Looks like we’re staying in Canada for another day, thanks to this 1981 slasher, directed by J. Lee Thompson (the original Cape Fear, Conquest for the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, 10 to Midnight, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects…man, J. Lee, what a resume!).

Virginia “Ginny” Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson, TV’s House on the Prarie) is popular, rich and pretty. She’s a member of the biggest clique at the fancy pants Crawford Academy — the Top Ten. These snobbish, rich and rude assholes rule the school and — if you’re anything like me — you’ll celebrate their brutal deaths. Just look at how they act at their local pub, the Silent Woman. Total dicks.

One night, Top Ten member Bernadette (Canadian scream queen Lesleh Donaldson, who has been in several films we’ve featured recently) is attacked in her car by someone without a face. She plays dead, then finds someone she knows. As she explains what has just happened, the real killer slices her throat.

The rest of the gang? They could give a shit. They’re all at the bar, putting mice into old men’s beer. It’s enough to make you want to be the killer and wipe them out. But it gets worse. They play chicken on a drawbridge and are all nearly killed. Ginny even yells “mother!” as the car goes over the opening bridge. Everyone survives, but Ginny runs away, all the way to the cemetery where she tells her mother that she’s been accepted by all of the rich kids.

When she gets home, her father yells about how she’s out past curfew. And while that’s happening, Etienne, one of the Top Ten, sneaks out a pair of her underwear.

The next day, Ginny and Ann arrive late to class, leading principal Mrs. Patterson to put the entire Top Ten on notice, threatening a ban on their favorite bar. Soon, a frog dissection leads to Ginny having flashbacks that she shares with Dr. David Faraday (Glenn Ford, slumming it after a career in films like Superman, Gilda and Pocketful of Miracles), her psychiatrist.

This is where Happy Birthday to Me pulls the rug out from under us — thirty minutes or more into the film. After the accident at the drawbridge, she underwent an experimental medical procedure to restore her brain tissue.

Meanwhile, the Top Ten are thankfully getting bumped off, one by one. Etienne dies like Isadora Duncan, his scarf caught in the wheels of his motorcycle. Greg gets killed lifting weights. Here’s where the film has a bit of a giallo feel — all of the murders are done by black-gloved hands, until Alfred (Jack Blum, Meatballs) follows Ginny to her mother’s grave, only for our heroine to stab him with garden shears. What?!?

During Ginny’s 18th birthday weekend, her father leaves town, so she goes to a school dance. There, she invites Steve (Matt Craven, Meatballs) home to smoke weed, drink wine and eat kabobs, as you do. However, while feeding Steve, she stabs him in the mouth, a murder so memorable it ended up on the poster and box cover.

The next morning, Ann comes over while Ginny takes a shower and has a major flashback. Four years ago, she was having a birthday party but none of the Top Ten would come. Her mother flipped out, got drunk and tried to take her to Ann’s competing party, where a groundskeeper told her that she would never be anything more than the town whore. Her mother gets drunker and drives off the bridge from earlier in the film, where she drowns and Ginny barely survives.

Ginny begins to think that she has killed all of her friends, including Ann who she finds in the tub. Dr. Faraday has no answers, so she kills him with a fireplace poker.

Whew! What happens next? Well, Ginny’s dad gets home and sees blood all over the place, as well as Amelia (Lisa Langlois, Phobia, The Nest) outside in shock. Running to the cemetery, he sees his wife’s grave has been opened and Dr. Faraday’s body is in it. Then, entering the guest quarters, every one of the Top Ten members’ bodies are arranged around a table, celebrating a birthday.

Ginny arrives with a cake, singing to herself, when she slices her father’s throat. He never sees that his daughter is really there, the only living guest at the party. The second Ginny, the killer, screams about having done all of this for Ginny, but it turns out that she is Ann! The girls are half-sisters, sharing a father! What?!?

Ginny escapes and stabs Ann, just as the police arrive to ask, “What have you done?” The film fades to black — never letting us know if Ginny will be jailed or proven innocent. Then the film closes with a goofy — yet awesome — closing song by Stevie Wonder’s ex-wife Syreeta.

Columbia Pictures went full William Castle promoting this movie, suggesting theaters re-create the film’s closing scene in their lobby, inviting people to celebrate their birthday party while watching the movie, preventing anyone from entering the film during its last ten minutes and scream contest for radio stations.

Happy Birthday to Me arrived in theaters at the height of the slasher boom, but it defies expectations. At times, it’s a giallo. At other times, it’s supernatural. And others, it’s a teen comedy. It’s also crazy that such a directorial talent made it — albeit one who was rumored to spray blood all over the set to make the film even gorier — and Glenn Ford are in a slasher!

It’s totally fun and a great watch, which you can find on Shudder.

After failing to sell Halloween producer Irwin Yablans on his pitch for a movie, director Paul Lynch ran with the suggestion that he set his film during a holiday. A prom seemed like a pretty big event and it tied in well with a story writer Robert Guza had created that was all about childhood trauma coming back to haunt people. Once Jamie Lee Curtis signed to be in the film (Brady Bunch star Eve Plumb was also up for the role), all that was left was to make the movie.

The film starts in 1974, when Wendy, Jude, Kelly and Nick are playing some weird game that seems like hide and seek but has them screaming, “The murderers are coming!” Maybe this is a game that kids play in Canada that teaches them that if they are not polite, they will be killed.

Another girl, Robin, tries to join in but they start chasing her while yelling, “Kill! Kill!” They back her up toward a window which she falls out of to her doom. Instead of telling the police, the kids make a pact to never reveal the truth. After Leonard Mench, a sex offender, is caught in the area, he is blamed and jailed for the crime.

Six years later, Robin’s family celebrate the memorial of her death while her twin brother Alex and teenage sister Kim (Curtis) prepare for the prom. Their parents will also be at the prom, as Mr. Hammond is the school principal He’s played by Leslie Nielsen, adding some star power before everyone would only know him as a serious actor. In fact, Airplane! would come out the same month as this movie.

Kelly, Jude and Wendy (Anne-Marie Martin, billed here as Eddie Benton, former wife of Jurassic Park creator Michael Crichton) have all started getting obscene calls while Nick never answers the phone. They’re all too worried about the prom, after all. Kim and Nick have been dating, Jude is going with goofball Slick Crane and Kelly is going with Drew (and he cannot wait for afterward, so they can have sex). Wendy used to date Nick and now, she is going to the prom with school bad boy Lou to embarrass her former friends.

There are so many bad omens: the locker room mirror is cracked and a shard is missing; Leonard Mench has escaped; and Wendy, Jude and Kelly have discovered their yearbook photos stabbed with glass and placed in their lockers.

Everyone still goes to the prom, where most of the drama is the triangle between Kim, Nick and Wendy. Disco was still somewhat around — it’s never really died to be honest — when this was released. Dig that dancing goodness.

Kelly and Drew are getting hot and heavy, but she refuses to go all the way. He leaves just in time for a giallo-style black-clad killer to slit her throat with a shard of the mirror. This same killer kills Jude and Slick after they share a joint and do some dancing — horizontal style — in his van.

The sex offender has been caught, so the police stop scrutinizing the prom. Yep, three kids are dead under their noses and they just move on. Maybe this really is a giallo with a police force this bad at their jobs!

Actually, that number is increasing, as the killer has an axe and he chases Wendy through the school, finally killing her just after she finds Kelly’s corpse.

Will Prom Night only be a slasher movie? Nope. It’s going to have a Carrie scene as well, in addition to trying to be Saturday Night Fever! Kim and Nick are just about to be crowned king and queen when Lou and his gang tie up Nick and steal his crown. Lou gets ready backstage and the killer thinks he’s Nick and well, his head rolls as the prom dancers run in abject terror.

Kim frees her boyfriend and they run from the killer, who only attacks him. She grabs the axe and hits the masked man in the head before realizing who it is — her brother! Turns out he watched the kids kill their sister and has been waiting for revenge. She tries to stop the cops from shooting him, but the axe wound does him in and our heroine cries at the death of her brother.

Wow. Who knew Canadians were so nihilistic? What a dark ending! Prom Night is a great slice of 80’s fun that really has nothing in common with any of its sequels. But that’s fine.

There were tons of deleted scenes that actually revealed that Alex and Robin were twins and others that made Mr. Hammond look like the killer. To pad the running time and make up for censored gore, many of these missing scenes and characters were added back into the film for the TV version.

If you really think about it, Halloween starts with Jamie Lee Curtis’ sister getting killed and then her brother ends up being the killer. The same thing happens here — except no one would know the family relationship between Laurie Strode and Michael Meyers until 1981’s Halloween 2.

Want to watch it for yourself? Grab the Synapse blu-ray or watch it on Shudder!

Oh Canada. Your horror movies are so strange, so unlike anywhere else, as you remain such a polite country, our neighbor to the north. What strange horrors have you brought to me today? Oh look — it’s 1980’s Funeral Home, otherwise known by the much better title Cries in the Night.

Heather (Lesleh Donaldson, Curtains, Happy Birthday to Me) is spending the summer in a small town with her grandmother, who has turned her home, which was once a funeral home, into a quaint inn. Her husband’s been missing for several years, so she also makes ends meet by selling artificial flowers. She even has her own handyman, Billy, who is mentally challenged.

The only problem is that when people check in, they end up missing. Like that unmarried adulterous couple. And that real estate developer. And when Heather comes home at night, she hears her grandmother talk to someone who isn’t there.

Well, it seems like Heather’s grandfather was having an affair with Helena Davis, which her grandmother denies to everyone, including Helena’s husband (Barry Morse, the Inspector from TV’s original The Fugitive)  — who is soon murdered with a pickaxe.

Heather and her boyfriend Rick start investigating, finally finding the corpse of her grandfather. Now, Maude speaks with his voice and comes after them with an axe. Luckily, the police arrive just in time.

As the credits roll, the cops explain all of it to us. It’s such a weird ending, with an overly long explanation fighting for screen time with the names of the gaffers.

This movie just felt like a slog. I continually kept checking to see how much more time was left. I hate when movies make me do that.

Sure, I may not have enjoyed Funeral Home. But you can check it out for yourself. It’s on Shudder and Amazon Prime.

Oh, and if you’re a purveyor of films with ripped off artwork, then check out Through the Fire, which steals Funeral Home‘s theatrical and VHS artwork. Becca, the “B” of B&S About Movies, chimed in with her insights as part of the film’s inclusion on Mill Creek’s Chilling Classics box set.

Jamie Lee Curtis. A train. A murderous slasher. And David Copperfield. Yes, Terror Train is unlike any other slasher that ever came before or since.

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who was also in the chair for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, this movie was totally conceived as Halloween on a train. Jamie Lee had just finished filming Prom Night, so she jumped back on the slasher, err, train one more time.

Much like Slaughter High, a prank puts all of this in motion, as Alana (Jamie Lee) is coerced into pulling a joke on frat pledge Kenny Hampson that uses a female corpse, because you know, humor. Kenny doesn’t get the joke, goes nuts, gets put in a mental asylum and then, of course, breaks out and kills nearly everyone.

But what about David Copperfield, you may ask. Well, he’s all over this movie, both doing illusions and being a red herring. His scenes with Jamie Lee make the screen smolder with pure sex. I’m totally lying to see if you’re paying attention.

Ben Johnson, Captain Morales from the original The Town That Dreaded Sundown shows up as a train conduction. And hey! There’s Vanity (credited as D.D. Winters) years before she’d meet up with Prince, star in Action Jackson and Tanya’s Island, then got heavy into drugs and dating Rick James, Adam Ant (who wrote the song “Vanity” about her on the Strip album), Nikki Sixx and Billy Idol. After that, she went into renal failure, found God and later died because her body had endured a lifetime of drug abuse.

I really like the killer’s gimmick of continually switching masks. It’s pretty effective and leads you to wonder who really is behind things, even if the opening totally gives the identity away.

Shout! Factory re-released this on blu-ray recently, but it’s already out of print! Oh man! If you find a copy, grab one!

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.