Tag Archives: what the hell!?

The Ghost, the Teenagers, and the Mute Albino Rail-Spike Killer

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spikerSPIKER

1.5 Stars 2007/88m

“A ruthless killer… A haunting memory.”

Director: Frank Zagarino / Writers: Richard Preston Jr. & Frank Zagarino / Cast: Frank Zagarino, Giselle Rodriguez, Matt Jared, Josh Folan, Ginger Kroll, Linda Johnson, Adam Shonkwiler, Mike Fedele, Lou Martin Jr., David ‘Shark’ Fralick.

Body Count: 10

Dire-logue: “I’d rather screw a porcupine than touch your spooky ass!”

Adam Brandis, the Spiker serial killer, who murdered 27 Long Island locals with railroad spikes, is being transported from one joint to another when he fakes a seizure and leaps to freedom off the cross-pond ferry, taking out a few local cops as he goes.

The Sheriff thinks he’s dead but with 78 minutes remaining, it’s fairly likely that he isn’t. Oh look, there he is now, emerging from the water to kill some lineless schmuck working by the docks.

Sometime after, three teen couples actually in their cheerleader / football kits rock up to an old house owned by nominal final girl Lisa’s aunt, Elizabeth Shaw, who died the day Lisa was born – killed by the Spiker. They host a seance, dance to crap R&B music and pair off until Lisa sees a face at the window. “Maybe it was a raccoon,” one of them supposes. Again, Spiker is set in an alternate reality where slasher movies never existed.

Brandis, the Spiker, a tall, Scandinavian looking mute Albino, meanders through the woods clanking his trusty weapons together every time he appears for the time being, making it to the house to start trimming the cheer squad. Lisa finds letters from her dead aunt, which indicate she was Spiker’s lover at some point, sees a ghost bride, overdoes the heavy breathing when scared etc.

While it’s an undeniably limp affair, Spiker held my attention effectively enough and there was a halfway decent scene where one mortally wounded victim is slowly crawling towards the others, who are talking in the foreground. But what’s with the other dude who keeps cropping up with cryptic gibberish and is immune to the horror? Why does Brandis have a bottomless supply of rail spikes when he leaves so many sticking in various corpses? Where is he getting them from!?

Blurb-of-interest: David ‘Shark’ Fralick played the titular role in Uncle Sam.

Every Rows Has its Corn

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cotc-copyCHILDREN OF THE CORN III: URBAN HARVEST

2.5 Stars  1994/18/89m

“In the heart of the city, an adult nightmare is about to be reborn.”

Director: James D.R. Hickox / Writer: Dode B. Levenson / Cast: Daniel Cerny, Ron Melendez, Jim Metzler, Nancy Lee Grahn, Michael Ensign, Mari Morrow, Jon Clair.

Body Count: 18

Dire-logue: “Whatcha gonna do, man? Preach me to death?”

Vile 2009 remake aside, this is my least favourite of the Corn-clan.

Brothers Joshua and Eli are shipped off to Chicago after their dad “disappears” in a Gatlin cornfield. Fostered by city couple Metzler and Grahn, while Joshua attempts to fit in at school and befriends the kids next door, Eli slowly brainwashes his classmates to the ways of He Who Walks Behind the Rows and plants a patch of corn in the abandoned factory lot behind his house, further cementing my theory that, by and large, children are evil.

Shortly after, adults connected to the boys start dropping like flies, although the hands-on sickle-slashing of the first two films is abandoned in favour of supernatural demises that include wormy corn-roots that really get under your skin and a social worker’s face burning and melting! So it’s not much of a slasher flick – but then the whole series walks a thin line – and this is probably why I can’t get into the corntastic groove so much with this one.

Things take a Diet-Omen route with Ensign as a troubled priest trying to muster the strength to defeat Eli, who manages to out-evil Isaac and Micah in terms of bratty slappability.

While decamping to the city adds an interesting element, ultra-crappy effects during the mass-teenacide finale ass-rapes any credibility out of it, with a really awful looking plasticine monster feeds on the disciples. Truly, it looks like a junior school’s stop-motion video project with a blob of Playdough plucking doll’s house figurines off the ground.

Charlize Theron and Buffy’s Nicholas Brendon allegedly appear as extras but I couldn’t recognise either of them, probably much to their relief.

The First Cut is the Crappest

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bcultBLOOD CULT

1.5 Stars  1985/90m

“You just might get blood on you.”

Director: Christopher Lewis / Writers: Stuart Rosenthal & James Vance / Cast: Julie Andelman, Charles Ellis, James Vance, Bennie Lee McGowan, Josef Hardt, Fred Graves.

Body Count: 7

Dire-logue: “We do not need serial murderers on this campus.”

This film proudly states that it was the very first film made exclusively for home video. In real terms, it was the first time someone brandished a camcorder and squirted some ketchup at a wall while a wannabe starlet screamed in the background. All for less than $27,000!

As it is, Blood Cult is just another lame cash-in, that poses as a drama-documentary about a series of co-ed murders plaguing an Oklahoma college campus where the cleaver-toting killer steals random body parts and leaves behind small gold trinkets.

Aged local sheriff Ellis must try and figure out who’s behind it before the all-important elections. With the help of his librarian-slash-housemother daughter, Tina, and her repellent know-all boyfriend, our octogenarian hero discovers that evidence points in the direction of a cult made up of select locals who worship a DOG called Kaninus!

For the bad sound, sucky plotline, crappy acting and misogyny, there’s some cheesy recompense: the killer uses the decapitated head of one victim to beat her roommate with; severed fingers are found in a salad, and they had the audacity to call the sorority house where the first murder occurs Chi Omega!

The identity of the killer is also a surprise, although after the literal unmasking, the film ends without providing any further reference to the cult, its members or any what-happened-next material. The credits just roll. If you’re desperate enough to find out what happens, try the sequel, Revenge, for answers.

Obviously they had nothing better to do with another $27K. Give it to me! I could’ve left the camera on filming my lounge wall and provided a better 90 minutes’ entertainment.

Summary: the first shot on video film about a cult that worships dogs and some dodgy ketchup murders. You have been warned!

Blurb-of-interest: Julie Andelman was in Silent Scream.

Slashdance

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lastdanceLAST DANCE

2 Stars  1992/18/80m

“An erotic thriller featuring the hottest young dancers, but the prize will go to the sole survivor.”

Director: Anthony Markes / Writer: Emerson Bixby / Cast: Cynthia Stanton, Elaine Hendrix, Kurt T. Williams, Kelly Poole, Kimberly Speiss, Allison Rhea, Erica Ringstrom, Marci Brickhouse.

Body Count: 9

Dire-logue: “Was that your mother I ran over in the parking lot? You should teach her not to chase cars.”

If Angela Lansbury turned up – to visit another of her numerous relatives – Last Dance could easily be mistaken for an episode of Murder She Wrote.

Five sexy female dancers competing for the ironic title of Miss DTV (Dance TV), a launchpad for dancing in music videos and movie roles, are being summarily danced off stage forever by a mystery killer, who could be bitter choreographer Meryll, jilted barman Rick or club owner Jim, who is screwing around with most of the girls. Softcore porn inserts aside, this could easily pass for a lower certificate.

As the killer is finally revealed (and it’s not hard to guess who it is), new-girl/heroine Jamie protests her innocence by whining “it’s not fair!” like a seven-year-old having a tantrum but still manages to defeat the killer with a glitter ball (of course!) until they later return with a Phantom of the Opera facial for another go after Jamie wins the crown, somehow disguising themselves as a busboy, despite gaping scars down their face!

Random, bizarre and so bad you’ll laugh yourself stupid. Stupider. More stupid.

Blurbs-of-interest: Director Markes had already helmed Bikini Island and had also cast Kelly Poole in it. Kimberly Speiss was in Psycho Cop Returns. Elaine Hendrix had some moderate success with roles in Romy & Michele and The Parent Trap remake amongst other things.

March Match: Half-Star City

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There are only seven slasher flicks I’d give five out of five stars to and conversely only nine that are so bereft of merit that I only afforded them a dismal half-a-star, some of which necessitate some more extensive explanations (Ax ‘Em, for instance) but for March’s face-off, here are four such horrors (in the other sense) that there’s really little to say about besides whatever the opposite to superlatives is…

bagmanTHE BAGMAN

0.5 Stars  2002/15/81m

“Your past will ALWAYS come back to haunt you.”

Director: Rae Fitzgerald / Writer: Beverly Beaton / Cast: Stephanie Beaton, Paul Zanone, Wil Matthew, Katrina McCullough, Alonzo F. Jones, Mikul Robins, Lorelei Shannon.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “You can’t intimidate me by yelling!”

A group of friends are tormented by a sack-headed loon who was ‘drowned’ by one of them when they were kids. Dreadful shot-on-video production quality and largely inaudible dialogue – despite most of it being shouted by the cast of sub-amateurs. Horror regular Beaton is the only one who stands a chance but the ridiculous suicide ending does nothing for her career options. Harrowingly atrocious.

carnageroadCARNAGE ROAD

0.5 Stars  2000/15/70m

“The legend of Quiltface!”

Director: Massimiliano Cerchi / Writers: Massimiliano Cerchi & John Polinia / Cast: Dean Paul, Molinee Dawn, Sean Wing, Melissa Brown, Mike Paulie, Mack Hail.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “My mom says I’m toothily challenged. She says when I get my braces I could be a model.”

If Carnage Road were a physical experience, it would surely be a wisdom tooth extraction with simultaneous rectal surgery. With no anaesthetic. And blind surgeons. For this is truly painful viewing at its most antagonistically awful.

What scraps of story there are concern a quartet of photography students who need some extra credit, which shouldn’t be a surprise as, between them, they have only one camera, which looks like it was issued in the 50s. They drive out to the desert but end up just taking commemorative shots of one another stood in front of bits of junk and sand. A+

The driver of their minivan warns them of a local maniac known as Quiltface – Eiderdownhead was already taken – and they all laugh at him, but not before a phenomenal shot where said killer is stood approximately ten feet away from the group in broad daylight with nothing in between them and they still fail to notice… When they finally do realise he’s stalking them, they jog away at snail’s pace until one girl falls over and sits there until he can catch up and struggle with her! Another one dies from an inch-deep cut to the hip.

The only trace of originality in Carnage Road is that elects a final boy, one who miraculously survived a machete blow to the head earlier in a film where a small cut to your hip can be fatal. He spends the final twenty minutes squealing in a high-pitched voice before the predictable closing. Worse than The Bagman? Mmm…could be!

Blurb-of-shame: Mack Hail directed and starred in Mr Ice Cream Man and Switch Killer.

catcherTHE CATCHER

0.5 Stars  1998/18/77m

“Three strikes you’re dead!”

Directors / Writers: Yvette Hoffman & Guy Crawford / Cast: David Heavener, Monique Parent, Joe Estevez, Sean Dillingham, Lesslie Garrett, Paul Moncrief, James Patterson, Harley Harkins, Jeff Sorenson, Mike Kepple.

Body Count: 9

A baseball slasher flick sounds interesting, right? Fool! Think again. A young boy beats his nasty dad to death with a baseball bat and, X years later after the last game of the season, a catcher-masked psycho starts to off the members of the losing team.

The weirdest element of this cheapo film is that it sets itself up to be a mystery and then bows out with ‘and the legends were TRUE, Johnny MacIntosh did come back for revenge!’ Estevez is the dead-dad who appears only to him to spur on his killing.

A godawful cast and some of the worst editing going contribute additional nails to the coffin of this film, which also features a bizarre butt-fuck metaphor with a guy taped to a table while the killer literally shoves a bat up his arse! The characters are so dumb they surrender their weapons to try and reason with the zombie-like killer and considering their profession, can anyone run slower than these folks and why is their blood black!?

Blurb-of-shame: Joe Estevez was also in Sigma Die!, Scar and Axe Giant.

funnymanFUNNY MAN

0.5 Stars  1994/18/89m

“A cut above the rest.”

Director / Writer: Simon Sprackling / Cast: Tim James, Benny Young, Christopher Lee, Matthew Devitt, Pauline Black, Ingrid Lacey, Rhona Cameron, Chris Walker, George Morton.

Body Count: 8

Christopher Lee – what the fuck is he doing here? – loses his eerie mansion to a selfish record company producer in a poker game. He moves his family in and they manage to summon up a jester-demon who toys with and tears them apart before a group of freaky hitchhikers stop by.

Less a slasher film than a pastiche of gory vignettes centring on the doomed weirdos – amongst whom there is a Jamaican ‘Psychic Commando’ and a Velma-from-Scooby Doo a-like – and the wisecracking jester with his variety of regional English accents and to-camera asides, which kill off any suspense and much is stolen from the more comedic Elm Street entries but without an ounce of the subtlety, just misguided attempts at making the text so unbelievably surreal its funny, all of which fail miserably, rendering it one of the worst horror films in existence.

Blurbs-of-shame: Lee was also in Mask of Murder and Sleepy Hollow.

Worst of the lot? Oh God, it’s so hard to choose, they’re all so awful but I think Funny Man barely fit together a coherent plot so it can be burnt at the stake this time. At least the other films were considerate enough to be really quite short.

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