When Your Vacation Package Includes Doom The Slayer starts like a low-budget travel ad gone horribly wrong: two couples hop a private plane to a “quiet little island” off the Georgia coast. Sounds quaint, right? Except the brochure left out a few key details—like the hurricane, the deserted buildings, and the fact that one of … Read More “The Slayer (1982): Nightmare Fuel with a Hurricane on the Side” »
The Haunted Housewives Club If The Entity was about the terrifying trauma of being assaulted by an invisible specter, Satan’s Mistress is about… enjoying it. This is the erotic ghost story for anyone who thinks Casper would’ve been better if he was 6’4”, had perfect hair, and wore silk capes. Lana Wood plays Lisa, a … Read More “Satan’s Mistress (1982): Fifty Shades of Ghost” »
The Dystopian Future Nobody Ordered If Parasite is the future, I’ll take my chances with the atomic disaster, thanks. Charles Band’s early 3-D “epic” (read: someone found a fog machine and some rubber tubing) imagines a post-apocalyptic America run by “The Merchants,” a criminal organization so vague they make Cobra Commander look like an IRS … Read More “Parasite (1982): In Space No One Can Hear You… Lemon Farm?” »
The Lovechild of Hitchcock and an Australian Plumbing Disaster Next of Kin is that rare slice of Aussie horror where the camera moves like it’s auditioning for Vertigo and the script quietly whispers, “What if all old folks’ homes were just holding tanks for serial killers?” Director Tony Williams crafts a slow-burn psychological nightmare that … Read More “Next of Kin (1982): Murder, Madness, and Montclare’s Moist Floors” »
Dial “M” for Microwave Murder by Phone is what happens when someone looks at a rotary dial and thinks, “You know what this needs? The ability to liquefy a human brain.” In this Canadian-made sci-fi slasher, Richard Chamberlain plays Nat Bridger, an ecology professor who somehow gets roped into investigating a series of bizarre telephone-related … Read More “Murder by Phone (1982): When Call Waiting Means Your Funeral” »
Welcome to the End of Season—And Apparently, the World Jesús Franco’s Mansion of the Living Dead is one of those rare films that’s both exactly what you expect… and so much stranger. Ostensibly based on a “novel” that never existed (Franco’s literary ambitions apparently being as tangible as the zombies’ makeup), it’s a cocktail of … Read More “Mansion of the Living Dead (1982): When Your All-Inclusive Resort Package Includes Undead Monks” »
Cupid’s Arrow? No, Cupid’s Orthopedic Saw Hospital Massacre begins like your standard romantic holiday—if your idea of romance involves a rejected Valentine, a dead child, and a hatstand homicide. Fast forward nineteen years and we’ve got Barbi Benton (yes, the actual reason anyone made it through the runtime) trapped in a hospital where the only … Read More “Hospital Massacre (1982): When Valentine’s Day Goes Full OSHA Violation” »
Digging Up Trouble—Literally Most archaeology movies involve carefully brushing sand off ancient relics. The Ghost Dance skips the careful part and jumps straight to unearthing a murderous shaman’s corpse. This is the first slasher to feature Native American characters front and center, and it wastes no time in fusing supernatural possession with good old-fashioned stabbing. … Read More “The Ghost Dance (1982): Archaeology, Evil Spirits, and a Body Count You Can’t Carbon Date” »
The Ultimate Fan Service (But Not That Kind) Some movies explore the sweet innocence of celebrity crushes. Der Fan explores what happens when your crush writes back… with his own femur. This 1982 West German horror-thriller takes the idea of “I love you so much I could just eat you up” and makes it horrifyingly … Read More “Der Fan (1982): Love, Lust, and Light Cannibalism” »
Title Trouble: From “Pranks” to “Please Make It Stop” Originally called Pranks, this movie was later retitled The Dorm That Dripped Blood—presumably because the original name sounded like a zany college comedy instead of a cheap, mean-spirited slasher. Unfortunately, neither title fixes the fact that this film moves at the pace of cold molasses and … Read More “The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982): More Like The Dorm That Droned On” »
