Author Archives: Hud

Lesbian camping trip – and not a powertool in sight

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MAKE A WISH

2.5 Stars  2003/18/99m

A.k.a. Lesbian Psycho (DVD reissue)

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Director: Sharon Ferranti / Writer: Lauren Johnson / Cast: Moynan King, Hollace Starr, Virginia Baeta, Melanie Freedom Flynn, Amanda Spain, Lava Alapai, Nora Stein, Neil Wilson, Eric Vichi.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “I just don’t like to see ladies bothered by people who’re bothering them. It’s…bothersome.”

A lesbian camping trip slasher film immediately sounds like blood-coated porn for 15-year-old boys, stocked with silicone-boobed blonde bombshells making out with each other. Well think again, Pizzaface, Make A Wish is about proper lesbians.

In what was most likely the first gay-centric slasher flick (despite what the producers of HellBent might say), a group of gal-pals gather for Susan’s birthday camping trip where they become the victims of the customary off-camera psychotic. Could it be the jealous boyfriend of the gone-straight hasbian? A horny hunter who keeps turning up to perv? Or the escaped patient being tracked by a private detective?

Sloppy murders ensue and the running time is padded out with intermittent sex scenes that would look exploitative if the director weren’t herself a family member. At least she creates an interesting group of gay women, which includes a childlike wiccan and a tree-hugging vegan and almost all of the group have had liaisons with birthday girl, Susan and all have an array of sensible shoes. Ferranti doesn’t force any issues of sexuality or feminism, much as it’s gay-boy brethren HellBent, the orientation of the characters is more or less incidental.

Now, I’ve been camping with lesbians and they’re nothing if not prepared for the wilderness. I hoped the last chick standing would go all A-Team on the killer’s ass with a gadget she’d been previously had no use for, or at least throw a cat at them.

Essentially, it’s nothing more than Friday the 13th‘s gay cousin with a confusingly inconclusive finale that’s lacking in the clarity department. All the same it’s a fairly diverting product worth a once over.

Disturbingly re-titled Lesbian Psycho for a later DVD release.

13 things to love about Friday the 13th

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It’s that day again… The time of year when a gazillion Jason groupies shove their old VHS into the player and pay tribute to the family Voorhees and all of their unfortunate teenage victims. A bit luckier than Halloween fans who have an unmovable date but once a year.

Anyway, let’s share in my favourite 13 things about Friday the 13th and all glow with a sort of inner harmony. Or just go and watch one of them.

1. CAMP CRYSTAL LAKE

campcrystallake1aOh how I love the very notion of Camp Crystal Lake. What a fucking amazing name for a summer camp. None of this patronising theft of Native American words to make it sound all rustic and wildernessy, pure and simple and yet just a little bit spooky, living up to its reputation as Camp Blood.

2. FLOATY HEAD MRS VOORHEES

Surely no one can deny the coolness of the blurry, floaty head of Mrs Voorhees at the climax of Part 2; “it’s all done, Jason… You’ve done your job well and mommy is pleased.” And poor, lost puppy-like Jay buys into it for a few moments, reminding us all that he’s only doing what he does because he misses his mommy.

3. REPETITION

friday-repBodies are tossed through windows, blades shoot through bunks into victims and, seen here, trussed corpses spring from trees, but only when the final girl is about…

4. TALES ‘ROUND THE OLE CAMPFIRE

f3aA favourite ingredient in the genre of mine, rooting from here I imagine, the scary tale around the fire, a telling of the creepy local legend. I was happy to see that they resurrected the scenario in the 2009 reboot.

5. AMY STEEL

THE Friday final girl of choice for many, Amy perfected the role of Ginny in Part 2, using her skills as a child psych major to best Jason and ultimately survive. Subsequent heroines of Crystal Lake were good but they paled in comparison to the powerhouse of final girl-dom that is Amy.

6. TITS! TITS! TITS!

f13-boobsI’ve never much seen the reason for the endless toplessness at Crystal Lake but it offends me not. I quite like the ridiculous scenarios that initiate the quick removal of blouses and bras. A New Beginning and the reboot are tied with the most nudity and, conversely to those only casually familiar with the films, there’s no skin at all in Jason Lives and only fleeting glimpses in the original, Part III and Jason Takes Manhattan. How the hell do I know this shit!?

7. RIDICULOUS METHODS OF RESURRECTION

So he can survive a machete in the shoulder and an axe in the head but once he was properly ‘killed’ by Tommy Jarvis, Jason found some obscure methods of coming back from the dead over and over – or rather these ways found him: lightning bolt, underwater electrical current and even psychic chick, proving you can’t keep a good psycho down.

8. THE SACK

Baghead_jasonBefore the iconic hockey mask, there was the sack. Hell, it creeped me out big time when I first saw it. That lone eyehole combined with the dungarees and the check shirt making Jay look like some sort of mutant potato sack head farmer.

9. FACES OF THE FUTURE

f13-futureConsidering there are 12 films in the franchise to date, it’s a curiosity that there are only a handful of well known names dotted throughout its history… Kevin Bacon is likely to forever remain the most famous actor associated with the series prior to his fame ‘kicking in’. Little Corey Feldman debuted in The Final Chapter alongside Crispin Glover and sorta-famous Kelly Hu played Eva in Jason Takes Manhattan.

10. INTRINSIC 80’s STYLE

The 80s were littered with unique self-styling, from the mullets scarcely seen through the Jason movies to this, a whole look best summed up by punk guitarist JJ (Saffron Henderson) in Jason Takes Manhattan.

11. JUMP SCARES

Yet again I defer to Part 2 – my favourite – for the short, sharp shocks that punctuate it: this is a great case in point… Ginny (that lovely Steel woman again) shuts herself inside a small bathroom and waits…listens…slowly leans away from the door to try the window and then… ARGH!!!

12. THE LEGACY

legacyThe Burning, Madman, Sleepaway Camp (and its sequels), Cheerleader Camp, Bloody Murder (and its sequels) and Camp Daze all replicated the summer camp setting to slightly different effect. Some even had kids at the camps and opted killing them off. Proof of just how influential a critically panned $500,000 B-movie is.

13. JASON

Where would we be without Jason himself? The malformed 11-year-old who reportedly drowned in Crystal Lake in 1957 because the counsellors weren’t paying any attention, they were making love while that young boy drowned etc… He’s a true icon for a bunch of twisted reasons but who cares… Jason, we love you!

Brat-Pack Buffet

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SLEEPAWAY CAMP II: UNHAPPY CAMPERS

4 Stars  1988/18/80m

“Angela’s back and she’s bad.”

A.k.a. Nightmare Vacation II (UK video)

Director: Michael A. Simpson / Writer: Fritz Gordon / Cast: Pamela Springsteen, Renee Estevez, Tony Higgins, Brian Patrick Clarke, Susan Marie Snyder, Valerie Hartman, Walter Gotell, Terry Hobbs, Kendall Bean, Julie Murphy, Carol Chambers, Amy Fields, Benji Wilhoite, Walter Franks III, Justin Nowell, Heather Binion, Jason Ehrlich, Carol Martin Vines.

Body Count: 19

Dire-logue: “Here you go, Lea, this’ll keep your tits growing. Maybe you’ll quit looking at mine.”

It should be wrong to say that any film solely about a series of murders is fun. By design, slasher films were initially scary and horrifying. Some go for the depressing and bleak tone and some simply fail at creating any impression whatsoever. But by 1988 when virtually everything ever had been done with the body count film, it was better to recline and poke fun at yourself. Freddy had been doing it for a while with hit and miss success but meanwhile, at the cheap end of the market, beyond the fishmongers and the gypsy handing out heather, the low rent filmmakers were camping it up with all the colour of a gay pride ticker tape parade – at camp no less.

sc2-1The original Sleepaway Camp in 1983 is an interesting film, albeit one that trades almost completely on the revelation of who the killer is, like who it really is. It would be twenty years before it generated its own ‘proper’ sequel (which then took another five years to appear on DVD). In the meantime, two back to back made for video sequels were produced and a third aborted in 1992.

Unhappy Campers wastes no time in demonstrating what it’s all about: a campfire recap of ‘the legend of Camp Arawak’ ushers in the now grown-up Angela, working as a counsellor at Camp Rolling Hills where she takes an active dislike to bad kids, which, in her screwy mind covers just about everybody.

sc2-2pics2

Good girl Molly (Renee Estevez) seems to be the only one immune to Angela’s policy of ‘sending home’ those who flaunt their bodies, do drugs, or even talk too much. Interestingly, all the campers are named after actors from the Brat Pack movement in the mid-80s: there’s nasty bitchy Ally, who has lots of sex, horndog jock Rob, hunky Sean, sexy Mare, sassy black girl Demi, pervy brothers Charlie and Emilio and a load of backgrounders who simply pump up the body count.

Angela offs her victims using a variety of weapons from logs to guitar strings and barbecues, even brandishing a chainsaw for an amusing Angela (as Leatherface) vs. Jason vs. Freddy gag. Eventually though, after too many kids are ‘sent home’, she’s fired and goes a bit mad.

sc6aSleepaway Camp II succeeds with its campy bright colours, the uniforms the kids wear and the cliche ridden tour through T&A and bloodletting, all underscored by Angela’s one-liners as she disappointedly lays another teenager to waste for showing their boobs or being mean to another kid. However, there are momentary flashes into the dark: Angela’s dream sequence is kinda freaky and she goes into a short depressed trance and tells Molly that she once drowned a boy who was nasty to her.

All this critique aside, you simply must see it if only just to bear witness to the immortalised crimes against hair:

sc-hair-from-hell-2Quite possibly the most frightening thing about the film.

Springsteen (Bruce’s lil sis) is good in the role and the best thing about the not-so-fun Sleepaway Camp III and Estevez (Emilio’s lil sis) is a perfect fit for goody-goody heroine Molly. Keeping with the sisters-of-the-more-famous schtick, in the next film Melanie Griffith’s sister Tracy played the final girl.

Blurbs-of-interest: director Simpson and Springsteen returned for the third film; Estevez was also in Intruder; Justin Nowell played one of the campers in Friday the 13th Part VI.

Valley of the Cheapjack Franchises: HORROR 101

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More cheapo “chills” at the expense of my time and money exploring the films that I only advise you to avoid – this time I stroll down the memory lane populated by the dismally boring Horror 101 and it’s sensationally titled sequel, Horror 102, which came to me some time ago in a double pack with a freebie third film called Museum of the Dead.

horror101

HORROR 101

1 Stars  2000/89m

Director: James Glenn Dudelson / Writers: Valorie Connally, Jenny McPhee & Daniel Miller / Cast: Bo Derek, Justin Urich, Josh Holland, Lisa Gordon, Brigitta Dau, Paityn James, Michael Moon, Scott Rinker, Jason Wolk.

Body Count: uh…

A weird one for VeVo as Horror 101 is one of those sonofabitch films that merely pretends it’s a slasher film, revealing that it’s some PG-13 film club production shot in four hours when it’s already too late!

To be truthful, I can’t remember much about Horror 101 other than the wake of anger I was left treading water in once my DVD player kind of spat the disc out in disgust. I don’t keep notes on non-slasher films so I’ll try and sum it up for you in as detailed a manner as I can:

Film class stays after hours for some seminar on horror. Or the emotion of fear. They have made some films of their own. Nobody likes one of the guys who is outcasty and therefore suspicious. Bo Derek is their teacher. They all begin wandering off to investigate strange noises or look for whomever wandered off to investigate a strange noise three minutes earlier.

BUT, people aren’t stabbed or sliced – they just vanish into thin air until a grandiose twist is unveiled. But it sucks. It really sucks and I stared slack-jawed at the screen asking some higher force why it was that somebody would every create this abortion of horror.

Weirdly, outcasty guy was played by Justin Urich, who also appeared in this film called Serial Killing 101, which also turned out not to be a slasher film despite pretending to be one also. That strangeness aside, play hookie and skip class.

*

horror102HORROR 102: ENDGAME

 2004/89m  1.5 Stars

“Winner kills all.”

Director/Writer: Ana Clavell / Cast: Melissa Frederick, Anna Lerbom, Jeremy Aldridge, Simon Zonatto, Michael Moon, Christopher Hawkins, Shasa Dabner, Lukas Langer, Joshua Allen Heck.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “What are you gonna do, marinate me?”

Yes, it’s better – by half a star. But that’s only because it’s enough of a slasher flick to count. So don’t skip out merrily thinking you’ll be entertained by repeated viewings.

This time, a group of mixed students have agreed to take part in a psychology experiment as an act of atonement for a variety of campus misdemeanours. They’re to spend an unspecified amount of time in the closed down Bellepark Asylum, where they’re duly stalked and slain by a hooded killer. I only noticed then typing out the cast roster that one of the actors from 101 returned to a different role.

While the most measly of measly margins better than 101, it’s nevertheless an endurance test: murders are largely off-camera or shot in such a way as to restrict the bloodshed in order to pass for a PG-13 rating again and there’s some nonsensical gibberish about hauntings and LSD trips thanks to laced-bread!

Characters are the usual hodge-podge of genre stereotypes and, at one point, one of them takes charge and tells everyone to stay together before announcing he’s going to check on somebody else alone… What aids the film in the end is the twist, which is not as predictable as it initially seems but it’d still need a goddamn miracle to scrape even a complete second star.

All you can do is step back in time

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campdazeCAMP DAZE

1.5 Stars  2005/95m

“The only way out is death.”

A.k.a. Camp Slaughter (DVD)

Director: Alex Pucci / Writers: Alex Pucci & Draven Gonzalez / Cast: Anika McFall, Joanna Suhl, Matt Dallas, Eric McIntire, Jon Fleming, Kyle Lupo, Miles Davis, Bethany Taylor, Ashley Gomes, Jessica Sonneborn, Jim Marlowe.

Body Count: 45+

Direlogue: “Backwoods…scary noises… Haven’t you heard of Jason?”

Idea. Excellent. Setting. Perfect. Costumes. Authentic. Execution. Uhh… Can I grab a hall pass?

On paper – or indeed the webpage – Camp Daze reads flawlessly: a quartet of teenagers driving to Maine find themselves stranded at kooky Camp Haiwatha, which is stranded in the summer of 1981, perpetually reliving the night when a psychopathic killer went on a bloody rampage. Fucking awesome.

As an homage to a certain groundbreaking summer camp slasher film, complete with a block-like title card smashing through a pain of glass before it was renamed Camp Slaughter for DVD, mixed with a Groundhog Day riff, this takes some amusing pot-shots at the most famous franchise in slasherama but ultimately chokes on its shoestring budget, which make it look unwatchably cheap and badly made. Y’know, worse than the films it apes.

campdaze3

Most of the film’s problems lie in the visual: careless edits and amateurish gore effects work don’t pack a punch and appear odd under the impressive orchestral score. Slot this in next to terrible acting and poorly conceived characters who suck the fun out of it all, with no real central figure to root for. The eventual sole survivor, Jen, is the sassy black girl who says ‘fuck’ a lot and keeps bringing up Jason, much to the confusion of the camp counsellors.

Even with the strange, not-quite-sure homoerotic undertones and a ballistic body count – possibly a sign of a poorly thought out script – nothing stands out and the obnoxious twist ending just induces rage at the laziness of the plot.

With a better collection of actors and shot with more care, this could’ve been a minor classic but it’s destined to become just one more post-millennial DTV slasher film that claimed it was recapturing the old school methods but failed miserably.

Blurb-of-interest: Jessica Sonneborn returned to camp in Bloody Bloody Bible Camp; director Pucci and actors Fleming and Taylor all contributed to Frat House Massacre.

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