October Horrorshow: Deadly Manor

The late 1970s into the early ’90s was one of horror cinema’s golden ages, and that success was built on the slasher flick. The names of villains are iconic. Michael Myers. Jason Voorhees. Freddy Krueger. Chucky. But, most slasher flicks didn’t have larger than life villains such as these. The grist mill was running too hard and fast. The VHS boxes were piling up in the back of the video store. The mantra was to take the familiar slasher tropes, throw some new, young faces into the mix, and let loose. Most slashers ended up being one-offs, with no hope for a sequel. Some, like Maniac or My Bloody Valentine, became iconic in their own right. Most were crap, though. Like Deadly Manor. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Deadly Manor”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Absurd, aka Rosso sangue

As often happens in film, a project begins with one intention in mind, and ends up being something else. Such is the case with Absurd, one of eight films released by prolific filmmaker Joe D’Amato in 1981. Like with Anthropophagus in 1980, this is the only one of the year that wasn’t smut.

D’Amato had envisioned a film that would be a sequel to Anthropophagus, but frequent collaborator George Eastman, whom D’Amato tapped to star, decided to rewrite the whole thing into a Halloween ripoff, only with less plot. Why D’Amato, who also produced, decided to let Eastman change everything around, is anyone’s guess. D’Amato was the kind of filmmaker who wanted to get his movies into the can as quickly as possible, so just letting Eastman redo the screenplay might have been the path of least resistance. The problem is, while Eastman had an extensive list of credits as a screenwriter at that point, none of it is any good. Continue readingLo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Absurd, aka Rosso sangue”

October Horrorshow: The Mutilator, aka Fall Break

At its most basic, American regional cinema is defined as films made elsewhere than Hollywood or New York City — the two great hubs of American entertainment. It turns out the United States is a big place, and there are filmmakers scattered all over it, like fleas on a mutt. Sometimes little-known filmmakers produce masterpieces, such as Night of the Living Dead or Carnival of Souls. What mostly marks regional cinema is local flavor that Hollywood productions can’t quite match, even when they invade the further reaches of the country to shoot on location. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: The Mutilator, aka Fall Break”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The New York Ripper, aka Lo squartatore di New York

Is it giallo? Is it horror? Is it both? In Italian cinema, the line between giallo and horror is often blurred, to the point it becomes insignificant. Thus it is with The New York Ripper, one of Lucio Fulci’s 1982 films. It has the most important tropes of giallo — women in danger, a serial killer on the loose, lots of nudity, and more blood than American audiences are used to in thrillers. It also has the feel of a slasher flick. Shoving the film into one category or another doesn’t do the viewer any good. And, if it ain’t horror, it can’t be part of the October Horrorshow. Continue readingLo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: The New York Ripper, aka Lo squartatore di New York”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Anthropophagus, aka The Savage Island, aka The Grim Reaper, aka The Zombie’s Rage

Anthropophagus, one of nine films released in 1980 from director Joe D’Amato, but the only one that wasn’t porn, first came to the shores of the United States in butchered form, carrying a number of different titles. But, this is the Information Age. Censorship of film is, at best, vulgar, at worst, malicious. The film that was denied viewers for decades is now available in its full glory. Or, at least, its fullness.

The title, Anthropophagus, comes from anthropophagy, which is a fancy term for cannibalism engaged in by humans. The ‘gus’ attached to the end of the film’s title transforms the verb into a noun, implying that there is a person in this flick with an unhealthy appetite. And there is! The title creature in the movie is played by frequent D’Amato collaborator George Eastman as Klaus, a man deformed and driven insane by a horrendous choice he had to make while shipwrecked. Now, some time later, he can’t stop his voracious hunger for human flesh. Continue readingLo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Anthropophagus, aka The Savage Island, aka The Grim Reaper, aka The Zombie’s Rage”

Lo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso

One guarantee for viewers of a Dario Argento film is a gorgeous experience. Argento is a master of the visual, with an artist’s sense of palette and a designer’s sense of space. His films take the ordinary streets of urban Italy, or wherever he has chosen to shoot, and turn them almost surreal, or liminal. The characters that occupy these worlds never seem to notice how uncanny their surroundings are. In Deep Red, Argento, along with cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller, takes the bustling city of Turin and turns it into a lonely, cavernous place seemingly built by giants, and now occupied sparsely by their diminutive descendants. Interior spaces are crowded not with people, but art, and none of it is remarkable to anyone who floats through these spaces. To them, the world might as well consist of blank walls. Everything shown on screen is not for them. It’s for us. Continue readingLo spettacolo dell'orrore italiano: Deep Red, aka Profondo rosso”

October Horrorshow: Evil Dead Trap, aka Shiryô no wana

This year’s Horrorshow theme is Italian horror flicks, and by coincidence, today’s non-themed movie happens to be a Japanese film that does all it can to resemble an Italian horror flick…and just about every big-time horror flick one can think of. It’s a good thing it does it well.

From 1988 comes Evil Dead Trap, directed by Toshiharu Ikeda from a screenplay by Takashi Ishii, both of whom had made their bones in adult movies. The film follows television presenter Nami Tsuchiya (Miyuki Ono) and her small crew as they investigate the origins of a snuff video that was sent to their office. Clues in the video lead the group to what looks like an abandoned military facility. After digging into some clues on my own, specifically some faded signage, it looks like Ikeda and company filmed the movie at Camp Drake, a location once used by the United States Air Force’s 1956th Information Systems Group, out of Yokota Air Base west of Tokyo. How’s that for some Google-fu? Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Evil Dead Trap, aka Shiryô no wana”

October Horrorshow: Slaughterhouse

All ideas in film grow weary after a while. Lack of new twists, market saturation, declining quality, and a general malaise from viewership are the death knells for once-innovative methods of storytelling. By the late 1980s, it was the slasher subgenre of horror that had grown old and dusty, after only a decade or so of prominence. The result was a film like Slaughterhouse, the 1987 flick from writer/director Rick Roessler.

Don Barnett and Joe B. Barton play deranged father and son Lester and Buddy Bacon, owners of a shuttered hog slaughterhouse in rural California. Market fluctuations and a failure to modernize facilities did in their business, but Lester blames shenanigans from prominent locals for his dire straits. Continue readingOctober Horrorshow: Slaughterhouse”

It Came from the Camcorder: Video Violence

According to the internet, so it must be true, central New Jersey community theater fixture and video store operator Gary Cohen was dismayed that customers rented so much trashy horror when there was a wealth of film history available on the shelves. His response was not to refuse to rent horror flicks, but, with friend and writing partner Paul Kaye, to make his very own trashy horror movie. On video, of course.

If one is into SOV horror, Video Violence, from 1987, is essential viewing, as it’s a common entry on various SOV lists. It follows real-life couple Art and Jackie Neill (also longtime players in central New Jersey theater) as Steven and Rachel Emory, a pair of transplants from New York City who have settled in Frenchtown, New Jersey, looking for peace and quiet. Steven gave up his dream job of owning a movie theater to open a video rental store, while Rachel left a job at a law firm to take a position in Frenchtown’s administration. Their town is not as welcoming to the newcomers as they wished, nor is it as quiet. That’s because the residents of the town have become addicted to slasher flicks, and after being desensitized to the fake stuff, they have gotten into the habit of making their very own snuff videos. Continue readingIt Came from the Camcorder: Video Violence”

It Came from the Camcorder: Night Ripper!

Night Ripper! movie posterHow obscure is Night Ripper!, the 1986 SOV slasher flick from writer, director, and producer Jeff Hathcock? Well, it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page, which is a start. More impressive, however, is the Wikipedia page of featured player Larry Thomas, famous for playing the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. The filmography section on his Wikipedia page lists every movie he’s been in with the exception of Night Ripper! Here at Missile Test, we consider that a glaring omission. Someone out there is trying to make the internet forget that he was in this dirty dog of a movie. It wasn’t Larry, as his account doesn’t list edits to his filmography. I’d add it to his page myself, but the only unpaid work I do online anymore is for this lovely website. Anyway…

Night Ripper! is not one of those SOV horror flicks that sprung from the mind of some horror fans out in flyover country. No, this is a Hollywood production, with many different departments and many different crew members. What it doesn’t have is a list of cast members in the credits alongside their corresponding character names, and only three have photos on IMDb, so I’ll be making my best guesses as to who played which role.

James Hansen (I think) plays Dave, who, along with Mitch (definitely Larry Thomas), owns a photography lab and studio. Older readers will remember this type of store, where folks could go and have their film developed, or get some glamour shots taken for their significant other. Continue readingIt Came from the Camcorder: Night Ripper!”