Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain 2002 Uncut Workprint Review
Evil Breed: The Legend of Samhain. Uncut Workprintf 2002
Directed by: Christian Viel
Starring: Jennifer Jameson, Chasey Lain, Ginger Lynn
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Ok first things first. I haven’t added anything here for a while, because I recently started a new role and my plan was always to post like a rabbit on Viagra during the first few months so that there was enough for you guys and gals to read and then roll out new stuff on the site when I can.
Now this is an update of a review that I wrote in 2002 and it’s important that I tell you that this is from the workprint that I 
got my hands on back then (Thanks very much Christian Viel). It turns out that the released copy is nowhere near as good, so please forgive me if you go and buy the DVD and see nothing that I have written here. Lastly, I took the liberty of posting a picture of Chasey Lain. Now this is not from the movie, which was made after she got hooked on drugs and lost that traffic-stopping beauty. But hey, when would I get another excuse, eh? Ok, back to the film…
If you were a director that was looking to cast female victims for a slasher movie, then surely it would make sense to add a couple of porn stars? It’s not as if they’re inexperienced in front of the camera, they have no qualms with the requisite nudity and how many unattractive porn queens can you name? Christian Viel obviously recognized the potential of mixing hardcore actresses with hard-gore effects and so he cast four of adult cinema’s sexiest and most notorious stars. Jenna Jameson, Chasey Lain, Ginger Lynn Allen and Taylor Hayes all turn up for cameos in arguably the most intriguing slasher flick to be released since Scream reinvigorated the genre.
Samhain was originally intended for a cinema release in October 2002 – thus keeping in check with the Halloween-based synopsis. Unfortunately, the shoot was plagued by many problems, which have thus prevented the feature from achieving the exposure that it deserves. Last I heard it had been signed by Film 2000 here in the UK and was penned for a late October release direct to DVD. 
Unfortunately that label has a peerlessly abysmal track record with DTV slashers. Not content with polluting our shelves with Camp Blood and its follow-up, they were also responsible for unleashing Granny, Bleed and the rancid Paranoid. Could Samhain finally be worthwhile ammunition to their contemptible catalogue cannon?
Five Canadian/American students and their teacher head to Southern Ireland as part of their history course. Upon arrival they are told the legend of a cannibalistic clan that roamed the hills of Scotland and murdered locals for food. The cannibals were eventually caught and burnt at the stake, but it’s rumoured that one of the tribe escaped and headed to the woodland of Ireland to find refuge. After the kids have settled and begun doing what all massacre-fodder does in these flicks, the mandatory goody two-shoes (and definite heroine candidate) begins to be spooked by a shadow creeping around late at night. Could it be that the flesh hungry maniac is still at large in the Forest? Well what do you think…?
It looks as if Samhain’s production was jinxed right from the start. Almost immediately Wal-Mart refused to develop Jenna Jameson’s nude make-up shots and Chasey Lain began acting characteristically like a drugged-out primadonna. Finally to add insult to injury, the producers got cold feet just before the flick was about to hit shelves and began talking of re-editing and removing all the gore. Reports have said that they were unhappy about the copious amounts of violence and they wanted to trim scenes down so it would achieve an R rating. Veil of course disagreed, seeing how his 
entire synopsis was boosted by its creatively graphic display. Eventually after months of arguments, the director parted company with Warehouse productions and the feature was once again locked in the vaults.
Despite countless disruptions, Veil’s slasher opus is still one of the best genre pieces to be released since the new millennium. The copy I was sent was the pre-release screener, which was obviously a test press without sound effects or the complete soundtrack. But still it boasted a few credible jump-scares, some superb cinematography and a couple of the goriest set pieces that I’ve seen for some time. One guy is disembowelled via his rectum before being strangled with his own intestine, Jenna Jameson is stripped naked and gutted in unflinching close up and Chasey Lain ends up ‘spilling her guts’ after an unfortunate rescue attempt from her boyfriend (Richard Grieco).
Even if the murders are uncommonly gruesome, Samhain never feels mean-spirited, which is basically due to the characters being thinly portrayed as basic slasher clichés. In all honesty the script was perhaps the movies biggest downfall, because the dialogue was not so much inspired by Wes Craven’s Scream movies as it was flagrantly cut and pasted from them. Certainly the inclusion of the
mouth-watering Jenna Jameson was a great move by the producers. Her fans will be excited to know that she does whip off her top (as expected) and so does Chasey Lain and Taylor Hayes. But Samhain is no soft porn movie, and it benefits from sticking to the structure that it set out to produce. It’s worth noting that the aforementioned XXX stars almost out-perform the supposed ‘actors’ of the feature, which isn’t much of a complement. Ginger Lynn was at least notable (if you ignore the shameful ‘Oirish’ accent), and her battle with the hulking killer was superbly performed and choreographed by Alan Chou. Taylor and Jenna delivered expectedly poor dramatics, which could have been caused by the numerous problems on-set. Veil’s direction is sharp and he provides some much-needed injections of suspense. Exciting and crisp photography is mixed with a good flair for storytelling and the net result is a slasher extravaganza to satisfy even the most critical gore hounds.
It will be interesting to see what kind of final cut is released of Samhain. Rumour has it that a second director was drafted in to shoot a different ending, and I’m curious as to how much of the explicit gore will remain intact for worldwide distribution. If the end result is only half as good as the rough print that I watched, then it’s still better than nearly all of the genre pieces that have been unleashed over the past ten years. This one is certainly worth checking out… * I watched the DVD recently, just before posting this and it is missing most of the good stuff, so try and see this version if you really want to see how it should’ve looked.
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:
Gore:√√√√√
Final Girl: √√
RATING:
* Review originally posted 12/11/2002
Sorority Row 2009 Review
Sorority Row 2009
Directed by: Stewart Hendler
Starring: Briana Evigan, Audrina Partridge, Carrie Fisher
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Now I am somewhat of a fence sitter when it comes to remakes. Whilst I quite enjoyed My Bloody Valentine 3D, I still haven’t seen the rehash of Halloween and I don’t intend to. For me, the original was a masterpiece and with all due respect, giving Rob Zombie the reins for a new version is almost like giving Henry Hill the chance to do a remake of The Godfather. Somehow, modern-day teens seem far more arrogant than they used to and the MTV generation are a lot less alluring body count material for splatter flicks.
The House on Sorority Row was one of my favourite genre pieces of the peak period. A great story with a compelling mystery and razor sharp direction gave it an advantage on its brethren from the 
same era. That eerie final sequence is a postcard from the greatest period of the stalk and slasher and I hoped that if there’s any justice in the kingdom of moviedom, Sorority Row would pay not just homage, but respect to its grandfather. Having Mark Rosman on board as executive producer, was a good move, because I felt sure that he would really want to guide the way in terms of representing the brand he created.
After a poorly-planned prank goes wrong, a group of sorority sisters are left with an incriminating secret that could cost them their lives. After some on the spot soul searching they decide to keep it between themselves and dispose of any remaining evidence. Eight months pass and the group have mostly put the events behind them and are looking forward to graduation. Things take a turn for the worse when someone begins targeting the girls with evidence linking them to their earlier endeavours. Before long a hooded killer turns up and begins working his way through the group one-by-one…
The film kicks off weakly and by the ten-minute mark, I was expecting the worst. After the prank backfires, there’s a panic-stricken scene which was a golden opportunity for the junior thesps to show that they had the talent to build some rapport with the audience. Unfortunately, they don’t take it and there’s a clearly visible lack of chemistry and cohesiveness as they scream at each other unconvincingly 
and sink to further depths of banal dramatics.
I found it hard at first glance to like these characters and for an avid fan of eighties slashers, the words Facebook and YouTube seemed bizarre in this kind of flick. Well I have just turned thirty, so maybe I am getting too long in the tooth now. My view is admittedly dated as social networking plays such a large part of the youth culture of today that I guess I should credit the necessary attempt to pull the category forward in to more modern surroundings. In fairness, as a critic I should have given this a chance on its own to impress from the start, but it was impossible for me not to think of comparisons with the original. I hadn’t seen it for a while, but I remembered the ominous opening and the haunting score that set the tone so early on. Here we are given a bouncing ‘Hip-Hop’ baseline, conceited characters and zero recognition that this is a horror film rather than yet another dumb teen comedy.
Then suddenly and most unexpectedly things began to improve. Now I’m not sure if it’s because the aforementioned poorly-acted sequence was the first that they shot and they hadn’t yet found their 
footing. But after an uncomfortable and disorientated opening, the plot began to tighten, the dramatics improved and the river of intrigue began to flow. The killer’s guise was nothing special (how many cloaked maniacs have there been since Urban Legends?) but using a lug wrench as a weapon allowed for some inventive slayings and the film found the right balance of subtle parody and engaging plot.
Stewart Hendler’s energetic and ambitious direction is exactly what the film needed and the fluid cinematography adds to the party-like vibe. Briana Evigan grew in to her role as the plot thickened and there’s a good mix of characteristics on display so that you can chose those that you like or those you want to see gruesomely impaled on the tyre iron. The mystery is a tough one to crack, but in effect is a bit disappointing once revealed. I mean, where did that come from?
Nowadays MTV horror movies are targeted at a younger generation of viewers, so in order to get a wider target audience they don’t invest in gratuitous gore, which would probably result in a stringent rating from the censors. Sorority Row, unlike the appalling Prom Night remake, does at least pack some blood and creativity in to its murders and although there’s never any really solid fear factor on 
display, Hendler does produce moments of suspense.
So is Sorority Row worthy to share the brand of one of the best films of the golden period? I would say just about, yes. Don’t get me wrong this is nowhere near as good as the film it redesigns, but compared to the amount of plop we get nowadays that describes itself as horror, Hendler’s slasher does enough to separate itself from the masses.
The only negatives are the large amount of ‘hard-to-like’ characters, an insignificant bogeyman (they don’t even try to make an iconic Jason/Michael Myers type) and no real scares.
It pains me to say it, but slasher films of modern times are the chick-flicks of the horror genre and that’s why they need to do the little that is expected of them to the best of their ability. Row does exactly that and boasts a frantic pace, some cool kills, a good mystery and a divine final girl. Fairly good global box office meant there’s life in the cycle yet…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√
Gore:√√
Final Girl: √√√
RATING: 
Midnight Killer 1986 Review
Midnight Killer 1986
aka Morirai a Mezzanote aka You’ll Die at Midnight
Directed by: Lamberto Bava
Starring: Valeria D’Obici, Paolo Malco, Eliana Miglio
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
In any industry, I think it’s always hard to follow in the footsteps of your father. It must be especially tough though if he’s an outright legend that’s credited with not only defining a genre, but also launching one. No matter how well you and your dad get along, there’s always going to be a little bit of friendly rivalry. Plus you can virtually guarantee that critics will always compare the works of a senior with that of his son. That’s why it must’ve been hard for Lamberto Bava to escape the consistent comparisons and make his own name in Italian cinema. But Morirai a Mezzanotte (Midnight Killer) goes some 
way to showing that talent certainly ran thickly through the genes of the Bava family. It’s just a shame that Mario was not alive to witness his son’s worthy addition to the category that he created.
Now in all honesty, despite being extremely knowledgeable about the slasher cycle, I must admit that I have spent very little time researching the Giallo. But I have still thoroughly enjoyed the likes of Mystery in Venice, Eyes without a Face, Too Beautiful to Die and Blood and Black Lace. It wasn’t until after I’d been impressed with this rarity that I began tracking down other genre classics. So you could say that Midnight Killer was something of a turning point for me…
It opens with a middle-aged woman shopping for some lingerie in a bustling town centre. Her husband Nicola (Leonardo Treviglio) sees her walking the street and begins following her. He buys a flower and waits outside the shop to give her a charming surprise. He certainly didn’t expect to see another man enter the changing rooms and he is even more shocked when they sneak out of the rear exit 
and shoot off in the mysterious stranger’s car. Later that night when she finally returns, the couple has a violent argument, which ends with Nicola storming out of the flat. After he has left, a black gloved assailant creeps into the apartment and brutally murders the promiscuous female with an ice pick. Inspector Pierro Teri (the always intriguing Paolo Malco) immediately suspects Nicola as the killer and so he enlists a psychological profiler named Anna Berardi (Valeria D’Obici) to help him crack the case. Berardi is a good friend to the Detective and she also teaches his daughter’s college course. She doesn’t think that Nicola is the guilty party, instead she suspects Franco Trebo – a serial murderer that was supposedly killed in a fire eight years earlier. As the bodies begin piling up round the city, it’s looking more and more like Trebo is back from the grave. The most worrying thing for inspector Terzi is that this bizarre maniac seems to have a viscous taste for his youngest daughter Carol (Lara Wendel). Will he be able to stop the ruthless psychopath before he tracks down his daughter?
Many critics have been disappointed with Lamberto Bava’s directorial work since his début feature (Macabre) pretty much flopped on release in 1980. But I believe that it’s only because they always 
compare his filmography to the seminal works of his father. It’s a shame that this murder mystery was not distributed to a much wider audience, as it is a little seen gem that deserves recognition. This is mainly due to a fantastic score from Brazilian composer Claudio Simonetti (of the Goblin fame) and some truly chilling set locations. The killer stalks his way through a neglected theatre, a sinister museum and a vacant hotel with relish and the atmosphere-engrossing musical accompaniment helps to create some decent 
suspense. He also looks extremely menacing in a rubber facemask and his victims usually suffer at the hands of a stylishly directed set piece. The acting is fairly good from the leads and credit to Bava for enlisting Lucio Fulci-favorite Paolo Malco to join a comfortable cast. Many previous Italian Giallos (Eyes without a Face/Massacre) have suffered from inept and poorly translated English voice-overs. Fortunately that’s not the case with Midnight Killer, which was dubbed with considerable thought for non-Italian viewers.
Fans of gore cinema may be disappointed at the minuscule amount of the old gooey stuff. Also the lack of any nudity will probably switch off exploitation buffs that have been spoilt over the years by the likes of The New York Ripper. The mystery-aspect is not as complex and intelligent as many of its genre forefathers have proved to be either, which may cause bedroom Agatha Christies to search in the opposite direction. But still this is a refreshing and fairly absorbing entry that deserves to be seen by a wider audience. I do agree that Lamberto is a much better screenwriter than he is a director, but Midnight Killer is good enough to make his father proud if he had been alive to see it. Recommended…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√
Gore:√√
Final Girl: √√√
RATING:
The Ghost Dance 1980 Review
The Ghost Dance1980
Directed by: Peter F Buffa
Starring: Julie Amato, Victor Mohica, Felicia Leon
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Just a side note, before we get going. I pencilled this in 2008 and my topic was the terrible credit crunch that had struck the world economy back then. It is obviously very focused on the events of those times, but instead of rewriting everything, I decided to leave it because it is actually rather interesting that not too much has changed some 
four-years later.
As I write this review, the world is on the verge of one of the biggest financial meltdowns in economic history. My country of birth, Spain, has just guaranteed the savings of up to 80,000 Euros for every Spaniard in order to restore customer confidence, whilst in the UK a rumoured 500 billion of tax payer’s money is about to be pumped into the recently nationalised British banking system in a bid to put trust back in to the financial market. In Iceland, banks have already crashed completely, leaving customers without their hard-earned savings, whilst politicians in the USA are battling around the clock to to thrash out a saviour package. Things are not looking good.
Two weeks ago the Credit Crunch seemed a million miles away, but today I noticed that it’s starting to hit the most financially adventurous of sports, with London’s West Ham United football club looking set to be the first to feel the pinch. As investments tumble, chairmen will begin to haul in the reigns and become less enthusiastic to spend on those much-needed squad reinforcements in the transfer window. We may be seeing the beginning of a total re-shape in entertainment as we know it.
That suddenly got me thinking, what if the Credit Crunch was to hit the movie industry? What if suddenly producers became bankrupt and it was left up to production teams with experience of delivering a feature on the tightest of budgets to fill cinemas on a Friday evening? Although that would be awful news for global viewers, it would be a momentous occasion for the slasher genre. You see for all their faults (and they have many), stalk and slash flicks are arguably the
cheapest and easiest to produce. So if you don’t see the names of Nolan, Spielberg and Mendes on billboards in the near future and instead see the likes of Devine, Stryker and Decoteu, don’t be too surprised…
There was a time of course when a cheap slasher movie at the flicks was a common occurrence. Back in the inglorious days of the early eighties, titles like Ghost Dance were the ‘Paranormal Activities’ of that long-gone and thankfully forgotten era. Although that sounds bizarre in our current climate of multi-million-dollar blockbusters, history has a funny way of repeating itself.
Ghost Dance kicks off in trappings that we would see again three years later in Olen Ray’s Scalps. A group of youngsters on an excavation raise a grave from the Californian desert and head off into the night with the corpse on-board their flat-bed pick-up. Next up we meet a crazy medicine man who seems determined to raise the spirit of an ancient American Indian renegade from beyond the grave. After a hopelessly unconvincing ‘magic’ spell, the evil spirit possess the mystical magician and heads off into the desert on a maniacal rampage. Soon we learn that there is something more sinister to the killer’s motives as he begins closing in on our leading lady
Alongside titles that include Scalps, Demon Killer and Camping Del Terrore, Peter Buffa’s opus attempts to inject the curiosities and intrigue of Native American culture into the trappings of the slasher genre that were all the rage in the early eighties. Back then, the cycle was still in a transitional phase and unaware of its platitudes, but the feature plays by the rulebook adequately and underlines all the clichés that would become a trademark of identification in years to come. 
Despite making good use of gimmicks like the good-old ‘have sex and die’ routine, kudos must be given to the scriptwriter for adding a little puzzle and intrigue to the template.
A large chunk of the runtime is dedicated to the mystery element of tracing the origins of the maniacal assassin and although the ideas are bold and commendable, the story telling does limit the space for occasions of glorious splatter. It does feel somewhat snooze-enticingly slow moving in places and the killer’s appearances are disappointingly sparse. When the psycho does strike, Buffa handles the tension surprisingly well and the score creates a mildly foreboding and at times impressively claustrophobic atmosphere. I especially enjoyed the murders in the abandoned museum and Ben’s face slashing was exceptionally gruesome. Although there’s very little in terms of grotesque gore, the killings, when they occur, are satisfying enough and competently handled by a capable director.
It doesn’t take log for us to realise that there’s sure to be a twist in the plot towards the climax and even though it may seem fairly ‘old-hat’ by today’s standards, the conclusion was fairly ingenious for its time of release. Native Americans are always intriguing and mystic characters for the silver screen, but hiring a cast of competent actors that carry the appearance, heritage and dramatic credibility is never an easy task for a film crew on a meagre budget. With that said, the performances here are reasonably good and credit to Victor Mohica for a strong turning as the leading man.
Ghost Dance is not a hidden-gem, but it is decent enough for true genre fans to appreciate. It seems somewhat unfair that whilst utter dross like Don’t go in the Woods can live on in the hearts of slasher aficionados, Ghost Dance has been largely forgotten. Slight problems with pacing do not detract from a decent entry to the cycle. I recommend viewers get used to watching this kind of entertainment…you never know when the Hollywood financial bubble could burst……….
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√
Gore:√√
Final Girl: √√
RATING:
Terror Eyes 1981 Review
Terror Eyes 1981
aka Night School
Directed by: Kenneth Hughes
Starring: Rachel Ward, Drew Snyder, Leonard Mann
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
I can only now watch this early eighties addition to the cycle on DVD, because it was one of the last of the key period to acquire a re-release. It’s hard to understand exactly why the digital revolution has ignored this intriguing category addition for so long, because it’s certainly no worse than the legions of Halloween clones that have been packaged and then re-packaged once again on special edition discs. Not only is Terror Eyes one of the seventy-four ‘collectable’ video nasties that were unfortunate enough to be banned in the United Kingdom and added to the notorious DPP list, but on top of that, its production boasts some interesting trivia.
Director Kenneth Hughes was not just an ambitious non-experienced wet-behind-the-ears beginner like so many of his genre counterparts from the period. Instead he was a film-maker with a long 
and varied résumé, which included a few high-profile efforts. Perhaps even more bewildering is the fact that his most recognised cinematic achievement prior to this violent splatter flick had been kiddies favourite and Oscar-nominee, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The feature also handed a début role to Rachel Ward, who would go on to become a well-respected actress in later years.
The city of Boston is being terrorised by a head hunting psychopath. Dressed in motorcycle leathers and masked by a tinted crash helmet, the killer is decapitating his victims and then submerging their heads in water, which leads the Police to believe that he is a ritualistic maniac. Detectives are mystified as to the motives of the deranged assassin and as the bodies pile up they realise that they must move quickly to prevent the terror from striking again.
Even though Terror Eyes has enough of the necessary trademarks to allow it to be identified as a slasher movie, it plays more like an ultra-violent cop-thriller. It switches consistently between two starkly opposing tones and each causes a lack of consistency in the other. The film is often unintentionally implausible and at times the dramatics feel excessively cheesy. During the kill scenes however, things get nail-bitingly dark and the violence is at times astoundingly brutal. The killer slashes his victims with a curved machete ruthlessly, spraying blood over the walls as he goes. Aided by a menacing score from Brad Fiedel, the scenes are intimidating and rampant enough to stick in your memory.
Horror is different from every other cinematic genre and offers a much tougher challenge for directors. Hughes, however, does ok here and builds some impressive suspense scenarios. There’s one stand out and incredibly tense scene in a café kitchen, which is particularly memorable because it doesn’t involve the film’s bogeyman and the players on screen during the scenario are unaware of any impending horror. The day after a girl is brutally slaughtered, the owner turns up to find his restaurant in a mess. We already know by viewing the first two murders that the maniac submerges the decapitated heads of his victims in the nearest pool of water, so we’re already expecting him to find a shocking sight somewhere lying around. As he begins clearing up the tables and chairs, two builders arrive and ask him to heat up some food for them. He places a large saucepan on the hob, which is filled with stew and turns on the 
gas. After he serves them, one of them finds a long hair in his bowl. By now you’re cringing thinking, surely the head wasn’t in there…was it? The chef continues chatting and pours the remainders of the pan down the sink. You’re on the edge of your seat and expecting to see it roll out at any minute! I won’t tell you what happens, but the vibe it creates is excellent. He also received one of the biggest compliments possible for his work here, because Dario Argento was almost certainly inspired by Terror Eyes for his popular eighties Giallo, Tenebrae. Watching the two films one after the other shows the undeniable similarities and evidence.
Kenneth Hughes deserves credit for at times building a harsh and gruesome atmosphere, without any real gore. Sure, there’s blood by the bucket-load, but none of the decapitations are shown on-
screen and there’s no striking special make-up effects. Female writer Ruth Avergon pencilled the script, which is surprising considering the level of misogyny. It’s also extremely erratic and includes everything from intelligent historical references to nonsensical and bewildering dialogue, which hinders the actors in their attempts to play it straight. In fact, I would say that it is the biggest flaw of the feature. The basic premise somewhat mocks the intelligence of the audience and therefore gives too many clues and ruins the pay-off far too early. The cast are given very little in terms of heavyweight drama to work with, but in fairness their performances are undeserving of any better. The fact that Rachel Ward built a career in dramatics after this embarrassingly wooden début just proves that you don’t need talent to be a success in Hollywood; all that’s required is an attractive face. Also, what’s with the casting of Drew Snyder as a womaniser? He may be a lot of things, but handsome and charming are not two of them.
Terror Eyes is an at times stylish and in the same breath daft thriller, which suffers mainly from a huge dose of poor cinematic balancing. It is certainly no classic, but the violent and at times harrowing death scenes make it worthy of a high standing within the slasher elite. It’s one that I have plenty of time for and if you have an eye for the ladies, Rachel Ward will blow you away…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√
Gore:√√
Final Girl √√√
RATING: 
Urban Legend 1998 Review
Urban Legend 1998
Directed by: Jamie Blanks
Starring: Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Jared Leto
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
So here it is, one of the first ever reviews that I wrote of a slasher movie. I posted this way back in 2001 and wanted to see if I still agree with what I said after eleven long years. I have updated some parts of it, but it’s still pretty much the same… Enjoy!
First things first, there are a couple of things that I have to get off my chest before I begin my review of Jamie Blanks’ much-maligned slasher/whodunit Urban Legend. What caught my attention initially was the fact that it boldly states on the front cover that it’s the: `Bloodiest teen slasherfest to come over from the states so far…’ That, I 
then thought to myself, was one hell of a bold statement to make. Could it be a film gorier than Nightmares in a damaged brain or Maniac? Could it even be a flick with more goo than Blood Rage, The Burning or the uncut Intruder? If so how did it gain a certificate from the BBFC? Or could it be that the unnamed reviewer from The Sun who wrote that article was trying out some freshly picked highly hallucinogenic magic mushrooms? I’m afraid that after watching this I found that the latter is probably the closest to the truth because although Urban Legend has its moments, gore is definitely not one of the movie’s strong points. As for it being one of the bloodiest of its kind to come over from the states so far, well lets just say that this must’ve been the first slasher flick that the writer in question had seen, or he must have accidentally watched the wrong film. Who knows?
Secondly before watching UL I was biased into thinking it was going to be really rather terrible after the amount of bad publicity it got from its UK release. Almost every review that I read was warning the viewer to avoid it at all costs. But to anyone, who has got a video library filled with as many, how can I put it, ‘matter of taste’ flicks as me will know that is all the invitation I needed.
After an exciting opening, we are shown a campus named Pendleton University and introduced to a few likely suspects or victims that are discussing the recent murder of 
Michelle Mancini, a girl that was killed in the pre-credits. The conversation then turns to the legend of the ‘Stanley Hall Massacre’, where It’s rumoured that 25 years earlier at that same college a professor went berserk and off’d ‘a whole floor’ full of students before stabbing himself through the heart with a honey knife. In good old slasher tradition the kids decide to have a party to commemorate the aforementioned kill frenzy, which you know is definitely going to be a bad idea.
Before long a butcher in a parka coat puts in a few appearences and starts working his way through the cast in some pretty imaginative ways. Natalie, our obvious heroine, witnesses most of these murders but of course, no-one else sees them or believes her, especially the somewhat suspicious Deane. As more people disappear, the killer’s motive is revealed and it’s left up to Natalie to stop him.
To be honest, and I’m going to be an individual here, I can’t for the life of me see what is so bad about Jamie Blanks’ first attempt at a horror movie. Seeing how this was his directorial debut (previously he had worked as a camera operator on action flick The Huntsman) I think he’s done a pretty damn good job. I was so puzzled when I had finished 
watching after reading such bad reviews and thoroughly enjoying it that I rang up two of my friends and invited them to come around and view it with me and my girlfriend. When it was finished I asked what they thought and all three of them agreed it was a good film, one even went as far as to say it was better than Scream.
Each murder gets more imaginative than the next, with the killer going to various lengths to stage his slaughter. All are based on popular urban legends and most of them are burning with innovation. The opening gimmick is brilliant with the way it cheats the audience and who can honestly say that they didn’t jump when Damon bit the dust? I agree that when the butcher’s identity is revealed you are left thinking how did he manage to perform those killings unaided, but that is by no means grounds to say that the film is poor. If you’re watching a slasher movie for sensible continuity, then you’re on a losing team there buddy. What lifts Urban Legend way above average is its wonderful imagination, pulsating energy and ability to make the most of its bag full of good ideas. It also benefits from a haunting score and a strong cast, which were at the time of release mostly unknowns. Jared Leto has since gone on to earn roles in Fight Club and American Psycho, not to mention The Thin Red Line. He is an actor that I have seen many times, but has never grabbed the moment or left me with the impression that he’s an outstanding performer. He does very well here though and shows much promise in his delivery. Alicia Witt is solid as the final girl and there’s a fair turn from Rebecca Gayheart as her bubble head friend. This was made before Tara Reid had developed a reputation as a party girl and was hoping for a career as an actress. She had the look and a good agent, but that wasn’t enough to hide her limits as a dramatic success. I did kind of hope that her character would survive, although I believe that’s more because she’s hot. However, Blanks is quite ruthless with the cast and not many players avoid the 
assassin’s blade.
The director pulls off a couple of decent jumps and false scares and some wonderful flowing cinematography. The flick also gets ‘edge of your seat’ tense toward the end as you play the game of guess the killer’s identity. The story keeps on twisting and pointing the finger at everyone who appears on screen and you can’t help but carry on guessing. The motive is a pretty good one and although the actor struggled to deliver a believable portrayal of insanity, the revelation just about works.
So all said and done I think it just goes to show Urban Legend is a matter of taste movie; you’ll either love it or hate it. I must admit that I actually thought it was fairly enjoyable and remains far more entertaining than the miserable Valentine. Don’t be dissuaded by the poor publicity that circled this one, its well worth checking out.
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√
Gore:√
Final Girl: √√√
RATING:
Splatter University 1984 Review
Splatter University 1984
Directed by: Richard W Haines
Starring: Francine Forbes, Ric Randig, Dick Biel
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Colleges, High Schools, Fraternities and Sororities have been the most popular stalking grounds for maniacal madmen since the slasher cycle first became a popular cinema culture throughout the late seventies. Even backwoods cabins and campsites have rode shotgun to the amount of massacres that have taken place on campus since Halloween categorised the genre as a cult horror style. From early entries like To all a Good Night right up until the big budgeted schlock of titles like Urban Legend or Schools Out, there’s usually always been a campus slasher lurking somewhere in the pipeline. Despite being picked up by Troma – the titans of B movie badness – Splatter 
University was heavily panned upon release and never really found an audience. Even notorious hack and slash websites have agreed that Richard Haines’ yarn is one of the worst of the early eighties boom. I always approach criticised movies optimistically because there’s often the chance than a few bad reviews can be unfairly contagious like a dose of the flu, which preempts the judgement of some authors.
It begins in traditional fashion at the place where any movie maniac worth his salts emerges. Yep you guessed it – an insane asylum! It seems that one of the inmates has decided that he’s unhappy with the level of service at the institution and therefore he’s looking to take his business elsewhere. The unseen nut-job makes his break after stabbing an unfortunate orderly where the sun certainly doesn’t shine. He obviously favours the dress sense of the murdered worker, so he takes the liberty of borrowing his uniform – blood stained trousers and all!
Three years later, we transfer to St Trinians College, an educational establishment that is controlled by catholic priests. A teacher is busy after hours marking her students work when all of a sudden there’s a knock at the door. Before she has a chance to find out what the unseen visitor wants, he stabs her in the chest with a kitchen knife and she falls to the floor in a bloody heap. This of course means that there’s a vacancy at the university and so we’re introduced to Julie Parker (Francine Forbes), the lovable replacement for the recently departed lecturer. It seems that her arrival has inadvertently given the resident maniac all the motivation that he needs to go on a no holds barred slaughter-thon. Before long students and teachers alike are dropping like flies to the camera shy menace as he stalks the corridors and local areas armed with an exceptionally large blade. Suspicious suspects abound, but can professor Parker solve the mystery of the campus murderer before she becomes just another statistic?
I’m not precisely sure how many versions of this movie are available. The UK altered video was released under the alias of Campus Killings, but the US copy that I own states that it’s the complete unedited edition, which could mean that 
there is a censored print floating about somewhere? I’d be fairly surprised if that was the case as Splatter University certainly isn’t as gore-delicious as the hyperbole packaging would lead you to believe. One or two litres of corn syrup certainly don’t stand up to gore hound’s scrutiny when compared to the likes of Blood Rage or Pieces, so in this instance the movie is somewhat over hyped. One thing that many critics have failed to mention is the charming lead performance from Francine Forbes, who ends up carrying the entire picture on her shoulders throughout the 79-minute running time. Despite amateurish direction from Richard Haines, she still unveils some magnificent potential that should have led to the chance of another stab at serious acting under a more accomplished helmer. Unfortunately that possibility never came and bottom of the barrel bombs like Death Ring and Splitz certainly didn’t help to nurture a talent that could have improved under the right scholarship.
The rest of the cast members were par for the course of movie obscurity, especially the wooden plank teenagers who for some strange reason acted like they were auditioning for a remake of Grease or The Wanderers. The bog standard 
point and shoot direction couldn’t have helped to build much confidence in the project and the fact that the few signs of potential were undermined by the clumsy handling of the script left the feature effectively unredeemable. Perhaps the only claim of originality to be found in Haines’ slasher is the brave attempt for the contrasting conclusion. Let’s just say that it’s not a final that I was expecting to witness in a movie that was so typical of the cycle. You have to give a high five for the effort, but I felt it was a mean-spirited and unnecessary risk to have taken.
At one point in the runtime, one of the teens says, “Man that Parker bores me to tears…” Well the same can be said for Splatter University, which never lifts the pace above slow motion. With that said though, Francine Forbes made for a delightful scream queen and undoubtedly one that I would have paid to watch again in a similar role. So that pretty much sums up this un-troma-tising ride. Slow paced, shoddy but still strangely alluring; you’d have to be especially forgiving to give it a chance…
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:
Gore:√√
Final Girl: √√√
RATING:
Demon Warrior 1988 Review
Demon Warrior 1988
Directed by: Frank Patterson
Starring: Wiley M. Pickett, Leslie Mullin, John Langione
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
It didn’t take too long after Halloween had kicked off the slasher boom for the category to be cursed by continuous mediocrity. As early as 1983 the genre was already struggling to release more than a handful of decent offerings per year and by ’90 the stalk and slash flick had become pretty much the whipping boy of horror cinema. By that time major studios were all aware that repeating the tired formula was no longer a lucrative direction, which left it up to independent and mostly inexperienced filmmakers to continue the legacy that John Carpenter had created. Although there was still an impressive number of features hitting shelves in 88, most of them were weakly produced and 
taken as a whole it was surprising that there were a fair few gems amongst the rubble. Scott Spiegel’s Intruder in its uncut form was a superb gross out classic, whilst Evil Dead Trap proved that the cycle had not yet completely run out of style and panache. William Lustig’s Maniac Cop was successful enough to launch a franchise and we haven’t yet mentioned Hardcover.
It was the continual release of schlock like Blood Lake, Deadly Dreams and The Last Slumber Party that cursed the slasher movie to eight years of obscurity. It finally took the big budgeted flamboyance of Wes Craven’s Scream to provide the necessary resuscitation. Having not heard anything about Demon Warrior before I came across it unexpectedly, I instantly assumed that it was part of the low brow trash that led to the downfall of the slasher phase. But with that said 
the movie boasts an intriguing premise that sits comfortably beside Scalps and Camping Del Terrore as another welcome addition to the Native-American influenced catalogue.
A truck pulls up on a woodland road and out step two laughably dramatised rednecks. The hillbilly lumberjacks are only on screen for around for ten seconds and then they are murdered by an unseen menace. Next we meet a troupe of five young adults that are heading to the same location for a spot of shotgun-target-practice on some of the local wildlife. The area is owned by Neil Willard and has been passed down through three generations of his family. His Grandfather stole the land from an Indian medicine man that was rumoured to have left a curse on the property. According to legend, every ten years a Demon Warrior with an extreme hatred for mankind stalks the forest reaping revenge on those he deems responsible for the pilfering of the tribe’s home. It wouldn’t be much fun if those myths were a falsehood, so regular as clockwork a maniacal assassin turns up with a taste for blood. Will the kids be able to stop this phantom killer…?
Demon Warrior is best described as a bigger budgeted (but still woefully cheap) re-imaging of Fred Olen Ray’s Scalps. The bogeymen from both films are virtually identical and the director even throws in a scalping sequence to confirm my suspicions. Things start promisingly with some crisp Friday the 13th-style first-person cinematography and a couple of shock-jolts that were composed with finesse by director Frank Patterson. Thomas Callaway did a good job with the photography and the tribal-drum score makes a 
refreshing change from the more traditional late-eighties synthesizer rubbish. Flourishes of suspense are juxtaposed with a couple of credible directorial embellishments and there are even a few attempts at humour. The killer looked successfully creepy in demon attire and the inclusion of a bow and arrow as the main murder weapon was a deft touch from the director.
Fred Olen Ray’s notorious slasher was notable for its stark and credibly unsettling atmosphere. Unfortunately despite being produced on twice the budget, Demon Warrior never comes close to the film that it so desperately emulates. Rumour has it that the majority of the actors were drafted from the Texas Baylor University and were not even paid for their inclusion in the feature. Of course it goes without saying that the dramatics are appropriately abysmal. I especially enjoyed the hilarious John Langione – an ‘Italian’ Native American (don’t ask) that portrays about as much emotion as the trees in the forest that surrounded him. Warrior started with 
some credible glimpses of panache from the director that actually led me to believe that this could be a welcome inclusion to the slasher index. Unfortunately, the poisonous cocktail of limp dialogue and an ending plucked directly from stupidsville seriously changed the initial plan I had in mind for a rating. It’s a shame that the dramatics were so scraped from the bottom of the thespian barrel, because at times Demon Warrior showed flashes of potential.
All in all, Patterson’s movie is a mixed bag of ideas – some of them were good, but mostly they were staggeringly mediocre. Because this was released at a time when the slasher genre had been watered down to avoid the scissor happy censors, there’s really no gore worth mentioning. Even the scalping sequence is relatively tame compared to Olen Ray’s graphic depiction. It may not be quite as bad as the aforementioned Deadly Dreams, Blood Lake et al, but not really THAT good either….
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:√√√√
Gore:√
Final Girl: √√
RATING:
Disconnected 1983 Review
Disconnected 1983
Directed by: Gorman Bechard
Starring: Frances Raines, Mark Walker, Carl Koch
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Once again we’re in the realms of slasher movies that just about fit the guidelines of the group. As with The Shaman and Grotesque, Disconnected attempts to branch away from the hackneyed likes of The Prowler and Edge of the Axe without straying too far from the stalk and slash rulebook.
After the credits have rolled we meet Alicia (Francis Raines) the protagonist of the feature. On her way home from work one day she finds an elderly man hanging around mysteriously beside her 
apartment. Sympathetically she allows the stranger to come inside and use her phone, but whilst she’s making a cup of tea, he vanishes from her living room without trace. Later that night, Alicia tells her twin sister Barbara Ann (also Francis Raines) about the mysterious visitor, but she laughs it off telling her sibling that he probably just made a call and left suddenly. We soon learn that these twins don’t exactly see eye to eye, mainly because Barbara Ann keeps sleeping with Alicia’s boyfriends behind her back. Mike (Carl Koch) is the latest in the line of unfaithful partners to get the chop, not only for the aforementioned cheating, but presumably also because he has the worst case of ‘bad mullet syndrome’ that I have ever seen. Imagine a mid-eighties geek with a poodle on his head and you may be able to conjure up your own visual image.
Down in the dumps and on the rebound, Alicia meets up with a guy named Franklin (Mike Walker) and agrees to go out on a date with him. Franklin comes across as a polite fellow and he hides pretty well the fact that he loves nothing more than picking up promiscuous women, taking them back to his flat and then slaughtering them with the handy switch blade that he keeps 
in his bedside cabinet. Around the same time that Alicia meets this undercover maniac, she begins receiving bizarre and frankly quite credibly eerie persistent anonymous phone calls. As the bodies pile up around the city the Police get more and more baffled. Is Franklin the mysterious caller or is the petrified female just a little disconnected?
Disconnected is certainly an oddity of a feature. Almost as intriguing as it is bemusing, it will at times leave you staring at the screen in confusion. After the killer is revealed and dealt with half way through the runtime, the mystery is still un-resolved and to be honest the point of the story remains inconclusive to the viewer. Gorman Bechard’s direction will have you as baffled as the illogical plot line. 88 of the 90-minute runtime looks to have been shot and edited by a retarded gibbon, but then every once in a while he manages to pull off a standout shock sequence that feels out of place amongst the rest of the point and shoot mediocrity. The director’s obsession with wide, spacious and eminently dull backdrops is as tedious as staring at a blank screen and the chapters look to have been sewn together using a chainsaw and a tub of wallpaper paste.
The dramatics from the supporting actors are generally non-existent, but Francis Raines showed flashes of potential. OK, so she’s certainly no Merryl Streep. In fact come to think of it, she’s no Sharon Stone either; but for a breakout performance, I’ve certainly seen worse. She turned up again in the cycle providing the T&A in The Mutilator and she had a short spell in B movies, helped no end by her 
sultry sexuality and intriguing presence. One thing that is worth mentioning is the cheesy but still rather enjoyable soundtrack, which must have soaked up the majority of the minuscule budget. Look out for the hilarious nightclub scene, which in true slasher cheese on toast tradition shows us why the early eighties will always remain a bad disco memory to those that were alive and kicking at the time.
Bechard didn’t attempt to hide the fact that he was making a schlock-a-lock feature. One character says, “I feel like I’m stuck in a low budget horror film, because some man is going round killing young women!” Another character mentions something about nudity and violence and you can tell that the director knew exactly which audience he was aiming to satisfy. I guess in a way he succeeded, because for all its nonsensical and off the wall ramblings, Disconnected remains worth a watch. Yes it’s confusing, and yes it makes very little common sense; but as an authentic take on the slasher formula, there are poorer attempts floating about. The idea was obviously an ambiguous, surreal openness to the conclusion, but the ambition is ruined by a poor script and a clear lack of professionalism. What it did do though was manage something not many can achieve and that’s a few moments of truly eerie uneasiness. Track it down if you can find it.
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:
Gore:√√
Final Girl √√
RATING: 
Stagefright 1980 Review
Stagefright1980
aka Nightmares
Directed by: John D. Lamond
Starring: Jenny Neumann, Gary Sweet, Peter Tulloch
Review by Luisito Joaquín González
Right, the last review that I posted was the wonderful Italian slasher Stagefright and so I thought in order to add some alphabetical structure to the blog, I would follow it up with its namesake from seven-years earlier.
I said before in my review of Small Town Massacre about producer Anthony Ginnane’s mission to put Australia on the map with his Ozploitation efforts of the early eighties. Well surprisingly enough he 
wasn’t involved with this picture, although I’m sure he helped to lay the groundwork for its release. Instead, it was developed and co-written by Colin Eggleton who would go on to direct the interesting Cassandra in 1986. The idea here was most definitely to jump on the express train to profit that Halloween had set in to motion and the references are plain enough for all to see. Despite not offering much in terms of authenticity, it is perhaps worth noting that it was the first to utilise the theatrical set-up as a location for some slashing. This would be repeated a few times and evolve from the stage to film-productions as the cycle aged.
Stagefright or Nightmares as it is also known, has become somewhat of a rare beast and is not often mentioned by slasher fans. I have owned it on VHS for what feels like a lifetime, but funnily enough I’ve only attempted to watch it once.
So it begins with a typical ‘twenty years earlier’ prologue that cancels out any suspicion that this is not a Halloween rip-off. A young girl accidentally kills her randy mother in a car accident and then the credits roll. Move on up to the eighties and a group of actors are preparing for a stage show. Meanwhile it seems that a black-gloved assassin is working his way through the cast with a shard of glass. Who is the killer and what are his motives?
In the González household, we usually cook something really good during the weekend and then use the leftovers on Monday evening for a cooking quickie. It seems that no matter what we have, if you 
chuck it in to a frying pan with a few eggs and potatoes, it usually comes out really well. Stagefright is a similar exercise in juxtaposition and mixes moods that range from macabre horror to outright peculiarity. It’s an incredibly violent movie with a unique murder weapon. The killer always smashes the nearest window, mirror or glass object and then attacks with a large broken slice. The gore effects amount to little more than a splash of ketchup, but it is incredibly explicit in that a large amount of victims are butchered whilst naked. By this I mean COMPLETELY naked. There’s a sex scene in an alleyway early on that pushes the boundaries for acceptability and there’s another when the nut job chases a girl in her skin suit out in to the street. I am sure that if released back then in the United Kingdom, this probably would have been added to the notorious DPP list in a heartbeat. You could even call it the video nasty that never was, but most definitely would have been.
The reason for the large amount of bare flesh is because the script takes the have sex and die rule and amplifies it by a billion watts. The cast are a particularly randy bunch and when not actually making out, they are usually sitting around and talking about doing it. One character even tries to bribe another in to the sack with the promise of a better review and all this activity unsettles our psycho killer and 
kicks him in to action. There are quite a few slaughters that are spaced frequently and at eighty-minutes, you’re never going to get bored. The fact that everything’s filmed in such an energetic fashion means that the mix of a frantic (and very good) score, unnerving screams and some wild photography blur in to something of a horror movie kaleidoscope. Director Lamond shows his inspirations by using countless Carpenter-esque heavy-breath killer-cam shots, which are great for stalking sequences. The thing is that most of the ones that he features don’t lead anywhere and therefore lack impact. Especially the pointless occasions that just show the psycho roaming around backstage. Yawn
The story is structured rather weirdly and pretty much tells us early on who the maniac is, but then utilises the Giallo style of just a black glove whenever he strikes. I was expecting some kind of mega twist 
or justification for the attempt at a mystery angle, but it looks like the writers may have had second thoughts about halfway through and altered the conclusion. This creates an obvious problem and it’s one that certainly leaves a crater in the delivery of the fear factor. You see, it’s very hard to build suspense when you have a menace that remains off-screen. Only maestros can deliver scares from a bogeyman that is nothing more than a hand holding a dagger. So why use that methodology if you’re not really hiding the identity of your assailant? It makes no sense. Add on top of this the fact that Eggleton seems to have edited the negatives with a pair of nail clippers and what we’re left with is a feature that doesn’t even attempt to hide its technical amateurism.
Even though he is an unaccomplished editor, as a writer he excels himself and his hilarious dialogue and intriguing personas are brilliant. I’ve done quite a bit of theatre and can confirm that the featured characterisations are spot on. I once read that celebrities are some of the most non-confident people on the planet and the fact that they’re swimming in a pool of insecurities up on the world’s stage makes them self-centred and narcissistic. The script most definitely touches on that and it means that we can have fun watching them get slashed. And get slashed they do. EVERY single one of them. The performances may not be earth moving and there’s no one really to bond with, but it’s still enjoyable enough to watch.
Ok picture this scenario. You just read my review of Michele Soavi’s Stagefright and so you see the praise that I gave it and go online to buy it on DVD. The retailer makes a mistake and sends you this one instead of the aforementioned Italian classic. None the wiser, you place it your system and hit play. Would you be astounded that I praised it so highly and email me to complain? I would say that probably no. You would maybe question my sanity, but hey; you wouldn’t be the first to do so. My point is that this Australian stalk and slasher is no rancid test of viewing endurance. It’s just that it doesn’t really do enough to make itself stand out. Not a patch on the other entry that it shares a title with, but it will provide you with some cheesy thrills.
Serious collectors should give it a whirl, but don’t go expecting anything outstanding. I mean, it could result in you getting angry, breaking a mirror and chasing some naked bunny out on to the street. I don’t want to be responsible for that dear readers 
Slasher Trappings:
Killer Guise:
Gore:√√
Final Girl: √√
RATING:
