Stop Me If You've Heard This One.

Next up is a movie I'd never heard of until my jaunt to the flea market last month, in Turi Meyers' direct-to-video effort Sleepstalker: The Sandman's Last Rites.

A serial killer dubbed The Sandman (Michael Harris) rises from the dead after his execution to go after the boy that got away. 

So there is a lot of sand in this movie. I mean, it's about a dude named The Sandman, but they really doubled down, nay tripled down, on the sand angle. The entire opening takes place in the desert and while the credits unfurled, I wondered if I hadn't put my tape of Dust Devil in by accident. No, I thought. This guy traipsing through the dunes didn't look nearly as cool as Robert Burke did. But I digress. One thing that did pump me up during this very sedate opening was the appearance of Gary Tunnicliffe's name. At least the effects would be good, right? RIGHT?

Shortly after, Jimmie Olsen and his wife get murdered by some weird serial murderer who recites nursery rhymes as he sprinkles sand in their eyes. For reals. However, before he can kill the son, the cops arrive and off him. Then, it eventually becomes apparent that this movie is really just NOES or Shocker or The Horror Show or The First Power, with a psycho using supernatural forces to come back from the dead to kill again. Which is fine, except Sleepstalker is not anywhere near as cool as any of those other films.

How many movies did you say have this plot?

While this movie does a have a whole bunch of fun supporting characters (which is at least an improvement over last week's title The Rain Killer), Ken Foree & Michael D. Roberts among them - man this would've been quite the dud without those two cats - the above the line cast are kind of mediocre. Michael Harris as The Sandman can't hold a candle to Mitch Pileggi or Brion James, and the lead Jay Underwood is severly lacking in charisma. Kathryn Morris as Megan is decent and pretty much the only one who gets to do a cool stunt at the very end of the movie.

This is not the look of a leading man.

I can't help but feel that the Sandman, which let's face it is ripped off from Marvel Comics, should be a lot cooler than it actually is. Despite the fact we get treated to some sweet nineties CGI for the times that real sand won't suffice, the character itself has many weaknesses, including sunlight, water and fire. Sure, he can fit through a keyhole, but that seems like a lot of disadvantages.

I could go on about some of the implausible subplots, like our whitest of whitebread hero's attempt to win a Pulitzer with a tell-all book about life on the streets, but it's really not worth the effort. Is this movie the worst ever? No, it's mildly entertaining, and may have been what got Meyers the gig directing Candyman 3 down the line, but I'd also say your time could be better served watching (or rewatching) those aformentioned titles instead. Or catch some Z's. Do want you want, I'm not your mom! Anyway, check back next week for my last serial killer yarn of the month.

Seek Shelter

Okay, here we are, another VHS Friday. This one is the 1990 serial killer thriller The Rain Killer.

A hardened cop Capra (Ray Sharkey) & an FBI agent Dalton (David Beecroft) attempt to track down a serial killer who strikes when it rains.

Hope you like that cover, because this pseudo-giallo was damp as fuck. I remembered the cover, which is why I picked it up in the first place and figured I'd seen it, as it would have come out during my tenure as a video store jockey, but I didn't remember thing one about it as it was unspooling. Though, of course, it could just be due to its super forgettability. But, let's break it down.

At the hop, I was met by some welcome sax and piano from Terry Plumeri (who a year later would score One False Move, one of the most underrated movies of the nineties) and watched some precipitation-bathed kill scenes for which I was onboard. However, then the energy just drained out of the movie, like water down an old rusty pipe.

Praying to the Rain God.

Perhaps the most prohibitive thing about it was the pacing. I mean, the movie starts off with three kills right away and then nothing for like an hour. In the interim, we had a lot of cop stuff and a thirty-minute obvious red herring setup that did nothing, except check the full frontal nudity box for whoever was keeping track at the production company.

The Rain Killer doesn't have anything to latch onto. The relationships, whether it be the frenemy duo of Capra & Dalton or the unsexy romance between Capra & Adele (Tania Coleridge), are just awkward and uninteresting. I re-watched Jeff Hathcock's Night Ripper last weekend, and say what you will about its quality (or lack thereof) there is at least something pure about it. This was shiny and wet, but far from appealing. And oh God, that sex scene in the living room... I wager zero blocking went into that scene. It's like they forgot they had to shoot it and just “banged” it out in one take before they hit the lights.

Ray Sharkey getting his Corey Hart on in The Rain Killer.

Michael Chiklis appeared as Capra's partner, but I found myself distracted by his headwear. As in plural. He had a new sports cap every few scenes - Chicago, New York, Boston, San Fran, like pick a team, man! It must have been intentional and a running joke on set, because if not, that continuity person needed to find a new line of work.

So anyway, once we finally limped to our conclusion, there's never any real explanation as to why the dude was killing chicks in the rain. Or how it was raining every day for two solid weeks in LA anyway. Like that doesn't happen normally, right? The Rain Killer cannot hold a sprinkle to last week's Relentless, which had a better cast, better banter, better set pieces, shit this director couldn't even make a car chase look interesting. I had to struggle just to pull a decent fucking GIF.

Anyway, I'm done with this movie. Hopefully, the next one is better. Have a good weekend and great Friday the 13th, kiddies!

Let Your Fingers Do The Killing.

Okay! As promised, this is the first of four February VHS Fridays. And the first is one I picked up at last October's Frightmare in the Falls.

Two detectives (Robert Loggia & Leo Rossi) are on the trail of a serial killer (Judd Nelson) who is seemingly picking victims at random from the phone book.

I have such vivid memories of watching Relentless in the theatre with my father. Like when Nelson's character says to his father's photo, “it's not my fault the police are stupid!”, I distinctly remember a dude behind me saying, “he wants to get caught?!” Rossi's speech about catching the Son of Sam by tirelessly going through parking tickets has also been lodged in my brain all this time. It's actually quite remarkable how much of this movie I remembered, considering it's been some thirty-odd years since I last saw it. Memory is a funny thing. You know what else just this moment struck me as funny? The concept of a phone book. I mean, I get listing phone numbers, but the idea that anyone could look up where you live? That's a little scary, don't you think?

I can tell you that I had certainly forgotten (if I ever realized it) that Bill Lustig directed this. That's probably why all the cops stuff is so punchy. Rossi and Loggia play off each other well and the all the references between LA & NY departments kind of make sense now. Nelson's turn as a psycho is pretty sedate, and probably did his career no favours at the time, but good for him for giving it a go. 

Additionally, there are tons of great supporting roles in this, like Eddie Bunker, Buck Flower, Meg Foster and Beau Starr (who I would have seen the year before in Halloween 4). Imdb told me that Joe Spinnell was supposed to play the police chief, but was too sick to fly to LA. That's a bummer, but the connections don't stop there, as Lustig's relationship with a young Tarantino (and his gig directing True Romance) fell apart here and Sam Raimi got a thanks in the credits for giving up the title, as he wanted to use Relentless for his sophomore effort Crimewave. I guess The Sunset Killer sounded too much like an early draft title.

Leo Rossi (left) & Robert Loggia in Relentless.

Jay Shataway's score is delightfully reminiscent of the time, with screaming guitars abound. And you can always count on Lustig for some good stunts. There's some solid car stuff, a rooftop edge-run that I'm still not sure how they did, and a high jump through glass that I remember being in every trailer and TV spot.

Relentless was fun to revisit, and I think I've only seen one of the three sequels which I will have to rectify. But first though, it would appear I have built up a number of serial killer VHS, so the goal is to knock those off in the coming weeks. So lock your doors and I'll see you in the dark.

Stranger Danger!

I'm afraid I'll have to forego the VHS format today, as I really wanted to do a Halloween title. I'm also breaking tradition in that I'm talking about a recent release, but it is at least set in the seventies. That film is Warren Skeels' 2023 film The Man in the White Van.

Bright young Annie (Madison Wolfe) tries to navigate high school, her overbearing mother, entitled sister and also the feeling she is being stalked by a mysterious man in an old white van.

I have been waiting a long time to watch this movie. For some reason, I was never able to find it anywhere and frankly forgot about it until my friend Serena was gracious enough to let me know it was actually on YouTube. You know, even though I use it daily, I continue to underestimate YT's reach as a resource for lesser known horror titles.

The Man in the White Van is a solid piece of work. I think it would make a great double bill with the similarly-themed Woman of the Hour (also from '23), as both are inspired by true stories from the 1970s, have narratives that span several years & victims and center on strong female protagonists. This film really creates a good mix of coming-of-age tale, retro slasher and clinical true crime story. 

The title is very telling in that is what we often only see the vehicle of our assailant. It stalks its victims waiting for the right time to pounce and is just as menacing as the glimpses we do get of the killer. His infactuation with Annie, plays out very much like the middle of John Carpenter's Halloween. She can sense someone is watching her, but is dismissed by her peers when she speaks of it.

The cast of The Man in the White Van is strong, headed by Madison Wolfe who is no stranger to crime stories having played Woody Harrelson's daughter in True Detective. She plays the role well, demure, yet struggling to get out from under her restrictions. I also thought Annie's strained relationship with her sister Margaret (Brec Bassinger) felt true. Her parents are played by veterans Ali Larter and Sean Astin, who also served as producers. I have to tip my hat to Astin who often manages to hook up with beautiful women - let's not forget his time as Winona Ryder's beau in Stranger Things. It gives hope to the rest of us ;)

Madison Wolfe as Annie in The Man in the White Van.

I consume a lot of content that takes place in the seventies (whether literal or manufactured) and this is one of the more authentic ones I've seen in a while. It really nails how isolating the lack of modern technology can be, namely cell phones. It made me think about how many lives have been saved due to mobile phones, or even just call waiting.

Get off the phone, Margaret!!

The climax of this movie, seeing the resilient sisters battling the killer to survive in the absense of their parents and the police was quite intense. I was expecting this movie to devolve into your average slasher tropes, but it didn't. You never really get a good look at the killer, which I assumed was going to lead to a big reveal that he was the town priest or a school teacher, but no, just some crazy dude that walks away Myers style - it does take place during Halloween after all. There was also a throwaway sequence during one of the flashbacks where it seemed like there may be more than one, Sawyer family style, but that too was left hanging. 

Then it occured to me. The Man in the White Van isn't a slasher, it's emulating real life where killers aren't caught and there aren't enough telephone poles in the world for all the missing person flyers. This was a solid film and it sucks it didn't get a better release - at least outside of the US. I could've watched it properly instead of squinting through a 480p rip on YT. Anyway, I bid you all a Happy Halloween, and most importantly, stay safe kiddies!

My Girl Wants To Party All The Time!

Next VHS off the pile was the 1988 slasher Party Line. I certainly recalled the coverbox, but never got to it back in the day because it was one of a SLEW of titles that almost seemed interchangeable. Let's pick up the phone and call! I hear it's private, confidential, one-on-one and discreet!

Crazy sibling serial killers Seth (Leif Garrett) & Angelina (Greta Blackburn) cruise telephone chat lines for victims, while hothead detective Dan (Richard Hatch - the Battlestar one, not the gay Survivor one) remains one body behind.

Party Line was amusing, but this was admittedly not top-tier stuff. For those who were not alive in the eighties, there were all kinds of call-in services available, some not even for degenerates. I remember calling one called Dial-A-Joke a few times, until my father confronted me with the subsequent phone bill. Hell, there was even one to hear Freddy Krueger.

Anyway, I digress. For a movie called Party Line, the phone sex stuff actually makes up little of the movie. Characters would disappear for chunks at a time, tagging out for stretches of police procedure and generic nightclub revelry. I was being generous when I used the word slasher earlier. I guess technically it's accurate as the killer's weapon of choice is a straight razor, but it's really more of a tame erotic thriller. Save for a few slit throats, it is fairly anemic too.

We do get a lot of weirdo scenes with the "complicated" shenanigans of Seth & Angelina. It's a lot of simping and leering from the former and the latter slapping him around for it. It's... awkward. It sure was a banner year for Garrett, who also appeared in Cheerleader Camp in '88. 

Imdb tells me that viewers thought Hatch was miscast. I don't know if I agree, I think it more that the detective character as a whole was miscast. Everyone knows the "hard boiled cop who doesn't play by the rules" trope, but this was ridiculous. He pulled his gun out so much in this movie, he might as well have had fused to his hand ala Videodrome. And, since when do District Attorney employees visit crime scenes? Seems like a conflict of interest, but I guess Dan & Stacy (Shawn Weatherly) had to meet somehow.

Speaking of conflicts, when the teen using the party line in the beginning finally reappears again, Dan actually has the brilliant idea to have said sixteen-year-old help them in their investigation. Does any of this sound like it would hold up in court, people? However, after the inevitable plot twist and kidnapping of Stacy, I was happy that she didn't need to be saved at the end. She made short work of Mama's boy Seth, even with her hands tied. You go, girl!

Call me Nancy Lew-d.

Party Line was run-of-the-mill fare that needed more of a hook than just the passing fad it hung its hat on. Hider in the House had the wild card magic of Gary Busey and Fear had Ally Sheedy's psychic superpowers. This just has well, people perving on and off the phone. I want more for my dollar-ninety-five per minute, ya know?

Caaaaayseeeeeee.

Today's VHS is another Vestron title, this one from 1990, called simply, Fear. No, not the one where Marky Mark fingers Reese Witherspoon, or the one with the tree dude, but one I do recall from my video store days. I never partook, likely because it looked like a slew of other titles that were released around this time, but more on that later...

Psychic Cayce (Ally Sheedy) uses her powers to help track down violent criminals, but things get dangerous when she crosses paths with a serial killer with the same gifts.

Like last week's title Hider in the House, this movie was also a casualty of Vestron's bankruptcy in the late eighties. Denied a theatrical release, it found a home on Showtime and was then unceremoniously dumped on video two years later when distributors were filling shelves with anything that remotely resembled The Silence of the Lambs.

Having said that though, this was a fun one. There have been tons of movies where characters see through a killer's eyes, but I can't recall one exactly like this, where they are communicating, even taunting, the person receiving the visions. Fear is not just a title, but refers to the killer getting off on the fear of his victims, and also Cayce's as she witnesses his misdeeds. Director Rockne S. O' Bannon's (no relation to Dan) confident filmmaking is helped along by a Henry Mancini score that really slaps.

Sheedy had to do all of the heavy lifting here and performs admirably, even through the more ridiculous situations she is put in and her almost Final Girl-like shift from victim to aggressor during the carnival set piece felt organic and bad-ass. And I admit I let out a little cheer when the killer, who'd been previously only referred to as Shadow Man, was revealed to be the King of all shifty-eyed psychos, Pruitt Taylor Vince!

I found Cayce's eagerness to be out in the public eye, writing books about the killers she'd collared, a little bold. Like, wouldn't having a crime crystal ball make you a target? And the rules of her powers were a little muddy and seemed to extend beyond her explanation of them at the hop, but hey! It's a 90s movie-of-the-week, who am I to judge? 

I should look further into the demise of Vestron because, at least from my small sample size, it appears they were still cranking out entertaining product at the end. Maybe they threw all their money in a Superman IV-sized hole like Cannon did? Quick everyone, to the 'Pedia!

Horror Movie Guide: Bluebeard (1944)

As promised last week, it's time to get back to working my way through the Horror Movie Guide. I left off midway through the B's so now we're onto another oldie, Edgar G. Ulmer's 1944 film Bluebeard. This was one I had no previous knowledge of due to its absence from my local video stores, but it's now on the chopping block so let's dive in

The citizens of Paris live in fear of Bluebeard, a seemingly uncatchable strangler of young women. How long before he strikes again?

I found this one was a bit of a bore, though I admit it was pretty cool to see John Carradine, not only when he was young, but also in a leading role. You know, it would be funny to count up how many movies in this Guide that Carradine is actually in. I feel like I've already covered half a dozen two letters in. He's definitely one of those guys where you think, "was he ever young?" so it was good to see some proof. He's rather dapper and solid in this one, but doesn't get to do as much as I'd like.

I'm assuming that the Hays Code was weighing on this production heavily because you never get to see anything remotely graphic onscreen here. You'll get the close-ups of Carradine's eyes after the first few frames of a strangle and then a shot of the victim on the ground. 

They also do that thing where someone gets hit on the head and then freezes in tableau for a few moments before keeling over. Oh, and this actress clearly failed dead body school.

I guess I was also distracted by the story which seemed to have more in common with Jack the Ripper than Bluebeard. Wasn't Bluey the one that hid all his dead wives in a locked room? Carradine's character Gaston is a starving artist bachelor in this tale, and most of this movie is spent talking about art dealing, painting and puppetry.

While I did fall asleep during my first attempt to watch this, I did find it more interesting in the third act. The police sting sequence and the last chase across the Parisian rooftops were somewhat exciting even if they both ended rather clumsily. Speaking of the latter, the most positive attribute I would say about Bluebeard is the set design which was almost certainly influenced by the Expressionism movement of the 20s.

This is another one to file under glad I watched it, but it's not really the best is it? It's surely no Bedlam. What's surprising to me is that the Guide highly praised this picture.

To each their own I guess. Next up is the 1972 version of Bluebeard with Richard Burton and Raquel Welsh... if I can find it. Stay tuned.

Puzzled.

The next tape off the pile (after watching 15 minutes of The Nesting and realizing I'd already posted about it in 2017) was Jag Mundhra's 1989 thriller The Jigsaw Murders.

Impossibly tan detective Joe DeVonzo (Chad Everett) spends his time, between swigs of his flask, chasing down a killer with his soon-to-be married partner, Greenfield (Michael Sabatino).

The Jigsaw Murders isn't really a horror movie I know, but I'd already switched tapes once so I just went with it. Off the hop, it seemed like your average Z-grade procedural, until it whipped out one of the strangest plot devices I've ever seen. While at Greenfield's bachelor party, Joe notices that the model in the gag gift - a naked lady puzzle much like the one in Pieces - has the same tattoo as their dismembered murder victim. They then show the stripper the door and - I shit you not - all the drunken middle-aged cops go about putting the puzzle together so they can see the model's face.

Chad Everett (left) and Michael Sabatino in The Jigsaw Murders.

The killer in this movie, a skeevy photographer named Ace Mosley is played by Eli Rich and he makes some odd choices. There's a scene where a Shannon Tweed lookalike talks about sociopaths, and it's like Rich asked the director what that was and Mundhra replied, “someone really weird.” Or perhaps someone who really gets off on their own slides.

Also, along for the ride is Waxworks' Michelle Johnson as Joe's rebellious daughter and gratefully Yaphet Kotto as the wacky coroner who also looks like he spent the decade since Alien in a cryo-chamber. I imagine this was just a job for Mundhra, whose previous two credits were actual horrors - but by no means more legitimate - Hack-O-Lantern and Open House.

When actors say they don't like watching themselves... this is why.

This movie is for the most part trash, but every ten minutes something amusing would happen - like the set piece that inexplicably takes place in a splash park and featured Joe falling allllll the way down a water slide with camera in tow. Or seeing Scream Queens Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer continue to pay their dues in thankless roles - the latter is the model in the aforementioned nudie puzzle. Or even after expecting Joe's partner to get blown away in formulaic fashion, have it not happen... until the very end in a completely random altercation with some street thugs. 

The Jigsaw Murders is not great, but what can I do? I'm a slave to the pile.

Psychic or Psycho?

This week's tape is Stefan Avalos & Lance Weiler's 1998 faux documentary The Last Broadcast.

David Leigh (David Beard) documents his search for the truth behind the murders of three filmmakers in the Pine Barrens.

I am reticent to call this a “found footage” movie because it was made before it was even a thing. Sure, there were pioneers like Cannibal Holocaust and Man Bites Dog, but this concept was still very new in the West. It wasn't until The Blair Witch Project burst onto the scene a year later that the floodgates opened. I do have to give the filmmakers credit for what they accomplished for under a grand. That's a fraction of even Blair's budget!

Fact or Fiction? hosts Steven & Locus.

The Last Broadcast was definitely innovative - it's apparently the first feature to be shot and edited entirely on digital equipment - but it is also very rough around the edges. Ten minutes in, I was like "is this what this is?" At times I wondered if it was supposed to be a parody, and I guess in some ways it is. I did have a chuckle reliving pre-millennium tech like IRC and big-ass laptops - that have batteries that last forever and connect to the Internet in the middle of the forest!

Obviously, the comparisons between this and Blair are easy to see, and it is no surprise which one became a household name - and it's not just because of the latter's groundbreaking marketing campaign. Both are raw, but while Blair focused on story and bone-chilling lore, The Last Broadcast clung to its clunky and often wooden film within a film narrative. For a film about looking for the Jersey Devil, there's very little time allotted to said legend. Seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to me.

The whole medium is the message diatribe Leigh drones on about toward the end is a bit eye-rolling and then the climax happens. In theory, it is quite unsettling, but that moment is so clumsily edited together it left me going, wut?  Despite The Last Broadcast's shortcomings, it is still an amusing time capsule of a subgenre that has become one of horror's touchstones. 

AHS 1984

This show was super fun. Loved it!

The Adventures of Jack Crawford Jr.

This week's VHS is James Glickenhaus' 1993 thriller Slaughter of the Innocents.

FBI agent Stephen Broderick (Scott Glenn) is aided in his search for a serial killer by his hyper intelligent son, Jesse. (Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus)

I saw this movie when it came out, but really only remembered two things, this guy getting impaled on deer antlers Quigley-style—

--and that even as a teenager I thought that the Jesse character was wildly implausible.

Slaughter of the Innocents showed up on the “Hot New Singles” wall at Blockbuster one day. This was a rack reserved for one-off releases to make sure they didn’t get buried under the popular titles that took up the bulk of our shelf space. I kept my eye on this singles rack because it often featured the indie & foreign stuff like Man Bites Dog, Happy Birthday Türke, Mindwarp and Gas, Food Lodging just to name a few.

As for this one, it’s not too hard to figure out that Glickenhaus wanted to cash in on the success of The Silence of the Lambs here. Aside from casting Scott Glenn and the similar sounding title, it’s also an FBI-hunt-for-a-serial-killer flick. Just imagine Lambs without Hannibal Lecter and if Clarice Starling was a ten-year-old boy and you’ll get a decent approximation of the subject matter.

Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus as Jesse in Slaughter of the Innocents.

So the bulk of my thoughts on this movie are going to be about Jesse – who was played by the director’s own son and actually does a hell of a job considering all he goes through in this movie – and I’m not sure where to start so I’ll just dive right in. This kid was basically the Encyclopedia Brown of true crime knowledge and, between school and little league, seemed to be able to out-sleuth the FBI. I'm torn between which element was least likely, that a kid would even be capable of this or that his father seemed to be actively encouraging it. Seriously, Broderick and his son had the weirdest relationship…

But I haven’t gotten the best part, as Jesse also happened to be a tech guru, carrying around the nineties equivalent of an iPad and was always connected to his fact-spewing super PC. I mean, the voice recognition on this thing was better than Alexa's today!

“You have a collect call from a Mr. D.E. Machina.”

But it wasn’t just the dynamic between father and son that was confounding, as there were several scenes that just struck me as odd, like when a young girl got kidnapped from a gas station parking lot and the attendant seemed more upset about it than the mother. Or when Broderick and his team (that included Aaron Eckhart in his first role) snuck up on a Neo-Nazi suspect’s cabin and he was just hanging out in full SS garb. On the other hand, the movie did have Hercules’ Kevin Sorbo in his most un-Hercules role ever so…

Lastly, I wasn’t surprised when Imdb told me this premiered on television because this movie contained the most generic nineties score I think I’ve ever heard. Having said all of that, Slaughter of the Innocents was a functional movie, but it lacked the grit-infused energy that Glickenhaus’ action-oriented titles from the eighties like The Soldier and Shakedown possessed. It’s just a shame that the problematic wonder kid element was also the only thing that made this movie at all unique.