Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Brad Loree, Busta Rhymes, Bianca Kajlich, Sean Patrick Thomas, Daisy McCrackin, Katee Sackhoff, Luke Kirby, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Ryan Merriman, Tyra Banks
Tagline: Michael Myers is back...and he's ready to clean house!
Plot: Three years after he last terrorized his sister, Michael Myers confronts
her again, before traveling to Haddonfield to deal with the cast and
crew of a reality show which is being broadcast from his old home.
My rating: 4.5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!! YARRRRRRRR!
I fucking LOVE the first fifteen minutes with Jamie Lee Curtis' literal kiss goodbye!
Well, that is until 2018 when the Hollywood showed up at her house with the Brinks truck, shoveling sweet green leafy spendy monies onto her front lawn. The end of that opening pre-credits sequence was dumb as fuck and I loved it! The rest of the movie was just full of stupid. One of the few things that I liked was seeing Katee Sakhoff in an early role. She's got charisma that helps the picture but not enough to save it. The music? I guess it worked. I can't remember anything about it one way or the other. There's so much dumb shit in this thing like how the six participants have shitty cameras that look horrible to us but are crystal clear on the in-movie bank of monitors. Cutting between the horribly fuzzy video from those cameras to the actual movie footage was annoying and distracting. I was ready for this picture to end halfway through but I persisted since I'm determined to get through the rest of this series. I can see why this movie was the last one until 2007. Since I've seen the two Rob Zombie pictures (which I really enjoyed), it's the 2018 film next and then I'll sit down and remember something about HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021) which I watched a couple of weeks ago. After that I'll wash my hands of all this and move onto something else.
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Janet Leigh, Josh Hartnett, LL Cool J, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Durand
Tagline: It's going to be one hell of a family reunion.
Plot: Laurie Strode, now the dean of a Northern California private
school with an assumed name, must battle the Shape one last time, as
the life of her own son hangs in the balance.
My rating: 6/10
Will I watch it again? No.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Wait, I thought Laurie Strode was dead. How silly; no one ever really dies. It's a movie and you can do whatever you want. For this series, I've learned to check my brains at the door and just go with it. On one hand, this feels more like a Halloween picture because Jamie Lee Curtis is back but on the other, it's less of one. That's not to say I don't like it. It's fine I suppose and I kind of like it. One big departure from the rest of the series is the music, this time from the wonderful John Ottman. Gone are the synth vibes from twenty years earlier. Ottman's score has a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) vibe and I LOVED it! There are some fun kills but the film has too many jump scares. The only one I dug was this one.
Nice! The ending was great. When Michael was pinned down and unable to escape, I was thinking that one sure-fire way to put this fucker down would be to decapitate him. And then Laurie goes and does just that. But just before that she and Michael seemed to share a moment when he reached out to her. I found it a little touching. It would've really tugged hard at my heart strings if Michael had groaned a bit in a sad way like a wounded animal. It was a nice touch...you know, just before the beheading. While there was a lot here that played by the numbers, there's enough here to like to at least give it a watch. Watching it again? I can't see that happening. The way this series is going, I'm probably going to stick to re-watching the first and third films.
Plot: Six years after Michael Myers last terrorized Haddonfield, he returns
there in pursuit of his niece, Jamie Lloyd, who has escaped with her
newborn child, for which Michael and a mysterious cult have sinister
plans.
My rating: 5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
The continuity in this serious is pretty fucking bad. This is the first one (of the Michael Myers Halloweens) that feels less like a Halloween picture and more like a typical horror movie. There are jump scares all over this thing and that's not something I remember the previous entries relying on. I can't think of much to say about it which is neither good nor bad. It's OK at best. There seemed to be less music than in previous films and that takes away from building any much-needed atmosphere. It's just 90 minutes of mostly meh. I guess they introduced the cult angle to explain how Michael is un-killable. My mind wandered a lot while watching this and I found myself asking questions like what does Michael do in the off-season? Where does he hang out, what does he like for breakfast, does he have an exercise plan to keep in tip top knife-lunging shape? I reckon he must hibernate or something. He is the definition of evil according to Loomis and the rest of the cast so there's definitely a supernatural thing going on. This is a notable entry in that Pleasence died shortly after filming and Paul Rudd makes his film debut. Hey, at least they're getting a little more consistent with continuity by not having any when Jamie Lee Curtis shows up in the next one.
Plot: One year after the events of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
(1988), the Shape returns to Haddonfield once again in an attempt to
kill his now-mute niece.
My rating: 6
Will I watch it again? Doubtful.
After watching HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021) the other night, it seemed like a good time to finish this series since I've only ever seen the first four.
I don't know what else you can do with a simple character like Michael Myers but this isn't all that bad of a direction. All you do is change the person he's going after and let a shitload of people around them get slaughtered. Start the film off by eating up time with a re-cap of the previous film and change a little here and there, and then jump into the present-day story establishing everything you need to in order for the plot to happen. Donald Pleasence has some batshit crazy moments that make this worth watching. There are some fun kills and Howarth does a serviceable job with the score. The laundry chute was a nice sequence so at least there's that. Oh, jesus. I almost forgot about the two idiot cops and the horrible Mickey Mouse silly music Howarth vomits up when they're on screen. It's just terrible and is very much out of place. At least they died, albeit offscreen which robbed me of cheering Michael on. Shame, that.
Starring: Shayan Bayat, Meghan Kinsley, Travis Turner, Adrian Daniels, Laura Hope, Jessica Hill, Chris J. Clements, James Lawson, Halie Hunter, Jim Hunter
Tagline: He's not just hunting eggs... he's hunting YOU.
Plot: Twenty years ago, young Peter McKay watched his father decapitate his
sister on Easter morning. Peter never celebrated the Easter holiday
again... until now.
My rating: 4/10
Will I watch it again? No.
Everything about this holiday retro-slasher is just below average. The gore is simplistic which also relies on computer generated camera lens blood spatter, the acting is as you'd expect for a no budget picture but never crossing over into the so-bad-it's-good territory, the story is generic but without anything special to add and so on. The music is sometimes worthwhile although some repetitive cues get played too long and often.. Overall the movie is missing a sense of fun. There's no nudity (but not without ample opportunity), fun kills or any of the other stuff you'd need/want for a slasher picture to strive for. I would say it's a good thing it's only 78 minutes long but it feels much longer. Keeping this around 45 would've made it a little better and more easily digestible. Now, having said all of that, It is producer/editor/writer/director Mogg's first film. There are some moments where you can tell he had some ideas he wanted to try out. With more experience he'll obviously get better. It's an OK start. I'll check out his other work. He's got some great titles like BANGIN' VENGEANCE! (2011) (about talkin' tits), TEENAGE SLUMBER PARTY NIGHTMARE (2014), MASSAGE PARLOR OF DEATH (2015) and BIGFOOT ATE MY BOYFRIEND (2016).
Tagline: Roll Over Beethoven - It's Freddy's Fifth!
Plot: The pregnant Alice finds Freddy Krueger striking through the sleeping
mind of her unborn child, hoping to be reborn into the real world.
My rating: 5.5/10
Will I watch it again? Probably not.
I guess it was only a matter of time before one of these sequels wasn't good. If there's one thing, though, that is consistent it's the special effects and the great kills. But one or more of the kills in this one were just OK. I really dug the comic book guy's death. If for nothing else it was very creative. His acting was definitely the weakest link but at least he had some neat moments as a drawing. The story is alright, the acting was par for the course, the effects ranged from dodgy to great and the pacing was OK. But I was borderline bored for most of it. Was it the directing that was lackluster? I don't think so. I think it was the screenplay that needed some excitement injected into it. I'm just going to assume that Freddy will always be there and you can't really kill him. That'll explain a lot so the movies can keep coming and there's little need to explain how he comes back. With that assumption, it's simply left up to the filmmakers to get creative and build a fun playground for which Freddy can stretch his legs and kill some teenage mofos. That's it. It just hit me. Freddy feels less a part of the story and more like the boogeyman in this picture. He needed to be more prominent. While I dug getting a little of his backstory, he was a lot less involved and had fewer lines than the other films. That settles it. It's the screenplay that's lacking. Case solved, Mr. Holmes.
Starring: Sid Haig, William Bassett, Karen Black, Erin Daniels, Joe Dobbs III, Judith Drake, Dennis Fimple, Gregg Gibbs, Walton Goggins, Chris Hardwick, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, Michael J. Pollard, Tom Towles, Rainn Wilson
Tagline: The most shocking tale of carnage ever seen.
Plot: Two young couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for
urban legends of murder end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic
backwater family of serial killers.
My rating: 6.5/10
Will I watch it again? Yes.
9 years ago I watched THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005) and loved it. HOUSE is Rob Zombie's first feature as writer/director and in some ways it shows. I don't mean that in a bad way, either, because he's got a lot of great ideas and he's got a flair for visuals and gore. That man loves the blood. It shows because he's trying a lot of different techniques and he's tossing in a lot of stuff; some of it works and some of it is just superfluous. He does a lot with the great cast he assembled. It just tickles me to pieces to see Michael J. Pollard in something modern and to hear him tell the story about a guy with a PLANET OF THE APES doll stuck up his butt. Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon, makes her feature debut as an actor. She got better as she went along. She was wonderful in THE LORDS OF SALEM (2012). I've now seen every one of Rob Zombie's features and I really dig what this cat brings to the genre. Like him or not (and it's staggering how much automatic hate there is for this guy), his love of the genre shows in every film and he's bringing a different perspective and making horror movies fun. I get the feeling I might like this one more on repeat viewings and the next time I watch it I'll have to make it a double bill with the sequel and see how that plays out.
Tagline: Some tales are told, then soon forgotten. But a legend... is forever.
Plot: A California couple and a survivalist encounter Leatherface and his family.
My rating: 6/10
Will I watch it again? No.
I had no expectation going into this except that hopefully it was better than the second one. It is but not by much. At least it's got some good kills, Viggo Mortensen and Ken Foree. They helped. This picture didn't do anything to expand on the original film but then it didn't need to. This isn't exactly a franchise that felt like doing that in the first place. It's like the Friday the 13th flicks in that the audience only needs good kills and some entertainment for 90 minutes to satisfy. Nudity helps (none here) but it's not a requirement. This is a franchise I can do without even though the first film is one of my favorite horror films. I've now seen everything in the franchise except for the most recent picture, LEATHERFACE (2017) and I've got no desire to see it. Unless someone makes an earnest TCM down the line that tries to do something good rather than rely on name recognition alone then I'm going to stick with the '74 classic and leave it at that.
Writers: Alan B. McElroy, Dhani Lipsius, Larry Rattner, Benjamin Ruffner
Composer: Alan Howarth
Starring: Donald Pleasance, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, George P. Wilbur, Michael Pataki, Beau Starr, Kathleen Kinmont, Sasha Jenson, Gene Ross, Carmen Filpi, Donre Sampson
Tagline: Ten Years Ago HE Changed The Face Of Halloween. Tonight HE'S BACK!
Plot: Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens
and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece on
Halloween. Can Dr. Loomis stop him?
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Probably.
Well here's a good sequel. I really wasn't expecting much because I go into these things as each sequel having diminishing returns. Yeah, it's not as good as the second picture but it's still fun. There's definitely something supernatural going on with Michael Myers. There's no way he can do what he does and survive everything. I don't care, though, because what I wanted was a good 80s slasher horror picture and that's what I got. Howarth's use of the main theme is well placed. He holds off using it until it's the right moment and it's effective. It's always fun having Pleasence back. The kid (Danielle Harris) does a fine job. And how about that balls-out, fucking insane ending? I loved it! Michael gets in a couple of good kills. The suspense is done well enough and I dug how Michael ended up at the house where everyone was holed up. The atmosphere, score and vibe are firmly seated in the 80s and it was nice to be back in Haddenfield after all these years.
Starring: Fiona Dourif, Brad Dourif, Chantal Quesnelle, Danielle Bisutti, A Martinez, Maitland McConnell, Brennan Elliott, Summer H. Howell, Adam Hurtig, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent
Plot: After her mother's mysterious death, Nica begins to suspect that the
talking, red-haired doll her visiting niece has been playing with may be
the key to recent bloodshed and chaos.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Yes.
I REALLY like this franchise! The last two films (4 (Bride) and 5 (Seed)) took a left turn in Albequerque and went from horror to comedy/horror. This one goes back to its roots for a straight up horror movie and it's good. I loved the atmosphere of the house. It's almost entirely set there so the house needs to have some personality and variety. The kills are good but more importantly, Mancini delivers the goods when it comes to making a good horror movie that DOES NOT RELY ON FUCKING JUMP SCARES! There are none. Having Nica (Fiona Dourif, Brad's daughter...neat...and she does a great job!) confined to a wheelchair works very well and it doesn't feel gimmicky at all. What's better is that there's a great fucking reason why she's paralyzed below the waist. I loved how this story ties into the previous and how it expands on Charles Lee Ray's history. The movie looks great and it feels at just the right length. The Blu-ray looks outstanding. The sequel, CULT OF CHUCKY (2017), dropped a few days ago and I'm anxiously awaiting that one.
Writers: William Kotzwinkle, Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat
Composer: Craig Safan
Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, Rodney Eastman, Andras Jones, Tuesday Knight, Toy Newkirk, Ken Sagoes, Brooke Theiss, Brooke Bundy
Tagline: You shouldn't have buried me, I'm not dead
Plot: The last girl from Elm Street is still bothered by dreams about Freddy;
soon he returns and kills her, but before she died she wills her power
to a new friend.
My rating: 6.5/10
Will I watch it again? Yeah.
This one picks up shortly after the last one, making it sort of a two-parter. So far the series is doing a decent job of continuing the story. People die and others are drawn in. I liked how Alice was a daydreamer. You know instantly that it's going to at the very least give her some trouble and us some fun with Freddy. I really wish they'd give more screen time with Freddy. He gets a good deal, I suppose, but his role is pretty much the boogeyman that comes to add to his teenage body count. I guess I want more substance. The acting is OK but we're not watching the movies for anything but Freddy doing what he does best. There is one cool shot that I really dug. When Kristen's (Knight) mother dopes her up with sleeping pills and Kristen quickly loses her struggle against them, the camera is constantly moving above and around her for the entire time until she drops. It was an effective visual to match what she was feeling. Nice. As always, Englund is fun as are the effects and kills. Look fast for a Linnea Quigley cameo inside of Freddy's belly near the end. You can't mistake whose boobs these belong to...
I'm not thrilled with this franchise as a whole (so far). None of the films up to this point are great or even very good. I like them enough to justify watching them but they just aren't doing it for me. If it weren't for the wonderful kills and effects I probably wouldn't bother but there's enough here and there to keep my interest. The Blu-ray (from the box set ANonES Collection with all 7 films) looks great. They all do.
Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens, Anne-Marie Martin, Antoinette Bower, Michael Tough, Robert A. Silverman, Pita Oliver, David Mucci, Jeff Wincott, Mary Beth Rubens, George Touiatos
Tagline: There's a special night in the lives of all of us. A night to be
beautiful. To be desirable. A night we can break all the rules and make
our own. Prom night.
Plot: At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who
were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years
previously.
My rating:
Will I watch it again? No.
Is it just me or do you find it hard to take seriously any R-rated 80s slasher movie that doesn't have any nudity (especially when there's the tease of some in a high school locker room post-shower), the kills are weak AND they don't start until an hour into the picture? I'm not saying that boobs are crucial but for fuck's sake, this is rated R and the only reason I can think of for that is that there's some 'fucks' here and there. With a slasher from 1980 starring Jamie Lee Curtis, I expected more. The movie's OK and that's about it. It's what's not in it that's more important than what is. There are parts in the first hour that work great but there are a lot of slow spots that end up leading up to nothing much to see here. The Echo Bridge DVD has a good looking anamorphic widescreen print but no extras. WTF? I just saw that this spawned three sequels? Are they worth watching?
Starring: Debra De Liso, Dough Stevenson, Ron Kologie, Elizabeth Gorcey, John C. Cooke, Joseph Alan Johnson, Dan Smith, Michael Picardi, Lisa Loring, Sharon Bingham, Mark Turner, Rodney Montague
Tagline: A downhill vacation becomes a nightmare of terror. Get off the hill before you get...ICED
Plot: A group of childhood friends are invited to the opening of a posh ski
resort, unaware that an old nemesis has murderous plans in mind for
them.
My rating: 5.5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
This has what you'd expect from an 80s slasher picture. There are some kills but they don't start until an hour in (or at least that's when the body count starts to rise). I think there was one kill early on but it almost doesn't count since you will have probably forgotten about it when the blood hits the fan. The music has its moments but the low budget trappings of a below average synthesizer score are there. The best of it, the cue during Trina's frantic run near the end (where she discovers the bodies one by one) is outstanding. Really. That track gets used again when the killer is after her. It's performed by an orchestra and it sounds like the composer was influenced by John Williams so it makes me think that it came from a different composer. All of the nudity is courtesy of Lisa Loring.
Gig-git-y! She's best remembered for playing Wednesday in THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1964). The kills are just OK. The icicle was my favorite. They aren't all THAT fun and there's little gore. Besides seeing Wednesday's all grown up cans, the only thing that's great about this is the last scene with the snowman. THAT was cool as shit. Other than that, there's no good reason to see this minor 80s slasher. If anyone has any info on the music from this, please let me know. Had the entire score been as good as that one cue, this would've been a better picture.
Starring: John Brace, Mary Fanaro, Bruce Gold, A.J. McLean, Christopher Bontempo, Jon Creamer, Christine Duff, Jennifer Duff, Prescilla Duff, Kerry Ellen Walker, D.C. 'Dash' Goff, Rick Paige, Mona Jones
Tagline: June 1, 1986. It's time to play...Truth or Dare?
Plot: Mike Strauber catches his wife Sharon in bed with his best friend Jerry.
He gets mad and takes off to embark on an adventure of murder and
self-mutilation in demented games of truth or dare.
My rating: 7/10
Will I watch it again? Yes.
80s slasher requirements: blood? Check. Fun kills? Check. Titties? Check. OK, everything's here. It starts off really slow in taking way too much time to let us know that Mike (Brace) is super bummed out that his wife is cheating on him. It picks up once he picks up the floosie and takes her camping. From there it's a fun ride. The acting is over the top (big plus in this case), Mike kills a lot of people including a baby (another plus) and it's actually pretty funny although not enough to consider this a comedy. It's definitely a horror picture but fuck did I laugh a few times and it wasn't unintentionally. Ritter knew what he was doing. It's a low budget picture but Ritter gets a lot of mileage out of what he had to work with. There's a little bit of HALLOWEEN (1978) in that the killer's name is Mike and he wears a mask that he made out of copper in the metal shop at the mental institution! That's where the comparisons begin and end. One running gag that I loved was how Mike somehow has unexpected and wild weapons. His first day back at the mental hospital he busts out a huge hunting knife and a hand grenade. Once he escapes he's somehow acquired a sub machine gun and later pulls a drive-by chainsaw to kid! AWESOME!!! This guy's got some imagination. The opening goes on way too long but once it gets going, it's a hoot...all the way to the very end, including the cheesy as shit ballad during the end credits called "Critical Madness" (that ends before the credits do). You need to watch this wackiness.
Tagline: Give me a K - Give me an I - Give me an L - Give me an L
Plot: A group of cheerleaders become the targets of an unknown killer at a remote summer camp.
My rating: 4/10
Will I watch it again? No.
The best thing about this movie is the awesome poster. I was hoping this was going to be better. I'm a sucker for 80s horror. It's a slasher set in the woods. It's got some nudity...
but not nearly enough (and sadly, all but one brief shot is in the first 15 minutes) but it's missing a lot more and that's kills and gore. This is one of the lighter slasher films out there in terms of kills/gore and in tone. Take out the deaths and it's just another average teen comedy with poor acting and gags. Having a killer on the loose helps but it's not much of an improvement. So where were the great kills and blood? The DVD commentary with the director and producer might shed some light but I don't like the film enough to give it another 90 minutes of my life to find out. The movie is OK if you're looking for an 80s horror movie you haven't seen before but if you do watch it, see it with a group of friends and drink. The Anchor Bay DVD presents the film in anamorphic widescreen and the extras you get are the aforementioned commentary track, 3 trailers for the film (two anamorphic and one fullscreen), an alternate title sequence for when it was titled BLOODY POM POMS (there's nothing but credits for this) and photos.
Starring: Robert Houston, David Nichols, Tamara Stafford, Kevin Spirtas, John Laughlin, Willard E. Pugh, Peter Frechette, Colleen Riley, Penny Johnson Jerald, Janus Blythe, Edith Fellows, Arden Roger Meyer, Michael Berryman, John Bloom, Nicholas Worth
Plot: A group of bikers, heading to a race, become stranded in the desert and
find themselves fighting off a family of inbred cannibals who live off
the land.
My rating: 5.5/10
Will I watch it again? Nope.
This had to be a paycheck film for Craven. You expect more from this guy, ya know? The flick is made by pros. The acting's OK and it looks good. The music works, there's a little bit of nudity and some gore but it's just plain borderline boring and uninspiring. Cass, the blind girl, took having blind super powers (hearing, smelling) to a whole new level that got utterly ridiculous by the finale. This is just another average teen horror/slasher movie from the 80s. And it came right at a time that the height of the slasher genre had been gone for a couple of years and at a time that it was seeing a rebirth of sorts with another Craven creation, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984). Craven must've written this one in record time. The '77 film was fun. I can only fault the guy so far. I'm sure the studio backed the Brinks truck up to his house and shoveled money onto his front lawn to do this. He probably didn't want to and this is the result. As this was written and directed by Craven, the expectations were a lot higher than if it were made by a no name. I can see why this picture gets a bad rep but it's not a horrible movie, just a piece of mediocre horror that just about anyone could've done back then...and did.
Starring: Cecile Bagdadi, Joel S. Rice, Ralph Brown, DeAnna Robbins, Sherry Willis-Burch, John Fallon, Terry W. Farren, Timothy L. Raynor, Sam Kilman, Don Hepner, Mary Ellen Withers, Elijah Christopher Perry
Tagline: Some pass the test...God Help The Rest!!!
Plot: A psycho killer shows up on college campus to slash up pretty co-eds and dumb jocks.
My rating: 5.5/10
Will I watch it again? No.
For an early 80s slasher movie, you can do much better. It's not boring (good thing) but the kills are light (no gore and WAY too far apart) and you have to wait over an hour for the few seconds of nudity (it was nice but it's too little, too late). These are staples of the genre. The story is average so what you need to help that is to boos the fun factor with gore, creative kills, T&A and some sense of fun. Now, Huston directed the film quite well. What's lacking is everything else story-wise. There are a lot of characters and Huston juggles them well. There's no confusion about who any of them are and the actors do a good job. The picture opens with a double murder (only one onscreen) and then it's almost an hour before the next one. WTF? I know, right? The school attack early on is the best thing about the movie. That was really neat but the real meat of the horror (kills) is in the last half hour and a lot of the kills are offscreen. Yeah. Some of them are justified (like when someone happens upon a body and it scares them) but, with everything else, that ends up being something you put in the con column. The thing is, after all that you have to sit through, you feel like you deserved better. It's a professional-looking production. The director went on to write RUNNING SCARED (1986) (I LOVE THAT MOVIE) and the cinematographer and editor did some things (nothing of real note that I could see). The problem really is in the script. This minor looks great but there's not much meat in it and not much of an attempt at scares. The only one that comes close is probably the cliche of the killer won't die when there's no way he could've survived what happened to him. It's OK but I can't see anyone wanting to watch this more than once. I almost always get excited when I come across an early 80s horror flick, hoping I'll find a hidden gem that's alluded me for more than thirty years. At least there's some fun in the anticipation of discovery.
Plot: After murdering a young girl, Angela Baker assumes her identity and
travels to Camp New Horizons, built on the grounds of the camp she
terrorized the year before, and starts killing again.
My rating: 6/10
Will I watch it again? Maybe.
The SLEEPAWAY CAMP films are fun enough but are never as great as they could've been or I would like. The second one of the trilogy is the best but not by an awful lot. There are some laughs, lots of nudity (and Michael J. Pollard gets him some!) and bloody kills. If you've seen the second film then you know who the killer is at the beginning of this one. That doesn't spoil anything. It doesn't take long before she's hacking and slashing. Did I mention the funny? They really put the camp in Sleepaway Camp. The first film takes itself more seriously than the second and third. The acting isn't all that good (I'm looking at you Pamela "sister of Bruce" Springsteen) but that doesn't matter. She's just bad enough to make it funny. There are some cute gags like fishing a hockey mask out of the lake. Some land and some don't but it doesn't really matter. They made the movie they set out to and it's kind of fun but never boring. The Anchor bay DVD has a commentary track, behind the scenes footage & outtakes (8 minutes), 19 minutes of deleted scenes from the director's cut and the fullscreen trailer. I wouldn't mind getting a box set of these but there isn't one currently available. They're all on Blu-ray individually but they're still about twenty bucks each and that's just too much. They're not THAT good.
Plot: At an exclusive, secluded North American ski resort up on Mount Rocky
Summit, brutal slashing, severing and beheading on a group of teenagers
are taking place and are believed to be the work of a mysterious skier
dressed in black.
My rating: 6/10
Will I watch it again? No.
Cute tagline. Good score. The opening cue was really nice. It's a slasher flick so let's get down to the important stuff. The kills are a mixed bag. They saved some dough by keeping some of them tame at the point of impact. The camcorder kill was fun. There's a little bit of nudity but there could've been more. At least it was teased that way. There's a shower scene in the first few minutes that doesn't reveal anything. Booooo. I think that was Lindsey McKeon as Kimberly. Not that that matters. Send your disappointment hate letters to her. The only character I actually liked was Pike (Juleah Weikel). She was a lot of fun. Oh, and one more who shows up unexpectedly on a ski lift. I think that was Candace Moon (as Shelly). The rest of them were OK. Maybe if I were rich, 20, hot and dumb I'd like them more. The ending was fun and I dig the song that starts the closing credits (Ron Sunshine & Full Swing's She Won't Believe). And I've got to say that the film looks REALLY good for a low budget picture. The MGM DVD presents the film in anamorphic widescreen. The extras are ten minutes of deleted scenes (which are mostly alternate takes) and trailers for three other MGM movies (but not for this one). A commentary track would have been nice.
Writers: Galen Thompson, Michael O. Sajbel, Bret Thompson Plate, Brad White
Composer: David Gibney
Starring: James Houghton, Albert Salmi, Lynn Carlin, Larry Pennell, Jacquelyn Hyde, Robert Symonds, Heidi Bohay, Maylo McCaslin, Carole Goldman, Stacy Keach Sr., Kim Marie, Billy Jayne, Johnny Doran, Bennett Liss, Joshua Cadman, John Alderman, Nova Ball, Morgan Strickland, Earl Montgomery, Michael Cornelison, Casey King, Bret Thompson Plate, Orazio Orlando
Plot: A witch put to death in 1692 swears vengeance on her persecutors and returns to the present day to punish their descendants.
My rating: 7.5/10
Will I watch it again? Yes.
Where the hell has this been and why hadn't I heard of this before? Don't worry about the plot sounding like a dozen other movies you've seen before. There's nothing new here BUT it is a lot of fun. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...YARRRRR!!!!! The more I watched it the more I got into it. It's a well-shot flick. The acting is good, the direction and building of suspense is nice, the pacing, setting, etc.. Then people started dying and in really neat ways. The gore is very good and there is a lot of it. Hell, everyone (except for one person I think) dies. You read that right. That's a lot of people and just when you think so and so is going to make it? Nope. Snuffed out. It's beautiful While the basic storyline is cliched, the film strays from the cliche and kills everybody and they die where in other pictures they would live. I'm really impressed with this Canadian slasher. I really hope that this picture made money because everyone came together and made a fine flick. It's not often that I come across an 80s horror flick I've missed that I really enjoy.
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