A Nightmare, But Not in the Way They Intended Some slashers are bad in a charming way. Some are bad in a gory way. And then there’s Twisted Nightmare, which is bad in the way that makes you check your VCR to see if the tracking is broken, only to realize it’s the film itself … Read More “Twisted Nightmare (1988) – Review Camp Paradise? More Like Camp Parody.” »
Straw-Filled Slasher Delight Sometimes you don’t need a masked killer or an ancient curse. Sometimes all you need is a field, some hay, and mercenaries so dumb they make Scooby-Doo villains look like Navy SEALs. Enter Scarecrows (1988), the little direct-to-video horror film that could, written and directed by William Wesley, a man who clearly … Read More “Scarecrows (1988) – Review When Mercenaries Meet Murderous Lawn Ornaments” »
A Horror Film Too Weird to Ignore There are horror movies that rely on blood and guts, and then there’s Pin. This 1988 Canadian gem, directed by Sandor Stern and based on Andrew Neiderman’s novel, doesn’t need chainsaws, vampires, or masked slashers. It just needs a life-sized, anatomically correct medical dummy in a cardigan—and the … Read More “Pin: A Plastic Nightmare (1988) – Review When Your Best Friend Is an Anatomically Correct Medical Dummy, Things Can Only Go Well” »
A Revenge Fantasy Nobody Asked For There’s bad taste, and then there’s Necromancer. Released in 1988 and directed by Dusty Nelson—whose name sounds like a rejected Marlboro mascot—this supernatural sleaze-fest is what happens when a serious subject (sexual assault) gets fed through the wringer of low-budget exploitation filmmaking and spat out as something that’s neither … Read More “Necromancer (1988) – Review When You Cross Rape-Revenge Horror with Bargain-Bin Satanism” »
A Ghost Story That Thinks It’s Shakespeare Every horror fan knows the pain: you see a poster that promises atmosphere, mystery, and a murderous ghost story, and what you get is a slow, saccharine slog through a Hallmark Halloween special. That’s Lady in White—a film that should’ve been called The Poltergeist of Lifetime TV. Frank … Read More “Lady in White (1988) – Review When Ghost Stories Go Soft and Sentimental” »
If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a group of film students got drunk, borrowed a Catholic school, and then smeared fake blood everywhere while pretending they were making a slasher—Splatter University is your answer. Unfortunately, it’s an answer to a question nobody sane ever asked. Directed by Richard W. Haines and … Read More “Lords of the Deep (1989)” »
Introduction: Welcome Home, Please Ignore the Gary Busey in Your Attic Hider in the House asks a simple question: what if Gary Busey lived in your attic? The correct answer is: call the police, burn down the house, and move to another continent. But this film thinks it’s a psychological thriller, so instead we’re forced … Read More “Hider in the House (1989)” »
Introduction: Jason Takes… a Boat Ride Let’s start with the biggest lie in the history of slasher cinema: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Jason doesn’t take Manhattan. He barely rents a room in Vancouver pretending to be New York. Ninety percent of this film is Jason on a cruise ship. He spends … Read More “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)” »
Introduction: Treasure, Trash, and a Titanic Disaster Some films are timeless classics. Others are fun guilty pleasures. And then there’s The Evil Below (1989), a film so soggy, so waterlogged with incompetence, it makes you wish you had drowned before pressing play. It arrived in the year of underwater fever—The Abyss, Leviathan, DeepStar Six, The … Read More “The Evil Below (1989): Or, How to Drown an Audience Without Water” »
Introduction: Garlic, Gags, and Garbage Lamberto Bava’s Dinner with a Vampire (Italian: A cena col vampiro) promised a gothic feast of blood, terror, and maybe a little black humor. What it delivered was a microwaved TV dinner of clichés, half-baked parody, and a vampire who looks less like a creature of the night and more … Read More “Dinner with a Vampire (1989): When Horror and Comedy Both Choke on Garlic” »