Retro Slashers

Cruel, goofy and unkind, Slaughter High has always been sort of an enigma to me. It starts off like a bad Porky’s rip-off and then veers into one of the most malicious (and graphically filmed) scenes in low budget horror history. And that’s just the first 15 minutes! Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is the nerdiest nerd [...]

Rush Week is like so many slasher films that came out in the late 80s. The formula had already been robbed of any originality and the films’ budgets were growing smaller by the second. Still, some of those films, such as Hide and Go Shriek and Rush Week were fun time wasters. Sure, Rush Week [...]

Definition of the word kitsch – “something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste.” Kitsch was the word I had originally chosen to describe Prom Night, but now that I’ve seen the movie, like, 1,000 times I realize that to call it something of undiscriminating taste would just [...]

It’s almost impossible to look past such a salacious tagline as “It’s not human and it’s got an axe”, therefore, I didn’t. While I was slightly disappointed that it was human, he still carried that axe with enough murderous glee to make up for that shortcoming. The Prey is an oddity for sure. Approximately half [...]

I have two claims to fame when it comes to this 1986 Texas lensed horror film. I have met the lead girl, Andra St. Ivani. She used to come into retail establishment I worked in. I finally asked her if she was the girl from The Outing and she was pleased as punch to tell [...]

The standard six-pack of college students (the Virgin, her Loving Beau, the Wiseass, his Nice Girlfriend, the Scrawny Slut and her Dim-Witted Mancub) head to the beach for a week of sun, surf and sex. But as we’ve learned in the prologue, our hero accidentally killed his mother while cleaning pop’s gun and dad ain’t [...]

Even after such realistic films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House on the Left made their way through the grindhouse circuit of the 70s, audiences still couldn’t have prepared themselves for one of the most violent films of the 1980s. Yes, Maniac proved to be one of those films that actually lived up [...]

It was the early 80s and the world of horror movies was thriving. Two filmmakers took the popular legend of Cropsy, a man who beheaded scouts, and made two films, which were shot and released concurrently. Madman was one and the other was a little film called The Burning. Although both ideas were spurned from [...]

The graceful Trish Everly leads a cast of familiar character actors in this classy horror milieu co-written and directed by infamous producer Ovidio Assonitis (Beyond the Door). Everly plays Julia, a sweet and sophisticated teacher for deaf children. Although the exteriors of Julia’s life seem quaint (her uncle is a priest and she dates a [...]

Vinny Durand (Joe Spinell) is a delusional taxi driver who dreams of making a big screen horror movie with the ultra-famous Jana Bates (Caroline Munro). Disregarding some relentless teasing from the neighborhood losers and after his mother asks him to “quit talking the crazy talk” Vinny heads off the Cannes Film Festival to woo Jana [...]