Skull: The Mask, known as Skull: A Máscara de Anhangá (Skull: The Mask of Anhangá) in its native Brazil has an incredible trailer, an awesome poster, plenty of goretastic practical effects and, well, that’s about it.
That should be enough, but this movie never gets to the sheer level of intensity and madness that it hints that it’s ready to achieve.
Beatriz Obdias is a bad cop who has stumbled on the titular mask, which was on its way to a museum when it was stolen. Now, dead bodies are piling up, as the mask has possessed a crime scene cleaner (pro wrestler Rurik Jr.) and is using him to satiate its unending bloodlust, because after all, Anhangá is a pre-Colombian spirit that wanders the Earth after death. This version of the spirit has a gigantic meat cleaver and is constantly covered in blood.
There’s also the museum owner who wants the mask for himself and a man named Marco who wants to protect the mask, which his family has a long history with. He walks around with a severed hand, which ties in to the bloody prologue.
I really wanted this movie to succeed, because the effects look incredible and I can overlook so much in a slasher. But it just drags and just when you think things are going to go fully off the wall, it slows down again.
I characterize George Romero’s post-Creepshow output the same way that I do Lucio Fulci’s post Manhattan Baby output, except that, you know, I actually like some of what Fulci did. His films feel like a man struggling for relevance, falling back on outdated tropes and the same old, same old one more time.
But man, as rough as Fulci’s life got, he never started a middling anthology film off with absolutely dreadful dialogue like “Now I lay me down to rest, but there’s a goblin upon my chest. He’s grey and ugly and very gory and he wants to tell me a deadtime story.”
For shame.
The first film has three stories:
Valley of the Shadow, in which a woman takes people into the jungle on a cursed trip to find her missing husband)
Wet, the story of digging up a mermaid
Housecall, which has a doctor visit a boy who claims to be a vampire.
At least Tom Savini directed the last story and tried. The rest of this, put together by Michael Fischa (My Mom’s A Werewolf) and Jeff Monhahan, who appeared in Romero’s films Two Evil Eyes and Bruiser, made me question just how bad movies can be and I just spent a week watching every Bruno Mattei film I could get my hands on.
The second film finds Fischa and Monahan returning to direct a segment each, with Matt Walsh directing another.
Sadly, it’s no better:
The Gorge is about three friends whose hiking trip ends in an avalanche and cannibalism.
On Sabbath Hill is the closest the film gets to something unique with a tale of a professor’s dead girlfriend coming back to haunt him.
Dust has a doctor discovering that Mars dust can cute cancer and the security guard who steals his breakthrough.
I really hope that Romero at least got some money for these films, because I see no reason that he should be involved in these pictures. I struggled to get through these. Don’t make the same error that I did.
So, if you’ve been keeping track during our two-day, end of the week tribute to the career of writer and director Micheal Fischa, you know it all began in 1989 with My Mom’s a Werewolf (an oft-programmed Mill Creek box set flick) — and ends nine films later with, well . . . I know . . . one look at the cover and I was offended as well. And you read that right: Pat Morita and Martin Kove star in this. And Ian Lithgow is, in fact, related to the more famous John: it’s his son (he graduated from Harvard and ends up in Rice Girl, wow: only in Hollywood; which proves everyone — regardless of their thespian training — has to start somewhere). And keeping that sibling-related less-famous-actor thing going, we have Martin Sheen’s younger brother, perpetual B-Movie stalwart, Joe Estevez (300-credits strong; he’s in Rollergator).
Is The Karate Kid connection whetting your appetite for a heaping bowl of rice?
Yeah, we thought so.
Cheryl “Cat” Ling — no relation to anyone and in her feature film, leading lady debut — is Windy Yee, a dimwitted actress pining for a leading role in director Martini’s (Dean Haglund of FOX-TV’s The X-Files) new movie, Hooker X. Of course, when you’re vying for the role of a hooker in a comedy — and your acting coach advised you to “go method” — there must be a case of mistaken identity. To that end, we have Martin Kove and Ian Lithgow as two undercover detectives who mistake her for a real hooker. Then their “sting operation” goes bad and they get their asses kicked by Pat Morita’s mobster. More comedic adventures, as we say at B&S About Movies, when we want to wrap up a review, ensues with an Iraqi warlord, a Hollywood Madam, and a 300-pound wrestler: the feared “Meathead.”
But guess what? There’s actually a pretty decent screwball comedy (it features a talking goldfish that serves as Cat’s “guardian angel,” so there’s that) under that awful cover and pseudo-offensive title. Lithgrow, who we kidded about going to Harvard and being in this, is actually adept at comedy. That’s not to say Rice Girl doesn’t have its moments of cringe in the thespian, scribin’, and directorial realms thanks to the ubiquitous low-budget — and the thick slices of ham flippin’ and floppin’ everywhere — but at least Micheal Fischa is trying at calling out the tropes of Asian stereotypes in Hollywood. And the parody songs “Sticky Rice” and “Marlin Man” sung by the game Ling are pretty funny, too.
You can watch Rice Girl as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi.
This just in: Turns out Rice Girl is no longer Micheal Fischa’s final movie. He’s completed a horror film, Hopped Up. However, according to the digital content warriors over at the IMDb, that film’s been completed since 2013. But it’s shot in Austria and in German, so, perhaps the film was released across Europe and it just never found a domestic, stateside release.
But we did find this theatrical one-sheet and a February 4, 2019 uploaded trailer — that’s in German with English subtitles. And from what you can see — Hopped Up is well-shot and looks really, really good — with one of our rehabbin’ campers having her head forced under a drill press, along with drugged-enduced zombies. So keep your eyes open for it and keep abreast at PrincFilms’ official website. There’s more at the film’s official Facebook page — which hasn’t been updated since 2014.
Now what’s interesting is that Michael Fischa also has a 2013-issued film — also Austrian-shot and in German — a horror effort called White Screech. And it has the same actresses/cast as Hopped Up. So, did Fischa direct these two films — written by Frederik Fussel (nine movies in post) — as part of a back-to-back package deal? Or are White Screech and Hopped Up the same movie — with alternate-cum-rebooted titles? If you know your Euro-cinema: when films cross an ocean, they are gussied up with new art work and titles.
I love a good film mystery! Don’t you?
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
When you think of mismatched cops, you do not think of Anthony Edwards and Lance Henriksen. That could be because you’ve never seen Delta Heat, a film that was intended to be a TV show and ended up becoming a theatrical film. Or at least a direct to video feature.
Edwards plays Mike Bishop, a cop who has lost his partner to the swamps of Louisiana. Now, he’s teaming up with Henriksen, here playing Jackson Rivers, who has also lost something to those very same swamps: his hand. Yeah, an alligator ate it.
The real reason I watched this — and let’s be perfectly honest — was because Betsy Russell was in it. Between the Saw films, Tomboy, Private School, Out of Control and Avenging Angel, I must confess that I’ve watched so many movies just because she’s in the credits. Around the time of this movie, she and her husband Vincent Van Patten — who she met at The Playboy Mansion, where she visited frequently as her grandfather was a close friend of Hugh Hefner — decided to have a family, which led to Russell pausing her career to raise kids.
As for director Michael Fischa, we’ve devoted an entire day or two to him on our site. So enjoy this tale of a mullet-wearing Edwards hooking up with a hook handed Lance, I guess.
Micheal Fischa made his feature film debut with the oft-Mill Creek box set-programmed horror comedy My Mom’s a Werewolf. For this next film he went ’70s retro-blaxploitation with this oft-run HBO’er that stars that genre’s Richard Roundtree (Killpoint) and ex-NFL’er Jim Brown (Take a Hard Ride). And for you fans of the ABC-TV daytime soap General Hospital, there’s Anthony “Luke and the Ice Princess” Geary (who got his first B&S review with the TV Movie Intimate Agony) as their co-star.
The VHS cover, left. The overseas theatrical, right.
Rick and Melissa are a pair of high school (bi-racial) lovers who strive to get out of their inner-city hell rife with drugs, crime, and poverty. Then Rick — upon the gang-related death of his brother — rejoins his old gang to avenge his brother’s death by a rival gang. He’s arrested, natch, and now Melissa falls under the spell of Anthony Geary — the school’s clandestine, heroine-pushing guidance counselor. His supplier: Jim Brown. And when Melissa can’t pay her drug debts, she’s becomes Brown’s crack hoe-cum-sex slave. And that leaves Roundtree, who, if you haven’t figured out by the theatrical one-sheet, is the cop out to take down Geary and Brown.
Is it any good? Well, it’s Cannon Films good . . . whatever that means. It’s sleazy, then campy in places, then brutal, and pretty trope-ridden when it comes to the portrayal of Hispanics and blacks and their territorial gang wars. But the direction from Michael Fischa is alright and the acting from all quarters is serviceable. But this ain’t no Chuck Norris Cannon flick . . . and it certainly ain’t up the to quality of the requisite gang flick, The Warriors. But for being a retro-blaxploitation flick, Crack House hits all of that genre’s tent poles. Oh, and yes . . . that is Angel Tompkins from the soft-sexploitationer The Teacher (which we reviewed as part of our Howard Avedis tribute this week) thespin’ away.
Next up for Fischa: Death Spa. Oh, do we love Death Spa around here; the asparagus! What a way to go for a third film — from a horror comedy, to a blaxploit’er, and then to a late-to-the-game ’80s slasher with a freaky scene that deals in stinky sparrow grasses.
The VoicesInMyHead You Tube page comes though again with a copy of this Micheal Fischa obscurity, which, it turns out, is easy to find on DVD as of late, thanks to MGM issuing it in a digital format. And this time, we’re embedding the trailer since we know Video Detective trailer uploads are video-embed elf proof.
As part of our two-month long “Cannon Month Tribute,” we took a second look at Crackhouse — as well as having a sit down with film critic Austin Trunick for a five-part interview to discuss Cannon’s library.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
The game of 100 Candles has trapped a group of friends, who find themselves forced to tell one another horror stories in front of a magical mirror. One story must be shared for every candle and the group cant’t leave until all of the candles have been extinguished. If they do, they will fall to a witch’s curse.
100 Candles uses this storytelling engine to enter into the anthology conceit while taking content from several other shorts, including The Visitant, Blight, When Demons Die, Black Eyed Child and A Little Taste. No, there are not a hundred stories in this movie.
Of these stories, The VIsitant has the most star power, as it features Amy Smart (The Butterfly Effect, Road Trip) as a mother trying to protect her children from a demon played by Doug Jones. It was directed by Nicholas Peterson, who has made several music videos for bands like Bad Wolves, Sixx AM and Five Finger Death Punch.
Buried Alive has one of my most fearful themes. Obviously, it’s being buried alive, but since this story is all in Spanish, it loses some of its power with Western audiences.
As usual with anthologies, not every story works, but those that do are pretty powerful. The framing sequence is well-filmed and sets things up quite well. Of the modern portmanteaus that have been released, this is one of the better I’ve seen.
Devilworks has released 100 Candles with a day-and-date DVD and Premium TVOD, followed by a full digital release.
Produced with the full cooperation of the United States Navy’s naval aviation branch and the United States Department of Defense, The Final Countdown was set and filmed on board the USS Nimitz, capturing actual operations of the then-modern nuclear warship, which had been launched in the late 1970s. The Final Countdown was a moderate success at the box office.
Despite the films meager budget, producer Peter Vincent Douglas was able to get it made and get the military on board. While director Don Taylor turned in a workmanlike film — some claim this as to many of his movies, but hey, I love Damian: The Omen II and Escape from the Planet of the Apes — the second unit was able to work with the Navy to mount cameras directly onto the planes and get some astounding footage.
The SS Nimitz is departing Pearl Harbor for naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean along with civilian observer Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen). He’s working for the Defense Department as an efficiency expert, as well as for the man who built the ship, the mysterious Mr. Tideman. However, the ship soon goes through an electrical vortex and finds itself on the eve of Pearl Harbor, leaving the crew — under the command of Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas) — unsure of what to do next. Do they stop one of World War II’s most crippling defeats or allow history to proceed?
Things become more complicated when the Nimitz rescues survivors from a yacht under attack by two Japanese planes: U.S. Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning) and his aide Laurel Scott (Katherine Ross), along with her dog Charlie and one of the Japanese pilots. One of the crew, Commander Owens (James Farentino), recognizes Chapman as a politician who would have been Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate during his final re-election campaign had he not disappeared shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I love the central issue of this film and have no idea what choice I would have made and equally adore the time travel twist at the end. I’d always pegged this as a lesser version of The Philadelphia Experiment, but now I realize that they tell a similar story from two very different angles (and vice versa in what direction they go in time).
There are some great small roles here as well, like Superfly actor Ron O’Neal as Cmdr. Dan Thurman, Soon-Tek Oh from Missing In Action 2: The Beginning as one of the Japanese pilots and Richard Liberty (Dr. Logan from Day of the Dead) as Lt. Cmdr. Moss. Plus, a total of forty-eight real life US Navy personnel from the actual USS Nimitz were involved with this movie as extras, background artists or actors, with some having speaking parts. I also learned that each ship in the Navy has something called breakway music that is played at the close of underway replenishment to motivate their crews. The Nimitz uses the music that was written for her in this film, John Scott’s “Theme from The Final Countdown.”
As for how the picture got the scenes of Pearl Harbor under budget, they’re tinted scenes from Tora! Tora! Tora!
I wondered why this movie was getting such a royal treatment before I watched it, but after viewing it and seeing the astounding job that Blue Underground put together, I have to admit that they’ve made a believer out of me.
You can get The Final Countdown from Blue Underground. It has a new 4K Restoration from the original 35mm camera negative on Ultra HD and HD blu ray. It also has audio commentary with Director of Photography Victor J. Kemper , a feature on Lloyd Kaufman being the executive producer and interviews with The Jolly Rogers F-14 Fighter Squadron. Plus, you get trailers, TV ads, poster and still galleries, a collectible booklet and a soundtrack, all inside an amazing lenticular animated slipcover.
Uncle Howie, what happened? You gave us Mortuary . . . but you also gave us the sex romp They’re Playing with Fire. And everything that Texas Detour is, this ain’t (meaning “good”). We lost Howard Avedis in 2017, but this was his last movie, released in 1987. Maybe it’s because of the eleven films you wrote and directed, you didn’t produce it, Uncle Howie? Wait a sec . . . is this a Crown International boondoggle? They’re always f-in up movies with more boobs and dumb T&A than needed. Nope. But it’s produced by Hickmar, Howie’s production company? Ugh. What gives, IMDb, screwin’ our review with the bad film Intel.
Oh, Mr. Avedis. This is all on you, after all. But why?
Sorry, Howie. I love yahs and all, but this movie is the pits — and the dicks — rife with bad penile jokes (“What do you feed that monster?” and the classic line of “I need to know if I need to bring in a stunt cock!”) and a bunch of B-Movie actors non-thespin’ with the zeal of Z-actor hamness and hold the mayo.
This was a flat production (not a boob or chest joke, I swear), even for HBO. If not for Barbara “Re-Animator” Crampton, this would have been a pass. I mean, look at the cover cheese, will ya? And the white slavery angle is obviously from a mile away. And we’ve been there and done that to death with that plotline on way too many ’70s and ’80s TV series, already. Yeah, I know David “An American Werewolf in London” Naughton is our intrepid (white-as-white-bread-can-be-and-not-Don Johnson) cop, but come on . . . it’s David friggin’ Naugthon (who previously worked for Avedis alongside Karen Black in Separate Ways). So, if no Crampton, no chicken chokin’ and holdin’ the mayo for ol’ R.D.
Anyway, Crampton and her little sister head to the zoo for little sis’s 16th birthday because, well, having anyone under 13 kidnapped for a movie would be just too creepy. Seriously, how old were you when you were over the whole zoo and the circus thing? And clowns. And cotton candy. And tossin’ ping pong balls into goldfish bowls. Or tossin’ rings at peg boards to win the glass-blown tall n’ twisty Pepsi bottle for your bedroom? Who takes late-teens siblings or kids to the zoo for a birthday bash?
Okay, so the obligatory sleazy guy sees the cuties laughing and having fun. He hits on them . . . well, he’s on a nefarious recon, if you haven’t figured it out. Yep, he kidnaps little sis from the zoo’s restroom, courtesy of a female partner all set up with the ol’ wheelchair-body-switcheroo bit.
Yeah, you guess it: Screen sleaze stalwart Lance DeGault is a porn producer who sidelines as a white slaver (or is that slaver sidelining as a porn producer) who’s behind it all. And no one — not even Lt. cop boss Charles Napier (who we bow to around B&S) — will help Crampton. But the ol’ Dr. Pepper pitchman gets a wee-bit of the old “rise” over Babs, so he’ll help her, because, well, she’ll be indebted and hooked up with him. So, they go “undercover” as “porn producers” looking to cast their film. Does Babs go topless? You bet. Dr. Pepper shows his “pepper” as well, if that trips you trigger. To than end: The 1987 UK Virgin video release was cut by 2 minutes 8 secs by the BBFC and heavily edits shots of the divine Ms. Crampton being held to a bed and her bra removed with a knife.
Whatever. Big deal. They cut it. The scene’s not even offensive nor titillating — or anything. Where’s Dr. Carl Hill’s disembodied head when we need it? Or an acting coach on set. Swear to God: This is like watching a way too long two-part episode arc of Charlie’s Angeles — with a flash of boob and an errant-cum-incognito porn actress trying to go “legit” in the mainstream (and Lance DeGault was a heavy on Charlie’s Angeles at one point, so you get the TV Movieness of it all).
The cast is rounded out by Chick Vennera (two Chick flicks in one week), who’s also in the way betterHigh Risk, Jimmy “J.J from TV’s Good Times” Walker (who can’t act and sucks in everything, even The Guvyer, where he’s even worse at his job than Mark “I Hate Trump” Hamill), and not-seen-enough screen baddie Robert Dyer, who did this all pretty much before with Linda Blair in Savage Streets.
And after watching, you’ll know why this was one of Kim Everson’s (the other was her debut in Porky’s Revenge as “Inga,” if you’re looking for it) five films for her (deserving) brief, three-year “mainstream” career — and we say “mainstream” because she was a 1984 Playmate of the Month and starred in bunch of that publication’s videos. And to than end: There’s LOTS of adult film actresses in here — not that it helps spice this boring action of boredom’er much. Oh, and for you Bert I. Gordon fans: Kim Everson starred in his stab at a T&A comedy with The Big Bet, which also stars Sylvia “Emmanuelle” Kristel, so there’s that. Yes, the guy who gave us Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants went T&A. Hey, it was a post-Animal House and Porky’s world out there and you just gotta try.
See? It wasn’t a total loss, as you got some Bert I. Gordon trivia to amaze your friends out of the deal.
Image courtesy of essexestateservices/eBay.
If you’re a Howard Avedis completist, and we know you are, you can watch Kidnapped on You Tube. Yeah, we know it’s dubbed in French without English subtitles. Again, as with Uncle Howie’s Texas Detour: We had an English VHS rip bookmarked, then, when we go to press, the upload — along with the trailer — is gone. Yeah, we found a copy or two on a couple of iffy (Euro?) streaming sites — and when in doubt: don’t click it. At the time of writing and going to press, a couple of used copies of Kidnapped were available on eBay — and now, they are gone. (Thanks for that update, Kevin!) So, hang tough and keep looking, ye readers: another freebie stream or vintage VHS or DVD will show up, sometime. Who knows in what digital, legal limbo Howard Avedis’s Hickmar Productions now exists. . . .
And if you’re a real, serious Howard Avedis completionist: You can check out his foreign language, pre-U.S. catalog, which he made under the names of Hekmat Aghanikyan and Hikmat Labib: The Seven O’Clock Train (1961), Autumn Leaves (1964), and 1968’s Destiny, Farewell to Lebanon, and The Red Plain. At that point, he came to the U.S. and made The Stepmother in 1972. And boy, did Avedis love flicks about older women deflowering young lads, as he proved in his later films The Teacher (1974), Dr. Minx (1975), and the aforementioned Separate Ways and They’re Playing with Fire.
Thanks for the films filling up our VCRs, Uncle Howie. We enjoyed spotlighting your catalog this week, as you surely entertained us.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Editor’s Note: This review ran on April 11, 2019. We’re bringing it back for our “Hikmet ‘Howard’ Avedis Week” of reviews.
Hikmet Avedis was the director of 1974’s The Teacher. Howard Avedis is the director of this film. They’re similar films. And the same person. So there you go.
This movie is all about Jay (Eric Brown, Private Lessons), who gets caught up in a film noir-like murder mystery. And see, you thought that this was going to be all about teen comedies and not death! Wrong! (We know! We’ve done Private Resort with Johnny Depp, and Private Parts (not the Stern one), but not Private Lessons? We’re working on it!)
What sold me on this movie were the two leads: Andrew Prine (The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Simon King of the Witches) and Sybil Danning (Battle Beyond the Stars). They’re a married couple who want to get his mom into a retirement home, but things go wrong and she gets killed. Jay gets way too deep into their affairs, but look: if you were a 19-year-old college kid and Sybil Danning regularly rumbusticating you, chances are you’d do anything she asked.
This movie has a lot in it, to tell the truth. It’s somewhat a sex comedy. It’s sometimes a slasher, like when a hidden Santa Claus beats a woman with a baseball bat. It’s got Dominick Brascia in it, who played the candy bar eating heavy guy in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. It’s got Alvy Moore in it, who was Hank Kimball on TV’s Green Acres. It was the best role Sybil ever thought that she acted in. And by the end of the movie, it’s become a giallo complete with a room full of horrific artwork, dead bodies and a secret sibling!
Despite the tagline, “From his French maid, he got Private Lessons. Now his English professor is giving him a REAL education,” this is not a sequel to that film. Also: I kind of hate Eric Brown, as he got to do love scenes with both Sybil and Sylvia Kristel. That’s kind of getting way too much out of your life. No one deserves that much.
Just listen to this song and remember: Eric Brown got to do three love scenes with Sybil Danning. Try not to get enraged. It gets worse: he hooks up with Sylvia Kristel in Private Lessons. You’ve just gone postal.
Editor’s Note: This review ran on October 17, 2019. We’re bringing it back for our “Hikmet ‘Howard’ Avedis Week” of reviews.
Hikmet (or Howard) Avedis studied at the University of Southern California and won the George Cukor Award, which totally prepared him for a lifetime of working in exploitation fare. With titles like The Stepmother, The Teacher (consider it the grindhouse version of The Graduate), The Specialist (where Adam West fights against the water company), the Connie Stevens’ classic Scorchy and the utterly baffling sex comedy/giallo They’re Playing With Fire, Avedis may not have made Oscar-worthy pictures, but he certainly knew how to entertain. He also wrote this movie along with his wife Marlene Schmidt, who also acted in this movie (as she did in nearly every movie he made).
Known internationally as Embalmed and Hall of Death, this film has shown up on a few of the top ten slasher lists that we’re putting together for later this month. It’s a great example of what happens when a slasher strays from the form somewhat and you get the idea that this movie is kind of like a carny haunted house, ready to scare you at every turn.
Wealthy psychiatrist Dr. Parson has died and only his daughter Christie (Mary Elizabeth McDonough, Erin Walton from The Waltons and one of the stars of the abysmal Funland) believes that there was foul play. The official word is that he drowned and that’s good enough for her mother Eve (Lynda Day George!), who doesn’t believe the dream her daughter had where dad was bludgeoned with a baseball bat. Oh yeah — she also sleepwalks all the time.
But let’s forget about all that. Let’s get to the mortuary, where Christie’s boyfriend Greg Stevens (David Wallace, who was also in Humongous) is stealing tires with his friend Josh. After all, if Hank Andrews (Christopher George, never far from his wife, in one of his last roles) isn’t going to pay Josh fairly, they may as well take what they want.
While they’re in the midst of this larceny, an occult ritual just happens to happen, with Hank leading a bevy of gorgeous women in what is called a seance. Josh is unfazed, as he claims that this kind of thing happens all the time. He goes off to get the tires and gets stabbed for his efforts. Greg can only watch as someone drives off in his van.
Greg and Christie search everywhere for Josh, including the local roller skating rink because it’s 1983. There’s some insanely great roller skating footage here, if you like that kind of thing. You know that I do.
As Christie drives to her family’s mansion the next day, a car starts to follow her. Soon after her arrival, a hooded figure begins to follow her around the pool where her father died. Her mother claims its all a dream.
The next day, Greg tells Christie that her mother was one of the women in the ritual he watched. That makes sense to her, because now Eve and Hank are shacking up and her dad’s corpse is barely cold. If things couldn’t get weirder for our heroes, Paul (Bill Paxton, who shows up in so many great films of this era), the son of Hank, begins getting hot and bothered for his soon-to-be stepsister. He’s even weirder than his dad, but that’s probably because his mom killed herself.
Greg and Christie try to hook up, but her entire house goes wild, with lights flashing on and off, music playing by itself and even the film seeming to stop and start. It’s a great sequence and really sets up the gaslighting — or supernatural attacks — that Christie is forced to endure.
Greg and Christie decide to follow her mother, who heads right to the mortuary. Stranger and stranger? It gets even more so, as a cloaked figure who looks like Paul attacks Christie that night and in a shot that looks similar to Suspiria, almost pulls her out of a glass window.
While Eve again says it was all a dream, she does have one oddball theory: Paul used to be a patient of her dead husband and he was obsessed with Christie, talking about her the entire time. This is soon followed by Paul, clad in a latex mask, appearing and stabbing Eve in her bed. He attacks Christie and brings her to the mortuary, claiming that he intends to embalm her alive.
Hank arrives to stop him and we get the villain moment where he explains his actions: he had to punish everyone, like Eve for telling Christie he was insane and Dr. Parson for putting him in jail. He then goes one step beyond by stabbing his father just in time for Greg to try to save her. A battle leads to Greg getting locked in the embalming chamber while Paul arranges all the bodies of his victims for a wedding ceremony.
You know how weddings go — you spend much of the the time conducting a symphony. Paul does exactly that while we see all of his victims, including his mother who was in a coma and not dead. What follows is a battle between Paul and his scalpel and Greg with an axe, ending with Christie sleepwalking her way into killing the villain with one hack of the axe into his back. Our heroes embrace, just in time for Paul’s mom to awaken from her coma and attack them with a knife, probably because she saw the end of Carrie and knew this needed one more jump scare.
We’ve talked about Gary Graver and his work for Orson Welles, in the adult film industry and within films like Texas Lightning, Sorceress and Trick or Treats, amongst other films. His cinematography makes this movie a cut above ordinary slasher fare.
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