THE SLAYER 1982

"She searched through the corridors of the unknown only to find....The Slayer!" 

     Barely released to theaters it later showed up one of those classic big box videos from Continental Video where it was paired with Fred Olen Ray's SCALPS in a double feature that seemed to show up at every video store back in the day. THE SLAYER also (in)famously appeared in Continental Video's TERROR ON TAPE compilation in which video store owner Cameron Mitchell trots out the goriest scenes from the company's library saving THE SLAYER for a Gothic Michelle Bauer as she's never been scared in her life (with its climax from THE SLAYER naturally doing the trick).
   Abstract artist Kay (Sarah Kendall) work begins to show a more distributing turn in her work much to the concern of her husband David (Alan McRae THE STUDENT BODY). He suggests a getaway vacation for the couple along with Kay's brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) and his wife Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook THE CYCLE VIXENS) which he also hopes will help cure her of the disturbing dreams she's been having. The group flies to their destination Tybee Island (a small island off the coast of GA.) their pilot being the rather sinister Marsh (Michael Holmes DEADLY PREY) who provides the cryptic warnings (instead of the proverbial crusty old man) to the group concerning their stay on the unpopulated island being off-season there.

    Arriving on the barren Island the group discovers a derelict theatre which Kay has seen in her dreams and she warns the group that they will all die if they stay. An approaching hurricane forces the group to stay and hunker down in their large rented house. Early in the film, we're shown the killing of a local fisherman by an unknown assailant wielding an oar which he splits the victims head open. This sequence doesn't really match the mood or look of the later murders but does set up the
"maybe I'm dreaming" thoughts of Kay and does provide some blood early in the film. The first night Kay dreams of a horrific death for David and awakens to find his severed head in bed next to her. The rest of his body his discovered and Kay becomes convinced that a skeletal figure from her dreams murdered him and will kill the rest of them if she falls asleep again.
    Written and directed by J.S. Cardone (THUNDER ALLEY) and shot by cinematographer Karen Grossman (HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE), it was released in the midst of the slasher boom and THE SLAYER does deliver the expected goods with kills and bloody gore. It does attempts to set itself apart (not always successfully) with the emphasis more on the characters and their distinct personalities along with the brooding atmosphere and desolation of the island.
     Perfect for a stormy night viewing, this slow-burn & atmospheric horror with slasher elements and a touch of Euro-horror/giallo requires attentive viewing to appreciate its plot and ambiance. Some viewers might find it somewhat tedious & talky (rightly so) but it will draw you into its dreamlike pacing if given a chance. It's also generated a bit of notice because of its "don't go to sleep" theme and the comparison to the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise.

    Barely released to theaters it later showed up one of those classic big box videos from Continental Video where it was paired with Fred Olen Ray's SCALPS in a double feature that seemed to show up at every video store back in the day. THE SLAYER also (in)famously appeared in Continental Video's TERROR ON TAPE compilation in which video store owner Cameron Mitchell trots out the goriest scenes from the company's library saving THE SLAYER for a Gothic Michelle Bauer as she's never been scared in her life (with its climax from THE SLAYER naturally doing the trick).

    The kills themselves are composed effectively with an eerie dream-like quality to them including a well-staged pitchfork impaling. The mature cast also sets up things differently relationship-wise rather than the usual horny teenagers. The dream-like mood carries through the entire film and the sometimes-slow moving plot while maybe does make one fidget (this would make a terrific double feature with 1980's SILENT SCREAM) it does fit in with the film's central question - is Karen "dreams" real or is she or somebody else the murderer with the title figure maybe a part her dreams or not??

 
    Sarah Kendall (whose only other credit is THE KARATE KID PART II) does a decent job in the lead role with her slowing building hysteria although with her corpse-like appearance and buggy eyes she seems pretty batty right from the beginning. Later when frantically chain-smoking, guzzling coffee and even burning herself with a cigarette to stay awake she seems even scarier than the title monster. Michael Holmes stands from the other cast in his brief role as the red herring and intoner of doom to the travelers. The creature make-up effects by Robert Short & Julie Purcell are very well done with the skeletal needle toothed title character being an unforgettable image and it's not surprising he's featured prominently in the trailer (although only quickly glimpsed in the film itself).

The above screen caps are from the Arrow Films DVD

  

     

DEMONOID : MESSENGER OF DEATH ! 1981

aka MACABRA

 

"Up from the depths comes the ultimate horror !"

      Coming just on the cusp of the 1980's youth centered slasher craze and featuring a throw everything against the wall in a gooey mess script along with a couple of recognizable names for the marquee (and were probably wondering how they ended up here) this bizarrely entertaining Mexican/U.S. co-production has just been given a new lease a life courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome. Although released in 1981, DEMONOID with its mature cast of established (if not all well known ) faces and plot points concerning devil worship & procession (not to mention car chases, crawling hands & corpses exploding out of the ground) which seem to hearken back a few years to the glory days of 70's drive-in goodness.

     Produced and directed by Alfredo Zacarias for his indie distributing company American Panorama (which along with equally mind boggling THE BEES from 1978 were it's only two releases), it was co-produced by Americans Valley Hoffman and Paul Bagley, who both had connections to films such as THE HILLS HAVE EYES, STARHOPS and CAGED HEAT both in front of and behind the camera.

    Opening with a prologue in which a buxom blonde is shown knocking around some guys in robes and hoods before she's subdued, stripped topless and chained to a cave wall. Her hand is then chopped off whereupon it scuttles off before being skewered and placed in small silver box. Flash forward to the present where in the Mexican town of Guanajuato, Jennifer Baines (Samantha Eggar from David Cornenberg's THE BROOD) shows up to find her husband Mark (Sam Peckinpah regular Roy Jensen) in a bit of a quandary as the workers won't venture down into his silver mine for fear of a local legend concerning a satanic cult and "the devil's hand".
    Hoping to show this to be false the couple head down into mine and after discovering a mummified prospector (with a missing hand) they knock aside a few fiberglass rocks and come upon an underground temple where they come across the silver box seen in the prologue. Finding it filled only with dust they take the silver box home and later that night a hand crawls out and begins feeling up Jennifer while she's asleep in bed (!). Mark then wrestles with the hand and it appears to merge into his his own hand and now seemingly possessed by a evil & insane force, he goes to the mine the next day and blows it closed with all the workers inside.

    Fleeing to Las Vegas (with Jennifer in pursuit) Mark happily discovers that his new hand is now gangbusters at throwing craps which later leads to him being seemingly killed by a mobster and his frizzy headed moll (an uncredited turn by Russ Meyer starlet Haji). Jennifer traces his body to a cemetery in Inglewood, Ca. (where it later explodes out of the ground) and there joins forces with Father Cunningham ( Stuart Whitman - with a fading in and out Irish accent) who appears to having a  conflict of faith - along with being handy in boxing and welding.
    They begin following the hand as moves from one victim to another including a policemen (Lew Saunders from CHiPS) and a plastic surgeon (and his buxom nurse) all of whom go to some extraordinary lengths to extract themselves from the devil possessed extremity. Jumping from Mexico to Las Vegas to Los Angeles, the plot moves forward seemingly without the benefit of logic or common sense and takes a left turn about every 15 minutes or so into more and more bizarre sequences including a car chase with randomly flipping automobiles, the hand grabbing on to the underside of a train to gain a fast getaway and Whitman using a blow torch to burn off his Satan afflicted appendage.
    Zacarias actually prepared two different cuts of the film with the U.S. version titled DEMONOID : MESSENGER OF DEATH clocking in at compact 79 minutes while the international cut MACABRA ran at an expanded 90 minutes. The U.S. version also added the opening female sacrifice prologue (which some sources claim was shot by Jim Wynorski in Bronson Cavern as Roger Corman was involved in the early stages of the film's production) and also periodically quickly cuts to a sword wielding demon statue and adds a ending scene cribbed from Brian De Palma's THE FURY. DEMONOID also loses some dialogue sequences (including the entirety of Whitman's first scene) making it more of choppy viewing experience and adds a more ramped up bloody finale to Haji's death. DEMONOID's score is a patchwork of library music and cues from 70's A.I.P. and New World pictures while MACABRA has an original score comprising some disco-like rhythms and spooky choral music ala' THE OMEN.

    The British born Eggar had started out in major films such as DR. DOLITTLE but by this time had begun moving into TV and lower budget films and added to her drive-in bona-fides by also appearing in THE EXTERMINATOR this same year. Stuntman Roy Jenson (billed here as Roy Cameron Jenson) was a recognizable face as character actor usually playing "second heavy on the right" such as in Sam Peckinpah's THE GETAWAY where he was memorably blown away by Steve McQueen's shotgun and appears here in a rare (semi) leading role. At this time seemingly saying yes to every script within eyesight ex- Hollywood leading man Stuart Whitman had appeared in Tobe Hopper's excellent and underrated EATEN ALIVE and New Worlds CRAZY MAMA in 1976, Hammer's oddball SHATTER from 1974 and in 1979 he was a scenery chewing Rev. "James Johnson" (i.e. Jim Jones) in Rene Cardone Jr's infamous GUYANA : CULT OF THE DAMNED.
    Robert Burns (credited here as "special effects art director") worked on THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and was most likely responsible for the atmospheric temple setting and the periodically popping up demon statue. The appropriately grungy cinematography is by Alex Phillips Jr. who had shot Sam Peckinpah's (also appropriately grungy) BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA in 1974. Erika Carlsson was a pretty big star in Mexico at the time (which explains her prominent billing on the MACABRA version) and here as the busty nurse who runs afoul of the hand has only one line as she shouts "NOoo...!"  at her demise.
    Although Whitman's mumbling attempted Irish accent comes across as inebriation at some points (which may have well been the case) and Eggar spends most the film staring bug eyed at the proceedings around her, both are pretty good here as they say their lines with much more conviction then the material warrants and giving the entire plot a gravies that almost seems out of place (even when they're trashing about while holding a rubber hand to their face). I've always had a fondness for this ever since I saw it on a double feature with DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE back in the early 80's and because of the weirdly bizarre proceedings and its whack-a-mole style plot DEMONOID is an entertaining exercise in low budget drive-in horror (and would make a wonderful dbl. feature with Oliver Stone's entertainingly bad bigger budgeted THE HAND from the same year).
     Frustratingly hard to view in recent years as DEMONOID's only U.S. release was the old Media VHS tape (which seemed to show up in every Mom & Pop video store in existence at the time) and a few years back there was a quasi-bootleg DVD release of the MACABRA cut in Europe. Vinegar Syndrome recently released it on a DVD/Blu dual pack that image-wise brings forth the WTF (?) story line with in startling clarity, plus it contains both cuts of the film along with some extras including an interview with Zacarias. The equally insane THE BEES is hopefully coming in 2016. Lucky patrons to the early showings of DEMONOID were given a "Demonoid Diploma" (which I would love to find).

All the above screen grabs are from the Vinegar Syndrome DVD

Hey, if E.T. is sold out you can always check out SATAN'S MISTRESS & DEMONOID !

       

EMPIRE OF THE 'B's - THE MOVIE MADNESS OF CHARLES BAND 1973-1989

   This is looking be a good year for exploitation/drive-in fans with a bunch of great DVD's announced already announced and now a book AND a documentary on Charles Band's Empire Pictures. I love big 'ol movie books and they've been kind of few & far between lately, so its always cool to see something like this coming.

  Empire Pictures was formed by Charles Band in 1983 and distributed such classics as Ghoulies, The Dungeonmaster, Re-Antimator, Savage Island, Creepozoids, From Beyond (just released on blu from Shout), Rawhead Rex and bunches of others. 

   The book is by Dave Joy has a release date of Oct. 2013 and here's the Facebook page for it and the upcoming documentary has a Facebook page here. 

Creature AKA Titan Find 1985 DVD & Blu

 
    The 1980's saw bunches of Alien knock-offs - but only one features a truly demented performance by the great Klaus Kinski. On March 16 director William Malone is bringing out his 1985 horror/sci-fi classic Creature AKA Titan Find on DVD (and upcoming blu -ray). Only available previously in  poor quality cut and pan & scan releases, this is really something to look forward too.  Details are on his Facebook and for the time being it looks like it will only be available here.

Remember The Days....Wizard Video Sell Sheets

    I found these over at the Full Moon website. Really cool old Wizard sell sheets from the 1980's that were sent out to video stores to promote upcoming releases. When VHS first exploded Full Moon's Charles Band got the rights to a bunch of European horror/exploitation and women in prison films (plus eventually branching out to U.S. stuff such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Penitentiary and Equinox among others) and brought them out under the Wizard label.  They were released in those big old flimsy cardboard boxes that seemed to fill the shelves of every mom & pop video store back in the day.