RIDE THE LIGHTNING



SHOCKER (1989)
Mitch Pileggi, Peter Berg, Michael Murphy, Richard Brooks, Camille Cooper, Ted Raimi, Vincent Guasteferro
Directed by Wes Craven
Horace Pinker is a terrifying serial killer with a limp, and doubles as a TV repairman. He's slaughtered over 30 people in an L.A. suburb named Maryville, and the police finally zero in on him as their prime suspect. Lead detective, Lt. Don Parker, is all set to at last nab the sonofabitch, but Pinker eludes him and savagely kills Parker's family, except for his foster son, high school football star Jonathan, who by sheer luck was not at home during the massacre, but dreamt it. Parker remains on the case, and as Jonathan mourns the devastating loss of his adoptive family, he starts having more disturbing dreams that point to Pinker's repair shop. He tells his Dad, who in turn with a number of cops arrive at Pinker's place which is full of cluttered junk, electronics, and numerous TV's displaying scenes of catastrophe & destruction. After a shootout resulting in 4 dead officers, the killer's narrow escape, and Parker in deep shit with his bosses, Pinker murders Jonathan's girlfriend, Allison, in revenge. She quite literally dies in a bloodbath. Jonathan (who at this state should be catatonic) has another dream of Pinker on the prowl, but this time he thwarts the madman's kidnapping and barely escapes being killed himself during a fight on a rooftop. With the cops in tow, Pinker is finally apprehended, and his arrest is followed by un unseen but no doubt sensationalist trial resulting in quick conviction, and sentence of death by electric chair. Jonathan demands from his Dad to attend as a witness, and Parker agrees. On the execution date, Pinker is in his jail cell making a deal with the Devil, by performing a black magic ritual on his knees infront of a TV, hooked up to jumper cables(!) He is zapped/anointed from a groovy-voiced, demonic force and sparks fly just before he is stopped by guards.

The accompanying Priest is stunned and disgusted by the Satanic paraphernalia. Having passed out, Pinker bites the lip of one guard trying to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, chomps on the fingers of the other, and is then beaten while he laughs maniacally. Led to the chamber and utterly remorseless, he locks eyes on Jonathan and tells him that he is his real father. As a boy, Jonathan shot biological Papa in the left knee to protect his mother whom Pinker was fatally attacking; thus accounting for their strange, psychic connection. Parker angrily jumps up and tells Pinker to STFU. The execution goes awry, and Pinker disappears in darkness where he kills some prison staff. Jonathan and Parker find Pinker's body which bursts into flames and vanishes. Having gotten a real supercharge instead of just dying-by-frying, a now newly juiced-up Pinker has turned into an immortal being of pure, evil energy; able to body-swap and travel through cable wires & powerlines into people's televisions to slaughter more families. Back home (how the hell does a kid at 16 or 17 back then even have their own place?), dreaming Jonathan is visited by Allison's ghost, and she hands over a heart pendant which gives him the strength to drive Pinker away; setting the course for our hero to play a deadly game of cat & mouse, trying to stop Pinker from resuming his body count. Our killer on the loose possesses the female prison doctor; a cop; most memorably: a little girl in a playground who swears like a trucker as she bouncingly hops & drags to operate a bulldozer, and is tackled by Jonathan infront of the girl's freaked out mother; the mother; a buff construction worker (Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts) who tosses the pendant into a lake with his pickaxe; Jonathan's football coach; and Parker who nearly suffers a lethal heart attack during a chase atop a high voltage broadcast tower.

Alison protects Jonathan with an inner light (the power of undying love?) that repels Pinker, but after a brief wrong arrest for copycat murders to which he fled, Jonathan is cleared by his father. As Pinker escaped via a beam from a TV satellite dish, Jonathan is helped by his teammates (on standby at a power station ready to pull a little technical difficulty ala short circuit sabotage), and a pair of TV videocameramen (in a replica of the dead little sister's bedroom, set to go live-on-air) to bring Pinker back; trapped in the real world, where he'll be subject to the physical limitations of manipulated signal reception. [For Jonathan, this seems like the biggest/cleverest/riskiest experiment he'll ever partake in, for I'm guessing the how-to instructions needed for this digital trickery were probably not exactly plastered in the Panasonic and Sony equipment manuals of the day. So bravo & good luck you stealthy stuntman, as you venture into the idiot box airwaves]. While dreaming in his vibrating reclining chair, he makes out with Allison and gets back the pendant. He is also visited by the spirits of Pinker's victims who tell him to wake up, stop smooching, and prepare for his showdown. Pinker attacks him in his house by passing through light sockets in the wall but is repulsed by the pendant. Jonathan goes after him and the term "don't touch that dial" is completely thrown out the window as both men engage in a bizarre, channel surfing chase as they run amok through a crazy TV show landscape of documentary war footage; classic sitcoms; Alice Cooper concert antics on stage; historical disaster; South Korean street rioting; boxing; Entertainment Tonight with John Tesh (atleast he wasn't singing); Dr. Frankenstein and his famous monster; nuclear explosions; a redneck family's living room (complete with obligatory fat wife pigging out on the couch); and a televangelist preacher game show(!)

Will Jonathan get remote control, freeze-framing retribution? Will he still bang his dead girlfriend? Will Pinker be reduced to the output of a kiddie sparkler? What will happen to the neighborhood in a blackout? With their boob tubes broken, what will people do without their nightly fix from the TV Guide? While similarities to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET can't be helped (a wisecracking villain who goes after his victims with an emphasis on sleep, anyone? How about parental guilt, or alternate realities?), this was a better than average slasher flick for Craven, inspite of the negativity heaped upon it. Originally more graphic with its violence, the movie was submitted to the MPAA 13 times before finally getting its X-rating changed to R. As Pinker was intended to be a new horror icon, the subgenre was fizzling out near the end of its craze, and the idea of a freshly-created franchise never saw fruition. However derided it is in Craven's stable for being cheesy and over the top in ridiculousness, its premise certainly brings laughs -- even if unintentional. Berg (more of a direcor & producer these days) looks a bit too old to be a high schooler, but ironically (and hilariously) he seemed to get his ass kicked more harmfully by running into a goal post and falling over a water table, than by Pinker tossing him around like a rag doll and beating the crap out of him. Yes, Berg's stiff & monotone acting is quite bad, and his character is a slight dork, but this is Pileggi's movie through n' through.

Best known as Walter Skinner on "The X-Files" for its entire run, Pileggi shines playing a merciless, brutish psychopath, and is clearly having a blast hamming it up as a homicidal heavy with bursts of insane giggling. [Pileggi and Craven teamed up again 26yrs later for the Director's last film (which he co-produced), THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS, before his death at 76 on August 30, 2015]. Heather Langenkamp, Dr. Timothy Leary, and Craven himself (along with his son & daughter) drop in for quicky cameos, and the soundtrack features Megadeth covering Alice Cooper; Iggy Pop; Dangerous Toys; and hair metal one-off The Dudes of Wrath comprising members of Alice Cooper, Kiss, Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, and Whitesnake. In closing, SHOCKER is enjoyably silly, with some interesting & imaginative ideas for the sfx of the time. While there might have been an attempt at some sort of subliminal commentary about the exploitive oversaturation of 24hr news trauma, or excessive media consumption, or the budding germ of technological overload thanks to the proliferation of a mass communication medium, the movie is still a very funny romp. [The sound of an unseen British nature show narrator being punched out as he describes the red-crested nuthatch, instantly followed by Pinker climbing a tree near the bird's nest, and peering out over a sleeping Jonathan, still cracks me up]. In all fairness, the movie's amusing and wild absurdity single-handedly makes this an unapologetic, unashamedly, nostalgic, guilty pleasure fave of mine. Uneven and filled with imperfection, I loved it in high school and still fondly dig it the same all these years on. It definitely hits the spot for those goofy moods.




THE HORROR SHOW aka HOUSE III: THE HORROR SHOW (1989)
Lance Henriksen, Brion James, Rita Taggart, Dedee Pfeiffer, Aron Eisenberg, Thom Bray, Alvy Moore
Directed by James Isaac
Dedicated detective, Lucas McCarthy, has finally nabbed sadistic serial killer, "Meat Cleaver" Max Jenke, who has murdered a staggering 110+ people. The fateful night of capture involved splitting up with his partner as they tracked Max to a diner. Finding 2 cops dead in the kitchen, his partner legged it to a nearby power plant, and McCarthy followed to find his partner dying with both arms severed. McCarthy apprehended Max (but not before the death of a little girl grabbed hostage) and was stopped by his Lt. from putting a bullet in the sicko's head. Put on leave of duty, seeing a shrink, and still plagued by nightmares, McCarthy witnesses the disturbing execution in the electric chair (a great sequence reminiscent of SCANNERS with bulging & popping veins, and rippling & bursting skin), in hopes of freeing himself from tormented dreams. Old Sparky however, is just the beginning. As Max's body burns to a crisp before exhaling his last breath, he has dabbled in diabolical dark arts to elevate him to another level of reality, and tells the detective it ain't over by a longshot. McCarthy is soon shocked to find Max is far from dead as a doornail, and fears he will soon come after him, and carry out a new series of gruesome killings. Max goes a step further by scaring the bejesus out of McCarthy's family in their new home. Wife Donna discovers their cat has gone missing, and the furnace keeps blasting itself on. That's because it now houses Max's malevolent soul. Hallucinations start to drive McCarthy a little loopy, and he wonders if his house is haunted, and if he's going full-on batshit.

Meanwhile, with Mom & Dad going out for a celebration meal, daughter Bonnie sets up a rendezvous with her rebel boyfriend, Vinnie, in the basement but he is killed by Max impersonating her voice. The next day, son Scott (who likes music, and scams companies into sending him freebies) helps his big sister look for the missing Vinnie as an angry McCarthy yells at Max in the basement boiler to 'come out, come out, from wherever you are' and keep his grubby hands off his family. Hearing the noise, his kids think he's shouting at Vinnie. Later, (in the movie's absolute wackiest moment) when he sees Max morphed in a roast turkey on the dinner table (a nod to ERASERHEAD?), he stabs it insanely which in some extreme circles would suggest that he would rather have preferred chicken. This is quickly followed up by him turning the TV off with his gun because he sees Max taunting him on every program. McCarthy sees a police shrink, and a college professor of questionable reputation, who knows a thing or two about the occult, tells him that the only way to defeat demented Max is: Are you ready for this? -- To destroy his electro-ghost evil spirit with an overdose of power since this will cause the electricity surging in him (that has made him superhumanly immune) to be brought into the real world (as a re-resurrection from his already undead state?) allowing for a re-energized re-electrocution to destroy his electromagnetic essence and make him a Regular Joe again (even though he wasn't quite an Average Joe to begin with)... Or some crackpot science-planation to that effect.

Dad has tried to "fix" the furnace but his kids don't steer clear of the dreadful downstairs, and when a lured Bonnie returns to the basement, she finds Vinnie's dead body, and McCarthy is arrested thanks to Max's frame-up. Professor Paranormal Investigator is also killed after snooping about in Jenke's old apartment. With Dad in police interrogation and out of the way, Max runs roughshod over the McCarthy family by killing Scott (guess what with), entering Bonnie's body, and taking Donna hostage. Intent on clearing his name, McCarthy escapes and makes it back home to fight Max once and for all, and try to save his family. He enters the furnace(!) which apparently operates like Mr. Peabody & Sherman's WABAC time machine. In this Narnia-ish nightmare (just in case we needed to be reminded of all the trauma McCarthy has swirled through), we make stops back at the diner, and power plant where Jenke chops at a transformer panel causing the voltage to blast both men (and Donna) back into the McCarthy living room. Having materialized back into mortal form, Max is shot dead. Yep, after all that slugging it out and exchanging of quips (that reminded me of Spiderman vs. Electro), the preposterous/convoluted-claptrap/psychobabble theory actually worked. Shortly after, the McCarthy's are moving out of their house with Scott alive (um, what?), and the cat having come back. Donna snaps a happy family pic and we fade to black from the snapshot.

Hmm, so let's see here: another profane, dangerous, cruel, unrepentant & unstoppable killer with a twisted laugh, who has made a pact with the Devil; returns from the grave and threatens heinous revenge; harnesses electricity; displays a penchant for body-jumping transference/possession; alters reality; pins murder on the protagonist hero; borrows from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET; was introduced with hopes of its killer becoming a re-occurring slasher badass; and also saw considerable cutting from the MPAA. Sounds like a real familiar "SHOCKER" doesn't it? The confusing thing about the lame-named THE HORROR SHOW is that it was released as HORROR HOUSE: HOUSE III in Europe, as a 7-part Italian rebranding of movies (La Casa) which are actually unrelated whatsoever to the original cannon (except for production crews), yet continue in the series as sequels -- even though they are unofficial. The direct-to-video HOUSE IV is actually the proper continuation from HOUSE II, meaning IV should be the real III. But since it follows after the European numbering which is wonky by US/Canadian order, there's further murkiness which -- wait for it -- gets more vexing(!): The installments also wrongly tie into THE EVIL DEAD titles as well (excluding ARMY OF DARKNESS). Did you get all that? Another arbitrary wedge-in sharing nothing in common to the franchise. Mamma Mia. As both electric chair films were released in the same year, (and arguably equal in plot holes and flaws) many people wrongly believe THE HORROR SHOW was the low-rent rip off, when infact it opened in April -- 6 months before SHOCKER. Unlike Pileggi's extravaganza of sheer craziness, Brion James (certainly no stranger to playing menacing goons) in his grimmer flick was going for more violent bloody gore, hacked off limbs, and intensity in addition to humor.

And due respect, he does a solid job as a sleazeball wreaking havoc. Sadly, James died in August 1999 at 54 from a heart attack. Of the nearly 100 movies in his filmography, he said playing Max Jenke was his all-time favourite role. Alongside him is Henriksen who always brings A-game seriousness, and is fun to watch as he unhinges into paranoia. Unfortunately though, he's wasted here as the story stretches into periods of dullness, too many flashbacks (including the clichéd intro of a flashback in a dream, which is taking place in another dream), and James just not used enough. Outside of the 2 stars, the acting is nothing to write home about, and the only real bright spot are the sfx (of which Greg Nicotero was a part). Oh yeah, Kane Hodder did stuntwork. THE HORROR SHOW is dumb but not outright terrible. [Except for the huh? ending. If Scott is alive, is it because the undoing of Jenke has reversed all of the killer's actions? With Scott suddenly just back with no explanation, or device to indicate the whole ordeal was imagined, I feel a better implication would have been to leave us wondering if this is a final dream orbiting around what is still a reign of terror being conducted]. Enough digression. Overall, the movie is still a much more erratic & unraveled mess than SHOCKER. If you got a good jolt out of Horace Pinker, this movie is worth a watch for a particular comparative contrast in presentation; to see if Max Jenke (even with his impressive body count) in your opinion is either big league or farm team. In case I haven't made my allegiance known, I'll take the orange jumpsuit with checkerboard chest strip.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVECRAFT

TODAY IS

PATRIARCH KNOWS BEST



THE STEPFATHER (1987)
Terry O'Quinn, Shelley Hack, Jill Schoelen, Stephen Shellen, Charles Lanyer, Jeff Schultz, Blu Mankuma
Directed by Joseph Ruben
Henry Morrison is in his bathroom, cleaning himself up from blood. After a haircut, fresh shave, and new contact lenses, he grabs a suitcase and calmly leaves his quiet house. He's just massacred his entire family of 4 in Bellevue,WA, and has tied up loose ends. On a ferry, he tips the suitcase into the ocean. One year later and now living in a Seattle suburb (Oakridge), he's assumed the identity of mild-mannered Jerry Blake, a real estate agent. His new wife is Susan Maine, a recent widow. 16yr old rebellious stepdaughter, Stephanie, is not a fan of Mom's new hubby, and her relationship with Jerry (even after he gave her a puppy) is frosty. Due to grieving over her real Dad's death and from fighting in school, she is seeing kindly psychiatrist, Dr. Bondurant, who tells her to give the new parent a chance. Stephanie is soon expelled and expresses her wish to go to boarding school but Mom and Step-Pop aren't enthused about what they feel would be her essentially running away. Back in Bellevue, Jim Ogilvie convinces a reporter to run an article about the still-unsolved murders of the Morrison family. Jim's sister, Vicky, was Jerry's wife. During a backyard barbecue, Jerry reads the newspaper story and Stephanie sees him visibly shaken by it. Fetching ice cream in their basement, she sees him ranting crazily to himself about 'keeping family together' but he tells her that he's just blowing off steam from the stress of work.

When she finds the article, and confides in a friend by suspecting Jerry is the killer, she writes the newspaper (under the guise of a class assignment) asking for a photo of Henry Morrison. Jim meets up with the reporter again, angry that Henry's picture was not with the story. The reporter tells him to forget the tragedy and move on but Jim can't & will not let it go. After Jerry intercepts Stephanie's mail of the newspaper sending her Henry's photo, he confiscates it and has another solo freakout in the basement. Jim gets information from a detective about Henry Morrison, learning the name is false and that he may have committed the same crime even earlier. With no evidence for the police to go after him, Jimmy gets a gun to take matters in his own hand. While Jerry gets Stephanie re-admitted back to her school, she tells her shrink she is still worried and afraid of him. As Jerry had refused to meet with Dr. Bondurant, the Doc uses a ruse of pretending to be a potential home buyer under the name Mr. Martin. Stephanie excitedly finds the mail sent from the newspaper but is deflated by the fake photo which Jerry has substituted to steer her away from the truth. When Bondurant meets Jerry at a sale house, he asks too many questions tingling Jerry's Spidey-sense, and is beaten to death by a 2x4 wood plank. That night, his body is placed in his car which is staged in a fiery accident over a cliff, and Jerry tells Stephanie (already tricked into feeling guilty for her suspicions) of his demise in the morning, consoling her as she cries.

The 2 bond over a birdhouse they raise on their front lawn. From a clue in a magazine, Jim gets a lead on Jerry's new location, while the newly happy Step-Pop espouses -- in almost sacred sanctity -- how special family is over Thanksgiving dinner. But the good tidings end faster than crap through a goose when Jerry goes ballistic from catching Stephanie kissing a boy on their front porch one night, absurdly accusing the young man of rape. Daughter and Mom argue, and Stephanie takes off after being slapped in the face. When Susan tells Jerry he is at fault for his hysterical overreaction, he quits his job the next morning just as Jim has driven into town (in his beat-up junkbox) looking to find him. At an appointment for a new shrink, Stephanie sneaks into Dr. Bondurant's office and finds a written record of the sale house meeting. Jim conducts a door-to-door search of recently married widows and divorcées, crossing names off a list. Jerry has changed his appearance and has created a new identity, now getting ready to settle in Rosedale,WA, as Bill Hodgkins who works for an insurance company. The Maine family is on the verge of being no more but Jerry keeps up pretenses between his commutes -- by which time he has found a new house and has set his eyes on his next door neighbor, Dorothy. It's just her and her kids, and it looks like they'll be an item in no time. Jim shows up at the Oakridge home and meets Susan, telling her he will return to surprise Jerry. She calls the real estate agency and is stunned when told Jerry quit several days ago.

Jim gets confirmation of Jerry & his job description from a photo he has and races back to the Oakridge home. [If Jim had the photo all along, why wouldn't he have shown it to Susan upon his introduction?] Susan questions Jerry regarding his whereabouts but he lies and in the movie's most iconic moment, acts confused before smashing her in the face with a phone, and then punching her down the basement stairs. With a kitchen knife, he intends to kill Stephanie who is showering upstairs but Jim shows up, and the determined ex-brother-in-law is at last face-to-face with Jerry. Will he get justice with his revolver? Will we get to see Scary Jerry snap and fly off into one of his patented rages? Will Step-Pop atleast have the decency to wait til Stephanie gets dressed before attacking her? What about that knife? Will it take a lady to save the day? Outside of Freddy, Jason, Michael, Pinhead & the Cenobites, Chucky, Leatherface, the ghosts after Carol Anne Freeling, the vampires after Charley Brewster & Peter Vincent, and the demons after Ash Williams, THE STEPFATHER was an uncommon but refreshing and above average entry in 80's thriller/horror for presenting the most terrible of monsters -- a person in real life in our everyday, plausible midst. The movie is loosely based on family annihilator, John List, and O'Quinn is excellent in a breakthrough role as the clean-cut, conservative, hard-working, and outwardly nice guy with best intentions. Jerry's sole idyllic dream is of wanting nothing other than a picture-perfect, modern family.

This seems normal enough, but the nightmare is that he gives horrendous new meaning to "home sweet home" because he keeps having to "erase" the inevitable mistakes and disappointments brought on by a spouse and kids that can never live up to his antiquated, high standards (which strongly hint at a need for sexual dominance). And in his warped mind, the burdens that result in breakdown beyond repair are never his fault so in a rinse-repeat cycle, his only solution to "fix" damage is to keep obliterating innocent victims and restart the slow process of ingratiating, for if at first you don't succeed -- kill, and kill again. Jerry maintains a veneer of stability to keep his fantasy of old-fashioned values in place, but when cracks begin eroding & crumbling his surface, he predictably switches gears and flips on a dime. And after outbursts of explosive violence, he's right back to whistling 'Camptown Races'. A cult classic, O'Quinn owns this movie, and to his credit he never goes over the top. Yes, he's Jekyll & Hyde-psycho but fascinating for a current individual who appears stuck in imaginary, 1950's Norman Rockwell nostalgia -- which we can only speculate may be due to a possible childhood trauma. The co-stars are solid as well. Best known as a brief Charlie's Angel, Shelley Hack as caring Susan plays a believable cluelessness (until it's too late), and Jill Schoelen as Stephanie pulls off all the emotions of moody teen angst, distrust & defiance. 30yrs on, THE STEPFATHER still remains a potent and fantastic nailbiter in the arena of abusive, familial upheaval.




FRAILTY (2001)
Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary, Jeremy Sumpter, Derk Cheetwood, Missy Crider
Directed by Bill Paxton
By way of a stolen ambulance, a regretful Fenton Meiks is in the Dallas office of FBI Agent Wesley Doyle and tells him that his younger brother, Adam Meiks, is the elusive "God's Hand" serial killer. Adam has since taken his own life with Fenton keeping a promise of burying his body in a public park rose garden in Thurman,TX. The site also contains the bodies of murder victims and as Fenton and skeptical Doyle drive to Thurman to verify the startling claim, we flashback to the summer of 1979 with Fenton narrating the childhood of the brothers. Their Dad is a humble single father, and car mechanic who is devout and devoted to his boys. One night he bursts into their bedroom, wakens them from sleep, and tells them that he has been visited by an angel (through a glistening trophy) sent from God, who has a special mission for him: to kill demons who are hiding in ordinary people. No one outside of the family can be told of this "job" or else he will die, thus bounding the brothers to secrecy. Obsessed & fanatic Dad is waiting for a sent hit-list of people to be "removed" which we later see is just him writing names out of a phone book. (Or is he infact gathering up their addresses?) The individuals are first abducted at night (in a newly bought van), brought to the Meiks home and bound in a shed, determined to be a demon by mere touch, killed with an axe named 'Otis', and finally buried in the rose garden behind their house. Driving around searching for unholy prey, a woman is kidnapped ("captured") from her house, and next a man from a shopping mall parking lot. At every stage, Dad has his boys along as accomplices, and views himself as carrying out commands that cannot by disobeyed.

Young Adam is a true believer who soon states that he can also see the same sins of the demons that Dad sees in his visions. Adam even draws up his own crayon-scrawled list. As Fenton struggles to comprehend, he is instantly wary of this "work," and is afraid of the criminal participation. He sees Adam as too easily manipulated and desperately tries to rein his little brother in (suggesting they run away) but to no avail, which incurs distrust for his opinion of thinking Dad is psychotic, and even worse: wrong for what he is doing. Fenton's growing ill-at-ease and defiance is witnessed by his father, who states that the angel has deemed him an untrustworthy threat, so Dad forces him to dig a large square hole in the backyard which after a week is built into a storm cellar with the shed rolled over it. Fenton is told to pray so that he may see the light, but he steadfastly refuses. When Dad abducts another victim and orders Fenton to kill him, Fenton takes off straight to the Sheriff, telling him everything. The Sheriff brings him back home, not believing the story but checks the cellar nonetheless. Dad kills him and at the rose garden, in tormented sincerity, again insists he is not murdering people but destroying demons. He angrily blames Fenton for compromising the mission, and thus being responsible for the death of an innocent. In their arguing, he is called crazy and raises a shovel close to striking Fenton but is stopped by a pleading Adam. When they return to the shed, Fenton is forcefully locked in the cellar in hope that a divine revelation will fill him with faith. Denied food, Adam brings him water but does not free him when begged.

After weeks of confinement, near starvation, and having passed out, Dad finally takes Fenton out of the cellar, who now pretends to have seen God which fools Dad. After father and son join for another abduction (which almost backfires), the victim is brought back to the cellar and Adam now with the axe is told to kill him. He hesitates and instead plunges the axe into Dad's chest. Adam rushes to his father's side, and Dad whispers in his ear before he dies as Fenton stands looking over him. The look on Adam's face is one of betrayal. Fenton removes duct tape from the victim's mouth, who screams just as Adam runs in to kill him. Adult Fenton tells Agent Doyle that after the brothers buried Dad and the victim in the rose garden, they reported Dad missing and as he was never found, they ended up in separate orphanages. Having arrived at the rose garden, a handcuffed Fenton is removed from the back seat of the car and tells Doyle that he made Adam promise to bury him at the same place if he was ever to be "destroyed." Adult Fenton now reveals he is infact Adam and kept his promise, now leading Doyle (who has his gun drawn) to the body of Fenton who grew up to be the serial killer -- traumatized by his father, and conducting his own killing spree (with bodies buried in his home basement) that was not truly part of the real mission; perhaps more so of a misguided & warped form of atonement/apology to his father, out of guilt he never got over. Adult Adam tells Doyle that when the angel told his father that young Fenton was a demon, since Dad couldn't take his own son, the duty of continuing on the mission was passed down to him.

Adam "destroyed" Fenton, and when he now touches Doyle we see the Agent killed his own mother and got away with it. Adam's visions, like that of his father's, show the true personalities of people who have perpetrated hideous crimes and gone unpunished. Doyle's name was on the list of demons to be destroyed, and as Adam frees himself of the cuffs, he throws Doyle into an open grave. The Agent tells Adam he will be recognized for having been seen at the FBI office, but Adam says it will be Fenton who will be sought out and blamed for Doyle's disappearance. Adam says God will protect him and then kills Doyle with the axe. Will Adam get away with this twist? Will the deceased Fenton be exposed? Is Adam cut out for law enforcement? Rather neglected but sophisticated, FRAILTY is an impressive & entertaining directorial debut for the late Bill Paxton, who also appears as Dad, with police procedural nods to THE USUAL SUSPECTS. The performance of both child actors who absolutely carry the movie are exceptional, especially in evoking sadness & pity. Upon first glance, Fenton and Adam's happy and quiet upbringing appears proper with nothing out of the ordinary. Mom died giving birth to Adam and Dad's strictness is initially not through any harsh discipline but as a father raising his boys to be honest, respectful, responsible, and decent. As young boys who are very close and both look out for each other, Fenton immediately calls bullshit on "the mission" and tells his younger brother that far from being a "chosen one," Dad is simply making everything up as he goes along.

But Adam is very quick to buy into what Dad puts forth as gospel because the most important thing for him is approval. His young mind equates the actions to that of superheroes, and his most worrying fear is of exclusion. He doesn't understand that Dad proclaiming "necessary protection" is nothing more than concealment of horrific activity, inspite of being right there with an eyeful of the terror taking place. Adam expresses disappointment in his big brother for not sharing the same commitment. If he was older, and wiser when Dad first introduced "God's plan" for them, and still held his positive conviction, he might even consider Fenton a traitor for not following blindly as he does -- which clearly puts Adam's collusion on full display, and ironically coincides with an episode of the claymation 'Davey and Goliath' he watches, in which a parallel lesson/cautionary tale in the program about brainwashing does not register. At that moment, Adam's obedience is not on par with any independent thought sinking in. And ultimately, Dad (who never relishes being an executioner) leaves us with questions to ponder: Was he really visited by a celestial avenging messenger? And is Otis the axe -- found in a barn bathed in sunbeams looking like golden rays shining down from heaven itself, as if meant to help point (or bludgeon) the eventual way to destiny... Are these really signs from God? Is this father really slaying demons masquerading as humans? Or is it all just a lie of bizarre and deranged behaviour brought on by delusions & insanity?

[Whenever anyone embarks on a quest, as a soldier of the Lord, to cleanse & purify mankind by attempting to vanquish all evil in the world, aren't they always a few cards short of a full deck? If God really does demand this type of thing, isn't he the sick one?]... Without question and no mistaking, Dad dearly loves his boys but the real abuse he inflicts from his paternal authority (which is not aggressive manhandling or physical beating) comes from his zealotry; a warped biblical sense of morality, loyalty and justification that unforgivably shatters their innocence by turning them from onlookers which then tragically ropes them into being contributors to the madness. [For another movie that similarly depicts the extremities of faith, check out 1991's THE RAPTURE]. One thing for certain is that FRAILTY is divisive. Its curveball-turn aside, plenty of detractors have grumped about ambiguity, and the louder objectors have called it both Christian-right propaganda, and New Testament vigilantism. [I'll say this: judgemental hyperbole, and negative criticisms notwithstanding, I don't believe the movie's intent (or Paxton's) was to subliminally or overtly spew any religious/ideological/political agenda whatsoever. Period. Why? Because too often such scathing accusations are just bitterly biased, exaggerated projections]. In total, FRAILTY is about cleverly planted clues that challenge you to pay attention to the transpiring darkness, and in turn make you examine key instances for their larger importance, and reconsider preconceptions once we are brought to conclusion. In this regard, the movie achieves this splendidly.

CAN'T EVEN TAKE A DIRT NAP WITHOUT SOME MEDDLER DISTURBING THE PEACE



I BURY THE LIVING (1958)
Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, Howard Smith, Peggy Maurer, Herbert Anderson, Robert Osterloh, Glen Vernon, Lynette Bernay
Directed by Albert Band
Welcome to the small town of Milford (which although never stated is either in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut). Robert Kraft is a prominent businessman & local council bigwig, and he has just reluctantly taken over as the new Chairman of the Immortal Hills Cemetery for a 1yr term. He is happy as a successful department store manager but out of family obligation, and with encouragement from his loving fiancé, Ann, he'll put his best foot forward (and not necessarily before plans on selling the cemetery). He meets Andy, the longtime Scottish caretaker (who is no Groundskeeper Willie), and is shown to the office which is a cold & rundown cottage. On the wall is a large map of the grounds displaying the graves of those deceased (marked by black pins), and assigned vacant burial plots which have been purchased (marked by white pins). Overlayed on the map is a painted sigil; a magic symbol which in this case looks like a Picasso sketch of abstract breasts, and infers a faint hint of witchcraft by design. Crusty Andy has put in 40yrs and is given retirement with full pension. While learning to manage the daily operations on the fly, Kraft mistakingly tacks 2 black pins on a white plot belonging to a friend and his new wife -- Stu and Beth. When the young couple (who just paid a visit, and bought the reserved site) die in a freak car accident, he is shaken by their deaths and comes to believe he is responsible. By this same replacement method of pins, a William Isham kicks the bucket next. Seeking to massage his guilt, Kraft's uncle George suggests he make another reversal to see if the tragedy was pure coincidence. The result unfortunately sees the demise of a Henry Trowbridge dying days later.

Convinced that the otherworldly is real, and that he can dispense dark power of life & death through a synergy in the map (which almost sentient, glows and ominously gets bigger to reflect dementia), he tells friends, co-workers and a reporter who promptly don't believe him. But obsessed with the results such sinister control can produce, and inspite of himself, he continues to swap pins between the interred and the not-yet expired; stuck in a boundless loop of repeating doomed tests. Demanding to resign, panicked, fearful, and feeling he is cursed, a despondent Kraft goes to the police who at first are dismissive but then perk up after more innocents -- councilmen Honegger and Bates, and Uncle George -- turn up dead from this pin-thing switcheroo. Unable to ignore this bizarre uptick of fatal exits, the cops ask for a demonstration by way of a black pin on the white site of Jake Mittel whom is in France. Kraft agrees and with deepening depression, and troubled of an ability that he feels only The Man Upstairs should possess, he resolves to turnabout this burdensome bad fortune by changing all recent black pins with white, and collapses in exhaustion. When he visits the filled plots that night, he is shocked to find gaping holes of all the graves dug up and the bodies missing. Back at the office and contemplating suicide, he is told on the phone by Mittel's wife of her hubby's death in France. But the most astonishing revelation (and rationale) of the impossible will come from Andy and the police. The 1950's saw a mass production of low budget, quickie B-movies on the exploitation circuit filled with creepy settings, eerie music, sometimes zero sfx, tight scripting, and yes, believe it or not: some good acting. I BURY THE LIVING is steps above being plain ordinary (spartan dialogue aside).

In different hands, such ghoulish power from the main character would be abused, and we would have zombies clawing their way back to wreak intestine-gorging havoc but instead of that macabre angle trading on gore, we have a thought-provoking, pragmatic approach. [The cover art misleadingly implies rising flesheaters which are nowhere to be found in the movie. And reportedly, the ending was written to show Kraft surrounded by walking corpses and turning into one of the undead, which if true (even in dream sequence), would have been a monumental first as this would have taken place a full decade before 1968's landmark NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD(!) Just thinking & trying to contemplate how this (or any) much smaller obscurity could have been the mother of all gamechangers is mind boggling]. The real effectiveness here comes from Boone's tortured facial expressions. He was best recognized on the TV western "Have Gun, Will Travel" but here as Kraft (and looking a slight bit like Vincent Price at times), his sunken features and gaunt appearance convey an intensely agonized man who is caved-in by the thought of bringing about untimely, Grim Reaper-ish death from simple touch and exact cue. He feels his decency has been compromised by callousness, and is contributing to his downbeat & deteriorating state of mind. Struggling with the sense of losing his sanity has caused a hollowness inside Kraft that rather than being a complete empty shell, displays a distressed humanity as ill-intent, and his lingering, bothered conscience increasingly wears him down into a haggard and withdrawn wreck, whom even doting & everready-to-help Ann can't console.

Moody, ignored, and very Twilight Zoney (inpsite of TZ still a year away from its TV debut), there are 2 ways to take I BURY THE LIVING's ending: It's either a) laughingly & disappointingly stupid, and a real letdown with its sloppy explanations that not ony throws a large monkey wrench into what was an established narrative, but keeps the picture in forgotten, low regard. Or b) amusingly bold but falls short, while recognizable for its early, now familiar (and easily predictable) brand of twist we are currently accustomed to. Weighed in the specific context of many of today's horror finales/resolutions that are often due to writers running out of creative steam, how many countless times have we rolled our eyes and scoffed, having sat through served-up offerings that undermined and even ruined a finish thanks to legit complaints of ridiculous reasoning and implausible logic? [And if we're honest, both complaints are far more egregious in their delivery, and flagrantly outrageous with their outcome, when it comes to a present crop of tangled conclusions that instead of satisfiable pay off, U-turn into cop-out crap. We need less ho-hum, and more home run]. However you plant your flag on this pro or anti side of the fence, this is otherwise still a not bad, and fair chiller for its ambitious, Edgar Allan Poe-ish & morbid concept, which to its credit avoids moralizing and wallowing in sentimentality, and doesn't lack experimental imagination (incorporating montages, zooms, ECU's, and superimposing dissolves) among its limitations. At a quick 76min, on youtube, and just the type of film to garner cult appeal, go on and give this a shot.




CEMETERY MAN aka DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE (1994)
Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi, Anton Alexander, Fabiana Formica, Stefano Masciarelli, Mickey Knox
Directed by Michele Soavi
Greetings from Buffalora, a small town in northern Italy (near the Swiss border and the Alps) which is home to Francesco Dellamorte, the cemetery caretaker who looks like a thin Ash Williams. Gnachi is his mute, dim-witted and Igor-like assistant who looks like a cross between Uncle Fester and Fatty Arbuckle. He can only say one word: a grunting "Gna" (reminiscent of Hodor). Daily life consists of Frankie (a bored, lonely, frustrated outcast stuck in a rut) dealing with rumors & ridicule of being a limp dick, reading old telephone books in which he crosses out the names of dead people, and putting together a puzzle of a human skull. Gnaghi likes eating spaghetti messily, TV, sunshine, and gathering up dried leaves. There's a weird ritual going on in Buff-town: 7 days after their burial, the recently deceased rise from the grave (complete with steaming smoke on the ground), primed for attack. Frankie calls these ghouls "Returners" and takes it upon himself to kill them damn good & proper (be they businessmen or bikers) so they don't turn the town into an 'All You Can Eat' buffet. Perplexed at this weekly re-anim(fest)ation and afraid of losing his job, Frankie begs the local Mayor to look into what the hell is going on, but the Mayor is preoccupied with his re-election campaign. So he turns to his buddy, Franco, a municipal clerk, but is held up by paperwork as he's near-illiterate. Screw bureaucracy & red tape, it'll be easier to just use bullets (or a shovel). At a funeral, Frankie gets the hots for a beautiful and mysterious young widow of a sugar daddy. At first she doesn't give him the time of day but stops being a snob when he shows her the ossuary.

Human bones apparently get her horny and she expresses a new-found erotic passion by fucking Frankie on her hubby's grave (complete with dancing sparks of blue flames). The old and jealous bugger returns, and none-too-happy about her method of mourning via nympho trampiness, attacks & bites her. Once dead, the coroner says she bit the dust from a heart attack. Shocked and saddened, Frankie knows the drill with these bodies, and camps out near her corpse. When she rises, he shoots her. In the meantime, Gnachi has gotten the warm fuzzies for the Mayor's impulsive daughter, Valentina. He shows his attraction by puking on her but alas, before their romance can properly bloom, she is decapitated in a motorcycle accident involving a busload of boy scouts. But no worries: Gnachi simply digs up her severed, alive-again head and with a little violin seranading, he places it in his burned out & screenless TV. Voilà, love is in the air. [It's a subplot that as preposterous as it sounds, is funny and touching, and then heartbreaking for its tragic end]. As a confused Frankie has sunk into depression over the thought of offing the widow, he feels everything really sucks at the moment. Man, life is miserable so Big Daddy himself -- Death -- drops by telling him to kill the living instead of the dead, in order to stop this cadaver parade. In other words: cheer up, dude. After pondering some meditative Freudian reasoning, Frankie eyes 2 more babes he wants to get in the sack (both played by busty, pouty-lipped Falci, a model who at the time was being compared to Cindy Crawford). The first is widow-woman, who reappears as the assistant of the new Mayor who is scared of sexual penetration.

Frankie pretends the rumor of his flaccid wiener is true and visits a doctor to have has penis removed(!) [Seriously? Give up your manhood in the pursuit to get laid?] Doc tells him getting rid of his willy is unnecessary, and gives him an injection. Hoping to hook up with Mayor-girl, Frankie hits a snag when she is raped by her boss and then falls in love with her violator(!) So presto, she's cured of her sexual hang-up and no longer interested in Frankie. For him it's a final straw and having now lost his marbles, he heads into town and shoots the young shitheads responsible for the rumors about him, and gets back at everyone else who ever made fun of him. When the widow again reappears, this time as a college student who reveals she is a prostitute, he kills her and 2 other women by using a room heater to set their house on fire. Franco is blamed for the murders as he's just killed his wife & child, and he then tries to commit suicide by drinking a bottle of iodine. Frankie visits him in the hospital to get answers; accusing him of stealing his crimes but is unrecognized. While there, he goes on another spree, killing a nun, nurse, and doctor, and is ignored when he screams his confession of slaying the trio. His crumbling mind has overwhelmed him: Is it he or Franco who is the real killer? Are these ladies (referred to as "She") all a figment of his imagination? Will insecurities, problems & obstacles keep him held back forever? Fed up, he grabs Gnachi, they pack up a car, and both men set out to the mountains. After passing through a tunnel (complete with bright, white light at its end), Frankie slams on the brakes causing Gnachi to injure his head.

They ditch the vehicle and at the edge of a road (or more appropriately, 'end of the road' as the mortal plane now becomes the afterlife), they come to a canyon where Gnachi falls to the ground from a seizure. Frankie concludes the rest of the world is an illusion (returning us full circle to a snow globe he has periodically shaken) which puts forth a question: is this rejection of existence a denial of his destructive inner self? He loads his gun with 2 bullets meant for Gnachi and himself, but Gnachi stabilizes and tosses the gun over a cliff. Speaking clearly, he asks to be taken home to which Frankie replies, "Gna." Based on Tiziano Sclavi's 'Dellamorte Dellamore' novel from 1991 -- itself a spin-off from Sclavi's hugely popular 'Dylan Dog' comic -- this movie was a co-production between Italy, France, and Germany. As Director Soavi was a protégé of Dario Argento (and also worked with Lamberto Bava), those influences spilled over here into a warped, metaphysical mosaic of giallo gore; black comedy; yearning for affairs of the heart; muddled pseudo/semi/quasi philosophy & existentialism; Euro art house (which is always a worrying sign that can translate into often uneven and mostly boring); revenge fantasy; and a mischievous splattering mixture of EVIL DEAD/BRAINDEAD (aka DEAD ALIVE)/DEMONS/MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK (1993). What brings Buffalora's dead back is never explained even though the name 'Resurrecturis' on a large arch should be a tip-off that supernatural capery is soon to unfold. [Soavi said in an interview with Fangoria -- issue 149 -- that the Returners get their energy from mandragola (mandrake) roots in the earth]. And everything cuts to the chase with cheeky schlock, a dollop of pretentious poetic dithering, gratuitous nudity, and torrid sex with its wee whiff of necrophilia.

What looked like a torch being passed to Soavi wound up being a last hurrah of sorts for Italian horror, as creepy Japanese 'WTF/psychological' horror rose to be a dominant alternative to scary Hollywood output in what yet remains a much-maligned decade. Offbeat, surreal, and exaggerated, CEMETERY MAN certainly doesn't make a lot of sense, but it has a distinct look and an odd, anthology/vignette-type stream of consciousness flow. Stylistically, it's quite memorable for its visual and colorful flair. Even with Everett's droll sarcasm & cynicism (which can easily be mistaken as uninspired blandness for the role but don't be fooled, the man is a fine actor), the movie never takes itself seriously, and as he goes off the deep end from his melancholy, there's plenty of wit as evidenced with Falci playing 3 roles (each stranger than the last), a clueless detective, and boy scout zombies. There's also a bit of satirical commentary by metaphor: When Valentina's father (the first Mayor) uses her death as propaganda to stay in power, it's an example of unscrupulous political exploitation; figuratively cannibalizing his own tragedy for reward. She gets even by feasting on him; effectively removing him from office permanently -- along this same literal line of carnivorous language that has materialized into karma. [I know, brainy stuff]. Dreary and morose, yet freewheeling and unique, for many, CEMETERY MAN was a real headscratcher back in the VCR rental days. If you remember hating this, or not picking up on the layering, and haven't seen it since, give it a re-watch and see if the passing of 2 decades is enough to change your mind. If you count yourself among the already initiated and got a kick out of this on your first viewing, give it a re-watch and see if still holds up 20yrs on.

DEM BONES SORTA SINGS BUDDY HOLLY

LADY FUDDY-DUDDY, YOUR 'SELL-BY' DATE HAS LONG SINCE EXPIRED


'VIDEO NASTY' is the name in the UK referring to video movies (predominantly horror) criticized for violence by the media, social pundits and religious organizations -- all with an agenda. The name was popularized by the NVALA (National Viewers' and Listeners' Association) in the early 1980's, who themselves were first founded in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse as a pressure group to clean-up TV. As the videos were not originally brought before the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) in an unregulated market, this led to public debate regarding concerns over availability to children, and a morals campaign by Whitehouse and the NVALA (who also went after music and porn) saw local jurisdictions begin prosecuting for obscenity. Beginning in June 1983 (making 2018 the 35th anniversary), the DDP (Director of Public Prosecutions) helped these authorities by releasing a list of 72 movies said to violate the OPA (Obscene Publications Act of 1959). The first 39 where those prosecuted. And the remaining 33 where either still banned & removed from video shops, and either not prosecuted, or unsuccessfully taken to court. Additional changes to this censorship list led to Parliament passing the VRA (Video Recordings Act of 1984) forcing all video releases to appear before the BBFC for official certification. This new ruling saw stricter codes imposed on videos -- more than what was required for films in cinema release.

Even as movies had been acquitted of obscenity or had been legally certified, they remained on the list. A further supplementary list was released with another 82 movies that although they couldn't be prosecuted, were liable to be seized and even destroyed after confiscation. In subsequent years, a relaxing of criteria saw many offending titles undergo minimal editing or heavy cuts. In August 2009, a legislative mistake was discovered resulting in the VRA being repealed, but again re-introduced without change by a VRA of 2010. And as for the legacy of 'video nasty' owing its existence to controversial advocate Mary Nuthouse? She is now overwhelmingly regarded as barely seeing even a handful of ALL the films she insisted needed to be banned. In her drive to have all that was horror removed, by today's standards, her crusade and the movement built around her can be seen in a certain sense as having a failing, lasting impact that currently amounts to little more than a hill of beans. When Grandma Windbag took up the mantle of being both thought-police and morality squad for the nation, it is we monster kid film buffs who would get the last laugh as her targeting would prove her undoing. As well, it also exposed the hypocrisy of many a political charlatan and clergyman that hitched their wagon to hers.

And some of these same sanctimonious individuals would later pop up in the news for their involvements in whatever particular flavor-of-the-month scandal. [Always ironic when skeletons-in-the-closet of the self-righteous elite turn out to be the blessings in disguise for the self-aware everyman]. What was more stupidly/laughingly hysterical than credible serious hysteria, the ultimate demise of the 'video nasty' should owe no real credit to Mary and her gang of cohorts ringing an alarm bell, but instead to (A) the actual decline of the slasher movies which nearing their end were an already oversaturated market that had routinely churned out lousy inferior crap, and (B) to the numerous video shop owners, distros and sellers either driven out of business, or those switching their inventory feeling the horror trend had run its course, and due to bullshit charges that piled up in the Courts which often resulted in constant personal financial drain. As a staunch social conservative who was criticized, ridiculed and regularly presented unflatteringly, Nuthouse died at 91 in November 2001. Her life was dramatized in the 2008 BBC film, FILTH: THE MARY WHITEHOUSE STORY. She was an author of 5 books between 1971-93, and is also the subject of a 2012 book, 'Ban This Filth!: Letters From The Mary Whitehouse Archive'. In a further tribute of mockery, a British porn magazine, and a 4-man BBC sketch comedy troupe were named after her as well.

A DUEL OF PERSONALITIES



EVILSPEAK (1981)
Clint Howard, R.G. Armstrong, Richard Moll, Claude Earl Jones, Haywood Nelson, Lynn Hancock, Joseph Cortese, Don Stark
Directed by Eric Weston
A carnage classic that stars a young Clint Howard (the brother of more famous Ron) in one of his archetype freaky performances as sensitive Stanley Coopersmith, a teen nerd who after his parents die, is sent to the strict and elite West Andover Military Academy as a welfare case. The school is populated by arrogant, asshole children of rich snobbish families. Standing out like a single mound of broccoli in a pile of mashed potatoes, being an orphan gains him no sympathy so he is quickly bullied, called 'Cooperdick', and soon kicked off the soccer team. Given demeaning jobs and viewed as nothing more than a weirdo, he is awkward, alienated, miserable, mistreated and subject to beatings. His only friends are a shirtless and mafia-looking mess hall cook named Jake, a kid named Kowalski, and a puppy given to him that he names Fred which the bullies later kill. But intrigue and investigation are about to turn things around for the brutalized outcast. Pulling cleaning duty, Stanley discovers a crypt and secret hidden library, below the school chapel that belonged to an exiled 16th Century Satanist named Father Lorenzo Esteban (played by Richard Moll) who was so terrible that his own brethren defrocked, banished & condemned him for heresy, and then burned him at the stake. One of the darkest monks to ever emerge from the Spanish Inquisition, in the opening flashback of a ritual on the beach of a rocky coast, he beheads a female disciple. After finding both Esteban's journal and pentagramed book of black magic, Stanley fiddles around on an Apple II computer with direct dial-up, and gains powers when after transcribing the Latin text, he creates a digitized program of an ancient Black Mass.

This allows him to channel Esteban's spirit (who had vowed to return), cast spells and summon demons. Communicating with the monk, a now-possessed Stanley with crazy hair pledges allegiance to the Devil and unleashes unearthly revenge on his classmate tormentors and the snooty staff. All hell breaks loose, complete with a trio of flesh-eating boars (why these pigs were being raised on school property is unexplained) that make a memorable entrance, and give new meaning to "getting porked" during a shower scene to attack & disembowel naked school secretary, the teasing but also smug, Miss Friedemeyer. [The standard nude romp T&A and bloodshed aside, it's largely her fatal comeuppance for theft & greed which had many describing her death as blatantly misogynist]. The gore here is voracious and along with lots of slow-mo, are Stanley's shellshocked facial expressions, increasing bedraggled appearance, his ability to levitate while bathed in light (complete with the cables you can see lifting him), deadly laser beams shooting high into the sky, impalement, and use of a long fiery sword. Even as fed-up Stanley is full-on bonkers in vanquishing his enemies, you can't help but root for him. The highlight splatterfest finale (with a ghost-in-the-machine premise for its end), a beating heart pulled out of a kid's chest (3yrs before Mola Ram's human sacrifice antics in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), and his unholy vengeance exacted against teachers, the Coach, the soccer team, alcoholic Sarge, and the Principal who are all trapped, is definitely one for the category of "WTF did I just watch?" Well let me answer that question: a truly fun feast of madness.

Gap-toothed and crooked smiling Clint Howard as unathletic & clumsy, perfectly captures being a social leper and general misfit, who manages to elicit a great deal of laughter as much as sincerity. He had already been in some 30 movies and TV shows in a 15yr period up to this point, and it would be understandable to mistake this for being his debut. In the vein of CARRIE, DAMIEN: OMEN II, CHILD'S PLAY 3 (and a twisted version of 1981's TAPS), and said to be a favourite film of Anton LaVey, it takes a while for Stanley's payback to finally vent and the movie's practical fx are not great, but an interesting parallel to them was the early lo-fi video art, and particularly home computer central to the plot. Probably one of the first uses in a horror movie outside of usually being seen as huge industrial-sized cabinets filling up an entire room. While Britain was certainly no stranger to its own Beelzebub horror films delving into occult territory, EVILSPEAK was placed on the notorious 'video nasty' banned list in March 1984 for its grisly content. In 1987 as various international releases routinely cut out plenty of the extremity (most notably the decapitations and organ viscera), not until 2004 was it made properly available in the UK in its original uncut form. Overall, It's a garish cavalcade of apocalyptic crazy, definitely a product of its age, was left wide open for an intended sequel that never materialized, and totally worth it to see Howard's first forays as a shlub with the quirky mannerisms and oddball M.O. that would become his unhinged character actor trademark in a number of ridiculously over-the-top, hackneyed horror roles that were still years away.




HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II (1987)
Lisa Schrage, Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Richard Monette, Justin Louis, Terri Hawkes, Beverley Hendry
Directed by Bruce Pittman
A Canadian classic filmed in Edmonton and one NOT by David Cronenberg? You got it. HELLO MARY LOU opens in 1957 with the lusty Mary Lou Maloney in a teaser sequence, taking confession in a church booth to which she shamelessly admits to joyfully indulging in slutty sin. To emphasize this sincerity, she leaves her phone number on the wall in bright red lipstick. We next see her two-timing her boyfriend Billy at Hamilton High's Senior Prom ('prom' short for 'promiscuous' in her case) to make out backstage with macho Buddy as Little Richard blares in the background. Crowned Prom Queen, she is accidentally killed when jilted Billy, seeking to humiliate her, ignites her dress like a roman candle after a prank with a flaming stink bomb (found in the bathroom) goes wrong and burns her to death infront of the horrified graduates. In her agony, she sees Billy hiding up in the gym's stage rafters. 30yrs later, Billy is now the principal at the same school (in which hardly any of the student body seems to know the tragic history), and Buddy is now a Catholic Priest. Vicki Carpenter is our dear lovely heroine. She is looking for a knockout prom dress, and finds & opens a steamer trunk of props in the school theater department in the basement. It contains some of Mary Lou's old items, and upon taking some, she is possessed by Mary Lou's now-released ghost which will stop at nothing to seek violent revenge. Vicki's boyfriend for their upcoming Prom is hotshot Craig with the motorcycle, who it just happens is the Principal's son. Uh oh. Having returned all murdery & malevolent as an unseen force at first, Mary Lou doesn't hold back in wreaking telekinetic havoc and she controls Vicki (as harlot Vicki-Lou) to unleash a one-woman onslaught of destructiveness against the more popular of the pupils.

Vicki's friends then start turning up dead: Jess is found hanging from a cape and deemed a suicide due to pregnancy, Monica is crushed by a locker, and Buddy (tormented about Mary Lou back from the grave), witnesses his confessional being destroyed and is stabbed in the face with a crucifix. As well as these fatal attacks, a number of strange, terrifying visions are experienced such as a paper cutter turning into a guillotine, blood bubbling up from a drinking fountain, a creepy & horny rocking horse with a Gene Simmons-like cunnilingus tongue, and a giant spider web formed from a volleyball net. Undergoing change, Vicki wears poodle skirts & lipstick, uses profanity, acts like a hussy, and begins doubting her sanity for reasons she doesn't understand. When she gets a detention after a confrontation with her bitchy rival, Kelly, she is briefly pulled into a nightmarish, whirlpool underworld through a chalkboard. Craig will learn what it means to be concussed twice, and Vicki-Lou introduces herself sleazily to both Vicki's strict and religiously devout nutter of a Mom, and near-incestuous Dad. Let's just say it doesn't go well for the parents afterwards. Now with the teens' big New Wave night having arrived (with its universal checklist of stretch limos; uncleared acne; coppy-feely hands; unpolished dancing; sex on the brain; and proverbial impromptu late-hour fastfood cravings), Billy has since learned the terrible truth in seeing Vicki's transformation, and now has to face the ominous terror on the same occasion he thought he left behind 3 decades earlier. Kelly blowjobs her way to being crowned Prom Queen from rigged votes and taking the stage, Mary Lou sets on taking everyone down in an infernal blaze of glory. With a reappearance of her vortex-to-Hades, hell hath no fury like a woman once torched.

Which beauty will take the crown? Will everyone get to finish their last dance? Yes, it very much sounds like CARRIE but Mary Lou packs a punch with her own ruckus as a pitiless, mean girl temptress, while Vicki stands in contrast as the maple-syrupy sweetheart. And While HELLO MARY LOU is related to the disco-fused original PROM NIGHT (1980) in name only, and borrows plenty of horror tropes, it is still a successful melding of these derivative clichés that presents a unique & clever stand-alone feature, as opposed to being just another predictable retread. The movie shares some playful lineage (melted faces, anyone?) to films like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, and RE-ANIMATOR; has references to THE EXORCIST, EVIL DEAD II, and POLTERGEIST; and a number of characters are also named in homage after horror film directors such as Carpenter, King, Henenlotter, O'Bannon, Romero, Craven, and Browning. Cheesy entertainment goodness abounds here with it's 80's dated fashion & hairstyles, bad dialogue, wonky sfx (bed sheets, bunsen burners or computer electrocution, anyone?), cast that looks like they should be attending a reunion instead of nearing graduation, and plot twists. A younger Michael Ironside still comes intact with his scowling, nudity comes by way of the girls locker room as Vicki-Lou tries to seduce a female classmate in the showers and chases her around naked, and to no surprise, Ricky Nelson's title song comes into play. And lastly we have Lisa Schrage. She should have gone on to do more as she had all the makings of a solid femme fatale villainess who corsaged and sexy-heeled, delights in being wayward & wicked. In a way, Mary Lou is not far off from being a feminist female-Freddy. In total, crushing out on her was easy in an age of baddies when cruel was cool. Straight up, HELLO MARY LOU is delightfully depraved, pure silly fun.