Ravenous: A Quirky and Darkly Hilarious Horror Film About Cannibalism That Has Become a Cult Classic
Ravenous is an odd little film. Dismissed upon initial release in 1999 it has picked up a cult following that has made the recent Blu-ray release an event. The film is characterized by a quirky soundtrack, bonkers performances and the famous line “he was licking me!” It is clear to see why this film is so adored. Like most cult classics it has an off-kilter vibe that features performances with personality. Ravenous has a personality all its own and can stand alongside films like Evil Dead, The Warriors and Donnie Darko. Roger Ebert was one of the few critics to appreciate the film and he understood the vibe it was going for.
Ravenous” is clever in the way it avoids most of the clichés of the vampire movie by using cannibalism, and most of the clichés of the cannibal movie by using vampirism. It serves both dishes with new sauces.
Ravenous can be called a lot of things but predictable is not one of them. It most certainly provides “new sauces” to the mix and those new ingredients are certainly not for the mainstream. From the unique score, rugged locations and A-list cast this historical horror film brings us something new. The film is helped by the cast who fully commit to their roles and it is a blast watching them fight, eat and fight more.
The director Antonia Bird jumped into the directors chair two weeks into production when the prior director quit. That maybe explains why it feels like two films. Bird wasn’t happy with the final cut (Studio interference etc..). However, she delivered a film full of memorable imagery and fantastic performances. I’m sure there is a message in there somewhere (Preying on ambition, westward expansion) but what mattered to me was the neat moments. From the opening scene when cowardice is rewarded to the final line “That was very…..sneaky” Ravenous follows the beat of its own drum.
Set during the Mexican/American War Ravenous centers around a small outpost in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. One night a starving Robert Carlyle stumbles upon them and proceeds to tell them a story about cannibalism. He tells them there is a woman left alive in the mountains and a motley crew ventures off to save her. Of course, things go awry, people are eaten and it all builds to a massive bear trap.
Ravenous is a fun film for genre fans and adds another entry to the cult-classic canon. The material is unique, the cast (Jeremy Davis, David Arquette, Neil McDonough, Jeffrey Jones and John Spencer) fantastic and scenes memorable. It is a under-watched pleasure that you can watch on Netflix and add another cult-classic to your arsenal.
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Grand Piano: A Fun Thriller That Needs a Larger Audience
Grand Piano tells the age-old story of a man playing piano while another man is pointing a gun at his head. This thriller is a fun experiment that is executed to perfection. It is an original idea that uses its locations well and never looks back. It is fun cinema that gets why people watch movies (to be entertained!). Telling a story about a concert pianist being threatened by a ornery voice is a massive risk. That is why I like Grand Piano.
Grand Piano does a lot with a tiny budget and manages to look better than the average thriller. The camera sneaks through the corridors of the concert venue like a snake and becomes a character all its own. The long takes show us that Elijah Wood has studied the piano and his playing blends seamlessly into the soundtrack. The usage of crane shots and split screens feel organic to the proceedings and not shoehorned in. You feel like everyone was on the same page and that is why it is so fun. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly Wood discussed the ease of process.
The difficulty of the structure was largely in Eugenio’s hands, and by the time we started shooting all of that had been predetermined. So, the music, the time code that we were adhering to with the music as it related to the imagery, all of that was done in an animatic form. By the time we were shooting there was a sort of ease of process. It was technical and we had all these elements working together in tandem but it had a very clear structure. But the piano-playing was extremely complicated and stressful.
Grand Piano is a singular story that looks great and wears its preposterous narrative on its sleeve (something about a key). The heist is improbable yet you don’t care because the film is told so assuredly. Don’t think. Enjoy. Be excited that Alex Winter from Bill & Ted is in the film. Be excited that John Cusack seems to be trying again. Be happy that people are telling stories like this. Grand Piano doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it certainly makes the wheel look great.
Watch Grand Piano. Enjoy the insanity. Hope that John Cusack does Grosse Pointe Blank 2.
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Awe is lacking in cinema. Very rarely do you watch a film and feel your jaw drop. How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a visual marvel that brings the awe and immerses you in beauty. There are so many “Whoa” moments you feel spoiled to be watching something so good. I found myself muttering “holy sh**” as things I didn’t even think could happen on-screen happened. HTTYD2 breaks new ground and adds another impressive chapter to the story of Hiccup and Toothless.
Dragon 2 takes you back to the village of Berk where the vikings and winged creatures have learned to coexist. They play games, work together and engage in all forms of hi-jinks. Their peaceful existence seems too good to be true. Before the dragons the Vikings lived a simple existence of surviving and dealing with the dragons. Now, their world has expanded and with that comes more discoveries and attention from the outside world. Some of the discoveries are great while others will result in massive battles.
What I love most about Dragon 2 is it expands the world and stays lean. Everything ties together and isn’t bigger for bigger sake. The world expands because of the ease of travel on-board the dragons. There is a logical progression to the proceedings that feels organic and well thought out. Along his journeys Hiccup finds out that his mom is still alive and has been living in a dragon sanctuary that is protected by a massive alpha. The dragons are being hunted by a madman who wants to control the world via a dragon army. What follows is a whole lot of “whoa” moments and genuine emotions in an animated land of cheeky characters and winged beasts.
Sidenote: I very rarely go so heavy on pictures. However, this film is so beautiful I had to show them to get the point across.
I’m not sure why the film has been under performing. It may be dragon fatigue due to the television show or that adults like it more than kids. However, it should be watched on the biggest screen possible and appreciated for its mastery of story and animation. Films like this are absolute treasures that solely want to entertain audiences and give them a pure experience. Joy abounds and creativity is aplenty and hopefully it will be appreciated.
Watch HTTYD2. Enjoy the sights and sounds. Hope for another sequel.
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John’s Horror Corner: Smothered (2014), an honest, campy, bad, fun horror comedy featuring murder by breast smothering.
MY CALL: This film doesn’t masquerade as anything it isn’t. It’s honest, campy, bad, fun…and breasty. MOVIES LIKE Smothered: While tasteless and much more raunchy, I’d consider films like The Killer Eye (1999), Breeders (1986), Chillerama (2011), Head of the Family (1996) and Hideous! (1997) for a combination of boobs, gore and giggles.
Golden Eye‘sXenia Onatopp gave viewers an unexpected sexual thrill when she killed a man with a leg scissorhold mid-coitus. And that was just PG-13. John Schneider has stepped it up a notch and brought us a big-breasted temptress who commits mammary-assisted murder! That’s right. She smothers people to death with her breasts.
Probably inspired by recent news of the near death of a suffocating German lawyer to his amply-endowed girlfriend and the trailer park murder of a redneck who was “boobed” to death by his plus-sized wife, it seems that fatal breast smothering has become something of a new fad and John Schneider has playfully capitalized on this gimmick in bringing us Smothered.
In this horror comedy, we find Kane Hodder (Chillerama, Hatchet, Wishmaster), R. A. Mihailoff (Hatchet II, Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Leatherface), Don Shanks (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legends: Bloody Mary) and Bill Mosely (The Devil’s Rejects, Texas Chainsaw 3D) play themselves for the most part at a Louisiana horror convention.
A glimpse into the horror con scene.
The cast is accompanied by a few others including Trixie (Shanna Forrestall; The Last Exorcism, Feral) and the murderess DeeDee (Brea Grant; Halloween II, Dexter, Heroes)…aptly named given her ummmmm virtues.
Embittered with a weak turnout in autograph sales (largely due to a cameo by John Schneider stealing the show), Kane accepts a gig to “haunt” a trailer park as Jason Voorhees. So he recruits his fellow unpopular horror icon friends to help him with this task. Upon arriving to the site of the RV park, they start dying one by one under strange accidental circumstances…and, of course given the title, a few breast smotherings for the sake of comedic T’n’A.
What’s odd is that the title and the opening breasticide set a standard that the rest of the movie doesn’t at all follow. We’d expect several more breasty assaults picking off our victims–making the title and opening scene more of a marketing strategy than a premise. Of course, a bunch of smothering cleavage murders would result in about zero gore and that obviously would leave the audience wanting more. That said, this film remained entertaining in a deliberately goofy way and those femme fatale weapons do enough appearances to rile up randy viewers. I had a lot of fun watching this cheeky horror comedy and the occasional non-breast-based murder turned out to be most welcome.
R. A. Mihailoff awkwardly attempting to be scary and Leatherface-y to scare the locals.
There were some solid efforts in the gore department. Some of the more fun gory scenes involve a razor wire snare trap producing some floppy flesh-rending gore, someone self-mutilating themselves to death basically by accident, and a slapstick “face peel” scene followed by an improvised first aid treatment that had me howling. Another effect I was especially fond of was the CGI ants–they actually looked kind of cute in one of the scenes.
This film was written and directed by John Schneider. Yes, the very same John Schneider you knew as Bo (The Dukes of Hazard) and Jonathan Kent (Smallville)! I guess his more recent work in Snow Beast, Return of the Killer Shrews and Super Shark give him a taste of playfully “bad” horror. I’m glad he’s taken this step in his career. I was certainly entertained.
This film doesn’t masquerade as anything it isn’t. It’s honest, campy, bad and fun.
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Edge of Tomorrow: The Blockbuster of Summer
Edge of Tomorrow is an incredibly fun summer blockbuster that juggles humor, action and character. It brings an intelligent boom to a crowded science fiction genre and sets itself apart through actual excitement. On the surface the novel adaptation could easily be described as Groundhog Day with aliens. However, it becomes its own beast and features the best Tom Cruise performance in years.
Doug Liman has developed an interesting on-set reputation throughout the years. However, the Swingers, Go, Jumper, Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith director has a knack for infusing action with humor and bringing out the best in his actors. Liman redefined action with Bourne, helped facilitate enormous chemistry between Jolie/Pitt and allowed swing music to make a brief comeback. That is why I had faith he could take a familiar premise and spin it into gold.
Edge of Tomorrow stays fresh even as Cruise’s character keeps expiring. Liman and his writers did a great job of flipping the Cruise persona by turning him into an a-hole advertising executive. The opening scene is perfect as Tom Cruise uses his big smile and cocky demeanor in an attempt to blackmail his way out of a massive air/land battle in France. Things go bad, he gets arrested, Bill Paxton’s Master Sergeant rips him a new one and he proceeds to die a lot. It was fun watching a bratty Cruise act like a weasel after his “toughest man on the planet” performance in Jack Reacher. Cruise’s follies in training and figuring out the time loop are genuinely funny and unexpected.
Who is Cruise battling on the beach? They are called mimics and they are spreading their way through Europe in an effort to kill humanity. They are sneaky and murderous jerks who have no problem dismantling a platoon in seconds. Of course, there is an alpha who controls them all and it becomes Cruise’s mission to kill it. He eventually joins up with a famed soldier played by Emily Blunt. She also got stuck in a time loop and she uses him to finish what she started.
Liman finally uses Blunt’s talents appropriately and she makes a fine foil and believable Full Metal B*tch. It made me happy that Blunt wasn’t just playing another “lady” role. Cruises last two films Oblivion and Reacher squandered the talents of Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko and Rosamund Pike. In Edge of Tomorrow Blunt isn’t the love interest or random woman in need of help. She is a badass who has been there and done that. Also, she is in cobra pose a lot……
The two develop a believable chemistry and navigate the tricky world of destroying a race of deadly aliens together. The training montages are fantastic and allow Tom Cruise to be goofy and fallible. Bill Paxton gets some great lines and is clearly having a blast with his character (No, I am from Kentucky). Most importantly, you become invested in the story. When you like the characters the action means something. You are able to forget that Tom Cruise is running around a Groundhog Day scenario whilst in an exo-suit.
Doug Liman has managed to make an intelligent video game that brings the action and laughs. Edge of Tomorrow is a perfect summer film that will eventually find an audience. Watch it. Recommend it. Watch it again.
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Million Dollar Arm: Nice at 90 MPH
Now that the dust has settled and Million Dollar Arm has proven to be a rare Disney sport’s failure. It will be interesting to look back and see what went wrong. Theoretically, a true sports story from Disney should be box-office gold. They have a tried and true system that made Cool Runnings, The Rookie, Miracle and Invincible money machines. I think the competition, lack of awareness and source material (man is jerk, man becomes less of a jerk) doomed the film to only break even.
Million Dollar Arm has its faults. However, the “cliche” angle that most critics are using is too lazy. Every sports movie features cliches. Actually, every genre borrows from everything else. Recent well received films like Godzilla, X-Men Days of Future Past and Captain America: Winter Soldier are all good films that tell a familiar story. To say movies are riddled with the familiar is lazy. You could do that with every film nowadays. The movie theaters are bombarded with the familiar yet when a nice sports film is released it gets the worst of it. Neil Pond of American Profile wrote a great quote about the film:
More cynical viewers might wish for a more cynical movie, but for anyone who wants to bask in a ray of early summer sunshine, this uplifting, spirit-boosting tale could be just your ticket.
Million Dollar Arm is a nice tale of an agent training two Indian men to become MLB pitchers. Instead of focusing on the sport aspect it centers around the search for international superstars. Yao Ming proved to be a cash machine in China and that is what takes Jon Hamm to India. He has one year to take two Indian cricket players (the two men don’t actually play cricket) and turn them into prospects. It is daunting, complicated and a huge responsibility. Of course, a selfish man who only wants to make money will screw up. Imagine being a supermodel dating bachelor who suddenly has to watch over three men who have never left their villages. He probably couldn’t have handled a fish and is no way equipped to deal with homesick guys who need guidance.
Will he overcome his selfishness and become a caring man? Yep. However, his motivation to become a better man is handled really well and not shoehorned in at the final moment. He has a fantastic love interest played by Lake Bell (watch In a World). Bell is such a funny and relaxed actress she rises above the “stock girlfriend” role and makes it organic. Also, costars Pitobash, Suraj Sharma and Madhur Mittal are so kind, intelligent and wide-eyed you can’t wait for their inevitable success. You like spending time with the characters and even when Alan Arkin is sleeping you want to give him an Oscar.
Million Dollar Arm won’t garner a Cool Running following (Great Empire article here) or convince anyone to strive for more (Invincible struck a chord with me). However, it gives us a neat success story. When the big speeches are made and hard work pays off you cheer with delight. To not like this film would be be highly cynical.
Million Dollar Arm dares to blast you with sunshine amid a world of comic book films. The story of redemption and baseball never gets old and should be celebrated and not picked apart. The stakes are never high yet some moments carry a beautiful weight. Sit back, relax and enjoy an interesting story that one day will be appreciated.
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MY CALL: Worst of the franchise. I wouldn’t recommend this. MOVIES LIKE Wishmaster 4: Wishmaster (1997) and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999) are both much better, largely for Andrew Divoff’s ability to appear credibly pleased with his Djinn’s evil. Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001) was nothing special by comparison to the earlier installments. For a totally zany and great bad 80s movie try the evil genie flick The Outing(1987)–loads of fun.
Director Chris Angel (Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell) returns to bring us the dreaded fourth installment in this series. Some may be shocked that he’d be asked back after seeing part 3. But, much like the Matrix sequels, parts 3 and 4 were filmed back to back with hardly a weekend’s break in between. So don’t be surprised that the make-up for the Djinn looks exactly the same since, well…it is.
Bro: “So you basically had your ruby randomly found and rubbed in part 3, you tried to open the gates of Hell and got defeated, and got banished back to your ruby prison…and THEN, like a day later another girl accidently found and rubbed your ruby AGAIN and released you AGAIN?”
Djinn: “Pretty much, bro.”
Lisa (Tara Spencer-Nairn) is in the middle of a pretty rough patch with her boyfriend, who suffered a crippling motorcycle accident. As with the previous installments she somehow randomly encounters the Djinn’s ruby prison, rubs it (really just touches it) and releases the Djinn (unbeknownst to her). Magically disguised as Lisa’s lawyer, our genie tricks Lisa into making her first two wishes, which include a healthy legal settlement and her husband’s ability to walk again.
This woman is literally orgasmed to death.
If Lisa makes her third wish then all Djinn–oh, yeah, Hell is just brimming with their kind–will be freed and they’ll create Hell on Earth. At this point it should be easy for the Djinn to fool her into making some whimsical wish. No clue why he doesn’t…she still has no idea that he’s actually an evil genie. But wait, there’s a weird twist. When Lisa wishes something the Djinn can’t grant himself, he most dote on her emotions to make her love him…in order to open the gates of Hell…romantic, huh? That’s right! Djinn’s can’t just make someone fall in love with someone else. Evidently the Disney Aladdin genie followed the same rules.
Djinn: “Why won’t you love me?”
Chick: “Dude, you are literally slimy, your hair tentacles look like an STD and you are way too old.”
The execution of the gore is iffy at times. But there are some satisfyingly gross moments like the “face peel” scene typical of the franchise and some genie-wish-induced self-mutilation. We also get to see other Djinn, which was neat I guess.
Overall…meh. I wouldn’t recommend this.
Don’t get mad at me for saying this, but isn’t the Wishmaster franchise about due for a serious remake/reboot? The original isn’t even 20 years old yet and, to this day, is very entertaining and a favorite to gorehounds. But I’d love to see this approached with a real budget (which none of the franchise installments have ever enjoyed) and a far more serious tone. Yes, serious. If it’s not serious then there’s no point in remaking it at all.
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Chef: Inspiration via Food Truck
Jon Favreau’s Chef is a fantastic film about a man starting over. It is a refreshing piece of cinema that gives the viewer a cinematic high. Whether it be by the fantastic soundtrack, great supporting cast or massive amounts of beautiful food you get wrapped up in the proceedings and go all in.
When I heard about the film I was stoked that Favreau was coming back to indie cinema. He wrote the fantastic Swingers, directed Made and sat down for some great conversations on Dinner For Five. The man loves cinema and finds ways to make superheroes (Iron Man) or Christmas films (Elf) feel like revelations. After Iron Man 2 and Cowboys & Aliens this film feels like a palate cleanser that will lead to more interesting things by a reinvigorated artist.
Chef revolves around a talented yet increasingly selfish man who is tired of serving the same menu in a popular restaurant. Eventually, he is savaged by a popular food critic, discovers twitter and makes a mess of things. The rest of the film focuses on him becoming a better chef, father, husband, friend and twitter user. His unhappiness made him selfish and his new life gets him focusing on the important.
There is a scene I love where he and his son are setting up a Twitter account. The kid enjoys the learning experience more than any of the amusement parks or movies his father takes him to. The reason he likes this more is that they are simply hanging out and the father isn’t trying to pass the time via throwing money away. Favreau is terrific at finding realism in small moments and this scene encapsulates that.
My favorite part of the film is that John Leguizamo gets a solid role. He has long been one of my favorite actors and I’m glad Favreau wrote him a neat character that will hopefully spring board him back to the mainstream. If you haven’t watched his one man show Freak or read his book I totally recommend them. Leguizamo and Favreau have a lived in chemistry that makes the journey all the more interesting and real.
Chef is a feel good experience that never veers towards the cliche. You leave the theater happy, hungry and wanting a sequel where the characters just hang out in a kitchen and cook good food.
Watch Chef. Enjoy the experience. Prepare to be hungry and inspired.
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MY CALL: Interesting, inspiring, and even soulful with Mickey Rourke’s narration, this film brings a modern day Pumping Iron to today’s generation. MOVIES LIKE Generation Iron: Well, of course Pumping Iron (1977). I’d also suggest the Jay Cutler Living Large series on Youtube. There are about eight 10-15 minute episodes. Rich Piana also has a lot of good Youtube webisodes. These Youtube videos take you deep into the lives of these pros.
Generation Iron follows a group of professional bodybuilders from pro-qualifier competitions to the 2012 Mr. Olympia. Some make that journey rather stress free, others find it more tolling. The presentation of these men is appropriately down to Earth and humanizing. You forget that they are in the top 0.0001% in their sport and appreciate them for their flaws and struggles in the microcosm of this single competition in their career. When we see them fail, we understand the realities and that there can only be one winner. But when they triumph, we get lost in the moment and feel happy for them. By the end (when they named the 2012 Mr. Olympia) I was at the edge of my seat…even though I already knew who won! LOL
Mickey Rourke’s soulful and wizened narration breathes life into this work and allows the audience, who may have once viewed these athletes as steroid-abusing sideshow spectacles, to understand the level of determination and struggle of these men.
Pumping Iron (1977) introduced the world to bodybuilding which, at the time of its release, was just as unknown and fantastic to the general public as Harry Potter‘s wizarding world and Hogwarts. In need of a protagonist, they depicted the arrogant veteran and current champion Arnold Schwarzenegger as the hero while essentially vilifying the kind-hearted newcomer Lou Ferrignou. Here, we find Phil Heath filling the role of the arrogant champion and Kai Greene as his humble opponent. The dynamic, however, is rather different since Kai Greene is a veteran who never won a Sandow (the trophy) and Heath is a young champion. So it comes with little surprise that Heath finds comfort in his arrogance. He expects to win whereas Kai Greene expects only to bring his best. That said, there is no clear protagonist in this story. In a way, that may be the documentary’s greatest fault. But I still thought it was great!
Phil Heath (above) and the artistic Kai Greene (below)
All of the competitors presented have found their way to the Olympia in different ways. Branch Warren thrives on his instinct and almost reckless work ethic whereas Ben Paluski relies on science to track his progress and hone his training program. Kai Greene protests that his devoted training will earn him Mr. Olympia, but Phil Heath suggests that his natural talent provides a powerful edge. We get a taste of many bodybuilder philosophies, but we delve very shallowly into supplements, training programs or steroids. Although, they do make some strong statements about steroid use in general with respect to competitive professional sports and bodybuilding, especially the fact that steroids don’t make their jobs at all “easy.” Their development is wrought with pain and sacrifice.
Branch Warren
These powerful athletes, often considered dumb meathead hunks of chemically-developed muscle, reveal their vulnerabilities and what they can and cannot control. For some, their career is everything, for others it’s just a chapter in their life, and bodybuilding saved Kai Greene from a youth of delinquency and a likely troubled adulthood.
This is a fun ride for any fan of the sport. You’ll see the likes of Lou Ferrigno, Michael Jai White, Busta Rhymes, Phil Heath, Kai Greene, Dennis Wolf, Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, Ben Pakulski, Roelly Winklaar, Bob Cicherillo, Branch Warren, Hidetada Yamagishi, Sibil Peeters, Victor Martinez, Dennis James and Jim Stoppani. Stick around to the end of the credits for a Mike Katz cameo paying homage to when he was pranked by Ken Waller in Pumping Iron almost 40 years ago.
As a weightlifter myself, I found this film inspirational and I’d beg anyone with waning dedication, discipline or interest to give this a watch. You’ll be re-invigorated!
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MY CALL: This is truly a “great” bad horror movie and it has more integrity than others of its generation. Although I wouldn’t recommend it to gorehounds, fans of classic 80s slashers will enjoy it.
Remember the days when all horror was rated R? Yeah, I miss the 80s, too. Those were the good old days when everything was either good or “bad” good. I’d call this particular 80s film a “great bad” horror.
Let’s meet this movies spoiled brats… The one on the far right looks like Jeremy Sisto and Sean Pean’s lovechild.
Meet Virginia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson). She’s one of the smartest and most popular kids in school, but she suffers from memory loss and blackouts. Now, in the days leading up to her 18th birthday, her hip clique friends begin dying one by one in strange ways and many of them begin acting strangely.
As her friends become defensive, aggressive and damn near homicidal, Virginia slowly regains traumatic memories from her past. However, she also seems to be seeing some things that her friends aren’t seeing. All the while we are left to wonder just who is killing all these privileged private school brats? After the first kills, all we know for sure is that the victims know their killer. Is the killer the now mentally unhinged Virginia, or one of her snotty privileged friends?
Grin-worthy 80s lameness abounds. From the opening sequence we have a lame strangling which is salvaged by a most spirited struggle by our hysterical coed victim. The deaths range from ho-hum quality to laugh-out-loud hilarity. My favorite kill involves giving a mean spot while someone is doing bench presses, which of course reminded me of Killer Workout (1987; aka Aerobicide) and Death Spa (1989).
And the deliciously macabre birthday scene at the end smacks of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
The gore was definitely adequate for its time, but nothing special. This film is clearly more for classically bad 80s slasher fans than sloshy gorehounds, and this lacks the level of zany gore suggested by the DVD cover art. Fans of the 80s will be pleased to see Lisa Langlois (The Nest, Phobia). And by the way, this was directed by J. Lee Thompson (the original Cape Fear, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes)!
Not as sensational as I expected this scene to be.
Maybe what sets this 80s slasher most apart from the rest is that it is filled with red herrings. Virginia’s flashbacks, blackouts and possible hallucinations combined with her friends’ changing behavior offer ample opportunity to misdiagnose the killer. The ending packs such a twisted punch that it would make the plot of a Mexican soap opera seem plausibly reasonable.
This 80s slasher maintains a great deal more integrity than its peers as well. There is no nudity and some effort was clearly placed in constructing the twist-rich plot. I’ll say that again, this is a low budget 80s horror/slasher flick with a thoughtfully made plot. That never happens! That’s reason enough to consider it worth seeing. But, plot aside, this is fun in its own right anyway. I really enjoyed it.
Movies, Films & Flix 