Introduction: Home Alone’s Evil Twin Before Home Alone slapped burglars with paint cans and made booby traps safe for prime-time comedy, the French had already dropped the ultimate holiday fever dream: 3615 code Père Noël (aka Deadly Games, Dial Code Santa Claus, Game Over, or my personal favorite, Hide and Freak). Released in 1989, René … Read More “3615 code Père Noël (1989): A French Christmas Nightmare Dressed in Tinsel” »
Introduction: “True Crime” by Way of a Student Film Gone Wrong Serial killers and cinema go together like popcorn and butter. From Psycho to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, audiences can’t resist the grim spectacle of murder and madness splattered on screen. Then there’s Cold Light of Day—a movie so drab, so lifeless, and … Read More “Cold Light of Day (1989): A Movie That Murders Pacing, Sanity, and Your Will to Live” »
Introduction: Child of Terror, or Child of Tedium? Every so often, critics dig up a film from the past, dust it off, and declare it a “lost masterpiece.” Enter Celia (a.k.a. Celia: Child of Terror), an Australian film from 1989 that has been hailed by some as a subtle horror-drama blending childhood innocence, Cold War … Read More “Celia (1989): When Childhood Innocence Gets Mauled by Communism, Rabbits, and Hallucinated Goblins” »
Prologue: When Trains Attack There are many kinds of horror films. Some explore human frailty. Some build tension from the unknown. And then there’s Beyond the Door III, which asks: what if Amtrak got possessed by Satan? That’s it. That’s the pitch. Evil train go choo choo. This 1989 Italian supernatural splatterpiece, directed by Jeff … Read More “Beyond the Door III (1989): Satan Rides the Short Bus to Hell” »
Prologue: When Cujo Met Sartre Some horror films are scary because of gore, some because of suspense, and some because they show you things you never asked for—like the inner monologue of a bitter French bull terrier who spends 90 minutes sulking like a philosophy major with mange. Baxter (1989), directed by Jérôme Boivin, is … Read More “Baxter (1989): Who Let the Dog Out? They Shouldn’t Have.” »
Prologue: Nosferatu Meets Nosfer-Asshole Some horror films are cursed. Others are haunted. Vampire in Venice is both, but the ghost is Klaus Kinski, and the curse is that nobody on Earth had the spine to kick him off set and toss him into the Grand Canal where he belonged. Marketed as a sequel to Werner … Read More “Vampire in Venice (1988): Klaus Kinski Eats a Movie Alive” »
Prologue: Anything with Lloyd Kaufman Attached… There are two universal truths in this world: slugs are slow, and anything Lloyd Kaufman touches oozes like a boil on the backside of cinema. Troma’s War (1988) is no exception. Marketed as Troma’s grand statement on Reagan-era militarism, what we actually got was a 90-minute dumpster fire where … Read More “Troma’s War (1988): A Slime-Covered Assault on Cinema” »
The Horror of Horticulture Some horror films are terrifying because they reveal our deepest fears: death, loss, the unknown. Others are terrifying because they were actually made, distributed, and inflicted upon unsuspecting audiences. Slugs (1988) is firmly in the latter category — a film so dumb that it makes killer tomatoes look like a Shakespearean … Read More “Slugs (1988): When Garden Pests Attack!” »
Intro: The Fountain of Youth Tastes Like Brain Goo Ah, the 1980s — when cocaine was a food group, shoulder pads doubled as weapons, and low-budget horror movies promised eternal youth through the miracle of stolen brain juice. Enter Rejuvenatrix (a.k.a. The Rejuvenator), a film that wanted to be Sunset Boulevard with latex appliances but … Read More “Rejuvenatrix (1988): Botox, but Make It Fatal” »
Prelude: The Tall Man Returns If Phantasm (1979) was the dreamy, nightmarish fever sketch of a kid who fell asleep after chugging cough syrup, then Phantasm II (1988) is the fully caffeinated metal album cover that sketch grew into. Don Coscarelli, under pressure from Universal Studios, returned to his cult classic with more money, more … Read More “Phantasm II (1988): The Chainsaw Opera of American Horror” »