Tag Archives: horror films

June 19, 2016 · 4:55 pm

FATHER’S DAY (2011) – A CULT CLASSIC

Father's DayFATHER’S DAY (2011) – I DEMAND A TEAM-UP OF AHAB FROM FATHER’S DAY AND ASH WILLIAMS FROM THE EVIL DEAD FILMS (and television series).

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system right off the bat. Ahab, the eye-patch sporting hero of the Astron 6 horror film Father’s Day is in my opinion the one true successor to Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams. And considering how unfair the ending of this movie is for Ahab and his two sidekicks a case could even be made for them replacing Ash as the most royally screwed character in the history of gore-soaked horror comedies.     

It’s difficult to review this dark, grotesque gem without resorting to a series of catch phrases like “Goes where Dead Alive and similar movies failed to go” or “What Grindhouse hath wrought” or even “Twink and Walnut: They’re NOT Muppets!” Let me start with a more practical line: Do not watch this movie if you can not handle the most offensive violence, concepts, gore and deranged sexuality imaginable.  Continue reading →

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June 1, 2016 · 1:03 am

MANIAC (1934): MOVIE REVIEW

Maniac 1934No, it’s not either version of the splatter film Maniac, it’s the 1934 bad movie classic. I got an e-mail requesting I review it but since I did already – in 2010 in fact, here is an “encore” version. For more bad movie reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/ 

MANIAC (1934) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following        An actor on the run from the law falls in with a mad scientist, Dr Meierschultz. He becomes an accomplice in the good doctor’s dark experiments involving the reanimation of a dead woman (whose corpse he and Meierschultz steal from a morgue) and the transplantation of Continue reading →

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February 23, 2016 · 12:05 am

ROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984)

Rocktober BloodROCKTOBER BLOOD (1984) -This example of the Heavy Metal Horror films of the 1980s was produced, directed and written by Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, a well-known pair to all of us Bad Movie Geeks. The premise of this hilariously bad movie is that Heavy Metal star Billy Eye programs something sinister into his latest album by way of backward-masking. (Like “I buried Paul” and others) 

After listening to those hidden messages to make sure they “took,” Billy Eye molests his just-dumped girlfriend Lynn Starling (Donna Scoggin) then uses a knife to injure her. He’s just getting started, though, and from there he proceeds to slaughter most of his band members, a security guard and nearly 20 other innocent people! 

Billy is tried, convicted and executed for the killing spree. One year after his execution his former flame Lynn Starling has formed her own Heavy Metal group called Headmistress. The band is starting its first nationwide tour, called the Rocktober Blood Tour, unaware of the tedium horror about to envelope them. Continue reading →

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February 3, 2016 · 1:27 am

BLACK ROSES (1988)

Black Roses 1BLACK ROSES (1988) – This legendarily laughable attempt at a horror film belongs to quite a few niche sub-genres. It’s a Canadian horror movie, it’s one of the wonderfully campy Heavy Metal Horror productions of the 1980s and most importantly for trivia lovers Black Roses is one of the Big Three Canadian turkeys to feature Frank Dietz in a supporting role. (The other two are Rock’N’Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare. ) 

Dietz looked too young to be a police detective in Zombie Nightmare and he looks too OLD to be a high school student in Black Roses. But that’s part of his – and the movie’s – charm. He also plays one of the Black Roses in monster form during the film.

You want more kitsch-casting? How about Julie Adams of Creature From The Black Lagoon playing an elderly frump outraged over Heavy Metal’s supposed “Satanic” element?

How about noted musician Carmine Appice as Vinny Apache, one of the demonic members of the band Black Roses?

How about Vincent Pastore from The Sopranos as a Heavy Metal-hating parent who pays for that by getting mauled by a $1.49 spider-puppet AND getting sucked into a speaker playing Black Roses songs?  Continue reading →

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October 26, 2015 · 9:58 pm

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED (1980)

Night of the Hunted 1THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTED (1980) – Halloween Month continues with a review of this French horror film. The Night of the Hunted was written and directed by Jean Rollin, who may be the definitive “love him or hate him” auteur.

My own view has long been that Rollin’s films are like projects David Lynch would direct from scripts by Anne Rice. I also believe that the often pedestrian translations of his movies into English accounts for why some viewers think his films are much less complex than they really are.

With The Night of the Hunted our man Jean departs from his usual tales of the undead and explores a different sort of horror. Brigitte Lahaie, the beautiful starlet of so many Rollin films, stars as Elysabeth, who is part of a pair of women on the run through the night-darkened roadways. Continue reading →

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October 25, 2015 · 4:35 am

SIX ZOMBIE FILMS THAT ARE UNIQUE

If you’re like me you’re bored with all of the zombie and pseudo-zombie films that seem to come out every few months. The 21st Century is as mired in tiresome, cookie-cutter zombie flicks as the 1980s were in tiresome, cookie-cutter slasher flicks.

Here is a look at six films which, while technically classified as zombie films at least adopt unique perspectives and don’t follow established formulas.

ShiversSHIVERS (1975) – David Cronenberg directed this overlooked gem that takes his love affair with body-horror and sets it in what would otherwise be a traditional zombie format. In fact my opinion is that George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead from a few years later shows a lot of this Cronenberg film’s influence.

Barbara Steele is the big name for horror fans in Shivers which was also released under the title They Came From Within. Lynn Lowry and Joe Silver are also in the film.

Countless other movies give us zombies that act purely on the animal instinct to kill and feed. Shivers gives us zombies who act first on the animal instinct to fornicate with killing being a secondary – but no less inevitable – consideration. Continue reading →

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October 21, 2015 · 11:09 pm

DEATH SPA (1989) AND KILLER WORKOUT (1987)

Death SpaAs Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog how about we review a couple of “exercises in horror” (Thank you, I’m here all week!) in the form of Death Spa (1989) and Killer Workout aka Aerobicide (1987). 

DEATH SPA (1989) – Originally begun in 1986 but not completed and released until 1989, Death Spa is my favorite of the two Health Spa horror films of the 1980s. Part of the fun comes from the kitsch casting:

Merritt “Captain Kirk’s Son” Butrick plays David, a man whose sister Catherine killed herself under suspicious circumstances, causing him to blame his promiscuous brother-in law for her death.  

Ken Foree, the cult horror figure, is wasted as a maintenance man whose role is virtually non-existent yet this lame flick gets shown at Ken Foree film festivals. Go figure. Continue reading →

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October 14, 2015 · 9:57 pm

THREE BAD MOVIES FOR HALLOWEEN

Blood SongHalloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Links to previous lists of Halloween Turkeys are below.

Right now here’s a look at three more classically bad horror flicks for the season.

BLOOD SONG (1982) – Singer Frankie Avalon as a 1980’s- style slasher villain! The godfather’s Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) as a co-star and co-producer! Who could possibly resist that? Frankie plays a homicidal maniac who escapes from an insane asylum with his beloved flute/recorder type thingee.

Turns out years earlier a girl played by Donna Wilkes – soon to star as Angel herself – got a blood transfusion from Psycho Frankie. In this movie’s logic-free universe that means that she has a mental link with our mad slasher. This link is causing him to track her down to kill her with the single-minded fury that Mike Myers showed toward Jaime Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies. Continue reading →

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October 13, 2015 · 8:39 pm

NAKED FEAR: FIVE ODDBALL HORROR FILMS FOR HALLOWEEN

The Nude Vampire

The Nude Vampire

Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues with this look at five unusual movies with that certain seasonal feel.

5. THE NUDE VAMPIRE (1970) – France’s Jean Rollin is one of those love-them-or-hate-them directors. The snooty French often bashed his films for their devotion to style over all else. Don’t believe reviews which claim that his movies have no comprehensible storylines. Personally I find him more straightforward than Lynch or Jodorowsky. At any rate the central figure of this arthouse Euro-horror is indeed a beautiful female vampire in skimpy outfits and less.

Members of a Suicide Cult have taken to offering themselves up to a vampress who turns out to be science-spawned rather than supernatural. Throw in various allusions to evolution, morality and mortality for good measure. There’s plenty of eerie and macabre imagery to go with the subtext which not only addresses the previous concepts but also examines the way in which the older generation of any time period always considers the younger generation to be figurative “monsters” who will quite literally inherit the Earth.

I’m not sure if Anne Rice was influenced by Rollin’s films but Continue reading →

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August 27, 2015 · 7:58 pm

SCREAMTIME (1984)

Screamtime 1Screamtime is one of the forgotten horror anthology films from the 1980’s. Supposedly the three main horror tales were originally filmed as individual episodes of a British tv series. Depending on which source you use either the series was cancelled (or never picked up) OR the episodes were deemed to be of too poor a quality.

The trio of horror stories were then edited into movie format for theatrical release with a wraparound story set in New York City. The oddity of the hard-assed New Yorkers watching three veddy, veddy British horror tales is part of the fun of this lame but bearable film. VHS it ain’t. Hell, it’s not even Beta.  Continue reading →

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