Tag: 1983

Directed by Joseph Sargent [Other horror films: Jaws: The Revenge (1987)]

Nightmares is an anthology that I’ve always been fond of. Which is actually somewhat surprising, given I only really like two of the four stories. Like most anthologies, it’s uneven, but even so, the good outweighs the bad here.

Of the four stories (‘Terror in Topanga,’ ‘The Bishop of Battle,’ ‘The Benediction,’ and ‘Night of the Rat’), I think two of them shine, being ‘Terror in Topanga’ and ‘The Bishop of Battle.’ Because of my affinity toward the Bishop of Battle, as a character (‘I am the Bishop of Battle. I am the master of all I survey,’ is a quote I use too much in real life despite surveying little), and the killer special effects, I’ve always said this story was my favorite, and it still is.

‘Terror in Topanga’ takes a more classic look at thrills, and while it’s the shortest story of the bunch, I think it’s pretty damn effective. If you’ve seen Urban Legend, you might know where the story is going, but that doesn’t mean it packs any less of a punch. It opens the film with a lot of promise, and while not all of the stories fulfill that promise, it still makes one hell of a first segment.

My biggest qualm with ‘Night of the Rat’ is how the rat looks. It reminds me of The Food of the Gods – just a normal rat that’s enlarged and superimposed in the scene, and it just doesn’t look great. Honestly, the story’s not too shabby before then – though I wish that Albert Hague’s character was more involved – which is good, as this story’s around 35 minutes. Up until we actually see the rat, it’s not a bad time at all.

More than anything else, I find ‘The Benediction’ annoying. A priest loses his faith, fails to get any answers to his questions by others in the church (big shock, I know), and on his way to a new life, gets attacked by what seems to be a demonic truck. That scene in which the truck flies out of the ground is pretty cool, but as someone who isn’t at all religious, I was rooting for Lance Henriksen’s character to make a clean break from the cloth (of course knowing he wouldn’t).

As it is, despite not caring for the story, Lance Henriksen (The Horror Show, The Manger 2, Pumpkinhead) might be one of the best performances here, and certainly one of the most emotional. Cristina Raines (The Sentinel) wasn’t the most likable character, Emilio Estevez (Maximum Overdrive) certainly wasn’t likable, and Veronica Cartwright (Alien, The Birds) tended to annoy me a bit (despite the fact she was right about the problem her husband was facing).

Others who stood out, no matter how small their role, including Albert Hague, Anthony James (Burnt Offerings), Richard Masur (The Thing, It), Tony Plana (Slayer), and of course James Tolkan (Back to the Future) for voicing the Bishop of Battle.

And on the Bishop of Battle, again, those special effects (computer generated enemies from an arcade game) were quite cool. To the modern-day eye, they may not look like much, but I found them charming, and like I said, I’ve always rather liked this story. Some classic hustling of a Latino gang, some classic arcade action – it’s like the whole of the 80’s rolled into a single story, and it’s beautiful. Plus, it has the Bishop of Battle, master of all he surveys.

Overall, it’s true that Nightmares is mixed insofar as the stories go, but as much as ‘The Benediction’ and ‘Night of the Rat’ don’t do much for me, I really enjoy the first two stories, so based off that, I do think this movie is a bit above average.

7.5/10

Directed by Bill Rebane [Other horror films: Monster a Go-Go (1965), Invasion from Inner Earth (1974), The Giant Spider Invasion (1975), The Alpha Incident (1978), The Capture of Bigfoot (1979), Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake (1980), The Game (1984), Blood Harvest (1987)]

I’ve always had a soft spot for this rather low budget film. It’s a bit choppy at times, to be sure, but The Demons of Ludlow can be a decent amount of fun, and I rather like the story.

Taking place in a small town (and to specify, by small, I mean the population is a mere 47 people), the story revolves around a bicentennial celebration, town secrets long-thought forgotten, and a demon-possessed piano. It sounds wild, and it certainly can be once the action starts up.

And the action is fun, also. A couple who are enjoying each other’s company in a barn run amok of glowing green hands, and the same hands tear a hole through a woman’s ceiling later on and hang her. There are ghosts dressed as pilgrims that come around toward the end, and they wonderfully decapitate someone with a sword, and for another poor hombre, they cut both of his hands off.

Certainly the movie is a lower-budget production. If you’re familiar with director Bill Rebane (who, among other things, was behind The Cold, or The Game, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Blood Harvest), this may not come as a surprise. Related, the movie was filmed entirely in Wisconsin in the small, unincorporated community of Gleason. This northern Wisconsin community is also where films such as The Devonsville Terror, The Giant Spider Invasion, and Blood Harvest were made, and for good reason.

I love the small town feel of the movie. Only having a population of 47 people is just amazing, and I dig the vibe of the setting. In fact, it leads to a somewhat amusing line toward the end – the lead character (Stephanie Cushna) says to her work acquaintance (James R. Robinson) that it seems dead outside; that the town feels like a ghost town. I can’t imagine the night life of a community of only 47 souls ever seems overly excited, so every time I hear this line, it cracks me up. Also, being a northern Wisconsin community, there’s so much snow around town. It looks a dreadfully cold place to live.

And I have seen this movie more than a couple of times. This might only be my third viewing of the film, but given the generally negative reception the film has (when it has reaction at all – I tend to feel most people forget this movie exists), this goes a long way to show my differences of opinion with others. It reminds me of Drive-In Massacre, a film I rather adore, but is also somewhat of a terrible movie. I guess I’m odd that way.

As for the performances, I thought that Stephanie Cushna and Paul Bentzen (Invasion from Inner Earth and The Alpha Incident) were pretty good, especially once they got together near the end to work on figuring out the curse that Ludlow has fallen under. I also think that James R. Robinson should have a bit more to do with the finale, but he does good with what he has. Playing the mayor is C. Dave Davis, who does great with the small-town mayor aura, and playing a young woman with some mental health issues, I thought that Patricia J. Statz did fantastic. One a tragic note, this is the sole film Statz was in, and she later was killed on September 11th, 2001, as she was working at the Pentagon when the attack occurred.

Obviously, I probably enjoy The Demons of Ludlow a great deal more than is usual. I don’t know why this happens to be the case – even since I first saw it, I’ve always felt an odd affinity to it. It’s not a great movie – the finale is oddly rushed, and I’d have liked a bit more detail about exactly how things went wrong in Ludlow 200 years previous (the basis of the town’s curse), but even with those deficiencies, I’ve always enjoyed the vibe of this one.

It may just be me, and that’s fine, but I rather love The Demons of Ludlow, and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. I’ve seen it three times now, and still consistently have found it above average, and if it’s strange that I enjoy this far more then classic like Carrie and The Shining, so be it.

8/10

Directed by David A. Prior [Other horror films: Killer Workout (1987), Night Wars (1988), The Lost Platoon (1990), Night Trap (1993), Mutant Species (1995), Zombie Wars (2007), Night Claws (2012)]

I’m a simple man, and I didn’t have too many expectations going into Sledgehammer. I knew it’d be cheap – I’m no stranger to SOV horror – and as long as it had a guy killing people with a sledgehammer, I’d be happy.

Well, I’m not sure if I am happy, but there certainly was a man killing people with a sledgehammer. It was often in excruciatingly slow motion, but so was a good third of the film, so maybe that’s not a problem. Okay, it is a problem – I’ve never seen this much slow motion in one movie, and I sort of wonder if they had used the technique more sparingly, whether the movie be more around the 50-minute range as opposed to 85 minutes.

Of course, Sledgehammer is a bit of a classic, at least as far as shot-on-video horror goes, as it’s among the first ones made. And you can tell it’s rough – one of the stars, Ted Prior, is the brother of director David A. Prior (responsible for later films such as The Lost Platoon, Killer Workout, and Night Trap), and if IMDb trivia is to be believed, most of this movie was filmed in his apartment. If you’re watching this film, you probably went in knowing a lot of this, so it shouldn’t come off as too much a shock.

As such, a lot of the movie is tedious in ways that some SOV films tend to be. Luckily it’s nowhere near as bad as Blood Cult or Heavy Metal Massacre, but boy, all of those slow-motion portions are painful, and there’s so damn many. The kills aren’t terrible – ironically, one of the best ones might be a knife going through someone’s throat – but save for the opening scene (which, if you missed, is played again later during a retelling of the horrors of the house), there’s not really any great sledgehammer action. There is a terribly unappealing food fight, though.

If you’re familiar with SOV horror, you’ll probably know that performances aren’t often the highlight, and that holds true for this movie also. If I had to give a shoutout, it’d be to John Eastman, who at least looked different (that mustache was the bomb). Ted Prior didn’t really seem to have that much character, and while I wanted to root for Linda McGill (who was also in a film called Shape-Up for Sensational Sex, which sounds classy), it wasn’t an easy task.

Most people who come into Sledgehammer know full well what the movie is. It’s sort of fun at times – I actually rather like the heavy synth score that permeates the film – and it has that 80’s SOV nostalgic value, but it’s not a film I could see myself watching again anytime soon, and I’d really only recommend it to the horror fans who have likely already seen it.

5/10

Directed by Jim McCullough Sr. [Other horror films: N/A]

With a title like Mountaintop Motel Massacre (which is quality alliteration, by the way), I’d sort of expect the film to be a bit more cheesy. As it is, this film isn’t terrible, but it doesn’t feel at all like most 80’s horror, and almost possesses a bit of a somber feeling to it.

It also stands apart by not being the natural slasher that one might expect by reading the plot. There is some slashing, but beforehand, we’re given something like twenty minutes to get to know the killer, an older woman recently released from a psychiatric institution. It feels more like a character piece at the beginning, the horror not fully kicking in until would-be victims rent a cabin from her.

And because of that, things don’t really pick up until forty or so minutes into the film. It doesn’t help that, at the beginning, our insane woman is content with just scaring her many guests (by letting snakes, rats, and roaches into their rooms). It sort of helps with creating a dark atmosphere, what with her creeping around in underground tunnels and letting bugs loose into peoples’ cabins, but it’s not always the most enthralling material.

Anna Chappell was perfectly acceptable as a woman who’s lost it, but after a while, with little character insight, I can’t say she made an amazing impression. Most of the rest of the cast are in the same boat, sadly. Amy Hill and Virginia Loridans looked good in white, wet t-shirts, and Will Mitchell rocked a solid moustache, I guess. I did sort of like Major Brock in his sole movie role, and Bill Thurman did have some feeling, but these two are the only ones that really stand out.

If it weren’t for the sluggish nature of a lot of the film, I think I’d like the movie more. Once the killing starts, it’s not too shabby. Chappell’s character uses a sickle to kill, which is an inspired choice, and the special effects aren’t half bad. A woman gets badly struck in the face, someone loses a hand, another has their throat slit. When things actually start going down, they go down well. It’s just getting there that’s half the battle.

Now in this movie’s defense, I do appreciate how it attempts to stand out from many of the other horror films at the time by avoiding 80’s sensibilities, such as fun. That might sound like an insult, but it’s more me trying to say that this movie feels much more like a product of the late 70’s than it does the early 80’s. It’s not campy whatsoever, and while there’s an amusing line here and there, the whole atmosphere is somewhat oppressive and somber.

Even so, it’s not my piece of cake. When I first saw this one many years back, I think I was similarly befuddled, because I don’t recollect too much about my reaction, and seeing it with fresh eyes, I can get why a younger me would be confused. Mountaintop Motel Massacre is a movie that should be a cult classic, and perhaps it even is, but it’s not my thing. It’s still worth seeing, to be sure, but if you go in expecting a traditional 80’s slasher, you may not be in for a good time.

6/10

Directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane [Other horror films: The Black Room (1982), Midnight (1989), You’re So Dead (2007)]

Funny story – I saw this one once before many years back, but upon watching it for the second time, literally all of this seems new to me, which goes to show that I was either distracted when I first watched it or Frightmare is a pretty forgettable film. Truth be told, it’s probably a combination of the two.

The best thing about this one is a decapitation toward the end of the movie. Oh, also a young Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator and From Beyond) appears. Otherwise, though, Frightmare is pretty much a mess with little going for it.

I can’t say that the atmosphere wasn’t okay at times, but there’s only so much an 80’s aura can do when the story itself suffers, and ultimately it didn’t help much here. It’s the weak story here that was the biggest problem, and boy, does it drag at times.

Also, it’s rather nonsensical. So, I sort of get why fans of a recently-deceased movie star would abduct his corpse, but – no, wait, I don’t get that. This might be unnecessary to say, but stealing the corpse of anyone seems pretty damn disrespectful, and these kids don’t seem interested in honoring the recently-deceased Conrad Radzoff whatsoever.

Once the action starts up, there’s not a whole lot in the way of memorable kills. Like I said, the decapitation is pretty solid, and there was a pyrokinetic kill, but the tongue scene wasn’t near as fun as you’d hope it’d be, and most of the others were just somewhat baffling (especially the way in which Scott Thomson’s death was cut).

Ferdy Mayne did a solid job as playing a hammy, Christopher Lee/Bela Lugosi rip-off, and he’s probably one of the few commendable performances here. Otherwise, we’re stuck with Luca Bercovici, Jennifer Starrett, and Donna McDaniel. Jeffrey Combs was nice to see, no doubt, but he didn’t particularly stand out here, and our eye candy in Carlene Olson is barely memorable at all.

This one may sound like an 80’s flick that might be worth checking out based on plot alone, but that is really not the case, as Frightmare is truthfully pretty forgettable. Obviously, see it for yourself, by all means, but I would really not go into this one expecting an unseen masterpiece.

5.5/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast – listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss Frightmare.