Entry Eight: Graduation Day (1981)

Graduation Day (1981)

Dir: Herb Freed

"Graduating from high school has never been so deadly..."

After the mysterious death of high school track star Laura Ramstead, a killer in fencing gear begins bumping off her track teammates graduation day.  Is it her angry older sister Emily, recently returned from a Navy assignment to Guam?  Is it her sleazy stepdad, Ron, whose in-line to collect a bunch of cash from her insurance policy (who the fuck takes a policy out on their kids?  Is that even possible?  I'm not going to bother with the research)?  Is it disgraced, asshole coach Christopher George?  Nope, it's her ultra-intense boyfriend, Kevin, who lives with his invalid mother in a decrepit mansion and keeps Laura's corpse in a chair.

 This is (script-wise), a pretty standard addition to the post-Friday the 13th slasher canon, but Freed's music-video style direction (lots of jump-cuts and montages) gives it a look that's unique among it's peers.  The soundtrack features some kickass rock tunes by Felony and most of the actors actually look like high school kids.  Scream Queen Linnea Quigley makes an early appearance and has a topless scene.  It's also worth pointing out that every adult in the film is angry, obnoxious and spews hateful dialogue.  Even the cop in charge of the investigation shirks his duties because he hates schools and kids!  For the fashion-minded, one of the early scenes features a dude wearing an ascot!  Overall, not a bad waste of time.

Entry Seven: The Driller Killer (1979)

The Driller Killer (1979)

Dir: Abel Ferrera

"There are those who kill violently!"

Reno (director Ferrera, going by the pseudonym Jimmie Laine), is a guilty, (lapsed?) Catholic starving artist struggling to make ends meet.  He's squandered most of his cash paying for his (divorced) girlfriend's abortion and is having difficulty completing his latest "masterpiece (a variation of the classical Grecian minotaur using the American buffalo), the sale of which would give him enough money to get his affairs in order.  Meanwhile, a (terrible) punk rock band moves in to the apartment below him, making sleep impossible, and his girlfriend begins having an affair with their female roommate (resulting in a gratuitous, mutual tit-washing shower scene).  After a sleepless night filled with bloody hallucinations, Reno purchases a "porto-pack" power source for his electric drill and begins bloodily murdering skid-row whinos, whose freedom from responsibility he envies and doesn't understand.

 Ferrera's film is a reactionary, violent hetero-male response to changing sexual mores during the seventies (Reno's girlfriend's lesbian affair is spurned on by her attraction to the androgynous leader of the punk band; the derelicts Reno murders represent an "old way" of life he is trying to reject; lead astray by the conventions of his "faith," Reno murders a priest) but, taken at face value with a willingness to ignore it's pretensions, it's also a helluva lotta fun, with some EXCEPTIONAL shot-on-location photography in mid-70s New York (my personal wonderland; if I had access to a time machine, it's the first time/place I'd go), and the stark, no-frills photography enhances the scuzzy atmosphere. This DIY-wonder was the first (legit-he had previously made the porno Nine Lives of a Wet Pussy) film for director Ferrera, who would go on to make the FUCKING FANTASTIC Ms. 45, then (briefly) become famous during the late-80s and 90s for directing episodes of the television series Police Story and Miami Vice, as well as the features King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral and Fear City (with Billy Dee!), before fading back into (relative) obscurity.

As an aside, Ferrera made an early short film called Not Guilty: For Keith Richards in 1977, about Keith's heroin trial.  It's never been commercially available, but I need to see it and it probably ought to snuggle up next to Cocksucker Blues on my Stones bootleg shelf.  If you have any leads, please contact me.

Entry Six: Jennifer (1978)

Jennifer (AKA Jennifer, the Snake Goddess-1978)

Dir: Brice Mack

" She walks in terror, stilled with fright. A trail of fear, to fill the night!"

Jennifer Baylor (Lisa Pelikan) is a poor girl on scholarship to a prestigious all-girls collegiate academy.  She manages to raise the ire of Sandra (Amy Johnston), leader of the "cool girl" clique (whose father, of course, is a senator who's contributed thousands of dollars to the school).  After Sandra orchestrates several hurtful and humiliating events (including and egged locker, an attempted drowning, nude photos and the lynching of her pet cat), Jennifer calls upon her innate psychic power over snakes, gifted to her by her religious-zealot father (Jeff Corey) to exact violent revenge!

This is a film I first discovered thanks to its regular rotation on the late-night circuit of my local channels in the late 80s/early 90s...Good fuck, do I miss those days!  I'll get this out of the way first: yes, this is an obvious cash-in on DePalma's adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie (1976), but I actually like Jennifer better.  Not only does it lack the (sometimes uncomfortable) soft-core voyeurism of DePalma's picture, it also creates a world populated by a more relateable heroine and more three-dimensional villains.  While Sissy Spacek's Carrie White was never anything more than pitiable, Pelikan's Jennifer is likeable, resourceful and level-headed; you actually want to see her triumph over her oppressors and go on to live a normal life.  When "bad girl" Jane (MN native Louise Hoven) decides to dissent against Sandra's increasingly-brutal actions against Jennifer, Sandra has her boyfriend rape Jane in an elevator as a warning.  The long-distance phone call that Jane makes to her mother directly after, during which her mother refuses to believe her daughter's claims and asks her to not bother her again, is the most heartbreaking scene in the film.  It's a bold move for a film of this sort to portray (even one of) it's villains as just as damaged and pitiable as it's victim.

I should also point out that this film features a FUCKING FANTASTIC disco scene!  The fashions alone made me extremely envious: shiny jackets! Big-collared shirts!  Red-tinted sunglasses!  Righteous vests!  I wish my closet looked like this!   

Entry Five: Night Eyes (1982)

Night Eyes (AKA Deadly Eyes-1982)

Dir: Robert Clouse1

"Tonight, they will rise from the darkness beneath the city...To feed!"

It's actually kind of refreshing to watch a horror film in which the heroes are middle-aged and most of the victims elderly...

A batch of foodstuffs enhanced with illegal chemicals is ordered destroyed by Canadian health officials.  Before it's destruction, the material is fed upon by sewer rats, mutating them into dog-sized killers.  Engineer/high school teacher Sam Groom (the prototype for TV's Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs) and Health Department agent Sara Botsford fall in love while investigating the deadly vermin.  In a soap opera-y subplot, cheerleader Lisa Langlois (from the FUCKING AWESOME Class of 1984) attempts to seduce Groom.  The mutant rats (dogs wearing obvious costumes) attack a revival screening of Game of Death during the Bruce Lee/Kareem Abdul-Jabar fight.  The climax aboard a newly-opened subway train leaves things open for a sequel that never happened.  It's an okay waste of time, but Cronenberg was doing much more interesting things in the Canadian horror arena at the time.

Entry Four: The Baby (1973)

The Baby (1973)

Dir: Ted Post

"Nothing in this nursery rhymes."

I've consciously had the "kid gloves" on for my first few entries of this blog.  I'm aware that most of the (very few) people reading this are friends and family who may not have built up the...tolerance that I have to the dingier corners of the cinematic wasteland.  I had actually intended this to be the first entry of the blog, but decided to hold back.  Well, fuck it; the gloves are off.

Ann (Anjanette Comer) is a young social worker recovering from the recent death of her husband in an automobile accident.  She decides to seek distraction and bring new meaning to her life by throwing herself into her latest case, a baby suffering under abusive guardians.  If you think this sounds like some Lifetime movie-of-the-week bullshit, I'll reveal to you that "baby" is a fully-grown, twentysomething man kept in a state of arrested development by his abusive mother and sisters as some sort of revenge against his deadbeat father.  "Baby" sleeps in an oversized crib, drink from a bottle, cries and mewls like an infant and wears a man-sized nappy.  Past social workers who have tried to interfere have a bad habit of mysteriously disappearing.  In one of two jaw-dropping scenes that will have you doubting your own sanity, a nubile babysitter tries to ward off baby's cries by allowing him to SUCCKLE ON HER EXPOSED TIT, her face contorting into expressions of ecstasy and revulsion.  At this point, my brain contorted into itself and I couldn't decide whether to vigorously masturbate or shit myself.  I should also point out that my wife had been asleep on the couch when I started to watch the movie and woke up in the middle of this scene...SUBLIME!  When the sitter is discovered by the returning mother and sisters, she's rewarded by having the shit beaten out of her before dismissal.  Ann's attempts at rehabilitating baby and removing him from this toxic environment are met with legal action, veiled threats and, ultimately, physical violence, which leads to a showdown in which she is forced to dispose of these sickos with some graphic throat-slashings.  This leads to the mind-blowing final scene, in which Ann rescues baby and brings him home, not for his own betterment, but as a playmate for her husband; not dead, but reduced to adult-baby state himself due to head injuries suffered in his car accident and living in his own grown-up playpen.

HOLY.  FUCK.  This is the "strange seventies" at it's absolute best and comes with my HIGHEST possible recommendation.  Unbelievably, director Post had already directed Clint Eastwood's Hang 'Em High and the big-budget sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes and directed Eastwood again in Magnum Force the year this came out!

Entry Three: Bloody Birthday (1981)

Bloody Birthday (1981)

Dir: Ed Hunt

"The nightmare begins with the kids next door."

This is a fun, twisted entry in the "evil kid" subgenre.  During a lunar eclipse, three women go into labor unexpectedly.  Nearly ten years later, we're introduced to their progeny Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy, The Blues Brothers-"How much for the little girl?!"), Curtis (Billy Jaye, TV's Parker Lewis Can't Lose) and Steven (Andy Freeman, Cujo) as they're charging admission to peep on Debbie's comely teenage sister, Beverly (Julie Brown, Earth Girls are Easy and the voice of Zatanna on Batman: the Animated Series) and strangling two teenagers fucking in a graveyard with a jump rope.  Turns out the lunar eclipse fucked with the zodiac, causing these kids to be born without consciences.  When Debbie's Sheriff father investigates the graveyard slayings, they beat him to death with baseball bats.  A bitchy teacher gets blown away with a revolver and the suspicious Beverly gets an arrow through the eye.  Only neighbor kid Timmy (K.C. Martel, E.T.) and his teenage sister, Joyce (Lori Lethen, The Day After) know the truth about this terrible trio, and they must survive a siege by these pint-sized psychos in Debbie's bullet-proof home.  The resourceful Timmy and Joyce survive and manage to get Curtis and Andy dragged away to the mental ward, but Debbie escapes with her overprotective mother, killing a trucker on the way out of town just for the fuck of it.

This is one of my favorite entries in it's subgenre; the kids are all good and Ed Hunt's documentary-like direction and Stephen Posey's bright, cheerful cinematography help underscore the horrific action.  Billy and Joyce are genuinely likeable heroes.  The gore is minimal, but there's a solid smattering of T&A.  "Guest star" Jose Ferrer appears in two brief scenes as a Doctor.  Recommended!

Entry Two: Amityville 3-D (1983)

Amityville 3-D (1983)
Dir: Richard Fleischer

"WARNING: In this movie, you are the victim!"

Arriving at the tail end of the early 80's (short-lived) 3-D revival, this third entry in the Amityville series possesses neither the atmosphere of the first nor the sleazy subject matter and gooey transformation effects of Amityville 2: The Possession.

Professional skeptic Tony Roberts (looking fantastic but at least six years out of date with his white jheri curl and propensity for fur-collared long coats) purchases the cursed mansion, much to the objection of his superstitious ex-wife (Tess Harper).  Soon, his assistant (Candy Clark, much better than this material deserves) is burned alive and his teenage daughter (future Full House star Lori Laughlin) drowns in the pond out back.  Eventually, the evil that guards the portal to hell in the basement manifests itself as a fire-breathing, rubbery special effect that looks like a cross between a piece of shit and a frog and melts supernatural investigator Robert Joy's face off.

The 3-D effects are typically intrusive (especially in a 2-D presentation); actors thrust lighters toward the screen while investigating dark rooms, rubbery flies flit about and shattered glass zooms at you on barely-concealed wires.  De Laurentiis contract director Fleischer (Conan the Destroyer)'s direction is strictly workmanlike.  With only a PG rating, it's a watered-down waste of time.  The always irritating Meg Ryan has small, early role if you're into that sort of thing.  At least they chose an appropriate tagline.

Entry One: Gothic (1986)

Gothic (1986)
Dir: Ken Russell

"Conjure up your deepest, darkest fear...Now call that fear to life."

Ken Russell's an acquired taste, and I've found myself more intrigued by his campy, bombastic, depraved films as I've grown older.  This is his (very loose) interpretation of the story of the famous gathering at Lord Byron's manor that would lead Mary Shelley to write "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus."

On June 16th, 1816, Percy Shelley (Julian Sands), along with his mistress Mary Godwin (Natasha Richardson) and her half-sister, Claire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr), calls upon his friend Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne), in exile in his manor outside Geneva and being attended by his physician/biographer, John Polidori (Timothy Spall).  Trapped inside by a storm and under the influence of laudanum, the five begin to experience hallucinations while they swap ghost stories.  By the next morning, Mary's experience will leave her with the inspiration for her most famous work.

Gothic is (believe it or not) one of Russell's more restrained works of the 80s, but he still manages to squeeze in most of his major obsessions: neon lights, gratuitous nudity, anti-Catholic imagery, canted camera angles and extreme close-ups.  After the fifteen minute mark, the movie becomes one long hallucination, giving Russell plenty of opportunity to pile on the sleaze: the five engage in various gay-and-straight sex acts, puddles of jizzum appear on the floor, an imp emerges from a painting to menace Richardson, Cyr is ravaged by a sentient suit of armor with a giant metal phallus, a stillborn baby is given a baptism, Sands is alternately buried and burned alive, Cyr's nipples turn into blinking eyeballs and, after a vampiric tryst with Byrne, Spall, as the guilty, Catholic Polidori, rips the crucifix from his wall and recreates the stigmata on his own hands with a rusty nail.  

In the hands of a subtler director, this might be arresting material, but Russell begins the film with the histrionics cranked to 11 and only goes up from there, making it impossible to take any of this seriously (the intrusive, totally anachronistic score by Thomas Dolby only adds to the lunacy).  The cast members are all thoroughly unhinged, but special notice goes to the normally stoic Byrne as Byron, who goes totally off the rails and plays the character like a preening, devious, manipulative rock star.