At long last, issue #27 is now available for pre-order! Shipping around May 15.
Joe Dante speaks to us about his career in fantastic films, from loving them and writing about them to making them. James L. Conway sheds some light on his experiences working for Schick Sunn Classics, as well as making the unforgettable tentacle-monster film The Boogens. And Catriona MacColl shares memories of working with Lucio Fulci on his Gates of Hell trilogy. Filmmaker Paco Aransaz reveals his film influences, and the effect they had on his found footage horror film Obayifo Project.
AC Nicholas also writes about movies that got a comedy re-dub, (think “What’s Up Tiger Lily”). Stephen Pytak praises Howling II starring Sybil Danning, Andy Turner discusses Framed starring Joe Don Baker, and Jennifer Upton checks in with highlights from “Weird Worcester.”
Plus plenty of vintage newsprint ads to give you those retro vibes you crave from DIA. 68 pages, black and white with several pages printed on colored paper. 5.5 x 8.5 inches in size.
Cyclops: A secret team of scientists has crossed the line between medicine and madness, implanting embryos into human hosts in a series of hideous experiments designed to create a new form of life. But when their latest subject takes her own life before giving birth, the operation spirals into desperation. Accompanied by a malformed cyclops mutant as muscle, the researchers descend into the city in search of a new victim–dragging an unsuspecting young woman into a nightmare of medical horror that degenerates into a frenzy of deformed flesh, slimy transformations and mutant showdowns.
Emerging from Japan’s late-’80s direct-to-video boom, Cyclops stands as an early, unhinged entry in the country’s underground splatter movement. Directed by Jōji “George” Iida in his debut, the film fuses Cronenberg-style body horror with low budget V-cinema rawness — building methodically before erupting into a chaotic finale packed with grotesque practical effects and full-throttle gore. A lean, mean descent into pure biological terror, it’s a classic cult relic of experimental Japanese horror at its most hardcore and bizarre.
There’s a new 2K transfer from original 16mm film elements, as well as extras including commentary with Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Patrick Macias, author of Tokyoscope: the Japanese Cult Film Companion; a new interview with director Joji “George” Iida; a video essay on his films and the Japanese DTV market of the mid-80s; an image gallery; a sketch gallery; trailers; a folded mini-poster featuring original pressbook art; a reversible sleeve featuring original Japanese VHS art; “Stick Your Own” VHS stickers; two different liner notes booklets and limited eiditon slipcase art by The Dude.
Fatal Flying Guillotine: Deep in the forbidding Valley of No Return, a reclusive master, driven to madness by his own obsessive training, perfects a nightmarish weapon — the “Lightning Strike,” a savage evolution of the flying guillotine with twin, whirling blades designed for maximum carnage. Any intruder who dares cross into his domain faces instant decapitation with ruthless precision. But when a vengeance-driven fighter (Carter Wong) sets his sights on the valley, seeking justice for his mother’s death, he must confront both the master’s deadly invention and the head-chopping chaos it leaves in its wake.
Arriving cheaply and quickly in the fury of the flying guillotine craze that swept 1970s international martial arts cinema, The Fatal Flying Guillotine taps into the era’s appetite for outrageous kung fu spectacles sparked by the breakout 1976 smash hit Master of the Flying Guillotine. This off-brand Taiwanese entry escalates the formula with its delirious titular weapon variation and near-constant combat – while blending mystical elements, rival factions, double crosses and Buddhist brawls into one of the more kinetic and memorable examples of the short-lived but legendary trend.
There’s a new 2K transfer from original film elements supervised and composited by film archivist Toby Russell, plus extras like a commentary with Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club Podcast; A Brief History of Flying Guillotine Movies and Chan Siu-Pang Was There video essays; a 10 Styles of Tamo demonstration; a dirty VHS version of the film; an image gallery; trailers; a folded mini-poster featuring original pressbook art; “Stick Your Own” VHS stickers; a liner notes booklet by C.J. Lines; lobby cards and limited edition slipcase art by Uncle Frank.
Reanimator Academy: The fraternity brothers at Delta Epsilon Delta are your typical red-blooded American party animals, that is except for Edgar Allen Lovecraft. He’s locked up in his room trying to cure death and finds a serum that works on the severed head of a recently deceased comedian. When a mafia hood steals the serum to use on his murdered squeeze, her reanimated corpse goes on a campus killing spree — let the corny puns and one-punch decapitations fly!
Reanimator Academy was produced down and dirty for the booming early 90s video store rental market by legendary producer David DeCoteau (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) and directed by the equally renowned Bret McCormick (The Abomination), under what is possibly the best pseudonym ever used in a film. This silly send-up of Lovecraftian lore and cinematic tropes will leave you feeling as hungover and headless as a three-kegger blowout would.
First time ever on disc following its initial VHS release!
This has a transfer from existing SD tape masters and features commentary from Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum; an interview with director Bret McCormick; a location tour; an interview with actor Tom Fegan and Fred the Head; a feature on the score; the director’s 2023 soundtrack cut; Bret McCormick’s Children of Dracula; a Q&A; a folded mini-poster; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a “Stick Your Own” set of VHS stickers, limited edition slipcase art by Giorgio Credaro and a limited edition video store card.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
Pour and enjoy. You will not be saved by the holy ghost. You will not be saved by the god Plutonium. In fact, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED!
Possessor
2 oz popcorn-infused rum
.75 oz. fresh lemon juice
.5 oz. simple syrup
1 egg white
Pinch of salt
In a clean glass jar with a lid, combine the 1 cup buttered popcorn and 1 cup rum. Seal the jar and leave at room temperature for 2 hours. Strain, then throw away the popcorn.
Put the rum, lemon juice, simple syrup and egg white in a shaker with no ice and shake for 30 seconds; shake again with ice. Sprinkle with salt.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
Oh, Canada. Your horror movies are so strange, so unlike anywhere else. You remain such a polite country, our neighbor to the north, yet you’ve given us Cronenberg’s body horror, a black Christmas and more tax-shelter slashers than one human can possibly consume. What strange horrors have you brought to me today? Oh look—it’s 1980’s Funeral Home, otherwise known by the much better (and far more Giallo-esque) title Cries in the Night.
Heather—played by Lesleh Donaldson, the quintessential Canadian scream queen who also graced Curtains and Happy Birthday to Me—is spending the summer in a small town with her grandmother, Maude (Kay Hawtrey). Maude has turned her home, which was once a funeral home, into a quaint inn. It’s the kind of business plan that only works in horror movies or if you’re looking to attract the kind of tourists who find the smell of formaldehyde rustic. Maude’s husband has been missing for several years, so she also makes ends meet by selling artificial flowers. She even has her own handyman, Billy (Jack Van Evera), who is mentally challenged in that way that 80s horror movies always portrayed: wearing overalls and acting as a giant, walking red herring.
The only problem is that when people check in, they end up missing. Like that unmarried adulterous couple—because in 1980, checking into a motel for a tryst was basically a signed death warrant. And that real estate developer who wants to buy the land. You know the rule: if you have a briefcase and a suit in a slasher movie, you’re getting a sharp object in your chest before the first act is over.
And when Heather comes home at night, she hears her grandmother talking to someone who isn’t there in the basement. It’s like Psycho, but with more maple syrup and a much slower pace.
Director William Fruet—who gave us the absolutely harrowing Death Weekend (AKA The House by the Lake) and went on to direct episodes of Goosebumps and Friday the 13th: The Series—keeps things atmospheric, even if the “shocker” ending feels like it was lifted directly from Mother Bates’ diary.
Well, it seems like Heather’s grandfather was having an affair with Helena Davis, a fact her grandmother denies to everyone, including Helena’s husband, Mr. Davis (played by Barry Morse, the Inspector from TV’s original The Fugitive). Unfortunately for the Inspector, he doesn’t find the “one-armed man” here; he just finds a pickaxe to the head.
Heather and her boyfriend Rick start investigating, finally finding the corpse of her grandfather in the cellar. Turns out, Maude hasn’t been lonely at all. She’s been keeping Grandpa’s remains in a box and developed a split personality to keep him alive. Now, Maude speaks with his gravelly voice and comes after them with an axe. It’s a total Grand Guignol moment that reminds us that grandmas in horror movies are never just baking cookies. Luckily, the police arrive just in time to stop the family reunion from getting any bloodier.
As the credits roll, the cops explain the entire plot to us in an exhaustive monologue. It’s such a weird ending, with an overly long explanation fighting for screen time with the names of the gaffers and best boys. It’s like the movie didn’t trust you to understand that “Grandma is crazy,” so they brought in the local PD to give a PowerPoint presentation.
And if you’re a purveyor of films with ripped-off artwork—and let’s be honest, who isn’t?—then check out the 1988 supernatural flick Through the Fire. It steals the Funeral Home theatrical and VHS artwork of the screaming face in the window almost pixel for pixel. In the world of regional horror and budget distribution, why pay for a new painting when you can just trace someone else’s nightmares?
Funeral Home isn’t going to change your life, but for fans of slow-burn Canadian creepiness and Lesleh Donaldson’s lungs, it’s a solid double-feature pairing with The Hearse. Just don’t go in the basement. Or the garage. Or Canada.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
Also known as Ecology of Crime, Chain Reaction, Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Blood Bath, Last House on the Left – Part II and New House on the Left, this is the most violent and nihilistic of all of Mario Bava’s films. It started as a story idea so that Bava could work with Laura Betti (Hatchet for the Honeymoon) again, with the original titles of Stench of Flesh and Thus We Do Live to Be Evil, but had a virtual litany of writers get involved, including producer Giuseppe Zaccariello, Filippo Ottoni, Sergio Canevari, Dardano Sacchetti and Franco Barberi.
Bava was devoted to the film, and its low budget meant he would also serve as his own cinematographer, often creating innovative tracking shots with a toy wagon and relying on in-camera tricks to make the location seem much more expansive than it was. In fact, most of the lush forest was actually just Bava moving a few branches in front of the lens to hide the fact that they were filming in someone’s backyard.
There are thirteen murders in the film, many of which are incredibly gory, thanks to the skill of Carlo Rambaldi, as several characters vie to inherit the titular bay. Rambaldi, who would go on to create the lovable E.T., was clearly in a much darker headspace here, crafting throat-slashes and decapitations that look painfully wet even fifty years later.
The film divides critics and fans: some see it as pure gore, while others see it as the nuanced films Bava is known for. For example, Christopher Lee went on record saying he found the movie revolting. This from a guy who played Dracula ten times! If the Count thinks you’ve gone too far, you’re doing something right.
It also gave rise to the slasher genre, as every film that follows owes it a debt of gory gratitude. And some owe it plenty more, in particular Friday the 13th Part 2, which copies two of the kills in this film shot-for-shot. Steve Miner didn’t just take notes; he took the whole damn blueprint.
The story is all over the place and has a mix of dark humor and pure meanness at its core, starting with Filippo Donati strangling his wife, Countess Federica, before being stabbed and killed scant seconds later. His corpse is dragged to the bay, where his murder goes undiscovered as detectives begin their investigation into the death of the Countess.
That’s when we meet Frank (Chris Avram, Enter the Devil), a real estate agent, and his girlfriend Laura (Anna Maria Rosati), who plot to take over the bay. They were working with Donati to kill his wife and now need his signature, but don’t realize that he is already fish food.
Meanwhile, four teenagers hear about the murders and break into the mansion. One of them, Brunhilda, skinny dips in the bay until the dead corpse of Donati surfaces and touches her. She screams and runs toward the mansion, only to be killed by an unseen murderer holding a billhook. That killer uses that same weapon to kill her boyfriend, Bobby, then he impales Duke and Denise together with a spear while they’re having sex. Here’s a good lesson that I constantly yell: don’t fuck in the woods, don’t fuck in a haunted house, don’t fuck when a killer is about.
The killer turns out to be the Countess’s illegitimate son, Simon (Claudio Volonté, brother of Gian Maria Volonté), who is wiping out everyone under Frank’s orders. Renata (Claudine Auger, Domino from Thunderball) shows up to throw a wrench in the work, as she’s the Countess’ real daughter. Along with her husband, Albert (Luigi Pistilli, who Western fans will recognize from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), she begins to make plans to kill her half-brother.
What follows is a near Grand Guignol of back-and-forth murder: Frank attacks Renata, who turns the tables and stabs him with a knife. Paolo, the entomologist who lives on the estate grounds (played by Leopoldo Trieste, whom Bava fans know from The Girl Who Knew Too Much), sees the killing but is strangled by Albert before he can call the police, and his wife is decapitated with an axe. Laura shows up, but Simon strangles her to death before Albert kills him. Frank shows up again, but Albert takes him out, leaving Renata as the sole heir.
They return home to await being awarded the money, but as they get to the front door, their children shoot them with a shotgun, thinking they are playing with their parents. Bored with the game and how long their parents have been playing dead, the kids run out to play another game. It’s an ending that can be viewed as pure comedy or a sad comment on humanity. Maybe both. It’s the ultimate “fuck you” to the audience, suggesting that greed and violence are literally in our DNA.
Bay of Blood isn’t the Gothic art of past Bava films like Black Sunday, but it’s not trash. It’s a mean-spirited and brilliantly executed exercise in style. It’s also been claimed to have been Bava’s favorite film that he directed, perhaps because he finally got to strip away the romance and show the world for the meat grinder it is. Dario Argento adores the movie so much that he literally stole a print of it from a theater! If you ever find yourself in Rome and see Dario running down the street with a film canister, now you know why.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
After the absolute banger ending of Halloween 4, where little Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) went full-tilt boogeyman on her foster mom, we all expected the next chapter to be The Bad Seed of Haddonfield. Instead, Michael Myers, who was shot approximately ten thousand times and dropped down a mine shaft, survives by floating down a river like a waterlogged log of pure evil.
He’s nursed back to health by a hermit and a parrot (yes, really) for a year. Once he wakes up, he kills his benefactor and heads back to town to find Jamie. Jamie is now mute, institutionalized, and sharing a psychic link with her uncle. While Dr. Loomis screams at a child to find a killer, Michael stalks a group of teens led by the hyperactive Tina, leading to a climax in the old Myers house involving a laundry chute and a mysterious Man in Black who has some very aggressive feelings about police stations.
Yes, The Shape takes a page out of Frankenstein, as an old hermit nurses him back to life after the last film’s mine shaft death sequence. Then he goes right back to killing and stalking his niece. The one exciting moment, when a mysterious stranger in black kills nearly the entire cast at the conclusion of the film, suggests that whatever happens next, it’s going to be awesome. I agree with Donald Pleasence and Danielle Harris, who wanted to continue the story of Jamie turning evil after stabbing her stepmother in the past film. Instead, we got Michael crying. Crying! You don’t make the Shape shed a tear unless it’s made of blood.
Here’s an interview with my wife about this movie and why she loves it.
BECCA: One word: Tina. Michael and his convertible… Mikey. That mean asshole, he gets hit with a rake and Michael Myers steals her car to get him. I love that Michael just knows how to drive a stick shift and navigate a 1989 Camaro like he’s in The Fast and the Furious. It’s ridiculous and I live for it.
SAM: How many times have you seen this movie?
BECCA: Five billion. It’s one of the ones I rented every week. I don’t know why my parents didn’t just find this and buy it. It would have saved them $2.00 a week at the local Video King.
SAM: This movie feels like a fever dream directed by someone who had never seen a Halloween movie but had seen a lot of European art house films and Miami Vice. Why are there two bumbling cops with clown sound effects? Why did they change the Myers house into a Gothic Victorian mansion that definitely wasn’t there in 1978?
BECCA: Because it’s the 80s, Sam! Style over logic! Plus, Donald Pleasence is at his absolute most unhinged here. He’s basically using a traumatized child as live bait. He’s more of a villain than Michael is at points. He’s literally barking at her!
SAM: It’s a mess, but it’s a fascinating mess. It gave us the Thorn tattoo and the Man in Black, setting up a sequel that would eventually involve Paul Rudd and Druid cults. It’s the moment the franchise decided that slasher wasn’t enough and supernatural soap opera was the way to go.
This is the middle child of the Thorn Trilogy. It’s loud, it’s confusing, it has a mask that looks like an angry potato with long hair and we love it anyway. Watch it for Danielle Harris giving a performance that is way better than the script deserves.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
After trying to turn the franchise into an anthology, Moustapha Akkad realized that if there isn’t a white mask on the poster, fans aren’t buying tickets. So, ten years after the night he was blown up in a hospital, Michael Myers wakes up from a coma during a standard-issue let’s transport the serial killer in a rainstorm ambulance transfer.
Michael heads back to Haddonfield to wrap up some family business. Laurie Strode is dead (killed off-screen in a car accident because Jamie Lee Curtis had moved on to A-list things), leaving behind a daughter named Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris). While Jamie deals with school bullies — Haddonfield may have the worst children ever — and connecting with her foster sister, Rachel (Ellie Cornell), Michael is busy impaling mechanics and shoving thumbs through skulls. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) returns, looking more scarred and frantic than ever, trying to convince a skeptical town that the Boogeyman is back. It all culminates in a rooftop chase and a twist ending that promised a dark future the sequels immediately chickened out of.
This film feels nearly bloodless after the second film. It trades the John Carpenter dread for a slasher-by-the-numbers aesthetic that feels more like a made-for-TV movie than a cinematic nightmare. And don’t get me started on the mask. Michael looks like he’s wearing a department store knock-off that’s permanently surprised to be there. But wow, the opening credits may be the best Autumn mood moments ever. As more Halloween movies have been made, this has moved up on my list, however. I really love the idea that Loomis has lost his mind and been hunting Michael ever since; there are some wonderful small moments, like him sharing a drink with the preacher.
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
Post-Carrie, we’ve seen so many films where people turn to the Devil to help them fit in or fight back against bullies. But let’s face it — when you dress up Carrie White or Sissy Spacek or Chloë Grace Moretz, they end up being attractive. But Clint Howard? There’s really no dressing up, Clint.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the man and his many, many contributions to film (Balok from the Star Trek TV series, Carnosaur, Apollo 13, Rock ‘n Roll High School, and so much more). But you can totally see how he fits his role as Stanley Coopersmith in this movie.
Evilspeak starts in the past, where Satanist Father Esteban (Richard Moll, who ends up in these reviews a lot, thanks to films like The Nightmare Never Ends and The Dungeonmaster) and his followers are exiled from Spain and denied the grace of God, unless they renounce Satan and his evil ways. We wouldn’t have a movie if they gave in, right?
Fast forward to the 80’s. Stanley Coopersmith is an orphan, a poor kid who has been allowed into a military school alongside the children of some of the nation’s richest and most powerful people. Everybody — including the teachers — pretty much uses Stanley like a punching bag. While cleaning the church cellar, he finds Father Esteban’s room, which is filled with black magic books and a diary. Stanley uses his 1981 computer skills to translate the book and learn more about Esteban. My words will not translate how great Stanley’s Apple II’s computing power is.
The next morning, Stanley’s classmates tie up his clothes and unplug his alarm clock, which leads him to be punished. As he cleans the stables, the school secretary finds Esteban’s diary. As she plays with the jewels on the cover, pigs attack Stanley. He returns to his room to find all of his belongings destroyed and his book gone.
Sick of running out of computer time, Stanley steals a computer and sets it up in the basement. He’s only missing a few ingredients — human blood and a consecrated host.
That evening, the cook takes pity on Stanley and gives him Fred, a puppy. Seriously, this is the only person in the entire film who treats our hero with an ounce of respect, unlike Coach Collins in Carrie, who tries throughout the film to treat her well.
Stanley gets the Eucharist he needs and notices Esteban’s portrait. As he begins the ritual, students in masks and robes attack him. Stanley’s woes are compounded when the caretaker accuses him of being a thief and attacks him. He yells for help, and the computer starts up, revealing a pentagram. Suddenly, the caretaker’s head is spun around, killing him. As he hides the body in the catacombs, Stanley finds decapitated skeletons and Father Esteban’s crypt.
The secretary tries to pry the jewels out of the black magic book, but bleeds all over it. As she takes a shower, demonic boars attack and eat her. This scene is gratuitous as fuck. It is also incredibly awesome because the movie is just about to stop torturing Stanley and go off the rails.
Stanley gets attacked by his soccer team, who tell him that if he tries to play in the big game, they’ll kill Fred the dog. After seeing him get beaten, the principal kicks him off the team. And it gets worse. As the team goes out drinking, they break into his hidden room and kill his dog.
At this point, I was screaming at the screen for Stanley to do something. It was as if he was listening. He steals another piece of communion and kills a teacher who follows him in by throwing him into a spiked wheel. The ritual begins, and Father Esteban takes control of Stanley’s body, taking up a sword and attacking the church service above.
What follows is a near orgy of destruction. A nail from the Crucifix goes right into the brain of a priest. Wild demon boars emerge while Stanley levitates above them and starts chopping off everyone’s heads in gory, bloody geysers. The lead bully runs, only to meet the zombie caretaker, who rips out his heart. Then, Stanley burns the church to the ground.
I’m not understating this — this is literally five or six minutes of pure Satanic revenge porn. Everyone who did anything to Stanley for the past running time of the film gets it good. It was enough to get this film classified as a “video nasty” in the UK, and there were even more gore scenes, but they have supposedly been lost forever after the MPAA cuts. The final UK release had none of the Black Mass text and none of the gore at the end — what a loss!
If the film ended here, it would be the best movie ever. But no, producer Sylvio Tabet was a devout Christian. That’s why he added a Khalil Gibran quote in the prologue and ended the film with a caption that states that only Stanley survived the attack, but went catatonic and is in Sunnydale Asylum. That said, Stanley’s face shows up on the computer in the basement and promises, “I will return.”
I discovered a great article that discusses just how Evilspeak was allowed to be shot in a Catholic church. Another urban legend of the film is that upon refurbishing part of the church, an aged priest saw the “new church” and dropped to his knees to thank God. I hope he never saw the film, one that Anton LaVey believed explained the Satanic faith (it appears on the approved films list of the Church of Satan’s website and Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest of the COS, stated that the film is Satanic because it depicts “a fellow who is treated unjustly gets revenge on his cruel tormentors. But of course, there are some nifty jabs at Christian hypocrisy along the way…”).
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
A movie about a socially awkward, totally obsessed film fan whose love of old films borders on the obsessive, with nights filled with movie after movie after movie? This one hits a little too close to home.
Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher, Breaking Away) works in a Los Angeles film distributor warehouse by day and watches movies by night. He’s the guy I was referring to earlier — someone so into movies he gets bullied by his family and co-workers. And when he meets Marilyn O’Connor, who looks like Marilyn Monroe, he finally finds someone whose looks are similar to the movie ideal that life does not always achieve. Or maybe he’s just so crazy that when he sees her, he goes into a fantasy fugue state and only sees what his brain will allow him to see.
Somehow, Eric is able to ask her out, but she stands him up by accident. This drives him completely out of his mind, transforming him into various film icons to destroy his enemies.
First, he re-enacts Kiss of Death by pushing his Aunt Stella (who is really his mother) down the steps, then shows up at her funeral as Tommy Udo, the role Richard Widmark played in the film. No one gets it. No one has seen the movies that Eric loves. There is no one to discuss them with. They can’t even put her grave next to Marilyn Monroe’s grave in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
Eric then becomes Count Dracula and attends a midnight showing of Night of the Living Dead. Eric then goes to Marilyn’s house in a scene inspired by Psycho. She screams, he drops his pen into the water, and the ink becomes the blood. “I only wanted your autograph,” he yells as he runs.
Eric then goes back to find a hooker who had been rude to him. He chases her, she falls and dies, then he drinks her blood. Obviously, Eric has not seen Martin. Actually, the way this scene is intercut with scenes from old black-and-white horror films, I am certain the makers of this film have seen Romero’s vampire film.
Now that Eric has gone this far, why not dress up as Hopalong Cassidy and kill off Richie (Mickey Rourke in an early role), a co-worker who bullies him.
Oh yeah — Tim Thomerson is a criminal psychologist who is working with a policewoman (they’re having sex, because 1980 and all) to find what he believes is a serial killer. The big problem is that his captain wants all the glory for himself.
Eric talks to his aunt as if she were still alive, then, after watching Halloween (producer Irwin Yablans also produced that film), he pleases himself while looking at a photo of Marilyn Monroe.
Eric’s dream has been to own his own movie theater and to make his own movie. He tells a sleazeball named Gary Bially his idea, Alabama and the Forty Thieves, and you get the feeling that not much good can come of it.
Eric’s boss fires him and won’t allow him back into work to get his posters. As his everyday self, even when trying to talk like a movie character, Eric is impotent. But when he’s dressed as The Mummy, he can frighten his boss into a heart attack.
After seeing Gary Bially on a talk show, where he talks up the movie Eric created as his own, Eric shows up at the producer’s birthday party. Dressed as James Cagney’s character from White Heat, he fires a submachine gun at everyone in the room before killing the man who stole from him.
The cops are on to Eric, but he’s hired Marilyn for a photo shoot and is all set to re-enact The Prince and the Showgirl when Thomerson’s character arrives. Eric runs to Mann’s Chinese Theater and makes it to the roof before dying just like Cagney in White Heat, yelling, “Made it, ma! Top of the world!”
Director and writer Vernon Zimmerman also created Unholy Rollers, but this movie is way beyond that. It shows how seeing the world only through movies can be dangerous to yourself and everyone else. Eric goes from shy and withdrawn to dark and mean by the end of the movie, becoming a new character. I wonder what he would have thought about the movie made from his life?
April Ghouls Drive-In Monster-Rama is back at The Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA on April 24 and 25, 2026. Admission is still only $15 per person each night (children 12 and under free with adult) and overnight camping is available (breakfast included). You can buy tickets at the show, but get there early and learn more here.
Sometimes, you end up loving a movie for what it could be, way more than for what it is.
Popcorn would be one of those films.
Buried somewhere in its slasher framing story and four films within a film, some great ideas should have been explored further. And the closer the film gets to its conclusion, the more it starts to explain itself. I’m more in the John Carpenter camp when it comes to too much information — I’m often just fine not needing to know every motivation of a film’s villain. To wit — I don’t need to know that Michael Myers made papier-mache masks to assuage his pain. I don’t even need to know that he’s a human being. I just want the story to thrill me.
Popcorn was filmed entirely in Kingston, Jamaica — which explains the later dance numbers. That’s right. Dance numbers. The more you watch this film, the more incongruous it becomes. The production was also fraught with changes, as Alan Ormsby was originally the film’s director before being replaced by Porky’s actor Mark Herrier several weeks into filming.
Ormsby has a crazy bio — in addition to working with Bob Clark on Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Deranged and Death Dream, he also wrote Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People and My Bodyguard. And strangely, he’s also credited with creating Kenner’s 1975 action figure Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces!
At the same time, Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather) replaced the original lead, Amy O’Neill. In fact, Schoelen was barely in scenes with the rest of the cast because so much had already been filmed, so she mostly appeared in reshoots! Even the title had something to do with a plot element that was cut from the final film, but the producers and distributor liked it so much that it was retained.
The film begins with Maggie Butler (Schoelen), an aspiring screenwriter and college student, who has recurring nightmares in which she is a young girl named Sarah. These dreams — in which a strange man stalks her — happen so often that she has an audio diary of them. Those very same dreams may or may not be connected to the prank phone calls her mom, Suzanne (Dee Wallace Stone, The Howling, E.T., Critters and many more), has been getting.
Sarah is also dating Mark (Derek Rydall, Eric from Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge), who tries to get her to come to his dorm room. She can’t — the script that she’s writing based on her dreams is more important. And so is the all-night horrorthon (JOIN US FOR THE HORRO-RITUAL!) that the school’s film department is putting on. It’s all Toby D’Amato’s (Tom Villard, who was one of the first 90s actors to openly admit that he was dying from AIDS) idea — with the goal of purchasing new editing equipment. NOTE: One assumes that Toby is named for Joe D’Amato, director of Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Antropophagus, Absurd, Troll 2 and the Ator the Fighting Eagle series, plus 200 or more films.
The kids convert the Dreamland Theater — due to be destroyed in three weeks — with the help of Professor Davis (Tony Roberts, Annie Hall, Amityville 3-D) and a quick cameo from Ray Walston as Dr. Mnesyne, the provider of the props for the films.
Ah, those films — these movies-within-a-movie provide the best part of Popcorn. They are:
Mosquito: This 3-D film is a tribute to nature gone wild and nuclear terror movies of the 1950s. Even better, it pays tribute to Emergo, the technology (well, as far as sliding a skeleton down a rope can be called technology) that William Castle used to gimmick up House on Haunted Hill.
The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man: A callback to films like The Amazing Colossal Man, while also a nod to German expressionistic camera angles (a certainly odd blend). There’s a great scene here where the Electrified Man battles a gang of greasers armed with switchblades. There’s another gimmick here called “Shock-o-Scope” which is another tribute to William Castle and his film The Tingler.
The Stench: This is obviously a dubbed Japanese film, ala The Green Slime, but with the added gimmick of Odorama. There have been actual movies that use this technology, such as Scent of Mystery and, more dear to this author’s heart, John Waters’ Polyester.
Possessor: Found within Dr. Mnesyne’s — his name translates as memory — equipment, this short film is the most interesting part of Popcorn. It’s supposed to be a snuff film made by a Mansonesque cult of acidheads, but it looks and feels like something straight out of José Mojica Marins’ oeuvre (known as Coffin Joe, he’s made some of the strangest and best-titled films ever, such as At Midnight I’ll Take Your Souland This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse). Seriously, this strange little film, in which a voice just repeats “possessor” over and over while blood fills the screen, is awesome. If only the rest of the film — and one scene I’ll get to shortly — had been as imaginative and odd as this, we’d have a real winner on our hands.
Just by watching Possessor, Maggie passes out and has another nightmare. Upon awakening, Professor Davis informs the class that the film comes from Lanyard Gates (Bruce Glover, father of Crispin Hellion Glover), the leader of the aforementioned cult, who ended his final film by killing his family onstage while the theater burned down in flames around the audience. There were no survivors and no explanation for why the film survived.
As Maggie grows increasingly obsessed with the film, her mother becomes upset, telling her to just quit the film festival. That night, her mother gets a call from Lanyard Gates, telling her to meet him at the festival and to bring a gun.
The next day, when Maggie mans the box office, a man buys a ticket and calls her Sarah. She freaks, thinking it’s Gates. Meanwhile, just as the Professor is about to launch the mosquito prop during the film cue, a shadowy figure takes control of it, impaling him. Then, we see the same figure making a mask of the dead man’s face.
Oh yeah — Maggie’s mom shows up at the theater with a gun, and in the film’s best scene, Gates takes over reality, transforming the marquee to read “POSSESSOR.” That said — this scene has NOTHING to do with the rest of the film, as our villain has no such psychic or reality warping powers.
No one will believe Maggie’s story, and the films continue. A student named Tina (Freddie Marie Simpson, who, along with Megan Cavanagh and Tracy Reiner, appeared in both the movie and TV series A League of Their Own) has been having an affair with the Professor, whose doppelganger kills her and then uses her body to electrocute wheelchair bound Bud while he sets off the buzzing seats during the next film.
When Maggie finds his body, she runs into Gates and has a flashback. Turns out that she’s really his daughter, Sarah Gates, and Suzanne is not her mother, but her aunt who saved her. She tells all to Toby, who turns out to not be Gates, but his imitator. He was badly burned at the only showing of Possessor and holds Maggie and her aunt responsible. He prepares them both for his final act…of murder!
While setting up the Odorama, Leon is killed by Toby (but not before he pees all over him), yet he stops from killing Joanie when she confesses her unrequited love for him — an odd choice for a slasher film.
Whew. There are so many unnecessary characters and extra girlfriends and weird asides like a landlord who wants to be an actor, which, honestly, take away from the film. Long story short, Toby reenacts the end of Possessor to the jeers of the crowd, revealing his full face — a gruesome visage of wires and burned flesh. Luckily, he’s killed by the Mosquito prop just in time to save everyone — which is either a cheap repeat or a previous kill or a sly comment on sequels. Let’s go with the former. That said, it has a really nice pre-GoPro-mounted camera effect as Toby dies, but not before hearing the cheers of the crowd.
Honestly, Popcorn is a mess. But it’s an enjoyable mess. It’s simultaneously a tribute to 1950s black and white gimmick films while attempting to be meta commentary on the slasher genre, with none of the teeth of a film like Scream. There are ridiculous parts, like death by toilet and a way too long musical number where a reggae band plays while a cosplay-heavy crowd dances and Toby going from quiet kid to Freddy Krueger clone in the too quick conclusion to the tale. Throw in a balls-out bonkers end song — “Scary Scary Movies” — that features lyrics like “psycho on the move got a blade two feet long, kisses for his wife while he slices the bitch….so long!” screamed at the top of the rapper’s lungs, and you have something worth watching.
As an aside, the rapper Kabal has been doing entire albums of cheesy rap songs from horror movies. He even covered the theme from Popcorn!
There’s a heart and inventiveness to the film. There’s a real love for movies in here, particularly the fun promotional style of William Castle. It’s definitely worth a watch, as the 90-minute or so runtime practically flies by.
B&S About Movies 
You must be logged in to post a comment.