The Entity (1982)

When Becca and I first started dating, we looked for this movie on DVD everywhere.  That’s when we learned one of the mysteries of collecting films. Once you find something, it seemingly shows up everywhere.

The Entity was directed by Sidney J. Furie (Iron Eagle, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) and written by Frank De Felitta (who wrote Audrey Rose and The Edict, which was filmed as Z.P.G. He also directed Dark Night of the Scarecrow). It was based on the true story of Doris Bither, who alleged that the ghosts of three Asian men were raping her.

Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey, Insidious) is a single mother who is continually attacked by a poltergeist who rapes her and then tries to kill her at every turn, including taking control of her car in traffic. She tries to work with Dr. Sneiderman (Ron Silver, one of the best heels ever in a rare babyface role) to solve her issues.

There’s a bonkers scene here where a room of smoking male doctors mansplain away the ghost rape and insult her every step of the way. After all, Carla has endured sexual and physical abuse, teenage pregnancy and the motorcycle riding death of her first husband.

But how can you explain away the fact that she’s been attacked in front of her kids and scientific witnesses? That the ghost zapped her son with electrical energy? Or that her boyfriend (Alex Rocco!) has even seen these attacks?

That’s when the movie descends into madness. Parapsychologists create a model version of her home as a trap, with liquid helium to freeze the entity. It tries to turn the experiment on her, but the doctor saves her and there’s a brief moment where we can see the entity trapped in ice before it vanishes.

The next day, she comes home only to have the front door open by itself and a demonic voice say, “Welcome home, cunt”. Unlike every character in any horror movie before or since, she calmly opens the door, walks outside and drives away with her kids.

There’s a disclaimer at the end that says “The film you have just seen is a fictionalized account of a true incident which took place in Los Angeles, California, in October 1976. It is considered by psychic researchers to be one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of parapsychology. The real Carla Moran is today living in Texas with her children. The attacks, though decreased in both frequency and intensity…continue.”

Interestingly enough, Sidney J. Furie dropped an entire dream sequence and plot thread from The Entity which featured Carla being forced by the entity to have incestuous thoughts about her own son. David Labiosa (who played Carla Moran’s teenage son Billy) said that those aspects were too controversial and sex-charged for the early 1980’s. I guess he’s never seen Amityville II: The Possession!

The Entity is a scary, rough and only in the early 1980’s horror movie. The actual attacks are brutal in their intensity and the sound design of each scene sound like staccato bursts of industrial noise. It’s well-worth hunting down. But be warned! Once you find it, you’ll find it everywhere!

One Dark Night (1982)

Before directing Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI – a divisive film in the series due to its humor but also one of the better Friday films — Tom McLoughlin wrote for Dick Van Dyke, worked with Woody Allen on his science fiction comedy Sleeper, appeared as the robot S.T.A.R. in The Black Hole and played the Katahdin in Prophecy. This is the first film he directed and it’s been somewhat forgotten over the years.

Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and a vacation that took him Paris’ catacombs, McLoughlin and writer Michael Hawes spent four years trying to sell this movie to studios before finding a group of Mormon investors who demanded that the movie start production within three weeks. Unfortunately, the film was also taken out of McLoughlin’s hand and his original ending was nixed. What remains is still pretty good, however.

Karl Raymarseivich Raymar has killed at least six women — all found within his apartment — but the Russian occultist is now dead. As he’s taken away, electricity comes out of his body. Samuel Dockstader (Donald Hotton, The Hearse) tells Raymar’s daughter Olivia and husband Allan (Adam West) that her father had become a psychic vampire that fed off the bioelectricity of the young women that he had kidnapped.

Then there’s a snobby clique of mean girls called The Sisters — Carol, Kitty and Leslie (teenage crush E.G. Daily, who was Dottie in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Baby Doll in Streets of Fire, as well as being part of the band in Better Off Dead and providing the voice for the pig Babe and Tommy Pickles for Nickelodeon’s Rugrats). Julie Wells (Meg Tilly, Psycho II) wants to be part of the cub, but she’s also dating Carol’s ex-boyfriend Steve. To get revenge, The Sisters send her to spend one night alone in a mausoleum before she can be part of their group.

Carol and Kitty dress up and chase Julie, who hides in the chapel as Raymar awakens, opening coffins and vaults filled with the dead. Soon those reanimated corpses surround the popular twosome and murder them.

Everyone converges on the mausoleum — Steve wants to rescue Julie and Olivia wants her father’s powers. Can our young lovers survive? Will Olivia gain the vampiric energies of her father? Will lots of shambling corpses make scary noises and stagger all about?

One Dark Night was actually finished long before Poltergeist, a film that its special effects were often compared to. In fact, they both use real skeletons for some of their corpses. But production issues kept the film out of theaters long enough that it seemed to come off as a copycat.

I’d been looking for this film for some time, so I was happy to be able to finally get to see it thanks to Amazon Prime. It’s fun, quick and filled with jump scares — everything a decent horror film should be. You can also get the Code Red DVD at Ronin Flix.

The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)

King Cromwell (Richard Lynch, Bad DreamsGod Told Me To) has come the whole way to Tomb Island to find Xusia (Richard Moll, contractually obligated to be in all 1980’s sword and sorcery movies, although a bad reaction to the contacts needed for his makeup caused Moll to only physically appear in the opening scene), a dead sorcerer who holds the key to defeating King Richard.

But Cromwell realizes that Xusia will turn against him, so he stabs the demonic magician and chases him off a cliff. He doesn’t need him any longer — he’s destroyed all of his enemy’s army. Prince Talon arrives just in time to watch his father die, but doesn’t lose his family’s sword, a triple-bladed number that shoots blades. He’s going to need it to avenge the deaths of his mother and father.

Eleven years later and Talon (now played by Lee Horsely, TV’s Matt Houston) leads a group of mercenaries back to the country of his birth, ready to get his revenge. And oh yeah — Xusia is still around.

Cromwell attacks the city of Edhan, taking Prince Mikah (Simon MacCorkingdale, Jaws 3D) captive and nearly getting his sister Alana too, before she is saved by Talon, who also agrees to rescue her brother if he can have her for one night.  Of course, as soon as our hero leaves, Alana gets taken by Cromwell.

Talon rescues Mikah, but is captured by Cromwell, who forces Alana to marry him. He invites the four neighboring kings to the ceremony, where he’s crucified Talon (obviously Conan the Barbarian was an influence). But our hero is insanely strong and he pulls himself off the crucifix as Mikah and his soldiers attack the castle (one of them, Phillip, is Reb Brown from Yor, Hunter from the Future).

Cromwell takes Alana to the castle’s dungeons, where his second-in-command Machelli reveals himself to be Xusia. Talon uses his sword to defeat him, then bests Cromwell in mortal combat. Finally, a giant snake attacks Alana, but Talon saves her and defeats Xusia again.

Talon might be the rightful heir, but he gives his crown to Mikah, then gets what he really wants: Alana. After a night of what we can only imagine is some solid cocksmanship (and perhaps a marital aid that works just like his sword), he and his men do a collective group walk of shame as they head out looking for new adventure.

The end of the film promises “Watch for Talon’s Next Adventure Tales of an Ancient Empire,” but a sequel would not appear until 2012.

Despite being rated R, the cheapo toy company Fleetwood released both miniature figures and a replica sword from the film!

This is probably Albert Pyun’s (Cyborg) best film. It’s fun, quick and filled with plenty of swordfights and blood. Is it great? No, of course not. It’s an 80’s VHS rental that you watch with your favorite substances and yell at the screen. What’s not to enjoy?

It’s also impossible to find. Or you could get your copy just like I got mine — from the fine folks at the VHSPS. There’s also a RiffTrax version available on Amazon Prime.

Ator the Fighting Eagle (1982)

Let’s list the reasons why this movie made it to our site:

Joe D’Amato directed it. Where do we even start with his filmography? Emanuelle and the Last CannibalsAntropophagusEndgame?

It’s an Italian ripoff of Conan the Barbarian, which means it’s going to be at the same time better, worse and more inventive than the movie that inspired it.

It’s written by Michele Soavi (StagefrightThe ChurchThe SectCemetery Man)!

Once, Ator was just a baby, born with the birthmark that prophesied that he’d grow up to destroy the Spider Cult, whose leader Dakar (a pro wrestler who appeared in Titanes en el Ring against Martín Karadagian) tries to kill before he even gets out of his chainmail diapers.

Luckily, Ator is saved and grows up big, strong and weirdly in love with his sister, Sunya. It turns out that luckily, he’s adopted, so this is only morally and not biologically upsetting. His father allows them to be married, but the Spider Cult attacks the village and takes her, along with several other women.

Ator trains with Griba, the warrior who saved him as a child (he’s played by Edmund Purdom, the dean from Pieces!). What follows are pure shenanigans — Ator is kidnapped by Amazons, almost sleeps with a witch, undertakes a quest to find a shield and meets up with Roon (Sabrina Siani, Ocron from Fulci’s batshit barbarian opus Conquest), a sexy blonde thief who is in love with him.

Oh yeah! Laura Gemser, Black Emanuelle herself, shows up here too.

Ator succeeds in defeating Dakkar, only to learn that the only reason that Griba mentored him was to use him to destroy his enemy. That said, Ator defeats him too, leaving him to be eaten by the Lovecraftian-named Ancient One, a monstrous spider. But hey, Ator isn’t done yet. He kills that beast too!

Finally, learning that Roon has died, Ator and Sunya go back to their village, ready to make their incestual union a reality. Or maybe not, as she doesn’t show up in the three sequels, The Blade MasterIron Warrior and Quest for the Magic Sword.

Ator is played by Miles O’Keefe, who started his Hollywood career in the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan the Ape Man, a movie that Richard Harris would nearly fist fight people over if they dared to bring it up. He’s in all but the last of these films and while D’Amato praised his physique and attitude, he felt that his fighting and acting skills left something to be desired.

Ator the Fighting Eagle pretty much flies by. It does what it’s supposed to do — present magic, boobs, sorcery and swordfights — albeit in a PG-rated film. It’s anything except boring and you can check it out for yourself on Amazon Prime.

Wacko (1982)

It takes a lot for me to say that a movie is horrible. I am here today to tell you that Wacko is a horrible, horrible movie. Imagine — with all I have seen — what that entails.

13 years ago, Mary Graves’ (Stephanie from TV’s Newhart) older sister was killed on Halloween by a lawn mowing killer. Now she sees mowers everywhere, but tonight, she just wants to go to her prom. Can she avoid the pumpkin masked killer? Can Dick Harbinger (Joe Don Baker, Mitchell, The Pack) save her?

This is a film packed with actors you may or may not love filmed, lit and treated poorly. The film is so dark that daylight scenes appear shot night for day. It redefines the term shoddy. Where Airplane! works because it allows actors like Robert Stack and Peter Graves to be themselves while chaos explodes around them, everyone in this film acts as if Lloyd Kaufmann were dosing them with laughing gas.

George Kennedy deserves better, despite his appearances in Airplane 1979: The Concorde and The Uninvited. Stella Stevens deserves better. Fuck, even  Andrew Clay, before he became Dice (a character he first played in the film Making the Grade), deserves better. So do E.G. Daily (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure), Anthony James (The Chauffer from Burnt Offerings!), Jeff Altman (who also appeared in the utter piece of shit TV series The Pink Lady and Jeff) and anybody who somehow ended up connected in this mess.

I place the blame at the feet of Jensen Farley Pictures, who also rewarded us with pieces of dreck like MadmanJoysticks (yes, I see you in that movie too, Joe Don Baker) and Homework (yet I still love you, Joan Collins). PS – my thrift store has had a DVD of that and Private Lessons for a few weeks that I know I’ll end up buying). They did bring us Curtains, but at what cost?

Greydon Clark also bears the brunt of the blame. I mean, did he hate George Kennedy or something? He directed him here and also in the aforementioned The Uninvited, a movie about a mutant military weapon housecat. And oh yeah, Joysticks also comes from him. As does Final Justice, proving he hates Joe Don Baker as much — if not so much more — than George Kennedy. He also was behind Without Warning, the 1980 movie that features an alien hunter played by Kevin Peter Hall who is looking for human trophies. You may say, “Hey, that’s Predator.” You’d be right. And this movie came out seven years before that one.

Notice how I’ve done anything but talk about Wacko? That’s because this movie is a piece of absolute fecund drivel that makes movies like King Frat and Movie 43 look like Citizen Kane. I stopped it at 28:00 in, thinking the film had to be over 19 hours long and was shocked at how much pain it had put me through. Please don’t watch it on Amazon Video. No matter how much you want to.

MORE FUCKED UP FUTURES: She (1982)

H. Rider Haggard’s She, A History of Adventure pretty much set the rules for the Lost World genre and presented a white goddess warrior queen named Ayesha who rules a kingdom in the middle of Africa. It’s been adapted many times for the screen, starting in 1899 with Georges Méliès’ The Pillar of Fire. Probably the best-known version is the 1965 Hammer film, She, which features Ursula Andress, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and John Richardson.

This movie? It’s inspired by She but if you were expecting something close to the book — or something normal — you’ve picked the wrong film.

This movie is a quest, or a series of quests, and it’s packed with fully realized worlds and costumes that are on screen long enough to get you invested before they go away. It’s literally a Jack Kirby Fourth World comic come to celluloid realization with none of Kirby’s storytelling panache. Sandahl Bergman (Conan the Barbarian) plays She, who is traveling with Tom and Dick (Harrison Muller, 2020 Texas Gladiators), two brothers looking to save their kidnapped sister. Shandra, She’s sidekick, comes along too.

There are werewolves who just want to fuck. Nazis who just want to kill. Communist mutants with mental powers who just want to do BDSM whip torture to She. Mummies with chainsaws. The film alludes to the fact that its 23 years after Cancellation, a nuclear war, so it’s post-apocalyptic whole also referencing sword and sorcery, yet it was made before Conan turned Italian film backlots into ancient carbon copies of Cimmeria. It is one weird film, never sure if it wants to be a comedy or an action film.

Honestly, have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons on LSD? This is how I imagine that this movie was created. They just got people in a room, got them high and gave them a few D10s and a Monster Manual.

This is all directed by Avi Nesher, who brought us the batshit crazy Doppelganger with Drew Barrymore before becoming a critical darling in his home country of Israel. Obviously, this movie is not one he’d care to bring up.

Also, this movie is packed with strange music choices, like a song from Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues during the credits, along with contributions by Motörhead and Rick Wakeman.

Have I properly conveyed just how strange this all is? Then you’re probably wishing you could see it. The gray market and YouTube are your friends. Yes, in a world where nearly everything gets a blu-ray high-end release, this one remains unreleased.

Next of Kin (1982)

What if The Shining wasn’t in the snowy hills of Oregon, but instead found itself in Australia? What if a woman found herself repeating the same horrors that her mother had faced twenty years before? And what if we decide to watch Next of Kin, today’s movie of the day?

Linda inherits Montclare, a retirement home that belonged to her mother. When she comes back to her hometown to settle her affairs, she feels unwelcome, with only Barry, an old boyfriend (John Jarratt, the evil Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creek series of movies), being understanding.

Things certainly aren’t helped by Montclare’s staff, including Connie and Dr. Barton (Alex Scott, The Asphyx), who have been conducting a secret affair and may be conspiring to drive Linda insane. Or perhaps the house is truly haunted, as drowned corpses appear at will and windows mysteriously open. No matter what, there’s something wrong and it’s probably due to the years of madness and murder that Linda’s mother has covered up.

There’s an amazing moment near the end where Linda has gone near insane, barricading herself within the diner, where she builds a pyramid of sugar cubes as the forces of evil gather themselves to do her in. It’s strangely gorgeous. And not the only original sight in a film that seemingly would only be a rip-off.

Throw in an amazing score by Tangerine Dream’s Klaus Schulze and you have a film that’s quite worthy of experiencing.

Sadly, there’s been no official U.S. DVD or blu-ray release of the film. You can find it on YouTube and through the gray market. And you totally should. It’s nothing like the poster promises and is instead a psychologically rich trip through past sins and a family curse.

UPDATE: Of course, if one company is going to release an amazing horror movie that has never been out in the U.S. before and do it right, it’s going to be Severin. Their new blu ray of Next of Kin can be ordered now.

NORTH OF THE BORDER HORROR: Incubus (1982)

Based on Ray Russell’s novel of the same title, Incubus is all about demon rape. There’s really no other way to say it. If you’re looking for the definitive word on the subject, this movie would probably be your best choice. And hey, John Cassavetes is in it!

The film opens in a rock quarry where Mandy and her boyfriend are swimming. More likely, they’re fooling around until an unseen force caves in the dude’s head and attacks her, putting her in the hospital with a ruptured uterus. While all this is going on, Tim Galen, a local teen, dreams of hooded men tying a woman down and torturing her.

Dr. Sam Cordell (Cassavetes) is treating the girl and we soon learn a lot about his life. His wife has recently died, he’s relocated to the town of Galen following a scandal and his daughter, Jenny, doesn’t really get along with him. Oh yeah — and she’s also dating Tim.

Sheriff Hank Walden (John Ireland, whose career stretches from classics like All the King’s Men and I Saw What You Did to Satan’s Cheerleaders) and reporter Laura Kincaid are on the case too, which expands when a librarian is killed and murdered. It turns out that she has red semen inside her body — so much semen that she’s literally been filled up and destroyed by it. If you’re thinking this is a totally scummy storyline, well, buckle up.

The rapes and murders continue and every single time, young Tim is having the dream while they happen, including an attack at a movie theater where he’s gone to try and distract himself. Look for an appearance by a really young Bruce Dickinson singing for his pre-Iron Maiden band Samson in this scene!

What is Dr. Sam doing? Oh, you know, showing Laura photos of his recently deceased second wife — the reason why he left wherever it was he lived before — and she looks exactly like the reporter. She has some news, too. The town of Galen has a long history of Satanic activity and these rape crimes are nothing new.

Is Tim the killer? Was his mother a witch? Or is his family part of a long line of witch hunters? Is the real killer a shapeshifting incubus, which rapes women in their dreams?

We get our answers pretty quickly. Sam tries to induce Tim’s demonic state while Laura takes Jenny up to bed. Tim tries to attack Laura with a witch hunting dagger his grandmother has given him, but Sam stops the boy and kills him. That’s when we learn that Laura had been the incubus all along. As she lovingly holds Sam, he looks to the bed where his dead daughter is bleeding between the legs.

Yes. That’s really the ending. I warned you that this film was rough, didn’t I?

Incubus was directed by John Hough, who was behind one of my favorite movies of all time, Twins of Evil. He also helmed The Legend of Hell House and both of Disney’s Witch Mountain movies. It’s written by Ray Russell, who also wrote plenty of other horror fiction that was made into movies and screenplays, including X the Man with the X-Ray EyesMr. SarndonicusZotz! and Roger Corman’s The Premature Burial.

While this movie moves slow and some subplots go nowhere, the last few minutes are exactly what you want the movie to be and Cassavetes is — as always — better than the material.

Satanic Harassment

  • 1 oz. Absolut Citron or citrus vodka
  • .75 oz. Midori
  • .5 oz. Chambord
  • 2 oz. orange juice
  • 2 oz. pineapple juice
  • 1 oz. margarita mix
  1. Shake everything in a shaker with ice.
  2. Pour out and be careful at the rock quarry.

NORTH OF THE BORDER HORROR: Humongous (1982)

Director Paul Lynch also brought us the Canadian cutter Prom Night and here, he starts the action off with a bang: on Labor Day weekend 1946, a drunk (Page Fletcher, the title character from HBO’s The Hitchhiker) rapes Ida Parsons at a party her rich father is throwing. She is saved by her dogs, who attack the man before she smashes his brains out with a rock.

36 years later, preppy bros Eric (David Wallace, Mazes and MonstersMortuary) and Nick are taking their father’s yacht on a weekend getaway with their girlfriends, Sandy (Janet Julian, who was TV’s Nancy Drew when Pamela Sue Martin left the series) and Donna (Joy Boushel, Terror Train) and their sister, Carla (Janit Baldwin, ‘Gator Bait, Phantom of the Paradise).

After a day of staring at girl’s asses while feeling up other asses (this movie has more nudity in the first 11 minutes than nearly every movie that will come out this year), fog comes in and the boys save a shipwrecked fisherman named Bert. As he recovers from hypothermia, he tells them of Dog Island, the home of lumber baroness Ida Parsons (remember her?) who lives on the island with only her wild dogs for company. It’s at that point that Nick wrecks the boat into — DA DA NA — Dog Island!

Bert gets wounded. Carla gets lost. Nick walks into the woods and gets killed by a gigantic shadowy character. Meanwhile, Sandy and Eric attempt to find Ida Parsons.

While all this is going on, Bert goes into shock so Donna tries to warm him up by stripping nude. As you do. As she lies across his frozen body, the shadowy thing tosses her into the rocks and then rips off Bert’s head.

In the middle of all this, Sandy and Eric discover not only Ida’s house, but Carla, who is alive. You know who isn’t? The dogs of Dog Island, who are all skeletons inside cages.

Our protagonists find a nursery full of dusty toys and a cobwebbed crib, as well as Ida’s diary, filled with frightening photos and insane scribblings of her sick child, who she intended to keep free from sin. And oh yeah — they also find her skeleton.

Everyone wises up and decides to leave Dog Island. They gather some supplies and make their way to the basement, where they find the bodies of Nick and Donna. 

So the story everyone decides to go with is that this shadowy monster is Ida’s son, who somehow lived, and has been driven insane by his mother’s death. He’s incredibly strong, an amazing tracker and sees any outsiders as a threat. You’d think they’d get the fuck away from the house, but no, they go back to get matches and Eric gets killed. His back gets broken all Bane style and Sandy runs to Ida’s room to hide.

When the shadowy man gets there, she wraps a blanket around her head and acts as if she is Ida. I love this scene so much, as we never see the monster and only a brightly lit Sandy. Her words are measured and forceful, but as we look at her face, we can tell she’s never been more afraid in her life.

Just when Sandy thinks she’s safe, she tries to leave the room. However, the mutated man-child realizes her ruse and chases her to the boathouse, where he crushes Carla’s head along the way. Even setting this maniac on fire won’t stop him, because it’s 1982 and this is a Canadian slasher film.

You know what does stop him? A big signpost that impales him. Usually, slashers get stopped by impalement, have you ever realized that?

At the end, Sandy is left alone on the dock, decimated by the fact that she’s had to kill a human being and feeling the loss of her friends. And we notice — she now looks a lot like Ida.

Humongous is sleazy and bloody fun, with a unique killer and plenty of atmosphere. Sure, it’s a slasher, but it has a way better premise than kids stuck at a summer camp or a cursed calendar date. I’ve heard comparisons to Joe D’Amato and George Eastman’s Antropophagus, but this has none of the over the top gore of that film. That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty here.

There’s also a minimalist score by John Mills-Cockell, which really sets the tone and amps up the mood. He also worked on Terror Train and was one of the first people to purchase a Moog synthesizer.

Want to see this one? Ronin Flix has the Scorpion Releasing blu-ray reissue of the film, complete with the American R-rated and Canadian unrated cuts.

NORTH OF THE BORDER HORROR: Deadly Eyes (1982)

Thanks to Paperbacks from Hell, I’ve learned all about James Herbert, the British horror author whose four The Rats novels pretty much defined the evil rats against man genre. Imagine my surprise in finding this Canadian horror film that pretty much takes Herbert’s story and runs away with it (or gets away with it).

Paul Harris is a divorced high school teacher and basketball coach who is dealing with rats the sizes of small dogs that have been found living in buildings containing steroid-rich grain (ripped from today’s headlines!) that the health department orders burned. Now that the rats are homeless, they’re looking for a new home and new eats, too.

First, they surround a baby in a high chair and make him a snack. Then, they get a senior citizen. Soon, they’re chasing down Scatman Crothers and eating him, too! Oh no, Scatman!

Even spraying the rats with gas does nothing. Nope, instead they attack a bowling alley and a movie theater showing a Bruce Lee movie (director Robert Clouse also directed Lee’s Enter the Dragon and Game of Death). None will be spared as the rats feed. Not Trudy (Lisa Langlois, Happy Birthday to Me), the cheerleader in love with Paul. Not her best friend Martha (Lesleh Donaldson, CurtainsFuneral HomeHappy Birthday to Me). And certainly not the mayor who acts like he’s in the Canadian version of Jaws and then has a party on a subway train that gets infested by rats. Finally, Paul, his love interest Kelly and his son make it through the rats’ nest only to get on the same train as the mayor’s dead body.

So how did they get the rats for this movie? By putting dachshunds in fur suits, a The Killer Shrews plan if I ever heard one. Sadly, one of the dogs died during shooting as it was suffocated by its suit.

Herbert referred to this film as “absolute rubbish.” Sadly, we’ve yet to see the definite adaption of his work. We’ll have to make due with this, I guess. Where I disconnect with the film is that I could see it happening in New York, but Toronto? That’s the cleanest city I’ve ever been in. I bet the rats could do much better elsewhere.

Shout! Factory put this out on blu-ray a few years ago, but it’s now sadly out of print. Do what you can to find it — you can put on a loop in your home, along with other “always on HBO” fare like Flash GordonSuperfuzzMidnight MadnessThe CarSharkey’s MachineModern ProblemsScavenger HuntThey Call Me BruceElectric Dreams…Home Box Office in the early 80’s, what a time to be alive!