1980’s Horror Triple Bill

Posted on October 31, 2024October 31, 2024 by fenrisfil

That’s right, It’s the final night of my October Review Challenge. That means it’s Halloween and *that* means it’s triple bill time. As you can probably guess, I watch the movies I review in October the day before I post (Sometimes earlier). So what I do on Halloween is sit back and enjoy three old classics without the pressure of having to review them. But this year, I’m sharing the fun somewhat by offering you a triple bill of reviews as well. That takes this years review challenge up to 35 movies reviewed. A new record (For me anyway). Anyway, tonight I’ve got a mixed bag of 80’s horror for you. Ouija boards, rats and very small demons. Let’s get to it!

Of Unknown Origin (1983)

Rats. They are creepy, territorial and hard to get rid of. Some are harmless pets, but even those creep the hell out of a lot of people. Naturally rats have always found their way into the horror genre. Tonight’s movie is the rat horror “Of Unknown Origin” from 1983. This is based on the 1979 novel “The Visitor” by Chauncey G. Parker III. The movie is directed by George P. Cosmatos and stars Peter Weller (Of Robocop fame). Cosmatos would go on to direct such smash hits as “Rambo” and “Tombstone”. His horror CV isn’t quite as impressive but “Leviathan” and “Cobra” do have their fans (Including myself for the latter). Brian Taggert provides the screenplay, René Verzier the cinematography and Kenneth Wannberg composed the soundtrack.

The movie focuses on Bart Hughes (Weller), an investment banker. Bart has just moved into a recently renovated house in New York City. His wife and daughter are due to go on Holiday, with Bart staying at home to finish work on a major project he thinks will earn him a promotion. Not long after, a flood in the flat reveals the presence of a rat somewhere in the house and Bart sets about trying to kill it. This turns out to be easier said than done, with the vicious beast not falling for his tricks and turning his life into a living hell.

Captain Ahab

At one point in the story Bart throws the book he is reading at the ceiling out of anger at the noises he is hearing from the invading rat. We get a clear shot of what he is reading and it is of course Moby Dick. This is basically all you need to know about the movies subtext. This is one man’s obsession to prove he can eliminate his nemesis. The rat doesn’t quite turn out to be his undoing though I’m sure he probably didn’t earn his promotion at work after all that.

The rat itself doesn’t look particularly good, but the movie compensates by being clever with what it shows and when.The result is we actually get some pretty disturbing visuals with glimpses of the rats teeth or eyes or a tail disappearing behind objects. It’s certainly creepy. Most often though you don’t see anything, you just hear noises. The weight of convincing the audience to buy into this movie is entirely on Peter Weller’s head. It is his performance that is the driving force behind the movie and he doesn’t let us down.

You Dirty Rat

Your millage may vary with this horror. When the focus is something like rats, obviously how you feel about those animals is going to impact if you find the film scary or even just end up sympathizing with the rat. However, I think everyone can appreciate the fear of an unseen monster running around their home and appreciate Weller’s performance. The downside is that there just isn’t anything more to the plot. Once you get the Moby Dick reference it’s basically just man vs beast to the end. Man wins, but at a cost. Because of that I can’t really give this more than a strong 5.5/10.

Ghoulies II (1987)

For the second entry in our triple bill I’m watching the sequel to 1984’s Ghoulies. This one promises to actually focus on the Ghoulies themselves instead of saving them for the final act as in the first movie. This is of course from Charles Band’s Empire Pictures (The precursor to Full Moon Features) and is directed by Charles’ father Albert. The screenplan is from Dennis Paoli and the movie stars Damon Martin, Royal Dano and Phil Fondacaro.

The setting for this sequel is a carnival fun house called “Satan’s Den”, which has found itself home to an infestation of Ghoulies. That is small mischievous psychotic demons. The funhouse is in danger of being shut down by the carnivals accountant/investor. The sudden arrival of the Ghoulies initially turns out a boon for business, but as their antics become more fatal it is down to Larry (Martin), Nigel (Fondacaro) and Nicole (Kerry Remsen) to deal with them.

Ghoulies Go To The Fair

I feel like there has been a definite budget increase between this and the previous movie. Not that it looks expensive, but we do see a lot more of the Ghoulies and they are a lot more mobile than they were in the first movie. That’s good because the creatures effects are pretty cool and their murderous antics are entertaining. One of the Ghoulies actually does get to get someone in the end… Ahem. The death scenes, including those of the Ghoulies are pretty amusing. That’s basically all they are going for here and that’s fine, this is a movie that knows what it is.

The acting quality is about what you expect for a Charles Band horror in the 1980’s. A just about passable lead and weaker performances the further down the cast you get. Nothing that really takes you out of the movie though and that is the important thing. The characters aren’t particularly compelling, but have a bit of charm to them. I love how the Fun House actually has a fully sharpened bladed pendulum as one of the attractions. Not to mention how quickly bits of it explode. Yeah, this carnival probably should have been shut down. I guess it’s part of the fun how little of this movie makes any kind of sense.

They’ll Still Get You In The End

As sequels go this is giving the audience what they want. The main complaint from the first film was the lack of Ghoulies, so this definitely addressed that. However, that film at least had a plot. This is basically just Ghoulies being Ghoulies for an hour and a half. I don’t know why it wasn’t a more direct sequel to be honest. The intro is never explained and serves no purpose. The Ghoulies were already on the loose, so they could have just turned up at the Carnival. Anyway, this is a dumb fun film. Nothing more. Effectively it’s just a B-Movie version of Gremlins (Even more so even than the first one). For the fun factor and creature effects this narrowly hits a 5.5/10. You already know if you want to watch it.

Witchboard (1986)

For the last movie of the 2024 review challenge I’m checking out Ouija board horror Witchboard from 1986. Written and directed by Kevin Tenney in his feature movie debut. Tenney would go on to direct a run of similar low budget horror movies to varying degrees of success. The movie stars Tawny Kitaen, Todd Allen and “Days of Our Lives'” Stephen Nichols.

The movie tells the story of a Linda Brewster (Kitaen) who becomes entranced into using her friend’s Ouija board alone after it was accidentally left behind at her party, resulting in her becoming terrorized by a malevolent spirit. Linda’s boyfriend Jim (Allen) and her ex Brandon (Nichols), whose board it was brings in a psychic medium (Kathleen Wilhoite) to exorcise the spirit. Things take a turn for the sinister when the psychic is murdered on her way home. Before Jim and Brandon can save Linda they have to find out just who the sinister spirit is that is terrorizing her.

Something Stupid This Way Comes

The cast and characters are not especially strong None of them are particularly likable and most of the supporting cast are given over the top personalities that just make them annoying, especially when mixed with below average acting. The worst offender is the medium Zarabeth, whose role is thankfully short. But the police detective is a close second. The leads are only marginally better. Despite that at least there are some interesting character dynamics.. The two male leads being old friends and now part of a love triangle is the most original thing, but It adds some much needed interest because outside of that their personalities suck.

The story on the other hand is actually pretty compelling and original. It is well paced and actually keeps you guessing at least until the final act. The layout of the three acts reminds me a bit of movies like Shocker and The Changeling where each act is virtually it’s own film. The middle act is probably the peak where the story turns into more of an investigation. Sadly the final act turns generic horror, leading to an underwhelming conclusion. There is pretty good use of sound throughout, both music and sound design in general. The visuals are not stunning but have creativity in places. .

Ouija Quit It

Overall this is a pretty average horror with a good story that unfortunately becomes silly at the end. The biggest problem is how annoying the characters are. Some, such as the police detective and the medium didn’t really need to even be in the story. The central three you could get away with providing everything paid off. Specifically, the relationship between the two childhood friends should have played a role in the finale. It didn’t though and the eventual solution was sort of dumb. While the movie is quite original, there’s a few too many flaws with this one to give it more than a 5/10.

That’s A Wrap

Well, that’s it for this years October Challenge! The top five recommendations this year turned out to be Peeping Tom, Blood and Black Lace, A Dark Song, Opera and Crimson Peak. The only clangers (Below 5/10) were The First Omen and The Limehouse Golem. The rest was generally above average. I didn’t get in any Japanese horrors this year, but covered most of my usual traditions. Anyway, I don’t know what the future holds for me or this blog, but if I am back for another round next year I hope you will join me! Don’t forget, I do post reviews and articles throughout the rest of the year too. I’m most prolific in October and more horror focused, but I think you’ll find value to checking screen-wolf out all year round. Anyway…

Happy Halloween!

Head of the Family (1996)

Posted on October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 by fenrisfil

Tonight for my October Challenge Review, I’m checking out the 1996 Horror Comedy “Head of the Family” from Charles Band. Band is mostly known as a producer and one of the most prolific producer of low budget (Mostly horror) movies in the history of the movies, likely only behind his idol Roger Corman. Every now and then, such as with this movie, he steps behind the camera himself. Well, to be fair he’s taken the directors chair 86 times, which is more than some of the most prolific Hollywood directors. Often the results of these more hands on movies are very good. For example one of my favourite cult classics “Trancers” (1984) was a Band directed movie.

As can often be the case with B-Movie horror, Head of the Family features actors mostly know for appearing in this movie. Indeed many of the actors IMDB bio’s use a photo from this movie for their publicity shot. Unlike some of those movies though (Troll 2 comes to mind), they have been in other films and actually their acting was perfectly reasonable. You don’t make movies for the kind of budgets Charles Band works with by hiring big name Hollywood stars. Anyway, Blake Adams plays the movies lead “Lance” alongside Jacqueline Lovell as “Loretta” while the titular Head is played by J.W. Perra.

Dawn Of The Head.

The plot of the movie sees Lance attempt to blackmail a family of freaks known as the “Stackpool” after witnessing them kidnap someone late at night. The family is run by “Myron” who is little more than a head. Myron’s over-sized brain is able to psychically control the other members of his family, who all are intellectual simpletons. Otis is the family’s muscle, inhumanly strong. Wheeler is the families eyes and ears, with superhuman perception and Ernestina… well I don’t have to tell you what she can do.

Lance has the family knock off the local crime boss so that he can steal his lady, the beautiful Loretta with whom he has been having an affair. After this is done though, Lance presses the rich family for more and causes Myron to take drastic action. This leads to a bizarre performance of Joan of Arc with a potentially fatal finale for Loretta.

Head And Butter.

The plot is simple, but has enough to it to for a little world building and allows the story to progress in a logical linear fashion. While the roles are fairly undemanding, the characters are quite fun. Lance and Loretta especially work well. Despite being total dirtbags, the pair present a lot of charm and personality. It definitely doesn’t hurt to get to see so much (Literally) of the lovely Mrs Lovell either. Most of the Stackpool family are one dimension by design, though their unique talents does makes them memorable. J.W. Perra did a particularly good job as Myron. I’m not sure if playing a head in a wheelchair is a hard role or an easy one, but he did a great job either way.

The effects are mostly in the bizarre look of the family (Myron in specific though Wheeler’s freaky eyes too) and they do their job fine. I have to give a mention to Richard Band’s soundtrack here as being particularly good and well suited to what was on screen. Richard is of course Charlies’ brother, so it’s no surprise to find he’s written over 100 movie scores, most of which for his brother’s productions. This one is a stand out though, with a quirky almost Addams Family vibe to it.

Conclusion (Sorry, No Pun Heading This Time).

Overall this is a fun movie and in my opinion exactly what a low budget B-Movie Black Comedy Horror should be. A crazy idea, straight forward plot and fun characters. A movie executed with minimal fuss and presented with just enough polish to have it stand out above all the other low budget B-Movies. While it is still a B-Movie, it is one worthy to be a cult classic.

For me this a 6/10, though your mileage may vary depending on how much you like these kind of films. If you were a fan of Charles Band produced Horror/Comedies such as Terrorvision, Re-Animator and Evil Bong, you’ll probably get a kick out of this. If not, I imagine this will probably make your head hurt!

Ghoulies (1984)

Posted on October 15, 2023October 15, 2023 by fenrisfil

For the second Charles Band produced horror of this October’s viewings (With at least one more to come) I’m checking out “Ghoulies” from 1984. This was a well known low budget horror back in the day that I was always aware of, but never got around to checking out. That is likely because it seemed obviously inferior to “Gremlins” (1984) and “Critters” (1986) while covering much the same ground. As a fan of the kind of imaginative low budget horror that Band usually producers though I think it’s time I gave it a chance. So let’s see if these little monsters can stand tall or not.

Dark Past.

Ghoulies is directed by Luca Bercovici in his directorial debut. Originally Band was going to direct this himself but back out when he was unable to secure Stan Winston to do the effects. It was written by Bercovici and Jefery Levy. The film had a difficult journey in it’s production. Warner Bros sued the production company to stop them using the name since they were at the same time developing Gremlins, though this was unsuccessful the production also ran out of funding which delayed release until after Gremlins had come out. Thus regardless of the truth, Ghoulies would always be seen as a Gremlins rip off.

The movie stars Peter Liapis as “Jonathan Graves” a young man unaware that he was meant to be a human sacrifice as a baby. He was saved from that fate by his father and raised away from his evil father. Obvious to all this, 25 years later he has inherited his fathers estate and moves in. On investigating the old mansion he finds various occult relics and is drawn to use them, eventually summoning the little demons known as Ghoulies. However, this was all an evil trap by his now dead father, the return from the grave and steal his son’s youth. Jonathan is joined by his girlfriend “Rebecca” (Lisa Pelikan) and a group of somewhat goofy friends. The friends are actually quite amusing to watch, though it’s probably a good job none of their roles asked a lot of them.

Black Magic.

The first act sets up the characters and the second shows Jonathan turning to the dark side. It’s not until the third act though that the Ghoulies really come into play. Before this they are just sort of hanging around. This puts it in line with a lot of low budget direct to VHS horrors that promised a lot on the cover and then delivered something barely related to it. In that regard, it’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it doesn’t contrast it well with Gremlins or Critters.

This is really an Evil Warlock story that happens to have Ghoulies on the side. This should be obvious by the lack of Ghoulies in these screenshots. A lot of that is probably due to the low budget, when the Ghoulies do get involved they are pretty much just launched at victims to bite them. Given the budget though, the creatures didn’t actually look too bad. I especially liked the variety (Back in the day I thought they’d all be the toilet Ghoulies from the poster). I’ve seen far worse in movies that cost more so credit for that. One creature that actually bursts out of a clown doll looked particularly cool.

On a side note: The scene from the poster with the slime Ghoulie popping out of the toilet was actually added later after the poster was made. That’s B-Movies for you! It’s almost blink and you miss it. It’s actually quite impressive that they did go back and add the scene given the budget issues they had. It doesn’t really add anything to the movie, but it was a cool visual. You can see the entire scene at the end of the trailer below.

Down The Pan.

Ghoulies has a reasonable amount of charm and is ultimately not terrible unless you actually put it up against the very good Critters or a masterpiece like Gremlins. While it doesn’t hold a candle to either of those it provides adequate entertainment for its (fairly short) run time. Fans of ambitious low budget horror will find something here to entertain them. This is a 5/10