SLEDGEHAMMER (1983)

The 80's did many things. Slasher flicks being one of the most memorable. Add to that that consumer video camcorders were a reality and anybody could make a movie. Brothers Ted and David jumped on the bandwagon and gave us the bizarre fever dream known as SLEDGEHAMMER.

In a house where child brutality took place, a group of friends come to have a party. The focus of the brutality has become something unearthly and violent and now it has something to focus its rage on.

One of the first shot on video horror flicks, SLEDGEHAMMER is unique in that it doesn't bother to explain a lot of why things are going on. It gives you everything at face value and expects you to be ab adult and keep up. That makes it a little more than most shot on video fare.

This new release by Intervision and Severin Films is probably the best that this can look. Add to that two audio commentaries, two featurettes that look back on the film and an interview with director David Prior and you have what may be the best DVD release of the year.

It is a shame that Mr. Prior seems to care less about the proceedings. In the interview he looks like he's ready to bolt at any moment and in the commentary he just seems so tortured. It made it kind of funny for me. After Intervision's two Jess Franco releases, this is probably the feather in Intervision's cap.

The one odd thing for me in watching this and all the extras is, where is Ted Prior? According to his brother he did all his own stunts, did the gore FX, wrote music. He's the one that should have done the commentary and interview. Oh well. 

But, I'm a little worried about that THINGS release. I remember that movie as being the worst.

SUPER (2010)

I have been crazy about this movie since I first saw the trailer. I knew I would have to watch it.

Yeah, then I watched it.
Sure, there are things I can say that I liked about the film. Some of Rainn Wilson's performance is spot on. Ellen Page does a great job at being completely nutzoid, but in the end...I really don't like this movie.

The trailer comes across as a guy who is fed up, lost his wife and at the end of his rope so he decides it's time to become a super hero. A vision with God touching his brain and showing him the cowl of The Crimson Bolt sort of nudges him in this direction.

His weapon of choice is a monkey wrench. Having done plumbing in my life, I have rapped my knuckles with a monkey wrench before. Yeah, that's gonna hurt. At first he tries to stop some minor crimes, but really it's about getting his wife back.
Kind of a selfish reason to become a super hero.
When Ellen Page as Bolty is added to the mix, things become dangerous. She is homicidal and delusional. A combo that really doesn't work if you want to be a good guy.

Now for the one thing that ruined the movie for me. And yes, as much as I despise spoilers, this is a huge one. If you don't want to read it I suggest you leave now, go watch the movie for yourself and come back later.
You have been warned.

Remember, I said there would be a spoiler. You should leave now if you plan on seeing this thing. It will ruin the movie for you.

Last warning.

Okay, here goes. They kill Bolty. Ellen Page gets half her face taken off by gunfire. Why? No Idea. Is it supposed to give Crimson Bolt the drive to storm the house and take his wife back? Well, since after a short time she leaves him for a better, more productive life, that can't be it. I think it was for nothing more than shock value and that is a bad reason. I think her surviving would have made for a better film and given Rainn Wilson's character more than what he ended up with which was a rabbit that he got from the pet shop.

In the end this is not a super hero film. Kick Ass was a super hero film. This was just some psychotic episode with a stupid ending. I'm not even going to bother with the incredibly misleading trailer.

SILENT MADNESS (1984)

What we have here is a slasher flick where the sorority girls are going home for the holidays, but a few of them stay behind. Then Belinda Montgomery, better known as Doogie Howser's mom, plays Dr. Gilmore and she believes that something fishy is going on at the insane asylum. Seems they were supposed to release John Howard, a slightly off, well meaning looney. Yeah, the released Howard Johns instead and the last time he was out he slaughtered a bunch of girls from, wait for it, yeah that sorority I mentioned.
And how did this mute, wide eyed psychotic get released anyway?
The hospital tried to cover it up saying Johns is dead, but it doesn't stop the body count from growing.
I don't know. It does cover all the bases; blood, boobs and well, boobs. Belinda Montgomery seems out of place here, but Viveca Lindfors shines as the looney house mother. It just seems so, I don't know, thin. I realize that there isn't usually a lot of character development in this kind of thing but it should have been better.
It was in 3-D for crying out loud!
I'm leaving you with the trailer. Judge for yourself.



Silent Madness [VHS]

BERSERKER (1987)

Okay, we start this puppy off with a viking ship hitting the beast and a berserker warrior getting off the boat to wreak havoc. Then we flash forward to present day, well 1987 anyway, and a group of kids ready to go camping. Yeah, they'll be camping where they elderly couple just got gutted like trout.
Once they show up it hits the fan and it's berserker vs the obnoxious teens. Along the way there is plenty of beer drinking, joint smoking and a sex scene with a girl with the smallest boobies I have seen in forever. Oh and some hard rocking songs written expressly for the film help to rock out sporadically throughout the flick.
Berserker is a little odd because you just have no idea what is going on. They mention the curse of the berserker and say that someone must become the berserker every generation. But when they reveal the identity of the berserker it doesn't gel for me.
The acting is bad, the gore is kind of skimpy and if I see a bear growl at a camera again it will be too soon. Every five minutes that poor bear growls at the camera. I hope he got paid well for his constant emoting to the camera.
George 'Buck' Flowers is wasted in his role with some bizarre accent. And there is no trailer to be found anywhere, and believe me, I tried.
Maybe if you see this one out there in the world you should just run in the opposite direction.

THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1982)

Lately, I have been filling in the blanks on my slasher flicks and this one came up. Why not I thought? Daphne Zuniga is in it and she's pretty cute.
Well, we'll get to that.
Seems that a dorm is going to be razed to the ground so a few students are recruited to make some cash by selling off a lot of the old stuff in the dorm and get it ready for demolition.
Remember I mentioned Daphne Zuniga? Yeah she's in the first few minutes of the flick. Seems that she can't stay and help because her parents are on their way to pick her up. Our slasher won't hear of it and slaughters the parents and Daphne gets her chest crushed by a car. Since the rest of the kids thought she was leaving she is not missed. Soon, we discover that there is a handyman on site as well as this crazy dude that might as well have the words 'red herring' painted on the front of his shirt.
With only four kids to kill the murders in this are pretty sparse. Sure, the handyman is done in with a power drill, but the makers of this flick realized they had painted themselves into a corner with the small cast so we get lots of spooky music with no payoff. Kind of a tease.
The murders are bloody enough and the effects seem to come off without a hitch and look good on camera. I thought it was funny that they introduced a secondary character for no other reason than they needed his girlfriend to show us her titties. They were nice titties, don't get me wrong, but that was pretty superficial. At least they remembered to put them in there.
So, a mediocre slasher flick at best and I didn't like the ending. Watch at your own discretion.
And why the original title was PRANKS is beyond me. Didn't make any sense.

I'M GONNA BE IN A BOOK!

Well, not me personally. I contributed to the anthology MONDO SASQUATCH and apprently they liked my story enough to include it. It's a tale entitled Sasquatch Vs. El Chupacabra. Sounds pretty straight forward, but I tried to play it a little different.

Here's a list of all the contributers;

• “I Have Always Wondered What Bigfoot Meat Tastes Like: An Introduction” by Louis Fowler


• “Arlo Felling Exists” by Richard Tiernan

• “Bigfoot and the Bone Face Murders” by Michael May

• “Bigfoot Must Die” by Frankie Marino

• “From Hell’s Heart” by Desmond Reddick

• “Incident at Crater Lake” by Casey Criswell

• “Roadside Attraction” by Matthew P. Mayo

• “Sacrifice” by Shawn Gilbreath

• “Sasquatch vs. El Chupacabra” by Douglas Waltz

• “Strike” by Michael D. Winkle

• “The Ballad of the Skunk Ape” by Jarret Keene

• “The Encounter” by Mike White

• “The Tale of Peter Rabbit and the Sasquatch” by Beatrix Potter and Rod Lott

• “The Tragic Hazing of Bryan Igfoot” by Eric Dimbleby

• “Theodore Roosevelt and the Great American Anthropoid” by Bill Adcock

And here's the really cool cover:
 

I will give more information as the release date looms ever closer.

TRIPLE BILL AT THE WALTZ COMPOUND

As many of you may know I've been laid up with this magnificent head cold sinus thingie as of late. Drinking plenty of liquids and getting lots of rest. Anyway, I decided to watch me some demented cinema and went to the old SOV shelf (SOV means Shot On Video for the uninformed).
Here is what I let run before my weary head.

HOOK OF WOODLAND HEIGHTS

Not even feature length, this tells a pretty straightforward tale of a psycho who gets loose, jams a hooked fork into the stump of his hand and goes on a killing rampage. That being said, this was a pretty fun little flick. Reminds me of something Chris Seaver would do if he was a little more mean spirited. The effects are fair. The guy playing the psycho killer was hilarious and I loved the ending of this one.

You can watch the whole thing on youtube, but here's a taste;



THE LAST SLUMBER PARTY

Many moons ago I had to review a double feature that included this flick and something called TERROR AT TENKILLER. That flick didn't leave much of an impression, but this one did. From the most Godawful wall paper I have seen in my life, and remember I'm old so I've seen lots of wallpaper, to just cheesy clothing. Seems this doctor gave this psycho a lobotomy and all it did was piss off the psycho. He dresses like a doctor, grabs a scalpel and heads for the Doc's house where three girls are having an innocent little slumber party.
Yeah right.
It doesn't take long for the blood to flow and the bodies to pile up.
There are things I really liked about this movie, but if it's a slumber party movie and there's a shower scene and there's no nudity we are gonna have a problem.
Other than that, kind of fun and a little twisted.



BOARDINGHOUSE

If I complained too much about the lack of nudity in the two preceding films, then this one makes up for it. We have a house inhabited by some evil spirit. This new age dude gets the house and since it has ten bedrooms he goes in search of roommates. Girl roommates.
Weird stuff starts happening and people start winding up dead. The funniest thing is it is in Horror Vision. Apparently, Horror Vision is a shot of a black glove and some freaky sounds. It tells you when someone is gonna get bloody. Yeah, sometimes they forget the glove and people get bloody anyway.
I love a movie where they figure if they throw a plethora of boobies at the screen no one will mind. They are correct. I thought BOARDINGHOUSE was a blast!