The late 90s were a lawless era: AOL dial-up, chain emails warning of curses, and horror films greenlit because someone at Dimension Films thought, “What if the villain was a guy with tattoos who says Nietzsche quotes in a chatroom?” Enter Strangeland (1998), written by and starring Dee Snider, better known as the frontman of Twisted Sister. Yes, the man who once yelled “We’re Not Gonna Take It” at Reagan-era parents decided to write himself into a horror movie about ritual torture, body modification, and dial-up predators.
The result is a movie so painfully 1998 that you can practically hear the Windows 95 startup sound echoing behind every kill.
Welcome to Helverton, Where Teens Can’t Stop Clicking “Accept Invite”
The film begins with Genevieve (Linda Cardellini, in her first role, poor thing) and her friend Tiana, two teenage girls who spend their free time chatting with strangers online. Their screen names probably should’ve been “Victim1” and “Victim2,” because within minutes they’ve agreed to go to a “party” hosted by “Captain Howdy.”
Now, if you’re wondering what kind of name inspires confidence, let me assure you: if you meet a man online who calls himself Captain Howdy, you do not go to his house. You do not go near his neighborhood. You burn your computer and move to another state. But this is a horror film, so naturally, they go. And naturally, it’s a trap.
Dee Snider as Captain Howdy: Piercing the Plot (and People)
Dee Snider plays Captain Howdy, aka Carlton Hendricks, a man who looks like he got lost between a Marilyn Manson concert and a Hot Topic clearance rack. His deal? Kidnapping teens, sewing their mouths shut, and monologuing about the transcendence of pain like a freshman philosophy major with a piercing fetish.
Snider, bless him, commits. Covered in tattoos and piercings, he growls his way through dialogue that’s half Hellraiserrip-off and half Fakir Musafar quotes. At one point, he tells his victims about the enlightenment of ritual torture, which is ironic, because the only thing being tortured is the audience.
Detective Dad: Kevin Gage, Discount Mel Gibson
Genevieve’s father Mike (Kevin Gage) is a cop whose primary skills are yelling into phones and storming into basements. He tracks down Howdy, rescues the kids, and shoots the villain. Case closed, right? Wrong. Because this is a horror movie, and courts are incompetent.
Hendricks is declared “not guilty by reason of insanity” and shipped off to an asylum. Within three years, doctors decide he’s totally fine, slap him on some medication, and release him back into the community. This is the 90s equivalent of a video game checkpoint: “Boss defeated. Cutscene. Oh wait, he respawns later.”
The Redemption Arc Nobody Wanted
When Hendricks gets out, he’s reformed. He’s polite. He apologizes. He takes his meds. And he’s promptly lynched by a mob led by Robert Englund (yes, Freddy Krueger himself, slumming it as a pitchfork dad named Jack Roth). They string Howdy up, his pills spill into the gutter, and he survives by sheer bad rope quality.
Naturally, almost being murdered convinces him to go full evil again. Look, I’m no psychiatrist, but I think the real villain here is America’s healthcare system.
Torture, But Make It Boring
Hendricks goes on another spree, kidnapping Roth and his activist pal Catherine (nicknamed “Sunny,” which is hilarious considering her fate). He stitches mouths shut, hangs people from hooks, and rants about enlightenment. The problem is, it’s neither scary nor stylish. Hellraiser made hooks and chains look terrifying. Strangeland makes them look like stage props from a Slipknot concert.
The gore is tame, the editing is flat, and the philosophy is laughable. Instead of shocking horror, you get a villain who sounds like he’s reading LiveJournal entries aloud.
Family Drama Meets Fetish Club
Eventually, Hendricks kidnaps Genevieve again, because horror sequels—oh wait, this isn’t a sequel. It just feels like one. The big showdown happens at Club Xibalba, a fetish club that looks like the director Googled “underground rave” and thought, “yeah, that’ll do.”
Mike storms in, fists clenched, ready for one last dad-vs-deviant fight. The climax involves chains, hooks, and fire, because in the 90s, horror movies ended with pyrotechnics whether they made sense or not. Hendricks gets set ablaze, but he still manages to taunt Mike with one last pseudo-spiritual quip. Nothing says terrifying villain like a guy on fire mumbling about transcendence.
Subculture Exploitation 101
Here’s the thing: Strangeland actually tries to incorporate real philosophy from the Modern Primitive movement—tattooing, piercing, scarification as spiritual practice. But instead of treating it with nuance, the film uses it as shorthand for “look at this freaky deviant who tortures kids.”
It’s exploitation without substance. Like if someone made a movie about yoga and the villain was a serial killer who only strikes during downward dog. Dee Snider may have thought he was starting a cultural conversation. Instead, he gave us the cinematic equivalent of a bad after-school special: “This is your brain on piercings.”
Robert Englund Deserved Better
Let’s pause to appreciate that Freddy Krueger himself is in this movie. Robert Englund plays a vigilante dad so incompetent he makes Homer Simpson look like a crisis negotiator. He accuses Hendricks of kidnapping his daughter when she’s just out late, beats him within an inch of his life, then indirectly causes Hendricks to relapse into murder mode.
In other words, Robert Englund is the real villain. He’s the reason we had to sit through the second half of this movie.
Internet Horror, Circa 1998
Remember when horror movies thought chatrooms were the scariest thing in the world? Before TikTok killers and deepfakes, the fear was simply “stranger danger, but online.” Strangeland leans so hard into this that it feels like a PSA written by someone’s paranoid uncle: “Don’t talk to Captain Howdy online, kids, or you’ll wake up with your mouth sewn shut.”
It’s quaint now, like watching a slasher film where the villain is a fax machine.
Dee Snider’s Passion Project Gone Wrong
You have to hand it to Dee Snider: he believed in this project. He wanted to write a horror film that merged subculture, philosophy, and shock value. Unfortunately, what he made was a clunky morality play with the production value of a Syfy original movie. His commitment to playing Captain Howdy is admirable, but it’s like watching someone tattoo Shakespeare quotes onto a rubber chicken.
Snider thought he was making Silence of the Lambs with piercings. What we got was Law & Order: Special Victims Unitguest-starring Twisted Sister.
Final Verdict
Strangeland is a time capsule of 1998: bad internet safety plots, fetish-club aesthetics, and horror villains who monologue like bad poets at open mic night. It tries to be edgy, but ends up feeling like an afterthought in the VHS bargain bin.
Dee Snider deserves credit for ambition, but the execution is as clumsy as a stitched-shut mouth trying to sip a milkshake. If you want real horror from this era, watch Cube or Event Horizon. If you want to watch Robert Englund embarrass himself and Dee Snider cosplay as a fetish philosopher, then Strangeland is your jam.
