During this journey of watching through all 80s movies I’ve come across a few Heavy metal themed horror movies. Trick or Treat is still the top contender with its outrageously entertaining storyline, with Black Roses being a good runner-up. Hard Rock Zombies falls behind both, but at least it tries to be interesting in its own weird way.

Rocktober Blood ends up the last in this best-of list. The movie is pretty much just your basic slasher, accompanied by a few musical numbers.

It’s only the last few minutes of the movie taking form of a concert that is of any real interest here. And frankly, that could have been done directly as a music video to save everyone’s time.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total:37%

By 1989 you would have thunk that there was enough slashers for the filmmakers to take notes of, stand on the shoulders of the greats and deliver something new.

For the team behind Iced this certainly has not been the approach.

An amaterish slasher taking place in a small cabin in some ski resort, the movie fails to deliver on all fronts: originality, suspense, horror and gory deaths, and it’s really hard to think of anyone outside the close family and friend circle of the movie crew to enjoy this train to Dullsville.

80s-o-meter: 70%

Total: 8%

This Halloween begins once again with a slasher – a sub genre I’ve learned not to expect much from.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood gives you pretty much what you’d expect from a slasher of the era, teenagers played by too old actors getting eliminated one by one by a deranged killer in a distant location.

Where the movie stands out though is that it doesn’t seem to carbon copy any other slasher out there but manages to carve its own space inside the genre; the killer is not an invincible super human and the ending does not follow the often seen last minute jump scare approach. Despite the low budged the effects feel well done, landing The Dorm That Dripped Blood ends up on the higher end spectrum of the slashers.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 60%

Oh dear, Death Screams wanders around every which way for ages with one pointless part after another before getting to the actual slashing.

It also loses to its counterparts of the era in multiple ways, being unable to produce imaginative kills nor an iconic antagonist. Where it succeeds though is casting perhaps the oldest men ever to attempt to pass as teenagers, plus one of the most annoying comic relief characters ever cracking jokes and goofing off in every scene.

Death Scream feels like multiple movies put into one, and there’s something likeable in the way it presents its characters and those trivial activities they engage in. But as a horror movie Death Screams just does not carry.

80s-o-meter: 68%

Total: 21%

If it is a pure slasher you want to watch this Halloween, the lesser known Island of Blood is not a bad option.

It is a pure slasher so you get pretty much what you expect: a group of youngsters getting killed one by one in an imaginative manner.

The most distinctive aspect of the movie is they way the killer plays a quite catchy song with lyrics ”Burn me, stab me, chop me, nail me, boil me, saw me” before commencing the killing. On top of that the end, especially that last few seconds are refreshingly different from what you’d expect.

80s-o-meter: 80%

Total: 59%

Silent Madness is another early 80s 3-D movie that I immediately anticipated to stink to high heavens – but that contrary to all the expectations turned out a-ok.

The fact that I enjoyed Silent Madness seems even more implausible given the fact that it has probably the weakest antagonist I’ve ever seen in a slasher. Honestly, it looks like they applied some eye make up up to the production company janitor and just send him in front of cameras.

Luckily he is not actually even the main source for the suspension in the movie; it’s the corrupt asylum, its rotten doctors and their henchman orderlies that provide Silent Madness most of its thrills.

80s-o-meter: 83%

Total: 72%