Reviews

A college student spends a weekend at a sorority house to see if she's interested in pledging and gets the strangest sense of deja vu that she's been inside the house before. She has dreams and visions of the house and of a deranged man who, ultimately, breaks out of an asylum and returns to the scene of his crimes...which happens to be the sorority house our leading lady is currently spending the weekend in.

Aside from a few interesting dream sequences and hallucinations straight out of the Nightmare on Elm Street universe, Sorority House Massacre is a by the book slasher movie shot on the cheap without much suspense or much in the way of inventive, bloody murder scenes for the gore fiends among us. At the very least, there are a handful of nice character moments and an effective finale.

A high fashion photographer begins having ghastly visions from the perspective of a serial killer targeting people she knows and she works with a detective to figure out who it could be.

It's a rare horror/suspense turn for both Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones and the script might feel like it's been tampered with a few too many times to completely work, but there's enough style and pizazz here to make up for a lot of the flaws.

Frat pledges head into the big city to find a stripper for their party and end up in a creepy club where the lead attraction is a bloodthirsty vampire.

It's easy to see the influence of Vamp on films such as From Dusk Til Dawn, but Vamp seems to borrow much of its style from After Hours or Mario Bava's European horror films. The deserted downtown locations are given an especially eerie quality with all the candy colored lighting and Grace Jones makes for an unforgettable and alluring vampire.

Horror hostess, Elvira, inherits a crumbling mansion in a close-minded small town and she has to fix up the place and change the hearts of the townspeople before she's burnt at the stake for being a witch.

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark has more jokes per minute that most comedies could dream of and they're delivered with campy gusto by Cassandra Peterson and Edie McClurg's hilariously self-righteous Chastity Pariah makes a great foil for Peterson. A more entertaining horror comedy will be tough to find.

When a young soldier dies in combat, his grieving mother wishes him back. One night, he returns and his family is overjoyed until they see that he's not the man he used to be and has an appetite for human blood to keep him alive.

Deathdream is a variation on the classic "Monkey's Paw" story, but done with heart and a well delivered anti-war message. Tom Savini's early makeup work on the lead character as he continues to rot away is startling and deeply disturbing.

An engaged couple travel to the London countryside to meet the man's rich uncle. Two ghostly children appear in the road, distracting them and the man crashes the car, knocking himself out. The woman runs to the estate and walks into a nightmare.

If The House of Usher has anything going for it, it's the stunning production design and costumes which look like something from a much better and more expensive movie. The script is a complete, hopeless mess, but the initial setup is intriguing enough to keep your interest for a while until things start getting redundant.

Michael Myers wakes up just in time for Halloween and only his niece, who shares a psychic link with him, knows he's on his way back into town to kill more people.

Halloween 5 has some good ideas and Danielle Harris gives a wonderful performance as Jamie, but just about everything else around her seems miscalculated. Michael's mask seems off, the cops are treated as bumbling buffoons complete with clown music, the teenage characters are shrill, and a lot of the script simply doesn't make any sense. There's at least some winning Gothic atmosphere thrown in here and there.

Michael Myers escapes the inferno he was left to burn in at the end of the last film and decides to paint the town red on his way back to his childhood home as an angry mob of vigilantes track him down.

The screenplay for Halloween Kills is painfully inept with not a single character that resembles a living, breathing human. Characters do things only because the script tells them to. Without any sense of reality to bounce off the supernatural evil of Michael Myers, it's next to impossible to get invested in all the carnage. If the film has anything going for it, its the impressive gore effects and that's about it.

A murderous twin hacks a couple to death and frames his brother for it. Years pass, the framed brother is getting out of a mental asylum and the murders start up again at their apartment complex over Thanksgiving.

Blood Rage has a much more complicated plot than initially expected and the film is much more ambitious than your usual slash fest. Many of the characters still don't have a lot of meat on their bones, but the main family dynamic (Lasser especially) are interesting. If you're only here for the gore, they have you more than covered. It's one of the goriest and most brutal of the 80's slashers.

Murderous camp counselor, Angela, heads back to camp under a new disguise so that she can make minced meat out of a mixed group of privileged and not-so-privileged kids on a retreat.

There's a noticeable lack of energy and creativity, especially after the bouncy and entertaining Unhappy Campers. Springsteen is still doing her same Angela act and it's entertaining in spurts, but the material she's been given to work with isn't as fun. It doesn't help that all the big gore scenes have been ripped to shreds.

Two bumbling employees accidentally release a gas that brings the dead back to life and they're ready to party.

The Return of the Living Dead is a fantastic snapshot of mid-80's punk culture and fashions with lots of gooey zombie effects, a witty script, funny performances, and a rocking soundtrack. Trying to find a more enjoyable zombie film will be very difficult.

Teenage girls throw a slumber party and an uninvited driller killer shows up to crash the party and up the body count.

Unlike many of the other slasher films being released at this time, The Slumber Party Massacre has a decent sense of humor and fun campy tone to go along with the required blood and nudity these films are known for. It's short runtime also keeps the padding to a minimum.

An American author arrives in Rome just in time to be stalked by a deranged fan who is killing people based on passages from his newest murder mystery novel. He teams up with a detective to crack the case before there are more victims.

Dario Argento's Tenebre is a gripping, at times, sleazy mix of good old fashioned murder mystery and Italian gialli set pieces. Filmed in the blinding white light you rarely see outside of an operating room, there isn't a single detail you can't make out in the many inspired stalk/kill scenes and the twists and turns are both well-earned and bizarre.

A sneak preview for a new horror film becomes a real life horror show as the audience members are trapped inside with a pack of demons.

Even though it's directed by Lamberto Bava, producer Dario Argento's colorful influence can be felt many times. The script might as well have been thrown out altogether, because one the cast of victims are trapped inside the theater, it becomes a nightmarish free for all where nothing makes any logical sense and it's best to let the pretty colors and excellent makeup effects win you over instead.

An awkward teenage girl and her cousin attend a summer camp and the people who torment her are killed off in a variety of creative ways.

Sleepaway Camp seems like an obvious Friday the 13th cash in with its gory murders at a summer camp set up, but the execution is far more melodramatic and over the top than expected with a nice layer of sleaze.

Teenagers decide to throw their Halloween party in the haunted Hull House and pay the price when the spirits in the house attack and possess them.

Outrageous makeup effects and a nice haunted house vibe keep Night of the Demons entertaining throughout its short 90 minute runtime. None of the characters besides goth Angela make too much of an impression, but she's the true star of the show whether she's doing a seductive dance in front of the fire or rolling down a hallway with bloodlust in her eyes.

As with most anthologies, there are going to be some stories you're drawn to and some that you aren't. Creepshow 2 has the good sense to get the least interesting story out of the way first and move on to the two better ones. The 2nd story, involving teenagers being devoured by a flesh-eating goo on a raft is the most disturbing. The 3rd and final story is the most entertaining and classically E. C. Comics one about a wealthy woman haunted by the hitchhiker she ran over one her way home from a gigolo.

The animated sequences in between each story are fine, but nothing memorable.

A warlock travels through time with a witch hunter hot on his trail and he tries to get a young woman to help him stop the warlock before he brings upon the end of days.

Warlock is a bouncy and fun adventure film with some elements of horror thrown in. The script is solid with good structure and engrossing characters and dilemmas for them to weasel their way out of.

Two pre-teens open the gateway to hell in their backyard and all hell, literally, breaks loose.

Inventive creature effects and nightmarish visuals and situations keep The Gate above water when it comes to late 80's horror films. The young cast makes it a great gateway horror film for younger viewers.

Young adults sneak into a deserted shopping mall at night to party and are attacked by security robots that have gone rogue due to a malfunction.

At less than 80 minutes, Chopping Mall doesn't give the audience a lot of time for hardcore character development or anything life changing, but it supplies all the fun, gore, and nudity one would want from a silly 80's film like this and the time flies by.

College kids invited to an exclusive midnight wax museum opening are sucked into the exhibits and forced to battle with vampires, zombies, and mummies.

There's a sense of fun right from the opening moments of Waxwork that let you know you don't need to be taking anything too seriously and that continues throughout. There's a lull in the middle of the film once a detective comes in and stalls things for a few minutes, but the finale is more than worth it as the effects work really gets to shine.

A secretive man goes on the run and his girlfriend tracks him down to an underground world where monsters are normal and humans are the real villains.

This film feels fresh and 100% original and only the mind of Clive Barker could bring something like this to life. David Cronenberg is great in a rare acting role as a psychotic madman serial killer.

A brilliant wax artist's museum is burnt to the ground so that a crook can collect the insurance money. The crook is murdered and the artist returns to create another museum, but this time, his works look even more lifelike than usual. What's his secret?

One of the best Vincent Price horror films and also one of the better 3D movies. It has its usual "stick this random item into the frame" gimmicks, but the story is strong and it works well in 2D viewing. Lots of great mood and a zippy pace.

Locked in his empty school on Halloween, a young boy witnesses a ghostly reenactment of a young girl's murder from years prior and it's up to him to solve the mystery before he becomes the next victim.

The opening moments and winsome narration at the beginning of Lady in White call to mind other "good ole days" coming of age tales like Stand By Me or To Kill A Mockingbird. These elements mix surprisingly well with the ghostly murder mystery and help create a much more character driven horror film than usual. With it's emphasis more on mystery and less on gore, Lady in White would make for a good family friendly option around Halloween time.

A millionaire throws an elaborate birthday party for his shrew of a wife, inviting a bunch of stranger who he promises to pay at the end of the night if they're not killed by one of the many ghosts inside the house.

Not so much a traditional ghost story a sit seems, House on Haunted Hill is more amusing for it's darkly comic bent rather than any terrifying set pieces. With that said, there are still a few willies one might get at a few moments and Vincent Price seems to be having a great time as the millionaire.