Evil Laugh (1986)

In Evil Laugh, a group of medical students spends a weekend in a huge rental house that used to be a children's hospital, not knowing that a grizzly mass murder took place at the hospital ten years ago. Naturally, the students are stalked and slaughtered by a mysterious killer with, well, an evil laugh.

Is the killer the ghost of Martin, the killer from ten years ago? Will any of the students make it out alive? Can the movie possibly play those same two horrible pop songs a dozen times in 81 minutes?

Interestingly, Evil Laugh has self-referential elements to it that pre-date Scream by ten years. Barney, a Fangoria-reading lovable loser, identifies their precarious situation when he hears the story of Martin and tries to warn his companions about the rules of horror movies - the most important being that if you have sex, you'll die. It's very ahead-of-its-time characterization and it's handled surprisingly well, given the movie's overall level of quality.

Evil Laugh is nobody's classic, but it does have some memorable lines and creative kills. (Beware of open microwaves, y'all.) Despite some bad acting, bad dialogue, bad songs, and looking like it was filmed with a potato, Evil Laugh turns out to be a decent watch. The self-aware, meta aspects of the movie elevate it above similar cheapo slashers. Worth a look.

Not much in the way of a cast here, by the way, other than Scott Baio's brother. Also, it was directed by the guy who played Joey, the mentally challenged kid who got axe-murdered at the beginning of Friday the 13th Part 5. So there you go.