression towards his fellow rude humans. Hannibal applies his newfound psychosis to his martial arts training, orchestrated by his wealthy aunt (Gong Li)—and conveniently, Auntie’s in-house chef teaches Lecter about the importance of fine dining etiquette. After years of medical training in Paris, Hannibal plots his revenge against the men who slaughtered his sister, including Grutas, who in the decade following the war has become a sex trafficker—one of many hilariously overwrought moments found throughout this despairingly awful film. The most shocking aspect—and ultimately most disappointing—of Hannibal Rising is the fact that Hannibal creator, Thomas Harris, wrote the screenplay. D