Christmas Evil (1980)

"You'd better take care... Santa is coming to town!"

For horror fans, having seasonal, 'go to' favourites is par for the course, and Christmas happens to have a host of films that fall nicely into the category. Be it genre classics like 'Black Christmas' or 'Gremlins', there's usually something worth putting your hand to that isn't 'It's a Wonderful Life' to get you through the holidays. One of the less sensational 'seasonal slashers' to come out in the early 80's, Christmas Evil hasn't had the best exposure since its release. Between distribution by Troma and falling into public domain, the film has been experienced by most viewers through terrible VHS-ripped box sets, and rarely given much of a chance to shine on its own. Now that it has gotten legit releases in the last few years, just how well does this blood-soaked Santa suit scrub up?

Read more »

Inseminoid (1981)

"Somewhere in the Depth of Space ... A Horrific Nightmare is About to Become a Reality."

In the wake of the smash hit, Alien, came a slew of imitators; all with low budgets, but all hoping to get their grubby fingers on some of that sweet, sweet coinage. Like most cash-ins, they mainly lacked the sheer style and imagination that Scott's film carried, and instead focused on the more exploitative aspects. Inseminoid was one of several films that came out during the early 80's that fell into the 'knock-off' category, but does it deserve its scuzzy reputation?

Read more »

Deadly Blessing (1981)

"In the rolling hills of a sinful farm community, untouched by time, a gruesome secret has been protected for generations."

We've discussed Craven's career a few times here at The Nostalgic Attic (recently enough actually, with Swamp Thing) and while many of his minor films have flown below the radar, one that seems to get forgotten about completely is Deadly Blessing. Falling into that grey period between The Hills Have Eyes and career re-launcher that was A Nightmare on Elm Street, is it worth digging out of the vault for a re-evaluation?

Read more »

Within the Woods (1978)

There are some films we are so familiar with that it seems pointless even writing about them in any way at all. It's why I seldom cover bigger, well-loved genre films here, and tend to focus on the less championed entries. The likes of The Evil Dead has been spoken about so often on blogs, websites and books that you'd be hard pressed to say anything fresh about it, and if you can't do that, why bother? We know how influential it has been, and how great the sequels are, and how much fun Bruce Campbell is. But what we don't hear about too often is the film made to secure the funding for The Evil Dead, called Within the Woods.

Read more »

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

"Listen sister, if I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you."

For myself growing up in secluded, 1980's Ireland, I never really understood what the whole 'Elvira' thing was about. We didn't have horror hosts on our native TV stations, and seeing her presenting her well-loved show certainly wasn't a possibility. I have vague recollections of noticing some sort of 'Elvira presents...' series on VHS, but the only real exposure I had to her cult phenomenon was from staring/drooling at the VHS sleeve above. Sadly, I knew, there was no way my mother was going to let me come home with that one. Even worse was the alternate sleeve (below) which really went for the more obvious sex appeal for the meat-head males out there. So, being deprived of her charms in my youth, just how well does her persona hold up today?

Read more »

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

"She's a real carpenter's dream: flat as a board and needs a screw!"

By the time Sleepaway Camp was released, the slasher genre was entering a funk, with major backlash from critics and viewers alike. A lot of it was understandable; the mechanics of Halloween and Friday the 13th had been bastardised and pillaged so much that little seemed fresh in the sub-genre, and the budgets had shrunk so low that every small-time company was getting in on the action. Still, there was life in the bloodied beast even by 1983, and sure A Nightmare on Elm Street was only just around the corner. So just how well does Sleepaway Camp hold up in comparison to its bigger budgeted brothers?

Read more »

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

"You coonshits, you fudge packers, you'll be the death of me yet!"

It's late at night on a quiet stretch of Texas highway. Two drunk jocks, Buzz and Rick, are cruising on their way to Dallas, and decide to ring rock DJ 'Stretch' (Caroline Williams; The Legend of Billie Jean, Stepfather II) on her late-night show to give her shit. Unable to get them off the phone, she's forced to keep the line open, becoming more and more frustrated with their drunken nonsense. Suddenly, things take a turn for the scary - a truck starts tailing the two buffoons, nearly running them off the road. Suddenly, a hooded figure leaps up from the back of the truck wielding a chainsaw, and begins to carve their car open. Rick takes a few shots at the mad man with his revolver, but it's too late - Buzz has literally had his head sliced in half, spurting blood all over the car... all while the horrified Stretch listens on.

Read more »

Food of the Gods II (1989)

"No, obesity-breath. This is no ordinary flamethrower. See, I modified this baby myself. I just find the rat, aim, and... kazoom."

One of the reasons as to why I started this blog (back when it was solely for film reviews) was that I was sick of reading 3 or 4 line reviews of films that I felt needed a bit more analysis. You know, the 'I saw this film ten years ago on video, and I don't remember much, but boy was it crummy' kind of reviews that you tend to find on sites like IMDB, especially if you are a viewer of older, less well remembered films as I am. The ratings too can really irk me. I'm a firm believer in not putting a numerical rating on anything I watch; firstly, I don't think that people should just jump to a number on a review and make a decision on whether to watch it or not, and secondly, without context that rating means absolutely nothing. Just because I rate Taxi Driver and say, The Evil Dead the same, does that mean an individual can come to the conclusion that both films are of the same quality or possess the same entertainment value? Of course not, and it's why I don't do it. But sometimes a film gets such a low rating that I have to wonder if those scoring it have actually even seen it. Which brings us to Food of the Gods II.

Read more »

Swamp Thing (1982)

"Oh shit. Here comes trouble."

Of all the big, heavy-hitter names in the legacy of modern horror, none have had such a wildly varied series of highs and lows as Wes Craven. George Romero was consistently great for a long time, but after his candle burned out in the early 90's, he only had a brief comeback with Land and Diary of the Dead before vanishing once again. Tobe Hooper never really found his feel again after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and despite making several entertaining, big-budget films such as Poltergeist and Lifeforce, his name is essentially mud to horror fans these days. Craven though, has been quite lucky throughout the last 4 decades. Despite making one of the most notorious films of the 70's with Last House on the Left, by the early 80's his projects were getting smaller, cheaper and honestly, pretty terrible. He managed to turn the horror genre on it's head in 1984 with A Nightmare on Elm Street pulling him out of the doldrums, a feat he managed to do once again in the mid-90's with the Scream franchise. He has managed to stay floating to this day, with plenty of projects on the go, and many titles in his catalogue now considered 'classics'. But what about those that fell between the hits?

Read more »

My Best Friend is a Vampire (1987)

"She sucked your what??!"

As if dealing with being a teenager wasn't quite bad enough, American filmmakers decided to throw a whole bunch of other problems into the mix, just to make things that little bit more awkward. It was no surprise that they turned to a few classic horror tropes to mingle with the laughs, resulting in the likes of Teen Wolf and, erm, Teen Witch hitting the screens and causing a ruckus. Comedy horror hybrids were big business in those days, thanks to the likes of American Werewolf in London, Return of the Living Dead and Gremlins, and it made plenty of sense to appeal to the younger market with teen-led films in the sub-genre. My Best Friend is a Vampire is a bit of an odd one then, in that, despite the premise, it nearly entirely eschews the horror elements in favour of out-and-out comedy. 

Read more »

The Borrower (1991)

"Don't lend him anything you can't afford to lose!"

Following up on Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer must have been a strange job for director, John McNaughton. His directorial debut had sat on the shelf for 3 years due to 'lack of faith in the project' from the producers, until they reluctantly began screening it in 1989. The film went on to be a cult hit, becoming one of the most controversial films to hit mainstream video in the 90's. Before all that could happen, McNaughton needed to find a new project to prove he could direct, seeing as Henry was unavailable. It seems odd that he landed on The Borrower, as it couldn't be more tonally different from his previous film, but McNaughton has proved over his patchy career that he is never interested in doing what is expected from him. And hey, that's definitely something to celebrate, whether you like his films or not.

Read more »

The Spider Labyrinth (1988)

"There's no God. There's no light. There's nothing."

A young boy runs into a shed while being chased by his friend. The friend decides to lock him in there as a prank, as kids do. Suddenly, a large spider drops down on the boy, sending him into an hysterical fit of screaming. Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) awakens in his bed from the nightmare, soaked through with sweat. Alan has been heading up what is known as the 'Intectus Project'; a world-wide academic study of a mysterious, ancient cult. He gets called into a meeting with the University directors, who advise him that their professor in Budapest has gone quiet, and that he needs to step up and head over there to find out what is going on.

Read more »

Tremors (1990)

"I can't believe we said no to free beer!"

To most horror fans, the 90's was the decade that horror died a stinking, oozing death and retreated to the nether-regions of the video shelves, only to crawl out when Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson made it cool again in 1996. By the time 1992 had rolled around, the amount of larger budget horror films getting made were scarce, with companies like Full Moon opting to just go straight-to-video where they knew they could make the serious cash from horror junkies. The low budget filmmakers switched from making horror to more indie-genre fare in the wake of Tarantino and Kevin Smith, seeing that lack of money didn't have to equal lack of talent. It meant that being a horror fan, we didn't have too many really great films to watch. It wasn't all dead in the 90's, though, as a couple of gems managed to sneak through the financing meat grinder and make it to production. One of the best off the starting block for that decade was Tremors.

Read more »

Cameron's Closet (1988)

"Pray the door remains locked to... Cameron's Closet"

Not many low-budget horror films could ever truly live up to their incredible box art. It was the distributors chance to duke it out with more popular titles on the video shelf, and if you had no big names or faces to plaster across your over-sized box, then coming up with some eye popping art was the way to go. Hey, you gotta hype your own product, right? Occasionally they may have over-shot the mark, but it's the reason why the trip to the video store was always a fun time. I mean, we didn't actually expect all our rentals to be as great as Evil Dead II or Re-Animator. Taking a chance on a title like Cameron's Closet was part of the game.

Read more »

Dressed to Kill (1980)

"Thank god, straight fucks are still in style!"

A blond, mature lady stands in the shower, caressing herself sensuously with a bar of soap as the hot water pours over her body. She smiles at her lover through the fogged up glass as he shaves by the sink. She runs her hands over her breasts, sinking them lower to her crotch, each plunge of her hand sending shivers of excitement through her. Suddenly, from the steam behind her, a hulking naked man appears. He grabs her, with one hand over her mouth, and the other roughly between her thighs. She tries to scream but can't, and blood starts to pour from her violated genitals...

Read more »

Prison (1988)

"Horror has a new home"

Renny Harlin seemed like the bright young hope for Hollywood in the late 80's. He had European-cool credibility but his sights were firmly set on American blockbuster films. After his first two lower budget American outings (which included the 4th instalment in The Nightmare on Elm Street series) were hits, he moved up the ladder and took hold of the sequel to possibly the biggest and most critically acclaimed action film of the 80's, Die Hard. That hit was followed up with the somewhat restrained Cliffhanger, another huge money maker for the time. Things were looking great; he could have been the next John McTiernan or Paul Verhoeven. Sadly, disaster struck in the form of Cutthroat Island, and was followed by several films that failed to do anything interesting, including The Long Kiss Goodnight, Deep Blue Sea and the truly horrible Exorcist prequel, The Exorcist: The Beginning. Looking at his CV it's easy to see that most films that bear his name feel fairly under baked, and his decline isn't really that surprising. So has he ever made a fully great film? Let's go back to the start and see with Prison.

Read more »

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1973)

"I peed in my pants!"

I have a couple of films I like to watch around Halloween. Not always every year, but as often as I can. There are some obvious titles that many horror fans go to without fail; John Carpenters Halloween, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to name but a few. Those definitely qualify on my top ten horror films of all time, but they aren't the first films I turn to at this time of year. Nope, when the leaves are turning brown and the sound of fireworks grows steadily over the days, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things usually pops into my head.

Read more »

Spookies (1986)

"Uuuuuuhh, look at me: I'm Duke, the horny ghost!"

Sporting some of the finest video art that the 80's had to offer, it wasn't hard for Spookies to stick out on the shelves, promising mucho monster action and terror. However, when watching the film, you get the feeling that something rather peculiar is going on, but for some reason you can't figure out what it is. The monsters are there. The awful acting is there. The requisite creepy house is there. Even the death-like demon on the back cover is there, scythe and all. So why the hell is my brain so confused?

Read more »

Flowers in the Attic (1987)

"Look at us mother. How could you do this to us?"

I was never allowed rent Flowers in the Attic when I was a kid. My parents had either enough sense to have heard of the source material, or figured if I wanted to rent it that badly there must have been something really awful in it. I'm not sure what it was that even appealed to me about the video box. Maybe it was the unusual title, or, the fact that it 'shocked 40 million readers'. Or maybe I thought I was gonna see something nasty happen to a bunch of kids, which was usually enough to send me running. Whatever the reason was, the film slipped out of my memory until the last few months when I stumbled across the tape. Was it worth the 25 year wait?

Read more »

Poltergeist (1982)

"Mosquito ever suck on you, son?"

I really do feel sorry for Tobe Hooper. His breakthrough film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, set a benchmark in horror so high that it should have opened every door possible to him over the years that followed it. Eaten Alive just didn't connect with the audience in the same way Chain Saw did, despite going for a completely different tone and feel to it. His TV film, Salems Lot, put him back in public favour, but it wasn't until Steven Spielberg set the pieces in motion for him to direct Poltergeist that things really took off. With a string of big budget flops following quickly, it was back out into the wilderness for Hooper by the end of the 80's, and sadly he has never managed to 're-invent' himself for newer audiences in the same way that the likes of George Romero or Wes Craven have. 

Read more »