There are movies where you know, deep down, that the director was on substances strong enough to make Hunter S. Thompson look like a designated driver. Phenomena is one of those films. Dario Argento—Italy’s patron saint of murder set pieces and peacock-feather lighting—looked at his own career, looked at Hollywood, looked at a jar of … Read More “Phenomena (1985): When Dario Argento Said, “What If Carrie Was Friends With Flies?”” »
There are bad exploitation movies. There are so bad they’re good exploitation movies. And then there’s Naked Vengeance—a Cirio H. Santiago fever dream where every single male character is either a rapist, a coward, or a butcher named Fletch who looks like he hasn’t washed his apron since Eisenhower was president. This isn’t just a … Read More “Naked Vengeance (1985): When Revenge Wears Heels and Packs a Grappling Hook” »
Before Roland Emmerich was blowing up the White House in Independence Day or freezing Jake Gyllenhaal solid in The Day After Tomorrow, he dipped his German toes into Hollywood waters with Joey, known in America as Making Contact. It’s a film about childhood grief, supernatural powers, and a demonic ventriloquist dummy that looks like it … Read More “Making Contact (1985): Roland Emmerich’s Dummy Disaster” »
There are movies you watch for entertainment, there are movies you watch for art, and then there are movies you watch by accident when Satan himself rigs your VHS player. Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment belongs firmly in the last category. This isn’t a movie in the traditional sense—no plot, no character development, no theme. It’s … Read More “Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment (1985): When Cinema Decides You’ve Suffered Enough” »
There are bad movies, and then there are movies that feel like they were shot on a dare in the back of a liquor store parking lot. Evils of the Night is one of the latter, a film that combines the worst parts of 1950s drive-in sci-fi, 1970s softcore, and 1980s slasher leftovers into something … Read More “Evils of the Night (1985): When Space Vampires Meet a Porno Casting Call” »
There’s a special kind of horror that comes not from masked killers, not from the occult, and not from the crackle of a Ouija board sliding across the alphabet. No—the true terror comes from being trapped on your couch watching a 1985 made-for-TV thriller stretch ninety minutes into an eternity, armed with nothing but Kathleen … Read More “Deadly Messages (1985): When the Real Horror is Bad Television” »
Italian exploitation cinema in the 1980s had a habit of promising audiences an all-inclusive trip to hell: you got jungle fever, cocaine cartels, religious fanaticism, sweaty Americans in bad safari gear, and—if you were lucky—a cameo from Michael Berryman to make you wonder if your VHS player was haunted. Ruggero Deodato’s Cut and Run (Inferno … Read More “Cut and Run (1985): Lisa Blount Brings Class to the Jungle of Trash” »
Some movies are so terrifying they linger in your mind for days. Others are so incompetent they linger in your DVD player because you fell asleep halfway through and forgot to hit eject. Confessions of a Serial Killer is firmly the latter—a dreary, plodding 1985 horror flick that proves the scariest thing about it is … Read More “Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985): A Confession No One Asked For” »
If Satan had a Blockbuster membership card in 1985, Blood Cult would have been the one tape perpetually stuck in the drop box like a cursed VHS nobody wanted to touch. Directed by Christopher Lewis, this Oklahoma-shot, shot-on-video “slasher” proudly markets itself as one of the first direct-to-video horror features. Translation: it never had to … Read More “Blood Cult (1985): A Shot-on-Video Sacrifice to the God of Bad Cinema” »
If That’s Entertainment! is MGM’s polished ballroom dance with Hollywood’s golden age, then Terror in the Aisles is the drunken karaoke version of that same party—except everyone is dressed like Dracula and someone in the back is bleeding out from a chainsaw wound. Directed by Andrew J. Kuehn, this horror documentary compiles 78 clips from … Read More “Terror in the Aisles (1984): A Love Letter to Fear with a Popcorn Stain on It” »