If cinema is a grand buffet, then Skeeter is that suspicious potato salad that’s been sitting under the sneeze guard for three days—technically edible, but guaranteed to ruin your evening. Released in 1993 and shoved onto VHS in 1994 like an embarrassing family secret, Skeeter proves that not all creature features are created equal. Some … Read More “Skeeter (1993): The Mosquito Movie Nobody Asked For” »
If cinema were a classroom, Shhh! would be the kid in the back who won’t stop tapping his pencil, giggling at his own jokes, and occasionally screaming for attention. Written and directed by Upendra, this Kannada horror-thriller has the nerve to call itself Shhh!—an ironic title for a film that spends nearly three hours throwing … Read More “Shhh! (1993): A Thriller So Loud You’ll Beg for Silence” »
There are bad movies, and then there are movies that look like they were filmed on a borrowed camcorder during somebody’s weekend trip to rural Tennessee. Savage Vengeance is firmly in the latter camp, a bottom-of-the-barrel “rape and revenge” flick that makes I Spit on Your Grave look like Citizen Kane. Directed by Donald Farmer—yes, … Read More “Savage Vengeance (1993): Revenge Served Cold, Cheap, and Out of Focus” »
Every so often a movie comes along that dares to challenge the conventions of cinema. It boldly asks: What if we combined police drama, horror, religious guilt, and a drag queen side quest into one incoherent stew? Enter The Satan Killer (1993), a film that’s less a movie and more a cry for help. Written … Read More “The Satan Killer (1993): A Crime-Horror So Bad It Makes Meth Look Like a Better Life Choice” »
There are movies so bad they become camp classics. Then there’s Puppet Master 4, a film that feels like it was conceived after Charles Band lost a bar bet and then tried to get Jeff Burr to direct it on a dare. Released direct-to-video (because even theaters have standards), this is the fourth entry in … Read More “Puppet Master 4: Strings Attached, But No Fun” »
If you were alive in 1993 and wandered into the horror section of your local video store, chances are you walked past Ozone without a second thought. Shot on S-VHS-C in Akron, Ohio, for the price of a used Honda Civic, this scrappy independent film should not work. But somehow—against every law of filmmaking, sobriety, … Read More “Ozone (1993): Akron’s Finest Horror Trip” »
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a vampire movie was made by people who couldn’t afford light bulbs, microphones, or a plot, look no further than Night Owl. Directed by Jeffrey Arsenault, this “film” (I’m using the word the way one uses “food” to describe gas station sushi) stars James Raftery as a … Read More “Night Owl (1993): The Vampire Movie That Sucked in All the Wrong Ways” »
There are bad movies, there are really bad movies, and then there is The Neighbor—a film so lifeless it makes you wonder if the real horror was watching Rod Steiger’s career wither in real time. Marketed as a “thriller” about an aging gynecologist with a killer instinct, it’s actually ninety minutes of Steiger stomping around … Read More “The Neighbor (1993): Rod Steiger vs. The Suburbs” »
Stephen King adaptations are like yard sales: sometimes you find a gem, sometimes you leave with a broken toaster. Needful Things (1993), directed by Fraser Clarke Heston (yes, Charlton Heston’s son, who apparently inherited the “voice of God” gene but not the “direct movies well” gene), falls into the latter category. It’s less a gripping … Read More “Needful Things: Bargain-Bin Devilry at a Store Near You” »
Some horror movies are content to give you a single monster, a single haunted house, or a single cursed VHS tape. Necronomicon (1993), however, is not content with such modest ambition. No, this anthology wants you to feel like you’ve been mugged in a back alley by the entire works of H. P. Lovecraft, then … Read More “Necronomicon (1993): Tentacles, Teeth, and the Greatest Paperback You’ll Ever Regret Reading” »