Can you believe it’s just one week until Halloween!
In a nod to So Bad They’re Good slasher films Balladeer’s Blog has examined some of the worst Michael Myers imitators as well as a few forerunners. FOR 13 HEAVY METAL HORROR MOVIES CLICK HERE.
BARTHOLOMEW
Movie: Horror House on Highway Five (1985)
Lore: Bartholomew wore a Richard Nixon mask while slicing and dicing his victims. He was a simple-minded man transformed into an unstoppable killer by a Nazi mad scientist … A Nazi mad scientist who, strangely enough, wore a yarmulke. With a swastika on it. (?)
FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE
MISTER RABBEY
Movie: The Psychopath (1975)
Lore: Mister Rabbey was a child-minded nutcase who hosted a Mister Rogers-type kiddie show. When he discovers that some of the children he visits at the local hospital have been abused by their parents he sets out to kill those abusers. He kills by strangling one victim with his security blanket but also uses weapons like a baseball bat, garden shears and a lawnmower in his deadly crusade.
FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE Continue reading
WAXWORK (1988) – I’m often surprised at how comparatively overlooked Waxwork is when it comes to 1980s horror films. It’s played straight, packs in a variety of menaces, fun Easter Eggs and sufficient scares and gore for that decade of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. A sequel followed in 1992.
OGROFF aka The Mad Mutilator (1983) – This thoroughly bizarre French movie whose maker somehow conned horror icon Howard Vernon into appearing is easily one of the worst films ever made. Norbert G. Moutier owned a video store in France and published a horror fanzine. 
CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS (1987) – This Bad Movie Classic may be my favorite non-
TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987) – The second and – to date – final movie written and directed by Chester Novell Turner. The man’s films became so renowned for being legendarily bad that in 2014 a documentary about their making was released under the title Return to the Quadead Zone. 
Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at my top horror movies of the past fifty years. It is NOT a list of my all-time favorite horror films, just the ones that fall within the round number of fifty years. 
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) – Directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, this movie was an unabashed valentine to H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King’s imitations of Lovecraft, and The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers. The King in Yellow, of course, is the 1895 book 
Soon, Trent is visited in his padded cell, where he has used a black crayon to cover his body and the padded walls with crucifixes for protection. His visitor is Dr Wrenn, played by David Warner, the panicked, crucifix-surrounded man from The Omen, now talking to the panicked, crucifix-surrounded Sam Neill in this film. (I admit that’s a sly touch in keeping with the style of the movie. It even has echoes of the victim in the 1970s film Equinox fixating on his protective crucifix.) 
JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES (1998) – Halloween Month rolls along with this look at John Carpenter directing James Woods as Vatican-sanctioned vampire hunter Jack Crow. As always, James Woods is like a force of nature. When he’s on the screen he virtually blows away most of the people with whom he shares that screen. 
TWO THOUSAND MANIACS (1964) – For people who’ve never heard of Herschell Gordon Lewis, I’ll point out that he’s known as “the Godfather of Gore.” And not even GOOD gore, but the obviously fake kind that makes you laugh. Add to that the inept acting, bland dialogue and quickie production techniques like you’d get in old black & white flicks and you’ll understand the man’s Bad Movie magic. 
SCORPION THUNDERBOLT – Yes, it’s Scorpion Thunderbolt, the horror movie that has absolutely NOTHING to do with EITHER scorpions OR thunderbolts! They could have titled this thing Terms of Endearment 2 and it wouldn’t have been any less appropriate. 
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