ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. You can listen to her podcast at https://thecinemajunction.com. 

Her latest book is Japanese Cult Cinema: Best of the Second Golden Age. She writes for Horror & Sons and Drive-in Asylum. She has also appeared on the podcasts Japan on Film, Making Tarantino, Making Scorsese, The Rad Revivalhouse and contributes to Cinemaforce. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or follow her on Instagram @jennxlondon. 

April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

The artwork on the VHS cover for this hard-to-find early ‘80s thriller promises a vicious ghost monster dog. First, we get a better-than-average look at the horrors of renting a room in a shared house in the middle of the woods in Texas. 

The movie begins with the handsome Ken moving into the old stone manor and getting to know the other six tenants. Mitch Pileggi (The X-Files) plays Woody, the roommate from Hell. A “macho” guy in the attic room who delights in bullying the others and playing practical jokes. What an asshole. I would most definitely put cayenne pepper on his doorknob if I lived in this house. 

Then there’s Eisenhower or “Ike.” A war-obsessed whiny postal worker with a vicious dog who looks like a young Howard Stern. Ike is carrying a torch for Sharon – one of two unfortunate women who live in the house. We also have Jerry. A nice, young guy who indexes books for a living. The most horrifying job in all of publishing.  Jerry is terrified of dogs, having been bit by one as a child. He’s nervous and prone to nightmares so naturally, he’s the first character to sense when something supernatural is going on. Of course, no one believes him. 

Woody shoots Ike’s dog when it bites someone. He later digs it up and puts in Ken’s bed as a practical joke when Sharon starts giving Ken attention. 

The joke goes awry and Ken is accidentally electrocuted by an old lamp introduced as a clear health and safety violation in the first scene. 

The next night, Woody’s new puppy is disemboweled by an invisible growling entity. It also kills Ike. 

When a detective comes to take statements, Landlord Aldo Ray bursts through the door in all his Aldo glory demanding to know “What have these people done this time?” Ray’s commitment to playing his character with utter contempt toward his tenants is part of the reason why I enjoyed this movie immensely. 

We’ve all had a slumlord like this, right? The kind that doesn’t replace faulty lamps and then gets pissed off when people get electrocuted because, “It’ll give me a bad name!” Later, he bursts out of the bushes with a flashlight under his face at 4:30 am and summarily evicts everyone with no paperwork. No notice? “My shotgun’s all the notice I need!” I seriously love watching older actors portraying grumpy characters later in their careers. Ray Milland, are you listening? Aldo is giving you a run for your money in this film. 

The finale features a nice twist ending where there’s no ghost dog at all. It’s Jerry who turns out to be the worst kind of roommate a person can possibly have. He’s not a werewolf. He’s a feral maniac. Aldo dispatches Jerry with his boomstick, saves Sharon and the credits roll. Landlord Aldo was right. All he needed was his shotgun. We should have listened. 

There’s very little gore here. The movie functions best when it’s simply showing us the characters interact. All the actors are fully onboard with this movie. It’s a shame Robert A. Burns didn’t write or direct another feature-length project. Its dark, dry humor struck the perfect tone. Fingers crossed a boutique label puts this one out someday! 

You can watch it here, complete with a set of great trailers from the original VHS: https://www.facebook.com/TCSMFilmLocations/videos/robert-a-burns-mongrel-1982/1647824725372338/

April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

Mai (Sombat Metanee) was once on the side of the law but is now a mercenary and the leader of a gang that uses rampaging elephants to get their way. But when his pregnant wife Shu (Aranya Namwong) is taken by an even more evil criminal (keep in mind they have stolen her back and forth throughout this movie), he must work with corrupt cop Ching Ming (Yodchai Meksuwan) to rescue her.

This is kind of a Western. While most Westerns give you horse chases, this movie gives you elephants flipping cars like they’re made of cardboard and stomping goons into the dirt. In the most did I really just see that moment of the film, one unlucky stuntman gets slapped across the face with — and there’s no polite way to put this — elephant cock. It’s the kind of practical effect you just don’t get in Hollywood.

I usually associate huts exploding with the Filipino action boom of the 80s, but Thailand was light-years ahead in the blowing up grass-roofed real estate department, if this movie is to be believed. 

The version floating around on Tubi is dubbed by a single voice actor who sounds like he’s reading a grocery list while recovering from a mild sedative. He provides the voices for the hero, the villain and possibly the elephants. He was likely dubbing five other features that afternoon and had a bus to catch, so we have to cut him some slack.

Also known as Rumbling the Elephant and Kill for the Truth, this has proved what I have always believed. Elephants make everything better. Whether they are being used as tactical assault vehicles, just hanging out in the background of a shootout or just standing still while a man runs face-first into their veiny pricks, they bring a dignity to the screen that the human actors just can’t match.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 7: Jackie Day — Celebrate Jackie Chan’s birthday!

While the world celebrates the man, the myth, and the jumping-off-buildings legend, there’s no better way to honor Jackie Chan than by revisiting the high-octane, bone-crunching sequel that defined his Golden Era: Police Story 2.

If the first film was a lightning bolt, the sequel is a sustained thunderstorm of choreography and pyrotechnics. Here is a deeper look into the chaos, the comedy, and the literal blood, sweat, and tears that went into this masterpiece.

Chan Ka-kui (Jackie) is back in a film directed and co-written by Jackie. After Police Story, he’s been demoted to highway patrol, a change that delights his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), who is thrilled. No more death-defying stunts, just speeding tickets. But peace is short-lived. The man he arrested, Chu Tu (Chor Yuen) and his henchman John Ko (Charlie Cho) have already been released from prison, as Chu Tu claims that he only has months to live. During that time, he plans to ruin Chan Ka-Kui’s life.

After they keep trying to get him to snap, he finally does once John Ko and some bad guys beat up May and her aunt (Lisa Chiao Chiao). He finds them in a restaurant and gets revenge, but is so embarrassed that he resigns from the police. He and May plan a vacation, but he can’t even go to a travel agency without a bomb threat calling him back to duty, just in time for the mall to blow up. At least he’s seen as a hero and welcomed back to the Royal Hong Kong police.

Now he has four new enemies —  Tall Pau Hung (Ben Lam), Ken (Yun-Kin Chow) and two bomb experts, one who is both deaf and mute (Benny Lai) — and by the end of the movie, they’ve kidnapped May and forced Jackie to wear a vest covered with explosives. 

Jackie learned to put bloopers at the end of the movie after making Cannonball Run. He didn’t really understand that these bloopers shouldn’t be life-threatening. In a terrifying sequence involving falling metal frames, a stunt went sideways. Maggie Cheung suffered a massive scalp laceration. The injury was so severe that she couldn’t finish filming her close-ups, which is why, in the final act, May is often seen from behind or with her face obscured. That’s actually Crystal Kwok filling in.

Jackie himself didn’t escape unscathed. During a stunt in which he was supposed to jump through a pane of glass, he accidentally aimed for the wrong one. Unlike the sugar glass used in Hollywood, this was real, thick glass, resulting in severe cuts across his body.

While Jackie is the face of the franchise, the Jackie Chan Stunt Team is the backbone. Mars (Cheung Wing-fat), Jackie’s long-time friend and stunt double, is the MVP here. Not only does he play a fellow officer, but he also stepped in for some of the most dangerous physical impacts. That iconic, wince-inducing moment where a character is kicked through a bus windshield? That’s all Mars.

Man, they could have made twenty of these movies and I would have seen every one of them. Police Story 2 perfectly balances Jackie’s signature slapstick with stakes humor and some of the most intricate playground-style fighting ever put to film (the playground fight itself is a masterclass in using the environment as a weapon).

It’s a reminder that back in the late 80s, Jackie Chan wasn’t just making movies. He was barely surviving them. Happy birthday, Jackie!

April 6: Independent-International: Write about a movie by Sam Sherman. Here’s a list.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey. His April Movie Thon list is here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I love that Adam did the same movie as me!

Why make an entirely new film when you can just add some sleaze to an existing one?

This philosophy was one avenue Independent-International Pictures travelled when releasing motion pictures in the 1960s and 70s. Led by director Al Adamson and producer Sam Sherman, the production company released many profitable films to the drive-in circuit. One method the duo used would be to acquire European films that perhaps did not provide financial success upon initial release and shoot some additional footage that could be inserted into it for a more sensational experience.

Case in point: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In 1965, German director Gèza von Radvànyi adapted Harriet Beecher Stowe’s iconic novel of American slavery, turning it into a 170 minute epic that did not catch on with audiences, despite premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. Rights to the film were sold to Kroger Babb, one of the most famous exploitation producers who might be best known for his “sex hygiene” film Mom and Dad. Babb cut the film down to 110 minutes and released it in 1975 under the title Cassy (a minor yet important character in the film), but the movie again failed to attract an audience. By the time Sam Sherman and Al Adamson got involved, the year was 1977, and “slavesploitation” was suddenly a hot commodity thanks to Mandingo and Roots. But the content would need to be beefed up for tickets to be sold. No problem. Adamson shot some scenes of rape, interracial love, and torture, and these scenes were (pretty seamlessly) added into the original picture.

I would love to set my eyes on Radvànyi’s original film. Starring Herbert Lom as slave trader Simon Legree, Uncle Tom’s Cabin pulls no punches in showing the struggles of individuals at the hands of such a merciless individual. Uncle Tom, along with other slaves, is sold to Legree to help settle some debts of his owner. Legree is a memorable villain, and Lom’s performance, behind his scarred face, is just the type of person viewers would love to hate. 

Is it possible that the exploitative scenes added by Adamson and Sherman actually do improve the film? Perhaps. There is no doubt as to which scenes were added. And these scenes definitely made me sit up in my chair a bit straighter. As someone who has never read the novel, the film made me research the differences between Stowe’s tome and adaptations over the years. In this version, after attempting to flood the cotton crop, the runaway slaves run into the welcoming arms of the saintly men of a Catholic mission. This ending might have been added to cater to European sensibilities.

But what about the stereotype of the Uncle Tom character himself? In this film, Uncle Tom lays down his life protecting others, a far cry from how Uncle Tom is discussed today as a man who would do anything to please his masters for self-preservation. Turns out the character in this film is closer to the one created by Stowe. Uncle Tom is a Christ-like figure, intentionally written this way to appeal to Christian readers in an attempt to convert them to the abolitionist cause. It worked. As the film announces via a title card at the beginning of the picture, Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped propel Abraham Lincoln’s desire to end the practice of slavery in the United States.

It is amazing to think that an exploitation version of a German film about America’s darkest period in history can actually educate. Will I now read the book I’ve put off reading for so long? Maybe. Of course, I have too many movies to watch to actually read a novel. And many more Al Adamson films to see–Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the second of his films I’ve seen. I have so much work to do.

April 6: Independent-International: Write about a movie by Sam Sherman. Here’s a list.

The source material for this movie is Géza von Radványi’s 1965 epic, a massive, $5 million European co-production that featured Herbert Lom (yes, Chief Inspector Dreyfus himself) and Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger!). It was meant to be a prestigious, sweeping adaptation of the Stowe classic.

It had already been released by none other than Kroger Babb in 1969 (thanks, Good Efficient Butchery) with an hour chopped off. He re-released it under the name Cassy, and it bombed again.

Enter Sam Sherman. He looked at this three-hour prestige piece and saw a void where the commercial elements should be.

Needing money, Babb sold it to him, and Sherman had Al Adamson cut forty more minutes off the already-trimmed-down Babb cut. When Napoleon (Aziz Saad) is killed by an alligator, he cut that part and has an entirely different actor, Prentiss Moulden, take over. Napoleon makes it to a plantation where the widow Melissa (Mary Ann Jenson) is, well, inserted into the Herman Lom villain-led film. As she nurses him back to health, she also ends up asking him to hold her, and then that gives us a whole bunch of lovemaking, which only ends when three bounty hunters catch him, sexually assault him and then pour burning oil all over him while we watch. Marilyn Joi also shows up as a runaway slave who also gets raped, because that’s what audiences were looking for in 1977, said no one other than raincoaters.

In the original, Uncle Tom (John Kitzmiller) dies and forgives the whites for how they treated his people. In this one, well, everyone who had been impacted by the slavers gets some revenge, including castration. We close on the bad guys getting lynched, which is exactly the kind of revenge Southern whites feared. 

This was re-released yet again three years later as White Trash Woman. RIP Sam Sherman. I can only assume that they cremated you, because after watching this, I have no idea what size coffin could contain balls as big as yours.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey. His April Movie Thon list is here.

April 5: Easter Sunday — Watch something religious.

Faith should be strong enough to withstand doubt, perhaps even strengthened by it. There is a theological belief I’ve heard many times in Christian sermons–”The Bible said it. That settles it”. This definitive statement leaves no room for mistranslations or potential bias as the Scriptures were compiled by human men. While they might be divinely inspired, there should be room for questioning.

Biblical scholar Hugh J. Schonfield took his doubts public in 1965 with his book The Passover Plot. After researching non-biblical historical documents, as well as the Gospels, Schonfield reached the conclusion that Jesus was not the Messiah and instead had determined that he should self-manifest himself as the Son of God in order to be elevated to the status of king during a time when Rome occupied Israel.

Jesus had the lineage as a Son of David (his bloodline could be traced back to the former king of Israel, and it had been prophesied that the Messiah would come from his descendants). Israel was experiencing a time of great persecution by Rome. The people were looking for someone who would conquer the Romans and restore sovereignty to the nation. Why couldn’t it be Him?

According to Schonfield, Jesus shrewdly planned the details of His crucifixion. Knowing that His body would need to be removed from the cross prior to the Sabbath, He only needed to survive a few hours. He also conspired to have a medication given to Him while on the cross to slow his heart rate enough to appear dead to the Romans. Unfortunately, the plan backfired when Jesus’ side was pierced with a spear by a Roman soldier (as was common practice during a crucifixion to ensure the person had indeed perished). Jesus died from that wound and would not be able to assert His place as king while on Earth. 

Ten years prior, Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis wrote his own controversial novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. While not basing his story on historical documents, Kazantzakis instead hypothesises Christ’s final temptation–coming down off of the cross and living life as a mortal man. Jesus experiences a normal life, but one that would be ultimately meaningless. He rejects this final temptation and fulfills God’s plan of salvation for humanity.

As one might expect, both of these novels and the films on which they are based became magnets for controversy. The Last Temptation of Christ might be more famous due to being relatively more recent as well as the presence of Martin Scorsese as director. But the cinematic version of The Passover Plot experienced its own boycotts and outrage. Singer Pat Boone went as far as purchasing airtime on syndicated television stations to convince people not to watch The Passover Plot. Did he watch the film before calling for a boycott? The answer to that question is not clear.

I cannot imagine that he actually watched the film and was terribly offended by what transpired. Unfortunately, The Passover Plot is a pretty bland retelling the last days of Christ. Nothing new is really offered despite the promise of blasphemy. We have seen it all before. John baptized Christ in the River Jordan. The Pharisees and Sadducees disturbed by the cult of personality that formed around Christ. Pontius Pilate (here played by a surprisingly subdued Donald Pleasence) complaining about his inability to not offend the Jewish citizens he governs. The brutality of the crucifixion. In fact, if you blink, you might miss the whole conspiracy angle. It is not made clear until the very end, and even then, it is a light vague. 

Honestly, the entire production is brought down by Jesus himself, played by Zalman King, an actor I typically find void of charisma. If nothing else, Jesus has to be charismatic in order to attract followers (although there is also a surprising lack of followers shown here–it is typically just Jesus and his disciples. In the Gospels, Jesus is always surrounded by an ever growing crowd of people clamoring for at least a glimpse if not a full out miracle). If you have ever watched Blue Sunshine, you know that King has an intense stare that comprises around 90 percent of his acting chops. Not much else. Maybe he was holding back, saving all of his, how shall I say, vitality for Red Shoe Diaries.

I’m happy to report that The Passover Plot did not rattle my faith. It did not challenge it either though. And that lukewarm result might be the worst outcome. By being neither hot nor cold, the film quickly becomes forgettable. I haven’t watched The Last Temptation of Christ in maybe 20 or 25 years, but scenes from that film are indelibly etched into my mind. My faith was strengthened by the knowing that Jesus could have let that cup pass by him and led an ordinary life. There is nothing in The Passover Plot (at least the cinematic version) that gives me anything with which to grapple, which might be the ultimate unforgivable sin.

April 5: Easter Sunday — Watch something religious.

Listen, you think your local politics are a mess? Try being Jonah Thomas. He’s a U.S. Senator who finds himself trapped in the ultimate filibuster, where the lobbyists are literal demons, and the swing votes are decided by the Heavenly Host.

Director Danny Carrales, a man who spends his days teaching the craft at Liberty University and his nights chronicling the invisible war for our souls, dropped Heaven’s War on me like a prophetic ton of bricks. This is the kind of movie that feels like it was found in a time capsule buried beneath a Christian bookstore that went out of business in 1996, yet it’s talking about things that make today’s headlines look like yesterday’s news.

Thomas told The Worldwide Threat, “Heaven’s War is about spiritual warfare and I believe that spiritual warfare, at least from, I think the heat of the battle is probably taking place in DC. I think that’s where a lot of spiritual battles are taking place, and I thought what would be a cool way to represent people’s lives in danger, everyday walks of life, that the powers that be in DC can have a major push towards God or away from God. In this case, I thought, “Let’s go ahead and have some bad guys that are senators that are trying to put together this vaccine that will hopefully stop cancer, stop the pain that people go through in that cancer world.”

I thought, “What if the vaccine wasn’t actually what they said it would do? It would heal some people, but there’d be a small percentage, which turns out to be a larger percentage of people that would suffer because they took the vaccine.” I thought that would be a really cool idea to implement, explaining why there’s such a spiritual battle to stop this vaccine from happening. Little did I know that COVID would come right down the road following the making of this film.”

Yes, the bad guys are trying to cure cancer. And yes, one of them is Joe Estevez. You know the rule: if a movie features a member of the Sheen/Estevez dynasty and involves a government conspiracy, you’re watching Tubi.

Anyways…

Senator Jonah Thomas (Jason Gerhardt) wants to be a good politician, but is there such a thing? He’s been overlooking what’s really important — his family — and worrying about his future. If this movie has any say, he doesn’t have one. Terrorists blow up all the bad guys and try to flip him to their side, but everything is viewed through a lens of supernatural high-stakes poker.

But who is good? Who or what is evil? Why do the lightsabers in this invert the good-guy/bad-guy paradigm of Star Wars, so the heels get blue and the faces get red (thanks for noticing, Logan Harrington on Letterboxd)?

Why do American politics and flags, so many flags, matter to the spiritual world? Why is there so much dialogue? Why does God need a starship? I have so many questions, and this movie just hit me with a wall of flashbacks so dense I felt like I was undergoing a neurological exam. I tried, I really did, but I started to get lost in the temporal slipstream. At least the Senator gets the best help, because when you have Gabriel (Danny Boaz), well, I don’t know how you can do better than have the Angel of Revelation.

There’s also the whole debate over why God lets bad things happen. I think when you’re in the middle of battling actual demons with an angel, the point of all this is moot because you now know God exists, so your faith has been rewarded or your lack of faith has been shown. It feels like a very shooting fish in a holy water barrel situation.

Many of the IMDb reviews are punching down on this or over-praising it, saying things like, “…if you are a person of faith, you will enjoy it. If you don’t consider this a love story on several different levels. If you are trying to get into the business, watch and learn how to put all the pieces together to create a great story with conflict that has emotional impact.”

I don’t know about love story, unless you mean the love between a director and his green screen, but Heaven’s War is definitely a trip.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 4: World Rat Day — Celebrate this holiday by writing about a movie with a rat in it.

World Rat Day is observed every April 4 to honor the friendly, loyal, and intelligent nature of rats as pets and companions. While most “fancy rats” are known for their social bonds and ability to learn complex tricks, Hollywood usually prefers to cast them as the ultimate harbinger of doom.

If you’re looking to celebrate the loyal and intelligent side of these rodents, Rats (also known by the far more subtle title Killer Rats) is arguably the worst possible choice. 

Brookedale is a decaying architectural nightmare. Formerly a prison, it now functions as a high-security rehab facility for the rich and famous. It sits atop a labyrinth of ancient, stench-filled sewers, the kind of place where you’d expect to find a health code violation, not a miracle cure.

Samantha (Sara Downing) has gone undercover there, hoping to break a story about celebrity drug addicts. There’s just one person in charge, Dr. William Winslow (Ron Perlman), and he loves rats. Just digs them. Even has a pet rat. As a result of his experiments, the rats can all communicate telepathically, and there’s one big rat that rules them all. 

What does that have to do with treating addiction? Look, I didn’t write this movie. Jace Anderson, Boaz Davidson, Brian Irving and Adam Gierasch did. Yes, the writers of Mother of Tears joined up with the director of both Lemon Popsicle and The Last American Virgin to write this. Maybe that explains how a character gets the name Johnny Falls.

This was directed by Tibor Takács, who made The Gate and I, Madman, so we should forgive him for any of his direct-to-streaming and SyFy movies.

How you spend World Rat Day is your own decision to make. For me, I spent it watching Ron Perlman whisper to rodents while a giant animatronic rat terrorized a psychiatric ward.

Also: One time as a kid, I totally had a rat climb up the sewer and into a toilet that I was sitting on while everyone else watched Evel Knievel wipe out in Las Vegas. My grandfather stabbed it with a giant gold serving fork that my parents got for their wedding and had never used before.

You can watch this on Tubi.

April 3: American Circus Day — Write about a big top movie.

As the Encyclopedia Britannica notes, the term “geek” didn’t always imply a tech-savvy enthusiast. In the early 20th century, it was a title of derision for the lowest rung of the carnival hierarchy. These performers, often struggling with severe alcoholism or mental illness, were paid in liquor or room and board to perform “he bite, a gruesome act involving the decapitation of live chickens or rats.

Director Carlton J. Albright turns this historical footnote into a psychological trauma trigger for his protagonist, Luther Watts. The film establishes Luther’s trajectory not through a complex descent into madness, but through a singular, scarring childhood moment: witnessing a caged, desperate carnival geek bite the head off a chicken.

This trauma doesn’t just break Luther; it resets him. He becomes a literal geek in the most archaic sense. By the time we meet him as an adult (played with unsettling commitment by Edward Terry), Luther has shed his humanity, speaking in clucks and replacing his teeth with metal dentures.

Director Carlton J. Albright also wrote The Children, so he has no problem going for, well, the throat here. He has no qualms about putting innocents, including children and the elderly (or a young girl dressed like an old woman), directly in the path of Luther’s metal teeth. He also loves his villain. Luther isn’t a misunderstood monster or a villain with a complex moral code. He is a biological machine driven by a singular, primal urge to feed and destroy.

Extras include the original Lloyd Kaufman DVD intro, Carlton J. Albright’s Blu-ray intro; a director’s commentary with Carlton J. Albright; interviews with Carlton J. Albright, William Albright and Jerry Clarke; bloopers, Troma’s Freak Show and music videos. You can get this from MVD.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey. His April Movie Thon list is here.

April 2: Get Me Another — A sequel or a movie way too similar to another film.

When I first started my exploitation cinematic journey in 2020, I must confess that I just considered the word exploitation to be synonymous with the word sleazy. Now, oftentimes the two go hand in hand. As is the case in this film, The House by the Lake (AKA Death Weekend). But what I learned by watching way too many exploitation films over the last six years is that the term exploitation has many facets with many questions to ask. Who or what is being exploited exactly? The characters, or more specifically, the female characters? The actors themselves? The audience? The genre? As it turns out, the answer to all of these questions can be yes, and they can all be yes at the same tie.

By 1976, the Canadian government had launched their program offering tax credits to investors who produced films in Canada. After producing only three feature films in the country in 1974, Canada hoped to incentivize producers to use Canadian resources in hopes of helping create a national identity through cinema. European countries had long ago established a system that produced films reflecting the values and history of their nation. Why shouldn’t Canada? Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, these tax shelter years attracted producers who wanted to make low budget films that maximized their profits, and filmmakers who were happy to have a chance to work without the pressure of necessarily delivering the highest quality result.

This subset of films produced in Canada during the late-1970s and early-1980s became affectionately known as Canuxsploitation. The House by the Lake does not simply dip its toe into one sub-genre of exploitation though. It also wants to cash in on the success and/or notoriety of films popularized by Sam Peckinpah’s controversial Straw Dogs and Wes Craven’s infamous The Last House on the Left. Films in which our protagonists are terrorized by a small group of menacing figures who have no moral compass guiding them.

Producers Ivan Reitman (of Ghostbusters fame) and Andrè Link (who would go on to produce the Canuxsploitation horror classics My Bloody Valentine and Happy Birthday to Me) hired home grown William Fruet to direct this tale of a couple whose weekend getaway is instantly marred by a group of men who did not appreciate being shown up by a woman driver. Fruet found instant acclaim with his debut feature, Wedding in White, which won Best Motion Picture at the Canadian Film Awards in 1972. Based on Fruet’s stage play and starring Carol Kane and Donald Pleasence, Wedding in White focuses on the aftermath of a rape that results in a pregnancy. 

As it often does in exploitation films, rape (or multiple rapes) plays a role in The House by the Lake. Fashion model Diane (Brenda Vaccaro) is invited to a lakehouse by dentist Harry (Chuck Shamata), which, according to the locals of the area, is Harry’s favorite pastime. And we soon learn why. Harry has a two way mirror set up in the bedroom so he can photograph his lady friends in various stages of undress. Very naughty Harry. 

After being outwitted on the road by Diane in the opening scene, the guys in the sportscar, led by Lep (Don Stroud), are hellbent on getting revenge. And basically disposing of anyone in their way. The House by the Lake quickly turns into a home invasion thriller, not necessarily offering anything new to the format, but able to keep this viewer engaged to the very end.

It helps when you hire high quality actors for these roles. At this point in her career, Brenda Vaccaro was a three time Tony Award nominee, an Emmy winner, and had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Once is Not Enough, as well as having a memorable role in Midnight Cowboy. She brings the same skillset to her role as Diane here. She’s not slumming it in some cheap exploitation picture. She’s giving it all she’s got. And Don Stroud is definitely no low rent David Hess. He can play unhinged as well as anybody. If you have any doubt, just watch The Divine Enforcer.

William Fruet would go on to have a very successful career, mainly as the director of several episodes of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. But he also delivered some very unique and singular  horror films of the 1980s, including Funeral Home, Trapped (speaking of unhinged, this one stars Henry Silva in a performance that is over-the-top even by his standards), Spasms (one of the all time great horror posters), Killer Party (perfect for this time of year), and his final feature film, Blue Monkey (which has nothing to do with monkeys, blue or otherwise).

While The House by the Lake might not reach the heights of other cash-in films like Late Night Trains, I Spit on Your Grave, or House at the Edge of the Park, it is a very watchable entry in the sub-genre that might stick around in my mind longer than I initially anticipate.