Kuukausi: marraskuu 2023

#1853 Windows (1980)

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An exploitation movie at it’s heart, I don’t really know how to categorise Windows; It fails as a whodunnit by revealing the culprit early on, and does not work as a psychological thriller as it fails to deep further into the psyche of the antagonist.

We see a recently divorced woman getting mugged and humiliated in her home done in a very exploitative manner, then her running into her while riding a taxi cab and then finding out he was contracted for the job by a woman whose identity is revealed. I mean, she is right there in the poster!

From thereon you are left waiting for a plot twist, that never comes.

80s-o-meter: 65%

Total: 24%

#1852 Halloween 2023: Death by Dialogue (1988)

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Death by Dialogue tries a little something new by following events where five youngsters are being tormented by an evil manuscript reciting the kills happening before they take place.

There are some interesting and imaginatively created baddies here and the action is overall entertaining, but the movie gets a little too tricky and hard to follow considering the kind of fluff it tries to be.

This is one of those videos that entertains enough to sit it through, but does not really leave any memory prints behind.

80s-o-meter: 87%

Total: 60%

#1850 Halloween 2023: Madhouse aka There Was a Little Girl aka And When She Was Bad aka Flesh and the Beast aka Scared to Death (1981)

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Like any decent 80s slasher, Madhouse has been distributed with numerous different titles. But luckily this is the only thing that the movie has in common with your basic run-off-the-mill slashers.

More of a horror movie (in a good way) than a slasher, Madhouse has many haunting elements in it, but steers clear of endless jump scares. The same goes for the overall atmosphere, which has that constant feeling that there’s something off, and that things will get even worse soon.

And speaking of elements, Madhouse seems to introduce even too many different ones into one movie, but somehow makes it all work in the end – but it could have gone the other way as well. Visually the movie is outdated in many ways, and the effects (especially with the Rottweiler) aren’t exactly convincing, but get the idea delivered.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 61%

#1849 Halloween 2023: Blood Frenzy (1987)

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Blood Frenzy is a low quality slasher that apparently has some following who deem it a good movie.

For me, I didn’t see much difference to a gazillion of shasher movies other than the desert setting and grown ups instead of grown ups acting as if they were teenagers.

The movie is low quality, low budget all over and nothing here stands out for me to remember after some two weeks of seeing the movie.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 17%

#1848 Halloween 2023: Evil Spawn (1987)

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A pretty useless story of an actress past in the twilight of her career taking injections by some mad professor, turning her into this combination of a blood thirsty killer / insect.

Done in the day – and also introduced by in the DVD – Fred Olen Ray, the movie is full of bad acting and dialogues ripped straight out of 1950s B-horror movies. It would’ve been a much more interesting story to see her struggle in the actress career and either overcoming it or taking some other unfortunate actions, rather than going by this nonsensical storyline.

Either that, or going full ahead with the apprent humour aspect. Neither of which is seen here.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 20%

#1847 Halloween 2023: Witchcraft II: The Temptress (1989)

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Just when I thought the Witchcraft was an useless horror movie, enters its sequel Witchcraft II: The Temptress.

A kind of continuum of the witch story seen in the first movie, the second part builds its story upon an evil vamp seducing the now grown up baby from the prequel, with the hope of him becoming the supreme warlock. Gone is the little budget there was in the first installation, and everything here from writing to effects is subpar. Having much too old actors play teenagers is the ongoing joke with the 80s movies, but this movie really takes things to another level.

Probably the only good thing I can say about Witchcraft II: The Temptress is that it is the last one one in made during the 80s in the Witchcraft series of movies that has spawned a whopping 15 sequels to date, and that I don’t have to sit through the remaining 14.

80s-o-meter: 85%

Total: 24%

#1847 Halloween 2023: Witchcraft (1988)

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Before seeing the movie I did like its title and wondered if i was going to be dragged into one of those 80s wild rides of Fangoria cover page sfx and make up work.

Well, Witchcraft was nothing like it to say the least. We have human like witches who are looking forward to get possession of a new baby who is to become the great Warlock. We have some eery scenes of wandering around the weird old mansion discovering hidden secrets and dream like sequences of an – again – human looking witch dripping a spit of fake blood out of her mouth.

..and that’s as scary as the movie ever gets.

80s-o-meter: 75%

Total: 37%

#1846 Halloween 2023: Torment (1986)

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A psycho killer after women is loose, ending up in the house occupied by the girlfriend of the detective after him, and her mother-in-law to be.

As with The Stepfather movie, it’s the finding out an entirely unknown dark side of one’s close one that always personally feels the most haunting to me – which is the case also in Torment.

William Witt – a complete unknown to me – does a tremendous job in the role of the killer, making him totally believable, chillingly cold and menacing.

80s-o-meter: 86%

Total: 79%

#1845 Halloween 2023: Dawn of the Mummy (1981)

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One of the first movies I remember seeing was The Mummy from 1959, which left a lasting impact on little me. Now, I haven’t consumed much of the mummy movies from thereon, but everything I’ve seen has dropped short of that experience.

Enter the early 80s Dawn of the Mummy, which is by far the poorest take on the subject I’ve seen. The movie frames the mommy as something of a slasher kind of killer, wasting photo models who ”happened to be nearby”. Occasionally the Mummy also turns in a cannibal, rips his victims up and consumes .. uh, some parts of them.

Dawn of the Mummy falls into that unfortunate slot where the movie is just plain bad, but not the kind of bad that would have any guilty pleasure entertainment value to it.

80s-o-meter: 2%

Total: 4%