Retro Slashers

A year after Anthropophagus became an international hit, director Joe D’Amato (Aristide Massaccesi) re-teamed with star George Eastman (Luigi Montefiore) for this underrated sequel.  Rosso Sangue was banned by the British government during the Video Nasty Era and suffered from multiple name changes when it was released.  In America, Wizard Video released the film as Monster Hunter [...]

The Centerfold Girls is a grimy and grim precursor to 80’s slashers like Maniac and Don’t Answer the Phone; it’s also a prime example of 70’s Grindhouse filmmaking. With its dark take on that 70’s standard, the Battle of the Sexes, an argument can easily be made for this as a feminist horror film.

In 1983, Hikmet Avedis & wife Marlene Schmidt wrote & produced Mortuary, which Hikmet directed. A year later they were back in the same capacity with They’re Playing With Fire. Taking the plot of their 1974 movie The Teacher, and Eric Brown – the star of the popular Private Lessons (1981), it starts off simple [...]

After a jilted lover (Tom Rolfing) kills his ex-bride-to-be, he decides justice has not been served and decides that all women preparing for their upcoming nuptials need to meet the sharp end of his knife. The killer has arrived in a new town looking for Amy (Caitlin O’Heaney) and her wedding party to make perfect, [...]

Uncle Roscoe (Joe Spinell) is a small town undertaker who loves his work and his customers, literally.  Roscoe is a necrophiliac who turns his female victims into brides while male victims become members of the wedding party.  When Nick (Patrick Askin) discovers his uncle’s dark secret he alerts teacher Pam Hayes (Rebecca Varon, or Yaron depending [...]

Get a load of that title… Did you ever hear anything that sounded more like a slasher movie? Unfortunately, Terror Stalks the Class Reunion isn’t a lost slasher – for a start, there’s no slashing – but, while part of me is writing this review to stop others repeating my mistake, it’s also worth pointing [...]

Looking at the flicks that paved the way for Halloween and the heyday of slasher movies. “Blood Feast is like a Walt Whitman poem – it’s no good, but it’s the first of its type”. – Blood Feast director Hershell Gordon Lewis Blood Feast is a joy. The world’s first splatter film delivers the goods [...]

Cheryl (Ayn Ruymen), on the run after stealing her roomate’s cash, hides out at the King Edward Hotel run by her creepy Aunt Martha (Lucille Benson).  Other tenants include a kinky priest (Laurie Main) and George (John Ventantonio), a sinister photographer with a nasty addiction to blow-up dolls.  At night Cheryl hears mysterious noises coming [...]

Here we go again, another gem that’s been lambasted by critics armchair and professional alike: BCI Eclipse have dug up Robert Hammer’s 1980 sleaze-o-rama Don’t Answer The Phone and given it an uncut release. I do like my slashers but serial killers employing strangulation instead of the good ol’ butcher’s knife struck me as too [...]

Movie: Liberal nudity, blood drenched murder shots and a menagerie of quirky characters contribute to this 1987 parcel of fun. It’s what made Cheerleader Camp the Cinemax staple that primarily exposed it to its many praisers. But the standout element is the central character of Alison Wentworth (Betsy Russell). Alison is not only frigid but [...]