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...

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!

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.

SYNGENOR!!!

Hey all, it's the first VHS Friday of the year, and this is one I've been meaning to watch for a really long time. Let's take a look at William Malone's 1980 creature feature Scared To Death.

An ex-cop (John Stinson) is coersed out of retirement to help solve a string of brutal murders.

Full disclosure, I don't have a Betamax so I didn't watch the tape above (though I do own it). No, I spoiled myself with the Vinegar Syndrome Blu meaning I at least watched the best possible incarnation of it for better or worse. 

I did have fun with this one. While it is super low budget, it has a lot of charm. Malone goes against the general rule of writing locations you have access to, meaning that he ended up having to bribe and steal his way into many of the spaces (and sometimes even electricity) used in the film. He did a lot with his budget, a meager $74,000 and was even able to save some money on casting.

Bill Malone coming to you live from Glendale, CA.

And while a lot of Scared To Death feels familiar, the first crime scene exchange between the two cops seem to use every clichéd Dirty Harry line except “loose cannon” and everyone would agree that the creature resembles H.R. Giger's Alien, but I would also maintain that for everything Malone borrowed, others later responded in kind. The cinematography of the opening along the storm drain is remarkably similar to It, and I also recall another antagonist meeting a similar end in James Cameron's The Terminator four years later.

John Stinson & Diana Davidson in Scared To Death.

Despite its similarity to the Xenomorph, it still looks pretty good. Malone's background as a sculptor meant that he knew that he'd at least be able to deliver on the monster. I'd say there are only a few shots where it looks rubbery, but even Ridley Scott's creature had limitations, he was just better at hiding them. Malone's Syngenor was the first of many silicone nightmares he has delivered over the course of his career and was obviously memorable enough for producer Jack Murphy to re-use in an orphaned sequel.

Structurally, Scared To Death plays out like your average procedural slasher, but if the killer was a Synthesized Genetic Organism. However, I will say I was thrown by the leading lady switch halfway through, with Diana Davidson making way for Toni Jannotta.

Overall, an entertaining creature feature that paved the way for William Malone's ascent to Master of Horror.

Don't Go in the Attic!

The latest tape in the pile was one I just acquired at Eyesore Cinema during last weekend's Video Store Day celebrations. I spied a tape that said Horror in the Attic, saw that it starred Jeffrey Combs and Seth Green and thought to myself, “that's good enough for me.” Let's see if it was worth it.

A man (Andras Jones) wakes up in an asylum with amnesia and when the patients around him start dying, he begins to question if he might be the killer. 

While paying for it, Eyesore's proprietor Daniel was kind enough to let me know this was an alternate release of a movie called The Attic Expeditions, which did spark a vague memory of a coverbox - a dude's face wrapped in bandages, Dead & Buried style. When I later popped it in my VCR, I was immediately struck by this parade of notable names in the credits. Ted Raimi, Wendy Robie, Tim Heidecker (of Tim & Eric) even Alice Cooper shows up for a scene. It took me a second to recognize the lead was Rick from NOES 4, but I got there eventually. I initially thought his performance was fairly monotone, but later realized it was because everyone around him was so manic that it only seemed that way.

Seth Green & Andras Jones in Horror in the Attic.

It was hilarious to learn that this movie was originally supposed to be a Witchcraft sequel, but director Jeremy Kasten thought the script was too good so he made it a stand alone movie. This is likely correct, but I'd swap out the words “too good” for “too convoluted”, though I admit I am using my hazy drunken thirty-year old memory of watching Witchcraft V as a reference. I only remember bad acting and titties, and Horror in the Attic only has one of those two things. Although, it's certainly edited like an early 2000's movie.

Insert metal music here.

I must admit, I got a little dozey towards the end, but I did notice that Kasten was attempting to do some neat things with perception and consciousness with partial success. However, the main draw was just watching the actors have fun. The scenes with Combs & Raimi riffing off each other is a highlight - I literally could've watched a whole movie of that - but Seth Green is the best part of this movie. He gets to do a lot here, including a lengthy monologue one-er in which he almost dances with the cameraman. His performance reminded me of Brad Pitt's in 12 Monkeys, among other things.

Overall, this movie is quite curious. Horror in the Attic is definitely a few notches above DTV trash, but I can certainly see why it never found an audience, despite the draw of its many co-stars. See you next week for Halloween!

On The Cutting Room Floor.

VHS Fridays continue with the next tape on the pile, the 2000 Aussie meta slasher Cut. The fact that I have done two Australian movies in a row is completely coincidental. I mean seeing Molly Ringwald on the box obviously didn't scream “down under” to me. But let's see if it makes the cut (mugs to camera).

A young director tries to finish a lost horror film called Hot Blooded, after it was shelved after its director was brutally murdered on-set.

Cut starts well enough, giving us a film within a film where Molly Ringwald is stalked ad nauseum. I award early points for using the Split Enz song “I Got You” - NZ represent! When a gore effect malfunctions, the director (Kylie Minogue in a brief cameo) get pissed and is later murdered by Scissorman, I mean, Scarman with some very odd looking shears. This causes the film to be lost and rumoured cursed, until Film Audiovisual Radio & Television School's (FARTS for short!) best and brightest decide to finish it.

This movie doesn't really hide its intentions. Cut was Australia's entry into the nineties slasher cycle and as well as their answer to Scream, with Scarman standing in for Ghostface. Hell, they even managed to get Ringwald, who during the genesis of Scream was tapped to play Sidney Prescott. Here she's more of the Gale Weathers though, with Aussie actress Jessica Napier filling in for Neve. I will at least say they share the same vibe.

Jessica Napier & Molly Ringwald in Cut.

Cut struggles at times to get the ingredients of the meta slasher just right, sometimes leaning into full parody. You also have to ignore the fact that this low-budget horror production seems to be able to chug along even after their department heads start going missing. No boom? No wardrobe? No sound? No problem!

Having said that, the Scarman mask does look cool and was apparently cast to the actor's face for an extra snug fit. During the climax, there are some mask-melting effects that come off well. I assume it was a mix of practical and digital that for the time are kind of impressive. I'll have to ask my buddy Nash if he has seen this film because the only other time I have seen a death-by-wood-slicer scene is In A Violent Nature. I know he used many films as inspiration, but this would be the deepest cut (Oops, I did it again) of all. Oh, and I have to mention that Hot Blooded's shooting location is named the Swiss Chalet. I love that even foreigners can get in on Canadian content every once and a while.

Cut, though it sometimes overindulges in the tropes of the time, is still an entertaining watch that at a brisk eighty-two minutes doesn't overstay. Plus, I have to admit it was nice seeing Molly Ringwald again. That's all for now, let's see what I get up to next week.