If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a group of Spirit Halloween employees got drunk, crawled under the Golden Gate Bridge, and decided to cosplay as villains from thirty different horror movies at once, congratulations—you’ve already seen Neon Maniacs. Released in 1986, this cinematic junkyard fire masquerading as a horror film is equal parts … Read More “Neon Maniacs (1986): When Halloween Store Clearance Aisles Attack” »
Stephen King once famously described Maximum Overdrive as a “moron movie.” This is one of the rare times an artist gave his own work the most accurate review it would ever receive. King’s first—and mercifully only—directorial effort is what happens when you give the greatest horror novelist of his generation a mountain of cocaine, the … Read More “Maximum Overdrive (1986): Stephen King’s Coked-Out Car Wash of Doom” »
Some horror films set out to entertain. Others try to terrify. And then there are films like The Killer is Still Among Us(1986), which aim to “warn the youth” about real-life dangers but instead stumble face-first into the cinematic equivalent of an after-school special written by Ed Wood. Camillo Teti’s Italian horror-thriller insists that it … Read More “The Killer is Still Among Us (1986): When Public Service Announcements Go Horribly, Hilariously Wrong” »
If you thought poetry was about flowery verses and long walks through meadows, Gothic (1986) exists to remind you that the Romantics were less about daffodils and more about opium, sex, nightmares, and existential dread. Directed by Ken Russell, the reigning crown prince of baroque cinematic madness, Gothic transforms a rainy night in 1816 into … Read More “Ken Russell’s Gothic: When Poets Party Harder Than Rockstars” »
By the time the sixth entry in the Friday the 13th franchise rolled around, Jason Voorhees was less a horror villain and more a punch clock employee—clock in, kill some horny teenagers, clock out, collect his paycheck in machetes. And yet, instead of putting him out to pasture (or just letting him rest in his … Read More “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives—Unfortunately” »
Some giallo films are lurid, violent fever dreams. Others are stylish exercises in paranoia and baroque murder sequences. And then there’s La Casa del Buon Ritorno, a film so limp and meandering it makes you wonder if director Beppe Cino accidentally set out to shoot a Valium commercial instead of a thriller. Allegedly a tale … Read More “La Casa del Buon Ritorno: Or, The House Where Nothing Good Returns” »
Every culture has its sacred cows. The French have wine. Americans have hamburgers. And Japan has the manga that refuses to die no matter how many times you hit it with an orbital laser cannon. Bio-Booster Armor Guyver debuted in 1985 and has since metastasized into anime, OVAs, live-action movies, light novels, action figures, and … Read More “Bio-Booster Armor Guyver: The Manga That Couldn’t Stop Mutating” »
Every horror director has their “forgotten stepchild,” that one movie buried so deep in the attic that even diehard fans pretend it was just a fever dream. For John Carpenter it’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man. For Tobe Hooper it’s Spontaneous Combustion. For Wes Craven, it’s Chiller (1985), a made-for-TV horror movie about cryogenics, soulless … Read More “Chiller (1985): Wes Craven’s Cold-Blooded Corporate Ghost Story” »
In theory, a science-fiction horror movie about a biological weapons outbreak should be terrifying. Virulent bacteria, quarantined scientists, the government lying through its teeth—sounds like fertile ground for a nail-biting thriller. Unfortunately, Warning Sign (1985), directed by Hal Barwood, takes that premise and wrings it dry until we’re left with nothing but Sam Waterston looking … Read More “Warning Sign (1985): Outbreak of Boredom” »
Some movies are “so bad they’re good.” Twisted (1985) isn’t one of them. It’s more like “so bad they make you reconsider whether cinema was a mistake.” Directed by Adam Holender, best known as the cinematographer for Midnight Cowboy—a film with genuine grit, artistry, and cultural resonance—Holender here trades all that in for a story … Read More “Twisted (1985): When Babysitting Goes From Boring to Bunker-Level Bad” »