A children's game goes horribly wrong and a child falls backwards from the first floor window of an abandoned building and dies. The remaining kids vow to never tell anyone about what happened. It's now 7 years on and the children in the gang are preparing for their Prom Night. They one by one start …
Continue reading Day 30- 31 Days of Halloween 2023- Prom Night (1980)
Three friends since high school known as The Rat Pack plan a weekend camping vacation to Deep Barrens in New Jersey. They are suddenly captured by two hillbillies who take the three women home to their demented mother who detains them and plans to torture and kill them one by one. I first learnt of …
Continue reading Day 27- 31 Days of Halloween 2023- Mother’s Day (1980)
How can a sci-fi project with Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain) directing a cast of Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel and Farrah Fawcett with a script by Martin Amis be so bland? Maybe most sci-fi movies post-Alien were instantly rendered mediocre and middling. Keitel calls Saturn 3 the nadir of his whole career. I wouldn't …
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 gaudiest 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 …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- The Exterminator (1980)
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 …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 20- Terror Train (1980)
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 …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 19- The Boogey Man (1980)
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 …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween- Day 7- Alligator (1980)
One of my earliest memories involves the film Friday the 13th (those who know me are rolling their eyes and thinking 'This doesn't surprise me!') I'm 5 years old and I'm running towards my local cinema, The Odeon in York. I regularly go there when my family ventures into town as there are posters and …
Continue reading ‘It’s Got A Death Curse!’- Taking A Deep Dive Into Friday The 13th (1980)
This 1980 slasher movie concerns a jilted lover who kills his ex prior to her wedding day. He's now been released from prison and intends on repeating history as he's after a soon-to-be bride. The film borrows heavily from Halloween (the piano score, the autumnal street shots etc etc) and even the title card for …
I first heard of this Yuletide horror flick as John Waters spoke about it as being his favourite seasonal cinematic shocker. With such high praise from The Prince of Puke I later heard it was being shown at a local cinema in Sydney, Australia where I lived for a year (it was actually shown as …
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