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Bloodmoon, Nightwing, Return of the Living Dead II

Bloodmoon – 1990, Australia, 100m. Director: Alec Mills.

Nightwing – 1979, US, 104m. Director: Arthur Hill.

Return of the Living Dead Part II – 1988, US, 89m. Director: Ken Wiederhorn.

BLOODMOON (1990) Posh St. Elizabeth’s School for Girls becomes the stomping ground for a savage killer in this Prom Night/Final Exam/House on Sorority Row clone made in Australia. The maniac’s choice of weapon is a piece of barbed wire he uses to garrote his victims before gouging their eyes out and cutting off their fingers—he later conceals the bodies in soil as to not bring attention to his crimes. The woodsy location gives the killer the perfect opportunity to sneak up on the multitude of students having sex, and supplying viewers with copious amounts of bared breasts. The film’s whodunit angle is dropped halfway through when it’s revealed the murderer is a nebbish cuckold who’s set off by the sight of embracing lovers. After a good start, the movie descends into tedious melodrama involving bland characters and uninteresting situations that are exacerbated by a needlessly long 100-minute runtime. If anything, Bloodmoon is an example of a subgenre well past its prime. C

NIGHTWING (1979) A small Indian reservation in New Mexico is bombarded by vampire bats as the result of a Native American curse. The surrounding lands are at first affected by a series of animal mutilations that bewilder the locals, that is until the sheriff’s (Nick Mancuso) adoptive father—the High Priest who cursed the land—is killed the same way. A scientist (David Warner) tries to warn authorities of the impending bat threat but his words fall on deaf ears. The hotshot tribal councilman (Stephen Macht) who wishes to sell the land to an oil company wants to keep the bat attacks under wraps, especially when Warner discovers the bats are carrying a strain of bubonic plague. Nightwing is based on a book, but the film is modeled after Spielberg’s Jaws—there’s even a climactic sequence where Mancuso’s law officer and Warner’s bat expert team up in an effort to destroy the winged menace. This would work if Nightwing stuck to its when-animals-attack principles, but instead the screenplay wallows in Native American folklore and Mancuso’s disillusioned cop to the point the viewer loses interest long before the fiery ending. C

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II (1988) More zombie shenanigans as another canister of weaponized gas is unleashed onto an unsuspecting populace. This time the toxin is released by a trio of middle schoolers who spread the contagion to their quiet suburban neighborhood by turning the place into a zombie jamboree. The decision to front-load Part 2 with heavy amounts of slapstick might have been due to the recent popularity in more kid-friendly fair like The Naked Gun. This would also explain making an eleven-year-old comic book nerd (Michael Kenworthy) the hero. So memorable in the earlier movie, both James Karen and Thom Mathews return but play completely different characters, showing what little thought went into what is essentially just a retread of the first film. Director/writer Ken Wiederhorn previously helmed the atmospheric chiller Shock Waves (1977). C

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Autopsy, Opera, The Prowler

Autopsy – 1975, Italy, 100m. Director: Armando Crispino.

Opera – 1987, Italy, 107m. Director: Dario Argento.

The Prowler – 1981, US, 89m. Director: Joseph Zito.

AUTOPSY (1975) (AKA: The Victim) A heatwave coincides with a series of suicides in Rome. A woman slashes her wrist with a razor, while a man sets himself on fire inside his car. Another man machine guns himself in the chest while his two children lay dying beside him. Nervous medical student Mimsy Farmer, who has the personality of a tick, investigates the recent string of deaths when her pretty neighbor turns up on the slab with a self-inflicted bullet to the head. Farmer is joined by the victim’s boorish brother (Barry Primus) who believes Farmer’s real estate mogul father had something to do with his sister’s demise. There’s a suggestion that solar flares are responsible for the mysterious deaths, but the screenplay shifts to a boring subplot involving a murder cover-up. Stiff and overlong, and Farmer is massively unappealing as the protagonist. D

OPERA (1987) (AKA: Terror at the Opera) A young opera singer (Cristina Marsillach) is terrorized by a demented fiend in this twisted take on the Phantom of the Opera scenario—as only Dario Argento could tell it. The night Marsillach makes her debut in Verdi’s Macbeth brings joy and terror after a stagehand is impaled in the head by a mad slasher who later kidnaps the singer and forces her to watch him murder her lover by taping needles under her eyelids. In a particularly gruesome detail, the killer’s blade slices into the man’s jaw and protrudes through the inside of his mouth. The next victim gets her throat cut open after accidentally swallowing a piece of evidence that belongs to the maniac. Most of the bloodshed is accompanied by a heavy metal soundtrack, although the best scene is done in slow motion as the bullet from a fired gun travels through a peephole and through the head of Marsillach’s agent (Daria Nicolodi). Other visual trickery includes close-ups of a pulsating brain, signifying the killer’s proximity to Marsillach. As with the majority of films in the Argento canon, character and plot aren’t as important as style, in which case Opera delivers. A good example is the discovery of the killer’s identity through the use of the opera’s live ravens, who earlier attacked the madman after he killed several of the birds. The overblown ending doesn’t do much other than prove to the viewer that the film should have ended ten minutes earlier. B–

THE PROWLER (1981) The return of Avalon Bay’s graduation dance 35 years after an unsolved double murder ignites a new series of slaying by someone in army fatigues. The film wastes little time in getting to the red stuff, which is dumped out by the gallon. A man getting ready for the dance is skewered through the head with a bayonet, after which his girlfriend is impaled with a pitchfork in the shower. The police check on an invalid in a wheelchair who lives next to the girls’ dormitory and discover the missing old man was the father of one of the victims from 1944. The prowler sneaks past the cops and slices open the class bimbo’s throat in the swimming pool—as her body sinks below the water, air bubbles escape from the open wound, giving the scene a chillingly realistic touch. The rest of The Prowler is standard slasher fair done with a level of professionalism many other slashers of the time lacked, including good acting and a few suspenseful set pieces. Tom Savini’s special effects are top-notch and Joseph Zito’s direction polished. B

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The Black Cat, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, Student Bodies

The Black Cat – 1981, Italy, 91m. Director: Lucio Fulci.

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf – 1973, US, 93m. Director: Nathan Juran.

Student Bodies – 1981, US, 86m. Director: Mickey Rose, Michael Ritchie.

THE BLACK CAT (1981) A man, seemingly hypnotized by a black cat, drives his car off the road and smashes through the windshield, killing himself. This violent pre-credits sequence is suspenseful and well executed. Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of the few exciting moments in an otherwise mediocre supernatural thriller from Italy’s reigning king of spaghetti splatter, Lucio Fulci. Although the film is based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story, the plot has very little to do with its source material. The movie—as far as I can tell—is about a codger (Patrick Magee) who, through a psychic link, uses his cat as a conduit to manipulate the murders of those he feels wronged him at some point in his life. The British countryside and use of British actors doesn’t stop Fulci from bringing out his trademark zoom lens (which he uses on Magee by repeatedly focusing on the man’s eyebrows) and on-screen carnage, the best instance being a woman’s demise by fire—her eyes manage to move as her face goes up in flames, giving the sequence a particularly unnerving touch. For Fulci aficionados only. C+

THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (1973) A divorcee (Kerwin Mathews) and his young son (Scott Sealy) are attacked by a werewolf while on a camping trip. The wolf man dies in the attack but Mathews is bitten and, come the next full moon, transforms into a fanged beast. Sealy’s excitement over his father’s battle with a werewolf takes control of him but troubles others, who write the boy off as having an overactive imagination. Mathews goes on a bloody bender the first night out in hairy form, causing a traffic accident and tearing a TV repairman to pieces. Since this is a post-modern werewolf movie we get the obligatory scenes of Mathews arguing with his ex-wife (Elaine Devry) and encounters with a hippie commune that’s an updated version of the gypsies from the old B&W monster movies that supplies characters (and audiences) with answers to the metaphysical questions. Goofy werewolf makeup and too many day-for-night shots give them film a slightly campy vibe, but this is still a harmlessly enjoyable film if seen in the right light. C+

STUDENT BODIES (1981) A stupid but enjoyable parody of slasher movies that laid the ground work for slapstick horror comedies like Scary Movie. Opening on the “holiday” of Jamie Lee Curtis’s Birthday, the film goes right into a send-up of Halloween and When a Stranger Calls as a dimwitted babysitter is tormented by the Breather, a killer who’s knocking off the local sexed-up teens with paper clips, egg plants, bookends, or whatever item is lying around. The plot is strictly boilerplate but makes way for the nonstop sight gags and jokes that arrive with such a quick pace that you might miss a punchline if you’re not paying attention. If you spliced together Prom Night with Airplane! you’ll get the general idea. Not all of the jokes work, but the majority of them are quite funny and the script is smart enough to take the cliches of slashers past and use them to its advantage. While not as outrageous as Kentucky Fried Movie, Student Bodies is an improvement over Saturday the 14th. B–

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The Borrower, The Dark, Zombie 3

The Borrower – 1991, US, 92m. Director: John McNaughton.

The Dark – 1979, US, 91m. Director: John ‘Bud’ Cardos.

Zombie 3 – 1988, Italy/Philippines, 84m. Director: Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei.

THE BORROWER (1991) An alien is cast out for killing its own kind and sent to Earth in an unstable makeshift human form. When the form deteriorates, the alien must use fresh heads as replacements—the first of which is ripped off a hillbilly (Tom Towles) before descending into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. A homicide detective (Rae Dawn Chong) takes notices of the crimes and pursues the alien, but unlike Michael Nouri in The Hidden—which The Borrower resembles in many ways—Chong doesn’t have the help of Kyle MacLachlan’s intelligent alien bounty hunter and must use her street smarts to catch the extraterrestrial. In one of the film’s funniest and genuinely shocking moments, the “borrower” tries to acclimate to suburban life by taking over the existence of a medical doctor only to end up using the head of the family dog. In fact, so much of The Borrower works, it’s a wonder why the movie hasn’t attained a following in the same regard as director John McNaughton’s critical darling Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Kevin Yagher’s makeup FX are excellent and convincing. Terrific stuff! B+

THE DARK (1979) A woman walking alone at night is attacked by a humanoid beast. She’s later found beheaded. A local news reporter (Cathy Lee Crosby) investigates the crime and discovers the victim’s father (William Devane) is a recently paroled ex-con who, while up the river, wrote trashy novels about the occult. The creature later blows up a factory worker’s head by shooting lasers of out its eyes. A psychic (Jacquelyn Hyde) who’s been having visions of the murders goes to the police but barely provides enough information for them to do anything. After more people are decapitated, Crosby and Devane team up to try and stop the mayhem, and engage in a little flirtation. The unstoppable monster (deriving from space, I think) takes out half of the LAPD in a flashy climax before going up in flames. Hyde supplies the film with the funniest moment when a struggling actor looking for love suggests he’s not gay. Her response: “Give yourself time. Ambition can work miracles.” A strange, totally illogical, completely enjoyable B-movie. B–

ZOMBIE 3 (1988) (AKA: Zombi 3) A commando squad on leave is forced to fight the never-ending battle with the walking dead, which have invaded a small town in the Philippines. The soldiers include the typical Americanized idiots who, as expected, run into a group of Americanized idiot tourists who exist solely to get eaten and/or turned into zombies. Even animals aren’t immune to the zombie plague as an infected flock of birds crashes into a bus, swarming and pecking the commuters. Zombie 3 isn’t so much a sequel to Lucio Fulci’s 1979 Zombie (released in Europe as Zombi 2) but a remake—the zombies here are the result of a failed government experiment called Death One, as opposed to Caribbean voodoo in the earlier movie. The zombies range from slow-walking stiffs to hyper-animated ghouls—some even sprint towards their victims with weapons, just like in Nightmare City (1980). A lack of financial support is evident in the film’s murky photography and chintzy acting. The makeup is inconsistent but bloody, with some of the contaminants oozing green pus instead of gore. Fulci himself directed the majority of Zombie 3 but left the production due to collaborative differences and was replaced by Bruno Mattei. (Mattei’s secondhand experience in the genre was proven with his Dawn of the Dead rip-off, Hell of the Living Dead.) Splashes of creativity (including a zombie birth scene!) occasionally lift Zombie 3 out of the doldrums of a subgenre past its prime. This was apparently successful enough to spawn two more unauthorized sequels. C

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Hunter’s Blood, The Seduction, Tenebre

Hunter’s Blood – 1986, US, 100m. Director: Robert Hughes.

The Seduction – 1982, US, 104m. Director: David Schmoeller.

Tenebre – 1982, Italy, 101m. Director: Dario Argento.

HUNTER’S BLOOD (1986) Yet another city-folk-versus-redneck shocker—a subgenre practically unto its own—made in the wake of John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972). What separates Hunter’s Blood from the rest of the pack is the fact it’s actually quite good. Upper-class friends on a hunting expedition in backwoods Arkansas run into a family of demented poachers who’ve been illegally selling venison to a meatpacking company. The toothless natives don’t take kindly to outsiders messing around their business and pull out their shotguns and buck knives to secure the continuation of the family business. Macho Clu Gulager, pack leader of the civilized group, threatens the philistine woodsmen with violence and escalates the already turbulent waters by declaring all-out war. The bloodshed runs thick and fast, with one poor victim getting skinned and strung up a tree naked. Another is found decapitated in the swamps. The bumpkins’ territory is eventually overcome when mild-mannered physician Sam Bottoms turns “savage” by killing several forest people with his bare hands. Gory, funny, and intense. B

THE SEDUCTION (1982) The producer of Halloween, Irwin Yablans, is at it again with this formulaic stalk-and-slash rip off of The Fan. Morgan Fairchild stars as a glamorous Los Angeles television reporter who becomes the obsession of hunky psycho Andrew Stevens—who just happens to live in a geographically convenient hilltop house where he can snap pictures of Fairchild taking late night nude swims with a telephoto lens. Stevens downgrades from suave voyeur to garden variety peeping Tom after breaking into Fairchild’s home and watching her bathe from a closet—queue the obligatory masturbation scene. Fairchild’s boyfriend (Michael Sarrazin) seeks advice from a cop friend—just like Gregory Peck in Cape Fear—but fails to deliver any justice when the knife starts tearing into flesh. Fairchild is naturally likable in a thankless role that doesn’t give her much material to work with other than being naked or crying; the same can be said for Stevens, who’s creepy but left adrift in a screenplay that has him endlessly staring through a camera lens. Might have worked better as a TV movie. C

TENEBRE (1982) (AKA: Tenebrae) After the supernatural twosome of Suspiria and Inferno, Italian auteur Dario Argento returned to his giallo roots with this slasher extravaganza. American novelist Anthony Franciosa is subjected to psychological torture when a killer uses Franciosa’s newest book as inspiration for a series of murders. The gloved maniac not only leaves notes for Franciosa but takes aftermath photos of his gory crime scenes. The characters are the usual high-strung individuals portrayed by anxiety-ridden actors found in the majority of Italian horror movies of the time—but if there’s any reason Tenebre works, it’s because of Argento’s flamboyant style. As with Deep Red and Suspiria, it’s the murder sequences that are the real stars of the film, the best being a prolonged tracking shot of a young girl pursued by a guard dog before accidentally fleeing into the killer’s house, a particularly brilliant use of audience manipulation and suspense. The rest of the movie is standard Italian psychodrama fair highlighted by Argento’s use of color, music, and camera angles. In other words, a flashy but empty splatter vehicle. Great soundtrack, though. B–

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April Fool’s Day, Basket Case, The Church

April Fool’s Day – 1986, Canada/US, 89m. Director: Fred Walton.

Basket Case – 1982, US, 91m. Director: Frank Henenlotter.

The Church – 1989, Italy, 102m. Director: Michael Soavi.

APRIL FOOL’S DAY (1986) A practical joke gone horrible awry sets the tone for this Agatha Christie-inspired slasher. Friends partying on a private island for spring break are done in by a killer who may or may not be the demented escapee twin of the wealthy hostess (Deborah Foreman). Drinking and flirting turns to worry and panic when people start inexplicably disappearing, including the trickster (Griffin O’Neal) whose earlier prank sent a ferryman to the hospital. Or is it all just an elaborate hoax? The screenplay spends more time on character and mystery than bloodshed, and in doing so delivers a solid thriller that balances suspense with laughs. The film’s “is-it-real?” scenario is, in a way, a parody of a subgenre that often took itself a bit too seriously. The good cast also helps bring the story to life, especially Friday the 13th alumna (and fan favorite) Amy Steel, as well as eighties regulars Clayton Rohner (I, Madman), Deborah Goodrich (Just One of the Guys), Ken Olandt (Summer School), and Tom Wilson of Back to the Future fame. It underperformed at the box office, but April Fool’s Day eventually gained a wider audience through repeat viewings on late night television and is now considered a cult classic—and comes highly recommended. Director Fred Walton previously helmed the 1979 sleeper When a Stranger Calls. B+

BASKET CASE (1982) A young man named Duane (Kevin Van Hentenryck) arrives in New York City to find the doctors who separated him from his conjoined twin brother, Belial—a one-foot tall, deformed creature with a thirst for revenge. Belial immediately goes about tearing off the faces of the doctors who wronged him and Duane, as well as anyone who gets in their way, which includes a plethora of seedy city types. Basket Case‘s minuscule budget is quite noticeable but ironically it adds flavor to the film’s gruesome atmosphere, something its bigger budgeted and slicker sequels lack. In fact, the film’s vulgar, grand guignol vibe plays extremely well with director Frank Henenlotter’s dark sense of humor, which is pumped into many of Belial’s gore-drenched escapades—including when one of the doctors gets a taste of her own medicine by having her face pulverized with a half-dozen scalpels. A twisted little gem, not to be missed. B+

THE CHURCH (1989) The restoration of a large cathedral uncovers the sinister truth behind the place’s nefarious history. Built over the mass grave of murdered 12th century villagers by a superstitious sect known as the Teutonic Order, the church becomes infused with evil powers and traps a group of employees and tourists within its structure. When a librarian (Tomas Arana) breaks open a seal in the basement, he unleashes a demonic force which subsequently possesses and turns him into a moody dope who incessantly pounds the “6” on his typewriter. Arana infects more people, turning them into demons until the place becomes a regular monster jamboree. One of the characters suffering from demonitis takes his own life by impaling himself on a jackhammer. Random characters try to find a way out through the labyrinthine dwelling but meet gruesome ends, including an insufferable bonehead who digs through to the underground transit system only to get her face splattered across the windshield of a train. In a rip-off of Rosemary’s Baby, a woman (Barbara Cupisti) lies naked on an altar surrounded by Satan-worshippers and is raped by the Devil himself. What could all of this mean? Why it’s yet another stylish but empty supernatural melodrama from the reigning king of Italian supernatural melodrama, Michael Soavi, this time aided by producer/co-writer Dario Argento. Good special effects and use of sound, but in the end The Church feels like just another Demons/Evil Dead clone. C–

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Exorcist II, Nightlife, The Tomb

Exorcist II: The Heretic – 1977, US, 117m. Director: John Boorman.

Nightlife – 1989, US, 92m. Director: Daniel Taplitz.

The Tomb – 1986, US, 84m. Director: Fred Olen Ray.

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977) A disillusioned priest (Richard Burton) is sent by the Church to look into the circumstances surrounding Father Merrin’s (Max von Sydow) death at the end of The Exorcist. Burton’s investigation brings him to 16-year-old Regan (Linda Blair) who, still feeling the effects of her possession from the first movie, is attending a special clinic run by Ellen Burstyn lookalike Louise Fletcher—Burstyn didn’t reprise her role as Regan’s mother, making her the smartest person not to be featured in this bloated sequel. Burton travels to Africa to meet with a man (James Earl Jones) who survived an adolescent possession by the demon Pazuzu, and where the viewer is forced to watch excruciatingly dull scenes of Burton sleepwalking through his role. Burton becomes consumed with the case and brings Regan to her old house in Georgetown to confront Pazuzu in a preposterous ending that gives new meaning to unintentional comedy. It seems a difficult task for director John Boorman (Deliverance) to flesh out the same characters and situations William Friedkin handled so effortlessly in the first film—too many of them come off as cold and calculating, including Fletcher’s psychiatrist who, even after witnessing supernatural events, continues to be a Doubting Thomas to Regan’s demonic plight. Blair is wasted in a role which (unlike its predecessor) feels one dimensional. D

NIGHTLIFE (1989) Before he was cast as vampire Barnabas Collins in the 1991 revival of Dark Shadows, Ben Cross played vampire Vlad in this made-for-TV, Dark Shadowsesque satire. Friendly vamp Angelique (Maryam d’Abo) awakens from a decades-long slumber and begins a relationship with blood specialist David (Keith Szarabajka), who supplies her with endless bags of donor blood to feed off. Angelique’s old flame, Vlad, discovers her return and makes it his mission to get her back—despite the fact she buried herself in the ground for 100 years just to get away from the creep. Vlad sends two bumbling vampire goons after Angelique, but she and David get away and end up making love in her penthouse coffin (“You call this a bed?”). A lack of fresh blood gives Angelique a skin disorder that has her fleeing into hiding until Vlad traps and brings her to his lair. In an effort to save Angelique, David captures one of Vlad’s cronies in his lab and uses ultraviolet lights on the vamp where it explodes at the feet of a janitor who, in the movie’s funniest scene, states, “I’m not cleaning that up!” Unfortunately, Nightlife doesn’t supply audiences with enough comically charged moments to recommend viewing, although Cross and the gang try to make the most of the situation. It’s unfortunate the script doesn’t return the favor. C

THE TOMB (1986) The unstoppable Fred Olen Ray strikes again with this half-baked rip-off of Bram Stoker’s Jewel of the Seven Stars. Macho tomb raiders awaken Egyptian vampire Nefratis (Michelle Bauer) when pilfering her unmarked mausoleum. The sole survivor (David O’Hara) escapes to America, along with an artifact from the tomb, only to be followed by the vampiric pharaoh herself, who, in order to retrieve her property, implants a homing device—in the form of a flesh-eating scarab—inside O’Hara’s chest. Nefratis wastes no time killing the various men who stand in her way of obtaining the precious relic, including a collector whose heart she rips out. When Nefratis feels the need to feed, she picks up a lesbian at a bar only to toss her into a bed of giant snakes for no particular reason. Ray’s direction might lack substance but there’s no denying The Tomb is pumped with a good amount of energy, even when it’s not always working. It helps that the movie never takes itself seriously and is often quite funny, especially a scene where a U.S. customs agent, in an attempt to arrest Nefratis, is obliterated by a flash of light from her hand. Scream Queen Sybil Danning might get top billing, but her participation is all but a few minutes of screen time. It ain’t very good, but a likable cast and a sense of enjoyment make The Tomb a watchable 80 minutes. B–

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The Blind Dead 🧟‍♂️

Tombs of the Blind Dead – 1972, Spain, 85m/100m (uncut). Director: Amando de Ossorio

The Return of the Evil Dead – 1973, Spain, 90m. Director: Amando de Ossorio

The Ghost Galleon – 1974, Spain, 87m. Director: Amando de Ossorio

Night of the Seagulls – 1975, Spain, 89m. Director: Amando de Ossorio

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1972) Satanic knights from the Dark Ages rise from their dusty graves to feast on the blood of scantily clad women and ride on horseback in slow motion. The knights awaken without the use of sight (their eyes were devoured by crows pre-burial), but despite being nothing more than walking skeletons in robes, they can sense their prey through sound. A backpacker makes camp near the knight’s gravesite and is descended upon by the zombified pack in a suspenseful sequence. The screenplay is smart enough to understand the living characters are not nearly as interesting as the dead ones, and quickly revives recent victims of the blind dead as bloodthirsty ghouls. The film offers exposition of the knight’s historical dealings in witchcraft and human sacrifices in the form of a decrepit librarian whose scumbag son (José Thelman) is given some much deserved, limb-tearing justice by the zombies after he rapes a lesbian. In the annals of zombiedom, Tombs of the Blind Dead won’t be remembered as much of its Night of the Living Dead counterparts, but as an atmospheric chiller it comes recommended. B (Currently available on Plex, Shudder, AMC+, and YouTube.)

RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD (1973) Despite its generic title, this is actually the second in the Blind Dead series from Spain, which began a year earlier with Tombs of the Blind Dead by introducing the dreaded Knights Templar—fifth century Satan-worshippers who rise from their graves to drink the blood of those who disturb their slumber. In this instance, it’s the quincentenary of the Knights’ massacre at the hands of villagers—villagers who burnt the Templars at the stake after gouging their eyes out with red hot pokers. The gimmick of these films—the zombies must find their prey through sound—is meant to provide a certain amount of suspense, but it’s difficult to get excited over one-dimensional characters who spend the majority of the movie screaming, moaning, and making as much noise as possible in order for the Knights to find them. That said, there’s an undeniable creepiness to the zombies, and the plot this time around seems to have been inspired even more by Night of the Living Dead than its predecessor. So, if you enjoyed the first movie, you’ll most likely enjoy this one. B– (Currently not streaming.)

THE GHOST GALLEON (1974) (AKA: Horror of the Zombies) Brainless bikini models and their male cohorts learn the seaweed-strewn decks of a decaying Spanish galleon is the wrong place for a publicity stunt when zombies crawl out of the woodwork. It might sound like yet another European venture into George Romero territory, but Ghost Galleon is the continuing saga of the “blind dead”—witchcraft-practicing medieval knights who were persecuted and killed in the fifth century. As previously seen in Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972) and Return of the Evil Dead (1973), the knights keep coming back as bloodthirsty zombies to lay waste to nearby villages, and to ride horseback in slow motion. There are no horses in this entry, but the ship gives the movie a much needed change of pace and helps the paper thin plot by offering heavy atmosphere and some actual chills. The galleon is basically a replacement for the “old dark house,” but the sets are impressive, given the obviously low budget. The knights themselves are sinister and unique enough to separate them from the pack of walking stiffs that flooded theaters throughout the seventies. The gore isn’t as high this time around, but the decapitation of one of the most annoying characters in the movie is definitely a highlight. B– (Currently streaming on Freevee.)

THE NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS (1975) Those pesky Knights Templar are back in this final installment in the Blind Dead series. A doctor (Victor Petit) and his wife (Maria Kosti) move to a remote fishing village to take over the practice of a retiring physician, unaware the place is the stalking grounds of the zombified Templars, who ascend from their graves at night. To keep the Knights under control, the local hags make nightly sacrifices in the form of their younger offspring. The village idiot tries to warn the newcomers of danger but is tossed off a cliff by the superstitious townsfolk. Petit’s pretty housemaid offers herself as the next sacrifice in order to keep peace with the zombies, which is cut short when Petit gets the urge to become a hero and rescues the damsel, severing the human/zombie trust. An elaborate flashback to the Templar’s human days—which includes the cutting out of woman’s heart at the altar of a demonic statue—begins the film with a terrific Hammeresque vibe. Unfortunately, an overall lack of suspense and a climax that repeats the ending of Return of the Evil Dead makes Night of the Seagulls the weakest in the series. But if you just gotta know how it ends for our desiccated friends, you could do a lot worse than this fittingly elegant finale. C+ (Currently streaming on ShoutTV.)

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House by the Cemetery, The Suckling, Zombie High

The House by the Cemetery – 1981, Italy, 86m. Director: Lucio Fulci.

The Suckling – 1990, US, 89m. Director: Francis Teri.

Zombie High – 1987, US, 93m. Director: Ron Link.

THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) Italian shockmeister Lucio Fulci enters “old dark house” territory with this splattery Amityville Horror/The Shining conglomeration. An architectural researcher (Paolo Malco) moves his family into a dusty Colonial mansion to continue his deceased colleague’s work, unaware that the place’s original owner (a 19th century vivisectionist named Freudstein) resides in the basement, a Frankenstein-like zombie. Anyone who comes into contact with the building is filleted by Freudstein and their body parts used to replace his rotting limbs. The nervous nanny (Ania Pieroni) gets her head chopped off after snooping around the cellar; a realtor gets stabbed repeatedly after dropping off keys, her neck erupting blood like an out of control firehose. The dire events were foreseen by Malco’s psychic son (Giovanni Frezza), who was warned by a little ghost girl to stay away from the house. Naturally, Malco doesn’t believe the kid and ends up on Freudstein’s slab, along with the majority of the cast, who are left in pieces by the end. The plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but Fulci infuses the film with enough style and atmosphere to make House by the Cemetery a worthy entry in the European gore canon. B (Currently streaming on Shudder, AMC+, and Plex.)

THE SUCKLING (1990) A teenager (Lisa Patruno) gets an abortion at a backwoods clinic/whorehouse, where the discarded fetus comes back as a mutated monster. The creature traps Patruno and an abundance of seedy individuals inside the house and uses the place’s plumbing to sneak up on its prey. It lassos a victim with its umbilical cord and cuts off her head before moving into the bedroom of a prostitute and slashing her to death with its razor-like claws. The special effects that make the Suckling come to life are impressive given the movie’s chintzy vibe, which is unfortunately exacerbated by poor acting and a meandering screenplay. The low budget sadly keeps the monster hidden in the shadows while the third-rate characters scream at each other for most of the runtime. If anything, The Suckling is an example of a good concept stuck in a bad film. D (Currently streaming on Plex.)

ZOMBIE HIGH (1987) Andrea (Virginia Madsen) wins a scholarship to waspy Ettinger Academy, a once all-male private school gone coed. A mix of New Wave punks and preppy jocks begins to disappear as the students with the loudest personalities turn into uptight, Wall Street Journal-reading snobs. Andrea eventually discovers Ettinger was founded by a cult of men led by the handsome Dr. Philo (Richard Cox), a 102-year-old, 19th century colonel who’s been using the student body for some sort of medical procedure that grants him and his staff longer life—but drains victims of their own ideas and free will. Zombie High is a satire of 1980s Reaganism and for half of its running time is quite funny, but anyone who’s read Ira Levin understands the film is riffing on The Stepford Wives—The Stepford Bros?—and runs out of ideas early on. There is a witty subplot involving the implanting of crystals in the brains of the locals in order to control their motivations, most likely a stab at the rising popularity of New Ageism. Recommended only for satirical eighties hor-com and Madsen fans. C+ (Currently streaming on Roku, Plex, Night Flight, and Screambox.)

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Flesh Feast, The Guardian, The Possessed

Flesh Feast – 1970, US, 70m. DIrector: Brad F. Grinter.

The Guardian – 1990, US, 92m. Director: William Friedkin.

The Possessed – 1977, US, 74m. Director: Jerry Thorpe.

FLESH FEAST (1970) This shot-in-Miami shoestring sounds like a movie by Herschel Gordon Lewis, but Flesh Feast is actually produced by and features former Hollywood starlet Veronica Lake. Lake plays Elaine Fredericks, a plastic surgeon seeking revenge for the murder of her mother in a WWII concentration camp. Fredericks infiltrates an underground Nazi ring under the guise of creating maggots that can rejuvenate dead skin—which the Nazis want to use on Hitler, who’s apparently alive! In reality, the loony Doc has been training the maggots to feast on human flesh, ultimately dowsing Der Führer in the creepy crawlies and laughing maniacally while she watches his demise. Nothing about this moribund production is the least bit interesting. Even what little we see of the gore effects are howlingly awful and make the makeup work in an H.G. Lewis flick seem classy by comparison. Sadly, this excruciating endeavor was Lake’s final film before her death in 1973. F (Not currently streaming.)

THE GUARDIAN (1990) Too-good-to-be-true Camilla (Jenny Seagrove) is the perfect nanny. She’s attentive, prompt, wonderfully patient with her young charges, and not hard on the eyes. She also happens to be part of an ancient supernatural pagan cult that sacrifices children to some sort of tree-god. The All-Powerful Tree to which Camilla feeds babies happens to be adjacent to the home of the Sterling family who, having just welcomed their newest addition (a baby boy), have hired Camilla to be their nanny. (It isn’t much of a coincidence when the Sterling’s first choice for nanny is waylaid in a bicycling accident.) The Sterling house becomes a hotbed of sexual tension between Dad (Dwier Brown), who spends a good deal of the time shirtless, and the uninhibited Camilla, who likes to parade in front of Brown in nothing but her birthday suit. This was William Friedkin’s first true horror production since The Exorcist, and the results are mixed. The script offers several incredulous moments that would look more at home in a Sam Raimi Evil Dead movie, such as when the Tree dismembers and eats a rapist. Always the thoughtful writer, Friedkin infuses most of The Guardian with an undercurrent of psychological suspense, even when the story veers off course and into the absurd. Despite all this, The Guardian is never dull and offers the viewer an entertaining, albeit ridiculous, yarn. B– (Not currently streaming.)

THE POSSESSED (1977) Something sinister is happening at the Helen Page School for Girls, conveniently—or not conveniently, depending on which way you look at it—located in the witch-burning capital of America: Salem, Massachusetts. When a series of fires break out at the Catholic school, a concerned teacher (Claudette Nevins), whose daughter (Ann Dusenberry) was nearly burnt to death as a result of one of the arson incidents, brings in a disgraced priest-turned-supernatural investigator (James Farentino) for help. After some sleuthing, Farentino discovers the mysterious flames are being emitted from moody headmistress Joan Hackett, who over the course of the film has become the embodiment of Evil, with a particular penchant for fireworks. The screenplay is fairly light on material, but the pace moves at a good clip and the characters are mostly sympathetic. This gets extra points for some impressive pyrotechnic special effects, especially during the fiery climax. A better than average made-for-TV chiller worth seeking out. Harrison Ford has a bit role as a horny teacher. B (Currently not available.)