Halloween 2 (1981)

Picking up immediately after the events of the first film, Laurie Strode is taken to the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to tend to the wounds inflicted on her by escaped psychopath Michael Myers. In the meantime, Dr. Loomis and the Haddonfield Sheriff's Department continue the search for Michael, who evidently survived being shot six times (or seven, if you're counting carefully in the recap in part 2) and falling from a second story window.

At the hospital. Laurie is stitched up, her broken ankle is wrapped, and she is given painkillers and sedatives. The hospital staff, consisting largely of inattentive teenaged nurses and a drunken E.R. doctor, are easy prey for Michael Myers, who has tracked Laurie down and intends to finish what he started.

Laurie herself is in no shape to face Michael, but face him she must. She has to use her wits and her will to overcome her near helplessness to finish off Michael for good. (Except not really, since there are a whole bunch more of these movies.)

Halloween 2 has almost entirely no story to it by itself. It is simply and entirely a continuation of the events of that same night presented in the first Halloween. There's only one new plot element - a revelation presented late in the movie - and it has no bearing on the action at hand. But I really don't see that as a problem.

Halloween 2 economically gets to the action, knowing that there is little need to re-explain the situation outside of a quick recap of the first movie shown right up front. Once that's out of the way, we can get right to the good stuff.

The first Halloween came at the forefront of the slasher subgenre, and as such, was more about the suspense than a body count. By the time Halloween 2 came out three years later, the slasher boom was in full effect and the imitators were piling up the corpses by the dozens. So it's no surprise that Halloween 2 ups the ante into the double-digits. Indeed, near the end a cop asks. "What's the count?" and the response is, "Ten, so far." which seems like a commentary on the perceived need for a high body count and possibly a nod to the idea that future sequels might be in the offing.

Of course, the story goes that they did not actually want to continue with Michael Myers in a sequel. Instead, they made a bat-shit movie about rubber Halloween masks that turned kids' heads into bugs and snakes and called it Halloween 3. When that failed to blow up the box office, they went back to the Michael Myers well and the franchise was off and running for years to come.

But while future sequels would expand on the Myers mythology to absurd degrees and create one of the most confusing and convoluted story-lines in horror, this first sequel maintains a welcome purity of concept. Michael's still out there from the first movie, he's still stalking Laurie, and she and Dr. Loomis have to survive and overcome.

Halloween 2 is really a lot of fun. It ups the body-count in a classic slasher sort of way, as well as amping up the craziness of the kills. But it doesn't stray too far afield from the original in tone (at least not as far as the rest of the sequels) and it feels nicely connected to the first movie. It's well worth your time if you enjoy the classic era of slasher movies. As for the other sequels - that's a story for another Halloween.

Splatter University (1984)

William Graham, a paranoid schizophrenic psychopath, kills an orderly and escapes from his psychiatric hospital. Three years later at nearby St. Trinian's College, a Sociology professor is stabbed to death. The next semester, Julie Parker takes the vacant position, and the killings start again. As her students and friends are stabbed, slashed, and sliced to death left and right, Julie must stay alive long enough to figure out who is...

Alright, screw it - it's the priest. You're not going to watch this stupid movie, so I'm spoiling it. The escaped killer (who they inexplicably call "Daniel" Graham when he's back in the nut house at the end of the movie) is the priest disguised in the super fakey grey wig, pretending to be confined to a wheelchair so he can stalk his victims without arousing suspicion. How he got to be Dean of this college in three short years with no resume to speak of, I'll never figure out. But yeah, there you go. Saved you 73 stupid minutes.

Splatter University is billed as a horror-comedy, but I think that hyphenated description only came about when the distributors saw how laughably incompetent this attempted slasher movie was. It's not like they don't prepare you, though - there's a big ol' credit at the beginning that says Creative Consultant - Lloyd Kaufman. Oh boy. When the head honcho of Troma Pictures is on your credit list, you know the movie probably won't be aiming too high.

(And for the record, I like a number of Troma movies. They're often gross, stupid fun.  But even the biggest Toxic Avenger fans out there would have to admit that "quality" isn't exactly "job one" when Lloyd Kaufman gets involved in a project.)

So, Splatter University. First off, I was really hoping this would take place at something like "James Platter University" and the "Jame" part of the sign would fall off, leaving, "s Platter University." Alas.

For a movie that takes place at a college, the cast sure is populated by a bunch of dummies. Not a one of these people seem like they belong in college at all, not even our protagonist, the professor. There's always lots of cheap beer on hand, lots of "let's party!" dialogue in the most absurd New Jersey "youse guys" accents, lots of attempts to get out of doing schoolwork, and lots of ridiculous hijinks and shenanigans. It's like Animal House, but without all the grace, charm, and sophistication of Bluto and the Deltas.

It doesn't help that this is an amazingly cheap, amateurish, low-rent movie. The version on Amazon Instant streaming brought to mind the old days of renting worn-out VHS tapes, as it was in the 4:3 aspect ratio, the image was soft and muddy, and the audio sounded like it was recorded in a shoebox. I can't be 100% sure that was the fault of the streaming copy and not the original source material.

The soundtrack consists of a nice, fast, rubbery, bouncy synth rhythm for the chase scenes (one of the few positives I found in SU), a bit of lame synth noodling for the normal scenes, and this one crappy pop-rock song they keep going to the well on. I guess they paid for the song and they wanted to get their money's worth out of it.

The movie must have been shot and edited by somebody's nephew with his Fisher Price Make-My-First-Horror-Movie Kit. The camerawork is pathetic, there are continuity errors galore, you can see the reflection of one of the filmmakers in a car window in several shots, and some shots are in the wrong order. For instance, we see our protagonist having drinks at her boyfriend's house, where the boyfriend miraculously pours himself a bourbon on the rocks and her a red wine out of a single bottle, with one pour. Then we see them at work with the boyfriend saying, "hey, let's go to my place for some drinks." And this isn't the only time something is out of order.

In summary, this movie is a mess. It could have been a fun mess if it had bothered to be as over-the-top as its overblown name. (With a title like Splatter University, I was hoping for guts and gore all over the place, but it was not to be.) Instead, it was just kindof a pitiful piece of garbage that never really elevated its game past the slasher basics of stabbing people and slicing their throats. Oh, and stabbing dudes in the balls sometimes.

I'm giving Splatter University an exceedingly generous one-and-a-half stars, mostly because I liked the good parts of the score and because it's not hateful - just bad. If you're a slasher completist or you like to watch bad movies with beers and buds, you might have to include this one on your list. If you demand a certain level of competency in your movies, you should skip Splatter University. Oh, wait, you were going to skip it anyway. Good deal.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949)

In a small village in New York, Ichabod Crane, stork-like itinerant school-master, woos the fair (and rich) Katrina Van Tassel with his charm, wit, erudition, and surprisingly competent dancing, much to the chagrin of his rival for her heart, Brom Bones. But Brom knows that Ichabod is a very superstitious fellow - a bit of a 'fraidy cat, really - so at a party for Katrina's father, Brom lays it on thick with a ghost story about a horseman who rides the nearby woods every Halloween night, looking to take a replacement for his missing head. Ichabod's fear of the story makes him lose face in front of his beloved Katrina, but he could lose a lot more when he meets the Horseman on his ride home.

This Disney animated short was a staple of my Halloweens growing up. It seems like every year this would come on TV and I would get myself nice and spooked by the real and imagined terrors of Ichabod's harrowing ride through the woods. The sky darkens, the woods seem to close in on him, voices seem to call out, "Ichabod..." and "Horseman..."  And then the terrible phantom appears, riding a pitch black horse, cloak rippling in the wind, a long knife in one hand and a flaming Jack-o-Lantern in the other. Terrifying.

The first half of this cartoon is a bouncy, silly, cute romp with all the great animation that comes along with the Disney name. Ichabod, though a bit too scheming to be a fully noble protagonist, is a likable fellow, and it's fun to see him charming the ladies in town while in search of a good meal until he becomes smitten with Katrina. Then, amazingly, he bests his stronger, more attractive rival Brom at every turn, at least until the end.

I assume that this all pretty much jibes with Washington Irving's story (maybe I'll read it someday), so the credit can be given to the original author for subverting the trope of the put-upon underdog finally getting a chance to win the fair maiden's heart by using his wits to overcome his rival's strength. Here we have the opposite - despite being a creepy-looking, nebbish goof, Ichabod wins and wins and wins until Brom has a moment to find his one weakness and put him in his place. It's a great role-reversal.

(Wikipedia says that Katrina was only using Ichabod to make Brom jealous, but I never read that into the characterization. It's certainly possible, maybe even likely, and maybe I'm a naive dunce for thinking the nerd could be the big ladies' man, but I like to think Katrina isn't quite so conniving. Your mileage may vary.)

So indeed, the first half of huge cartoon is a fun, funny lark. But when the Halloween party starts, everything starts to change. It's nighttime. The colors are muted. The sky is overcast. There are, subtly, Jack-o-Lanterns on the scene. And from when Brom tells his ghost story on to the end, it becomes about as frightening as a kids' cartoon can get.

Despite the scrambling and clowning around with Ichabod's borrowed nag, the ride through the woods is relentlessly frightening. The Headless Horseman is one of Disney's scariest images, along with Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, The Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come in Mickey's Christmas Carol, and The Jonas Brothers.

Tying together all of the humor, horror, and 40s-style music is the legendary voice of Bing Crosby. He croons, he scats, he narrates, and he delivers lines for the characters in his rich baritone that emphasizes both the frightening and the playful parts with equal aplomb. Bing is always a welcome presence, and here he gives his all for something that must have been an odd project for him - a cartoon where he plays all the roles and sings all the songs, and that goes from comedy to horror in a short 30-minute span. Bing is just great.

It was so much fun to revisit this memory from my childhood. I don't know if Disney Channel bothers to show it anymore on Halloween - after all, they have a million original television shows, both live action and cartoon, that they can create new, safe, not-at-all-scary Halloween episodes out of until the cows come home. But I will be happy to watch this classic piece of literary horror blended with brilliant cartooning with my family for many, many Halloweens to come.

Halloween (1978)

In an ordinary town in Illinois, a killer has broken out of a sanitarium and returned home to kill again on Halloween night.

There's no sense in doing any sort of recap of Halloween, as it is one of the best known, best loved horror movies of the last 35 or 40 years. The killer, Michael Myers, has become a horror icon for fans and mainstream audiences alike. Halloween led to six or seven sequels (depending on how you look at it), a remake, and a sequel to the remake. It also led to an endless parade of imitators, ripoffs, lookalikes, homages, and wannabes.

I love the look of the quiet, normal suburban neighborhood featured throughout the movie. It looks like the kind of neighborhood I grew up in in a lot of ways. It's a very real, very non-Hollywood look that creates a familiar, homey feel. Evidently it was shot in March in Pasedena, so the filmmakers had to supply their own autumnal leaves to place on the ground in each scene, but you'd never know it (unless you happen to look at all the green leaves up on the trees).

The movie is beautifully shot, with director John Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey making the most of nearly every frame. Continuous shots will have Michael subtly appearing in the shadows for a moment, then disappearing by the time the characters turn around. Michael's mask reflects just enough light to appear as a slightly bluer shadow among the black shadows. Those kinds of shots are creepy and effective.

Halloween has a number of great moments, and I fully agree with its place in horror history, but I have never put it on a pedestal like so many do. It has a ton of distracting little script and acting problems and goofy moments that strike sour notes every time I see the movie.

Lines like, "hey jerk, speed kills!" and "well, kiddo, I thought you outgrew superstition" just don't make sense in context (John Carpenter agrees with me on the latter, according to the DVD commentary). Furthermore, the Lynda character's whole little improvised monologue about what books she doesn't take home while she waits for Laurie to watch Michael's car come down the street is just awful.

And I don't need to rehash the one frequent criticism people have of the movie, regarding Michael somehow knowing how to drive. My problem with that isn't that he knows how to drive, but that his driving all over the place is so much less scary than him standing and stalking in the shadows.

Despite doing nearly everything right in the actual scare sequences, the movie has never struck me as particularly scary. And, perhaps most damningly, I have never bought into the whole concept of Michael Myers as "The Shape," an inhuman killer that is "pure evil."

The circumstances of his first kill when he was a child, of his escape from the sanitarium (he skittered over the car pretty sprightly for a guy who never runs or anything), of his constant driving around, of his stalking and popping in and out of sight, of his apparent voyeurism, and so on all don't jibe with this idea of a near-supernatural force of death.

I can certainly buy him as a kid who couldn't handle his sister's sexuality (or some other unexplored problem) and snapped, killing her and then going catatonic for 15 years before breaking out to kill again. But none of that requires all of this hoosafudge about "the Devil's eyes," and "Death has come to your town, Sheriff," and the awful, "he's gone! He's from here! The Evil is gone!" out of Michaels's psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis. It makes him come off as a superstitious old fool, not a competent doctor.

This is blasphemy for many people, but in this way I appreciated what Rob Zombie did with his remake more than how the character is treated in the original. If he's a force of "pure evil," then fine, don't give us any insight into his character and motivations. But if he is a human being who has gone psychotic - and I have never been able to see him as anything but that in this first film - then I want to see the process and get to know who Michael is behind the mask. The Rob Zombie movies give that to us, while Carpenter's original does not. Take your pick.

Putting my complaints about the movie aside, the last ten minutes - from the "finding the bodies" scene until the end - are fantastically suspenseful and frightening. That last ten-minute sequence can make you forget about any problems with the first 80 minutes, and are largely where the movie made its fortune. I can totally see coming out of a theater in 1978 talking about how Michael almost got Laurie, how he just wouldn't die, how he really was the "boogeyman."

Without the mastery of that last reel, Halloween would have been a well-shot, well-intentioned exploitation movie with a few good moments that ultimately may have been lost in the shuffle of film history. Instead, it resonated with audiences to the point that the movie launched a franchise, a sub-genre, and an era of filmmaking that has yet to end.

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1997)

On a giant cheap-ass CGI space station in THE FUTURE, a man named Paul Merchant summons Pinhead and the Cinobites. He is interrupted in his actions by a military unit who are there to take the space station back from its designer. As they question what he is trying to do, he tells the story of his family's history, and the history of the infamous puzzle box.

Beginning in 18th century France (featuring some of the worst French accents ever captured in film) with the toy maker who created the box, Philip LeMarchand. He delivers the box to Duc de L'Isle, the patron who requested it be built. He, in turn, uses the box, a skinned-alive prostitute, and arcane magic to summon the demoness Angelique, brought forth to do his bidding.

We then see Angelique in the 1990s as she tries to put an end to the bloodline of the toy maker, the one family who could create a new box that could send her and the Cinobites back to Hell and bind them forever.

The uneasy alliance between Angelique and Pinhead leads to arguments over the best way to achieve their nefarious goals - temptation or suffering. On the one hand, this leads to too much talky-talky between the two demons. On the other hand, it leads to Pinhead's pronouncements about pain, which are some of the best things in the movie. Doug Bradley still brings his "A" game in this fourth installment, even if the material is a step down from his character's origins.

The set dressings, with all sorts of hanging chains and bloody body parts on the walls, are also plusses here. The blending of our world with the Hellscape had always been an intriguing and entertaining aspect of these movies, and it continues to be so here.

Where this movie falls down, other than in the cgi budget for the parts in THE FUTURE, is the script. Other than some of Pinhead's dialogue, this is just a terrible script. It's confusing and frustrating trying to follow along with the leaps the movie makes, to understand what the Cinobites are actually after, to know how it is that some characters manage to know what's going on and how to proceed when they haven't previously been privy to any of the necessary information.

It's my understanding that this went through a lot of scripts, so some things may have been left in that shouldn't have and some things have been left out. Between the multiple scripts and multiple directors (the final film being credited to the infamous Alan Smithee), I guess it's a bit much to ask to have a fully coherent final product. It's obvious the studio didn't care and just wanted it finished.

Still, I remember hating this a lot more than I did this time. It's cheap and dumb, but Doug Bradley is great as always as Pinhead, and it's bloody, gory, and gross. That's all I ask for at this point in this franchise, so I guess I can't complain.

Note: This is the last of the theatrically released Hellraiser movies. The next five movies (for a total of nine!) are straight-to-DVD cheapies where apparently Pinhead is just kinda slapped onto some script the studios had lying around and are terrible. I have zero interest in bothering with any of those, so this is the last Hellraiser movie in my book, at least until the inevitable remake.

Wolf Creek (2005)

Kristy and Liz, two British tourists, are traveling through the Australian Desert with their new Australian friend Ben, when they stop at Wolf Creek Crater - an enormous crater formed when a meteorite hit millennia ago. After a hike to the top of the crater and a view of its natural beauty, the trio return to their car to find that it won't start.

Stranded in the rain, it looks like they might be in a little bit of trouble until a man named Mick shows up in a tow truck. From that point on, they're not just in a little trouble - they're in whole lot of trouble.

Wolf Creek falls into the category of Hillbilly Horror, which I'm happy to see is not just an American thing. Hollywood (or in this case, Aussie-wood, I guess) tells us that wherever there is a wide-open space with no civilization around for miles, there will be creeps living off the grid, preying on anyone unfortunate enough to pass through. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, Wolf Creek... I get the hint, movie-makers. I ain't going out there. Not for all the kangaroos in the Outback.

Wolf Creek brings some real tension to the table. You don't go into this movie thinking its just a travelogue showing the natural beauty of a foreign land. You know that at some point, something bad is going to go down. Wolf Creek takes its time getting to the horror, developing the three leads - not fully, but well enough to make us want them to live, even though a savvy audience knows that is an unlikely outcome.

Wolf Creek is a harrowing experience. There are tantalizing moments when escape seems possible, and there is a palpable sense of dread and inevitability when freedom is taken away again. And it's made worse by the murderous Mick putting on a friendly voice and an "aww-shucks" attitude as he explains just how he's going to treat our protagonists. He's an unlikely looking and sounding villain, and that makes him all the more frightening.

While movies like the Hostel series involve very elaborate machinations that put tourists into the clutches of the murderers, Wolf Creek keeps it simple. You unknowingly catch the eye of a killer. Your car breaks down. You find yourself forced to accept help from a stranger. Next thing you know, ropes, gags, torture, death. This is a kind of horror that could happen in the real world - the kind you'll think about next time you're driving in an unfamiliar area. That's a sign of an effective horror movie.

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

After the events of the first movie, both Henry Frankenstein and his monster are presumed dead. However, both creature and creator are revived and looking to move on with their lives. Henry seems to see the error of his ways and denounces his pursuit of the secrets of the creation of life... at least until he is visited by Dr. Pretorius, who has had some success in the field of Mad Science in his own right.

In the meantime, the monster faces rejection at every turn and, after a murder or two, is hunted into the woods where he stumbles upon the cabin of an old blind man. Enchanted by the man's playing on the violin, the monster goes into the house, where he is greeted joyfully by the blind man. Over time, both man and monster find happiness in their friendship and the blind man teaches the monster to talk in rudimentary words and phrases. All is well until some strangers find them and try to kill the monster that has terrorized the countryside.

Separated from his one friend, the monster sets out to find another, which he does in Dr. Pretorius. Pretorius promises the monster that he will make him a new friend - a mate - and tells him he needs Henry Frankenstein to make it happen.

Soon, Frankenstein is forced to return to the laboratory to play God again. Will Henry be able to save his wife from the monster he created? Can the monster find happiness with the bride created for him? Or is tragedy the only destiny for those who try to become gods by creating monsters?

The Bride of Frankenstein is another marvel of classic cinema. The elaborate sets, full of lightning and sparks and fire, are fantastically impressive, as is Boris Karloff's monster makeup. James Whale pulls out all the stops, like giving us crazy Dutched angles on the wild-eyed mad scientists as they throw sparking switches and pull giant levers in the climactic set-piece. And the screenplay blends horror and tragedy with a bit of humor, telling an effective, thought-provoking, affecting story.

While only one viewing each isn't enough for me to say (as many have) that Bride is better than its predecessor, Frankenstein, it is certainly a very worthy sequel. These films are iconic and legendary, and should be required viewing for pretty much everyone, not just horror fans. I'm glad I have finally seen them for the first of what will no doubt be many, many times.

Poltergeist (1982)

Steven and Diane Freeling and their children, Dana, Robbie, and Carol Anne, live in Cuesta Verde Estates, a massive neighborhood of nice, affordable, lookalike houses developed by the company Steven works for. They are a typical American Spielberg family, with squabbling but basically good kids, laid back parents who trust the kids to not get into too much trouble, and a big happy dog.

They have everything they could want in life, but it all takes a turn when they start to experience some paranormal activity (yeah, I know) in the house. At first it's exciting and fun, with a supernatural force that pulls objects across the kitchen floor in a predictable way and some objects moving on their own. But wonder turns to horror when the supernatural force causes a giant tree to try to engulf Robby, and Carol Anne to be taken away to some other plane of existence.

Carol Anne is only able to communicate with her family by voice, which is best manifested on a static-y television. The Freelings have to call for help from experts who are unprepared for the scope of their activity. The experts, in turn, call in Tangina, a psychic who can help the Freelings, but only if they are willing to go beyond the realm of their understanding and do whatever it takes to get their daughter back.

There isn't much to be said about Poltergeist that hasn't already been said, short of gushing and heaping praise on praise. This is a nearly perfect ghost movie, with a terrifically spooky setup, a frightening central premise, memorable characters, and top notch writing, directing, and special effects. What director Tobe Hooper accomplished with old-fashioned techniques like stop-motion, green screen composite, hand-drawn rotoscope animation, and practical special effects is nothing short of amazing.

Of course, that's assuming that Tobe Hooper really did the directing here, and not the story creator, screenwriter, and producer, Steven Spielberg. Some stories say that Hooper did all the directing himself, some say that Speilberg helped out with a few scenes, and some say this should be considered Spielberg's movie.

Whatever the case may be, Spielberg's fingerprints are all over Poltergeist. From the family dynamics, to the kid-centric story, to the shot composition and style. Whether he directed the movie or not, he clearly guided Tobe Hooper in making Poltergeist fit in with the universe of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and other Spielberg visions.

The result is a legitimately scary ghost movie that is also full of emotion and heart. The Freeling family is put through hell, and you just ache for them over the loss of their youngest child to something that can't be understood or reasoned with. Their struggle to comprehend what is happening to them, to find their daughter, and to get her back feels real and down-to-Earth, even against the backdrop of supernatural circumstances. Poltergeist is accessible, frightening, and wondrous, and is an absolute must-see.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

"Hello? Hello. I've got a message for you, and you're not going to like it. ... Pray for death."

When a priest investigates the death of another priest, he discovers a hidden chamber in an abandoned California church. Known only to an ancient, secret order of priests called the Brotherhood of Sleep, this chamber has housed a terrible artifact for five-hundred years, keeping its existence hidden from the world, and even the Catholic Church itself.

It is pure evil, concentrated, and incredibly ancient. It is Satan, the son of an evil god who walked the Earth before time began. He was contained in this artifact millions of years ago to await a time when he will be unleashed up on the world to open the door for the return of his father. the Anti-God.

The priest consults with a physicist friend, and they bring together the brightest young minds in the fields of theoretical and applied physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, theology, ancient languages and texts, and other subjects to study the artifact. The goal is to prove scientifically what the priest knows through his faith - that evil is a real, fundamental force, and it is imprisoned in the artifact, working to find its way out and be reborn.

The evil force reaches out from its containment to infect those susceptible to its growing power and influence. Moving objects by its conscious thoughts. Causing the local homeless population to stand guard around the church, killing anyone who tries to leave. Controlling the creeping things that crawl upon the Earth. Preparing a vessel for the evil's return.

The priest and the assembled scholars are all that stand between the world and the incomprehensible evil within the artifact. Together, they must stay alive long enough to understand the evil force, unlock the mystery of the recurring dream shared by the Brotherhood of Sleep, and keep the Prince of Darkness from reigning over the Earth.

Prince of Darkness is one of John Carpenter's most underrated films. Some people may be put off by the "Satan in a jar" concept, which could seem silly at first blush, and fail to give the movie a chance. But if you go along with what the movie is telling you, and go a little deeper than the four-word elevator pitch above, you will find that it's a terrifying, cosmic-scale, Lovecraftian story with implications beyond our normal comprehension of evil, religion, science, and reality.

The movie is full of dreamy, atmospheric, creepy visuals, from the swirling green substance in the artifact, to the motionless homeless people standing vigil outside the church, to the insects crawling everywhere the evil touches, to the terribly unsettling VHS-quality recurring dream everyone experiences. And Carpenter's airy, bouncy, chorus-y synth score - possibly his very best work on the keyboards - is tailor-made to set you on edge and open you to possibilities you had never imagined.

Carpenter considers Prince of Darkness a part of a loose trilogy of apocalyptic films he has created, along with The Thing and In The Mouth of Madness. These films have very different mechanisms for bringing about the end of the world, but they share a number of commonalities. Each has themes of something alien and evil entering our world, an isolated few protagonists being the only ones who know what is happening, an unsettling, hopeless tone, and a sense of reality breaking down in some ways. And each of these movies is the work of a true "master of horror" at the top of his game. Highly recommended.

The Prowler (1981)

In 1945, Rosemary Chatham sends her boyfriend overseas a "Dear John" letter, telling him as sweetly as she can that she has moved on, and so should he. Later, when Rosemary and her new boyfriend, Roy, leave the Pritcher College Graduation Dance to go neck in the gazebo, they are interrupted by a murderer in dark military fatigues and armed with a pitchfork.

Thirty-five years later, Pritcher College is finally going to revive the tradition of the Graduation Dance, which had been banned since the school dean's daughter was slaughtered at the Dance in 1945. Of course, that means more murder and mayhem from the unknown killer, as he employs his bayonet and his trademark pitchfork to properly honor Rosemary's death through the spilling of lots and lots of blood.

As the "prowler" terrorizes the campus, most of the students are safely sequestered at the big dance with its Spinal Tap-looking band that keeps playing the same song over and over. Of course, those who do separate from the dance wind up getting slaughtered in pools of blood. One of the victims, for instance, is literally in the pool, with blood. Pool of blood.

The Prowler is a solid slasher from the peak era of the subgenre's quality and influence. In some ways, it can be seen as a run-of-the-mill horror movie (complete with nonsensical, pointless final scare moment), but it is bolstered by the really cool-looking military outfit and helmet the killer wears, some decently tense stalking scenes, and some excellent blood and gore effects from the great Tom Savini. If you are only a casual fan of the mainstream slasher movies, you can probably skip The Prowler, but for horror-obsessives like myself, it's a must-see.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

Dr. Phibes Rises Again begins with a recap of the previous movie, featuring a voiceover that sounds like the SuperFriends narrator. Then we pick up the story as Phibes lies dead in a crypt with the body of his dead wife, Victoria.

Dr. Anton Phibes, who replaced his blood with embalming fluid at the end of the first movie, is revived when the moon and planets align just right and moonlight shines on the light-activated mechanism on his crypt that reverses the embalming process. This is a once-every-two-thousand-years occurrence, but fortunately, Dr. Phibes only had to wait three years to be revived.

Conveniently, this confluence of celestial events coincides with another once-every-two-thousand-years occurrence: the flowing of a secret river under the pyramids in Egypt - a river that holds the secret to eternal life, and to the resurrection of Dr. Phibes' beloved wife.

Unfortunately, when Phibes returns to the surface level of his home, he finds that it has been destroyed in the intervening years and the papyrus in his safe that holds the secrets of the river's location has been stolen. Dr. Phibes must find the thief, recover the papyrus, and set about reviving his dear dead Victoria, no matter how many people he and his mute assistant Vulnavia have to kill along the way.

Phibes and Vulnavia are a bit like Scaramanga and Nick Nack from The Man With the Golden Gun. They make a strange pair as they play music together, eat gourmet meals together, wear several different matching costumes, and generally seem to enjoy their happy little murderous lives as they casually go about their quest.

This time around, Dr. Phibes' instruments of death include poisonous snakes (both real and mechanical), an eagle, scorpions (both real and mechanical), a giant fan, a cot...  So many bizarre and funny ways to kill someone. As with the first movie, it's a little hard to say that we should be rooting for the murderous doctor, but it sure is fun seeing him come up with this strange assortment of impractical gadgets at just the right time to kill someone. It's like he's ordering these things from the ACME catalog or something.

Interestingly, it seems clear that Dr. Phibes Rises Again was an influence on Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail. The passage through the desert, the trap-filled caverns, and the quest for immortality are all present here, as are the remarkably similar consequences of not achieving immortality. It's amazing how this campy horror movie could strike a chord with future filmmakers in the way it did, as was the case with the first Phibes.

Dr. Phibes needs to learn how to let things go. This obsession he has with his dead wife is unhealthy, for him and his victims. And he has the beautiful Vulnavia right there, patiently helping him in his mad quest, doubtless a heartbroken wreck behind that brave exterior every time Phibes waxes poetic about Victoria. I'm surprised Vulnavia has never moved on to another madman, but she remains devoted to her unrequited lover to the end.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again almost recaptures the fun of the first Phibes movie, but comes up just a bit short. It has the creative kills, the odd antics of Phibes and Vulnavia in their hideout, the fantastic cops (Scotland Yard inspector Trout returns, as does his flustered boss, but they aren't in the movie enough), and some incredible sets.

Unfortunately, the movie drags in the middle just a bit, it could use a higher body count, and the ending is a bit too vague and confused. But it still has Vincent Price doing what does (again speaking only through a contraption in his throat - and by the way, he eats through a similar contraption on the other side of his neck. Eww.) and is well worth a look if you liked the first one.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

Prominent doctors throughout London keep turning up dead in a series of gruesome and bizarre murders. Some detective work by Scotland Yard's Inspector Trout leads to the conclusion that the killer is offing his victims based on the ten plagues used against the Pharaoh in the Bible.

Frogs, bats, rats, hail, locusts, a brass unicorn catapulted across a London street ... Everything described in Exodus (stretching interpretations of the text to the breaking point to encompass what Phibes is doing) is employed against the doctors and nurses who tried and failed to save Dr. Anton Phibes' dying wife in a surgical operation.

This movie is so odd. Phibes mopes around his mansion hideout, listening to his clockwork band, playing his organ, melting the faces off of the wax busts of his enemies, reciting poetry to a picture if his dead wife through a voice box connected to his throat - he is unable to speak normally due to the car crash that supposedly took his life.

And while Phibes mopes and mourns, Vulnavia, his beautiful assistant silently brings him flowers, plays the violin, sets a gourmet dinner for the two of them, dances in elaborate costumes, and seemingly tries to gain his attention and affection. But Phibes only has eyes for his dead wife.

Vincent Price gives an impressive, if campy, performance as the aristocratic, obsessed, grotesque, monstrous Dr. Phibes. He performs the entire movie without moving his mouth to speak, as Phibes can only speak through his voice box speaker arrangement. This means Price's performance has to come from body movements and facial intensity, and here he excels at both.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is not your ordinary horror movie. Through most of there movie, we follow Phibes as he exacts his revenge on the surgeons he perceives killed his wife. Are we supposed to root for him, or for the incompetent, bumbling police? I suppose it's Phibes, as we want to see what he unleashes on the next victim, whether or not we agree with his reason for killing. In this way, this seems to have influenced the Saw movies, with us more-or-less rooting for a madman righting the wrongs he perceives in the world through a series of gruesome traps.

Unlike the Saw movies, however, Dr. Phibes is infused with a dark sense of humor that is really truly funny. The deadpan, oh-so-proper British dialogue from the police along with Phibes' strange mannerisms and the dark humor of many of the death traps lets you know that this isn't to be taken too seriously, and it's okay to have fun with it. That sense of fun is missing from most of the Saw movies, but not from their decades-earlier predecessor, The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Night of the Demons (1988)

Judy and Jay go to a secret Halloween party at an abandoned funeral home, thrown by local weirdo Angela. Soon the crowd has gathered, the beers are flowing, the strobe light is flashing, and the punk music is blaring.

When the boom box mysteriously turns off on its own, they decide to entertain themselves by conducting a "past life seance," which involves staring into a big old dusty mirror in a "Bloody Mary" sort of way. When one of the girls sees a horrible face in the mirror and everyone hears and smells something unusual, some of the partiers decide that the house is possessed by a demons.

Unfortunately, they're right. One of the girls, Suzanne (played by scream queen Linnea Quigley), inhales a strange smoky substance and starts acting weird. She passes the demonic influence to Angela, and the two of them begin to kill off their fellow party-goers one by one using supernatural trickery. Some of them try to escape the funeral home, only to discover that the gate in the brick wall surrounding the place seems to have disappeared, and there's no way out. Can Judy and her friends find a way to escape the funeral home with their lives?

Night of the Demons is far from "good," but it contains all sorts of awesome things. It has a healthy supply of 80s excesses: partying, nudity, violence, gore... It even has a 100% superfluous kill at the end of the movie that has nothing to do with anything and doesn't make a lot of sense, but provides one last bit of bloody violence before the generic 80s rock song plays us out over the credits.

Night of the Demons is best suited for group viewing, so you can share the WTF moments with friends (particularly the one where Suzanne does the single weirdest thing in the history of movies) and refer back to the highlight moments in later conversation. Unfortunately, as a solo watch, its innate stupidity becomes all too apparent and it's hard for the good outweigh the bad. So get a group together, crack open some cans of party juice, and enjoy the strangeness.

The Incubus (1982)

When a series of brutal rapes and murders strikes the town of Galen, Pennsylvania, it's up to Dr. Sam Cordell to figure out who - or what - is behind the attacks. As he investigates the evidence with the police and the editor of the town newspaper, his daughter must figure out what is wrong with her boyfriend, Tim, and how his nightmares about witch trials tie into the attacks. Could the erratic Tim be the attacker? Or is there a sinister supernatural force at work? Frankly if you read the title of the movie, you have a pretty good idea of who is brutalizing these victims.

John Cassavetes, who I recognized as the jerk husband in Rosemary's Baby, is very effective here as a jerk doctor. He is bossy, creepy, short-tempered, and insensitive to say the least, but he gets results. It's hard to root for him as a character, but he's what we have to work with. His daughter in the movie is also feisty and tough, but her weenie boyfriend Tim is just kindof irritating as he fights off his nightmares.

This is a weird, somewhat difficult movie, folks. There are several uncomfortable scenes involving rape, and there is more clinical use of the words "rape" and "sperm" than anyone has ever depicted outside of a Health class filmstrip. So it's pretty grim, and has a downer ending, but it also comes close to a bit of jarringly goofy black magic nonsense with Tim the boyfriend's overprotective grandmother.

Furthermore,  the attacks depicted are episodic and lacking in characterization - which is to say that they happen time and again to characters who had not previously appeared in the movie, so we don't know who they are, but it seems like we are supposed to. Most of the victims are friends with Tim and his girlfriend, but we don't get scenes of them interacting together. It's just weird scriptwriting and directing.

The Incubus is a grim, gruesome movie that is fairly hard to watch. The enjoyably jerky performance of John Cassavetes saves it from being completely mean-spirited and repulsive. It's a pretty good looking movie, and the score (and cameo concert scene featuring heavy metal band Samson and their lead singer, future Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson) are solid. I can't say the movie is a good time, but it is a horror movie, so it's supposed to be horrifying. It's a decently well-made movie, but it's not really my cup of tea.

Someone's Watching Me! (1978)

When Leigh Michaels moves into Arkham Tower, a massive apartment building in Los Angeles, she becomes just one among literally thousands of tenants. She thinks she is safely anonymous in the crowded building, but she catches the eye of a Peeping Tom with a high powered telescope in the building across the street.

The peeper employs his telescope and an array of recording equipment hidden in her apartment to harass Leigh and keep tabs on her. He sends her presents, calls her at work, sends her champagne when she is at a restaurant, uses a remote dimmer switch to mess with her lights... She can't sleep, won't eat... She's falling apart. Even when she changes her phone number, the calls keep coming.

The police are no help, so she has to use her wits to discover who's watching her from a distance before he gets too close.

In every shot inside Leigh's apartment, at least before she realizes that her mysterious caller can see her. her curtains are wide open and she is very visible through her big windows. Looking out those windows at the building across the street, we can see the lights on and people moving around in the hundreds of apartments visible from Leigh's. It illustrates the vulnerability and lack of privacy that Leigh and all of these apartment dwellers have to feel in their own homes.

Someone's Watching Me was a television movie, but due to the skillful direction of John Carpenter and the strong performance by Lauren Hutton as Leigh, it's as suspenseful as many movies that receive theatrical releases. And now on DVD, it is presumably even more suspenseful than it was in its original television presentation, as there are no ads for Topol - the Smoker's Tooth Polish! - and K-Tel Records popping up to break the tension.

It stops short of being a full-on horror/slasher movie, keeping the body count, swearing, and sexual content to a minimum for the sake of the television audience. It may not be as intense as a blood-soaked, limbs-flying, knives-flashing psychotic killer movie of the type that dominated the theaters in the following years, but it's quite suspenseful, well acted, well shot, and pretty good for TV.

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)

Leatherface: TCM3 opens with a "mask-making" scene intercut with the opening credits, which was surely inspired by the beginning of A Nightmare on Elm Street, where Freddy assembles his razor glove. After that, we follow Ryan and Sara, traveling through Texas on their way from Los Angeles to Florida, as they meet survivalist Benny (played by horror icon Ken Foree) and run afoul of the murderous, cannibalistic Sawyer family.

The previously seen members of the Sawyer family were by-and-large killed off by the end of TCM2, so we get a new batch here. This time around we have the muttering pervert gas station attendant Alfredo, the handsome charmer Tex (played by a young Viggo Mortensen, believe it or not), the hook-handed Tinker (who makes gadgets and is sort of the Q of the group), wheelchair-bound, speaker-in-the-neck Anne (who exerts a motherly influence over the boys, though her relationship with them isn't clearly defined), and the unnamed little girl of the family, who at nine or so is just as crazy and deadly as her elders.

These characters are enjoyably crazy and bizarre, but none of their antics hold a candle to the abject lunacy of the first movie, or even the second, really. Or the remake. It's like they're trying too hard to out-crazy the previous movies and they've made the characters so outlandish as to be comical.

Leatherface particularly has become a parody of his former self, going from a simple, murderous man-child to a goofball with a chainsaw, a Walkman, and a Speak n' Spell. (Okay, Leatherface's little spelling lesson thing - which shows a picture of a clown and asks "what is it?" and he types out F-O-O-D - is pretty funny.) He's still a violent monster, but he's just not as intimidating as he used to be. It's almost always the case that the more you know about the monster, the less scary it becomes, and that's what is going on here.

The mayhem commences in the typical Chainsaw fashion, with a first tentative meeting with the (arguably) more presentable members of the family in which something just doesn't seem right about them, then their true nature is revealed and our heroes are either dispatched or captured. Then there's a scene revolving around a meal in which the protagonist is affixed to a chair and tormented, only to escape just in time and have a final showdown with Leatherface. The day is saved, the final girl gets away. Wash, rinse, repeat.

While the law of diminishing returns is definitely in effect with the original series of Chainsaw movies, this one isn't exactly bad. In fact, it's pretty well shot (if a bit too dark), giving the movie a more modern look and feel than the gritty, low budget looks of the previous two films. It's just a far cry from the legitimate terror of the first movie and the nutty, satirical excesses of the second one. It becomes just a rehash of previously established concepts with another absurd clan of crazies tied to the other movies only by Leatherface.

For a movie that famously had a hard time avoiding an X rating for violence, it is surprisingly tame in the gore department. A bit of research tells me that I must have been watching the R-rated cut, but even the parts that were trimmed out for the unrated edition (which I used to have on VHS) just aren't that terribly graphic. That's a bit disappointing.

Still, as a straight-ahead meat-and-potatoes slasher sequel, it's certainly watchable. Completists will find some parts entertaining but ultimately forgettable. Those who are less than horror junkies can skip it.

Frankenstein (1931)

Henry Frankenstein, brilliant former medical student, yearns for something greater than simply holding back death for the sick or infirm. He wants even more than the miraculous idea of bringing the dead back to life. Henry wants to create life with his own two hands - to use his scientific knowledge and human abilities to play God. He succeeds in his goal of giving life to a body of his own creation that had never lived before, but in his hubris he unleashes a childlike monster into the world, leading to fire, destruction, and death.

The Frankenstein monster is so iconic that they made a breakfast cereal in his honor, and seeing this first movie for the first time, I can see why it struck a chord with audiences from day one. The monster is a triumph of early cinema makeup and of acting. He looks awesome, all bolts and flat-top and stiff-legged gait and all. His sallow, sunken, skeletal face is both repulsive and sympathetic, defining the character as a monster who doesn't mean to be one.

Boris Karloff's body control is amazing, as the newborn monster takes steps like a baby foal just getting his feet under him. And looking at the monster's hands, you can't help but be astounded that Karloff can consistently use both of them in different ways, emphasizing the idea that they came from two different "donors." His commitment to the character of the monster, something that is played too broadly or carelessly in so many horror movies, is what makes the movie work.

That is not to discount the work of the other actors, particularly Colin Clive as Henry, Frederick Kerr as his father the Baron, and Dwight Frye as Henry's hunch-backed assistant, Fritz. Henry is clearly suffering from the madness of his quest and his isolation up in the mountains, protesting too much when he is called mad. After all, would a madman sew together the bodies of deceased criminals to make a new, living man? Would he?? Anyway, Clive plays Frankenstein on the brink, capable of either grounding and redeeming himself through his marriage to Elizabeth, or going right over the edge into full-on mad scientist.

Baron Frankenstein was a particularly delightful character that I was not familiar with prior to watching the movie. His self-deprecating humor and dash-it-all attitude provided some welcome comic relief and a likable character to contrast with the craziness of our presumed hero, Henry.

And then there's Fritz, the classic hunchbacked assistant who loyally does whatever Henry says, except when Henry says not to torment the monster with his torch. Fritz shows what Henry could become if he continued down his mad path. And he's a hoot to watch as they're about to steal some bodies, as he's swinging around the laboratory on a rope, and so forth.

It took me forever to get around to sitting down and watching Frankenstein for the first time. Maybe it was the age of the movie, the black-and-whiteness of it, or the fact that I had already learned so much about it through other pop culture. Whatever the case, I didn't go back to the beginning of horror cinema and check out this classic until now, but I'm so glad I finally got to it.

Frankenstein's monster may not make little kids hide under their covers anymore like it did on first release, but it's still an effective image and performance and should be seen by all horror fans. There's a good story, some entertaining characters, a great monster, and camera and editing techniques that were ahead of their time. It's no wonder it was so influential, and has held up after all these years. A must see.

Demon Wind (1990)

Corey travels to his old, burned down family farm in the middle of nowhere to learn more about his family's dark past, accompanied by his girlfriend and eight of their other friends.

They are warned off by an old gas station owner, but they proceed to the farm anyway. When they get there, they find it a burned out husk of just a few freestanding walls. But when they pass through the door, they find the inside intact, just the way Corey's grandmother had left it when she died decades ago. As they look for answers, they encounter demon children, demon women, zombies, a fog that transports them to random strange places, and all sorts of other demonic shenanigans.

There are some really solid gore effects, grotesque demon makeup, some fun demony set pieces, and some of the most delightfully goofy protagonists I've ever seen. 

Case in point, Corey's friends Chuck and Stacy, two stage magicians who

arrive in tuxedos, pulling flowers from their sleeved and doves from their jackets. And did I mention they do karate? Nothing puts down a demon like a well-placed roundhouse kick to the face.

And furthermore, the whole gang doesn't seem too bothered when their friend is turned into a doll and burned. They don't even shed a tear when they find the bodies of the kung fu magicians mentioned above. When the stars of this low rent cast include a stunt woman trying to act and a Playgirl model not really trying to act, I guess you can't expect much.

Anyway, they break the oldest rule in the horror movie book - never read Latin written in blood out loud. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose, with Corey's friends being killed and quickly inducted into the undead army to take on our hero. Only Corey, armed with his grandmother's book of spells, can stand against the demons and... save the farm?Survive the night? It's unclear what the demons want and what Corey can do about it. But there you go.

I think we all have encountered movies that dance on the edges of our memories, not quite giving us enough information to positively identify them. It has taken almost 25 years, but I think I have found in Demon Wind a movie that I remember seeing small pieces of in the middle if the night at a friend's house when I was a kid. It spooked me enough then to burn into my brain images of demonic/zombie figures converging on a farm and reality shifting and twisting for the protagonists.

It's possible that Demon Wind still isn't that elusive movie in my distant, vague memory, but it sure feels like it might be. But even if it isn't the same thing, I'm at least glad I saw this unusual, gory, odd little movie from 1990. It's not the most amazing movie ever made, but it does have some oddities that would make it fun to watch in a group on a bad movie night. At least I can say, Demon Wind doesn't blow.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)

Ernst, a Catholic Monsignor, travels to a small village to assess the town's church and its priest. The village sits literally in the shadow of the castle of the evil vampire, Count Dracula, and despite his being killed a year ago, the village has continued to feel the evil and oppression coming from the castle. When Ernst travels to Dracula's castle to bless it, hoping to dispel the lingering evil, the town priest can only bring himself to go partway, cowering in fear on the rocky mountainside. The Monsignor carries on and reads the rite of exorcism at the castle door, then bars the door with a large cross.

In the meantime, the priest has an accident, falling down the rocks and into an icy river. Unbeknownst to him, his fall cracked the ice covering the body of Count Dracula himself - who had been buried under moving water as is one of the traditional ways to kill a vampire (despite that not being remotely how he met his demise at the end of the previous movie, Horror of Dracula). (EDIT: I totally forgot about Dracula, Prince of Darkness, which comes between "Horror" and "Risen," and makes Dracula's condition at the beginning of this movie perfectly fine. My bad.) The blood from the priest's wounds trickles into Dracula's mouth, restoring him to life.

When the newly risen Dracula finds his castle is inaccessible to him, he vows revenge on the Monsignor who made it so. He travels to Ernst's hometown to kill him and to turn his niece into one of Dracula's brides. The only people standing in Dracula's evil way are the dumpy old Monsignor and his niece's boyfriend. They must stop Dracula before he can kill the Monsignor's niece... or worse.

As is almost always the case with Dracula movies, the star of the show is the Count himself. Here he is played by the amazing Christopher Lee, reprising his role from the first of many Hammer Pictures' Dracula movies, 1958's Horror of Dracula. He is a dangerous, intimidating villain, which is refreshing in these days of the watered-down, brooding anti-hero vampire. His bloodshot eyes stare into his victims and the audience hypnotically, his fangs glisten, and his tall, monstrous form comes out of the shadows like a predator. From the way he lashes at the horses that pull his carriage to the way he slaps his underlings down for disobeying or questioning his commands, everything about this Dracula speaks of cruelty and evil. There is no doubt who the bad guy is here.

The Dracula story has been told countless times over the years, and the character has appeared in every possible form of media. Though Bela Lugosi's portrayal in the original Universal Dracula movies is the most iconic, I'm strongly leaning towards Christopher Lee's Dracula in the Hammer productions being the best. I like my vampires dark, violent, and unflinchingly evil, and Lee's Dracula is all of that and then some. I'm a latecomer to the Hammer horror experience, but I'm very glad to be catching up on them. I would suggest that anyone who is tired of what vampires have become these days should check out what vampires are supposed to be in these old Christopher Lee movies.

Bay of Blood (1971)

When a wealthy Countess refuses to sell her bay and its surrounding land to a real estate developer to be turned into a resort destination, a chain of events is set in motion that involves conspiracy, a conniving daughter, an illegitimate son, an entomologist (for some reason), backstabbing (both figurative and literal), and murder. Well, murders. Lots of murders. Thirteen murders, to be exact.

This is more like it from director Mario Bava. The first murder is committed by a killer with black gloves on - a nod to traditional giallo films - but immediately after that, the movie changes into something else entirely. Bay of Blood, along with Psycho and Peeping Tom before it and Black Christmas, Halloween, and Friday the 13th after it, set the stage for the slasher movie boom of the 80s that redefined horror movies forever.

It's clear that Friday the 13th especially felt the influence of Bay of Blood, from its waterfront setting to its emphasis on creative, gory death scenes. In fact, Friday the 13th part 2 lifts three deaths directly from this movie, copying them almost shot-for-shot. If you're a fan of the slasher tradition of seeing a variety of implements used in dispatching a whole bunch of people, you need to see this - the movie where that trope was born.

What separates Bay of Blood from the formula slashers that came later is the nature of the killer. The convoluted but intriguing plot serves up a unique, and darkly humorous set of circumstances for all of these despicable characters to be offed. The revelations about who is doing the killing, and why, are highly entertaining.

As with most slashers to come, the plot isn't the point of the movie. The point is to add as many bodies to the pile as possible in ways that are so over-the-top gruesome as to be funny. This type of movie isn't for everybody, of course, but for lots of us horror fans, it's right up our alley. If you like a big body count, crazy turns of the plot, bloody violence (in a fun way), and a wild twist ending, you'll want to see Bay of Blood, one of the movies that made the slasher subgenre possible.

Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

A scientist and his wife are visiting the beautiful island home of a wealthy friend, taking in a relaxing vacation before the scientist reveals his new, world-changing chemical formula at a convention. His rich friend and a handful of other rich visitors have an ulterior motive for hosting the scientist - they want to buy the formula before he can unveil it and reap the future profits for themselves.

When the scientist refuses their individual and combined offers, frustration starts to set in and people begin to get killed. As person after person is killed and the freezer begins to fill with corpses, the list of suspects is whittled down until we finally learn... whodunit.

Five Dolls for an August Moon is not really a horror movie, as it turns out. I was expecting a giallo with all the trappings - black-gloved killer, flashing knives, bloody violence... That's what I think of when I think of director Mario Bava, but it's not what I got here. Five Dolls is basically a murder mystery, with most of the killing happening offscreen and relatively bloodlessly.

And unfortunately, it's kindof a dull and confusing murder mystery at that. It's a jumpy movie, springing from character to character as it goes scene to scene. Some scenes are so short and jumpy that you barely have time to register which characters were in the scene that just went by. I had to spend the whole movie constantly reminding myself who was who, and what their relationships were, and so on. It was all pretty hard to follow.

It is a Mario Bava movie, so you know it looks good. There are gorgeous shots of the beautiful island setting, as well as of the interesting and opulent (in a late-60s sort of way) vacation home. There is also groovy music throughout that gives the whole movie a breezy feeling, even when the body count starts rising.

There is one very nice moment of suspense as a character has to reach across a maybe-not-quite-dead body for something, and there's a solid twist at the end. The aesthetics of the movie are pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the movie itself just isn't.

Stagefright (1987)

As a troupe of actors and their overbearing director rehearse an avant garde play after hours, a serial killer stalks and murders them one by one. The murderer uses a variety of implements, from axes to drills to chainsaws, and wears one of the most unique masks in the history of slasher films - a large owl head that was part of a costume for the play.

Stagefright comes from Italian director Michele Soavi, who worked with the highly regarded visionary director Dario Argento on movies like Tenebre, Opera, Phenomena, and A Blade in the Dark. Argento is able to make slasher and giallo movies as beautiful as they are violent, and that ability seems to have rubbed off on Soavi.

Stagefright has some beautifully shot scenes, like postcard-worthy shots of feathers flying in a breeze and slowly descending, and some shocking scenes of bloody, gory mayhem. The acting is lacking, but that may have more to do with the dubbing than the actual capabilities of the cast. The music is mostly good, focusing on heavy, dark synth and repeated motifs. Altogether, it's a solid slasher with some well-shot, gorgeous images and some real "payoff" for a number of the kills, in terms of the gore factor. Check it out.

[REC]2 (2009)

Picking up right where the first [REC] left off, a small S.W.A.T. team equipped with helmet mounted cameras and a government official enter the quarantined apartment building, searching for answers, and any survivors. As they explore the penthouse apartment, it becomes apparent that the government official knows more than he is letting on, and that they are not alone.

[REC]2 unlocks more of the mystery behind the virus that turns people into slavering, bloodthirsty monsters. You learn why the penthouse was papered with articles about a girl named Tristana Medeiros, how the virus ties in to her story, and just what the hell that thing was at the end of the first movie. There are very interesting revelations about the nature of the infected people, and the protagonists discover a new weapon against them.

What [REC]2 doesn't do is scare me the way the first one (and its remake, Quarantine) managed to do. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that most of the protagonists go around heavily armed, making the infected less of a threat. Also, other than some cool uses of the helmet cameras and switching from one camera to another, there just wasn't much going on that wasn't seen in the first movie. And furthermore, the tough guy S.W.A.T. team isn't nearly as charming as the cute reporter from the first movie, so I didn't build up as much sympathy for them.

Which isn't to say [REC]2 wasn't good. It was very well shot and very impressively edited to accomplish the complex - and more effects-heavy this time around - action going on here. It does have its share of thrills and suspenseful moments, and the expanded understanding about the nature of the infected leads to some cool sequences as well. It's still a very intense movie, and even if [REC]2 isn't as scary as the first movie, it's well worth a watch.

[REC] (2007)

Reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman Pablo are recording a "night in the life of..." piece on the firemen who work the night shift in Barcelona when a call comes in about an elderly woman trapped in her apartment. Angela and Pablo go with the firemen as they respond to the call. When they get to the apartment building, they are met by a few police officers and some residents of the building, all confused and concerned about what is going on with the screaming woman in the apartment.

The firemen break down the woman's door and search the apartment, finally finding the woman standing in bloody clothes and in some sort of a psychotic state. When the head police officer attempts to approach her, she bites him in the neck, wounding him terribly. This sets off a chain of events that sees the building quarantined, sealed with plastic sheeting, and patrolled by armed police officers intent on keeping anyone from leaving. Angela, Pablo, and the others must try to find a way out of the building while also avoiding and fending off those who have been infected by the same virus - if that's really what it is - that made the old woman turn violent and aggressive.

[REC] is presented entirely as a view from Pablo's camera, in the "found footage" style that horror fans have become all too familiar with. Found footage movies have permeated the genre in the last decade or so, giving audiences a personal, close-to-the-action view of the horror - a view that is often obscured by the sickening overuse of the "shaky cam" shooting and editing style that comes from letting amateurs (in the context of the movie) hold the camera. [REC] cleverly gives the camera to a character who is a professional, thereby justifying the filmmakers' ability to present the horror in a surprisingly good-looking movie that doesn't make you want to vomit every time the cameraman runs up a flight of stairs.

[REC] succeeds in bringing us along for the ride at a careful pace. Despite its short run time, the movie takes the time to develop characters we like, establish the geography of there apartment building, and build from the naturalistic realism of the opening scenes to some extreme WTF horror by the end. You buy it every step of the way because the first-person camerawork puts you in the scene and everything develops at just the right clip.

I had hesitated to watch [REC] because I have already seen (and enjoyed) its American remake, Quarantine, and I expected the original just to be more of the same, but cheaper looking. Now that I have seen the original version, though, I can say that my concerns were for nought. First, the movie looks great. From the sets, to the film quality, to the workings of the cleverly done special effects, it's all very impressive. If it weren't for everyone speaking Spanish, it would be hard to distinguish this movie from a Hollywood movie in terms of production values.

In terms of being "more of the same," that is sort of true, but only in the sense that Quarantine did an admirable job of recreating this extremely good, extremely cool original movie. There are differences in the hows and whys of what is behind the infection (though both movies are pretty vague and mysterious about this point), but otherwise they follow the same sequence of events, more or less. So there weren't a lot of major surprises for me, but that didn't keep me from being thoroughly engrossed in [REC].

It's impossible not to get sucked into the story - the first-person camerawork puts you in the shoes of a character in the midst of these chaotic, horrific events and there's no escape. Even the subtitles seemed to fade into the background as the movie went on, leaving me to experience the action without the distraction of having to read. Maybe my high school Spanish was coming back to me, or maybe there wasn't a whole lot of dialogue after everybody started running around trying to eat each other, and the Spanish words for "help!" and "run!" and "go!" were all I needed.

Whatever the case may be, my enjoyment of this movie was in no way lessened by it being in Spanish or me having seen the remake. This is an intense, scary, action-packed horror movie that is about as well-executed as you can get.  I can't wait to watch part two, which I've heard good things about, and which will be entirely new to me. Bring it on!

Annabelle (2014)

John and Mia are soon to be first time parents whose lives are turned upside-down one night when they are attacked by members of a Satanic cult. The couple and their unborn child survive the attack, but Mia, justifiably, becomes nervous, anxious, paranoid that another attack will come. And it doesn't help that the big creepy doll that John gave her - the very doll clutched by one of her attackers as the cultist killed herself - seems to be... doing things.

Annabelle the doll is a very frightening creation. This movie only exists because audiences were terrified of Annabelle in her few scenes in The Conjuring, and rightfully so. It is in our nature to be creeped out by that uncanny valley-type representation of humanity that just isn't quite right, and Annabelle fits that in spades. The very best thing this movie has going for it is a well sculpted prop.

However, what the movie has going against it is familiarity. Magic, Devil Doll, Child's Play, Dead Silence... we've seen just about every move a doll can make, and every scare they can throw at us. Compound the doll thing with the fact that the movie references/borrows/apes ideas from Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, The Amityville Horror, and so on, and you can't escape the feeling that there was little new to be had here.

That's not to say it's bad. I enjoyed Annabelle for what it was, for the most part - although I did want to throw my balled-up napkin at the screen about five minutes before it was over. Annabelle had pretty good atmosphere, some effective imagery, a very good scene involving a basement and an elevator, and some mostly likable characters. What it didn't have was anything we haven't seen before, or really anything to write home about.

Frankenhooker (1990)

When Jeffrey Franken's girlfriend is "turned into salad" in a remote control lawnmower accident, Jeffrey must use his medical and electrical expertise to bring her back to life. He has her head, but he's going to have to acquire a lot more parts to put her, and their relationship, back together. And nothing solves problems quite like hookers and exploding crack.

Frankenhooker is an utterly insane movie, from its premise to its visuals, to the talking-to-himself acting of the lead actor, James Lorinz. Oh, and the walk, facial tics, and line delivery put on by Patty Mullen as the title character are terrific, capturing a bit of the classic Frankenstein monster by way of a Times Square street corner.

It has plenty of grotesque special effect sequences, especially in the nightmare-fuel ending, and is fundamentally about a pretty messed up concept. But it is presented with such a surprisingly light, silly touch that it isn't upsetting when people explode into meaty chunks - it's hilarious.

And for a movie about sizing up the body parts of a bunch of hookers to find the perfect bits, it's not lurid with its sexual content. It's almost sweet, in a demented sort of way.

Frankenhooker is one of the most successful horror-comedies out there in terms of actually being funny. It's perfect for viewing with friends and beers because it is guaranteed to supply comedy, repulsion, and WTF in equal measure. And now that it's on blu ray, it looks fantastic. Make a date for Frankenhooker.

Black Sabbath (1963)

In Black Sabbath, Boris Karloff hosts three short horror stories under the direction of the great Mario Bava. First, a nurse is tormented after she steals a ring from the corpse of a medium. Then, a woman is tormented by phone calls from someone who claims to be her dead boyfriend and eerily knows exactly what's going on in the house. Finally, a family is tormented by a wurdurlak - a vampire-like creature that can take the guise of a loved one and always kills those whole he loves.

Black Sabbath is a bit uneven, story-wise. In the English-language version that I watched they placed "The Drop of Water" first, effectively showing the best one first, then the kinda boring "Telephone," then the atmospheric "Wundurlak." I might have been better off with the original Italian version, which gets "Telephone" out of the way first, then "Wurdurlak," and then ends on a high note with "The Drop Of Water." Oh well.

Boris Karloff is funny as the host of the anthology, and he also gives a strong, chilling performance in "Wurdurlak." Every segment made clever use of lights, shadows, and color, which I understand is a staple of Mario Bana's work. Everything looked gorgeous in a 60s sort of way. And "The Drop of Eater" was seriously one of the scariest things I've ever seen. It was tense and shocking in equal measure. I'll not soon forget the face of the dead medium - it is astounding, especially given the limitations of making movies at that time.

Black Sabbath is worth watching for that first segment alone, Whoo! However, the dull and kinda silly second story brings things down quite a bit, and the last story, while good, doesn't end the movie with the proper bang. It's a good movie, but I know I will only be revisiting "The Drop of Water" in the future.

Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)

Bubba is 36 years old, but a mental handicap has left him with the mind of a child. A young girl named Mary Lee is the only friend Bubba has. One day when they are together, Mary Lee is attacked by a vicious dog and Bubba comes to her aid. When Mary Lee is seemingly killed and Bubba is incapable of explaining the situation, a posse of vigilantes takes the law into their own hands and hunts Bubba down.

They find Bubba in a field, hiding in scarecrow clothes and propped on a crossbeam. The four-man posse shoots him dead despite his protestations of innocence. Then, when the news comes out that the girl is alive and Bubba had actually saved her life, the posse places a pitchfork in Bubba's dead hand and gets the story straight among themselves.

Next thing you know, the posse is acquitted of the murder charge against them by their good-old-boy friend the judge, leaving Bubba's distraught mother screaming for justice. And her wish is granted, as the conspirators begin to die off one-by-one in "accidents." But are these accidents the work of the mother, the district attorney, or the spirit of poor Bubba, striking from beyond the grave?

Dark Night of the Scarecrow is one of the great examples of the kind of horror audiences were getting at home from TV movies that were actually made with love and care. The network Movie of the Week format once gave us well-crafted, well-acted movies that were sometimes actually scary. Now, the only people making TV horror movies are SyFy channel and their ilk, cranking out crappy CGI-filled cheapies with no heart, no joy, no characters, and no quality.

Certainly, Dark Night of the Scarecrow doesn't have the gory, overt violence that we are accustomed to, as it is a TV movie. But it does have atmosphere, a great story, a couple of decent (though bloodless) kills, and a good ambiguous ending. Oh, and it has really creepy-looking scarecrow. All that adds up to a fun watch.

Fatal Games (1982)

As the student-athletes from the Falcon Athletic Academy prepare for Nationals, they have to deal with overbearing coaches, a controversial steroid program, academic challenges, unsupportive parents, dating, and a killer in a track suit and hoodie impaling people with a javelin.

The killer must be the greatest javelin thrower of all time. Not since the heroes of ancient Greece have we seen javelins fly so far, with such accuracy, and such power. Impaling somebody against the wall with their feet dangling above the ground from across the room is a neat trick, as is nailing someone in the middle of a field from the top of the stadium bleachers.

Fatal Games checks all the boxes, including goofy kills (see above), pretty good kills (there's an underwater sequence that is fantastic, if a bit murky in the bootleg VHS YouTube version I watched), lots of red herrings (including a hilarious one where a character pins a beetle for his bug collection out of nowhere with no reference to this before or after), and loads of gratuitous nudity. Seriously, with all the shower, sauna, and massage room scenes these athlete characters participate in, this probably has the most nudity of any of the classic era slasher movies. So there you go.

The last act provides some decent suspense, with a protagonist on crutches searching through a dark building, unaware that he is being stalked. And everything culminates in a gonzo twist ending that is ludicrous, but fun.

The way the "final girl" discovers the identity of the killer - and all that that entails - is just plain ridiculous. But wow - the way the killer gets it in the end is fantastic. Altogether, Fatal Games is a bit on the dumb side, but still highly entertaining.

Black Christmas (1974)

As Christmas approaches, the members of a sorority have their holiday party interrupted by an obscene phone call full of threats and vulgar language.  Over the next day or so the calls get worse, soon becoming a cacophony of different babbling voices of a man, a woman, and a lot of screeching and screaming. Little do the sorority sisters know that the sounds on the other end of line are coming from only one person - the killer who has crept into the sorority house attic.

The slasher subgenre of horror may have surged to tremendous popularity because of Halloween, but Black Christmas set the stage for that to happen. The elements are all here - pretty girls being stalked and killed one-by-one, the use of varied and creative killing implements, an ineffective police force, innovative "killer's point-of-view" camera work, and even a holiday theme. All that's really missing is gratuitous nudity and being able to see the killer clearly, which basically never happens.

Where Black Christmas has it over most of the imitators that came after is that Black Christmas is legitimately scary. Almost none of the later slashers are in any way suspenseful or frightening - you're just in it for the kills, the gore, the ritual of the formula. But Black Christmas has atmosphere, the unsettling and creepy phone calls, characters you come to care about placed in mortal danger, and some fantastic camera work that shows you just enough of the killer to make him mysterious and terrifying.

I am a late-comer to this movie. Maybe as a youth I was turned off by the 1974 date on the video box, or maybe because I only knew Margot Kidder (who has never looked better, by the way) as Lois Lane and didn't think I wanted to see her in a horror movie. Whatever the case may be, it took me all this time to get around to Black Christmas, but I'm sure glad I finally watched it. I'll revisit it this Christmas, and it will definitely become part of my holiday tradition from now on. Great movie.

Excision (2012)

Pauline is a brilliant but awkward (okay, weird) teenager just beginning to get in touch with her sexuality. Her dreams are a bizarre mixture of half-naked bodies, fetishized hospital settings, and blood, and it becomes increasingly clear that the blood is what turns her on.

In her waking life, she approaches her sexuality clinically, in keeping with her desire to become a surgeon. She chooses a boy and proposes that she lose her virginity to him. After an awkward experience with the boy in a rented motel room and a number of attempts by her mother to make her into a "normal" girl, Pauline moves on to a new project - teaching herself to perform surgeries.

Specifically, she wants to perform the difficult, risky lung transplant that her parents can't afford for her younger sister with Cystic Fibrosis. But you can't do a lung transplant without donor lungs, so...

Excision is more of a dark family drama (with a very dark sense of humor poking through now and then) than a traditional horror movie. It's a look at how hard it can be to be different and misunderstood, and a call for people to get the psychological help they need when they need it. But for all that, it's also a trippy, disturbing, bloody - oh, so bloody - take on body horror, and worth a look as a horror "deep cut."

Ghosthouse (1988)

In 1967, a husband and wife are brutally killed in their big, old house while some spooky shenanigans are going on. Is the killer their creepy daughter, who was locked up in the basement for killing a cat? Or the creepy clown doll she has with her? Or some other unknown entity?

Twenty years later, a Bostonian named Paul picks up a strange signal with terrifying screams and creepy repeated voices on his ham radio and tracks the source to the now abandoned murder-house.

Along with his hilariously foreign girlfriend and four strangers who have come to the house, our intrepid ham operator must figure out the secret of the mysterious signals and the horrible visions they all begin to witness.

The acting in Ghosthouse is really bad. The actors are just waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can say their line. It's particularly noticeable when there's a pause when one person is "interrupting" another. The first person stops in mid-sentence for no reason. Then a pause. Then the next person says, "okay, okay, I get it..." or whatever. It's either just plain terrible, or the result of English being a second language to some of these people, or both.

Actually, this is a common occurrence in these Italian horror movies, where they do all the dialogue as in-studio ADR to prevent having to worry about positioning the mic when they're shooting. The end result is, almost always, bad dubbing and bad delivery.

However, the music and repeated voices of the strange radio signal are genuinely creepy, as are the visuals of the creepy girl and her super creepy clown doll. The kills are decent and entertainingly, cheaply gory.

Still, so much of the movie - particularly the acting and the dialogue - is just so danged silly that it taints the good parts and completely undermine any scariness the movie achieves.

Ghosthouse is a charmingly crappy movie that surprises by actually being a little bit scary. But mostly it's goofy 80s vaguely-European-masquerading-as-American schlocky fun.