Tag Archives: 1993

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors (1993)

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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!

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

Being a fan of Freddy Krueger led me to this, and I was very intrigued seeing this in Tobe Hooper’s late output. Surely this will be a compelling feature.

Night Terrors is a direct to video effort that Tobe Hooper was asked to direct after Gerry O’Hara left the project. Featuring Robert Englund as the Marquis de Sade and a slew of actors familiar to the direct to video scene (including William Finley), it follows a young woman visiting her father in Egypt (it’s really in Israel) as she gets wrapped up in a cult run by de Sade’s descendant.

If you read that and thought “what the fuck?” to yourself, you’d be correct! How de Sade’s family ends up in Egypt is never explained, nor is the formation of his cult. The film reeks of unexplained bullshit thrown in just to happen. Naked dude on a horse? Painted snake lady? Exorcisms during an orgy featuring snakes? Cool, I guess. I’m ok with weirdness, but after a certain point it needs to make some sense.

Another choice is to intercut the modern day storyline with de Sade’s ramblings from his prison cell. I’m all for giving Robert Englund more screentime, and to his credit he is very fun to watch. But the back and forth makes no sense; it would work better as a straight period piece like it was originally intended.

Englund’s performance excluded, the acting from most of the cast is questionable at best. Zoe Trilling as Genie (a play on Eugenie, ha ha) overacts and screams a lot. I don’t like that her character is constantly a damsel in distress and is saved by forces outside her control, but she doesn’t make it any more watchable. Most everyone else phones it in. No one, not even Englund or Finley, truly attempts to elevate this nonsensical script; they all just play into its absurdity (intentionally or not). Combined with the silly premise, it’s really quite fun to watch.

The whole movie looks cheap. 90s DTV has a certain charm that I find irresistible, but even with the on location filming, the budget is painfully clear. The dungeon/basement settings are particularly hard to look at. A 4:3 ratio does nothing to help the film, and there is a distinct orange tinge over everything, likely indicative that this needs a restoration. 

I feel bad not liking this. Tobe Hooper, Robert Englund, and de Sade should have been a match made in heaven (or hell, depending on what you believe). Turns out none of them can help a lousy script. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but watching this is akin to watching a car crash. At least it was fun.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Doppelganger (1993)

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

Dude, I don’t know how to begin this write up. This fucking movie is so bizarre I highly recommend you watch it before reading on. It’s on Prime and Tubi. Go in cold, like nature intended.

If you’re being insolent and reading on… alright then. Doppelganger centers on Holly Gooding, a woman who moves across the country after her implication in her mother’s murder. She moves in with Patrick, a struggling writer trying to break into Hollywood. They begin a strange relationship, but Holly’s sanity increasingly comes into question as “doppelganger” commits violent acts she’s accused of.

I know this thing covers a lot of ground. It’s very cliche and riffs on many sources, ranging from Truman Capote to Brian De Palma. It also combines multiple genres: comedy, neo-noir, romance, horror, erotic thriller, it’s all there. It’s paced in a way that you wouldn’t think would be able to fit in everything, but surprise! It works, and it’s for the best most of the time.

Like all good 90s horror movies, Doppelganger throws in a heavy dose of offbeat comedy that is either hilarious or beyond annoying. You have multiple side characters that are so damn entertaining, but pushed aside to focus on the leads (more on that later). Patrick’s writing assistant is close to insufferable, yet she has fantastic one-liners that attempt to snap him back into reality. In terms of plot twists and visuals, it wants to be a De Palma movie so badly, yet it cannot shake the trends of the time. This leaves me no other choice but to place it in a special category known as camp: a film that in spite of its silliness, is seemingly aware of what it’s doing and doesn’t mind winking back to the audience (a normally hated trait of mine).

The casting of Drew Barrymore is simultaneously genius yet a terrible mistake. Holly Gooding’s struggles with mental health (that feels too kind to put here) and rough relationship with her family closely resemble Barrymore’s; I wouldn’t be shocked if this role was written with her in mind, like how Marilyn Monroe was Truman Capote’s inspiration for Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The issues are 1. Barrymore is rather young to be playing the female lead in a film with several erotic moments (including a topless shower scene) and 2. She is a charisma vacuum. I couldn’t buy her as sultry, just a weird edgy girl who needed an apartment. Pairing her with George Newbern, a frequent Superman voice actor, threw me off. Newbern, bless his heart, also has no real magnetism and is playing a wannabe screenwriter. Director/writer Avi Nesher tried channeling his best Hepburn/Peppard pairing and ended up with a mentally ill girl and dollar store Quentin Tarantino. Which isn’t terribly far from the source material, but trying to put that in an erotic thriller/horror film just doesn’t work. That being said, the clusterfuck is very fun to watch.

Where the camp comes in is found in other choices. My god, this movie looks far better than I expected. There are times you can tell it’s a soundstage with walls; other times the locations are immersive. This whole thing looks like it had a much higher budget than it likely did, a common trait of 90s B-rate horror films. Then there’s the editing… Nesher knows his pacing is quick considering most of his content is pretty mundane. How to spice it up? Quick cuts from everyone and everything! I broke my neck watching. Also, the score is insane. Too much. Too dramatic. Too anxiety inducing for regular everyday things. And yet it works. This film has no right to position itself as such a moving piece and yet it assures the audience that it is. There’s a certain nerve to be found and it’s really quite entertaining to watch.

Up to this point the reason for the season, KNB EFX has yet to be mentioned, or even considered to why it should be put in relation to the film. Hello spoilers! Go watch the movie. Please, it’s worth your time.

For most of the film, it’s just a regular thriller with flashes of grotesqueness, ranging from bloody showers to distorted reflections to a couple of murders. It’s not enough to warrant Kurtzmann, Nicotero, and Berger’s involvement, but a gig is a gig. Then the finale happens, and a gooey transformation of a singular woman into two skinless ghouls (her dual personalities) ensues, killing her psychiatrist who has taken advantage of her before morphing back. It’s the last thing you would expect from a film like this (that’s becoming a running theme here, isn’t it?).

Even before the final twenty minutes, before realizing  it was a riff on Capote, before connecting Drew Barrymore’s childhood to it, I knew Doppelganger was deeply rooted in abuse, mental instability, and the loss of identity as it pertains to show business. Barrymore’s past closely mirroring the events of the film adds a subtle layer of meta, one welcome in a world pre-dating Scream’s takeover of the genre. Within that lies the dual personalities of Holly – one that acts on her violent impulses, and one that goes about her day, frightened of what the other will do next. Having developed due to her troubled childhood, she can’t form particularly healthy relationships, the most prominent being with Patrick (I believe the kids call this a situationship). The disturbing reveal that she has been taken advantage of by her psychiatrist also follows this trend. Paired with Patrick’s concurrent storyline of being a struggling writer in the entertainment industry, and a plot mixed with insecurity arises, not long before David Lynch tried his hand at similar themes. And just like my initial watches of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, I know I’ll need a few more tries to fully unpack… this.

This is definitely one of my favorite watches of the month so far. Thanks to Lance and Erica of Unsung Horrors for putting myself and many others onto this little movie last year! Glad I could finally watch it.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Doppelganger (1993)

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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

Holly Gooding (Drew Barrymore) was suspected of murder in New York City, so she goes to Los Angeles. Could she have an evil twin doing these things? Patrick Highsmith (George Newbern) doesn’t care. Seriously, 1993 Drew Barrymore could stab someone in front of me and I’d defend her. Patrick is the same, even when his ex-girlfriend and writing partner, Elizabeth (Leslie Hope), tries to speak truth to him.

The end of this movie is the most magical bullshit ever. Dr. Heller (Dennis Christopher), Holly’s therapist, is the person behind all of this murder, er, and he shows off his extensive latex mask collection. Just before he kills Patrick, Holly splits into two people and kills him. Yes, we’ve been told there’s no way a doppleganger can be real and get evidence, then it happens before our eyes. You thought Malignant wasn’t basing its twist on direct-to-video 1990s horror?

The end almost leads us to feel like this was all an analogy. Who can say!

Drew got a role for her mother, Jaid, as her mom in this movie, a woman who tries to kill her for her trust fund and is then killed. I guess confession and wish fulfillment.

Plus, George Maharis, Sally Kellerman, Danny Trejo as a construction worker and Luane Anders from Reform School Girl (and many other movies, I know).

Director and writer Avi Nesher also made She, which is more than awesome. Oh! He also made Ritual, a Tales from the Crypt Presents movie. It wasn’t created as a series tie-in, but released on home video that way.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 17: The Amy Fisher Story (1993)

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17. A 90s Horror Film That Was Made for Television

Yes, a horror story. Within a few days, NBC’s Amy Fisher: My Story, CBS’s Casualties of Love and ABC’s The Amy Fisher Story all hit the small screen, and people did not go unmoved.

This time, we have Drew Barrymore playing Amy, and yeah, I’ll make a statement: I would kill someone for 1993 Drew Barrymore.

Director Andy Tennant would go on to work with Barrymore again on Ever After. He also made Fools Rush In and Sweet Home Alabama, so if you dated someone in the 90s, you saw his movies. It was written by Janet Brownell.

It all begins with Amy in bed, barely alive after a suicide attempt and wondering where it all went wrong. Oh yes, it was when she slept with Joey Buttafuoco (Tony Denison). Made a year after Drew was in Poison Ivy, this finds her playing yet another dangerous young girl who shouldn’t be using sex the way she is, but we all want to see it. You know, an exploitation film.

Fisher would go on to be with another old man bad for her, Louis Bellera, and even made an adult film — against her wishes, so she said — in the early 2000s. On March 6, 2008, Fisher was a guest on the Howard Stern Show to discuss the video. After the first phone call from Mary Jo Buttafuoco’s daughter, Jessica, Fisher left the show quickly. In 2010, she appeared in Deep Inside Amy Fisher alongside Lisa Ann, Tommy Gunn, Dale DaBone and Marcus London. She also appeared in Amy Fisher Is Sex (of course, Evan Stone is in that), My Wife’s Hot Friend 10, Amy Fisher With Love, Fatal Seduction (at least Katsuni is in that), and Seduced by a Cougar 22.

She reunited with Mary Jo Buttafuoco for appearances on Entertainment Tonight and also did the coin toss with Joey for the 2006 Lingerie Bowl, which was a thing. The New York Euphoria beat the Los Angeles Temptation 13-12.

Anyways: Casualties of Love was about Amy being crazy, while Amy Fisher: My Story  had her being taken advantage of, and this one says, “Both things can be true.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: When a Stranger Calls Back (1993)

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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.

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.

Today’s theme: Made for TV Movie!

“And maybe for the college boys, the truest mirror is the toilet bowl staring back at them in the morning after a toga party.”

This insightful line of dialogue is “uttered” by a faceless ventriloquist’s dummy during a set at a strip club in When a Stranger Calls Back, a copy/paste sequel produced by Showtime in 1993.

Starting with a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1984, Showtime produced many original films during a run that lasted until around 2007. Never reaching the acclaim of HBO Films, and never reaching the depths of Cinemax Friday After Dark programming, Showtime was able to carve out an interesting middle ground, particularly in the horror genre. The first film that comes to my mind when I think about Showtime is John Carpenter’s Body Bags. But Showtime was also the home of films such as Psycho IV: The Beginning, The Birds II: Land’s End, as well as Jim Wynorski’s remake of The Wasp Woman. Pursuing the list of films now, I feel the need to find some of these potential hidden gems. Once this month is over, I might have to seek out The Tiger Woods Story, a 1998 film directed by LeVar Burton, starring Keith David as Tiger Woods’ dad. 

When a Stranger Calls Back gets the gang from the first film back together. Carol Kane as Jill, the babysitter who was tormented in the original movie, but she has since turned her trauma into a career as a counselor, while finding time to take self-defense classes on the side. Charles Durning as Detective John Clifford, using his skills to track down men who harass babysitters (a very niche skill set). And director Fred Walton. Not much to say about Walton other than he also directed April Fool’s Day, followed by a string of made-for-TV films, including a remake of William Castle’s I Saw What You Did.

Not only did the director and main stars come back, but the basic template from the first film returns. The most often heard complaint about When a Stranger Calls is that the film loses steam after that iconic opening sequence. But what film could possibly match the energy and suspense crafted in that first 20 minutes? People rarely talk about how great the last 15 minutes are as well. Truly scary.

While the bookends of When a Stranger Calls Back does not match the intensity of the original, it makes a decent effort. We get a legendary scream queen as the tormented babysitter (Jill Schoeien), and a killer who is creepier than the one in the first film. Kind of a Francis Dolarhyde meets Peeta from The Hunger Games. And I think that the second act here is more interesting than the one in the first film. Of course having more Carol Kane is always a good idea in my book. Watching Carol Kane’s stunt double do a jumping scissors kick against her attacker? Peak cinema. 

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Casualties of Love: The “Long Island Lolita” Story (1993)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Casualties of Love was on USA Up All Night on February 13, 1993; November 25 and December 3, 1994.

Of the three Amy Fisher movies, NBC’s Amy Fisher: My Story, ABC’s The Amy Fisher Story with Drew Barrymore, and this film, which aired on CBS on January 3, 1993 — the same night as ABC’s film — this is the only one featuring Lawrence Tierney.

Alyssa Milano is Amy, which is probably why this was on USA Up All Night so often.

Director and writer John Herzfeld also made numerous TV movies, including Daddy, A Father’s Revenge, The Ryan White Story, The Preppie Murder, and Remember, which features Donna Mills. He also produced several ABC Afterschool Specials, 2 Days in the Valley, Don King: Only in America, and the John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John film Two of a Kind.

This one has a lot of Joey Buttafuoco (Jack Scalia), coked out and playing drums. And his brother is played by Bud, Leo Rossi! Man, did I cast this movie?

This one tells Joey’s side of the stor,y and the USA Network bought it while it was being filmed. Milano said,  “Our version was the one from Joey Buttafuoco’s point of view: That she was a lunatic. Since then, we’ve learned that his version wasn’t all true.”

You can watch this on Tubi.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Good Girls Don’t (1993)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Good Girls Don’t was on USA Up All Night on November 26, 1993; July 22, 1994; March 11 and September 9, 1995; March 2 and October 4, 1996; June 21 and December 5, 1997.

Outside of Chuck Vincent, Rick Sloane may be the perfect USA Up All Night director. Sure, his movies promise sin, but really, they’re comedic blasts of happiness, more innocent than you’d expect.

This was made directly in the middle of the Vice Academy series and feels like it’s in the same cinematic universe. Jeannie (Renée Estevez, sister of Charlie, Emilio and Ramon; she’s also in Intruder) is an innocent secretary. Betina (Julia Parton, yes, the cousin of Dolly, who also did adult under this name as well as Rachel Weis, Julia Jartouer, Rachel Welles, June Bauer and Nina Alexander; she was the “publisher” of High Society and is in Vice Academy 3 and 4; you’re never going to see Dolly’s sweater meat without a sweater, so the thrill is gettign close. That said, she’s a good singer and a fun actress!) is the exotic dancer who has seen it all.

Jeannie’s boss wants her to hire a stripper, so she goes to the club where Betina works, and at first, they have no common ground. The boss doesn’t pay Betina for dancing, Jeannie fights him over his salary, then he ends up dead, and the two of them are the suspects.

Jeannie’s ex is a cop named Montana (Christopher Knight?!?) who starts chasing the two. There’s also Wilamena (Mary Woronov!) and her henchmen, one of whom is Rico Constantino, who was on American Gladiators and would go on to be Rico in WWE.

Can this get any better? What is Elizabeth Kaitan was a TV announcer?

You may wonder…will Jeannie fall for Cody (Dan Wildman), the good cop? Will Julia Parton sing? Will her hair look amazing? How many times will her top explode off and reveal her chest unfettered? How loud did I yell when Jayne Hamil showed up, basically playing Miss Thelma Louise Devonshire? Tamara Clatterbuck and Honey Lauren are also in this, so it’s either a meta shout-out for the Vice Academy fans or more likely they filmed this at the same time as one of those movies.

Look — life has not been fun lately. Rick Sloane made these cartoony and sexy movies as time capsules to return us to our youth when we were closer to the cradle than the grave. We owe him thanks. We owe everyone in his movies thanks.

You can watch this on Tubi.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Kill, Kill, Overkill (1993)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Kill, Kill, Overkill was on USA Up All Night on August 7, 1993; February 25 and November 5, 1994; August 4 and November 4, 1995.

Also known as Twisted Fate, this was directed by Donald G. Jackson and has brothers Luther (Troy Fromin) and Peter Paul Fate (Bill Black, mostly a sound and effects person, not the 1990s All Japan Pro Wrestling gaijin who teamed with Joel Deaton) stalking Brenda (Nancy Jury), Roxanne (Suzanne Solari, Sister Sharon from the Roller Blade movies) and Amy (Julie Nine, not the only actress in this movie who is also in Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II). Jody (Susan Deemer, Slash Dance) shows up on a motorcycle and saves them.

One of the writers, Randall Frakes, plays Jody’s cheating boyfriend, who also gets his destroyed.

Vince is played by adult star Johnny Ringo, who has appeared in films such as Coming Out Bi and A Brother’s Desire. Speaking of porn, Tiffany Million plays a hitchhiker. She was Tiffany Mellon, one of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling and directed several movies, including Jailhouse Cock. She’s also licensed to be a private investigator in California and had a reality TV show, Wife, Mom, Bounty Hunter.

This is not good. But you can usually tell when I spend most of one of these talking about the porn stars in the movie that I didn’t like what I watched, and I’m trying to at least find something I liked in it.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Dennis the Menace (1993)

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Aug 25-31 Natasha Lyonne Week: There’s a new season of her weirdo mystery of the week coming out (I can’t remember the name rn, you can look it up), and she’s been steadily delivering chuckles for decades now.

Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble) spends time with his friends Joey McDonald (Kellen Hathaway) and Margaret Wade (Amy Sakasitz). He is followed everywhere by his dog Ruff, but to George Wilson (Walter Matthau) — Mr. Wilson — Dennis is Dennis the Menace.

Based on the Hank Ketchum comic strip, which debuted on March 12, 1951, and is still running, this was directed by Nick Castle. Yes, that Nick Castle. It was produced and written by John Hughes. Yes, that John Hughes.

Matthau is perfectly cast in this, as are Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton as Dennis’ parents, Alice and Henry. Plus, you get another great Christopher Lloyd bad guy in Switchblade Sam and Natasha Lyonne as Polly. She’d already been acting for six years, starting as Opal on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

If you grew up at the right time — my wife was 9 when this was released — this is the perfect nostalgia.

The direct-to-video film  Dennis the Menace Strikes Again is a sequel to this one and features Don Rickles as Mr. Wilson. I kind of love that. I don’t love that Dennis was dropped from Dairy Queen marketing in 2001, as the fast-food ice cream restaurant felt that children could no longer relate to him.

Happier news: There was also another direct-to-video release, A Dennis the Menace Christmas, and a 1987 live-action TV movie, which was later released to video as Dennis the Menace: Dinosaur Hunter. 

In the UK, this was called Dennis because there’s a comic strip called Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, which strangely debuted on the exact same day as the American comic strip.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Made In America (1993)

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Aug 11-17 Whoopi Goldberg Week: She’s become a corny tv lady these days, but let’s not forget that at her peak Whoopi was one of the funniest people alive.

Zora Matthews (Nia Long) learns from a blood test that the man she thought was her father wasn’t; her mother, Sarah (Whoopi Goldberg), has been lying, as her real father was from a sperm bank. She asked for a smart black guy. She had no idea that Hal Jackson (Ted Danson) was really the father.

Zora and her friend Tea Cake (Will Smith) find out that Hal is a big used car salesman, the kind of guy who’ll fight a bear on TV to sell an automobile. She tells him he’s her father, and he couldn’t care less. But soon, he falls for Sarah and feels like a father to Zora, which is a strange character arc when he comes off as a man who cares about nothing and has a beautiful, much younger girlfriend, Stacy (Jennifer Tilly).

That said, the whole point of this movie is “How could Ted Danson possibly have sex with Whoopi Goldberg?” Then, they started dating in real life, just like pro wrestling love angles that always end up becoming a shoot. Then, after that, Danson was in blackface during a 1993 Friars Club roast. Goldberg wrote some of his jokes and would defend him.

This was directed by Richard Benjamin, so it has that going for it.