Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Stelvio Cipriani

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.

I’m ashamed to admit that the name Stelvio Cipriani did not ring any bells when I first saw this category on the list this year. It is just my ignorance, because Cipriani’s score for Mario Bava’s masterpiece A Bay of Blood (AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve AKA Carnage AKA Blood Bath AKA dozens of other titles) is one of my favorite film scores of all time—across all genres. It has so many different flavors, from the menacing, almost jungle beats of the introduction, to the whimsical finale. It is pretty perfect.

Cipriani’s score here in Ring of Darkness is definitely also scoring. It probably helps that his composition is executed by Goblin, really leaning into the prog rock, almost droning feel. I could not help but think about the score used in Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness as comps to the style of the score. I’m also ashamed to admit that I might have fallen asleep halfway through Ring of Darkness. I’ll blame a combination of sleep deprivation and the beats dropped throughout the film that just lulled me to slumber. Now, Ring of Darkness is not a very exciting film, but I was never bored by it.

Beginning with an extended opening sequence, we learn that a group of women is bound together by their love of dance and the love of the devil. Years pass, and eventually the daughter of one of the women is having her own sort of spring awakening, suddenly becoming self-aware that her true father is Lucifer himself. 

While Ring of Darkness was accused of being another Italian rip-off of The Exorcist (writer-director Pier Carpi claimed to have written the story prior to William Blatty’s novel), the film really owes more to films such as Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen. Really, all three films form a sort of unholy trinity that, let’s just say, inspired many horror films in the 1970s and 80s. 

No one would confuse Daria (Lara Wendel) with Reagan or Damien in terms of memorable, menacing demonic characters. Is she the spawn of Satan, or has she just hit puberty? She goes around calling her mother “mother” in an annoying way that only a teenage girl could do. She does leave a scorching handprint on the chest of a classmate who wants to try to make the moves on her, an ability I’m sure most girls wish they had to rid themselves of annoying teenage boys.

Eventually, Daria ends up at the Vatican. Why? I guess we will never know, as no sequel was produced, or probably asked for by anyone ever. Still, I was interested in knowing what would happen next. Just like I wanted to know the next chapter in The Omen after Damien turns around and smiles back at the camera as he attends his parents’ funeral.

I watched this one on TUBI under the alternate title Satan’s Wife, which might just be one of the worst titles in cinematic history. There is no wife of Satan here. I’m not sure Satan is down with such long-term commitments. A much better title would have been To the Devil a Daughter, but Hammer had already used that one a few years prior. 

Directed by Jack Bravman, whose other credits include directing Adam West in 1987’s Zombie Nightmare and working as a producer on 1976’s Snuff (“The Film that Could Only Be made in South America… where life is cheap!”). Life isn’t cheap in The Dribbler, but just about everything else is. 

Released in 1990, after the zenith of the ‘80s slasher boom and before Scream ushered in an age of self-aware teenage fright flicks, Dribbler is not so much a forgotten gem as it is…. well.. forgotten. It is the story of Stanley, a waterboy with ambitions of joining the basketball team. Members of the team have a bad habit of turning up dead, and a killer in a basketball-headed mascot costume is to blame. Is Stanley the killer? Before the audience can find out, we will be subjected to numerous sub-Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker wordplay gags. I will admit, some jokes do land for me (“the last time I saw faces like yours… was on the court, about 51 seconds ago.”). But you already know if you are the kind of person who will appreciate humor exemplified by a basketball team having the unlikely moniker of The Watergate Plumbers. 

It is a rather bloodless affair, although not an unpleasant viewing experience. Gregory Calpakis, the actor portraying Stanley, would have a longer career in television, but he isn’t really memorable here. His love interest, Becky, portrayed by Flavia Carrozzi, is cute, vaguely goth, and unrelentingly supportive in a way that undoubtedly appealed to the sort of teenage boy that comprised the film’s target audience. Ultimately, she doesn’t have a lot to do other than spout out After School Special cliches. The true star of this show is TV’s Fred Travalena, playing a dual role as both the coach and the basketball announcer. It is not entirely clear if Travalena is playing two characters or if the school district is underfunded. Either way, movie seems designed as a bit-delivery vehicle for Travalena. You can decide for yourself if that is a good thing or a terrible one.

For years, this movie was a holy grail for me. While attending a slasher movie festival at the Mahoning Drive-In, I overheard another patron reference Night of the Dribbler as an example of the genre that no one else had seen. Of course, that meant I had to seek it out. When I finally found it, I was confused who this movie was honestly made for. The humor isn’t funny enough for the film to be considered a spoof in the tradition of Alfred Sole’s 1982 Pandemonium. There is not enough suspense in the kills to placate the slasher fans. There is hardly any sleaze to speak of to titillate that audience in other ways. It may be the sort of film that is most enjoyable as an oddity to inflict upon friends. There is a Code Red DVD floating around for slasher completionists. For the merely curious, the film can be found on YouTube.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Slasher!

About the Author: Parker Simpson is a writer and podcaster focusing on cult films and their social impacts. They currently cohost Where Is My Mind, a podcast focusing on underappreciated films from a variety of genres and countries. They have also held panels, chartered local organizations, and written articles to their blog. When not writing or studying, they like to spend time with their pets and go outside. Check out the podcast Linktree and blog.

Dang, this thing is slo- wait, is that a Confederate flag on the wall? Where does this movie take place? Ohio? That was a union state!

Girls Nite Out lives in the same vein of small town slashers, its brethren being My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, and Sleepaway Camp. You could also safely say elements of Halloween and Friday the 13th are spliced in for good measure. The basic plot is simple: young people put in a precarious situation involving an unknown killer taking them down, one by one. Girls Nite Out’s spin on this is putting them in a scavenger hunt in this small town, and having the killer be a dude in a mascot suit (to any of my friends who are Five Nights at Freddy’s fans: DOWN BOY, DOWN! SIT. STAY. HEEL!). As someone who has lived in a small college town, how poorly attended is this university to have the student body participate in a scavenger hunt?

Nothing. Happens. For. A. Very. Long. Time. I think that’s how it normally is in Ohio anyhow, unless Joe Burrow is playing football. It’s not a terribly eventful film, relying on the small-town hijinks of several college kids. I know a lot of people get annoyed when a movie just relies on its coziness, but I never really mind it. Jess Franco does the same thing in several of his films, only the cozy is broken up by sex instead of brutal murders. I have no issue either way. The bear mascot is creepy as fuck, constantly calling his female victims “whores” and killing people via knives on his paws (proto-Freddy Krueger?), filling the requirement that there be some gore (however minimal). He’s really the most noticeable character, along with Hal Holbrook’s policeman and the radio DJ. Everyone else blurs together, being treated like meatbags (particularly the women).

Listen, I feel bad not having much to talk about with this. It’s pretty straight to the point, with little attraction outside of the slasher gimmick. Everyone clearly has a good time despite the cookie-cutter plot, setting, and character archetypes. It’s a good “background” movie, if you want to be cruel, and a good comfort movie if you’re tired and just want to watch an old-school slasher. I know my local drive-in double-billed this with Madman, in what I imagine was a very fun, old-timey screening perfect for the beginning of fall. I wonder how many people came to that after the mass exodus that Society produced the previous weekend (more on that later this month!). As for this film (and this review), just like the one meme from several years ago said, “It isn’t much, but it’s honest work.”

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Slashers

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.

Are we sure that Fred Olen Ray’s gritty, grimy, grainy film Scalps was made in 1983? Are we sure that it was directed by Fred Olen Ray? It really feels out of place in both his filmography and the time in which it was released.

By 1983, we were on the downward trajectory on the slasher trend. Having peaked around 1981, there really was nowhere else to go but down. Still, 1983 brought us plenty of interesting slashers. Sleepaway Camp. Psycho II. Mausoleum. While the plot of Scalps is not terribly interesting in and of itself, there are some aspects worth digging into (so to speak).

There is plenty of digging in Scalps. A group of college students go out to an area in the California desert to perform some archeological research. Of course, at the local convenience store, they are warned by a Native American in his best Crazy Ralph impersonation (“It’s got a death curse!”) to not disturb the ancient burial grounds found in the Black Forest (or something like that—I should take better notes). Do they listen? Of course not, because there would be no movie if they did. Eventually, one of the guys gets possessed by a Native American spirit and chaos reigns. 

It is all pretty standard 80s slasher tropes. But the look of the film feels closer to 1973 than 1983. If I did not know any better, I would have been certain that this film fell into the proto-slasher years. It was definitely made on the cheap with a reported budget of $15,000. Fred Olen Ray himself described the film as 6 Kids, a Station Wagon, and a Tent. He is not wrong.

One aspect I found interesting is how fairly unlikable this group is as a whole. I typically find it more appealing when I like the characters. I like it when a film takes its time to develop the characters and the relationships between and among the group in a slasher. Then I feel bad when they inevitably get killed. I’m not one to root for a character’s death just because they are annoying or downright hateful. Most films in the early 80s trended toward the likable character. It is interesting to see the beginning of the trend in the other direction. Another slasher from 1983, The Final Terror, feels very similar. These two films might make a decent double feature pairing, although it is not one I would be clamoring to see. Both films feel like Friday the 13th cash-ins versus a straight-up rip-off. And both groups of campers are full of individuals I would not care to be around for any period of time.

I did like Scalps more than it may seem though. I do generally like a boring slasher. This one is plenty dull as nothing happens for at least 40-45 minutes. Maybe more. One character eats Kellogg’s Raisin Bran straight out of the box. That’s the kind of product placement I’m here for. There are some really fun practical effects here. And I secretly love Native American cultural appropriation in horror films. It’s not something I’m proud of, but that old burial ground trope hooks me in every single time. Give me a cursed talisman. I even like the “Old Chief Woodenhead” segment in Creepshow 2. I would say that I would try to do better, but I just have no self-control. I’ll just have to ask for forgiveness.