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: Tobe Hooper!

Back in 1955, Operation Samson had Brian (Brian Bremer) and Peggy Bell (Stacy Edwards) be exposed to a massive nuclear explosion to see how their immune system would work. Well, it works great, because they survive, become national heroes and have a child, David (who grows up to be Brad Dourif) while his parents go up in flames. Yes, spontaneous human combustion, which always showed up in those Ripley’s Believe It or Not books you bought at the book fair and got grossed out over.

David grows up to be a teacher named Sam Kramer and somehow meets Lisa Wilcox (Cynthia Bain), a woman whose parents went through the same death as his. Is it fate? No, it’s another government experiment, and for now, our hero can shoot fire and electricity out of his body.

Made four years after The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the same year as I’m Dangerous Tonight, this has me rooting for Tobe, even if I know that this isn’t good. But maybe it could have been. Dourif told Fangoria, “You see me playing my heart out in scenes that are not working, and the reason they’re not working is that the movie doesn’t make sense. It’s almost funny. As a matter of fact, the better my acting was in some of the later scenes, the funnier the film was. I found myself at the mercy of people who didn’t know what they were doing. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but my feeling is that the producers destroyed it. Tobe could have made three different movies with the material he had, and each one would have worked. But by the time he got it, it had changed from a love story to a suspense thriller about my character’s paranoid fantasy, to a guy goes crazy film about this insane killer who becomes a destructive force that’s going to wipe out mankind. We went back and kind of restructured it as a love story, but it didn’t really help. The beginning of the film was great, and a certain portion of my stuff was fine, but then it became stupid when all the flame stuff started happening.”

At least John Landis gets his head set on fire.

You can watch this on Tubi.

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: KNB

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Screenwriter Joe Augustyn (Night of the Demons) uses the legendary character of Lilith for Night Angel, the story of a centuries old succubus who is planning on infiltrating the minds of men via the cover of a magazine (yes, we are back in the 1990s folks).

As the story goes (in the Talmud), Lilith was Adam’s first wife before the creation of Eve. She was banished from the Garden of Eden for not being subservient to Adam. This disobedience allegedly included refusing to lie in the missionary position. Depending on the source, once Lilith leaves the Garden, she gives birth to hundreds of demons, many of whom die daily. In retaliation, she kills the infants of the Jewish people.

In Night Angel, Lilith is a demon herself, a succubus posing as a high fashion model, hoping to bring death and destruction to anyone who comes across her. It appears that humanity’s only hope for Pearl is 227 (Helen Martin), a woman who lost the love of her life to Lilith years ago, and may be the only person who has a way to destroy her forever.

In one of their earliest efforts, the special effects team of KNB provides the effects for Lilith’s transformation into her true demonic form at the end of the film. As always, great work by them.

Personally, I’m always fascinated by the incorporation of Jewish folklore into horror movies. We just do not see it enough in my opinion, although the source material is ripe for exploration. I will have another film that bases its plot on an aspect of this folklore for my 1980s pick. Stay tuned.

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: 1990s

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

I typically shy away from horror comedies. Or really comedies in general. I find that films as a medium generally have a hard time maintaining enough momentum for a theatrical run time. I much prefer the length of a sitcom. Sometimes, even 22 minutes is a stretch, though. I love a good skit. Best of all, a good Vine (RIP). You got six seconds to make me laugh.

But when I do find a comedy I enjoy, it is usually in the form of a spoof. Not even a satire. Just a good old-fashioned silly spoof. Airplane is probably my favorite straight-up cinematic comedy of all time. Amazon Women on the Moon would be up there. These films just make me laugh, no matter how many times I watch them.

Mixing horror and comedy is a combination that I do not seek out. I appreciate it more if the film is funny without necessarily being a comedy. Something like Return of the Living Dead comes to mind. Again, I do like a parody. I found Alfred Sole’s Pandemonium to be a pleasant surprise. And now Arbor Day, Joseph Sikorski’s take on a slasher set on a holiday.

Honestly, I’m not totally sure I knew this film was a comedy going into it. I had absolutely no expectations. But this disc was part of my Terror Vision subscription, so I figured I should give it a try. I’m glad that I did. Starting with a send-up of Citizen Kane, the film hooked me right away. There was no hiding the purpose of the film was to try to provide a goofy good time. 

It’s Arbor Day, apparently the most celebrated and highest of holy days in this film’s universe, and Elmer (Elm for short) and his parents are looking for that perfect spot to plant a sapling. However, disaster strikes when a grizzly bear decapitates Elmer’s father and…violates his mother (also killing her). Twenty years later, Elmer remains catatonic in a facility, only showing brief bursts of activity each Arbor Day. This year, Elmer escapes, returning home (as one does in a horror movie) for…revenge maybe. His motivation is not exactly clear. As fate would have it, a bunch of teenagers are using Elmer’s childhood home for their Arbor Day party. There will be blood this Arbor Day. And viscera. Lots of viscera.

Even at a relatively short running time of 80 minutes, the film almost overstays its welcome. It was a little touch-and-go. But, for me, it was able to hold it together just enough to get it over the finish line. I did laugh out loud a few times. Particularly at one scene where Elmer thinks about what could be if he and a potential victim got together, settled down, had a little sprout of their own. Nah, he says. LOL by me. 

I’d watch this one again. And that might be the biggest compliment I could give a horror comedy. I ain’t watching Repossessed again, that’s for sure. Usually once is more than enough. But I could easily make this one an Arbor Day tradition.

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

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

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

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