Reviews

One of the best things about Yorkshire Television when I was growing up was the eclectic fare that made up their schedules. At night they showed the most wonderful and unexpected films you could ever imagine. They also showed films you had never heard of before that were either unavailable on video because of some silly oversight or they were caught up in some rights limbo which denied their exposure to a wider audience.

I used to scour the TV listings and use the timer on our prehistoric video machine during the 80's to record anything on late that sounded vaguely of interest to a cult film fan like myself. And there were plenty of movies offered up that I found interesting.

One such was Slithis from 1978, a monster movie that I'm so glad I recorded.

There's a monster on the prowl in 1978 Venice Beach who starts by killing the dogs in the neighbourhood but then starts killing humans. But don't worry. There's a local journalism teacher (!) and some of the nerdiest scientists you've ever seen who are on the trail of the sub-aquatic being named Slithis, a product of a leak from a local nuclear plant.

This is amazing cult film goodness. A man in a rubber suit is always better than the CGI monsters you see in modern day horror films. I love Slithis' look and the way that the film's lighting and colour palate changes dramatically whenever he makes an appearance. It's important to light your leading man in the best way possible.

I also love the locale of Venice Beach that was used with the settings being so beautiful and full of such eccentrics, bohemian types and winos. You get the impression that these extras were captured on film just the way they were which is fantastic. I wish I was a meths drinker in 70's Venice when Slithis was doing the rounds. But I digress...

There's also scientist types who give you the impression that they aren't actors at all but just knew the director and were asked to appear. Their acting is erm, raw. Think Edith Massey but rawer (and if you think that's some kind of insult, you obviously know nothing of my cinematic preferences. It's a compliment of the highest order. No 'so bad it's good' nonsense here!)

I was amazed by Slithis when I first saw it and I get more and more from it with every screening. It would make a great double-bill with the equally brilliant Blood Beach. Both self-aware and brilliantly executed horror movies from the 70's which also contain a deft sense of humour.

But as if this wasn't enough, I then learnt that Slithis had his own fan club! Yes, you heard that right. HIS OWN FAN CLUB!!!

I loved what I read about the publicity used regarding the release of this film. Every patron would receive a Slithis Survival Kit on the purchase of tickets to the movie. This kit (in reality a pink or yellow piece of folded cardboard) included information regarding joining the Slithis Fan Club, how patrons could help promote the notion that Slithis is, in fact, a victim (he is, after all, the product of nuclear plant leakage) rather than a foe and, most importantly, the information that if you keep the kit on your person at all times or stash it under your pillow at night then Slithis would know and won't come to pay you a visit when he inevitably stalks your neighbourhood.

You could even send off for a Slithis 8x10, a Fan Club membership card and merch order form.

As if that wasn't enough, the campus screenings of the film (notice where the film played and that the film's producers already knew the demographic who would dig Slithis the most) would involve someone wearing the actual costume from the film for the occasion. There's a great press clipping of one such screening with a picture of Slithis walking alongside students from the University of Nebraska.

This is all very William Castle (actually, Castle would have gone one further and not told anyone about about the costume and had someone wearing it jump out unexpectedly at the audience towards the end of the screening) and that just makes me love the film even more.

Do you remember showmanship? Do you remember films that were, y'know, fun?!

That's Slithis. And it's a terrific monster movie to boot.

Ahh the giddy days of home video. In the early days of this new and very exciting medium there were loads of videos that featured the most gaudy and lurid cover artwork.

One film that had such artwork that I will always remember was The Exterminator. The box depicted a muscled man wearing what looked like a black motorcycle helmet whilst firing a machine gun. It suggested something grittier than your average action flick.

When I finally saw the film I wasn't disappointed.

Robert Ginty plays John Eastland who we see in the film's opening scene as a soldier being captured by the Viet Cong. He escapes after being saved by his best friend Michael Jefferson (but not before he sees another friend being beheaded, a scene that would prove problematic for the BBFC. Stan Winston was the SFX whizz who designed the dummy for this scene, film fans).

The action then transfers to a jungle of another kind, New York. Eastland and Jefferson are working together in a warehouse. After seeing gang members stealing a shipment of beer, they are confronted by both men with Jefferson kicking their asses. However, the gang members track him down and leave him crippled (another graphic scene that would be excised in different countries).

This propels Eastland into action as he becomes a one-man vigilante who tracks down the gang members and then the mob who have been making his employer pay protection money and even skimming the top off all of the employee's wages.

The Exterminator is gritty, extreme, VERY gory and brilliant fun. Director James Glickenhaus knew exactly the audience he was aiming this film at. This was aimed squarely at the audiences who would go to see films in 42nd Street grindhouses (part of the film even takes place in some of the sleazier establishments of The Deuce), drive-ins and as part of midnight movie double-bills (The Exterminator played with The Postman Always Rings Twice (!) in the UK).

But it was also made for the new medium of home video on which the genre of horror or exploitation wasn't seen as a bad thing but instead as a major selling point. With so many shocking and lurid video artwork being on the shelves of the video shops I spent hours in, the artwork for The Exterminator still screamed out to me.

People have criticised Robert Ginty in the lead role as being devoid of the necessary charisma or leading role chops for such a film. I disagree. Ginty plays an everyman, someone who is sick of being pushed around when there appears to be no real justice by conventional routes of law and order. Of course, there are strong links between this film and Michael Winner's masterpiece Death Wish but there are also links to Taxi Driver, Maniac and The New York Ripper because of the themes, locales and time-frame.

Look out for the uncut version of The Exterminator as there are plenty of versions, especially in the UK that are cut. I bought the Synergy DVD who had submitted the film to the BBFC a second time to try and get some of the previous cuts waived. They then proceeded to release the film uncut anyway and completely ignore the 22 secs of cuts the board had recommended. Hooray for Synergy!

One review of the film says that Glickenhaus knows nothing about framing, lighting or direction in general. Poppycock! When I saw the film in widescreen for the first time I noticed these very aspects and marvelled at them. The film is lit, directed and coloured like a very gory comic book. It's beautiful to behold and reminds me of The Warriors.

You know you're in for a good time when the death scenes within the film involve an industrial mincing machine, a flamethrower and an electric knife.

The Exterminator will always hold a special place in my black little heart.

I've wanted to see 1981's The Fan for the longest time and finally it was shown on TV here in the UK (the channel Talking Pictures is amazing and never disappoints!)

Sally Ross (Lauren Bacall) is an actress who is heading a Broadway musical. She is also the target of superfan and superstalker Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn) who professes his undying love for her in numerous letters that are intercepted and responded to by Ross' assistant who grows incresingly worried about the mental state of this particular fan. She even raises it was Ross who admonishes her for treating a fan badly. But then things go from bad to worse.

Was the wait to see this film worth it? YES! There's so much to love about The Fan.

Firstly, I found myself aghast at the cast. Not only do we get Bacall, Biehn and James Garner but also Hector Elizondo, Griffin Dunne and Dwight Schultz (from The A-Team!) We even get a non-speaking cameo from Charles Scorsese (father of Martin) in a theatre audience scene.

The Fan doesn't skimp when it comes to the gritty and deranged nature of stalking which wasn't a crime or behaviour that had been discussed widely at that point yet. Although, the film was released a few months after Mark Chapman shot dead John Lennon outside The Dakota Building (where Bacall used to live spookily enough) and so stalking was set to enter the zeitgeist and prompt more conversations. Biehn is excellent as Douglas Breen with the scenes in which we see him at a typewriter professing his love for Ross in his typed letters reminding me of the telephone scenes from Prom Night- dimly lit, claustrophobic and scary as hell.

In fact, Biehn is fantastic at turning from loving to psychotically menacing at a dime. He's perfectly cast.

The film is also very gory that mirrors a lot of films that were bigger budget efforts but didn't skimp on the blood perhaps to tap into the demographic who were going to see slasher movies. In fact, there's an amazing scene in the New York subway in which you definitely get a Dressed To Kill vibe that apparently this film's producer Robert Stigwood had just seen.

There's also a nod to Cruising with one scene involving the killer getting picked up in a gay bar and leaving for a tryst which takes place on a rooftop. Sex and death go hand in hand with this scene. What would Genet say?!

I love the look of the film with it having a certain haze as if theres Vaseline on the camera lens.

Another thing I loved about The Fan was that it's a great New York movie. This actually feels like a cleaner and more genteel vision of New York from that time. Maybe the filmmakers thought there was enough sleaze in the events taking part in the film without depicting the sleazier locales of the city as well.

And then there's the camp. Not only do we get divine creature Bacall gracing the role of Sally Ross but with the action revolving around her heading a Broadway musical, we get deliciously gay rehearsals and even get to see the finished product on opening night resplendent with a song that was subsequently nominated for a Razzie (a sure stamp of approval) that was written by Tim Rice. Hell, we even get Do The Dog by The Specials over one earlier scene in a record store. Talk about contrasts.

The Fan bombed at the box office on it's initial release and was derided by Bacall who hated how gory and violent it was. James Garner even said it was the worst film he ever made. Some reviews were fair but others were really bad (yes there's that Gene Siskel again).

I love The Fan and feel that maybe audiences didn't fully engage as at that time stalking as a crime hadn't entered public consciousness yet. Remember, another film that dealt with stalking was The King of Comedy which was released the following year and also underperformed. Some films are way ahead of their time and judged very well by history with both films finding their audiences and being appreciated more now.

One person online said that this would make a great double-bill with The Eyes of Laura Mars. That's very true. Both films are as camp as a row of pink tents but with gritty and genuinely disturbing scenes that reflect the slasher film sensibilities of the time.

Look out for the remarkable edition of The Fan on Blu ray on Scream Factory.

My early teenage years were when I discovered my three favourite living film directors- John Waters, William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese.

It was whilst I was frantically hunting down all of the movies made by Scorsese after first watching Taxi Driver when I was 14 that I read of a documentary made in 1977 called Movies Are My Life. I had a friend who was lucky enough to have Sky TV on which there was a one-off screening of this and so I gave him a blank videotape and begged him to record it for me. He obliged.

It didn't disappoint. Over the years the tape it was on disappeared but it was just the other day that I was thinking about this documentary when I had the lightbulb moment that involved looking for it on the internet. And after a quick Google search I found it!

It's great watching it again. It was made in 1977 after Scorsese had finished shooting New York, New York and was editing The Last Waltz. This was an iconic time for Scorsese when he had made so many classic movies and was yet to make even more.

Not only is the maestro interviewed about his career so far but his contributors and collaborators are also interviewed and it's great to see such luminaries as De Niro, Jodie Foster, Steven Prince and Liza Minelli speaking about what's like to work with such a visionary.

The film is also noteworthy as it shows the friendship that Scorsese had/has with Robbie Robertson. These were Scorsese's wild years when he took certain substances to excess and ended up hospitalised because of it. The interviews with Robinson here capture this very vividly indeed (you'll know what I mean when you watch the film!) A choice moment is when he looks out of the window into the night sky and says 'It isn't even dawn yet!'

It's great that this peek into such a thrilling era of Scorsese's filmmaking life was chronicled, not so great that this film was unavailable for so long. It's fantastic that someone has uploaded it onto the internet but how long it stays up before it's pulled down is unknown. If I was you I'd finish reading this, do a Google search and watch it now. Just to be sure. Note- the version on YouTube is cut. Go the Google route to watch the full version on the net.

Can we get a proper release of this gem please?

The first thing which is noteworthy of the sequel is that it continues straight after the events of the first movie. In fact, not just that but there is even an overlap with the first film (with Mr Sandman by The Chordettes playing over the soundtrack that bookends the movie as it also plays at the end) as we see the ending before the new narrative begins with Dr Loomis going downstairs to where the shot body of Myers should have been. We also see that Loomis' dialogue has started to become even more exaggerated than it was in the original. A neighbour comes out and approaches Loomis remarking about the noise and exclaiming 'I've been trick or treated to death tonight' to which Loomis replies 'You don't know what death is!' Yes, this first reply exemplifies a lot of Loomis' lines in the sequel. Just a little bit more unhinged, fraught and oh so camp.

We then get the title sequence which is similar to that of the original film with the pumpkin but this time the camera glides into it as it opens to reveal a skull at it's centre. With this sequence as with the recap of the end of the first film and the addendum as to what happens next, we get a sense of how audacious Halloween 2 is. It was made in 1981 a full three years after the original and enough time for the first film to be recognised and reviled as the masterpiece it truly is. For a sequel to pick up just after the original had ended was a massive risk as Carpenter's original had a look and feel that was very unique to it. The sequel would have to try to replicate this to feel authentic. Halloween 2 almost succeeds. The word 'almost' isn't an insult though. The first film was and is so iconic that ANY attempt to either equal or top it's brilliance and innovation would be foolhardy at best. That Halloween 2 still comes across as a worthy attempt is the best that could be hoped for. If Halloween is an A+ movie, then Halloween 2 is a B+ film. That's no mean feat.

Halloween was so iconic that it spawned a whole subgenre of movies within horror, the slasher movie. In the three years since the original, this genre had been given birth to, had enough time to establish it's conventions and also showed why audiences were flocking to see these movies. Carpenter realised this and so after seeing a rough cut of Rosenthal's sequel suggested the film be beefed up with more kills, more blood and more edge of the seat suspense sequences that would satisfy the rabid slasher movie aficionados. He also commented that the rough cut he had seen was about as scary as an episode of Quincy! In fact, the sequences that could be seen to be (thankfully) quite restrained in the original, particularly the kills, were turned up to 11 for the sequel. The Fangoria crowd would get a film that looked great, felt eerie as hell (thank God for Cundey), but with kills that were more graphic, more innovative and more shocking than the other entries in the genre. Apparently it was Carpenter who actually directed these sequences. He would do a similar thing on the next movie that he actually directed himself, The Fog as he would direct new kills to insert into the film merely days before the film was due to be released as he realised that it didn't quite work.

And it wasn't just the kills that were made more explicit within the film. Halloween 2 also ramps up the sexiness within the movie to keep in line with it's competition. Hence, we get the nudity during the therapy room sequence and Bud's rather unique (and cringeworthy) version of Amazing Grace.

Whilst watching the film again recently it seemed as if Myers was gleefully bumping off the only types of people he would have had dealings with during his incarceration- doctors, nurses and cops. Maybe this sequel really was a case of 'This time it's personal' for our leading psychopath. The fact that there are people who Michael had a perfect opportunity to dispose of but didn't shows that he isn't just some killing machine, indiscriminately killing anyone who crosses his path. One example of this is poor old Mrs Elrod who is making a sandwich for her dozing husband (who's sleeping through the classic Night of the Living Dead. Sacrilege!) when Myers sneaks in and grabs the knife that she was using. Myers knows the groups of people who he wants to butcher which is one of many reasons why Halloween from 2018 and it's sequel seemed so inauthentic and fake. Of course Michael also bumps off anyone who fits the same criteria as his sister Judith and of Laurie Strode. The next person Myers encounters is Alice, the young woman who is within the same age category, is saying how great it is that she has the house to herself to her friend on the phone (she could invite a male over because of this. Michael doesn't like potential horny hi-jinx) and so, hence, she meets some of the criteria for someone who would be killed by Michael. And he obliges.

The hospital that Laurie finds herself at and which Michael follows her to is the perfect locale for gruesome but innovative kills involving implements that would ordinarily be used for more altruistic purposes. Hence we find that Michael carries a scalpel rather than his ordinarily preferred butcher knife. We also get hypodermic needles inserted in eyeballs and temples and an overheated therapy pool used to fatally scold a nurse (both of these sequences were cut in different versions).

The hospital also provides a great locale for Michael to make his own private slaughter ground. The shots of him walking (never running) down the dimly lit corridors is very effective indeed (I love the fact that a deleted scene that was shown as part of the TV version of the film shows that the electricity goes out for the building but an emergency generator kicks in that uses only some of the lights. Boom! Instant moody lighting that is perfect for a horror film).

In fact, there were a lot of additional footage that didn't make it into the film but was then seen in the TV version of the film that excised a lot of the violence but padded out the running time with trimmings that didn't make it into the final movie.

Another great device that is used within this location is the building's CCTV. Not only does Myers look very scary when captured on the monitors looking for Laurie, but he even sees where Laurie is through seeing her on the CCTV screens. They help to direct him in the right direction when he's looking for her. Also, the CCTV monitors act as a third eye for the audience. One scene shows where Myers is headed, but a moment later it shows a nurse heading in the same direction and possibly to her doom. The CCTV has just been utilised as another way of adding suspense and tension to a scene and has just placed the viewer on the edge of his or her seat.

Halloween 2 also has some perceptive things to say about the media and how corrupt and unscrupulous they are. We see a reporter who says to a colleague to get a statement from any witnesses to Myers' crimes. She adds that if they're underage they will need the parent's permission. She also adds that if they can't get that they should get a statement anyway! As a sidenote, there was apparently a deleted scene in which this reporter was murdered by Myers which was maybe Rosenthal's two fingers up to what he thought of the media.

The film also brilliantly depicts a horrific incident that has nothing to do with Michael Myers. A mother and her small son rock up to the hospital as he has bitten into either something that he was given whilst trick or treating which contained a razor blade which we see is still lodged in his mouth with blood pouring out of it. The infamous urban myth is made flesh here and also shows that there are enough dangers in the world, with or without Myers.

Another great aspect of the film is the soundtrack that Carpenter and the great Alan Howarth would compose and perform. The score is a major part of why Halloween 2 is wayyy better than it should have been. Whilst the music for the first film was primitive, simplistic and utterly brilliant because of it, the soundtrack for Halloween 2 is the same music but with more synth, more layers and with even more of an urgency to it. In fact, I remember after I saw the film for the first time, in an issue of Empire magazine around that time (89/90), I saw an article on the Top 50 Soundtracks of All Time. They had actually included Halloween 2 and it didn't surprise me.

Add to this that both Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis are as excellent as ever in the film (check out the chase scene when Myers finally catches up with Laurie starting with the nurse being stabbed in the back by Michael. This is an AMAZING sequence. I love the fact that they made Laurie's POV shots blurred because of the heavy meds she's been placed on. Also, check out the shots of Myers strolling robotically after Strode and how genuinely unsettling it is, even when he's tackling the stairs).

Jamie Lee Curtis wears a wig for the movie. This is blatantly obvious (sorry fanboys who thought they were the only ones to have noticed this). In fact, I love the fact that in the tenser scenes the wig seems to take on a life of it's own and frizzes up. It's like the wig is acting along with the person who's wearing it.

We also get a cameo by Nancy Loomis as her own corpse with her Sheriff father (again played by Charles Cyphers) damning the doctor who he sees as letting him out after he has seen his murdered daughter. It's great that both actors returned to reprise their roles in the sequel instead of different actors stepping in.

Dick Warlock is a good Michael Myers but doesn't quite nail what came before. But he gets pretty close and his depiction of Myers inhumanly walking around the hospital corridors is very chilling indeed. I can't think of anyone doing a better job other than Nick Castle.

There's also a revelation regarding why Michael might be so insistent on coming after Laurie (I'm not going to ruin things here).

Gail Osborne is a 16 year old who starts dating Steve Pastorinis who goes to the same school as her. It's also around this time that she starts to receive abusive notes stuck in the grills of her school locker and also abusive telephone calls.

For a film, let alone a TV movie to deal with an issue such as stalking in 1978 was very brave indeed as it hadn't entered the public consciousness yet and was largely an alien concept. But Are You In The House Alone? Deals with the subject very intelligently and exposes it for the vile, terrifying and horrific practice that it actually is.

But the movie also deals with other issues such as Gail's parents struggling with their marriage following her father losing his job. This again is dealt with brilliantly and feels integral to the plot rather than just feeling like padding to fill up the running time.

But Are You In The House Alone? Also deals with rape, another taboo topic for 1978. It deals with it amazingly well with discussions regarding getting the rapist to court and obtaining a conviction against him being seen as being very difficult indeed.

I love doing 31 Days of Halloween as it's a great chance to revisit horror films that I have seen in the past but also to watch films that are completely new to me. Some of these I'm really glad I took the time to watch. A small minority bowl me over as they are just so powerful and brilliant. Are You In The House Alone? Is one such film. When it ended I literally had to just sit and digest what I had just experienced and think about just how trailblazing the production was especially for that time and for the topics it depicted without any sugar coating or saccharine gloss.

Are You In The House Alone? Is a very unsettling experience as it worms it's way into your head and will stay with you long after it has finished. And it's a rare instance of a TV movie rightly finding it's way onto Blu Ray (thank you Vinegar Syndrome!)

A hotel complex where a new building is being constructed is infested with killer ants.

I love the TV movies that featured a special guest star who was slumming it as work had dried up. Ants stars Myrna Loy as well as Suzanne Somers (!) and Lynda Day George (yes, the actress from Pieces!) so you know you're in for a special time.

I actually remember watching this on UK TV in 1980 when I was the tender age of 5.

I love the fact that whenever the ants appear on screen we get discordant violins on the soundtrack.

This is surprisingly bright and breezy in tone until the ants become more prevalent within the storyline and then it becomes a lot more apocalyptic in tone (which is always welcome for cult film fans). The whole production is a triumph in camp however dark it tries to become.

Ants aka It Happened at Lakewood Manor holds up very well though. The TV movie was also issued on DVD in 2014. This might not be some kind of classic uncovered from the vaults but it's nice to see it has a life after being shown on TV all those decades before.

Lauren Tewes stars as Jane, a Miami newsreader who suspects her neighbour of being a murderer who's crimes she reports on with shocking regularity. She lives with her blind deaf-mute sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh's first starring role).

This was another example of a film I had been meaning to watch for the longest time (since about 1989 when I read about the film in Kim Newman's seminal book Nightmare Movies) and sought it out after one of my friends was talking about it online (see, Instagram isn't all bad).

And my! What a film it is! The film doesn't shy away from the violence the women characters are subjected to. Rather than being titillating for the sicker audience members it feels like it depicts realistic portrayals of the kind of abuse some women are subjected to. The camera doesn't flinch away from these even though most audience members will do.

I liked how the film played with genre expectations regarding the violent episodes. The first victim Debbie asks her boyfriend to come over and this lulls viewers into thinking that this instantly makes her safe from the killer's advances. This couldn't be further from the truth as Stanley instead just dispatches of the boyfriend (Tom Savini carries out the special effects for this movie and as usual does an absolutely fantastic job. Debbie's boyfriend is beheaded and his head placed in her fish tank) and then moves onto her.

This sequence is also very perceptive as Debbie rings the police and complains about the awful abusive phone calls she has been getting from the killer. The policeman she speaks to is far from sympathetic and complains that whenever violence against women is reported and warned against on the news this creates a huge spike in abusive phone calls from other sickos. He then says he will send out a phone officer to see her but during the next day and when it's too late! The police's inactivity and scepticism is portrayed and is still an issue today towards women who report similar behaviour. There is a story in the news at the moment about a young woman who was being stalked and sent abusive messages which she sent to the police who failed to act. She was eventually killed by her stalker.

The film also shows how the telephone as an appliance can take on sinister connotations. A victim who is being telephoned in her office late at night can't even get away from her stalker contacting her when she steps into a lift to go to her friend's house for safety as there is a phone in the lift that he calls her on. The threat of the killer is shown to be omnipresent and inescapable. Again, the film led us to believe that this would be victim would be safe after she had arranged to leave her workplace and venture out to safety.

A film that Eyes of a Stranger reminded me of was the TV movie written by John Carpenter in the 70's, Someone's Watching Me! Starring Lauren Hutton and Adrienne Barbeau. Both take place in the same time period with the primary action taking place in apartment complexes. Theres an element of surveillance within both films, with Jane watching her accused's apartment which is opposite hers and Hutton's character doing the same in the TV movie.

One sequence that made me perch on the edge of my seat was when Jane enter's Stanley's apartment when he is out but is unaware that he is returning. The execution of this scene was expertly handled and the outcome handled with real aplomb and without any filler or unnecessary padding whatsoever.

I also loved the scene whereby the killer meets Tracy for the first time and surmises correctly that she is deaf, blind and mute. The sequence in which he moves the objects she has placed down just out of reach is almost like some kind of gaslighting as if he wants her to question her actions and let her know that he is there. The rest of this scene is also stellar but to go into that would ruin the film's ending which I'm not going to do!

Eyes of a Stranger is a fantastically powerful film that depicts the violence endured by women that never slips into being some kind of misogynistic or moralistic vehicle. Any woman could have fallen prey to Herbert and the full horror of this is shown even if these scenes are rightly uncomfortable to watch. A sobering thought is that as the film was being made The Yorkshire Ripper was still at large and blighting the lives of not just his female victims but ALL women as they had to adjust their lives accordingly because a woman hating psychopath was at large and had been for several years.

We see the soon to be wed Madeleine and Neil being driven by horse drawn carriage to the house of plantation owner Charles Beaumont. They pass by a man named Murder (a red flag) Legendre played by the one and only Bela Lugosi. His evil face is another red flag. This isn't a good man as is obvious for any sane person. Beaumont is also in love with Madeleine and goes to see Legendre to enlist his services so that Madeleine will marry him instead of Neil as Murder is a master of voodoo. He even has zombies that he has created as workers at his sugar cane mill. Legendre states that the only way for Charles to get Madeleine to love him is to turn her into a zombie also. But will his dastardly plan work?

White Zombie was one of the films on the list I have labelled in my head as 'Horror Films That I've Heard Are Really Influential But Haven't Gotten Around To Watching Yet'. That is until now.

And I'm so glad that I finally have. It's a fantastic film that still holds up as an experimental piece of cinema with superimposed images, the use of shadows and is perfectly framed. It's a joy to watch. And the plot and subject matter is far from conventional for horror in the 1930's.

But best of all is to see horror maestro Lugosi at the top of his game. He can say more with his eyes than most actors could even dream of. I'm so glad that someone who was destined to star in some of the genre's very best works actually ended up doing just that. And by the time he starred in White Zombie he was already a star of the genre through his starring in Dracula and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

If I had to compare this film to any other it would be to the equally experimental (and brilliant) Vampyr. This is compliment in itself.

This infamous film from 1978 starts with an anonymous man wearing a balaclava and going on a killing spree. He uses a different tool for each murder such as an electric drill, a screwdriver and nail gun.

But then events take a bizarre twist as we get to see who the killer is and...to tell you anymore would ruin several surprises that the movie has in store. And it has plenty of surprises to shock us with!

This film has such a notorious reputation and none so much as in Britain where it was firstly cut for it's initial cinema release but then banned outright on video as it was then labelled as one of the more shocking video nasties.

There is an authenticity to the killing spree we witness and with the film in general. The balaclava motif felt all so real as it was a staple of killers such as Ted Bundy who was prolific during this era. Also, The Yorkshire Ripper was killing women with the implements used in the film around this time which gives it an extra layer of horrific realness.

Your jaw will hit the floor when you watch Cameron Mitchell's central performance. It truly is demented genius.

I'm so glad that The Toolbox Murders is now appreciated as the fantastic piece of psychotic art that it truly is. Watch out for the 4K scan on Blu Ray. The film looks and sounds amazing and has finally gotten the treatment it so rightfully deserves.

Amy leaves her art class late at night and goes to her car. However, she then finds a man dressed all in black resplendent with a black balaclava and shades waiting for her in her backseat. She gets away but isn't taken seriously by the police when she goes to report the incident. Apparently the same man has been following her on previous occasions but has always gotten away. The police think she is a crank and that this mysterious man who is threatening and stalking her is a figment of her imagination.

Soon afterwards she receives a funeral wreath from the same man. Realising that this is the first tangible piece of evidence that there is that in fact someone stalking her, she goes with her stepmother to the florists to ask who placed the order and what he looked like. The florist is amused as he says that it was her, Amy who walked in and placed the order just hours earlier.

Is Amy mad? Or is there really a man stalking and threatening to kill her?

No Place To Hide is another example of an excellent made for TV horror movie. Tense, suspenseful and very well written not to mention perfectly acted.

In fact it has so many twists and turns that it would make a great episode of either Tales of the Unexpected or Thriller.

A pretty faithful account of The Hillside Stranglers starring Dennis Farina as Angelo Buono and Billy Zane as Kenneth Bianchi. Richard Crenna is cop Bob Grogan who is hunting them. This made for TV movie is based on the book Two of a Kind: The Hillside Stranglers By Darcy O'Brien.

I love TV movies based on true crime cases especially those made in the 80's ever after I saw The Deliberate Stranger starring Mark Harmon as Ted Bundy.

This movie has chilling reverberations to the recent Sarah Everard case as it depicts the killers using a police badge to get their potential female victims attention so that they would go with them.

The film also has it's fair share of tense moments such as Grogan's girlfriend going to see Buono just to see what he's like after she had discussed him with her cop boyfriend for so long. Obviously, this was a really foolhardy thing to do!

A solid TV movie.

The opening scene of this opus shows us what could almost be a kind of commercial of a windsurfer doing his thing on the water. However suddenly he is attacked and killed by a shark. Following this, successful horror novelist Peter Benton teams up with wizened shark hunter Ron Hamer to try and find and kill the shark which could very well attack again now that it has gotten a taste for human flesh. They want to cancel the upcoming windsurfing regatta but the local mayor doesn't want this as it may harm his election campaign for becoming the new state governor.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. This is basically the plot of Jaws. And you'd be right for thinking that. This Italian film is a blatant Jaws copy made on a millionth of the budget of the original but herein lies something great about the film and about cult cinema in general. Whilst it's easy to dismiss a film like this, it's harder to dismiss that The Last Shark is also fantastic and very cheesy fun. There are great kills, a groovy soundtrack and a feel that is more reminiscent of an early 80's Euro porn movie as well as a horror rip-off.

In fact, the film seems to want to be a 'homage' (ahem) to not just Jaws but also it's sequel judging by the 'shark vs helicopter' scene which is as genius as it is laughable.

But whilst you may get mainstream Hollywood films that have budgets of millions of dollars which earn back much more at the box office, they may be completely soulless, forgettable and mediocre. And these are three words that could never be levelled against The Last Shark. It has character and charm coming out of every pore even if most audience members will choose to laugh at proceedings rather than fully suspending their disbelief at what is happening in the film's running time.

Give me this film over the myriad of boring, bland and beige Hollywood films made to run in any number of worldwide multiplexes any day of the week.

A prelude shows a prank in which a socially awkward and sexually inexperienced student is lured into having his first sexual encounter. What he doesn't know is that the woman waiting for him in bed is actually a corpse stolen by medical students. On discovering this, Kenny becomes unhinged and is rightly traumatised.

Three years later the same students sans Kenny travel together on a train that doubles as a costume party. They start to be picked off one by one. Who could the killer be?

It's pretty obvious who it is but y'know...

This is one of the horror films that starred Jamie Lee Curtis that helped cement her status as The Scream Queen after Halloween in 1978. Of all of her horror vehicles from this time, I have to say Terror Train is my least favourite. It's beautifully lit, with a gorgeous colour palate but remains strangely cold for me. A cross-country on a sleeper train could have been the perfect locale for a horror film but for me the movie is surprisingly suspense free and not very atmospheric at all.

Slasher films in these days offered more than just kills for their audiences and theres plenty of teen drama between the characters and even a magician in the guise of David Copperfield to add something different to proceedings.

But Terror Train is certainly substandard when compared to Halloween 2, Prom Night, The Fog and, of course, the first Halloween.

A far too mediocre entry in the slasher sub-genre.

This film begins with the vile abuse of a small boy and his sister after they spied on their mother getting it on with her boyfriend. After Willy is tied up and gagged on a bed, his sister Lacey grabs a huge butcher knife, cuts the ropes that are holding her brother to the bed and then hands him the knife. He then stabs his abuser repeatedly.

The film then flashes forward as we see Willy (now dumb after what had happened that night) and Lacey who is now married with a son. Lacey is also still traumatised from past events as she regularly has nightmares and night traumas. Lacy receives a letter from her mother in the mail who is writing as she doesn't have long to live and wants to see her children again.

She goes to see a psychiatrist (played by John Carradine) to try to fathom out how to overcome her past traumas. A visit to the old childhood house where the past traumatic events occurred is suggested. Lacey's husband finds that the house is up for sale and so looking around inside it should be easy. It's here that Lacey sees a vision of her mother's abusive lover in a mirror and so smashes it with a chair. The mirror and it's broken pieces are all taken back with Lacey and Jake to the farm they live on. Unbeknownst to them however is that the mirror and it's broken fragments hold a malevolent evil for anyone who comes into contact with it as we see with very gory results throughout the rest of the film.

Even though there are loads of references to other more famous horror films (I counted bits pinched from Halloween, The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror, Carrie, Nightmares...) The Boogey Man is still a really entertaining horror film. It would earn it's own notoriety in the UK as it would earn it's own place on the DPP List and would forever be known as a Video Nasty. It was actually passed uncut for it's initial cinema release in 1981 but was then banned in 1983 after being issued on the VIPCO label. It was issued on video in 1992 but only after being cut by 44 seconds. This was the release I watched when I saw the film for the first time.

Seeing it today I'm glad that it's now looking fantastic on Blu ray and completely uncut. It has a great feel to it, even though it steals from many other films. Check out Tim Krog's score for the film. It's early 80's slasher movies personified.

In fact, the poster for the film is hanging on the wall of the exploitation production company that John Travolta works at in Brian De Palma's movie Blow Out. I bet De Palma referenced The Boogey Man when he was making the starting sequence of his film (cheekily called Co-Ed Frenzy within Blow Out) as there are many nods to The Boogey Man- the POV shot, the ultra sleazy analogue synth soundtrack...

This prime slice of Giallo starts with us witnessing the murder of a pharmacist. A women sees the murderer leave the premises which places a target on her own head. Her boyfriend undertakes some amateur sleuthing to try to find out who could be her would be assassin. Many twists and turns ensue with a few very stylish murders thrown in for good measure.

This is a really interesting film as the emphasis is on the whodunnit aspect of Giallo (the original pulp novels were actually crime novels that incorporated a whodunnit aspect as well as gruesome murders. These books had distinctive yellow pages with yellow being 'Giallo' in Italian) rather than the murders although these are fantastic in this film.

What more can I say? Beautiful direction, gorgeous locales, style coming out of every pore- this is Giallo, baby!

You'll never guess the ending in a million years.

Allan (Anthony Perkins) wakes to find the family home is on fire. The fire kills his father and burns his sister. The trauma also makes him go blind. It was Allan who accidentally caused the fire as he placed cans of paint thinner too close to a heater making him take on a huge burden of guilt over such disastrous proceedings.

Allan returns home after being resident in a mental hospital. His sister explains that they will have to take on a boarder as the house can't be upheld any other way. The man who takes the room instantly makes Allan suspicious. Add to this the blurry figure who he sees who appears to be haunting him (Allan can now partially see the world but everything is distorted and blurred). Is this figure real or the imaginings of his fragile mental state?

There is paranoia and ennui seeping out of every pore of this made for TV movie from 1970. This was actually produced by Aaron 'Charlie's Angels' Spelling and goes to show how fantastic horror made for TV was at one period of time.

I could watch Anthony Perkins all day long. Not only was he a great actor but theres something about his mannerisms and body language that makes him perfect for the screen especially in horror ventures. He is in cracking form here as are all of the cast. Allan's vulnerable state due to his impaired vision is fully exploited by the film and it works amazingly well as a device.

This was directed by Curtis Harrington who of course made the excellent Ruby starring Piper Laurie and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?

Watch out for the sting(s) in the tail. This film manages to have more than one trump card up it's sleeve which it delivers expertly for maximum chills.

As I've said in so many reviews thus far, this release deserves a fantastic Blu Ray release preferably on Scream Factory seeing as they are resurrecting other fantastic horror themed TV movies such as John Carpenter's amazing Someone's Watching Me!

One of the fantastic things about growing up as a child of the 70's and 80's and being a horror fan were the Public Information Films that were shown at random times both day and night on British TV. These could convey any burning issue from the dangers of abandoned old refrigerators on rubbish tips through to the importance of not using different kinds of tyres on your car.

Some could be quite humorous in tone. But some were the stuff of nightmares. They set out to scare the living bejesus out of you. And by Christ, they worked. Everything from the dangers of Rabies, how you could be maimed if you misuse fireworks and, as you will see, what can happen to the show-off children who play near water.

Lonely Water aka The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water was made in 1973 and directed by Jeff Grant. The jewel in it's crown was that Donald Pleasance was used to voice the ghostly monk who appears when a child is about to come a cropper near a river or stream.

The eagle eyed will also see Terry Sue Patt aka Benny Green from Grange Hill as one of the kids.

This Public Information Film scared a whole generation from even thinking of going near their local river. This would also have been the generation who would later see Jaws either at the cinema (if they were old enough) or when it was first shown on TV. I wonder how many of my generation actually have hydrophobia as a result of this double whammy.

Lonely Water is a masterpiece of horror that was permitted to be shown at any time pre and post watershed on British television. Generation X have never gotten over it.

A convenience store is stalked by a killer after it has closed and the staff are restocking the shelves. Could the killer be the ex-boyfriend of one of the checkout workers who we saw earlier in the film making trouble? Or is it someone else?

This film has links to the team who made The Evil Dead and even stars Sam Raimi, his brother Ted and Bruce Campbell. Intruder was originally titled The Night Crew.

I've always found large supermarkets to be creepy, especially at night. Dawn of the Dead furthered this feeling and Intruder furthers it even more.

I remember seeing pictures of the gore effects from Intruder in the issues of Fangoria and Gorezone I used it buy. I couldn't wait for it to finally be released on VHS in the UK. When it was I eagerly rented it and even though it was cut by the BBFC (of course), I still loved it.

Low budget but innovative with fantastic directorial flourishes and well rounded quirky characters, Intruder is still great fun after all of these years. It's also fantastic to see the film fully uncut here in the UK with all previous cuts being (rightly) waived. And boy, those gore effects! You'll never look at a bacon slicer in the same way again.

Look out for the workprint version that was made available recently. I'll be reviewing that soon.

Janice Starlin sees that the sales of her cosmetics company are slumping as her customers see that she appears to be (shock horror) getting older (!) Dr Eric Zinthrop, a scientist, finds that he has been able to extract chemicals from royal jelly that can reverse the ageing process. Starlin agrees to become a human subject regarding this but when progress is too slow for her liking she takes additional doses of the chemical. This has disastrous results as she starts to transform into a half-woman, half-wasp type hybrid.

This 1959 film is a fantastic piece of Roger Corman goodness. It's also a film that I had seen the poster for many many times but had never actually seen. Until now.

I'm pleased to say that it was worth the wait. Not only is it a fantastic piece of 50's horror that must have truly shocked and astounded audiences when it was released but it also has some perceptive things to say about the role of beauty, youth and cosmetics particularly regarding women who are held up to more stringent standards regarding these issues than men.

The film's commentary reminded me of Georges Franju's masterpiece Les Yeux San Visage and also the episode of the TV show Tales of the Unexpected and the episode called Royal Jelly.

A brilliant time capsule of 1950's drive-in Americana that tackles wider issues that are more than still relevant today.

Sam Bowden is a lawyer who finds that a criminal, Max Cady who he prosecuted against resulting in him going to jail (he had attacked a young woman) has been released from prison. Cady starts a harassment campaign against Bowden and his family and is seemingly hellbent on making Sam suffer for his incarceration.

I knew of this film from when the Scorsese remake came out. I was in the midst of my love of all things Scorsese and thought his version of Cape Fear was very good. But that was until I saw the original.

For all of the visual frills, the over the top performance of De Niro as Cady and scenes that weren't in the original (the thumb sucking scene instantly springs to mind as does the attack that resulted in the cheek biting gratuity) the remake isn't as good as the original film. Sometimes, less is more as is the case with this film.

The 60's version of Cape Fear is more understated, character led and directed (by the underrated J Lee Thompson) with more restraint and is a much better film because of it.

The original feels less forced, more organic and features some much better performances from truly great actors such as Gregory Peck as Bowden and the great Robert Mitchum as Cady. Whenever Mitchum plays crazy he always excels and his portrayal of Cady is up there with his star turn in another fantastic shocker of a film, Night of the Hunter.

This isn't to take away from the 90's remake which is still a great film in it's own right. But one great thing about it is that it might make more people aware that it is indeed a remake and so hopefully they may seek out the original. And they have a treat in store when they do.

World famous author Paul Sheldon crashes his car whilst driving in a blizzard but is rescued by nurse and super-fan Annie Wilkes who has read everything he's ever published as well as reading and viewing every interview he's ever given. Sheldon finds himself trapped with multiple injuries included compound fractures to his legs meaning that he is immobile and dependent on Wilkes to care for him. She also tells him that the telephone lines and down and roads closed, both of which are lies. Things take a darker turn still when Wilkes goes and buys the latest book by Sheldon which has just been published (yes the road to town has mysteriously been reopened but there's no mention of Wilkes taking Paul to a local hospital) only to discover that her favourite character Misery has died during childbirth. Wilkes isn't happy about this. This is bad news for Sheldon.

Misery explores the obsessive, irrational fan devotion that was explored in very different circumstances in Scorsese's meisterwerk The King of Comedy, a film that bombed at the box office whilst Misery was a huge hit but is inferior in comparison. Oh, the irony.

Before seeing Misery for the first time I had read and thoroughly enjoyed Stephen King's masterful novel of the same name. The film adaptation feels like the finer nuances of the novel have been erased to make a big screen shocker that contains great performances by Kathy Bates (Wilkes) and James Caan (Sheldon) with Paul's literary agent being portrayed effortlessly by the ever divine Lauren Bacall.

But the film also feels like some kind of TV movie that lacks not just the depth of King's novel but also the cinematic grandeur that might have been envisaged and realised by another director other than Rob Reiner.

Misery feels like an attempt to hit big at the box office by creating two dimensional characters and cheap shocks rather than delivering anything with real intelligence. And it worked. Misery brought in the money and earned Bates an Oscar. But watch Misery next to other, better King adaptations such as The Shining and Carrie and you'll see what I mean. There's no comparison.

Carla Moran is violently raped by a seemingly invisible force. She tried to tell the people around her about what has happened but finds only resistance as her family and friends don't believe her as she didn't see who assaulted her especially when she says that her house was locked up when it happened and the assailant seemingly vanished into thin air.

Frank De Felitta's bestselling book based on a true story (the case of Doris Bither) translates very well to the big screen with Barbara Hershey cast as Carla doing a phenomenal job in invoking the terror of a woman going through something very real but undertaken by someone or something very unreal. Apparently Bette Midler, Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Jill Clayburgh were all offered the role but declined.

Sidney J. Furie's film stands alone as a one-off film of a one-off case that most people will have thought of as too much of a tall story to be true.

Carla not being believed can also be seen as an allegory of something that far too many women (and men) go through when they find the courage and strength to report a rape or sexual assault- that their horror isn't over yet as they try to seek justice whilst being met with an unfeeling and cruel judicial system that views their account with scepticism and disbelief. If it actually makes it to a court of law they will be made to relive their trauma. Those opposing them will try to disprove and belittle the magnitude of what they've been through. Or they will try to convince a jury that it didn't happen at all.

The film all too harrowingly shows the full horror of what Carla goes through when she is raped and does a great job of showing the trail of very disturbing signs when the spirit or entity is approaching (objects shaking, a certain odour that permeates the surroundings Moran is in, a very sudden drop in temperature). Hershey's performance, just like the film in general, never slides into TV movie melodramatics or sensationalism.

There needs to be special mention to Charles Bernstein's insistent, pulsating and truly shocking score that is perfect for the movie and it's subject matter. There are also echoes of the music he would write three years later for a new film called A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Also the special effects for the scenes in which Moran is molested by the invisible force are very effective indeed. For one sequence a body cast of Hershey was made that was manipulated by currents of air to make it look like the invisible entity was touching her. It succeeds eerily well. Stan Winston supervised the practical effects.

The effects also come into their own when Carla meets professionals who actually believe her story and work in the field of parapsychology. But to tell you more about this would make me tiptoe into spoiler territory...

When the film opened it was met with protests from those who thought that such a film was exploiting such a serious topic as rape. Hershey actually defended this claim and voiced that herself and the filmmakers had actually worked hard not to make the film exploitative and to display the true horror of sexual assault and rape.

All in all a terrifying film that still feels underrated and excluded from serious writings regarding 80's horror.

This film has the best plotline of any movie in the history of cinema. Really!

Joan Collins stars as a stripper in a burlesque joint. Her co-star is a gypsy dwarf named Hercules. He makes advances on his co-star but when she knocks him back he places a curse on her unborn baby making the unborn child psychopathic.

If that wasn't enough, the film also co-stars Donald Pleasance, Ralph Bates and Caroline Munro. Kids TV legend Floella Benjamin even stars as a nurse. Holy great casting, Batman.

The film effortlessly captures the period with 70's London looking beautiful but with a sleazy underbelly as exemplified by the strip club. The film also gives La Collins an opportunity to look breathlessly fabulous in every scene. And every scene necessitates a costume change for Joanie.

And then there are the fantastic kills from the baby from hell. I love how the film cuts from some awful act of violence to the cutest baby you've ever seen. It feels completely jarring, surreal and works really well.

I Don't Want To Be Born also goes by other titles such as The Devil Within Her, Sharon's Baby and The Monster which is the title that is being used for a new Blu Ray release from Network Releasing who are fantastic with their titles and so I look forward to how great this title will look. 70's Joan Collins in High Def! We really don't deserve it. And we've only just had Blu Ray releases of both The B*tch and The Stud.

I actually think this film is a masterpiece. It's also my favourite film from 1975. Yes, I think it's better or maybe just as good as Jaws and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

Of course there are those who dismiss this title as just 70's exploitation fluff. But that lazy summation disregards the beautiful cinematography, the time capsule aspect of the time the film captures both on and off camera (there was a real thirst for horror movies amongst British cinema goers in the 70's) and the set design which is pinpoint perfect. Oh, and the acting is pretty fantastic too. This film may be an Exorcist/Rosemary's Baby rip-off but just like Beyond The Door it more than holds it's own just like Piranha did in the wake of Jaws or Zombie Flesh Eaters after Dawn of the Dead.

A classic film. Seriously.

Ramon the baby alligator gets flushed down the toilet. 12 years later Ramon is now living in the sewers where he has ingested hormones that have made him grow massively. He's also very hungry.

Alligator is a fantastic horror film that also has a brilliant sense of dark humour. But this isn't one of those 'comedy horrors' that are light on horror and heavy on naff laughs.

Robert Forster stars as the cop with the receding hairline who is on the case. With snappy (pun not intended) dialogue by the fantastic John Sayles, more quirky characters than you can shake a stick at and masterful direction by Lewis Teague (who would later direct the equally brilliant Cujo) this movie really delivers.

Watch out for the garden party scene. It's a doozy.

Alas, when Alligator was released in the UK the BBFC cut almost all of the gore from the film so that it would receive an 'A' certificate (the equivalent to today's PG rating). The film would then be resubmitted uncut to the Board in 1991 and would receive a 15 rating with all previous cuts waived.

You know you've made a great film when a toy company makes a game based on it.