Someone asked me the other day, “Have you seen Weapons yet?”

Nope.

“Sinners?”

No.

“These are the most important horror movies of the year. Why haven’t you?”

Because I have all these Popeye and Mickey Mouse slashers, and then Amityville…

After moving into a mysterious rental house in Amityville, New York — that’s how it always happens — artificial intelligence programmer Stuart Birdsall (Chris Heikka) encounters an evil force that kills his wife Vicki (Laura Schubring) and friends, but leaves him alive to go insane.

Another day in Amityville.

Directed and written by Matt Jaissle, this is better than you’d think. That’s because he’s the same maniac who made The Necro Files, so some of that madness is infused here. He also made Amityville AI, which is the start of this story. Also: He understands the Amityville + noun = success formula. He also gets that you must have a great tagline. This one? For God’s sake, stop the simulation.

Throw in a skeleton man and you get a movie that actually spent more than five minutes in scripting, which is four minutes more than most Amityville movies get. That’s right — this is an actual decent Amityville movie! That’s terrifying!

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Michael Gornick, who was the cinematographer for Romero’s Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders, Day of the Dead and the original Creepshow, this follow-up is based once again on King stories (but screenwritten by Romero).

Creepshow 2 was originally going to be five stories (Pinfall and Cat from Hell went unfilmed, although Cat does appear in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie), but a lower budget forced the film to only include three tales.

Pinnacle was to be about the rivalry between two bowling teams, with one coming back from the dead to kill the other. It reminds me a lot of the story in Haunt of Fear #19, Foul Play!

Instead of what wasn’t filmed, let’s get into what was: In Dexter, Maine, a delivery truck pulls up and drops off the latest issue of Creepshow, with the driver being the Creep himself!

In Old Chief Wood’nhead, an elderly couple named Ray and Martha Spruce (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour in her last role) live in an old town on its last legs. No one in the city has money, and soon, the store they own — and their lives — will fade away, too. Chief Whitemoon comes to visit and gives them sacred jewelry to pay back his debt. It’s not money, but the thought is what counts.

As the wise old man leaves, the wooden Indian that stands guard in the store nods to him, which frightens him. It foreshadows what happens next, as that night, the chief’s nephew, with Sam and his gang, rob the store and kill the kindly old couple. Their blood splashes all over the old wooden chief as they depart with the stolen sacred jewels.

The gang plans to go to Hollywood, where Sam thinks his long hair will make him a star. But he and his entire gang are killed, with their scalps and the jewelry left for the old chief.

In The Raft, four teens (one of them is Page Hannah, the sister of Daryl and all of the characters share the surname of the actor playing them) try to go swimming but have to contend with a black blob that wants to kill them all. Again — this is a straightforward tale told well. I’d say it’s the highlight of the film, but the more I write about these, the more I remember how much I genuinely enjoy this movie.

Finally, The Hitchhiker concerns a businesswoman who is trying to get home from a tryst with her lover before her husband notices. Along the way, she hits a man who keeps coming back. And coming back. And coming back. Again, a simple idea, but told really well. Ironically, the hitchhiker is played by Tom Wright, who played the civil rights activist who comes back from the head in Tales from the Hood. It’s an amazingly similar role! Even stranger is that Barbara Eden was to play the woman before her mother’s illness caused her to drop out.

Ed French was the original effects guy for this, but got upset when director Gornick asked Howard Berger for advice, as he wasn’t happy with the look of the creature in The Raft. Greg Nicotero and Berger finished the movie, and they enlisted Tom Savini to play The Creep.

Creepshow 2 doesn’t have the gloss of the original. That doesn’t make it a horrible movie. The longer I’ve been around, the more I’ve come to like this film. Over the past few years, I’ve re-evaluated it and have come away liking it so much more than I did on first watch.

The Arrow Video release of Creepshow 2 has a brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original negative. Extras include an audio commentary with director Michael Gornick; interviews with screenwriter George A. Romero, actor and make-up artist Tom Savini and actors Daniel Beer and Tom Wright; a special effects featurette; behind-the-scenes footage; an image gallery; Howard Berger discussing Rick Baker; trailers and TV ads; screenplay galleries; Creepshow 2: Pinfall, a limited edition booklet featuring the comic adaptation of the unfilmed Creepshow 2 segment Pinfall by artist Jason Mayoh; an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Mike Saputo. You can order this from MVD.

Toby Poser, John Adams, and their daughters Zelda and Lulu made The Deeper You Dig, a movie that divided Becca and me. For their follow-up, the Adams family has created a movie all about 16-year-old Izzy (Zelda), whose mother (Toby Poser) keeps her isolated due to a rare illness. Yet as Izzy begins to grow as a woman — beyond playing metal songs (written by Toby and Zelda) as the band H6LLB6ND6R without an audience may not be enough — she escapes to another home in the woods where she meets Amber (Lulu), who gives her a bikini and the chance to drink with teenagers.

Yet when she consumes a live worm, the hunger of being a hellbender opens her eyes and she soon learns exactly why her mother keeps her from others.

At first, I felt like this movie was kind of like seeing an opening act at a show and not feeling the first few songs that they play. It feels inauthentic. Not metal? Silly facepaint? And then before you know it, you’re nodding your head and feeling the urge to headbang by the end of the set. This film took some time to grow on me — The Deeper You Dig had some of the same issues — but when it works, it works.

The effects either look great for the budget or remind you of the budget, yet never feel like they’re organic to the film. That’s fine — this is a very DIY effort — and it actually becomes charming. I’ve never really trusted homeschooled kids who are too close to their parents, but maybe this is one of those families that gets the dynamic right.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray of this movie has extras including audio commentary with filmmakers Toby Poser, John Adams, Zelda Adams and Lulu Adams, a video essay by filmmaker Jen Handorf, a featurette on the visual effects by VFX artist Trey Lindsay, behind-the-scenes footage, a short film by Zelda Adams, four music videos, a trailer, a reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Beth Morris and original artwork by Sister Hyde and an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Natasha Ball and Kat Hughes. You can order this from MVD.

I have sworn not to go Amityville on these Popeye movies or the Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie slashers and here I am, watching one.

Directed and written by Paul Stephen Mann, this takes place in 1986 — a strange choice, stay with it — as Olive Oyl (Amy Mackie) and her brother Castor (Brendan Nelson) go camping to watch Hailey’s Comet.

They already have Popeye and now they need a comet to land in his pipe and transform him?

Anyways, Popeye goes total Victor Crowley and rips heads off. He also likes to shit down their necks, which I don’t remember ever happening before. Toxic waste is another of his weapons. And then Olive Oyl uses the comet to build an Ash chainsaw and saws the sailor in half before making a robot hand.

Um, yeah.

I appreciate all the references to 80s movies, but it’s as if they were making a slasher and ended up using a character that first showed up in 1929. Because that’s precisely what they did.

This is 65 minutes, at least. And just like Robert Altman, Mann refuses to show Popeye eat spinach, because you know, why would you have him do something that he’s expected to do? No, just make a slasher. At least they balanced the colors and the sound isn’t bad.

You can watch this on Tubi.