Oliver is mentally unstable and a loner at best, living a life that was forced on him by his oppressive mother. By day, he slouches through his OCD ritual, but at night, he wanders the streets and bars on a deadly mission. His life is brutal and filled with doom, but out of all this violence comes the opportunity to leave it all behind, thanks to a girl named Sophia.

Who’s Watching Oliver is the directorial debut of Richie Moore, who has worked on the camera crew for the last two Hangover films and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. He also co-wrote the script with star Russell Geoffrey Banks and producer Raimund Huber.

When we first meet Oliver (Banks), we see him counting down the seconds until 1 AM so that he can take his pills and Facetime his mama (Margaret Roche). Then, we watch as he meticulously plans and executes his daily routine, alone save for a random stray cat that intrudes on his morning. He boards a water taxi and heads off for his day in Thailand, a place far from home.

Soon, we catch up to him at night, in a bar. I really like how Moore keeps the focus on Oliver in these scenes, having him speak directly to the camera. I don’t know what the budget was like for this film, but the assured camerawork and production design really make up for any deficiencies on that end. It looks like most of the money was spent making a great looking movie.

Oliver’s interaction with a girl at the bar, all to get her back to his place to do drugs, is the first sign we see of him being a bit different than normal folks. Once he’s alone with her, it’s unsettling how off he is and the way he handles himself around another human being. As he stands alone preparing himself while she gets high, we juxtapose their own rituals: the steps of doing drugs and the steps of getting ready to kill a human being.

The big surprise comes when he flips the laptop toward us and announces, “Mama wants to watch.” What follows is one of the more depraved scenes I’ve watched in some time. Jess Franco fans will be pleased by this one, trust me. Also: props to the sound design team on the disgusting foley noises that they added to this movie. Wow.

Turns out that Oliver’s OCD ways are the perfect mindset to have as a serial killer, as they lend him the same ability to methodologically clean up after himself and the crime scene. Then it’s back to the schedule: two pills and talking to mother by 1 PM.

The backstory for the film comes with Oliver painting a comic book for the stray cat that comes to visit him. It’s a quick way to explain just how things got this far.

Oliver becomes fascinated with Sophia (Sara Malakul Lane, Kickboxer: Vengeance), who he keeps running into at the park. His interactions with her are labored and strange, but she doesn’t refuse his attempts to speak with her. And she has no problem telling him all about her odd dreams. She becomes the break in his routine and puts him off his game somewhat, which may be exactly what he needs. The only thing that took me out of this movie is that she seems so far above his level that it feels like the first untrue thing in the film. That said — later scenes show that she isn’t that different from Oliver, at least in how she grew up, so perhaps I judged too soon here.

I got right back into things though and loved the scene where Oliver attempts to talk out his fight with his mother within the broken mirror. It’s a hard thing to build sympathy for someone who we’ve just watched ruthlessly snuff out a human life and then get upset about it, but that’s how good the acting is here.

This movie continues to shock me with how much it pushes things. If you’re easily offended, I would stay far away. If you like transgressive film and to see how someone could become a killer, this is the one for you. But wow — it’s not afraid to go all the way, circle the block and then go even further.

I’m really looking forward to what Moore directs next. The scene where Sophia follows Oliver home was really well executed and the lighting and camerawork were superb. For a first effort, this is way beyond expectations.

It says a lot about a film where I genuinely care about the characters’ happiness. I didn’t really dig the post-credit scene at all, as I felt that I took down what was a really interesting way to finish things. Your mileage may vary. It’s an interesting film — not for all, as I said before — but definitely worth checking out.

Disclaimer: I was sent this film by the star and co-writer, Russell Geoffrey Banks for review. I’ve not shared it with him or anyone else but was given a free screener to watch. If you’d like to see this movie yourself, you can watch it with on Hulu or Amazon Prime free with your membership.

Sure, Bob Clark did A Christmas Story. And he did Porky’s. But man, did he make some dark films along the way, like Black Christmas and this one, which totally grabbed me by the throat and kept me thrilled from start to finish.

Andy Brooks has been killed by a sniper in Vietnam. Yet as he dies, he hears his mother’s voice say, “Andy, you’ll come back. You’ve got to. You promised.”

While Andy’s father Charles (John Marley, who woke up to a horse’s head in his bed in The Godfather and starred alongside his wife in this film, Lynn Carlin, in John Cassavetes’ Faces) and sister Cathy go through the five stages of grief, his mother is stuck in denial.

Yet her unwillingness to accept the truth is rewarded when Andy comes back to their home unharmed.

Andy isn’t Andy any longer though. He’s withdrawn and rarely speaks, spending his days sitting motionless inside the house. Stranger still, the police are looking for a hitchhiking soldier who killed a trucker and drained his blood.

Andy’s death and rebirth rip open long-festering wounds between husband and wife — Charles never gave his son love, only authority. Christine made him too sensitive. And what of Andy? Oh, he’s just attacking a neighborhood kid and killing a dog during the day, then becoming more alive at night, when he goes to the cemetery.

Meanwhile, Dr. Phillip, a family friend, tells Charles that he’s suspicious of the similarities between Andy’s return and the murder of the truck driver. Andy visits the doctor late and night and demands a checkup before killing the doctor and injecting his blood into his body.

Christine sets Andy up on a double date with Joanne, his high school girlfriend. In a harrowing scene, she explains how she wrote to Andy but felt like he was gone before he even died, that Vietnam had taken him. As she speaks to him, he starts to decay before her eyes before killing the girl and her friend, then running over someone else as he escapes from the drive-in.

Returning home, Christine protects her son from his father’s wrath. The man gives up and kills himself as his mother helps him escape the police. Finally, as the police corner them in the graveyard that Andy spends his evenings haunting, they discover his decayed corpse in a shallow grave, his tombstone carved by his undead hand as his mother throws dirt to cover her son.

The film takes many of its beats from the W.W. Jacobs story The Monkey’s Paw, yet shows the struggles of PTSD at a time that few were able to articulate how the Vietnam War would impact not only soldiers but their families. And thanks to the acting chops of Marley and Carlin, as well as Richard Backus, who played Andy, the film feels incredibly real, despite the unreality of its premise. And it also includes the very first FX work by Tom Savini, a Vietnam vet himself.

Blue Underground just released the most complete version of this film possible recently, which you should grab ASAP! You can also watch it on Shudder.

Here’s a drink to go with this movie.

Joanne’s Letters

• 1 oz. high proof rum
• 1/2 oz. tequila
• 1/2 oz. Midori
• 1/2 oz. Chambord
• 1/2 oz. passion fruit syrup
• 1 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 1 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
• Dash, grenadine

1. Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice except rum.
2. Shake, then pour into a glass. Top with rum and enjoy.

Director Claudio Fragasso refers to this film as the “last gasp” of Italian zombie movies. If you’re expecting Zombi, well, let’s not forget the movies that Claudio has blessed us with, both by himself and with Bruno Mattei: Beyond Darkness/La Casa 5, Troll 2, RoboWar, Rats: Night of Terror, The Other Hell and Shocking Dark.

The movie starts as researchers discover that the natives are practicing voodoo, so they kill the priest, who places a curse that brings the dead back to life before he dies. Only a young girl named Jenny (soon to be played by Candice Daly, Liquid Dreams) survives thanks to an enchanted necklace her parents gave her.

Years later, she returns to the island to find out exactly what happened. And she isn’t alone — she’s brought a gang of mercs with her. There’s Tommy (Don “The Dragon” Wilson!), Dan (Jim Gaines, American Ninja), Rod and Louise, Rod’s girlfriend. And then there are also some hikers — Chuck (played by 80’s gay porn star Jeff Stryker), David (Massimo Vanni/Alex McBride, who is in a ton of Italian exploitation as an actor and stuntman) and Mad — who have found the underground temple where the curse was originally created.

Of course, they bring the curse back and David is eaten and Mad killed. Rod soon gets bitten and ends up killing his girlfriend. David comes back and kills Dan. Seriously, our cast is pretty much cannon fodder. Tommy volunteers to stay behind and blow the base up to take out the zombies as Jenny and Chuck run back to the cave.

There, Chuck is attacked and killed by zombies while Jenny removes her protective necklace and becomes a super zombie that can rip out its own eyeball and survive. And then, Fulci style, the movie just ends.

The cave set looks a ton like the sets of City of the Living Dead. And the movie really jumps all over the place. But does any other zombie movie have as catchy a theme song as this? Alright, does any zombie movie not called Return of the Living Dead have a song this good?

Severin has the definitive release of this, complete with interviews with Daly (recorded before she died in 2004), Stryker, Fragasso and Drudi. You even get a CD of the soundtrack. What are you waiting for?

Based on Ray Russell’s novel of the same title, Incubus is all about demon rape. There’s really no other way to say it. If you’re looking for the definitive word on the subject, this movie would probably be your best choice. And hey, John Cassavetes is in it!

The film opens in a rock quarry where Mandy and her boyfriend are swimming. More likely, they’re fooling around until an unseen force caves in the dude’s head and attacks her, putting her in the hospital with a ruptured uterus. While all this is going on, Tim Galen, a local teen, dreams of hooded men tying a woman down and torturing her.

Dr. Sam Cordell (Cassavetes) is treating the girl and we soon learn a lot about his life. His wife has recently died, he’s relocated to the town of Galen following a scandal and his daughter, Jenny, doesn’t really get along with him. Oh yeah — and she’s also dating Tim.

Sheriff Hank Walden (John Ireland, whose career stretches from classics like All the King’s Men and I Saw What You Did to Satan’s Cheerleaders) and reporter Laura Kincaid are on the case too, which expands when a librarian is killed and murdered. It turns out that she has red semen inside her body — so much semen that she’s literally been filled up and destroyed by it. If you’re thinking this is a totally scummy storyline, well, buckle up.

The rapes and murders continue and every single time, young Tim is having the dream while they happen, including an attack at a movie theater where he’s gone to try and distract himself. Look for an appearance by a really young Bruce Dickinson singing for his pre-Iron Maiden band Samson in this scene!

What is Dr. Sam doing? Oh, you know, showing Laura photos of his recently deceased second wife — the reason why he left wherever it was he lived before — and she looks exactly like the reporter. She has some news, too. The town of Galen has a long history of Satanic activity and these rape crimes are nothing new.

Is Tim the killer? Was his mother a witch? Or is his family part of a long line of witch hunters? Is the real killer a shapeshifting incubus, which rapes women in their dreams?

We get our answers pretty quickly. Sam tries to induce Tim’s demonic state while Laura takes Jenny up to bed. Tim tries to attack Laura with a witch hunting dagger his grandmother has given him, but Sam stops the boy and kills him. That’s when we learn that Laura had been the incubus all along. As she lovingly holds Sam, he looks to the bed where his dead daughter is bleeding between the legs.

Yes. That’s really the ending. I warned you that this film was rough, didn’t I?

Incubus was directed by John Hough, who was behind one of my favorite movies of all time, Twins of Evil. He also helmed The Legend of Hell House and both of Disney’s Witch Mountain movies. It’s written by Ray Russell, who also wrote plenty of other horror fiction that was made into movies and screenplays, including X the Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Mr. Sarndonicus, Zotz! and Roger Corman’s The Premature Burial.

While this movie moves slow and some subplots go nowhere, the last few minutes are exactly what you want the movie to be and Cassavetes is — as always — better than the material.

Satanic Harassment

• 1 oz. Absolut Citron or citrus vodka
• .75 oz. Midori
• .5 oz. Chambord
• 2 oz. orange juice
• 2 oz. pineapple juice
• 1 oz. margarita mix

1. Shake everything in a shaker with ice.
2. Pour out and be careful at the rock quarry.

Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi, our friends who brought Troll 2 to life, were the writing team behind this, setting the film in the Philippines as a cheap and convenient locale. Lucio Fulci claimed that the script was dreadful and that he tried to rewrite most of it, whereas the producers would contend that Fulci’s initial cut was a little over an hour yet felt much longer than that. They got Fragasso and Bruno Mattei to finish things up. And we’re left to watch the results.

There’s this formula called Death One, which brings back the dead. Why anyone would want to create this for the army is beyond me. But Dr. Holder realizes that this is all just a bad idea, so he resigns. As he goes to surrender his findings, criminals attack (if this movie starts to remind you of Nightmare City, you aren’t alone) and run away with Death One.

That criminal gets infected and even cutting off his own hand — oh that Fulci — can’t stop the outbreak. The hotel he ran to is condemned and General Morton orders everyone there killed and the criminal’s remains burned by his two right-hand men (played, of course, by Mattei and Fragasso).  But just like Return of the Living Dead, the ashes in the air just make things worse. The birds are infected and begin to spread the disease.

What follows is a group of victims gets introduced to us and one after another, they are wiped out with pure malice and utter glee. There are some American GI’s who mention how horny rock and roll music makes them and the girls on the bus they hook up with. There’s a tourist couple, too. No one will be spared when Death One achieves its full power.

Everyone heads to the now abandoned resort and is shocked to find so many weapons. As they are killed off, Dr. Holden looks for a cure while General Morton works on killing off every single person and animal he can find.

Soon, only five of our heroes — Kenny, Roger, Patricia, Nancy, and Joe — are still alive. As soon as I wrote this down, the soldiers kill Joe. Our survivors make their way to a hospital, where Nancy tries to help a woman deliver a baby — bad news, zombie baby — and gets killed. This scene is packed with the gore that you had hoped that this film would bring. Don’t eat while watching, trust me.

Who lives? Who dies? You should just buy this and watch it, right? Right. I will say that I loved Blue Heart, the DJ who talks throughout the film and adored how he keeps doing it even after he joins the ranks of the undead. It reminds me a lot of the DJ as narrator scenes in The New York Ripper.

I almost forgot! There’s an awesome scene where a zombie skull flies out of the freezer and attacks. It wasn’t in the script but instead came from Fulci. He would go on to say that it was one of the most clever things he had come up with and the only thing about this film that he was proud of.

If you’re hoping for the follow-up to Zombi, this isn’t it. It’s still fun and the last twenty minutes or so really pick up. I’d love to see what happens if they ever did a sequel to this.

Severin has released what will probably forever be the ultimate version of this movie, packed with interviews. You’ll hear from just about everyone, including Fragasso, Drudi, Mattei and several of the actors and crew. There’s a big bundle as well if you get this along with Zombi 4 and Shocking Dark. It’s well worth it — this is one company that knows how to make the most out of everything they release.

Director Paul Lynch also brought us the Canadian cutter Prom Night and here, he starts the action off with a bang: on Labor Day weekend 1946, a drunk (Page Fletcher, the title character from HBO’s The Hitchhiker) rapes Ida Parsons at a party her rich father is throwing. She is saved by her dogs, who attack the man before she smashes his brains out with a rock.

36 years later, preppy bros Eric (David Wallace, Mazes and Monsters, Mortuary) and Nick are taking their father’s yacht on a weekend getaway with their girlfriends, Sandy (Janet Julian, who was TV’s Nancy Drew when Pamela Sue Martin left the series) and Donna (Joy Boushel, Terror Train) and their sister, Carla (Janit Baldwin, ‘Gator Bait, Phantom of the Paradise).

After a day of staring at girl’s asses while feeling up other asses (this movie has more nudity in the first 11 minutes than nearly every movie that will come out this year), fog comes in and the boys save a shipwrecked fisherman named Bert. As he recovers from hypothermia, he tells them of Dog Island, the home of lumber baroness Ida Parsons (remember her?) who lives on the island with only her wild dogs for company. It’s at that point that Nick wrecks the boat into — DA DA NA — Dog Island!

Bert gets wounded. Carla gets lost. Nick walks into the woods and gets killed by a gigantic shadowy character. Meanwhile, Sandy and Eric attempt to find Ida Parsons.

While all this is going on, Bert goes into shock so Donna tries to warm him up by stripping nude. As you do. As she lies across his frozen body, the shadowy thing tosses her into the rocks and then rips off Bert’s head.

In the middle of all this, Sandy and Eric discover not only Ida’s house, but Carla, who is alive. You know who isn’t? The dogs of Dog Island, who are all skeletons inside cages.

Our protagonists find a nursery full of dusty toys and a cobwebbed crib, as well as Ida’s diary, filled with frightening photos and insane scribblings of her sick child, who she intended to keep free from sin. And oh yeah — they also find her skeleton.

Everyone wises up and decides to leave Dog Island. They gather some supplies and make their way to the basement, where they find the bodies of Nick and Donna. 

So the story everyone decides to go with is that this shadowy monster is Ida’s son, who somehow lived, and has been driven insane by his mother’s death. He’s incredibly strong, an amazing tracker and sees any outsiders as a threat. You’d think they’d get the fuck away from the house, but no, they go back to get matches and Eric gets killed. His back gets broken all Bane style and Sandy runs to Ida’s room to hide.

When the shadowy man gets there, she wraps a blanket around her head and acts as if she is Ida. I love this scene so much, as we never see the monster and only a brightly lit Sandy. Her words are measured and forceful, but as we look at her face, we can tell she’s never been more afraid in her life.

Just when Sandy thinks she’s safe, she tries to leave the room. However, the mutated man-child realizes her ruse and chases her to the boathouse, where he crushes Carla’s head along the way. Even setting this maniac on fire won’t stop him, because it’s 1982 and this is a Canadian slasher film.

You know what does stop him? A big signpost that impales him. Usually, slashers get stopped by impalement, have you ever realized that?

At the end, Sandy is left alone on the dock, decimated by the fact that she’s had to kill a human being and feeling the loss of her friends. And we notice — she now looks a lot like Ida.

Humongous is sleazy and bloody fun, with a unique killer and plenty of atmosphere. Sure, it’s a slasher, but it has a way better premise than kids stuck at a summer camp or a cursed calendar date. I’ve heard comparisons to Joe D’Amato and George Eastman’s Antropophagus, but this has none of the over the top gore of that film. That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty here.

There’s also a minimalist score by John Mills-Cockell, which really sets the tone and amps up the mood. He also worked on Terror Train and was one of the first people to purchase a Moog synthesizer.

Want to see this one? Ronin Flix has the Scorpion Releasing blu-ray reissue of the film, complete with the American R-rated and Canadian unrated cuts.

A man runs into the night as a woman clad head to toe in body armor gives chase. She has a zombie on a leash that she uses to kill the man. And boom — I’m in as Dead Shack begins.

Jason is meeting up with his friend Colin’s family — sister Summer, dad Roger and dad’s new girlfriend Lisa (Valerie Tian, Juno) — to stay in a cabin in the woods that they got off Craig’s List for way too cheap.

Everyone gets bored quickly and heads out for a hike, where they see the sheer lunacy going on inside the home of the neighbor we saw earlier. She’s played by Lauren Holly (Dumb and Dumber) and soon, she’s looking to take out the family and/or add them to her family of zombies.

Writer/director Peter Ricq puts together a nice little Sam Raimi tribute here — complete with the she-bitch line getting lifted. There are plenty of practical effects and no shortage of gore. Ricq’s band The Humans feature prominently on the soundtrack, too.

You can catch Dead Shack on Shudder right now. It’s a quick watch that I enjoyed. It won’t change your life, but it’s perfect for an entertaining evening. My favorite part was the costume design and poster look — which got me to watch this in the first place!

Thanks to Paperbacks from Hell, I’ve learned all about James Herbert, the British horror author whose four The Rats novels pretty much defined the evil rats against man genre. Imagine my surprise in finding this Canadian horror film that pretty much takes Herbert’s story and runs away with it (or gets away with it).

Paul Harris is a divorced high school teacher and basketball coach who is dealing with rats the sizes of small dogs that have been found living in buildings containing steroid-rich grain (ripped from today’s headlines!) that the health department orders burned. Now that the rats are homeless, they’re looking for a new home and new eats, too.

First, they surround a baby in a high chair and make him a snack. Then, they get a senior citizen. Soon, they’re chasing down Scatman Crothers and eating him, too! Oh no, Scatman!

Even spraying the rats with gas does nothing. Nope, instead they attack a bowling alley and a movie theater showing a Bruce Lee movie (director Robert Clouse also directed Lee’s Enter the Dragon and Game of Death). None will be spared as the rats feed. Not Trudy (Lisa Langlois, Happy Birthday to Me), the cheerleader in love with Paul. Not her best friend Martha (Lesleh Donaldson, Curtains, Funeral Home, Happy Birthday to Me). And certainly not the mayor who acts like he’s in the Canadian version of Jaws and then has a party on a subway train that gets infested by rats. Finally, Paul, his love interest Kelly and his son make it through the rats’ nest only to get on the same train as the mayor’s dead body.

So how did they get the rats for this movie? By putting dachshunds in fur suits, a The Killer Shrews plan if I ever heard one. Sadly, one of the dogs died during shooting as it was suffocated by its suit.

Herbert referred to this film as “absolute rubbish.” Sadly, we’ve yet to see the definite adaption of his work. We’ll have to make due with this, I guess. Where I disconnect with the film is that I could see it happening in New York, but Toronto? That’s the cleanest city I’ve ever been in. I bet the rats could do much better elsewhere.

Shout! Factory put this out on blu-ray a few years ago, but it’s now sadly out of print. Do what you can to find it — you can put on a loop in your home, along with other “always on HBO” fare like Flash Gordon, Superfuzz, Midnight Madness, The Car, Sharkey’s Machine, Modern Problems, Scavenger Hunt, They Call Me Bruce, Electric Dreams…Home Box Office in the early 80’s, what a time to be alive!