Throughout Violent Shit, Violent Shit II: Mother Hold My Hand, Violent Shit III: Infantry of Doom,Nikos the Impaler, which was released in some countries as Violent Shit 4, and Karl vs. Axe, Andreas Schnaas has grown from making movies on the weekend with his friends and a camcorder to become known force in extreme horror.
Yet it all started here for so many. Twenty years before this film, Karl (Karl Inger) used a meatcleaver to end his mother’s abuse. Then, after years of prison life, he escapes into th woods and begins killing and eating his victims before realizing that all along he has been taught how to kill by demons. At this point, reality kind of stops and Karl crawls into the body of Jesus and then his skin begins to fall off, so he finally just rips himself to pieces, revealing a child covered in blood.
Will you like it? Are you prepared for a murderdrone dive ino absolutely nonsensical gory murder, punctuated by more murder, then followed by a demonic being that will definitely be hiding in my brain from now on and then, like I said, the killer disembowling a religious figure and then horrifyingly being born again. I always wonder if I should recommend things and what people will think of them when I do. So…you’re in this one alone.
Satan’s Storybook prefigures the streaming horror anthology films that litter our watch services today yet it’s miles above those, not just within its two tales, but with a connecting story that makes you want even more.
Directed and co-written by Michael Rider, who was also a zombie in the shot on video Hororama, this movie starts with the bride of Satan (Leslie Deutsch) — who by the way looks amazing and just like a late 80s heavy metal album cover come to life — being abducted by ninjas, one of whom is her sister, who is played Ginger Lynn, so of course I was beyond in love with this segment. This upsets Satan so much that he demands that his jester tell him some stories to keep his mood light. This segment hints at a third story as well as more of the story which is never delivered and honestly, that’s the only thing about this movie I dislike, because it leaves you wanting so much more.
“Demon of Death” is all about Zeek Heller (co-writer Steven K. Arthur), a serial killer who abducts metal and horror fan — she has a Scared Stiff poster on the all black walls of her room — Jezebell Jones ((Leesa Rowland) and even wipes out her family before being sent to rot in jail. He’s just like so many metal dudes I knew in 1989 except, you know, he randomly looks up girls from the telephone book — placing this firmly in 1989 — and killing them. Then he gets arrested by the law, wo say things like “The only thing that stands between you and Old Sparkey is us, and we don’t give a lizard’s dick if you do fry, you buttplug!” The trial goes on and on and right before they throw the switch, Jezebell does some black magic that doesn’t really work out like she planned. It’s grimy and grainy and you can see people reading their lines off scripts, which some reviews proclaim as the sign of a bad movie, as if they’d never watched SOV before.
The second segment, “Death Among Clowns,” has a clown named Charlie (Grady Bradner, the writer of The Howling and Cameron’s Closet in his only movie as an actor) hanging himself in his dressing room and then engaging in lengthy dialogue with another clown named Mickey La Mort, who is played by this film’s director and writer Rider. This is the segment that usually causes people to hate this movie as it seems to go on forever yet I love it. Mickey the clown keeps getting more demonic as the segment moves on and basically this is two writers putting together endless dialogue in one location — with a Howling IV: The Original Nightmareposter no less — and no twist ending. Exactly what you think is going to happen — a clown dragging another clown to Hell — happens. It’s. kind of fascinating, like near murderdrone with no murder.
This movie has so much fog throughout that one wonders if this was considered as a pack-in with fog machines so that people could learn of their power.
Satan’s Storybook has the feel of Night Train to Terror and I mean that in the best of mind-melting ways. There are so many moments in this that make little to no sense at all and that’s what I demand from my films. If anything, this is a movie where Ginger Lynn magically transforms from a ninja to a barbarian princess and if you can’t find some wonder in that, I think you should give up watching films and reading this site. Bring on the synth and distorted voices. Bring on the rubber masked demons. Bring on the fog, the glorious fog.
Joe Zaso also made the two Screambook movies and Guilty Pleasures and is known as the Horror Himbo. An avid bodybuilder, he made appearances as The Hulk, Spider-Man, the New Jersey Devil and Captain America. And if you care about such things, because of his 15 EEE shoe size, he wears his own shoes for every film he appears in.
Directing this film and co-writing it with this movie’s cinematographer V.C. Siegfried, Zaso also stars in it along with Brian Dixon, who plays two roles, Bosco and Madman Malone. The story is all about a film crew shooting a horror movie in a haunted house and, as you can imagine, the cast and crew soon start showing up dead. You’ve seen it all before, but have you seen it shot on video? Have you seen an older starlet engaging in pillow talk while in the tub to a man she doesn’t know is a zombie? Are you prepared for horrific accidents? The camera accidentally catching people yawning? A close that finds an entire gospel church on stage with lyrics about sweeping your floor?
Honestly, usually a gospel choir can save any movie or song. This is the one time I’ve seen this not happen, as the choir is barely competent and that made me enjoy this movie even more. I also enjoyed the video effects and chromakey taking the places of stock footage lightning.
Zaso himself referred to this as a “less-than-stellar musical.”
Who are we to deny him?
I joke, though, because this movie really fascinates me because how many people pushed this hard and decided to not just make a shot on video, but a shot on video musical? Zeso learned a lot from his earlier films, the horror anthologies Screambook and Screambook 2, and this really shows a ton of promise. His films are entertaining, which is more than I can say for so many other movies.
Two girls find a magical wooden device called a Moon Goddess — which looks like something Lina Romay would dig up in a Franco movie — and it transforms them into adults — or were they old women transformed into kids all over again? — in this under an hour made for TV ultra personal Jean Rollin film, which kind of feels like a greatest hits of his most striking moments.
This movie feels like the kind of fast forward nostalgia I had as a kid when I was made emotional by love songs I had no understanding of at the time.
Years later, Clams Casino would release a music video with footage of this film, which has been attributed to people struggling with depression and the video itself helping them.
In the same way that childhood ends and I am confronted by feelings within it to this day, this movie makes me feels things that I understand more with each watch. It is ghost-like. It is etheral. It is magic.
The title of this movie is This Is Possible and it proves it. It was shot in 48 hours and is, yes, the Indian Kannada remake of Michele Soavi’s Stagefright but has nearly an hour of comedy before becomes a remake of that film, except that the owl-masked killer in this is nearly cute in costume while equally being horrifying while out of it, ranting, spewing blood and sweating himself into a frenzy.
Director and writer Dinesh Baboo is known for films like Amrutha Varshini and Inspector Vikram. This somehow has cops that aren’t as ineffectual as the originals, but that movie sets such a bar for the worst police work in the history of giallo, if not film itself.
This movie also has some deranged music — check it out on YouTube — that somehow mixes an evil voice saying “Beware!” with a swing beat, distorted guitars and a sing-along chorus that shouts “Somewhere!” It also tends to alternate between English and Kannada and has rap parts and drums that had to come from an 808 they found at a swap meet. It’s so good.
In case you ever get down, remember that you live in a world that did not only create Stagefright but also this remix remake ripoff of it and that it’s actually good. I mean, the chainsaw scene makes it in here, even if it’s a budget version, but how wonderful are movies that can cross the borders of ythe world?
Monte Hellman started his career by directing Roger Corman’s Beast from Haunted Cavebefore working with Jack Nicholson on the westerns The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, as well as creating the films Two-Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter. He also shot second unit on RoboCop and executive produced Reservoir Dogs.
The original script was thrown out and rewritten in one week, with that rejected version becoming the fourth film in the series. Shooting was completed by the next month and then editing was complete two months after that. This is a down and direty direct-to-VHS rental film, but it isn’t without its charms.
After being shot by police at the end of the previous film — cue the stock footage from Silent Night, Deadly Night — Ricky Caldwell has been in a coma for six years. Now, he has a transparent dome covering his damaged skull and the blood sloshes all around inside his brainpan.
Dr. Newbury (Richard Beymer, Ben Horne from Twin Peaks) is an eccentric doctor who wants to reach Ricky (now played by Bill Moseley!) by using a blind clairvoyant named Laura Anderson (Samantha Scully, Best of the Best).
Laura hates the experience and decides to quit. She goes home for the holidays to visit her grandmother (Elizabeth Hoffman, Fear No Evil) with her brother (Eric Da Re, Leo Johnson from Twin Peaks) and his girlfriend Jerri (Laura Harring, who played Rita and Camilla Rhodes in Mulholland Drive, as well as being the first hispanic Miss USA).
Meanwhile, a drunk hospital employee dressed as Santa taunts a comatose Ricky, who wakes up and kills the guy. Soon, he’s on a trail of bloody murder all over again, tracked by Newbury and Lieutenant Connely (Robert Culp).
Ricky can see into the mind of our heroine — and vice versa — which means she can tell that he’s probably already taken out grandmother and that her brother, his girl and she are next.
Honestly, this is my favorite of the series so far because it’s sheer madness punctuated by people who have acted in David Lynch movies. I wonder if he used this as an example of who to cast?
Check out Bill’s intro when this played FACETS in Chicago!
Straight up, let me be honest. This movie is crazy. I say that a lot in conversations about movies that defy description. I may exclaim, this movie is insane. It’s bonkers. I may use all manner of words. Let me tell you, when it comes to Christmas movies, nothing will prepare you for this.
Let me short hand it for you — imagine if Home Alone had more terror and blood. Think of the grindhouse version of that film. And then realize that this was made a year before and director René Manzor once threatened the makers of that film with a lawsuit alleging that they had remade his movie.
The difference is that when the Wet Bandits get beat up in Home Alone, the carnage is like a cartoon. Not here. Not at all.
Thomas de Frémont is a smart young kid who is obsessed with inventing things and American action movies like Rambo. He lives in a secluded mansion with his widowed mother Julie, his nearly blind grandfather Papy and his dog J.R. On Christmas Eve, Thomas uses a Minitel ( a French 80’s internet that had access to commercial and private addresses, along with chat rooms) to try and talk to Santa, only to be targeted by a deranged homeless man who breaks into the mansion.
Seriously, this evil Santa is super evil. He gets a job where Julie works, slaps around kids and gets his entry into their home by hiding in a delivery van and killing the driver. He then kills Thomas’ dog in front of his eyes. The young boy thinks that this really is Santa and he is angry that he’s stayed up so late to try and catch him dropping off toys.
The evil Saint Nick cuts off all the phone lines and challenges Thomas to a game of life and death, even catching him once and letting him go. I’m not going to give away more of the movie, but it’s seriously one of the darkest holiday movies I’ve ever witnessed, one that will make kids not want anything in their stockings.
It’s also shot in an incredibly frenetic style that I’d compare favorably to Michele Soavi. Manzor would go on to be a famous writer, as well as get hired by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to direct some of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
Also known as Deadly Games and Dial Code Santa Claus, this movie was impossible to find. That said — the awesome folks at American Genre Film Archive have a restored version playing across the country this holiday with a blu ray finally releasing soon. It won’t be out in time for Christmas, but if you’re already reading about it here, you know how to search the grey markets of the internet by now. It’s worth the time.
Vinegar Syndrome has released this movie after years of people like me waiting for it. Get it now!
There’s no way that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation should be as good as it is. By 1989, Chevy Chase had become, well, Chevy Chase and a holiday film three movies in feels like a cash-in. And yet this is a movie that my wife’s family watches every single year and now, I’ve become part of that tradition.
The first movie by director Jeremiah S. Chechik (who went on to direct Diabolique), the real joy of this movie is the script by John Hughes, based on his story Christmas ’59.
Chase and D’Angelo are back, but as always, the kids are played by different actors. This time, Audrey is Juliette Lewis and Rusty is Johnny Galecki. This probably has the smartest casting of any of the films in the series, with Clark’s parents being played by John Randolph and Diane Ladd, Ellen’s by E.G. Marshall and Doris Roberts, William Hickey and Mae Questel as the elderly and deranged Lewis and Bethany Griswold, evil neighbors the Chesters played by Julia-Louis Dreyfuss and Nicholas Guest, and most importantly, Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn returning as Eddie and Catherine.
Eddie’s appearance surprises me every time, how he just shows up out of nowhere and then takes over the movie. Yes, in the days before he was a conspiracy driven near-insane man, Randy Quaid had incredible comic timing.
It also has the episodic story idea that works so well from the first movie as you can come into this movie at any time and enjoy it. I mean, the shopping for lingerie scene? The sled riding? Randy waving in the pool dream? There are so many moments that make me laugh just imagining them.
Director Chris Columbus started as the director, but he and Chevy Chase did not get along, so John Hughes replaced him and gave him Home Alone. That worked out, right?
It also will never fail to blow my mind that Angelo Badalamenti did the score to this.
We haven’t watched this movie since two Christmas Days ago. My father-in-law, who would shush us all and make us all watch it together no matter what, is gone and maybe it’s too hard to watch. The closing line, where Clark just says, “I did it” used to make me cry before because it’s so wonderful and perfect and sums up the end of the holidays as an adult so well. But now, in a year where I’ve lost both of the fathers in my life, it seems like it all could all be too much.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This for kids but not recommended for children movie was originally on the site on December 23, 2019.
I love my wife, but man, when she gets control of the remote, we end up watching movies like Prancer when all I want to watch is Cannibal Holocaust again. I’m joking — I know it’s Christmas, but c’mon.
Here’s the demented thing about this movie: it has the same director as Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, John D. Hancock. I swear to Santa.
This movie is all about nine-year-old Jessica Riggs (Rebecca Harrell Tickell, who left acting to become a clean Earth activist), who is being raised by her widower father John (Sam Elliot). He can handle raising her brother Steve, but feels that she’d be better of being raised by his sister-in-law Sarah (Rutanya Alda from Mommie Dearest and Amityville II: The Possession).
Eventually, her obsession with Santa’s reindeer Prancer pays off and she gets to nurse him back to health. But man, is this a dark movie. The eighties are packed with dead moms in movies and this is yet another holiday film where everything is beyond somber.
Michael Constantine from the Greek Wedding movies is a Santa in this, plus you get Cloris Leachman, Abe Vigoda, a young Johnny Galecki and Ariana Richards from Jurassic Park.
You know how dark this one is?
Director John D. Hancock insists that Prancer’s fate — either he rejoins Santa or leaps off the cliff to his death — should be left open to interpretation.
Let that sink in: LEFT TO INTERPRETATION IN A MOVIE MADE FOR KIDS.
I’m not always a fan of studio notes, but I get why they wanted a more definitive answer. Originally, Hancock decided on an elaborate special-effects sequence showing Prancer’s journey to Santa’s sleigh, but they couldn’t afford that.
When asked, Hancock claims that the shot of Prancer rejoining Santa is all in Jessica’s mind.
Man, Tubi is filled with the work of John Russo, including these two docs:
Monster Make-Ups With Dick Smith (1989): Dick Smith is the godfather of monster make-up and best known for his work on Little Big Man, The Godfather, The Exorcist, House of Dark Shadows, Taxi Driver, Scanners and Death Becomes Her. He was an early pioneer of combining make-up with on-set “practical” special effects to make movie magic. This video, however, is just him doing simple make-up on a willing subject, giving him vampire fangs and then going absolutely wild and making him into a monster. While Smith’s work is dynamic, he’s soft-spoken and this video will show you technique but if you’re watching it as entertainment, you won’t get much. That said, it’s intriguing for horror movie fans. You can watch this on Tubi.
Horror Effects with Tom Savini (2008): Not released until 2008 but probably shot sometime in the 90s, this is less learning the techniques of Savini and more he and John Russo taking a trip down memory lane, talking about the movies they had worked on together and new films that Savini is just starting on like Two Evil Eyes, so yeah, this was around 1990 or so.
When it was shot, this would be the only way that you could see Heartstopper and I’m so glad they left the scene in where Tom keeps doing sets in his home gym while his wife begs him to put a baby in her.
Russo is a total carny and you know, I kind of love that. I’ve given him money for posters covered in coffee stains and don’t feel bad at all about it.
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