Category: 1980’s

Directed by Kirk Alex [Other horror films: N/A]

More than anything, Lunch Meat is a bit of a tedious film. The plot isn’t anything terrible, but the approach is quite dull, and I don’t really think Lunch Meat has a lot going for it.

In fact, the most interesting thing about the film is that, if you search for it on IMDb, it won’t come up. This seems to be because one of the actresses, Ashlyn Gere, later went on to do pornographic films, and maybe IMDb thinks Lunch Meat is one of them. Maybe because it has “meat” in the title. It’s odd, because other films she was in, such as Creepozoids, Dreamaniac, and Evil Laugh, all come up without an issue.

That’s easily the most interesting thing about Lunch Meat, though. The story isn’t bad – imagine if Wrong Turn were made 16 years earlier on a shoe-string budget, and you’d get the picture. A man and his three sons kill people for meat, and six young folks run amok of them. It might sound like an okay film, and it probably could have been under different circumstances, but it just feels so dull.

To be honest, none of the six protagonists (Bob Joseph, Ashlyn Gere, Joe Ricciardella, Marie Ruzicka, Rick Lorentz, and Patricia Christie) really stood out. I guess Ricciardella had some of the better scenes – trying to set traps against those coming after him – but they were all relatively without character and pretty interchangeable. The four cannibal antagonists (Chuck Ellis, Mitch Rogers, Robert Oland, and Elroy Wiese) were a little more interesting, but not much, and certainly none are anywhere close as fun as we get 16 years later in Wrong Turn.

Also, the gore is pretty non-existent. I guess there’s a decapitation somewhat early on, but it’s one of the least memorable decapitations imaginable, and few of the other scenes do much. Someone gets stabbed a lot, a couple of people get a pickaxe through the foot, and someone gets beaten with a stick, but there’s nothing here that would really impress most people.

A movie like Lunch Meat could have been, at the very least, entertaining, but the approach the film takes is so dry, even during the more action-oriented portions. There’s never much in the way of tension or dread, we never really learn much about the characters, and it’s just a rough movie throughout.

5.5/10

Directed by Bruce D. Clark [Other horror films: N/A]

I can’t say that I overall care a lot about Galaxy of Terror, but I do appreciate that it had heart, and while the final product isn’t great, I can dig what they were going for.

Most of the small problems work themselves out. For instance, throwing us headfirst into a strange world with no context and characters with odd names (we have Trantor, Baelon, Cabren, Alluma, Quuhod, Kore, Dameia, Ilvar, Cos, and Ranger) and no real introductions, it can be tough, but after a while, the characters get differentiated nicely, and before long, you can tell a Quuhod from a Dameia in no time.

The larger problem is the conclusion to Galaxy of Terror. It’s unsatisfactory, yes, but more than that, I don’t know how much sense it makes, at least with what I was able to gather. Parts of it, such as the origin of the pyramid, were sort of cool, but other aspects just felt too unexplained.

Aside from the final ten minutes, though, the film is pretty decent. There are some pretty memorable kills: a dismembered arm kills the person it came from with a crystal star, someone has their stomach slit open and is thrown down a rather long chasm, and another poor soul is crushed to death, and it looks like their head explodes. Oh, and there’s also a rather gruesome alien rape scene that I’d rather not think too much about. Truth be told, that’s a scene I could have done without.

The performances were largely solid too. To be honest, I didn’t think too much of Edward Albert (The House Where Evil Dwells, Sea of Fear, Killer Bees, Demon Keeper), but it’s not as though he were a bad lead. It’s just that this film also has Sid Haig (House of 1000 Corpses, A Dead Calling) and Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Kantemir, Eaten Alive), so it’s difficult for Albert to stand out. It could be fairly said that neither Haig nor Englund do much, but I did like’s Haig’s character, as I don’t know many people who live and die by the crystal, and Englund had surprisingly high staying power.

Regardless, those three were among the most memorable, but I also thought Bernard Behrens, Ray Walston (The Stand), Grace Zabriskie and Erin Moran did well. The best of these four would probably be Walston, but I can’t say I loved where his story went, and Behrens was a rather more likable individual.

It’s a shame, really. I went into Galaxy of Terror with the hopes of singing it’s praises. It’s a film I’ve seen before, and I remember it a bit more fondly. I think I probably spaced out toward the end, or perhaps it’s because the movie feels like it should be better. It’s not the earliest space-based horror (even discounting Alien, you have both Planet of the Vampires and It! The Terror from Beyond Space), but it seems to me that it should be one of the funnest, and I just don’t know if it personally hits that level with me.

All-in-all, I didn’t have a bad time revisiting this movie. I really didn’t care for the finale, though, and unfortunately, as okay as the rest of the movie could sometimes be, I think the film falls a bit below average, at least for me.

6/10

Directed by Russell Kern [Other horror films: N/A]

I’m not sure what this mid-80’s obscurity was supposed to be, but if there’s one thing you can say about The Spirits of Jupiter, you have to admit it’s unique.

Reminding me a bit of films like The Crazies and The Carrier, The Spirits of Jupiter deals with the impact that an astrological event has on a small Colorado town. People go crazy – some of it’s harmless, such as lying on your back and riding a bike in the middle of the sidewalk – but most of it results in violence, especially from the police force, who end up shooting everyone on sight.

It’s not an easy movie to describe. There’s a lot of action sequences and chases (be it chases in the air between a helicopter and a plane or ground chases on motorcycle), so it has an action vibe going, but it also has people becoming unstable, resulting in massive death and violence, which is where I’m guessing the horror label comes in. Oh, and let’s not forget this is caused by the gravitational pull of Jupiter or something (they give a six, seven minute explanation of what’s going on about halfway through, but I was already checked out, tbh) which gives the film a science fiction twist.

Here’s the thing – the movie doesn’t have a bad idea or set-up. It’s a mildly interesting idea – a rugged, mine owner has to go into a town full of crazies and rescue his son and daughter – and the action sequences on their own are all pretty solid. In fact, there’s a decent amount of solid scenes in the film.

For instance, the hero early on, who is also a plane pilot, is leaning out of his plane and shooting people, which was hardcore. A police officer pulls over a woman and, upon seeing her license is expired, shoots her in the head. A woman complains to a butcher about the quality of the meat, and gets her hand chopped off. The police lined up a group of people and shot them all down. And let’s not forget the motorcycle chase toward the end.

However, here’s the other thing – this movie is an hour and 47 minutes long. It’s way too damn long, and while some of the sequences are decent, they don’t pop up near enough and, truthfully, they’re probably not worth it anyway. There’s also the matter about some of the comedy – a lot of it comes from Richard Luna’s character, but there’s other characters, such as the manager at the mines (IMDb doesn’t list many credits, and the VHS rip that I saw this in does not lend much clarity to the matter) who just have sort of a slapstick feel. It’s intentional, I’m sure, but it’s not particularly enjoyable.

I admit, I thought Rex Cutter made a nice, rugged lead. He had an occasional John Wayne thing going, which I can appreciate in short bursts. James Aerni was amusing at times, and made an okay antagonist when he bent that way, I guess. Otherwise, given the scant nature of the credits, I’ll just say that few even came close to standing out, aside from Richard Luna as the self-monikered Nostradamus, a character who cared far too much about coffee and not near enough about being sensible.

If you’ve seen The Spirits of Jupiter, and you can excuse the lengthy runtime, you might have had a good time with it. It’s lower-budget, but I certainly don’t think it’s a movie that didn’t try. To be clear, I don’t exactly know what it was trying, but I do know that it tried. It’s not a movie I liked that much – portions were okay, but getting there took so damn long – but if you want something different, and you have a couple of hours to waste, give it a shot.

5.5/10

Directed by Richard Casey [Other horror films: Horror House on Highway 6 (2014)]

Horror House on Highway Five is a movie I’ve wanted to see for a long time. I never deluded myself that it’d be a good movie, but it’s still something I wanted to scratch off my list for years, and I can say now that I have seen it, and unsurprisingly, I was disappointed.

Which is sort of amusing, because the film is more ambitious than I would have thought, but it’s in that ambition that it lost me. See, all I knew about this film was that there was a killer in a Richard Nixon mask and he terrorized some college kids.

What I didn’t know is that this Nixon-masked killer isn’t the only killer – there’s two other antagonists who kidnap people as part of some unspecified sacrifice, and there’s also some stuff dealing with a Nazi scientist who came to the USA. It’s also moderately comedic, which is something else I wasn’t clear on.

Look, if the film had been just a single guy in a Nixon mask going around and killing college kids, it might have been uninspired, but at least it’s a plot I can get behind. What this movie had was just too out there – I don’t know why they decided to deal with a Nazi scientist, some brothers who were ineffectual half the time, and brain parasites (?) that may or may not be a delusion of one of the characters. It just complicated things unnecessarily.

So with the bizarre plot out of the way, it’s time to talk about what few performances did something for me. Max Manthey was occasionally amusing. Michael Castagnolia worked okay with Susan Leslie, and Irene Cagen could dance with the best of them.

There are some funny scenes here, of course. A man and woman driving by encounter the Nixon-masked killer, leading to some great lines, from ‘Is he giving me the fingeroo?’ to ‘he sure is a big motha.’ It’s partially the delivery, partially the dialogue, but it’s funny. There’s also Gary’s (Max Manthey) dance, which reminded me of Crispin Glover’s classy dance in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. There’s also a character who finds a dead cat in the back of their van, and the other character there literally doesn’t seem concerned at all. It’s just wacky.

I can imagine in some situations Horror House on Highway Five can be a fun movie to watch, but most of those situations involve drugs and alcohol. It can be funny, yes, but personally, that’s not enough, and while I sort of dug the final scenes, this isn’t a movie I particularly enjoyed, and though I’m happy I finally saw it, I can’t say it’s really worth seeing unless you’re into bizarre and possibly drug-influenced movies.

5/10

Directed by Larry Stewart [Other horror films: N/A] & Peter Crane [Other horror films: N/A]

This is one of those bigger 80’s slashers that I’ve long heard about but never took the time to watch until now. I didn’t know much going into this one, and come the finale, I did find The Initiation pretty close to top-notch.

Plot-wise, the movie is sort of interesting. A lot of films that deal with teenagers or college kids staying someplace overnight (be it One Dark Night, Chopping Mall, or Hide and Go Shriek) would have the individuals get there early on, and most of the movie would take place there. In this case, it’s not until halfway through the film, following character introductions and some plot set-up, that we even see the mall where this sorority prank will take place.

On this sidenote, I have to briefly pause from the movie and reiterate my distaste of fraternities and sororities. This film wasn’t near as bad as movies like Pledge Night or Final Exam, because the prank here was relatively harmless (though it was illegal, so here’s a case of a sorority pushing their pledges to actively break the law – great sisterhood rolls eyes), and there was one character who saw how foolish the whole thing was (kudos to Paula Knowles’ speech), so it’s still tolerable in The Initiation’s case, but boy, do I despise the concept of sororities and fraternities.

Back to the movie, though, I’ll admit that I didn’t see the finale coming. I was of two minds as to how the film could end, and one of my ideas was somewhat shot about halfway through the film. I’m not sure if I particularly love how they chose to end the film, but there were enough hints throughout, and as much as I might have preferred the way I would have concluded it, this ending makes more sense.

Daphne Zuniga (The Dorm That Dripped Blood and The Fly II) made for a pretty likable lead, and I thought she did well. Vera Miles (Psycho), who played her mother, was quite unlikable, and I couldn’t stand her for a single moment, possessing that ‘Karen’ vibe, so she did a good job with a detestable human. Clu Gulager (Hunter’s Blood, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and The Return of the Living Dead) didn’t appear all that often, but it is always nice to see a familiar face.

Others did pretty well also. James Read was my favorite character of the movie, though he did get testy with another of my favorites, played by Joy Jones (in her sole role). Patti Heider played one of the most ill-fitted characters I’ve ever seen to have a job involving the mentally ill, and the other two central sorority pledges, played by Hunter Tylo (credited as Deborah Morehart) and Marilyn Kagan, did well also, especially Kagen, who played another rather likable character.

None of the kills are absolutely amazing, but we did get some fun ones, such as an archery kill, a throat-slitting, an off-screen decapitation (but the silhouettes were nice), some cultivator action (it’s that garden tool with claws – you learn some new things every day), and lastly, a surprise appearance by a harpoon gun. None of these deaths are overly gruesome, but all are of decent quality.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t expect to enjoy The Initiation as much as I did. It’s a pretty fun slasher, and though I have some minor qualms regarding the finale, it’s certainly a movie that slasher fans may want to check out.

8/10

Directed by Nathan Schiff [Other horror films: Weasels Rip My Flesh (1979), The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980)]

Among the most repulsive films I’ve witnessed, They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is somewhat of a classic, in my eyes. The gore effects here, while often looking exceptionally fake, are absolutely gruesome, and if you want an extreme movie, this is one you have to see.

The plot here is pretty much non-existent. Two southern gardeners in a well-to-do northern community kill and mutilate people. And that’s it. It’s 70 minutes of these two gardeners killing and mutilating people, occasionally taking time off to go to the movies to watch other people kill and mutilate. It’s a good time.

Nathan Schiff is a director I’ve long respected for this movie alone. I’ve not seen his other films (most well-known ones including The Long Island Cannibal Massacre and Weasels Rip My Flesh), but I saw They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore a long time ago, and while I never loved it, it stuck with me, because the gore effects are simply as tasteless as one could imagine.

I won’t spend much time talking about the gore – you have to see the movie for yourself. I can tell you that if you want to see people’s legs and arms cut off with chainsaws and handsaws, then They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is your movie. If you want to see intestines pulled out of peoples’ stomachs and vaginas and then beat to an unrecognizable pulp, They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is your movie. And if you want to see faces ripped and torn up, all the way to the bone, with the jaws ripped off and the tongues ripped out, their eyes squeezed from their sockets (and they always made a point of squishing them in their hands), then I need only repeat myself once more:

They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is your movie.

The dialogue is often quite flat and stale, but it’s also some of the most hilarious stuff I’ve ever heard. From the weak and utterly without emotion “Please don’t rape me,” to the way these two women get out of captivity – wait, no, I need to explain this scene in detail.

See, two women have been captured by the maniac gardeners, but luckily, one of the women is a psychiatrist. She knows how to deal with the mentally disturbed (“You are in great need of psychiatric help”), and will use those skills to get out of the situation. So when one of the men comes in, she asks him to grab her mirror and look at himself. Once he does, and he looks into the mirror, she says, her tone helpful, “Look, look how fucking ugly you are. You’re a disgrace.”

I lol’d. A lot.

Or when two cops are discussing a murder – they’re standing over a body (we don’t see the body – we don’t see an inkling of a body – but it’s apparently there), and one of the cops is quite negative when considering the killers, thinking that the boxcars happened 40 years too soon (referring to the Holocaust). The other cop says they still need to solve the crime, and the cop replies “Fuck that, I’m going home to listen to my Billie Holiday tape.”

I lol’d. A lot. It’s funnier because these cops literally never show up again. They were in this single scene that had zero relevance, and that’s it.

Another point here – we get some musical numbers. One is a song that is played on the radio that these two women are listening to. The song, sung by a woman, is about how stupid she [the singer] is, and the catchy chorus goes “That’s why he calls me Dumb Dumb Yummy Yummy Dumb Dumb.” I couldn’t make that up if I tried.

Also, toward the end of the film, the killers are laying back and relaxing, one of them strumming a guitar, the other playing a harmonica. And they sing for us, and here’s the whole song:

“We came up here from Texas / But it didn’t work out for us / We met a lot of fine people / But they ain’t around no more / We were professional gardeners / But it got to be a bore / So seek some new adventure / Cause we don’t cut the grass no more.”

Genius.

Oh, and I forgot one of my favorite lines in the movie. While a woman is attempting to defend herself, and beating on one of the gardeners (played by John Smihula, who does beautifully), the gardener says “Keep this up, bitch. There’s going to be a lot of irate neighbors complaining about their uncut lawns.”

I lol’d.

This movie is a mess, and it’s not a good movie, but it can be quite an amusing movie if you’re into low-budget, ultra-gory films. They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore is something special, and while I can’t honestly give it a high rating, I can say that it’s a treat in many ways.

6/10