Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Your old pal Brain Hammer is back from the grave with my latest edition of PICKS FROM THE CRYPT. This time around I’ve selected three of my very favorite flicks featuring a lunatic on a psychotic killing spree. These classics are often overlooked by horror fans and deserve a larger audience. Best of all, all three of these flicks are available on dvd and can easily be found for a reasonable price. LET THE BLOODSHED BEGIN!!!
GIRLS NITE OUT (1984)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087336/
This delightful film opens inside an insane asylum. An especially dangerous patient named Dickie Cavanaugh is found hanging in his cell. Two orderlies begin digging a grave for an impromptu burial and wind up getting snuffed and thrown into the grave by an unseen maniac for their efforts. Meanwhile at nearby Dewitt University, it’s time to celebrate as the basketball team wins a big game and earns a spot in the state championships.
A costume party is thrown in honor of the team later that evening. As the kids party down they swap stories about Dickie’s murderous legacy. The fun is short lived, as the team’s token fat slob Pryor picks a fight with Benson the team mascot for flirting with his girlfriend. Pryor rants about whores taking all they can get and then storms off. When Benson goes back to his dorm room after the party he is quickly dispatched by the killer, who then swipes his stupid looking bear costume.
The next night, there is a big scavenger hunt sponsored by the campus radio station. The killer sneaks into the radio station and discovers the secret locations where the items are hidden. Armed with this knowledge and a homemade glove full of steak knives (Freddy Krueger eat your heart out!), the killer then sets out to annihilate as many bubble headed co-eds as possible. The goofy looking ghoul possesses a burning hatred for women and loves to call them bitches while ripping their throats out.
As the body count quickly rises, the head of campus security, Mac (Hal Holbrook!) tries to stop the insanity and find the killer. As police and reporters search the campus for clues Mac receives a phone call from the madman, who claims to be Dickie Cavanaugh. When Mac calls the asylum he discovers that Dickie is indeed dead and that his body was claimed by a relative. Mac is convinced that this mysterious relative holds the key to the secret of the killer’s identity. He then races to stop the scavenger hunt and warn the girls that the next time they go to a fancy dress up party they should check who’s going with them.
This is hands down my favorite 80’s slasher flick where a killer in a bear suit runs around snuffing sorority sluts with a big paw full of steak knives and calls them all bitches, sluts, and whores while doing it. Look for a great phoned in performance from Hal Holbrook in this baby. He only appears in a few brief scenes (usually sitting down at a desk, talking on the telephone) and yet somehow still receives star billing. The producers must have had photos of him blowing a guy or something. Hal’s chubby son David co-stars. You might remember him as the fat puking slob who gets an arrow in the throat from Old Chief Wood’nhead in Creepshow 2. Or not.
Die hard fans of Revenge Of The Nerds (myself proudly included) will enjoy seeing Julie Montgomery (Betty!) get the dutch oven treatment from her gassy love interest. Another putrid element of the film is the soundtrack, which features stinky moldy oldies like Hot Town Summer In The City and Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love In My Tummy. Slasher fans should also keep a look out for brief appearances from Carrick Glen, who stole the show a few years earlier with her classic shower scene in The Burning and Rutanya Alda, who starred in Christmas Evil and Amityville II: The Possession.
GIRLS NITE OUT is a must see, very enjoyable flick for hardcore slasher enthusiasts. Fans of cheesy and sleazy slashers with perverse sexual twists like Sleepaway Camp should eat this up. Shriek Show released GIRLS NITE OUT on dvd as part of their Guilty Pleasures line of campy cult classics. The bonus features include an alternate opening credits sequence, a brief interview with Julie Montgomery, and the original theatrical trailer, which I consider to be one of the all time greats.
Judge for yourself!
INTRUDER (1989)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095379/
The night crew at a small supermarket is having a rather shitty night at work. First, head cashier Jennifer’s creepy and violent ex-boyfriend Craig shows up fresh from the joint to confront her at closing time. After she refuses to discuss their past relationship at work, Craig manhandles her and then trades punches with a few of the employees before finally being chased away. After the dimwitted, inept, and elderly local police make a brief and useless appearance, the owners of the store tell the crew that the store is closing for good, and that they will all lose their jobs in a few weeks!
After much bellyaching the night crew eventually gets back to the evening’s work. Immediately afterward, their young lives are quickly cashed in express lane style by an unseen intruder who has somehow made his way into the store. One by one, the night crew are brutally slaughtered until only Jennifer is left standing. Jennifer then has to band together with the last person she wants to see in order to stay alive and survive the wraith of a deranged lunatic who is just crazy about the store. Can Jennifer survive the final check out?
INTRUDER has to be considered one of the most brutal slasher flicks ever made! The special effects in this flick by KNB are the stuff of legend for gorehounds. I’m talking really nasty splatter, with completely over the top death scenes involving meat hooks, ban saws, and cardboard bailers! I worked at a grocery store for years and found these work hazard related death scenes to be very satisfying! These hardcore gore effects are the film’s biggest asset. The first 40 minutes or so of this flick are sort of boring, but as soon as the blood starts flowing the fun doesn’t stop until the credits roll.
There’s also an abundance of wacky characters (the guy who plays Bub is fucking hilarious) and inventive and sometimes goofy camera work. This especially fun slasher flick was written and directed by Scott Spiegel, who also wrote Evil Dead 2. Scott did a great job in his directorial debut. One of my favorite parts of the movie is a hilarious shot that gives us the point of view of a telephone.
INTRUDER was co-written by Lawrence Bender who went on to produce Pulp Fiction as well as numerous other Hollywood blockbusters. Fans of the Evil Dead series should love this flick as it features both Sam & Ted Raimi as body count fodder and a special guest appearance from Lawrence Bender and Bruce groovy Campbell! Hardcore 80’s slasher fans will no doubt enjoy seeing the one and only Renee Estevez (Sleepaway Camp II) in a small supporting role.
INTRUDER is a very well made and original horror flick, and a must see for all fans of gory slashers. It amazes me that this flick is not more well known. The micro-budget (only about $1000!) and lack of distribution quickly ushered this one into semi obscurity. When originally released on home video in the dying days of the 80’s slasher craze, the film was severely edited to earn an R rating. I think that may have something to do with why the film was overlooked. The few horror fans that bothered to rent this one were probably sorely disappointed by the lack of gore and told their friends to avoid it.
Like any graphic horror flick, this needs to be seen UNCUT to be fully appreciated. The fine folks at Wizard Entertainment released a beautiful looking fully uncut dvd of INTRUDER. This is a dvd that no respectable horror collection should be missing.
Check out the dvd trailer for INTRUDER (spoilers abound, so beware if you care):
POPCORN (1991)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102690/
The lovely Jill Schoelen (Cutting Class) stars as Maggie, a film student at the University of California who is tormented by reoccurring nightmares. In her dreams, Maggie watches helplessly as a young girl named Sarah is pursued by a mysterious sword swinging Rasputin lookalike. Maggie is baffled as to what the bizarre dreams could possibly mean and keeps a journal detailing her hazy memories. Maggie is convinced that the nightmares would make a fantastic screenplay, but her mother (Dee Wallace Stone of The Hills Have Eyes & The Howling fame) is concerned and urges her to put the dreams behind her.
Meanwhile, Maggie’s film class decides to hold a fund raiser. At the urging of their professor (Tony Roberts), the students plan an all night horrorfest in an old abandoned movie theater. Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian) makes a brief appearance as a fruity old vaudeville performer who schools the kids on the rich history of the Dreamland theater and gives them access to a large trunk full of vintage William Castle styled film gimmicks. As the kids clean up the theater for the fund raiser (set to a musical montage that gave me Revenge Of The Nerds flashbacks) a geek named Toby (Tom Villard, who can play a geek with the best of them) stumbles upon a short film reel titled The Possessor.
The kids then watch the disturbing short film, which is eerily similar to Maggie’s nightmares. The title role of The Possessor is played by a deranged hippy filmmaker named Lanyard Gates. Gates was driven over the edge by scathing reviews and composed the film as his ultimate revenge on critics and unappreciative audiences. At the end of the film’s one and only screening, Lanyard Gates proceeded to kill his entire family on stage, with the sole exception of his daughter Sarah. Sarah was saved at the last moment by her Aunt, who shot Gates and then accidentally started a massive fire that killed several innocent people inside the Dreamland theater.
Normally a morbid revelation like this would be enough to scare reasonably intelligent kids away, but this is a horror movie, so the class decides to hold the horrorfest at the theater anyway. The lineup consists of a terrible trio of schlocky sci-fi flicks with titles like The Stench & The Amazing Electrified Man. A large audience full of idiots in Halloween costumes shows up and quickly packs the theater. The fun is short lived however, as someone in the audience is hellbent on bringing the horrors of The Possessor back to life.
The seemingly harmless props that the kids were planning on scaring the audience with are turned into deadly weapons, and unfortunate victims are impaled, gassed, and electrocuted. But who is this maniac? Could it be Lanyard Gates back from the dead? Or is it someone who has been possessed by The Possessor and is compelled to finish to his life’s work? Maggie and her dimwitted love interest try to solve the mystery and eventually uncover a madman with a penchant for disguises and a thirst for revenge.
POPCORN was written and partially directed by the one and only Alan Ormsby (Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things). Alan quit the picture after just three weeks of shooting and took his name off the film. The screenplay is credited to Ormsby’s pseudonym Ted Hackett. (Hack it!) This was a notoriously troubled production. Jill Schoelen replaced the original lead actress shortly after the film begin shooting. The title Popcorn originally referred to an element in the story that was later removed and never shot. Regardless, the producers decided to keep the title, which does make sense considering the bulk of the film takes place in a movie theater.
The always underrated Alan Ormsby deserves a lot of credit for being one of the first people to pay tribute to the classic horror flicks of the 50’s and for turning the slasher film on its ear by neatly parodying the genre. Unlike a lot of modern horror flicks that attempt to do the same thing, you never get the feeling that he is completely taking the piss out of the genre. This is a loving tribute, done with hearts in the right place. POPCORN isn’t particularly gory but it makes up for a lack of blood with tons of energy and a mounting sense of dread and intensity. There are some very nice performances along the way from Jill Schoelen and Tom Villard. Jill is cute as a button and the always offbeat Villard pretty much steals the show.
Sadly, when it was first released in 1991, POPCORN came and went with the force and stench of a stale popcorn fart. The early 90’s were a shitty time for horror flicks and so-called fans that were burnt out on the genre turned their noses up at this one. Since then, the film had repeatedly played on cable and gone on to be something of a cult favorite. Elite Entertainment released POPCORN on dvd a few years back. The print is a bit murky looking, and there’s not much in the way of bonus features. The highlight of the disc is a collection of tv spots that include a funny parody of those I’m going to Disneyland commercials. After watching these ads the film’s tag line BUY A BAG, GO HOME IN A BOX will be permanently tattooed into your brain.
Check out the trailer!
KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!
Read All of “Brain Hammer’s Picks From the Crypt!”
