If you miss the days when science fiction movies relied on practical effects, wild concepts and pure imagination rather than endless CGI, there is this movie. Coming from the creative minds of Robert Dyke and Tex Ragsdale, this kicks off with a brilliant premise: during the 1969 Apollo 11 landing, a robotic eye secretly watches the astronauts leave. Fast forward twenty years and a routine Space Shuttle mission discovers a 14,000-year-old human corpse and a mysterious pod in orbit. Once on Earth, the pod does what any good 80s killer robot would do. It builds itself a cybernetic body out of lab equipment and human remains, leading to a glorious shotgun showdown.
From there, Moontrap turns into an Apollo-era search-and-destroy mission to the Moon. What makes the movie work so well is its casting. Sci-fi royalty Walter Koenig (Chekov from Star Trek) plays the cynical Colonel Jason Grant and he is paired perfectly with the legendary Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead) as Ray Tanner. Campbell brings his signature dry wit to the lunar surface, making the dialogue pop even when the plot dips into standard survival-horror territory.
Realizing the moon is basically a hotbed for killer robots, NASA dusts off the last remaining Apollo rocket and sends Grant and Ray Tanner, back to the lunar surface. Once on the moon, they find the ruins of an ancient human civilization and wake up a beautiful woman in stasis named Mera (Leigh Lombardi). She warns them about the Kaalium, killer cyborgs who love nothing more than turning organic life into spare parts. Before they know it, the Kaalium steal their lunar module, blow up their command module real good and leave our heroes stranded.
What follows is a great, claustrophobic survival story. Poor Bruce Campbell gets taken out (spoiler!), and Grant and Mera are captured and put aboard a massive Kaalium ship heading for Earth. But not before Grant makes a tent on the moon’s surface and despite being menaced by cyborgs, still has the time to feel up an ancient, reanimated woman. It’s a man’s world.
The cyborgs need the NASA tech to complete their ship, but Grant rigs the stolen module to self-destruct and he and Mera blow their way out into space, using the recoil of his gun to jet away like a couple of badass space cowboys while the alien vessel explodes behind them. They make it back to Earth, Mera learns English, and they live happily ever after… until the classic it’s not really over stinger shows a surviving Kaalium pod sitting in an Earth junkyard, getting ready to build a new body.
It would sit there for a long time.
James Glickenhaus—the legend behind The Exterminator—was ready to go big with a sequel titled Moontrap 2: The Pyramids of Mars. It sounds like the kind of high-concept, space-faring madness we all craved, but thanks to the usual grind of studio financial woes, it died. Fast forward to 2011, and Robert Dyke and Tex Ragsdale announced a graphic novel campaign. The idea was to use the art as a visual pitch to secure funding for a film. It was a noble effort, but the backers didn’t bite and the project got the axe before it even started.
But you can’t keep a good space-killer down. By 2014, the Moontrap team was back at it with a new project: Moontrap: Target Earth. Now, they were quick to clarify that this wasn’t a direct sequel, but a standalone adventure set in the same universe. Instead of just picking up where Grant and Mera left off, they pivoted to a story about an archaeological dig unearthing an ancient craft and a young woman (Sarah Butler) getting whisked off to the moon to unlock the mystery.
They actually got the cameras rolling in Michigan, bringing in Charles Shaughnessy to play the heavy and Damon Dayoub as our lead adventurer. It’s a different vibe, sure, but after all those years of what ifs and cancelled graphic novels, seeing the Moontrap movie try to become a franchise makes me happy.
I rented this from Prime Time Video as a kid and had a great time with it. If I ever get stranded on the moon’s surface, I’ll be looking to get lucky too.
Wow, you have no idea how excited I am about this.
I saw VHS art for the movie Urban Warriors and saw something I have never seen before: the Michael Dudikoff Presents Action Adventure Theater line.
If you’ve spent any time looking at the history of the Cannon Group, you know that the company was essentially a house of cards held together by Menahem Golan’s ambition and a lot of pre-sold tape rights. They didn’t even bother starting their own domestic home video label until 1989. By that point, the wheels were already coming off the Go-Go Boys’ wagon and they were slashing their production budgets to the bone.
They needed product to fill the shelves of that new home video arm and they needed it cheap. That’s how they ended up dumpster diving into the international market, picking up some oddball productions.
I went to the source of all things Cannon, Austin Trunick, who already covered this four years ago on the Cannon Film Guide Facebook page, saying “In the late ’80s, Cannon tried to squeeze some money out of several of their older distro titles that hadn’t been fully exploited on the video market. Their idea was to have modern stars introduce the films, which resulted in the “Michael Dudikoff Presents Action Adventure Theater” line of tapes.”
Much like the 22-26 action adventure films that bear the title Sybil Danning’s Adventure Video for the USA Home Video company, this was a way to use an action star to make some money with no risk.
There are only four of these, so why don’t we get into them?
The Bronx Executioner (1989): Welcome to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where humanoids and androids are locked in a nonsensical war for supremacy. These androids bleed human blood, look like guys in leather jackets and apparently spent their entire R&D budget at a RadioShack clearance sale. If one of them had an Italian name, it would be Roberto Batty.
The film follows our rookie deputy, James (Gabriele Gori, Attrazione Pericolosa), who arrives in the Bronx to replace the legendary Sheriff Warren. And here is where the fun begins: Warren is played by the iconic Woody Strode, but every single frame of him is shamelessly recycled from the 1984 movie The Final Executioner.
As for the Bronx itself? It’s a series of mounds of dirt and a derelict country villa that has never seen a New York City zip code in its life. James, fresh from a police academy that apparently consists solely of doing chin-ups on a metal pole, is tasked with policing this chaos. But the movie quickly gets bored with him, and shifts focus to Dakar (Alex Vitale, Jakoda from Strike Commando!), a humanoid leader who spends the better part of the runtime screaming into a walkie-talkie while driving a jeep through the Italian countryside.
When a cyborg goes on a killing spree, you’d expect some stakes, right? Forget it. You won’t get an explanation of who, why or what the hell is happening. The narrative is a patchwork quilt of stock footage, recycled scenes and incoherent voice-overs. As for the big bad, Margie is the quintessential evil android, strutting around in a dog collar and proclaiming, “Violence is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” She’s the heart and soul of this mess. And she’s played by Margie Newton, who got all painted up in Mattei’s Hell of the Living Dead and was Aphrodite in Cozzi’s The Adventures of Hercules.
Director Vanio Amici is an equal-opportunity recycler. Why film a new action scene when you can just use the one you already shot five minutes ago? It saves time and prevents you from having to rewind to watch the faceless extras get blasted again. For a long time, people thought he was Umberto Lenzi, as the name on the credits is Bob Collins. Amici only directed one other movie, Detective Malone, which remixes two of Lenzi’s Black Cobra movies, further muddying the movie waters and making nerds like me wonder who really made it. As for the rest of his credits, he mainly worked as an editor with a resume that includes Black Demons, Karate Warrior 6, Aenigma and many adult films. Perhaps his toughest challenge was being the editor for Troll 2. I wonder how he was able to make it make as much sense as it does.
This has it all and by all, I mean perms, leather jackets, headbands and a finale so dramatically deep that it tries to mimic Blade Runner before hitting a hard freeze-frame.
Dakar: James, can I tell you something?
James: Sure. What?
Dakar: I always envied you. I wanted to be like you.
James: You mean human?
Dakar: It was just… a dream.
It’s a total mess. I loved it!
Cross Mission (1988): Leave it to Alfonso Brescia—working under his Al Bradley alias—to decide that what the jungle combat — Rambsoploitation — genre really needed wasn’t just more stock footage of explosions, but literal demons. What else can we expect from the director of Murder In Blue Light, Iron Warrior, The Beast In Space and an entire series of Star Wars rip-offs?
Cross Mission starts off as your standard, run-of-the-mill exploitation flick. General Romero, played by Antonio Poli, is the iron-fisted ruler of a small Latin American nation. He’s got the whole “I’m a good guy” routine down to a science, publicly torching marijuana fields to impress the U.N. inspectors. Of course, once the inspectors pack up their clipboards and head for the airport, it’s back to the narco-trafficking business as usual.
When a marine named William (Richard Randall, whose only other role is in a TV movie version of A Christmas Carol) decides to investigate the racket alongside a crusading reporter named Helen (Brigitte Porsche, her only role, and no, she’s not an adult star), things spiral into the usual jungle chaos. Do huts explode? Do some of the good guys die and need revenge? Does the hero get ready for the last battle in a montage, putting on a special outfit to show the audience he’s finally done playing nice? Yes to all of these things.
But here is where the movie veers off the tracks and into the territory of the sublime. Just when you think you’ve seen every trope in the book, Brescia hits you with the supernatural. General Romero isn’t just a drug lord; he’s a practitioner of the dark arts. He’s got the ability to summon a diabolical small demon named Astaroth, played by Nelson De La Rosa (the mini Brando of The Island of Dr. Moreau and the titular Rat Man), at will. When he’s shooting blue lightning at people, the movie suddenly shifts from a generic war film to an Italian bit of magic.
Brescia would go on to direct Miami Cops the following year, but Cross Mission remains a singular, bizarre experiment. It doesn’t fully succeed as a war movie, and it doesn’t fully succeed as a supernatural thriller, but for the sheer audacity of blending the two? It’s a more than decent one-time watch. You come for the jungle action, but you stay because you need to see how a magic little guy fits into an exploding helicopter subplot.
Lt. Bill Rogers (Andy Forrest, also in Massimo Pirri’s The Kiss of the Cobra, Tonino Valerii’s Sicilian Connection, Lenzi’s The House of Witchcraft, Hunt for the Gold Scorpion and, oddly, the Giandomenico Curi-directed Italian Lambada movie and yes, there were two movies with this title in the same year), Sgt. Mario Pazilbo Esposito (Carlo Mucari, Snuff Killer and Obsession: A Taste for Fear) and Blitz (Paki Valente) have broken out of a POV camp. Rogers is an American pilot who trades a POW camp for the Yugoslavian wilderness after getting shot down. Espozi has the nickname Spaghetti because he’s Italian — in an Italian movie — and Blinz is an Austrian deserter who realized his side was losing.
Our motley crew of POWs managed to link up with some partisans and a local Orthodox priest. The partisans are desperate, looking for pilots to take their last two functioning planes and turn those German-held hillsides into a fireworks display. But while they’re busy flying for the resistance, the boys get wind of some serious loot. Vanya (Francesca Ferrè), a nun who traded her habit for a submachine gun, tips them off about a haul of priceless gold chalices stashed away at the St. Basil convent.
According to Andy J. Forrest, Ferrè was functionally blind without her glasses and ended one take by walking directly into a tree.
After pulling off two successful bombing runs, the POWs stop caring about the war effort and start plotting a heist. They leverage their pilot skills to score some hardware, then convince Vanya to lead them to the chapel. She thinks they’re on the level, but these guys are just mercenaries in disguise, ready to double-cross everyone for the gold.
There’s a Fabio Frizzi score, which is nice, and Luigi Ciccarese as cinematographer. He shot plenty of Bruno Mattei’s later movies, especially his SOV 2000s efforts, as well as tons of adult. Along the way, Lenzi stole battle scenes from The Battle of Sutjeska and Partizanska eskadrila.
It’s not the most exciting war movie you’ve seen, but it does have a genuinely impressive train explosion and watching our guys lean out of a biplane to drop bombs by hand is the kind of practical, low-budget ingenuity that makes these films so charming.
Urban Warriors (1987): You know you’re in for a wild ride when the opening act consists of a montage of mushroom clouds followed immediately by stock footage of volcanoes erupting. Then, we meet Brad (Bruno Bilotta), our hero, and his buddies, Maury (Bjorn Hammer) and Stan (Maurice Poli), who are hanging out in an underground lab when the power goes out. When they finally decide to crawl out of their bunker, they discover that the world has ended. And apparently, the end of the world is synonymous with an immediate, city-wide explosion in the local population of leather-clad biker gangs.
Vari’s vision of the future looks suspiciously like a gravel pit and a single abandoned factory. That’s the kind of set design that makes a Cirio Santiago movie look like a Cecil B. DeMille epic.
The mutants here are a special breed. According to Brad—who, again, as you may remember, was just working at a power station and doesn’t seem like a scientist—these guys suffer from a mutation that apparently destroys their inner ear whenever the sun goes down. Before you can say uno, due, tre, quattordici, all these bad ass post-apocalyptic warriors have vertigo.
The aesthetic is exactly what you’d expect if a group of guys raided a discount S&M shop and then realized they needed to re-qualify for their motorcycle licenses. Watching Brad’s buddy Maury emerge from a shack wearing a full-on studded leather helmet and a white scarf—while manning a bike with mounted weapons—is reason enough for the world to end.
Brad’s journey is a masterclass in survival priorities. After watching his buddy Maury get killed—a tragedy clearly caused by failing to stick to a strict vehicle maintenance schedule—Brad doesn’t weep. He gets himself some leather, finds a woman (Rosenda Scharschmidt, Dark Bar) to get busy with and promptly gets attacked because she wants his spinal marrow. At least he defeats the leader of the mutants, played by Alex Vitale, who will always be Jakoda from Strike Commando. Oh yeah — Malisa Longo from Cat In the Brain and the titular star of Helga, She Wolf of Stilberg –– is in this barterdown bootleg too.
This was Giuseppe Vari’s return to the director’s chair after a decade away, and spoiler alert: it was also his final film.
Much like another Michael Dudikoff Presents film, The Bronx Executioner, this takes scenes from The Final Executioner. Even stranger, I have heard Paolo Rustichelli’s theme described as either a cover of “White Lines” or the Art of Noise cover of “Dragnet.”
Directed by Bob Balaban (yes, the guy from Christopher Guest comedies) and written by Christopher Hawthorne. Parents finds the Laemle family — Nick (Randy Quaid), Lily (Mary Beth Hurt) and Michael (Bryan Madorsky) moving into the California suburbs. Between seeing his parents making love and watching his father do an autopsy, Michael is a bit screwed up. His dreams are horrible and he believes his parents are cannibals. But what if he’s right?
But what can you do when your parents want to feed you the meat of your guidance counselor, Millie Dew (Sandy Dennis)?
The film’s most unsettling quality is its visual obsession with food. Director Bob Balaban utilized macro photography and heightened sound design to make the sound of a knife hitting a plate or the sight of a pot roast look like a crime scene. To make the mystery meat look particularly unappetizing and gelatinous, the production used a mix of brisket, food coloring and heavy amounts of glaze.
Siskel and Ebert disagreed on this; a big surprise was that Gene loved it and Roger didn’t. However, Ken Russell compared it to Blue Velvet and claimed that it was better than Lynch’s movie.
While Randy Quaid has certainly moved into legitimately weird territory in real life over the last decade, his performance in Parents is often cited by critics as a masterclass in repressed 1950s aggression. He isn’t playing crazy. He’s playing a man who is desperately trying to appear normal, which is much scarier.
Joseph W. Sarno. Yeah, that Joe Sarno. The Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street. The man who gave us Inga and Abigail Lesley is Back in Town. If you’re looking for a guy who understood that the distance between high-art Swedish angst and low-rent skin flicks is about the thickness of a silk stocking, Sarno is your man.
Yet imagine a slasher flick filmed in the Swedish woods, directed by this very same softcore legend, with a plot that feels ghostwritten by a nun on a bad trip. That would be Helgerån, which was also released as Sacrilege.
Sara (Christine Moore, a Roberta Findlay veteran from Lurkers and Prime Evil) shows up at the Church of the New Disciples looking for salvation. She’s got a heavy burden: her twin sister is back in Lapland playing house with Satan and possibly gestating the literal Antichrist by having sex with goats. Also, her mom got her head lopped off and spiked like a volleyball in the intro, but the case is colder than a Nordic winter.
Enter George (Kurt Sinclair), a reporter who is supposed to be investigating the sect but mostly just stares at Sara with puppy-dog eyes. When Sara decides to lead a missionary trip to the old country to save her sister’s soul, George follows. Along for the ride is Sister Naomi (Shannon McMahon, another Findlay alum from Blood Sisters), who has a calling for Sara that isn’t exactly sanctioned by the Vatican.
Oh, you’re surprised by a Sapphic plot in a Sarno movie?
Once they hit the forest, the repressed religious zealotry starts to boil over. Everyone is horny, everyone is crazy, and one girl even wants to go full Sound of Music minus the habit and plus some demented spinning. But while the missionaries are busy struggling with their magic underwear, someone is skulking through the brush with a hand scythe, slicing off hands and heads.
Holy shit — I loved this movie. It’s a slow-moving film in which nothing is paid off, filmed by a man who wasn’t just a smut peddler. He was obsessed with the way sexual epiphanies could shatter repression, which in this movie, he takes that very same theme and grafts it onto a slasher. It’s a heady, talky and occasionally overwrought brew about delusion and madness.
Is Judith really the Sara that gets to have sex and are two people trapped in the same body? Is she a sick young woman? Will men — and a woman? — perhaps wonder which version they’re sleeping with and if one of them is a succubbus?
For a movie directed by a guy who was literally filming legit porn concurrently, it’s also surprisingly chaste for a movie where everyone is DTF in a way that destroys their lives. You get some blouses pinging off and brief topless shots, but it’s more interested in the idea of sex than the act.
The gore, however, is another story. The scythe work is hokey but effective. And at nearly two hours, Sarno may be testing your patience. It’s a marathon of melodrama and some truly wooden acting from Sinclair, who sounds like he’s reciting a grocery list rather than investigating a satanic cult, all in a film that appears to look like it was made for TV, yet with exposed breasts and bloody unattached heads.
But that’s exactly why I drank this in like a sweet glass of Punsch.
Another reason I was all in? The print looks rough. We’re talking tape rolls, tracking issues and VHS static. The fuzziness makes the low-budget decapitations look almost real. It’s a lost oddity from a director who lived in the gutter but kept his eyes on the arthouse stars. It’s not a masterpiece, but in a world of cookie-cutter slashers, this one is a beautiful, bloated freak-out.
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 3: American Circus Day — Write about a big top movie.
As the Encyclopedia Britannica notes, the term “geek” didn’t always imply a tech-savvy enthusiast. In the early 20th century, it was a title of derision for the lowest rung of the carnival hierarchy. These performers, often struggling with severe alcoholism or mental illness, were paid in liquor or room and board to perform “he bite, a gruesome act involving the decapitation of live chickens or rats.
Director Carlton J. Albright turns this historical footnote into a psychological trauma trigger for his protagonist, Luther Watts. The film establishes Luther’s trajectory not through a complex descent into madness, but through a singular, scarring childhood moment: witnessing a caged, desperate carnival geek bite the head off a chicken.
This trauma doesn’t just break Luther; it resets him. He becomes a literal geek in the most archaic sense. By the time we meet him as an adult (played with unsettling commitment by Edward Terry), Luther has shed his humanity, speaking in clucks and replacing his teeth with metal dentures.
Director Carlton J. Albright also wrote The Children, so he has no problem going for, well, the throat here. He has no qualms about putting innocents, including children and the elderly (or a young girl dressed like an old woman), directly in the path of Luther’s metal teeth. He also loves his villain. Luther isn’t a misunderstood monster or a villain with a complex moral code. He is a biological machine driven by a singular, primal urge to feed and destroy.
Extras include the original Lloyd Kaufman DVD intro, Carlton J. Albright’s Blu-ray intro; a director’s commentary with Carlton J. Albright; interviews with Carlton J. Albright, William Albright and Jerry Clarke; bloopers, Troma’s Freak Show and music videos. You can get this from MVD.
“Hi! I’m dead! Well, actually, my name is Jill, well, it is, or it was or whatever! Anyway, I’m dead but you know what I mean! I’m Jill!”
When a movie starts like that, I’ll watch the whole thing.
Felipe is introduced as a high school hero whose team just won a big game. Seeking to look cool and prepare for the college life he imagines, he smokes marijuana and drinks beer, noting that his old man does the same. His story ends abruptly when he gets behind the wheel of a convertible, drives recklessly and crashes, killing himself and his friend.
Jill’s story begins at a house party where she meets a boy named Craig (who wears way too much cologne). He introduces her to cocaine, claiming it makes everything easy. Her addiction spirals quickly; she ends up trading her most prized possession, a necklace given to her by her grandmother, to a dealer for an eight-ball, then overdoses alone in her room.
Eddie is a bright, science-loving kid who gets pressured by an older friend to try crack cocaine, being told it turns the inside of your head into a video game. After just a few uses, Eddie collapses. The narrator reveals that Eddie had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, and the crack cured it in the most macabre sense possible.
Directed by Traci Wald Donat, the daughter of Helen Reddy, and written by Robert Bucci and George Larrimore, this is a remnant of the just say no era, a war on drugs that kept people in prison for decades for marijuana possession, but also allowed the CIA to put crack into black neighborhoods.
Speaking of drugs, Raymond Cruz, who played Felipe, would go on to be Tuco Salamanca on Breaking Bad.
Did I do drugs during my review? Of course I did. I’m Sam. Anyways, I’m dead, but I’m Sam!
“I’m a rolling thunder, fire and rain
I’m coming on like a hurricane
My lightning’s flashing across the sky
You’re only young, but you’re gonna die”
Directed, hosted and produced by Eric Holmberg, founder of Reel to Real Ministries and The Apologetics Group, Hell’s Bells is the Satanic Panic encapsulated. There are leaps of logic, scare tactics and clips of bands that are so great that I can only assume that kids like me were taking notes. After all, when I was in sixth grade, my elementary school teacher gave me a ditto copied series of bands to warn my friends about. Black Sabbath, just by its description, got me so excited that I never looked back and I am a cautionary tale, a man obsessed with old Mercyful Fate albums and Jess Franco sleaze.
Kids, don’t be me.
How else can we explain a movie that puts as much info into your brain about Diamanda Galas as Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Prince?
I grew up dead center of this time. I was called into a Peer Group, as they called it, because I wore black shirts, read Fangoria in class, had long hair and could speak at length about the Lost Books of the Bible and teh Church of Satan. Anytime a pentagram showed up on a wall, a cadre of devil worshippers were waiting to eat babies and obviously, I had infant stuck between my teeth. Time has made my experiences kinder; I am no longer an Eddie Munson kid without the benefit of cheerleaders wanting to get with me for drugs, not that I ever was. I still listen to bands that’ll curl your hair and send your soul to a lake of fire, but at least now I would hope I appear somewhat respectable.
But man, this release is all inclusive. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Whitesnake, The Frogs — the fucking Frogs, the Milwaukee brother band that wears bat wings on stage and sings lyrics like “Who’s sucking on grandpa’s balls since grandma ain’t home tonight?” — and so many more to the point that when it got to ELO, I screamed at the TV, “He’s the nasty one– Christ, you’re infernal! is backmasked on their song “Eldorado!”” because I knew the script so well. It had been jammed down my gullet for years.
“For Whom Hell’s Bells Toll” ran twenty years ago in Pitchfork and I am delighted that writer Stephen M. Deusner took the time to list the hundreds of bands called out in this movie:
Here is the list of artists and the associated concerns formatted into a bulleted list:
A-II-Z: Occult-themed album art (Witch of Berkeley); this one is pretty rare, to be honest.
AC/DC: Soundtracked Hell’s Bells, inspired “Night Stalker” serial killer, pentagrams on album art (Highway to Hell), violent cover art (If You Want Blood You Got It).
Aerosmith: Drug and alcohol abuse, equating sex and religion on “Angel.”
Agnostic Front: Violent and rebellion-themed album art (Cause for Alarm).
Amen: Objectionable album art (Disorderly Conduct.
Aphrodite’s Child/Vangelis: Released album called 666. Vangelis!
Bad Religion: Objectionable band name, objectionable album art (Back to the Known).
Ballad Shambles: Objectionable album art (unknown source).
Bananarama: “Venus” video equates sex with religion.
Bangles: “Degraded” sexuality in song “In Your Room” (“I’ll do anything you want me to”).
Bauhaus: Backwards Latin Satanic incantation in “Father, Son & Holy Ghost,” combine Satanic imagery “with an intelligence and poetic passion rarely found” in heavy metal.
Be Bop Deluxe: Pentagram on album cover (Live! In the Air Age).
Beastie Boys: More than 90 references to drug and alcohol abuse on Licensed to Ill. I am certain in future episodes this will get into their Dalai Lama connections.
Bobby Beausoleil: Composed music for Lucifer Rising, Manson family member.
Beatles: Being bigger than Jesus, featuring Crowley on album cover (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), violent album art (Yesterday and Today), drugs, rebellion, El Cronado.
Birthday Party: Likened Jesus to “bad seed,” indecipherable lyrics about “post-crucifixion baby.”
Bitch: Sexual and violent album art (Be My Slave).
Black Flag: Violent and suicide-themed album art (Family Man).
Black Market Baby: Objectionable band name and album art (Senseless Offerings).
Black Sabbath: Number of the beast, crucifixion imagery, objectionable album art (Born Again, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath). I mean, this is one of the biggest ones, so this should be longer than it is.
Blaspheme: Objectionable band name and album art (Last Supper).
Bl’ast!: Sex- and occult-themed album art (Take the Manic Ride).
Bloodrock: Violent album art (Bloodrock U.S.A.).
Blue Öyster Cult: Adopted Satanic cross as band logo, included backmasked messages (Mirrors). Is it weird that I know more than this movie, like how on the inside cover of Secret Treaties, Eric Bloom is dressed like a member of the Process Church?
Marc Bolan: Untimely death.
Bon Jovi: Hosting MTV’s Hedonism Week, references to alcohol on “Dead or Alive,” rebellion, sexual album art (original Slippery When Wet cover).
Graham Bond: Claimed to be illegitimate son of occultist Aleister Crowley.
David Bowie: Occult, recorded “Quicksand” about Crowley. Come on, tell us about hiding from witches and putting urine in a refrigerator while out of his mind on coke!
Bobby Brown: Simulated copulation with audience member.
David Byrne and Brian Eno: Recorded song about demonic possession, uses African “voodoo” rhythms.
Marty Callner (video director): Soft-porn videos (“Is This Love?” by Whitesnake). Come on — he directed the Camelot TV movie!
Cars: Ric Ocasek walking on water in “Magic” video.
Celtic Frost: Use crucifix as slingshot on album cover (To Mega Therion), occult, rebellion. I’ll give them this one.
CH3: Suicide-themed album art (Fear of Life).
Chauteaux: Witchcraft-themed album art (Chained and Desperate).
Cheap Trick: Took band name from Ouija board, backmasked messages, El Cronado.
Cher: Sex. Not. turning back time?
Christian Death: Gnosticism, sex- and occult-themed album art (Only Theatre of Pain, The Scriptures, Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ, What’s the Verdict).
Christ’s Child: Objectionable album cover (Hard).
The Church: Objectionable band name, broken angel imagery on album cover (The Church).
Cinderella: Condemned drug use on MTV Rock Against Drugs PSAs (hypocritical).
CJSS: Recorded song “Citizen of Hell,” objectionable album art (Praise the Loud).
Eric Clapton: Promoted alcohol abuse via beer ad.
Coil: Devotees of Aleister Crowley.
Natalie Cole: Sex.
Phil Collins: “So-called neutral stuff, by the very reason of its subtlety, [is] potentially more destructive than the over wickedness found in hardcore rock and roll.”
Alice Cooper: On-stage mutilation, rebellion, “School’s Out” prevents mice from solving mazes, objectionable album art (Constrictor). Also a right wing Christian, but who is checking that out?
Coven: Objectionable album art (Blessed Is the Black, Blood in the Snow), El Cronado. I mean, there’s not a more Satanic band out there; they had an entire black mass on an album.
Cramps: “Degraded” sexuality (Date With Elvis).
Crass: Crucifixion-themed album art (Christ the Album, Yes Sir I Will).
David Crosby: Stealing kids from parents through music.
Crown of Thorns: Objectionable band name and album art (Pictures).
Cuban Heels: Universalism (Work Our Way to Heaven).
Cure: Alcohol abuse, blasphemy in “The Blood” and “Holy Hour,” combine Satanic imagery “with an intelligence and poetic passion rarely found” in heavy metal.
Current 93: Objectionable album art (Nature Unveiled), devoted album Crowleymass to Aleister Crowley.
Damned: Crown of thorns imagery (Grimly Fiendish)
Dan Reed Network: Voodoo-inspired R&B
Terence Trent D’Arby: Crown of thorns and self-crucifixion (photoshoot)
Dark Angel: Objectionable band name and album art (Darkness Descends)
Dark Wizard: Objectionable album art (Reign of Evil)
Dead Kennedys: Objectionable album art (In God We Trust, Inc.)
Death: Objectionable album art (Scream Bloody Gore)
Death Cult: Objectionable album art (Death Cult)
Chris de Burgh: Album art with Satan giving El Cronado (Spanish Train)
Def Leppard: Occult imagery, sex-themed songs
Depeche Mode: Songs about sex and sadomasochism, recorded “Blasphemous Rumors”
Devo: Objectionable album art (“Peekaboo” 12″)
Dickies: Mock Jesus on album art (Second Coming)
Bo Diddley: Rebellion
Dio: Occult-themed songs and stage shows, El Cronado, objectionable album art (Holy Diver)
Doors: Rebellion, drugs, sex, violence, murder, occult; Morrison married a witch, claimed to have killed a man, allegedly possessed by Native American souls, objectionable album art (13)
Duran Duran: Satanic symbol on album art (Seven and the Ragged Tiger)
Earth Wind & Fire: Universalist imagery on album art (All in All)
Easter: Album cover features fornication with cross (Easter)
Sheena Easton: Contributes to “the pulsing rhythms that reverberate in our health spas”
Eddie & the Hot Rods: Suicide-themed album art (Life on the Line)
Electric Light Orchestra: Backmasked messages on “Eldorado”
Emerson Lake & Palmer: Objectionable album art (Brain Salad Surgery)
Eurythmics: “Missionary Man” warns listeners away from salvation
Exodus: Album art shows union of God and Satan
Marianne Faithfull: Appeared in satanic movie Lucifer Rising
The F.U.’s: Objectionable album title (Kill for Christ)
Femme Fatale: Sex
Fleetwood Mac: Incorporated voodoo dress and rhythms in live shows
Tom Fogerty: Universalism (Myopia)
Lita Ford: Sex
Samantha Fox: Sex, allegedly worships Pan
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Rebellion, songs about sex and sadomasochism, objectionable album art (Welcome to the Pleasure Dome), ruined Live Aid, El Cronado. Fuck yeah.
Frogs: “Militant homosexuality,” objectionable album art (It’s Only Right and Natural), recorded song called “Gather Round for Messiah #2.” I love that The Frogs get called out in this.
Peter Gabriel: Voodoo imagery in “Shock the Monkey” video.
Diamanda Galas: Recorded album Litanies of Satan, proclaimed herself the Anti-Christ (“Sono l’Antichristo”), provided music for voodoo-themed movie The Serpent & the Rainbow, objectionable album art (Divine Punishment). Who knew who she was outside of weirdos like me?
Bob Geldof: Introduced Frankie Goes to Hollywood at Live Aid, allowed most of the funds raised to fall into the hands of Ethiopia’s communist dictator.
Generation X: Objectionable album art (Valley of the Dolls).
George Thorogood and the Destroyers: Recorded song “Bad to the Bone.” Really?
Graceland: Satirized The Last Supper on album The First Snack.
Graham Central Station: Objectionable album art (Release Yourself).
Grateful Dead: “Synonymous with marijuana and LSD use.” Also not really dead.
Greater Than One: Objectionable album art (I Don’t Need God).
Grim Reaper: Recorded song “See You in Hell,” objectionable album art (See You in Hell).
Guns N’ Roses: “Sexual violence” in music, album art; inverted cross (Appetite for Destruction).
Nina Hagen: Objectionable album NunSexMonkRock contains song “Cosma Shiva” that mocks Christ and the Madonna.
Daryl Hall: Has large collection of occult material.
George Harrison: Universalism.
Healing Faith: Promote suicide (The Healing Faith).
Heart: Video includes occult imagery.
Hellion: Objectionable album art (Postcards from the Asylum).
Helloween: Objectionable album art (Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part 2).
Jimi Hendrix: Hypnotizing people through music, choking on own vomit, voodoo rhythms, rebellion, violence, “If 6 Was 9” used in interstitials.
Nona Hendryx: Sex.
Whitney Houston: “Saving All My Love for You” promotes infidelity; “so-called neutral stuff, by the very reason of its subtlety, is potentially more destructive than the over wickedness found in hardcore rock and roll.”
Huey Lewis & the News: “Step by Step” warns listeners away from salvation.
Huns: Fake crucifixion on stage, song called “Eat Death, Scum.”
Billy Idol: Rebellion, fake crucifixion in “Hot in the City” video, mock crosses in “White Wedding” video.
Impaler: Objectionable album art (Rise of the Mutants EP), eating raw meat on stage.
INXS: Recorded song “Devil Inside.”
Iron Maiden: Mascot Eddie told fan to kill himself; neuromancy, occult, rebellion, objectionable album art (Killers, The Number of the Beast, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son).
LaToya Jackson: Posed for Playboy.
Michael Jackson: Sex, “Thriller” video features occult imagery.
Colin James: Recorded voodoo-related song.
Rick James: El Cronado.
Jane’s Addiction: Drug abuse, objectionable album art (Nothing’s Shocking).
Jefferson Airplane: Recorded song called “The Son of Jesus,” rebellion.
Elton John: Commissioned family crest featuring Pan.
Robert Johnson: Sold soul to devil at crossroads, inspired rock and roll.
Judas Priest: Suicide, rebellion, objectionable album art (Hell Bent for Leather, Sin After Sin).
Killing Joke: Mock Catholicism in video.
Sam Kinison: Soft-porn videos, pentagrams, not being funny.
KISS: Bloody stage show, sex, rebellion, violence, El Cronado.
Kreator: Objectionable album art (Pleasure to Kill).
Cyndi Lauper: Promotes rebellion, recorded “She-Bop” about masturbation.
Timothy Leary: “Pharmacological guru of the rock ‘n’ roll generation.”
Led Zeppelin: Backmasked messages and references to Pan on “Stairway to Heaven,” Zoso = number of the beast.
John Lennon: Openly mocked Jesus.
Kenny Loggins: Objectionable album art (Keep the Fire).
Lords of the New Church: Combine “heavy metal imagery with poetic passion,” objectionable band name and album art (The Lords of the New Church, Killer Lords).
Ludichrist: Objectionable band name and album art (Immaculate Deception).
Lydia Lunch: Objectionable album art (Slow Choke). Gave handjob to Henry Rollins in a Richard Kern movie. I added that one.
Madonna: “Ex-porn star,” crucifixion imagery in “Like a Prayer” video, “brazenly pornographic style,” materialistic. Ex-porn star is a reach.
Richard Marx: Sex, sang on “All Night Long” by Lionel Richie, did Hazard concept album, are you paying attention?
Ron “Pigpen” McKernan: Untimely death.
John McLaughlin: Admits to being possessed while playing, occult.
MDC (Millions of Dead Cops/Damn Christians): Song “This Blood’s for You” mocks Jesus and inspired thousands of Christian t-shirts, objectionable album art (This Blood’s for You).
Meat Loaf: El Cronado.
Megadeth: Occult, rebellion, objectionable album art (Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good).
Men in Black: Objectionable album art (The Gospel According to the Men in Black)
Mercyful Fate: “Take their Satanism seriously,” rebellion, occult, objectionable album art (Don’t Break the Oath). Again, this one is a given.
Metal Church: Objectionable album art (Metal Church).
Metallica: Promote suicide on “Fade to Black.”
George Michael: Wants your sex; “so-called neutral stuff, by the very reason of its subtlety, is potentially more destructive than the over wickedness found in hardcore rock and roll.”
Joni Mitchell: Has male muse named Art.
Mötley Crüe: Equate sex and violence, used pentagram in album art (Shout at the Devil), El Cronado.
Motörhead: Crucifixion-themed album art (unknown source).
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult: Marry Satanic message with “a sense of religious and poetic transcendence,” objectionable album art (I See Good Spirits & I See Bad Spirits). Also: They claim that they’re British when they’re from Chicago.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Combine Satanic imagery “with an intelligence and poetic passion rarely found” in heavy metal.
Nosferatu: Objectionable album art (unknown source).
Oingo Boingo: Unclear.
Overkill: Objectionable album art and video (Under the Influence).
Ozzy Osbourne: Rebellion, attacking Jim Bakker in “Miracle Man,” satanic imagery on album art (Blizzard of Ozz, No Rest for the Wicked), promote suicide on “Suicide Solution,” released album Mr. Crowley devoted to Aleister Crowley, El Cronado, scary face.
Jimmy Page: “One of the leading occultists of the rock generation,” owns occult bookstore, bought Aleister Crowley’s former home and had it refurbished by a Satanic decorator.
Anita Pallenberg: Girlfriend of several members of the Rolling Stones, also involved in the making of Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising.
Robert Palmer: Sexual content in music videos, wrote about Master Musicians of Joujouka.
Pebbles: Sex.
Pink Floyd: Rebellion.
Robert Plant: Sex.
Plasmatics/Wendy O. Williams: Backmasked message about brainwashing, satanic symbols on album art (Coup d’Etat, Metal Priestess).
Poison: Violence, sex, objectionable album art (Open Up and Say…Ahh!).
Poison Idea: Mutilation-themed album art (Kings of Punk).
The Police: “Every Breath You Take” used in interstitial title screen.
Iggy Pop/The Stooges: Bloodletting at concert.
Possessed: General Satanism and witchcraft. Seven Churches is a great album.
Elvis Presley: Sexuality.
Pretty Poison: Voodoo imagery in video.
Pretty Things: Objectionable album art (Silk Torpedo), signed to Led Zeppelin’s White Swan label, which threw blasphemous record release party.
Prince: Sex, falsely promotes himself as new breed of Christian, recorded songs “The Cross” and “Batdance.” Wow.
Psychic TV:Music arm of Crowley-linked sect Thee Temple of Psychick Youth, objectionable album art (Live at Thee Circus).
Queen: Backmasking, drug abuse.
Rainbow: Violent album art (Straight Between the Eyes).
Ratt: Rebellion.
Raven:Recorded song “Hell Patrol.”
Lou Reed: Drug abuse.
Residents: Objectionable album art (God in 3 Persons).
RF-7: Objectionable album art (unknown source).
Lionel Richie: “So-called neutral stuff, by the very reason of its subtlety, [is] potentially more destructive than the over wickedness found in hardcore rock and roll.”
Rigor Mortis: Recorded song “Condemned to Hell,” objectionable album art (Rigor Mortis).
Rods: Violent album art (Let Them Eat Metal).
Rolling Stones: Recorded song “Sympathy for the Devil” on At Her Satanic Majesty’s Request, objectionable album art (Goats Head Soup, Undercover, Tattoo You), bankrolled sect called the Process, made Satanic movie Invocation of My Demon Brother.
David Lee Roth: Sex.
Peter Rowan: Likens music to “spiritual force.”
Todd Rundgren: El Cronado.
Rush: Invoked Greek equivalent of Pan on 2112, backmasking.
Santana: Universalist.
Scorpions: Sex, cage imagery in “Rock You Like a Hurricane” video, objectionable album art (Blackout, Love at First Sting).
Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel: Objectionable band name and album art, lyrics include “The only good Christian is a dead Christian.”
Sex Pistols: Rebellion, self-mutilation, Rotten designed t-shirt with upside-down crucifixion.
Siouxsie and the Banshees: Recorded song “Sin in My Heart.”
Sister: Pentagrams.
Sisters of Mercy: Combine Satanic imagery “with an intelligence and poetic passion rarely found” in heavy metal.
Skulls: Crucifixion imagery (unknown source).
Slayer: Used pentagram on album art (Reign in Blood).
Smashed Gladys: Sex and necromancy on album art (Social Intercourse).
Patti Smith: Rebellion, recorded Joujouka-inspired album Radio Ethiopia.
Smiths: Combine Satanic imagery “with an intelligence and poetic passion rarely found” in heavy metal.
Sonic Youth: Obsessed with death (“Death Valley ’69”).
Spooky Tooth: Album cover depicts Jesus with hand nailed to head (Ceremony).
Bruce Springsteen: Makes money in rock industry.
Stiff Kittens: Crowley on album cover (Happy Now).
Suicidal Tendencies: Pentagrams.
Suicide: Promote suicide
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks: Objectionable band name, recorded “I Am the Lord Jesus” backwards.
The The: Unclear (“Gravitate to Me” may promote drug use).
Tone Loc: Sex.
Pete Townshend: Objectionable album art.
Tina Turner: Participated in Live Aid, where Mick Jagger ripped off her skirt.
Twisted Sister: Rebellion, violent album art (Stay Hungry)
Uncle Bonsai: Sex-themed album (Boys Want Sex in the Morning).
Undisputed Truth: Crucifixion imagery on album cover (unknown source).
Urge Overkill: Objectionable album art (Jesus Urge Superstar).
Uriah Heep: Objectionable album art (Abominog).
U2: Make money through rock industry.
Van Halen: Sex, song “Best of Both Worlds” about finding heaven on earth.
Venom: Album title Welcome to Hell, pentagram and goat imagery, how long do you have?
Virus: Objectionable album art (unknown source).
Void: Inverted cross on album art (Condensed Flesh).
Wall of Voodoo: So influenced by voodoo they took it as their name.
Warlock: Objectionable album art (Triumph and Agony), recorded song “All We Are” about earthly redemption.
W.A.S.P./Blackie Lawless: Rebellion, sex-themed and violent album art (Animal (F**k Like a Beast), Inside the Electric Circus).
Wasted Youth: Crucifixion-themed album art (Black Daze).
Jody Watley: Sex.
Wayne County & the Electric Chairs: Recorded song “Storm the Gates of Heaven.”
Whitesnake: Sex in “Is This Love?” video, objectionable album art (Lovehunter).
The Who: Violent stage act, incited riot at Cincinnati show that resulted in 11 deaths.
Toyah Willcox: Songs about occult, El Cronado.
Steve Winwood: Recorded “Higher Love,” “so-called neutral stuff, by the very reason of its subtlety, [is] potentially more destructive than the over wickedness found in hardcore rock and roll.”
XTC: Recorded “Dear God.”
Young Gods: Mutilation-themed album art (The Young Gods).
Zodiac Mindwarp: “Prime Mover” video promotes rebellion, destroys church.
A one-and-done SOV by George Keller, this one lives up to the promise of its title: worms from space come to Earth and, well, devour folks. No more, no less.
Or maybe more. This is a noir movie masquerading as SOV, a film where, instead of a black-and-white, rainy, smoky night, we’re seeing downtown LA in VHS-scanline, bright-sun quality, as synth tunes bleat over us. There is something deeply unsettling about seeing cosmic horror occur in a mundane, over-exposed apartment lit only by a sliding glass door. It feels less like a movie and more like a crime scene video captured by a neighbor who happened to have a Panasonic Camcorder. For example, a camcorder saving for posterity mountains of coke getting devoured by space grossness and interstellar maggots that can eat your flesh down to the bone in just moments.
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: Viewer’s Choice
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 Eastand 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.
We’ve come to the final page in the last chapter of Horror Gives Back. Before I close the book on another successful journey through horror films I’ve watched for the first time, I’ve saved one of the best for last—Tibor Takács’ I, Madman.
By 1989, horror had pretty much run its course at the box office. Jason may have been taking Manhattan, but he grossed less than 15 million. Freddy didn’t fare much better with The Dream Child, garnering about 22 million dollars. The top grossing horror film of 1989? Pet Sematary with 57 million, slightly less than that Al Pacino film Sea of Love. Audiences were much more interested in spending money on action and family-oriented movies than horror. Perhaps the true horror was yet to come in the next decade.
As far as I, Madman’s box office, it is non-existent. After a regional release, the film was dumped on home video, as so many films were in those days. Eventually, it has taken on a bit of a cult following it seems. With one eye looking in the past and one eye looking forward, I, Madman combines the 1950s nostalgia so many films hoped to capture and pulled it into the turn of the decade.
The film follows Virginia (Jenny Wright), an aspiring actress who works at a local bookstore. She has come across an old book entitled Much of Madness, More of Sin, written by someone named Malcolm Brand. The main character of this novel forms an obsession around an actress named Anna. She does not care for his face, so he decides to just cut off all of his features. His nose. His ears. His lips. His scalp. You know, as one does when one is rejected by a woman.
Unable to find Brand’s follow up novel, I, Madman, Virginia is dejected, but, amazingly, she finds the book at the doorstep to her apartment. In this novel, the character is back, harvesting those body parts he had removed from unsuspecting victims in order to graft them onto his own body. But suddenly, fiction becomes reality, as Virginia begins witnessing murders and is haunted by the man from the novel. Could the events have truly leapt from the page? Or is Virginia experiencing some sort of psychotic break? The fantastical ending perhaps poses more questions than answers.
I, Madman does a fantastic job of combining two worlds: the seediness of a 50s pulp novel, complete with a film noir feel, and a bit of a neo-noir, as Virginia’s boyfriend, Richard (Clayton Rohner), is a detective on the case, torn between solving the crime and believing his girlfriend. Surprisingly, he does not totally dismiss Virginia’s claims. Add a touch of Rear Window, stop motion effects that you never see anymore, and some of the best production design of any film in the late 80s, and a cult classic is born.
I find myself guilty of saying clichés like “they just don’t make films like this anymore”. Truth is, they never made films like I, Madman. It’s almost singular in its originality. Filmmakers are not allowed to take these chances anymore unfortunately. Thus, I do not find modern horror to be that interesting. Like Virginia, I find myself scouring the past for content that lights up my imagination. Luckily, I’m not sure that I will ever hit bottom, as I keep finding fantastic films year after year.
I can probably start making my Horror Gives Back list for next year. Note to self: add The Gateto films to try to squeeze into a category. I suddenly need more Tibor Takács in my life.
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