October Horrorshow: Killer Crocodile

Killer Crocodile movie posterWho doesn’t like a shitty Jaws ripoff? Honestly, plenty of people. But enough do like it that giant animal flicks have become a robust subgenre of b-horror the last couple of decades, thanks to the work of outfits such as The Asylum, and the availability of affordable CGI. Jaws ripoffs aren’t the sole province of the 21st century, though. The Italians, whose cinema has always had a mere passing relationship with copyright law, produced plenty of their own…homages…to Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster.

Bruno Mattei, Dino De Laurentiis, Sergio Martino, Enzo G. Castellari, Ovidio G. Assonitis, Raffaele Donato, Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi, Dardano Sacchetti, Joe D’Amato, and more — all names familiar to fans of Italian genre films, all of whom participated in Jaws ripoffs. Add to the list Fabrizio De Angelis, who produced, directed, and wrote, with the aforementioned Dardano Sacchetti, 1989’s Killer Crocodile.

Killer Crocodile follows a small group of conservationists who are investigating contamination in a rural swamp. It’s never said what country they are in, but the movie was filmed in the Dominican Republic. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Killer Crocodile”

October Horrorshow: Sinister

So, what is a washed up true crime writer supposed to do when it’s been years since the last bestseller, the previous two books were poorly researched and poorly received, bills keep piling up, and the wife uses the threat of leaving and taking the kids with her as a cudgel? Well, in 2025, this would never be a problem, as this film’s protagonist, Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke), would already be on season three or four of his true crime podcast. But, back in the distant days of 2012, when this film was released, Ellison would have packed up his family, moved them into a house where an appalling mass murder occurred, and tried to bang out a new career and family-saving hit. That’s the premise behind Sinister, from director Scott Derrickson, and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Sinister”

October Horrorshow: Blood Tracks

From 1985, right in the middle of the decade of the slasher flick, comes a joint UK/Swedish production titled Blood Tracks. Directed by Mats Helge Olsson and Derek Ford, from a screenplay by Olsson and Anna Wolf, Blood Tracks follows a small film crew, a hair rock band, and some scantily clad dancers, who all head up into some snowy mountains to shoot a music video. But, as would happen, they become stranded by an avalanche, while a crazed family of hermits hunts them down in bloody fashion. This isn’t a franchise slasher, or one of the countless American entries, but it is a prototypical example of the genre, wallowing in the conventions and tropes that have done so much to make these flicks successful. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Blood Tracks”

October Horrorshow: Rippy, aka The Red

Once upon a time, way back in the 1980s, I had a calico cat named Rippy. She got that name because the day she was brought home, she ripped up everything in sight with her claws. She was never a contented kitty, running away twice in her short time in the household, with effect the second time. I never saw her again, but I always kept an eye out in the neighborhood for a surly stray with a mean set of claws. What does that have to do with Rippy, the Australian monster flick from 2024? Not a damn thing.

Directed by Ryan Cooman from a screenplay by Coonan and Richard Barcaricchio, Rippy tells the story of a small town in Queensland, Australia, that is being terrorized by a giant, red kangaroo. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Rippy, aka The Red”

October Horrorshow: The Vampire Bat

The Vampire Bat movie posterThe movie business can be an unforgiving hustle. A case in point is The Vampire Bat, the 1933 release from Majestic Pictures. According to the internet, so it must be true, stars Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had finished filming Mystery of the Wax Museum for Warner Bros., and that film had entered post-production. Majestic seized on this, signing Wray and Atwill to be in another horror flick with quick turnaround, getting a jump on Warner Bros. in both the industry trades and in theatrical release. It worked. The Vampire Bat was a winner for Majestic. It helps that it’s also a decent little horror flick.

An example of gothic horror American style, The Vampire Bat tells the story of a village in Eastern Europe that is being plagued by murders. All the victims are killed in the night, with what looks to be a minimum of struggle, and all the dead are drained of blood. Of course, there are also the telltale marks of the vampire on all the victims’ necks. The village elders are convinced that a vampire stalks the streets, but police inspector Karl Brettschneider (Melvyn Douglas) is not. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Vampire Bat”

October Horrorshow: Venus

Lucía (Ester Expósito) is having a bad day. A platform dancer at a shady nightclub, Lucía decides the best plan for her life is to steal a gigantic stash of ecstasy pills from the club’s gangster owners and sell it. But, on her way out the door, one of the bouncers/mob muscle, Moro (Fernando Valdivielso), catches her in the act. Lucía escapes, but not before Moro bruises up her face and stabs her in the leg. Her plan ruined, Lucía does what so many others do when in a serious jam: she leans on family.

Rocío (Ángela Cremonte), Lucía’s sister, has problems of her own. A single mother, she is raising young Alba (Inés Fernández) in a decrepit tower block named Edificio Venus that has been bleeding tenants for years. Tragedy after tragedy haunts the Venus’s past, and Rocío has had enough. One last night of pounding sounds coming from the ceiling has convinced her, unlike the protagonists of just about every horror movie ever made, that it’s time to get out of the danger early. Just as she and Alba are packed and in the corridor on their way to safety, the elevator opens and there is the bloodied and exhausted Lucía. That’s the setup for director Jaume Balagueró’s 2022 film Venus, which he wrote with Fernando Navarro. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Venus”

October Horrorshow: The House by the Cemetery, aka Quella villa accanto al cimitero

Leave it to Lucio Fulci to make a haunted house flick with lots of gore. Whereas countless filmmakers have used spooky ghosts as an unseen menace, to varying effect, Fulci decided to stick with what he knew, and he knew gore. He also knew convoluted storytelling.

From 1981, Fulci directed The House by the Cemetery from a screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, and Fulci, himself. The movie follows the Boyle family: college professor Dr. Norman Boyle (Paolo Malco); his wife, Lucy (Catriona MacColl); and their young son, Bob (Giovanni Frezza). Fair warning to all potential viewers — Bob is a chore. Missile Test has made it clear how we feel about the talents of child actors, but in this instance, Frezza gets a pass. It’s the awful dubbing that does the most to make Bob one of the more annoying movie children one will see. Anyway… Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The House by the Cemetery, aka Quella villa accanto al cimitero”

October Horrorshow: Homicycle

I’m pretty sure Brett Kelly isn’t the best auteur from Ottawa, Ontario, but he’s certainly the most prolific. As of this writing, Kelly has directed thirty-nine features, with a smattering of shorts thrown in for good measure. Alas, this profligacy has not equalled quality, but that’s never been a concern at Shitty Movie Sundays.

Three Kelly-helmed pictures were released in the year 2014. According to IMDb, Homicycle is the best of them, with a 2.7 rating out of 10. Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t even have a rating. Yikes. So, what gives?

Homicycle is bottom feeding filmmaking. It’s the kind of flick that regional filmmakers crank out for a few thousand bucks and hopefully, maybe, find distribution with some garage-based company. In this case, Camp Motion Pictures here in the States. These films won’t make anyone involved rich, but they just might cover the mortgage until the next financial quarter, when it becomes time to make another. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Homicycle”

October Horrorshow: Curse of the Cannibal Confederates, aka The Curse of the Screaming Dead

Just because a movie is objectively bad, does not mean that it is unwatchable. That’s a maxim here at Missile Test, but it cannot be denied that, often, there is correlation between the two. A case in point is Curse of the Cannibal Confederates. It’s an objectively bad film in just about every way, and it’s tough to sit through. By the time this review is over, it will have settled into the leprous nether reaches of the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index, but it does have a few of those sublime moments of true unselfconscious ineptitude that mutants live for.

Curse is one of many films that Troma picked up for release a number of years after it first saw daylight. The film was originally released in 1982 with the title The Curse of the Screaming Dead. After Troma picked it up in 1987 they gave it a new name and did some light editing to the title sequence. This version, a low-quality VHS transfer, is what I saw. But, should one feel the need to see this flick in an HD scan that removes most of the mud and restores the original cut, Vinegar Syndrome released it on Blu-ray in 2023. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Curse of the Cannibal Confederates, aka The Curse of the Screaming Dead”

October Horrorshow: Bottom Feeder

To give one an idea of this film’s shoot, Bottom Feeder, writer/director Randy Daudlin’s parvum opus from 2007, was Tom Sizemore’s first movie after he got out of rehab. As if that weren’t tough enough for an actor who had spent the past decade in supporting roles in top tier movies, Sizemore brought along a TV crew capturing the entire thing for the reality show Shooting Sizemore. An actor who had been flirting with A-list status, in recovery, with the pressures of carrying a movie and a television show at the same time, in a b-movie titled Bottom Feeder? It’s amazing this thing ever made it into the can.

Sizemore plays Vince Stoker, a Vietnam War veteran (Sizemore was born in 1961) who currently works as a maintenance man at a shuttered mental hospital. He leads a small crew, including right hand man Otis (Martin Roach), young dipshit Callum (Joe Dinicol), and his niece, Sam (Amber Cull). Part of their job is to patrol the tunnels under the property that link the buildings, and roust out any teenage partiers or homeless people who have set up camp. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Bottom Feeder”