Stay Outta Cooper's Bay!

With it being a full moon this weekend, it seemed appropriate to move this recently acquired tape up to the front of the queue, that one being Alec Mills' 1990 Ozploitation flick Blood Moon. I actually want to preface this by saying this is the first tape I can recall having a Drugs PSA in front of the feature. Trailers sure, but a PSA? Wild.

A new relationship between townie Kevin (Ian Williams) and Catholic schoolgirl Mary (Helen Thomson) is complicated by a rash of serial killings targeting young visitors to the nearby Lover's Lane.

I actually didn't know this was an Australian film until I saw a kangaroo in the woods during the opening credits. Or maybe it was a wallably, I dunno, it was dark. But it was certainly confirmed when the character's opened their mouths. I mean even Mary - who was supposed to be from Texas - was laying down some thick Oz drawl. Brian May (of Queen fame) did the score for this and when he wasn't ape-ing Manfredini's Friday the 13th, it was pretty decent. There's a glam metal band called Vice that was amusing - I always welcome a title song - but at the same time it seemed a little odd that a stuffy Catholic school would have this band play at their dance.

The Devil's Music!

Overall, Blood Moon is pretty pedestrian, mainly because there is a lot of dead space in the middle. The bulk of it is your average rich kids vs townies tale, to the point I almost forgot it was a slasher. It even  managed to prolong the slashing by having a couple make out in the woods, then get chased away by another couple who also then make out in the woods, whom the killer finally decides to off some time later. I don't how the censors worked in Australia, but for a killer whose weapon of choice was a barb wire garrote, I feel this should've been a lot bloodier than it was. Sure, a student gets their face bashed in with the corner of a desk, but for the most part it was pretty reserved.

That's a DP's shot right there...

I thought Blood Moon also revealed its killer too early. Once it was out in the open, you're kind of just waiting for the rest of the movie to catch up. It made the final few moments seem superfluous and abrupt at the same time. Oh well, it looked good anyway. Mills cut his teeth as a DP so at least he knew where to point the camera. I've seen a lot worse believe me, and at least it doesn't skimp on the T&A. It really is the little things...

The Perfect Husband.

In the few months I have taken off from this feature, the “pile” has increased to a size that I can no longer ignore. With it being spooky season, this seems like the perfect time to get back at it. Today's VHS is a recent acquisition in Douglas Hickox's 1985 teleplay Blackout.

A retired cop named Steiner (Richard Widmark) suspects a family man and former car wreck survivor amnesiac (Keith Carradine) is actually an uncaught serial killer. But can he prove it?

I knew nothing about this movie, other than the coverbox, which was pretty prominent back in the day. It took me a while to figure out that the title refers not to a power outage (as said coverbox would suggest) but the loss of memory. This movie has some decent pedigree as it was directed by Douglas Hickox (father of horror vet Anthony), lensed by Tak Fujimoto (The Silence of the Lambs & The Sixth Sense among others), make up artist Michael Westmore (a Star Trek mainstay for decades) as well as notable actors Widmark, Carradine and Kathleen Quinlan. What comes out of it is a serviceable TV movie for HBO.

I was conscious while watching that this was something likely done for the small screen. Apart from the brutality of the murders at the hop (of which we only see the aftermath) and the sweet prosthetics on Carradine post-accident, Blackout is pretty tame. There are enough red herrings to keep things interesting, but yeah, everything about this felt pretty workmanlike.

It almost felt like two movies. It started out like something that would have been more at home in the next decade - post SotL - although it would have been more salacious, with more attention given to the actual crimes for that - but then it shifts into more straightforward fare. It reminded me of that Channing Tatum/Rachel McAdams joint where he's got amnesia and they are “re-dating”? Then it would eventually cut back to Widmark and his wall of news clippings and I'd be like, 'oh right this is what we're watching'. I was beginning to think this was one of those titles where the coverbox is completely misleading, but no, an hour in, the gimp mask finally shows up on a guy running around raping women.

Kathleen Quinlan as Chris in Blackout.

Perhaps the most chilling thing about this movie is that apparently (according to Imdb anyway) there was a real life uxoricide (yes, I Googled it) where a dude used this movie for inspiration. No mask or anything, but he did crank his AC to keep the body of his wife undetected for as long as possible. Imagine him sitting in his family room with this other half watching HBO on a Saturday night, and a lightbulb goes off in his head, 'oh, that's a good idea, I'll have to remember that!"

So Blackout, nothing to write home about, just another in an ocean of crime thriller titles to keep video store shelves stocked.

My Bloody VHS

I was finally able to get my hands back on a tape of My Bloody Valentine, after foolishly giving it away to a friend some fifteen years ago. I took a trip to Cultland this weekend, as Coop had graciously tracked one down for me after my repeated requests. I also picked up these beauties...

If you live in the GTHA, you should definitely hit them up for a visit.

Joan of the Ants!

The next tape on the pile was the last of my Shock Stock acquisitions, and one I have been meaning to dig into for a long time. It was almost the “E” in my Alphabet Slop back in 2022, but I couldn't find it then so I went with a re-watch of The Entity. The film I am now speaking of is the 1977 animals attack entry Empire of the Ants.

Visitors to an island are attacked by giant ants mutated from a toxic waste dump.

All I can hear when I look at that coverbox above is that classic movie trailer voice saying SEE! Joan Collins terrorized by giant ants! They really knew what they were selling here, didn't they? But I guess nothing has really changed. Our movie begins with a discount David Attenborough voiceover explaining how smart and sophisticated ants are, and God forbid they turn on us. CUT to a bunch of guys in suits (apparently left over from another AIP picture Futureworld) dumping toxic waste barrels into the ocean. What could go wrong?

We are then introduced to our cast of characters who all travel to a Floridian island to partake in a free day out while Joan Collins tries to con them into a time share for a soon-to-be built resort called Dreamland Shores. Among them are - wait hold up, is that Pamela Susan Shoop?! What a delightful surprise! My seven-year-old self - whose first real experience with cinematic boobies was courtesy of the hot tub scene in Halloween II - was definitely winking at me from the past.

Pamela Susan Shoop in Empire of the Ants

Anyway, it's not long before the mutated ants are crawling all over our unfortunate cast. Even though I guess it is inferred on the cover, I wondered whether I was going to get giant ants or just smart ants like in Phase IV. Okay, giant ants it is! And you know, the compositing and miniatures aren't terrible in this movie, or at least the shots where there aren't people in the frame. And the Ant-Vision was a gas.

I do have to wonder why Joan Collins was in this, as she was a pretty big star at this point. Not Dynasty mega-star yet, but certainly someone I would have thought could choose their roles. Those swamp scenes looked particularly unpleasant and I can't imagine what was going through her head while filming them. What a presence though!

Those cheekbones could cut glass!

The story is expectedly simple and moves along like most titles of its ilk, but I was surprised when our survivors made it out of the swamp and into (relative) civilization with a half-hour to go. Not being familiar with the H.G. Wells story (which apparently this doesn't follow anyway) I had no idea there was a whole hive mind control subplot. And to my surprise, Joan herself wound up being ant food. I mean true, she was a swindler and what I suppose would qualify as the villain of this story, but the punishment did not fit the crime.

From the mish-mash of disposable characters to the parade of old-timey effects, Empire of the Ants was a fun yarn all around. And for once, the coverbox delivered on its promise! I did see Joan scream and look still look beautiful...

Storm Crow Trivia, Guess The Movie Round.

ACAB '90

The next tape off the pile was the 1990 crime thriller Street Asylum.

No nonsense cop Arliss Ryder (Wings Hauser) joins a new police strike force tasked with cleaning up the streets - by any means necessary.

I think I had heard of this film, but I think I subconsciously linked it with Class of 1999 because their coverboxes are eerily similar, and as it turns out so are their plots with both featuring public servants altered to combat perceived criminals. It's also kind of like Dead Heat, but with implanted aggression instead of zombification. 

However, no matter whatever way you look at this, there is no getting around that this movie is ACAB before ACAB. It's a tad disillusioning when you watch these movies from thirty or fourty years ago and you're hearing lines like, “Strike force or Gestapo?” and it's still relevant today. Just once, I'd like to watch one of these movies and think, “Remember when this was a thing?” instead of the usual “things never change”. Imagine walking into that the briefing room for S.Q.U.A.D (Scum Quelling Urban Assault Division) and seeing this...

But I digress. Aside from that, Street Asylum, which is kind of an obtuse name now that I think about it, was a pretty chaotic affair. It's full of a lot of flash editing, crazy characters - some welcome, like Brion James as a street preacher and some not so, like Hauser's one-time partner Joker (Sy Richardson) who literally almost chewed his way through my television screen - dominatrices, Jesus antenna, Terminator guns, and sax, sax and more sax. 

Wings Hauser & Alex Cord in Street Asylum.

The cast is pretty stacked with offbeat actors as in addition to the aforementioned Jones & Hauser, you also have Alex Cord. Man, was there anyone who could deliver cheesy lines as smoothly as Alex Cord? And I do have to say there were a few cool stunts in this, like old school where you wonder if they shot them while the safety co-ordinator was on lunch break. At the end of the day though, if you want to watch a crime-ridden Wings Hauser joint, you are better off with Gary Sherman's Vice Squad. I get what director Gregory Dark - who had quite the interesting career that started in porn, moved to erotic thrillers and then spanned the next few decades directing music videos for pretty much every artist on the planet - was going for, but he's no Gary Sherman. Duh-doom.

Watched A Movie, Lived To Tell.

The next movie off the pile was a recent acquisition and, enticingly, one I knew nothing about in William J. Murray's 1986 sci-fi noir Primal Scream.

Private detective Corby McHale (Kenneth McGregor) gets wrapped up in a conspiracy involving a space mining corporation and a newly discovered (and dangerously unstable) element called Hellfire. 

This movie is an odd duck, man. I'm having difficulty knowing where to start, though I guess the beginning is as good a place as any. That's easier said than done, as it just drops you right in the middle of an action scene causing some severe whiplash. To be fair, I guess A New Hope did the same thing, but at least they gave you some screen-high expositional crawls beforehand.

I feel I need to mention that no one should've been surprised that this newly discovered element caused people to spontaneously combust. I mean, it IS called Hellfire for fuck's sake. If memory serves, they found it on Saturn, but despite what the coverbox would suggest, that is the only time this movie takes place in space.

Movie magic!

Once we got introduced to Corby, I was immediately like, "Hey, isn't that the principal from The Brain?" It was. Which made me immediately think this might be Canadian, because there were a lot of accents and locations that could've been Ontario, not to mention a bonkers plot that screamed 80s tax shelter. Upon further investigation I found that it was shot in Atlantic City. It makes sense, guys like Bill Fruet and Ed Hunt made chaotic movies, but at least it was controlled chaos. This movie is like Pandora's box, a whirlwind of villain eyebrows, bed skewering, lip band-aids and characters with names like Nicky Fingers.

Kenneth McGregor as Corby McHale in Primal Scream

I was never able to nail down what genre Primal Scream was supposed to be. I guess it's a crime noir mostly, or at least that's the distinct impression I got from all the sax in Mark Knox's score. However, once and a while, a spacecraft (or rather a 1/16 scale model of a spacecraft) or killer drone (prophetic!) would show up to remind me this was supposed(?) to be a science fiction movie, ala Blade Runner. At the very least, I got to see a few people get burnt to a crisp in spectacularly, practical fashion. 

There's not a lot of info out there about Primal Scream, because Googling mostly brings up the Scottish rock band. There is a doc made by the filmmakers, which I would love to see, but until then all my burning questions will remain unanswered. 

Now, did I fall asleep the first time I watched this movie? Yes. Did I almost fall asleep again when I tried to finish it the next day? Yes. But I still deeply admire the ambition of the filmmakers who were way out of their league, but soldiered on anyway!

Deja View.

First off, I just want to apologize for the lack of posts. I had some things going on the last couple of months, but I hope to get back to regular VHS loving posts - especially since I re-upped my supply at the last Shock Stock - and get these old digs back in regular working order. Anyhoops, the next tape on the pile was Gary Winick's 1989 film Curfew.

Two psychotic brothers (Wendell Wellman & John Putch) escape from death row and track down those who put them there.

Ever start a movie you think you've never heard of and within the first frame, you're like 'I've seen this before.' Well, that was me with Curfew. I mean, accidentally rewatching movies is not unusual, hell I've even unknowingly double reviewed them before. However, Curfew was different because it was so fresh in my mind, like I knew the outcome of every scene as they happened. I scowered my VHS to see if perhaps I had another release under a different name (it did release in some parts of Canada under the title Carnage) but nope. It wasn't on Tubi (where I often random watch horrors) and just appeared on Prime, so negatory on those fronts. The next day I was driving to work and it finally dawned on me. It was the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray that I bought during their last Black Friday sale and subsequently gave away as a prize at trivia. Mystery solved.

Kyle Richards as Stephanie in Curfew.

But onto the movie. It's okay. It's kind of like Blood Rage, but one-tenth of the fun. It's missing the gore, even though Curfew did attempt to up the body count by throwing in some fodder during the third act in the jock (Peter Nelson), the tramp (Nori Morgan - whose other, far more prestigious, credit was vampire food in The Lost Boys) and tagalong wish Willie Aames (Niels Miller). It was fun to see Kyle Richards in a lead role, during that stage of her life between child actor and meme. And I can say that I have never seen a house cat used as a defensive weapon before.

As a whole though, Curfew is pretty thin. Wellman & Putch play off each other serviceably, skirting chaos, but never go full scenery chew, which is a shame because it could've made this effort much more memorable in the way Louise Lasser's performance in Blood Rage is the stuff of legend. At the end of the day, too much of this movie is pedestrian, lying somewhere between TV movie and low budget schlock. I can safely say that there will be no third viewing of this movie.

Evil is a Strong Word.

My intention to see out February with a final serial killer flick was thwarted by the fragility of analog media so TBD on that one. That meant I had to pivot to the next VHS off the pile, and another one from my recent jaunt to that antique warehouse, in Burt Kennedy's 1974 movie Evil in the Swamp.

A traveling photojournalist (Stacy Keach) picks up a young hitchhiker (Tim Parkison) and after taking him home to his family finds himself trapped in their company.

This will be a shorter one folks, as this was pretty plain. Keach was good in this role, maybe not as memorable as his turns in Road Games and The Gravy Train or even Class of 1999, but he steered the shp in what is a fairly straightforward and pedestrian script. Evil in the Swamp was painfully PG, and only real horror I experienced was from watching Keach absolutely cook his Chevy driving over all that uneven ground. Also, his red eyes on the coverbox are not my camera, they actually look like that for no discernable reason at all.

It was of no surprise to me to discover this originally aired as a Movie of the Week on ABC as All The Kind Strangers. A more apt title and the family in this story was by no means evil. Misguided, yes. Neglected, absolutely. And sure, they may have offed a couple of people and hid their cars ala Texas Chainsaw, but it didn't seem like there was anything intentionally malevolent going on. The television nature of it would explain why something so blasé would be able to land names like Stacy Keach and Samantha Eggar, who really didn't get to do much here. Maybe I'm overvaluing them I dunno.

Samantha Eggar & Stacy Keach in Evil in the Swamp.

Director Burt Kennedy was a seasoned pro who worked mostly on westerns, and with the help of two(!) cinematographers banged this out pretty workmanlike. At the end of the day, Evil in the Swamp just isn't all that memorable. The teleplays from my childhood in the early eighties seemed way more lurid and nightmare inducing, Don't Go To Sleep and Deadly Lessons come to mind. However, I'm not going to knock it too bad, this movie is surely not the first TV movie that got renamed and repackaged for video store shelves. Oh well, onto the next!