Retro Slashers

You are browsing the archives of 2009 October.

The new print ad for Happy Birthday to Me includes a quote from Lance Vaughan’s Retro Slasher review for the film.  The quote can be found directly below the dvd and beside the Amazon logo.  To read Lance’s review click here: www.retroslashers.net/review_happybday.htm

Any Halloween fan wanting to know more about the rest of the night HE came home should check out Pat Jankiewicz’s interesting retrospective in the current issue of Fangoria. Director Rick Rosenthal reveals how behind-the-scenes battles between John Carpenter and Dino De Laurentiis changed what scenes made it into the final film. Dean [...]

Hitting tomorrow on October 27th from Mya/Ryko is an old one you might not be familiar with – EVIL FACE (1974) starring the eternally disturbing Klaus Kinski.
Baron Ivan Rassimov, a brilliant doctor, died horribly during a fire burst in his laboratory. Since that day, his daughter Tanja (Katia Christine) retired to a life of reclusion, [...]

On October 27, Jonathan Lewis’ BLACK DEVIL DOLL is finally released! See what all the fuss is about.
Five beautiful young women… one evil, murderous puppet.

Heather thought that a Ouija board was nothing but an innocent child’s game. Little did she know, this child’s game would open a flaming door to hell and re-animate the [...]

You have to hand it to Amsterdamned – it’s got one hell of a gimmick. By 1988, the slasher genre had given us killers who hid their faces behind hockey masks, gasmasks, clown masks, William Shatner masks, owl masks, pillow cases, chunks of stitched-together human skin… It was only a matter of time before one [...]

PROM NIGHT (1980) – Track #2 – Paul Zaza & Carl Zittrer

Slasher fans rushing to Wal-Mart in search of Happy Birthday to Me should keep their eyes open for the $5 Gore House Greats Collection.  Most of the 12 films in the collection rank somewhere between bloody awful and drive-in trash, but there are two little gems that should interest slasher addicts.
Terrified is a proto-slasher from 1963.  [...]

It all starts with the screenplay. Whether you liked the HALLOWEEN redux or not, it’s worth taking a look at the original script to see how the project developed from paper to screen.
Halloween – Early draft script by Rob Zombie – PDF format
After being committed for 17 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and [...]

For those interested, the remake of THE STEPFATHER (1987) releases to theaters October 16th. Be sure to share your thoughts on the film, surely handicapped without Terry O’Quinn.
David Harris (Dylan Walsh), very much a “family values” man who mysteriously comes into the lives of single mothers with children and becomes the dream man they always [...]

Streeting October 13th comes the new HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME DVD from Anchor Bay, featuring the original theatrical score that was previously replaced for the Sony edition a few years back, plus restoring original cover elements.

THANKSGIVING – Theme – John Harrison
Part of the charm to Eli Roth’s THANKSGIVING (faux trailer, perhaps a full movie soon) is the score, actually a combo of little bits and pieces from here and there. The prime themes implemented come from John Harrison’s score for CREEPSHOW (1982). What I’ve done here, is taken the cues [...]