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”
Tag: Slasher Flick
October Horrorshow: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
In a business that is so laser-focused on exploiting intellectual property, it’s amazing that it took over a decade for a sequel to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to see release. Sure, it’s not unusual for a sequel to take so long to be made, but it is uncommon. This is especially so in horror, where movies can be made for miniscule budgets and, if lucky, see huge returns.
From 1986, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 sees Tobe Hooper, working again with Cannon and Golan-Globus, return to the well one more time. But, if viewers are expecting a simple retread of the first movie, they are in for a surprise. The original movie has a reputation for gore, and Hooper also viewed the film as black comedy. Well, neither is accurate. There is not a lot of gore in the first movie, and only Hooper seems to have found much humor in it. All that is fixed in the sequel. Hooper went all-in on some sicko campiness, and gave so much free reign to f/x guru Tom Savini that the film was released unrated in the States, and remained unreleased for decades in several large overseas markets. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2″
October Horrorshow: In a Violent Nature
At some point, filmmaker Chris Nash had a revelation. Maybe it was in those moments right before sleep takes hold, when the head carnival, against all sense, is at its most raucous. Maybe it happened while watching another movie, or when his mind was drifting away from a banal or uncomfortable conversation. Whenever it was and whatever the situation, Nash must have thought, “What if a Friday the 13th movie were told from Jason’s perspective?”
That simple idea is what drives In a Violent Nature, from earlier this year. At its core it is a classic 1980s slasher flick, but it’s boiled down until there is nothing left but bright white bones. The movie follows Johnny (Ry Barrett), the Jason Voorhees analogue, as he stomps through the woods and kills people. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: In a Violent Nature”
October Horrorshow: Shocker
Wes Craven is one of the giants of horror cinema. With The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, he mastered the art of dread in horror. He seemed less concerned with frightening his viewers than with making them deeply uncomfortable. He lightened up in the 1980s, though, introducing one of horror’s most wisecracking antagonists with Freddy Krueger. That new style of his continued, less effectively, with Shocker, the story of another mass murdering serial killer with personality.
Mitch Pileggi plays Horace Pinker, a ruthless killer terrorizing the fictional California town of Maryville. It seems not a week goes by when there’s a news report of a home invasion where Pinker murders an entire family. One of those is the family of the detective investigating the murders, Lt. Don Parker (veteran That Guy Michael Murphy), and his adult foster son, Jonathan (Peter Berg), a star football player at the local college. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Shocker”
October Horrorshow: Click: The Calendar Girl Killer
For about two-thirds of Click: The Calendar Girl Killer, the movie flirts with being an erotic thriller, featuring a passel of middle-aged Hollywood b-listers cashing checks. Then, for the final act, the movie makes a hard turn into slasher horror. It’s a change in tone that’s unusual, only because there is no indication this will happen. It’s obvious to viewers that violence will be coming in the final act, but not the scale, and not how it is depicted.
Something of a vanity project in the world of b-movies, Click was written by Hollywood acting stalwarts Ross Hagen and Hoke Howell, with David Reskin and David Chute. Hagen also directed alongside longtime stunt man John Stewart. To make it a family affair, Hagen’s wife, Claire, co-produced. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Click: The Calendar Girl Killer”
October Horrorshow: Sorority House Massacre
Ecclesiastes 1:9 states, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Every single maker of slasher flicks in the 1980s must have read that verse and taken it to heart. Especially Carol Frank, writer/director of 1986’s Sorority House Massacre. Not only does her movie crib from a decade’s worth of slasher flicks, it also cribs from The Slumber Party Massacre, a film on which Frank worked. According to the internet, so it must be true, that similitude was intentional, as Roger Corman, the uncredited executive producer, wanted a flick with a slumber party theme. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Sorority House Massacre”
October Horrorshow: Backwoods (1988), aka Geek!
What happens when a filmmaker doesn’t provide a regular stream of fodder in their cheap slasher flick? Not a lot of good, that’s what.
Backwoods, sprung from the mind of Dean Crow, who directed and has a story credit, is about as low rent as a slasher can get. The budget looks to have been somewhere in the four figures, and the majority of the film takes place either in the woods or in a rundown house. The movie has a total of six cast members. That’s it. Six. Including the slasher. That meant there were not a lot of bodies for the bad guy to pile up. Not only that, there was not a single on screen death attributable to the slasher. How does one make a slasher flick, and the slasher has the lowest body count of all the characters? That’s quite a storytelling challenge Crow set for himself.
From the waning days of slasher flicks’ golden era, 1988, Backwoods follows couple Karen and Jamie (Christine Noonan and Brad Armacost) as they hike into the low mountains of northern Kentucky for a bit of camping. The area they chose used to be home to a fundamentalist Christian sect that wanted to sever all ties with civilization. They died off, as so many of those sects did, leaving behind nothing but local legends about the spooky woods they inhabited. A local ranger (Gary Lott), tries to steer them elsewhere, but Karen is determined to head into that dark stretch of wilderness. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Backwoods (1988), aka Geek!”
October Horrorshow: Death Row Diner
Shot on video horror flicks can generally be sorted into two camps. One, those made in Hollywood, but outside the studio system; and two, regional cinema. The main difference between the two is that the regional movies, made by filmmakers such as Tim Ritter, J.R. Bookwalter, and the Polonia brothers, are true outsider art, unconcerned with the way things are supposed to be done while making a movie, while those sprouted from the Los Angeles area have things like unionized crew, professional editing, etc. What both of these broad categorizations have in common is that the movies are objectively bad, no matter where they come from. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Death Row Diner”
October Horrorshow: Cannibal Campout
Here it is! The first shot-on-video horror flick of this year’s Horrorshow. And it’s a good one…relatively speaking.
From way back in 1988 comes Cannibal Campout, from directors Tom Fisher and Jon McBride, working from a screenplay by McBride. No misdirection in the title with this flick. There is a campout, and there are cannibals.
The woods of New Jersey are the setting, as they are in many a horror flick. Four college students, Jon (McBride, who also produced and edited), Carrie (Carrie Lindell), Chris (Christopher A. Granger, who also handled sound, music, and was a camera assistant), and Amy (Amy Chludzinski) head off into the wilderness of New Jersey for a weekend away from the rigors of college life. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Cannibal Campout”
October Horrorshow: The Gingerdead Man
It’s hard to fault the pitch behind The Gingerdead Man. Gary Busey plays Millard Findlemeyer, a mass murderer who, after testimony from a survivor of his attack, Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney), is executed. His mother, a witch, claims his ashes afterwards, and mixes them into some gingerbread spice, which she then delivers in secret to the bakery owned and operated by Sarah. Some blood is inadvertently added to the mix, and when a dough is made and baked into the shape of a gingerbread man, Findlemeyer’s soul comes back to life, possesses the cookie, and goes on a murderous rampage of revenge. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Gingerdead Man”