This movie has such a challenge to overcome because Return of the Living Dead is just so good. Despite being even sillier than that movie, at least it tries.

As the zombie outbreak in Louisville continues, a military truck transporting barrels of Trioxin loses one in a river. Yes, this is how the end will arrive. It will also arrive at the hands of teen bullies, who are way more frightening than zombies.

Ken Wiederhorn has a history of making movies that are way better than critics think they are like Shock Waves, Eyes of a Stranger, Meatballs II, Dark Tower and yes, King Frat.

Thom Mathews and James Karen — as Ed Mathews and Joey Hazel — are pretty much the same characters as they were in the last movie. Joey even says, “I feel like we’ve been here before. You… me…them!” as he looks at us, the audience. Jonathan Terry also was back as Colonel Glover.

This movie also has an interesting soundtrack, which is another similarity with the first one. There’s a diverse mix here with everything from Julian Cope, Anthrax and Mantronix to Leatherwolf and Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction.

But yeah. It’s never going to be as good as the first movie for so many reasons and the only one you need is Linnea Quigley.

Jim hits fifty and then is told that he can either quit or get fired from his high-end job in status-conscious Singapore, yet ego and pride cause him to keep the truth from his wife Linda (Amy Cheng, Crazy Rich Asians) and daughter Ashley (Rachel Win), only telling his best friend and clinging to the material goods that came from his past success. Yet as his life keeps falling apart, the bank attempts to take everything he has of value while a demonic force tries to take everything else.

Directed and written by GOH Ming Siu with Scott C. Hillyard, Repossession is sold like a horror movie. Yet while there are supernatural elements, the truly frightening things is that I know men like Jim. You do as well — if you ask any man to tell you about themselves, chances are the first thing they will do is tell you what they do for a living. So much of our identity is not who we truly are. Instead, we share what we do. Once that has been taken away, so many men just keep following the motions, going through the motions like a Romero zombie in a shopping mall, walking past their old jobs and unable to find their next story.

The film doesn’t easily explain the demon that is within Jim’s life. Is it a murderous side that always existed? Or is it a real demon that has cursed his family? Regardless, the central theme that your errors and hubris will corrupt the others in your life is one that cuts to the bone. You can see just how easily a life can fall apart, how a once proud man now hides in an Uber hoping he never has to pick up a friend or someone from his old job. The idea of that — and trust me, I went from running my own business to unloading trucks a few years ago, so I understand — is more horrifying than any mere monster.

Repossession is available from Gravitas Ventures and Kamikaze Dogfight.

Many years ago, the agency I worked at had the account for the Pittsburgh Public Theater and was doing an ad for August Wilson’s King Hedley II. Tony Todd was in the lead and the team working on it couldn’t figure out who should do the voice-over for the commercial. I pushed really hard for them to consider Tony Todd to be in the commercial and despite being the youngest writer on staff, I pushed myself hard to get to write it.

Somehow, I made it happen.

When it came time to record the commercial, I was told — in no uncertain terms — to not mention any horror films that Tony Todd was in. He was a real actor.

Todd was excited to record the commercial, as he was excited to be in Wilson’s play, so it all worked out. We were to take him to lunch, then the record and somehow, I got to go to that as well.

We were ten feet down Penn Avenue and someone yelled, “Hey Candyman!”

Todd instantly laughed and walked over to greet the fan warmly.

“I was told not to bring that up,” I said.

“Ah, man. It’s cool. Those movies have done a lot for me. The first one is great. And the second one, well, you do the sequel, right? And the third one, well, my daughter has college…” he laughed.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing more amazing than hearing Tony Todd read your words. Seriously, he was a one-take machine, even on a :60 radio commercial.

There’s also nothing more frightening than hearing Tony Todd’s voice order a salad.

The film takes place in 2020, twenty-five years after the events of Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, and artist Miguel Velasco is putting on a Candyman-themed gallery show. If this sounds like the 2021 Candyman, well…

One of the people that comes to the show is Annie Tennant’s daughter Caroline (Playboy Playmate of the Month September 1995 Donna D’Errico), who is a direct descendant of the legendary killer. She says his name five times and soon Miguel and his girlfriend Lena (Rena Riffel, Penny from Showgirls and the director, writer, producer and editor of  Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven) are dead from the hook of the Candyman.

Annie has died, a victim of the Candyman in her old age, but before her death, she told Caroline to destroy the myth. The man blamed for the killings, David, falls for her and takes her to meet his clairvoyant grandmother, who informs our heroine that she must find the good within Candyman to destroy the evil.

But what if Candyman isn’t just a supernatural force? What if he’s someone else?

Candyman 3: Day of the Dead is better than I thought it was when I came back to watch it again. It’s nowhere near as good as the proceeding two films, but it’s still an enjoyable watch.

This movie is finally out on blu ray under the Vestron Video label.

Also — I love Tony Todd because when Lionsgate wanted to make a Candyman and Leprechaun crossover, he shot it down instead of taking the money. Thanks for being the best, Mr. Todd.

Bill Condon wrote Strange Invaders and Strange Behavior before this movie, which didn’t fare as well with the public and critics as the original movie.

Maybe the movie Bernard Rose wanted to make would have been better. Virginia Madsen told Horror News Network, “They originally wanted us to do Candyman 2, but they didn’t like Bernie’s idea for the sequel. They made the Candyman into a slave which was terrible because the Candyman was educated and raised as a free man. Bernie wanted to make him like an African American Dracula which I think it was so appealing to the African American community because they finally had their own Dracula. The Candyman was a poet and smart. He wasn’t really a monster. He was sort of that classical figure. The sequel that Bernie wanted to make was a prequel where you see the Candyman and Helen fall in love. It was turned down because the studio didn’t want to do an interracial love story.”

There was also a plan to turn the Clive Barker story “The Midnight Meat Train” into the second movie years before that story became its own adaption.

That said, this movie — which explores the legend and shows that the Candyman was really an artist named Daniel Robitaille who was born to free slaves after the Civil War — isn’t horrible. It’s just that Candyman is one of the greatest horror movies ever, so making a sequel is such a major burden.

So this one is a slasher where the original was a meditation on race and rage. Maybe I should say something nice about the score.

Unable to direct his screenplay for Hellraiser: Revelations due to a scheduling conflict with Scream 4, Gary J. Tunnicliffe initially removed all references to the series when he wrote this movie. He was tryinf to make an independent film and then wanted to make a true Hellraiser as he knew how bad the past films had been. After all, he had been with the series doing effects since the third movie before moving into writing and now directing them.

Shot at the same time as Children of the Corn: Runaway, this was the second film that didn’t have Doug Bradley as Pinhead. Here, he’s played by Paul T. Taylor. The movie also introduces an entirely new army of Hell, the Stygian Inquisition, led by the Auditor, who is played by Tunnicliffe.

Yes, this is an auteur Hellraiser movie.

So while this is the story of how Pinhead and the Auditor discuss new and better ways of getting souls, it’s also a police story about the hunt for a serial killer called the Preceptor, who is right out of Se7en, killing people in murders based on the Ten Commandments.

Sadly, this was another Dimension Film and they sat on it for years until, well, the whole sexual abuse trial happened and LionsGate got this film and the aforementioned Children of the Corn: Runaway. Those guys were holding on to the rights to these films and wouldn’t let anyone else near them, no matter whether or not owning said rights and making these movies seemed to embarass them.

All I know is that Hellraiser should make the trends, not reference them. If I wanted to watch a police movie or Saw, well — I woulnd’t watch Saw again. You know, you can just make a Hellraiser movie about Hellraiser.

Oh man, Dimension Films.

Their rights to make Hellraiser movies were running out, so they had to make this movie within weeks or risk losing the rights to the film series. Due to the rushed production, Doug Bradley decided not to return as PInhead and Stephan Smith Collins took on the physical role and Fred Tatasciore (the voice of Megatron in the movies) did the talking.

At least one person was coming back. Gary J. Tunnicliffe created the makeup effects for every movie in the series from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth to Hellraiser: Hellworld, wrote this movie and would write and direct the next movie, Hellraiser: Judgment.

Two boys — Steven Craven and Nico Bradley — have gone missing with the only evidence being a video filmed by Steven that documents their final moments. And oh yeah, there’s an ornate puzzle box left behind that the Mexican authorities return to their families.

So what was on that tape? Oh, only Nico killing a girl after having sex with her, then implicating Steven, then getting a Lament Configuration and then…well, you know.

Emma, Steven’s sister and Nico’s girlfriend, watches the tape and finds the box. She’s able to open it and free a bloody Steven, who warns her that the Cenobites are coming. Emma has become obsessed by the box, which leads her to try seducing Nico’s father and her own brother before the man who gave the box to Nico appears and kills Nico’s dad — man, that guy just almost got everything he wanted — and then Steven kills his own dad with a shotgun. And as everyone tries to escape, they realize they are stranded.

Oh the drama! Steven’s father and Nico’s mother were having an affair! Nico killed Steven and is wearing his skin! Pinhead admires Nico’s sexual proclivities! A shock ending!

The ads for this movie said that it was from the mind of Clive Barker, who went on Twitter to say, “I have NOTHING to do with the fuckin’ thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker,it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”

Bradley has revealed that he decided not to make the movie when he was told there would be no second draft of the script and that his salary from previous films would be, in his words, cut down to “the price of a fridge.” That has to be a reference to Ashley Laurence, who played Kirsty Cotton, and was paid exactly enough money for Hellraiser: Hellseeker to purchase a refrigerator of her own.

Bradley also referred to the film as “a cinematic ash can copy,” which is a concept taken from comic books. Publishers would make small print runs of comics — the original Creepy #1 is an example — to establish trademarks on potential titles and characters. These books were not intended for sale. Which reminds me, this movie screened in exactly one theater.

The director of this movie, Victor Garcia, also made the sequels Mirrors 2, Return to House on Haunted Hill and 30 Days of Night: Blood Trails.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Based on a short story called “Dark Can’t Breathe” by Joel Soisson — check out our interview with him here — this Rick Bota-directed sequel is the first to have Lance Henriksen in it (he was originally going to play Frank in the first movie, but chose Near Dark instead*) and the last to have Doug Bradley as Pinhead.

This sequel gets meta as a group of young adults are obsessed with the game Hellworld which is based on the Hellraiser movies. One of their friends, Adam, goes full on Mazes and Monsters and kills himself after he gets way too involved.

Two years later, they’re invited by an invitation inside the game to come to an asylum once owned by Lament Configuration creator Philip Lemarchand. It turns into a slasher, as The Host (Henriksen), Pinhead and the Cennobites Chatterer and Bound wipe out most of the cast.

Much like most of the other Hellraiser sequels, this would be a fine low budget horror movie without the name Hellraiser. That term implies that we’re getting something special and sadly, this does not deliver on the promise. If it were just called Hellworld, I’d probably say it was a minor success.

*As it was, Henriksen was already in Romania making Mimic 3: Sentinel and Khary Payton was in another sequel made at the same time in the same country, Dracula II: Ascension. I mean it when I say that nearly all low budget horror in the 2000s came from this country.

Peter Briggs had written an unmade script for Freddy vs. Jason that was a hit with the studio, so he was hired to write this and he chose to ignore those two films above and just concentrate on the first four movies.

But oh yeah, this was a Dimension Film.

And you may have heard it before (Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker are other examples) that this wasn’t a Hellraiser movie.

That’s because the script that Biggs wrote would have been too expensive, so the studio picked up Neil Marshall Stevens’s spec script Deader and Bob Weinstein told Tim Day to rewrite that story into a Hellraiser sequel but you know, make it J-horror.

And to save even more money, it was filmed in Romania, where all 2000s horror came from, at the same time as Hellraiser: Hellworld.

Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) is a reporter sent on assignment to Bucharest. There, she’s to investigate the Deaders cult who engage in the ritual murder and reanimation of their members. She discovers the body of the girl who sent the tape as well as a Lament Configuration, which she opens in a dream and summons Pinhead.

It turns out that she’s been meant to come to the cult, as its leader — and Lament Configuration creator descendent — Winter LeMarchand can’t open the box himself. He has faith that he is destined to lead the Cenobites. He only needs someone who is so emotionally vulnerable and nihilistic that they will submit to dying and being brought back. That’s when he forces Amy to relive the abuse that her father put her through — as well as her killing him — before Winter puts her through the ritual.

Then Pinhead comes and hijinks ensue.

Man, this sounds so much better in words than it does in movie form.

You know how they said the 1950s were the good old days? Well, a bunch of bullies helps make America great by attacking a deformed orphan named Tommy, stabbing and beating him and throwing him into a mine just because of his looks.

Thirty-five years later, the old witch who raised Tommy has been gathering blood and spells and she hopes to bring him back, just in time for more teenagers to ruin everything and hit her with a car. Well, she survives, but they steal some of the blood which seems like a bad idea if I’ve ever heard one.

Tommy comes back as Pumpkinhead and everyone pays. Sure, it has nothing to do with the first movie, but when has that ever stopped us?

If you need a horror sequel made, turn to Jeff Burr, who made Stepfather II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Puppet Master 4 and 5, and this film. He’s run into all the issues associated with studio low budget horror — budgets and studio interference — and claims that only three of his movies are ones he considers his own: Eddie Presley, Straight Into Darkness and From a Whisper to a Scream.

This movie does have quite the weird cast, from Ami Dolenz, Soleil Moon Frye and Linnea Quigley to Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs!), Gloria Hendry from Black Caesar, Lilyan Chauvin (Mother Superior in Silent Night, Deadly Night), Kane Hodder, R. A. Mihailoff and Roger Clinton.

Even stranger, there was a video game, Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead’s Revenge that had you play levels to earn clips from the movie.

By the way, if Judge Dixon’s house looks familiar, that’s because it was also used in Motel Hell. You can also see the Book of the Dead from Army of Darkness in the witch’s house.