Opening Detention: Where Slasher Cinema Goes to Die By 1986, the slasher genre had already eaten its own entrails. What started with Halloween and Friday the 13th had become a parade of sequels, knock-offs, and cynical “holiday horrors” in which every date on the calendar was mined for bloodshed. Valentine’s Day, prom night, Christmas, New … Read More “Slaughter High (1986): Detention With a Body Count” »
The first thing you noticed about Brian Christopher was that grin.Not the kind of grin that sold toothpaste in the magazines, but the cocky, squinting, Memphis-proud smirk of a man who believed the spotlight belonged to him and him alone. If the ring had a mirror, he’d have cut promos to his own reflection. He … Read More “Brian Christopher (1972–2018) – Too Sexy for This World” »
There are bad science fiction movies. Then there are bad science fiction movies starring Rock Hudson as a geneticist who decides the best way to deal with loneliness is to literally cook up a girlfriend in his basement lab. This is Embryo (1976), a film that desperately wants to be profound but instead plays like … Read More “Embryo (1976): When Mad Science Meets Made-for-TV Melodrama” »
Every horror filmmaker has to start somewhere. For Jerry Ciccoritti, the man who would go on to a career in Canadian television and theater, that “somewhere” was a micro-budget madhouse called Psycho Girls. Shot in Toronto in eleven frantic days on a budget that wouldn’t cover lunch on a Marvel set, the film is part … Read More “Psycho Girls (1986) Madness, Murder, and Makeup in Eleven Days Flat” »
Or: When Slashers Run Out of Ideas and Start Killing Pep Squad Girls If you thought the 1980s had already wrung every last drop of blood out of the slasher craze, along came The Majorettes—a film so confused about what it wants to be, it feels like three separate bad movies duct-taped together. Directed by … Read More “The Majorettes (1986)” »
Or How to Ruin a Sequel in 90 Minutes There are bad sequels, and then there’s Demons 2. This is the kind of film that makes you appreciate the phrase “lightning doesn’t strike twice.” Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento thought they could slap another coat of gore on the walls of their 1985 cult hit … Read More “Demons 2 (1986)” »
Aliens, Virgins, and Flour—Oh My Some movies aim for the stars and land in the gutter. Breeders doesn’t even bother aiming. It just belly-flops straight into the gutter and splashes sewage on anyone unlucky enough to watch. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a porn director got handed a sci-fi script, a few … Read More “Breeders (1986)” »
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow Some movies are so bad they’re good. Others are so bad they’re painful. And then there’s Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf, a film so catastrophically misguided that even Christopher Lee—horror royalty himself—walked off set wishing for garlic, a crucifix, and a dimensional portal back to 1958 Hammer Films. This … Read More “Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)” »
When “Cinema” Becomes a Crime Scene There are bad movies, there are boring movies, and then there are movies that make you wonder if the FBI should be cc’d when you hit “play.” Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood belongs to that last category. Released in 1985, this Japanese splatter entry has a … Read More “Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985)” »
George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead is the black sheep of his original Dead trilogy—darker than Night of the Living Dead, nastier than Dawn of the Dead, and meaner than the Thanksgiving dinner you’ve been dreading all year. Released in 1985, this grim little slice of undead apocalypse throws us deep underground, both literally … Read More “Day of the Dead (1985)” »
