Ticks (1993)

Reviewed By: Billy (with footnotes by JM)

The early 1990s straight-to-video boom was a wonderful time; just look at the previews that show up on my VHS copy of Ticks. We’ve got a movie about a psychic cop called Scannercop, some kind of Terminator-meets-Robocop rip-off called Apex, and the all-time classic Night of the Demons 2. There will never be another time like it; no matter what you were renting, you knew you were in for something entertaining.

Take the first few minutes of Ticks, for example: we’ve got Seth Green, looking remarkably similar to how he’d look ten years later in bigger-budget fare (how old is this guy?), we get the guy who plays preppy Carlton on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” as a tough kid in shades and a trenchcoat wielding a switchblade (and named Panic![i]), and then there’s Ami Dolenz as a rich-bitch wearing Jackie-O sunglasses and a headscarf. Could this be the greatest movie ever made? Possibly[ii].

This motley crew of 90s[iii] teens is heading to some kind of wilderness camp for troubled youth, which was the 90s straight-to-video equivalent of leading a naked gladiator into the lion ring. Meanwhile, some crazy guy in a shack is attacked by what appear to be rubber starfish, but are apparently the ticks of the title. Peter Scolari – who always kind of seemed to me to be a poor man’s Rick Moranis, which is fitting as this movie has a distinct Honey, I Blew Up The Ticks-vibe – is the camp counselor, and gets some awesome voice-overs about his fears that “the group won’t bond.” A few scenes later, Peter and his girlfriend are having sex while the kids start a fire outside. So, apparently not supervising a group of delinquents while they attempt to torch a forest is a good bonding technique.

Eventually the ticks start running wild, coming from some big gooey egg sacs and scurrying across the ground to attack Panic’s dog. This gives us a wonderful scene where street thug Panic actually cries over his lost dog and then runs away from camp. Seeing little Carlton from “Fresh Prince” trying to act upset over a dog is a huge highlight of the movie, although I personally preferred his performance on a (washed-up) celebrity version of the game show “The Weakest Link” a few years back when he got super competitive and also looked like he was going to cry when he was almost beat by Danny from “Who’s The Boss?”.

Ami Dolenz, meanwhile, attempts to play against type as stuck-up Dee Dee Davenport (the greatest spoiled rich girl name ever), but kind of comes across like her character in Pumpkinhead II with PMS[iv]. Ami is just too sweet-faced to be taken seriously as a bitch; even when she was possessed by the bad girl in Witchboard 2 you wanted to give her a hug and be her best friend. Anyway, Ami ends up face to face with the hick in the shack from the beginning, whose throbbing face explodes a tick onto her neck.

So…blah blah blah…a couple of pot growers accidentally set their “cash crop” on fire, which sends the ticks straight for the camp, and all of the characters end up trapped inside one cabin a la The Birds. Except instead of talented character actors being terrorized by real, menacing animals, we’ve got Seth Green and Ami Dolenz screaming as big latex bugs climb up the walls. The ticks actually kind of look like hermit crabs, which I personally love, so I was definitely rooting for them. And the really nice thing about this movie is that it doesn’t even bother trying to really explain where the giant ticks come from. Eventually, they get inside Panic and (in a scene cribbed directly from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4) he becomes one giant tick. Amazingly, Panic is the only one of the group to die…now, I’m not complaining about this, because if I had to choose one character to die off, it would be him. But…are you telling me the other little a-holes deserved to live? What is this, a Sci-Fi Channel original movie?

Anyway…the camp blows up, the ticks die, and the young kids escape. At the end, we get a shot of one of those eggsacs falling out of a car in the city…so, of course, the ticks will eventually take over the world. Personally, in a world where Ami Dolenz and Seth Green are allowed to live, I’m fine with that. The rubber ticks gave the best performances in the movie anyway…so why shouldn’t they take over the world?

TWO-AND-A-HALF FINGERS

[i] He is nicknamed Panic because he never does. What does than mean about Braveheart? I guess that means he is really a scaredy cat. Or at least an anti-Semite who refers to women as “sugar tits”
[ii] It’s not… it’s not even the greatest Ami Dolenz movie. That honor goes to Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway
[iii] Motley Crue of the 90s briefly featured John Corabi on vocals. Most people would agree that this was a low point in the band’s career. I do not. The low point came when Vince Neil returned
[iv] Interestingly, the full title of that movie is Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings. Make your own PMS joke

Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway (1993)

Reviewed by JM

“Get a grip Paige, it’s only uh weeja board”

This movie is, perhaps, the greatest piece of proof that I may offer on why I believe that sequels are always better than the originals. It is easy to take a serious horror film, the kind that is dark and creepy and hard for me to watch because my eyes can’t stop rolling and quickly crank out a sequel that is purely and wonderfully entertaining. Think about the transition from Exorcist to Exorcist 2. The original movie follows the disturbing story of Reagan and her possession by a demon. Several scenes are still shocking to watch. Part 2 follows an oddly bubbly teenage Reagan in a 70s futuristic setting where her therapist and a priest use a synchronizer to enter her mind and they all battle Pazuzu.

Of course the sequel was going to be the better movie.

Witchboard 2, however, did not have that same sort of guarantee. The original was a movie so entertaining and so good that it is easy to mistake it for a sequel.

This installment is written and directed by Kevin Tenney. This guy has written and/or directed plethora of great horror movies including Witchboard, Witchboard 3, Night of the Demons, Night of the Demons 3, and… Well, I haven’t seen anything else of his.

The movie opens with Paige (played by Ami Dolez) arriving at a loft for rent. Of note, this enormous furnished loft is renting at $700 per month. Perhaps this was more expensive in 1993. But still, $700 a month for this place seems remarkably inexpensive.

Jonas, the landlord’s husband, shows her the place. He keeps leering at Paige and lets her know that he is available “…day…or night”. Paige tells him she’ll accept the place and wants to move in next week. He agrees and tells her that she can sign the paperwork today and that he’ll have his wife, Elaine, sign the papers that night.

Now here is the weird part… He then asks Paige what her name is.

My guess is that the apartment is so affordable because old Jonas only wants cute girls moving in. There is no other explanation that I can come up with for the low rent and not needing to know her name.

Almost immediately upon moving in, an old Ouija board flies off of a shelf in the closet. Of course, Paige decides to give it a whirl. And it works. Within moments she learns that the spirit’s name is Susan Sydney and that Susan is aware of Paige’s possible promotion at work.

Actually, the spirit just spells “promo”. Paige is so self-absorbed, though, that she fills in the blanks on that one. I mean, “promo” could only mean “promotion” right? And it must be about Paige. No wonder the spirit says “goodbye” right after Paige starts yapping about her promotion. It’s too bad there wasn’t a spot on the board that read “Save it, kid” for the spirit to go to.

At this point in the movie, I usually start thinking, “If I had an Ouija board that started moving around on its own and answering all of my questions, what would I ask it?”. Then I realize that if I had an Ouija board that starting answering my questions, my screams would be heard for miles. I would be up and running down the street like a horse getting its ass stung by hornets. I would leave my possessions and never return home.

But, hey, that’s just me. Paige takes things in stride.

I am not going to waste a lot of time on the plot here. It is the exact same plot as the original. To be clear: it is not a similar plot. It is EXACTLY THE SAME. Kevin Tenney changed the names though. So, I guess it’s not a remake. It is Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway (there is no devil’s doorway in this movie).

This movie does give us one innovation, though. Before Witchboard 2, it was not known if ghosts had dyslexia. In this one, Susan Sydney confuses Paige for about a third of the running time by delivering the message “rifle cape”. Eventually, Paige figures out that Susan meant to spell “fire place”. Though we never find out, I hope that Susan Sydney was able to get the specialized tutoring that she needed.

Ami Dolenz really steals the show in this one. She overacts with a gusto not seen since Sharon Stone portrayed a stroke for the Heart and Stroke Foundation (you will want to find this clip on Youtube. Immediately). Ami’s facial expressions have the type of over the top emoting that Billy and I learned about while putting on children’s plays at the Muncie Civic Theater (because you want the people in the back row of the theater to understand what you are trying to convey).

The difference, of course, is that Ami not acting for parents at a civic theater. Instead she has a camera only inches from her face. Truly, you won’t believe it when she yells, “shut the f*ck up!”. Instead of coming across as angry, Ami Dolenz delivers the line like a 13 year-old girl trying to impress her friends at recess.

Ami Dolenz spends a lot of time in this movie paired up with John Gatins (who portrays Russel). Their chemistry was so strong that they were later reteamed for another exceptional sequel: Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings.

Add in the half dozen or so good little jump scares and a truly bizarre performance by Laraine Newman and how could I give this movie anything less than five fingers?

Homicidal (1961)

Reviewed By: Billy

When Homicidal was released in 1961, hot on the heels of Psycho, Time Magazine actually gave the William Castle rip-off a better review. This fact is generally used today as a way to show just how under appreciated Alfred Hitchcock was in his day…as in, “Look how those idiot critics actually thought a low-budget shocker was better than a classic like Psycho!”

Well…this idiot is here to say that Time Magazine was right. Homicidal is not only a better movie than Psycho, it’s one of the best movies ever made. Period. I know that many of you will disagree, but I will gladly defend this completely insane classic until the day I die. Psycho may have shocked audiences in 1960, but it comes across like a Doris Day comedy when put up next to William Castle’s schlocky sex-thriller masterpiece. Taking the basic idea of Psycho and muddying it up with a nonsensical plot, startlingly uncharismatic supporting actors, and the cinematography/set decoration of the finest “Mister Ed” episode, Castle somehow manages to create not only an enjoyable movie, but an oddly compelling one; you know right from the start that something on the screen isn’t right, and you can’t stop watching until you see just how weird this thing’s gonna get.

Homicidal opens with its version of Psycho’s leading lady…in this one, she’s named Miriam instead of Marion. Subtle, William. Actually, as we find out, her name’s really Emily, but she’s going by the name Miriam for the moment. Anyway, I need to stop here and talk for a moment about Jean Arless, the actress playing Emily. Jean Arless (whose real name was Joan Marshall), to put it plainly, is awesome. A perfect mix of Janet Leigh and latter-day Sharon Stone, she looks on the surface like your average 1960s contract player. But damn if everything isn’t just a little off; her hair’s just a little too severe, her hand gestures a little too big, and her facial reactions just a little too obvious. Remember when Sharon did the absolutely wonderful stroke public service announcement, and made herself cry while pretending to actually be a stroke? Arless is kind of like that…so over the top that she might as well be sailing through another galaxy.

So Emily checks into a hotel and convinces the bellhop to marry her, and the two head off to a lecherous justice of the peace’s house in the middle of the night. I should mention that the bellhop, while sporting that hot beefcake look of the early 60s, delivers all of his lines as if he’s not quite sure what word is coming next. Anyway, seconds after the “I do,” Emily pulls out a knife and stabs the justice several times in the stomach. This scene is surprisingly graphic for a movie of this era; we actually see nasty looking blood covering the justice’s gut. Emily runs out and drives to a huge, remote house where she promptly washes off the bloody knife and taunts a mute old lady in a wheelchair about the murder.

So…is this the most awesome opening 20 minutes of a movie ever? Hell yes.

We soon learn that Emily is the live-in nurse for Helga, the old mute who rolls around in her wheelchair and raps on the armrests as a form of communication. Helga is actually such a creepy character that I’m surprised other filmmakers since haven’t completely ripped her off. Anyway, Helga and Emily have a very twisted love-hate thing going on, kind of like yours truly and JM the year that I was a freshman and he was a senior in high school: Emily flits around like a drag queen making everyone uncomfortable (me), while Helga looks pissed and keeps trying to slip out the door when no-one’s looking (JM). The real Miriam Webster soon shows up (wait a minute…her name is Miriam Webster? Like the dictionary?); she apparently grew up in the old house and Helga had been nursemaid to her and her brother Warren years earlier. Miriam is played by Patricia Breslin, and poor Patricia’s understated performance doesn’t stand a chance in the Jean Arless show. I do, however, enjoy Patricia’s pseudo-British accent; she’s got that clipped speech that so many actors had back in the day…as though pronouncing words like “flowers” as “flowahs” will instantly give you class.

The next scene is one of my favorites; Emily goes into town to get a “prescription” for Helga (read: poison). There, she comes upon Carl the pharmacist, who turns out to be perhaps the dorkiest leading man in movie history. Seriously, this guy is worse than the bellhop; he doesn’t appear to have any idea what kind of movie he’s in, and so he does his best Jimmy Stewart impression and appears to be on the verge of talking about bells ringing and angel wings at any moment. Emily, meanwhile (in another subtle acting choice by Jean Arless/Joan Marshall), starts stroking some poor kid at the soda fountain’s hair with a look of longing that only someone without a brain would miss as a clue that she's got some childhood issues. Anyway, Carl turns out to be not only a dork, but a terrible pharmacist, filling the prescription for strychnine that Emily flat out says she’s going to give to Helga. What in God’s name is poor Helga suffering from that she needs rat poison?

Next…just in case we didn’t realize that Emily is mentally disturbed, we get a scene where she breaks into Miriam’s flower shop and busts apart the place, spending an especially tortured moment with the little bride-groom cake topper before snapping the heads off. And then Carl comes in, only to get bonked on the head by Emily and left unconscious on the floor.

Damn, these people are f’ed up. But wait…it’s about to get worse. Meet Warren.

Warren is the best character in this movie. He is Miriam’s brother, who is apparently about to come into a large sum of money on his 21st birthday. By the way, if Warren is 21, then I’m 12. Warren is a character that will have an enormous impact on many, many films to come…dare I say even more so than Norman Bates? I don’t want to give away too much here, but Warren is perhaps the most awkward screen presence ever immortalized on celluloid. His is gangly and unnaturally tan, with some seriously messed up teeth and hair that’s apparently been shellacked on. If you saw Warren on the street, there’s a good chance you’d think up a really mean joke about him and then scold yourself for having done it. Anyway, nobody else in the movie seems to notice that there’s anything odd about Warren…which pretty much illustrates the point that this group of characters is clownier than a circus.

Anyway, everyone starts suspecting that Emily is the one who killed the justice of the peace in town (and I wonder why? There’s only a police sketch in the newspaper that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HER). Emily just keeps getting freakier; at one point Miriam wakes up to find the incredibly scary nurse standing over her bed holding a doll, and later she calls up a traveling knife sharpener to come touch up her surgical scalpel. Red flags, people…red flags. Emily promptly takes the knife and, in an awesomely choreographed scene, beheads Helga as she comes up the stairs in her mechanical wheelchair lift.

Beat that, Hitchy!

So, finally, things hurtle toward a climax. Miriam and Warren realize that Emily is “a cold blooded murderess” and rush to the house to save Helga. Warren goes in and disappears…and suddenly, a la Vera Miles stalking toward the Bates house, it’s time for Miriam to enter the house of horrors. What’s going to happen? What will she find?

Sorry. We’re all going to have to wait for the answers while William Castle throws one of his most ridiculous gimmicks ever at us: the Fright Break. Yes, people…the movie pauses for a full 45 seconds while a clock appears on screen and Castle’s voice informs us that all cowards in the audience should leave now, as what is about to happen is not for the weak hearted. Of course, rather than create suspense, this little device completely grinds everything to a halt. But then, what else would we expect from the man who brought us vibrating theatre seats and skeletons flying on wires? Castle doesn’t really care about creating suspense; he’s here to make sure we have fun.

So, the Fright Break ends and we find out the shocking secret we’ve all been waiting for (this movie does ape Psycho, after all, so there’s got to be a twist). I’m not going to give anything away, although it’s not too hard to figure out what’s been going on. If you’ve ever seen Color of Night, Sleepaway Camp, or Terror Train, you shouldn’t at all be surprised. But the beauty here is that while Psycho, with its whole “is Mrs. Bates really dead?” plotline, was setting us up for a shocking climax, Homicidal kind of brings it on us out of nowhere. After all, up until the end, there’s been no mystery; we all know that Emily is a batshit crazy killer who walks around with surgical knives and poison pills in her purse. The only real suspense was waiting for the mind-numbingly dull people around her to figure it out.

By the way, the movie ends with the exact same “clerical explanation by the doctor” scene as Psycho does. Only here, rather than being morbid, we get Miriam and Carl making a joke about how she’s rich now and walking out together to the bouncy music of a “Lassie” episode. Ummm...Miriam just found her that her entire life has been a lie. Not to mention she almost got killed. Shouldn’t she be just a little shaken up?

Anyway…if I’ve left you with any doubt that Homicidal is one of the best films of all time, well, I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job. Hitchcock enthusiasts will talk until they’re blue in the face about how important and influential Psycho is. And I agree. But that doesn’t make it terribly enjoyable. Instead, Homicidal revels in its inherent cheapness and the sleaziness of being made by one of the most shameless showmen in history, and easily comes out on top. Years later, as JM and I sat in a crowded theatre and watched Sharon Stone craft one of the most unbelievable performances in history in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction, I couldn’t help but think about Jean Arless. There are shots in which the two women look like twins; it’s really kind of remarkable. And so that’s all the proof I need that Homicidal is a great film; because any movie that helped bring about the ridiculous return of Catherine Trammell (not to mention inspired the Bruce Willis nuclear disaster Color of Night) is a winner in my book.

FIVE FINGERS

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Reviewed by JM

Just look at the picture. Really? Come on. This is a scene in a horror movie?

Actually, I have to say that this moment, early in the movie, is a pretty brave one. Outside of drag bars on Halloween, this is the only time I have ever seen a male dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West. Would Jason Vorhees dress this way to elicit laughter from his audience? No way. Would Michael Myers humiliate himself like this? Not a chance. Would Pinhead cackle like an old woman while riding a broomstick? Hard to say… Let’s put that in the “maybe” pile.

So, this is how we open the sixth installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series. And, frankly, it says a lot about the health of the franchise. Watch the first two Elm Streets again. Freddy Kruger is a pretty effective character. He is creepy. He is gross. He is perverse. He absolutely lost a lot of these qualities in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. But, part 3 is also the best one of these movies. The special effects are great. Patricia Arquette is…well… bizarre. Heather Langencamp returned as Nancy. Unfortunately, Freddy also uttered “…welcome to prime time, bitch!” in part 3 and changed the character and the direction of the series. From part four on, Freddy spends more time cracking jokes and uttering sophomoric one-liners than actually stalking anyone.

Part six, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is really the zenith of this Freddy as gagman thing. As in The Dream Child, Freddy in this one looks less like a burn victim than he does a Boglin…you know, those foamy, rubbery little hand puppets… just look on Ebay. Yes sir, long gone are the days when kids would be scared of Freddy Kruger.

Anyway, early in this one we are introduced to the new kids on the chopping block… get it? These kids are at some sort of jail/clubhouse/halfway house/orphanage/rehab center or something. We find out right away that lazy cops just drop kids off there rather than fill out paperwork.

First, we get Shon Greenblatt as “John Doe”. I think he is supposed to be Alice’s kid from the The Dream Child as a teenager. And I think this movie is supposed to take place 10 years in the future. But, that would only make the character 12 years old. He looks like he is about 20. I am just not sure what is going on… maybe that 10 years in the future thing was just part of a dream? Nothing is made very clear. Why is this guy even in this movie?

Then, there is Spencer, played by Breckin Meyer. This is probably the prettiest girl in the movie. What? Breckin Meyer is a male? Okay… I guess Freddy is not the only one in drag on Elm Street.

Ricky Dean Logan is Carlos. This character needs a hearing aid. Really nothing more to say about him. That handicap will set up how Freddy tortures/kills him (“Oh, Carlos… Lend me your ear” is uttered while my eyes roll).

Lezlie Deane plays Tracy. She doesn’t like to be touched and she kickboxes. Any guesses where this is going?

Yaphet Kotto portays Doc. If the writers could not be bothered to come up with a real name for this guy, then I am not going to waste anymore time on him either.

Finally, there is Lisa Zane as Maggie Borroughs. This character actually gets a first and a last name. So, we already know that she is going to survive this picture. She is a counselor or something to the kids in this place. But, she calls Spencer’s dad a “jerk” in front of Spencer and she kind of shrugs off things when another counselor finds a pipe bomb in Spencer’s room. So, I really don’t think she is very good at her job.

Now, what this movie does, is it makes the same mistake that the Halloween franchise did in part 6, too (and did again in Rob Zombie’s remake). This movie really delves into its villain’s backstory. We find out all about Freddy’s childhood. We all get know why Freddy became who he is.

What is this, Dr. Phil? No one cares why Freddy became a serial killer. I couldn’t give a damn about his abusive childhood. All I want is teenagers being chased around by a guy with knives for fingers. That’s it. Stop making this harder than it is.

So for an hour and a half, we get Freddy yucking it up with jokey deaths and a lot of background information. And Rosanne and Tom Arnold. Good lord.

The really weird thing here, though, is that this movie was really advertised as being in 3D. And, the filming throughout it is seems to be intended as 3d. But, it is only a 3d movie for the last, like, 10 minutes. What is that all about?

I remember seeing this in the theater with my brother, Billy. Everyone was given 3D glasses. But, we were instructed not to wear them until a character in the movie puts on a pair. And, what to you know? One of the characters has to put on 3D glasses during the last 10 minutes of the movie because in her dream they would not be 3D glasses, they would be…. Aw, who cares?

So, is this the worst Nightmare on Elm Street movie? I suppose that depends on what you consider to be a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. In my opinion, it is the worst. But, that is only because I do not consider Freddy Vs. Jason to be a part of the series. That movie is completely, unwatchably terrible. Nothing redeeming about it.

I will give Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare one finger as a stand alone effort. I will give it an extra half a finger for being heads and shoulders above Freddy Vs. Jason.

One and a half fingers.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)

Reviewed by Jeremy Melton

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: A sequel is always better than the original. This is our credo-- no, our religion-- here at Tower Farm. To date, there is no documented evidence to persuade us otherwise. Frankly, I feel the same way about this as I do the Skunk Ape or Bigfoot. Some nuts may believe that an inferior sequel exists out there. But, until they let me actually examine the corpse inside the icebox, I will never believe in it.

This is not to say Wrong Turn is not a great a movie. In fact, it is. Certainly and easily a four finger treasure box (okay… that was gross, I know). It is full of great tension, great characters, attractive actors, and creepy monsters. Hey, it will never get a complaint from me.

But, as much as I enjoyed the original, the sequel to Wrong Turn is better. I am ready to make a bold statement here…

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End is the greatest movie of all time.

Not convinced? Let me lay this on you. Turi Meyer and Al Septien are the writers.

Alright, I’ll admit it. No one knows who these two are. But, let me throw out two titles to you. Leprechaun 2 and Candyman: Day of the Dead. Enough said.

So, why is this movie so wonderful? God, there are too many things to really get straight in one review. I will give it my best shot.

The movie begins with an absolutely insane sequence. We get Kimberley Caldwell, who made something of a name for herself as a contestant on American Idol, playing… Kimberley Caldwell. She is driving around the country, lost, and yapping away on her cell phone to her agent. A few moments in, she accidentally slams into some guy who was walking on the road. Kimberley stops to help the guy. But… Now are you ready for this? The guy bites off her lower lip. Then another guy walks up with an axe and cuts her in half. Vertically.

HOT DAMN! Now that is an introduction!

God only knows why Kimberley signed on for this. If the idea was to introduce her to a fanbase than might not otherwise know who she is, then mission accomplished. I never watched her on American Idol. But, I am definitely a fan now.

We soon find out that poor Ms. Caldwell was on her way to film a Survivor-type reality show. Once that setup has been… well… set up, we are introduced to the real characters in the movie.

I am not going to waste your time, though. Texas Battle, Aleksa Palladino, Steve Braun, and Daniella Alonso are all great in this. However, there are really only three characters that you need to know.

First there is Dale Murphy, played by Henry Rollins. The lead singer of the Rollins Band. This is the big muscular guy, covered in tattoos that painted himself red for the music video “Liar”. I am pretty sure I own every album this guy has put out. Other than having a military background, if you know who Henry Rollins is, you know everything about this character.

Next, there is Elena. Elena is this movie’s sexpot. She is played by the always enjoyable Crystal Lowe. From Center Stage 2, to Final Destination 3, to Snakes on a Plane, to the remake of Black Christmas, this babe knows how to comb through scripts. No kidding, I have to say she has yet to make a bad movie. As usual, she finds a way to be topless in this one. Thank you. Sincerely.

Finally, there is Nina, the greatest character in this movie. Nina is played by Erica Leerhsen. Oh, yeah… the same Erica that played Erica in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. She plays a Wiccan again (I think… look at her shirt). But, she is a vegan, this time. So, it is really a totally different character. She is totally awesome.

I really have to wonder if the person in charge of casting this movie somehow read my mind. This is like some sort of fantasy football dream team for me.

Now for the monsters…

Well, we find out that Three Finger, the remaining monster at the end of the original, is back with a whole new family. It is never really explained, but I kind of get the feeling these new guys are cousins, or something.

You know, I guess Three Finger is going to be the Leatherface of this series. Through each of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, old Leather keeps moving in with a new group of hillbillies. Can replacing one’s own family really be this easy? I mean if disgusting figures like Three Finger and Leatherface can do it every couple of years…

Watch your ass, Billy. It seems to me that demented brothers are just a dime a dozen.

Anyway, the real star of this new clan of monsters is Pa, played by Ken Kirzinger. He lives with two teenage (?) kids and his lovely wife. I guess they are supposed to be a grotesque version of the nuclear family. He is a classic. A big, lurching, muscle-bound freak. His best scene has him out hunting with his repulsive son. He lets the son shoot the final arrow throw a pair of victims. That’s right one arrow through two people. He pats the boy on the back like a proud father.

Pa’s son and daughter can’t keep their hands off of each other. They are even caught having sex in the woods at one point. Oh… and the girl is wearing the scalp of an earlier victim during this scene… because her brother was caught spying on that character before she killed her.

God, this is great stuff.

At one point, the grandfather of the family shows up and gets blown up by a stick of dynamite. Like an effing cartoon!

In an earlier review, Billy referred to Jill Sholen’s performance in Phantom of the Opera as “crack” for us horror movie junkies. Well, to quote the sagely Whitney Houston, “crack is whack”. This movie is pure cocaine.

Gore. Nudity. Monsters.

Five fingers.

Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (1993)

Reviewed By: Billy

I used to get really tired of people saying that horror movies were all formulaic. I’d rush to defend my chosen genre, insisting that each and every horror movie was a beautiful and unique creation, worthy of dignity and respect.

Well…then I grew up, and realized that indeed, most horror movies boil down to very simple mathematical formulas. To wit:

Black Christmas + Halloween = When a Stranger Calls
The Exorcist + Child’s Play / Star Trek: The Next Generation = Dolly Dearest
My Bloody Valentine + Scream + Terror Train – the actual train = Valentine
And, of course, the Law of Infinite:
Friday the 13th + Amy Steel = Friday the 13th Part II + Dana Kimmel = Friday the 13th 3-D + Cory Feldman = Friday the 13th Part IV – Jason Vorhees = Friday the 13th Part V, etc.

To this end, the formula for Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors was evident within the first
three minutes: The Phantom of the Opera (1989) + "Red Shoe Diaries" to the Witchboard 2-nd power. This is a movie that, at Tower Farm, is a classic of early 90s straight-to-video horror. For years, JM and I actually thought we’d dreamed up the movie, as it’s completely disappeared from sight (probably at Hooper’s insistence). Thankfully, I’ve rediscovered it on the shelves of the greatest little video store in the South, and forced myself to sit through it again to save you the painful experience.

The plot of the movie revolves around…umm…er…

OK, so the movie has no plot. There are a lot of flashback scenes featuring Robert in white facepaint playing the Marquis de Sade. This movie came out at the peak of Robert’s popularity – he was the first, and really only, horror star of the 80s and 90s, and probably thought that his Freddy Krueger-charisma could carry over to just about anything. Unfortunately, in every movie outside of the Nightmare series, he kinda comes across like Bette Davis hopped on amphetamines – the guy overacts like nothing you’ve ever seen onscreen before. He gives basically the same performance here that he did in the aforementioned Phantom, except that instead of the gratuitous skin-stitching scenes, we get the hideous white makeup covering up what appear to be cold sores while Robert prances around reciting de Sade passages about pleasure and pain.

Meanwhile, in some sort of present-day Middle Eastern setting, Zoe Trilling – who was wonderful in Night of the Demons 2 but is looking/acting like a slightly edgier Ami Dolenz here – starts reading de Sade, has sex, and ends up bound in lingerie and about to become the victim in some kind of sex cult that is headed by Englund, also playing a modern-day character (but still chewing up the screen like there’s an Oscar right beside the camera). This is where the "Red Shoe Diaries" connection comes in; if I didn’t already know what it was, I would assume this movie was made directly for late-night Cinemax viewing (of which I’m a proud expert). We’ve got a few scenes of soft-core sex, most of which are intercut with other scenes of belly dancers fellating snakes and waving around silk scarves. Had Maria Ford popped up, no-one would have been surprised.

Speaking of the sex scenes, I believe it’s appropriate here to mention what is easily the most memorable scene in the film. During one of her fantasy sex sequences, Zoe dreams of a Middle-Eastern guy riding toward her on a horse. We see him galloping along the shoreline…waves crashing…wind whipping…and suddenly, we realize he’s naked. And so, we get a surprisingly long scene with this man’s bouncing penis completely filling up the screen. I can tell you that as two middle-schoolers, this was the most shocking thing JM and I had ever witnessed, and is pretty much the only thing we remembered about the movie for years afterward. And, I can tell you that upon re-watching the film, it is still the only shocking and memorable thing about the film, and will remain the only image that sticks with me.

The big problem here is that while each episode of "Red Shoe Diaries" is a perfect 20-some minutes, this movie is 98 minutes long. Could we boil it all down to under a half-hour, it would be very enjoyable; unfortunately, we keep getting those damn flashbacks of de Sade in his prison cell. There’s really no gore to speak of, so there aren’t really any murders to keep us entertained. The fact is, nothing really happens at all. You don’t get anything here that you can’t get by watching each piece of the math equation: Englund is just as nuts in Phantom, Dolenz is a better innocent blond in Witchboard 2, and "Red Shoe Diaries" is a much more concentrated dose of simulated sex. The only thing that makes this movie unique is that bouncing penis. And so, I’m not giving this movie any fingers at all. It gets:

ONE SEMI-LIMP BOUNCING PECKER

Mirror, Mirror (1990)

Reviewed By: Billy

We talk a lot about women like Linda Blair and Sybil Danning on this site, and yes, if there was ever a Great Women of Sleaze convention, they would get the first invitations. But, to be honest, we’ve too long ignored a woman who helped pave the path the rest, someone whose promising career nose-dived into bizarro-indie hell with such an alarming intensity that it ought to be studied in aviation classes. Well finally, with Mirror, Mirror, we have the chance to give credit where credit is due. Ladies and gentlemen: for your consideration in the Tower Farm Ladies Hall of Fame…Miss Karen Black.

Our first shot of Karen here tells us everything we need to know – wearing a wide brimmed hat, bad blond wig, and some kind of floral Easter dress, she looks like a drunk Ellen Burstyn. As the movie progresses, we’ll find out that she’s also acting like a drunk Ellen Burstyn, so at least there’s some consistency here. Karen is playing another crazy mom, which, of course, is her forte. This movie actually serves as the perfect bridge between the just-getting-crazy Karen Black of Burnt Offerings and the please-find-a-straight-jacket-pronto-crazy Karen Black of such classy fare as Miner’s Massacre and Firecracker; she's hamming it up all right, but not yet to the level of art that she'd discover in the DVD age.

Anyway, Karen and her antisocial Goth daughter Megan are moving into a house with a haunted mirror. This is really all the plot explanation you need for now; you can probably guess that eventually the mirror is going to allow the Goth daughter to get revenge on all her new a-hole classmates. Megan is played by an actress named Rainbow Harvest, which for my money is the best stage name this side of Texas Battle (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End). I’ve never seen Rainbow Harvest in anything else, but people online seem to feel she bears a strong resemblance to Winona Ryder. Personally, I think she looks suspiciously like Lori Petty here. Being that Petty’s Tank Girl is one of our favorite celluloid disasters, this resemblance only adds to my enjoyment of her performance. In fact, a quick IMDb check reveals that Rainbow seems to have disappeared after about 1991. Being that this is right as Lori Petty’s career was taking off, I’m just going to go ahead and say they’re the same person.

Now…for a cheapo 1990 release, you might be thinking that Karen Black and a Lori Petty look-alike would provide enough star power. But the makers of Mirror, Mirror have much bigger ambitions, and shoot for the moon in assembling a supporting cast. Unfortunately, they miss the moon by a long shot and apparently end up on Mars with the insane pairing of Yvonne De Carlo and William Sanderson. De Carlo plays an antiques dealer; she is, of course, best known for playing Lily Munster in “The Munsters.” Some of you will remember Sanderson as Larry from “Newhart” and none of you will remember him from Savage Weekend. Sanderson, who specializes in playing nutty country-boys, plays another one here…except that instead of being crazy from years of inbreeding, he’s crazy from having served in Vietnam. Anyway, both supporting actors are barely in the movie and make much more of an impact on the VHS box cover.

So…back to the plot…if you’ve ever seen Carrie, The Craft, or 976-Evil, nothing in this movie will surprise you. If you’ve NEVER seen those movies, what the hell are you doing at Tower Farm, anyway? Gothy Megan has a sex scene with the mirror and it starts doing her bidding. By sex scene, I mean she rubs against the mirror and licks off some dripping blood. And by bidding, I mean giving the popular bitch a nosebleed and her math teacher an asthma attack. Personally, I’d ask for a few million bucks and a whole new life…but that’s just me. Finally, an hour into the movie, one of the jock boys gets his face skinned off…and it’s about time. I’d love to tell you about the special effects, except that there are none; we get some nice closeup shots of a pair of hairy hands, and I guess we are to assume that they’re coming out of the mirror. Yvonne’s death scene is so cheap – honest to God – the only thing we see is a stock shot of glass breaking. Meanwhile, Karen does the concerned mom bit and comes off like the most annoying John Waters character ever. She does get one of the best death scenes, though, when she sticks her hand down a garbage disposal and it gets whacked off. In real life I’m not sure that losing a hand would immediately kill you…it seems like lots of people lose a hand and go on to fulfilling lives without it. Hell, JM and I once saw a Discovery program where a skydiver survived after her parachute failed to open and she completely smashed her skull upon landing. Now that’s horror. Anyway, delicate Karen holds her blood-spurting stump in the air and then falls over dead on the kitchen floor.

There are some other death scenes before the mirror finally unleashes its power, which appears to involve several wind machines and some fake leaves. Rainbow Harvest and her only friend get to run around screaming, before Rainbow is finally killed by the mirror. I wish I could tell you about this death scene…but, as are several in this movie, it’s off camera. The little trickle of blood running from her mouth was a nice touch, though. In a classic final girl move, the best friend screams into the mirror that she wants everything back the way it was. As we all know, Nancy tried this in A Nightmare on Elm Street and ended up in an ugly convertible while her mother was transformed into a cardboard cutout and pulled through a window. So we should all know it’s not going to work this time, either; instead of waking up with all her friends back, our heroine wakes up in the 1920s/1930s, back when the mirror first started causing trouble.

With Krazy Karen and a semi-clever ending, I can’t say I hated Mirror, Mirror. But I liked it much better when it was called 976-Evil and featured a phone instead of a mirror. The problem is that there’s really no one reason to watch this movie. If you want to see a pale, bony-ish girl who talks like a 12-year-old boy, rent Tank Girl. If you need to see a good high school revenge movie…well, take your pick. And if you want to see Karen Black at her best, then I’d suggest renting anything post-1995, when she’d figured out that the lower the film’s budget, the higher her name would appear in the credits. The really good news is that there are sequels to Mirror, Mirror. I don’t know how in the world this movie morphed into a series…but I’m not complaining; we all know that sequels are always an improvement. In fact, I just looked up Mirror, Mirror 2: Raven Dance and see that it stars Roddy MacDowell (Fright Night), Sally Kellerman (MASH), Lois Nettleton (Deadly Blessing), Veronica Cartwright (The Birds), and William Sanderson…playing a different role! Now THAT'S an all-star cast. So I’m gonna go ahead and predict that the sequel becomes my favorite movie. And for now, I’ll give this one…

THREE FINGERS

Inner Sanctum 2 (1994)

Reviewed by JM

God only knows how this lost screen gem fell into my hands. Never released on DVD in America, I had only seen it one time. I had been in high school and my brother and I watched a VHS copy that we had picked up from DJ Video, in Muncie, Indiana.

Never has there ever been such a video store. The horror selection was incredible. Over the years, though, my brother and I had pretty well exhausted its expansive collection. We had watched all of the Halloween movies. We had seen The Haunting of Morella. We had made the conscious decision to ignore the many Faces of Death videos.

Somehow or another, we finally came across a copy of Inner Sanctum 2. We rented it hoping for copious nudity. What we got, was much, much more.

The nudity, though somewhat tame by today’s Unrated standards, was more than satisfying to a couple of kids used to late night Cinemax. The movie, though, had it all. A monster. Nightmare sequences. A revenge plot. A central character with a lisp.

Obviously, we loved it.

But, we never owned it. It lived only in our memories.

Fast forward 15 or so years later. While walking through Hear Again CDs in Gainesville, Florida, the unimaginable happened. On my way to the checkout with a copy of Woman in a Lizard’s Skin in my hand, I glanced over the “new arrivals” section when what to my wondering eyes should appear?

A region 3 asian dvd of Inner Sanctum 2.

Incredible. I don’t even know how I spotted it. The only logical explanation being divine intervention.

The question, though, is would it hold up to the movie of my memories?

Yes. Oh, hell yes.

Directed by Fred Ray Olen, the movie opens in Ed Wood style, with a visit through a cemetery in which a blonde is startled by a cemetery worker who says, “…sorry, Miss, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that, uh, we close at sundown”. The blonde apologizes and explains that she lost track of time.

Now the thing that sticks out is, it is not even close to dark outside. It appears to be about 2:30 in the afternoon. As the woman walks toward the cemetery gates, in broad daylight, they close on her. She has a wonderful overreaction, repeatedly screaming “wait!” and really hamming it up in ways that I cannot aptly even begin to describe. Suddenly, it is dark outside.

Now, to be fair, this is somewhat explainable because, as we soon find out, it is a dream sequence. However, having the day to night shots not line up sure seems like a nod to Plan 9 From Outer Space. Or bad editing.

During this dream, we are introduced to the monster in this movie. It is a zombie of the recently deceased Baxter Reed. He speaks with the low, electronically altered voice of monsters in kids cartoons. The makeup, however, is pretty top notch. We will see plenty of Baxter throughout this film.

While in the graveyard, we also have a woman dancing around for no reason whatsoever. I cannot help but think of Orgy of the Dead, though, and hope that this is a reference done intentionally.

So, what exactly is this movie about?

It focuses on Jennifer Reed (the blonde from the dream). Jennifer killed her husband… because she had to… it is never explained. The back of the DVD says it was self defense. So, I will go with that. Anyway, she is recovering from some sort of injury where she had previously been confined to a wheelchair (now she just kind of limps) and is plagued by nightmares.

Jennifer employs a nurse to help care for her. But, as far as I can tell, this nurse is nothing more than a servant. She makes her breakfast and is constantly responding to Jennifer’s screams every time Jennifer wakes from a nap. In fact, she finally buys Jennifer a bell to ring to call her. Jennifer sort of limply protests. The nurse, however, insists it will make her job easier (my guess is she was sick of all of Jennifer’s yelling). The next thing you know, Jennifer starts screaming and ringing the bell at the same time.

Jennifer is a really hard central character not to hate.

I’ll bet that this poor nurse is really questioning why she spent anytime training for nursing in college. Was this why she got her degree? To just be a servant responding to a whiney, middle-aged twit who can’t handle bad dreams? On the other hand, she gets to where short skirts and is frequently having sex with the sleazy gardener. So, maybe those perks make it worthwhile to her.

This gardener is a real winner, too. The guy is approaching his forties and doesn’t really do a lot of gardening. Mostly, he waits on Jennifer Reed. He seems a little slow, to me. But, he does have sex pretty regularly with the best looking woman in the movie. So, maybe his character is more complicated than I realize. At the very end we find out he is undercover or something.

Baxter’s brother and his wife are both around trying to get to Baxter’s inheritance. The brother is also trying to sleep with Jennifer, who he was apparently in love with before she married his brother. It is a weird relationship.

Jennifer also has a psychiatrist who is always doing borderline therapy with her. My favorite scene has him dropping by the house for a visit. He convinces Jennifer to tell him, and everyone else having breakfast in the room, about her scary dreams. She finally does. He just walks out and everyone around her thinks she is nuts. Way to go, doc.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned a lot of names to this point. That is because none of these characters are very important. For the most part, they are all interested in getting to Jennifer’s money and having soft-core sex.

The only names that you need to know are: Jennifer Reed, Baxter Reed, and Anna Rawlins.

Anna Rawlins played by Margaux (or Margot to the less pretentious) Hemingway. Anna is having an affair with Jennifer’s brother in law. They are plotting to get to Baxter’s money.

Most importantly, though, Margaux acts as though this is her first time in front of the camera. She seems like an excited little kid on stage who is on the verge of forgetting each line even as it comes out. She also has an incredible speech impediment that should leave first time viewers completely confounded.

Here are a few examples:
“Bagshter manedged to create a neysh little shtash of hisz wife’sh money.” (“Baxter managed to create a nice little stash of his wife’s money.”)
“Bagshter had two keysz. One to open the shafety deposhit boksh and one to open up what’sh inshide the shafety deposhit boksh.” (“Baxter had two keys. One to open up the safety deposit box and one to open up what’s inside the safety deposit box.”)
“I jusht brought a few bokshiz of Bagshter’s from the offish.” (“I just brought by a few boxes of Baxter’s from the office.”)

Now, let me ask you this: Is there any possibility that this dialogue was not written on set? I mean could any more soft c’s be packed into Ms. Hemingway’s lines? It sure seems like Fred Olen and the boys were having some fun at Margaux’s expense.

The murder mystery part of this movie only really begins in the last ten minutes. The killer, though, is a great one. I will say, for whatever reason, I did not see it coming. So, I will keep quiet about it. Maybe it will also surprise someone else.

Of course, Baxter Reed shows up at the end as kind of a Freddy figure. That was almost a requirement of any horror movie that was released straight to video during this time period.

What is not to like?

Three fingers.

Killer Workout (1986)

Reviewed By: Billy

Oh, God...this is the worst Jane Fonda movie ever.

Jane Fonda, of course, isn't actually in this movie...but I blame her completely for Killer Workout. If the Jane Fonda workout tapes in the 80s hadn’t sparked off an insane craze where women wore legwarmers and headbands and jumped around on little blue rubber mats, the writer/director of this complete trainwreck might never have been inspired to make it in the first place.

Otherwise known as Aerobicide, this film brings together the most nausea-inducing elements of the 80s: enormous frizzed hair, neon leotards, synth music, and gratuitous butt shots. Set at Rhonda’s Workout (which appears to be located in a rundown California strip mall and features a front sign made of backlit cardboard), the plot involves…well…take a guess. People are dying at a gym. The opening sequence involves a woman burned alive in a tanning bed accident (the bed literally explodes…and you thought skin cancer was bad), and is so amazingly inept that I hesitate even trying to describe it. Let's just say that one time, in 10th grade, I used a camcorder to shoot a school project about forensic science...and it had infinitely more finesse than this.

After this confounding start, the murders all offer some unique surprises: a woman is stabbed to death in a shower…with an oversized safety pin (!), a woman is stabbed to death in her apartment…with an oversized safety pin (!!), and a man is stabbed in the head…with an oversized safety pin (!!!). People, I wish I were exaggerating here, but the murder weapon truly is a large safety pin. There's even a picture to prove it. There’s a reason they call it a safety pin; you’d have to be a complete idiot to actually get hurt by one. Thankfully, this movie is full of complete idiots.

The acting here is strictly late-night Cinemax stuff; the actors themselves are as bizarre as you’d expect from a movie where the best looking thing on screen is a pair of hot pink fingerless gloves. None of the women look like they’ve ever set foot in a gym, and the overpumped men are mind-numbingly bland; one of my favorite scenes includes two tough guys who engage in possibly the most half-assed fight scene in history – we can literally see their hands stopping before they touch each other’s bodies. Whoever choreographed that one likely has a very successful career directing plays at a small-town civic theatre.

Speaking of choreography, a good 70-percent of this movie is spent in aerobics class, with agonizing montages of perky women doing leg lifts and pelvic thrusts. If bouncing ass-cheeks is your thing, then this movie is the greatest porn ever made. The music varies from generic Casio synth to raspy-voiced women singing intricate lyrics including “You gotta workout, you gotta workout, animal workout.” And here’s the really brave thing: the music NEVER STOPS PLAYING. Seriously, there are only two or so short scenes in which music is not blaring in the background. It’s there at the most inappropriate places, often drowning out the dialogue (which…upon writing this…I realize actually isn’t a bad thing). And yes, by the end, we do get a workout song called “Aerobicide”…which I am desperately seeking on vinyl as we speak.

Anyway, let’s just get this over with, shall we? Gym owner Rhonda...who, might I add, has had a really bad attitude throughout the movie, turns out to be the woman who got burned in the tanning accident in the beginning, and she’s been killing off “beautiful” people out of jealousy (where, may I ask, were these so-called beautiful people?). But, turns out, there’s another killer – it’s one of the meatheads from the gym who is obsessed with Rhonda. So, Rhonda is the one with the big safety pin, and the jock is the one who used a machete in a few other scenes. She’s killing because she’s a burned, bitter a-hole, he’s killing because he doesn’t want her to get caught, and all this sets up a WONDERFUL ending sequence where Rhonda, bare breasts covered in latex “burns,” throws on a bad wig and shoots the jock in a locker room, letting him take the fall for the killings.

So…what’s left to say about a film that ends with yet another aerobics montage, featuring people who ALREADY DIED IN THE MOVIE? Only this: It's all your fault, Jane.

ONE AND A HALF FINGERS

The Haunting Of Morella (1990)

Reviewed By: Billy

Every director has his or her crowning achievement. Alfred Hitchcock has Vertigo, Steven Spielberg has his Schindler’s List, and James Cameron has his Titanic. Well…The Haunting of Morella is Jim Wynorski’s Titanic. Of course, instead of Kate and Leo we get Nicole Eggert and Maria Ford…but, po-TAY-to/po-TAH-to. Compared the startling disaster that is 976-Evil 2: The Astral Factor, this movie is a timeless masterpiece; it doesn’t appear to have been shot on a camcorder, it features period costumes, and Julie Strain is nowhere in sight. These factors alone put it on a plain much higher than Jim’s usual fare. And, of course, we the granny panties. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

So, first of all, this is another one of those movies that has a supposed connection to Edgar Allan Poe. For some reason, a lot of straight-to-video early-90s horror fare was credited to Poe or H.P. Lovecraft…as if these two names could give the resulting mess some semblance of class. As is generally the case, The Haunting of Morella has nothing to do with Poe, except that the name “Morella” popped up somewhere in one of his writings. And, as is also often the case, this movie nothing to do with class. Personally, I’m glad that this movie doesn't really come from old Edgar…his poems/short stories weren't always that exciting, while Morella is full of big boobs, lesbianism, blind men who are CLEARLY not blind, and granny panties. Damn…why do I keep bringing that up? We’ll get there, I promise.

I’m not too clear on the plot here; however, I can tell you that Nicole Eggert plays the daughter of Morella, who was a witch burned at the stake. Nicole’s performance is a marvel of miscasting; when Maria Ford out-acts you, you know you’re in trouble. Though the movie is taking place in the 1700s (I think…or maybe the 1600s…possibly the 1800s...) Nicole projects the forced, wide-eyed innocence of a 1950s American sitcom. I'm sorry if you're a "Baywatch" fan, but seriously, we’re not even in community theatre territory here; this is elementary school play. I’m also not convinced that women in the 1700s had fringed bangs that have been fluffed out with Aquanet. Still, Nicole is a lot of fun to watch and the movie wouldn't be the same without her. In fact, the movie would probably have never been made without her. So -- thanks, Nicole!

Anyway, Nicole lives with her blind father (who wears very modern sunglasses and doesn’t actually appear to be blind), the lesbian maid, and her lesbian governess. Of course, when I say “lesbian,” I mean big-breasted women who make out with each other…not real lesbians who would probably laugh these two right out of a gay bar. Anyway, the maid is played by Maria Ford, who dons a thick red wig and speaks with a (sort of) British accent. JM and I first fell in love with Maria when we spotted her in an episode of “Erotic Confessions” playing a doctor who cures a man’s loneliness by humping him non-stop at a ski lodge...of course, we've been fans ever since.

The governess, meanwhile, is played by cult actress Lana Clarkson, who is the real star here. Clarkson – who seems to tower over every other performer by at least two feet – ferociously latches on to her part and performs it with gusto: think Sybil Danning with less-greasy hair and a larger forehead. First of all, you can't take your eyes off her; the costumes are so perilously low-cut that Lana looks like she's going to explode out at us at any moment, which provides the only real suspense the movie has to offer. But she also has real presence; by the end of this movie, you will be completely in love with her. Unfortunately Clarkson, as do so many of our favorites, became much more famous after she died; she’s the woman found dead at record producer Phil Spector’s house. She had a short career and life, which is really sad…but at least she left us movies like Morella, which we'll be enjoying for a very long time.

So…we’re asked to believe that Lana the governess was in love with dead witch Morella, and now plans to bring Morella back from the grave using Nicole Eggert. Nicole gets a love interest, a character named Guy (the perfect name when you can’t think of a man’s name that sounds like it came from the 1700s), and in a failed attempt at doing away with her goody-two-shoes "Charles in Charge" image, Nicole gets a sex scene; unfortunately, this movie makes the most clumsy use of a body double since Julie Roberts’ head grew out of someone else's neck on the Pretty Woman poster. Really…watch as a thin, tan, “Baywatch”-ready Nicole becomes a pasty, doughy woman writhing in ecstasy. If you’re renting this movie in hopes of getting some Eggert chest…you’re screwed. However, if you’re renting this movie to see a ridiculous sex scene in the rain – with Nicole’s hair clumping up like a mop of seaweed…you hit the jackpot!

Now, even though Morella starts possessing her daughter, the governess decides to start killing women so that she can resurrect Morella’s remains. This, of course, is a Texas-sized plot hole…I mean, if you can possess your hot daughter, why not just stay in her body? But…this affords us some great death scenes. First off is a barmaid named Ilsa, who gets bonked in the head and a knifed across the throat. Sadly, this is not the last of the indignities against Ilsa…later, during her autopsy, the doctor utters the line, “All indications are this is Ilsa.” WHAT? That’s all you came up with after cutting open her body? I could have told you that!

Next up, it’s Maria’s turn to go. Now, if this movie is Jim’s Titanic, then Maria’s death scene is the part where Leo stands on the boat screaming that he’s king of the world. In short, this is Morella’s crowning achievement. Maria ends up on some kind of cheap waterfall set – imagine one of those He-Man action figure dioramas blown up to human size. She’s a sight to behold: all tight lips on top and “authentic period” bikini g-string on bottom. Suddenly, from behind the waterfall, we see Lana Clarkson, gloriously topless and sporting what can only be called…you guessed it…the granny panties! Seriously, these things are gargantuan, stretching from just under her boobs down to her knees. Imagine if you stripped down right now and decided to put on Marlon Brando’s drawers – it kind of looks like that. Are they meant to be sexy? Hard to say. If so, this is movie’s most colossal failure (and remember, we’re talking about a period movie starring Nicole Eggert here, so that’s saying a lot). The granny panties are so distracting that they are likely the only things you’ll be able to focus on…which means when Maria Ford’s body turns up several scenes later, you won’t even remember that she was stabbed by Lana under the waterfall.

So…from here we hurtle to a confounding climactic scene, in which it’s revealed that Morella has only wanted to get to her blind ex-husband all along. Keep in mind – she has several times possessed her daughter, and had ample opportunity to already kill her husband…in fact, they even have a scene ALONE together. This would be like finding out that Kate Winslet had spent four hours using Leonardo DiCaprio just to get close to Billy Zane...it makes no sense. For some reason (time padding?), we needed to kill several buxom women and show off the granny panties just so that Morella (who is also played by Nicole, but with a dubbed-in voice) could come face to face with her ex in a graveyard. So there’s death and destruction, and finally it’s all over.

Except…as we fade to black…we get the words “I STILL LIVE!” across the screen. This, if course, sets up a sequel that never happened. Instead…it only exists in my heart. The heart of the ocean, some might say. So, until Nicole agrees to reprise her role as a special-ed teenager in pre-Revolutionary War America (or England…maybe?) well, my heart will go on.

THREE-AND-A-HALF FINGERS

Terror Train (1980)

Reviewed By: Billy

When I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with seeing Terror Train. I loved the idea of it…a slasher movie set aboard a train! It sounded awesome; kind of like Prom Night on the Orient Express, which was pretty much this 10-year-old’s dream movie. Finally, during a sleepover with a friend, I got my parents to rent it for me. And I found out I was right…it pretty much is Prom Night on the Orient Express, which means Jamie Lee Curtis, disco music, and tons of ugly people in an overblown movie that, at times, plods along at the pace of an Amish horse and buggy.

Not that this movie is an entire Train-wreck (sorry…you knew it was coming…) – there are some enjoyable elements, such as magician David Copperfield in a pageboy hairdo and the caked-on makeup of a German cabaret performer (see picture). But there’s one and only one reason this movie has defied the odds and remained in circulation on VHS and DVD over the years: it’s the third and final film in the Jamie Lee horror trilogy, following Halloween and Prom Night. Personally, I enjoyed this one much more than I enjoyed either of those movies, but that has nothing to do with Jamie Lee and everything to do with David Copperfield looking like a skeletal Liza Minnelli.

So the plot here is pretty easy to summarize: nerd gets traumatized during a frat prank; nerd comes back for revenge. This, of course, is the same plot used in dozens of slasher movies; the only new element here is that it all happens aboard a locomotive. Jamie Lee is the popular sorority girl (remember: it’s just a movie) with a heart of gold – she was there when the aforementioned prank took place, but not really part of it…so, of course, it’ll be OK when everyone else dies and she doesn’t. Ben Johnson plays the befuddled train conductor who keeps finding dead bodies, but isn’t really sure if there’s a killing spree going on. If this was the Orient Express, and Benny-boy had been there instead of Hercule Poirot, well, let’s just say Agatha Christie would be rolling in her grave.

Because the filmmakers clearly realized early on that setting the movie on a train would be, well, limiting – they decided to put a magician on board with all the college kids. Thus, we get large chunks of time filled with David Copperfield waving his abnormally large fingers around and doing sleight-of-hand tricks. In case I didn’t mention this already, David looks absolutely stunning in a very feminine pageboy hairdo and more red lipstick than a drag queen goes through in a year. Unfortunately, an hour into the movie, we’ve only had two murders, both of which are tame enough for the Disney Channel. On the upside, a trashy blond does take off her top, and we get a chubby prankster (think Shelly in Friday the 13th 3-D) who humps a blow-up doll.

Finally, in the last half-hour of the movie, our little choo-choo starts to chug along a little faster. Jamie Lee and company realize that the psycho nerd is back, and immediately go hunting for him. Now, because this movie is mildly entertaining, I don’t want to ruin the ending for you. Oh, what the hell…it’s David Copperfield’s female assistant. Only, of course, it’s not a female…it’s our nerd in drag! This is absolutely awesome...and completes our strange gender-bending trio including Jamie Lee (looking as masculine as ever in a pirate costume and a shag) and David-Liza.

Anyway, the climactic showdown between Jamie Lee and the nerd is actually pretty brutal and bloody; she gets an earring ripped out, he gets a desk organizer through the face. It’s not often you see the starlet of a movie absolutely drenched in her own blood, and it’s kind of refreshing. When he’s finally unmasked, the psycho nerd (played by Derek MacKinnon) does appear to be genuinely disturbed (unlike the completely well-adjusted, slightly bored killer in Valentine, which pretty much apes this plot – and improves it immeasurably). Not that this movie is realistic in any way – my favorite scene, for example, involves the killer climbing upside down on the side of the speeding train a la Spider Man.

Anyway, like pretty much every movie I was desperate to see as a 10-year-old, this one doesn’t live up to the hype. It’s not quite as nauseating as Prom Night or the similarly Greek-themed Hell Night, but it’s nowhere near as consistently fun as college who-done-its like April Fool’s Day and Urban Legends: Final Cut. It does rank as the most outlandish slasher Jamie Lee Curtis would ever make (that is, until she became a hag in Halloween: Resurrection and started making out with her brother’s mask), which at least assures it a few fingers. Bottom line, if you want a good revenge slasher, check out JM’s personal favorite, Valentine. But…if your 10-year-old kid’s having a slumber party – all aboard!

TWO-AND-A-HALF FINGERS

Lizard In A Woman's Skin (1971)

Reviewed by JM

The box for the DVD for Lizard In A Woman’s Skin says this movie is about “…Carol…(who) has been experiencing psychedelic, yet alarmingly real nightmares. Despite assurance from her psychiatrist, these dreams persist, turning both sexual and deadly. When one of her hippy neighbors turns up dead, Carol becomes the prime suspect…”.

I am just going to have to take Shriek Show’s word for it, then. I have watched this film twice and cannot figure out what it going on.

One of the bonus features for this DVD is an interview with Professor Paulo Albiero, who is listed as a “Fulci expert”. He states that various cuts of this film floated around. Explaining that some US cuts have varying amounts of sex and nudity trimmed out and that Italian prints pulled out scenes of excessive violence, Albiero notes that the theatrical version that debuted in 1971 was only been very rarely seen and never released (until now).

Here is where I am going to have to call a little “bullshit”. Having only seen the complete version presented on the Shriek Show DVD and without any evidence to back me up, I feel safe in saying that sex and/or violence had very little to do with the multitude of cuts of this movie that exist. I am positive that being handed over this sprawling, grandiose mess, editors were forced to cut it in order to attempt making it into something somewhat streamlined and cohesive.

And as long as I am calling out the professor, I am going to ask how someone gets the title of “Fulci expert”. Give me a break. I am sure that my brother, Diana Ross expert Billy Hill, would agree: such titles are absurd.

So, how about the movie? It has a lot of 70’s nudity and a scene in which our heroine is attacked by suspiciously puppet-like bats. So, I don’t hate it.

I cannot really recommend it, though, either. As background it is top-notch. For anything else, it is not so good.

Two fingers.

The Strangers (2008)

Reviewed by Jeremy Melton

Like an infant taking its first steps as he learns to walk, this movie just keeps falling on its ass.

Obviously, we a Tower Farm have a certain affinity for movies with bruised tailbones. However, this title is too boring and too frustrating to really be a Tower Farm classic. It is, at best, a good rent. Or, at least, one to rent when you have seen every other horror movie being offered at Blockbuster.

Okay, let me ask you this. Pretend that you are at a cabin in the middle of nowhere with a loved one. Imagine that you get a knock at the door. On the other side of the door is a creepy girl asking for someone named “Tamara”. When you tell her she has the wrong house, she says that she’ll “…SEE YOU LATER” and leaves, on foot, toward the woods. What do you do?

I’ll tell you what I would do, I would grab my partner by the hand and say, “We are getting the hell out of here” and drive to a hotel.

The characters in this movie, though, make the strange decision to split up as one drives off (for about a half hour) to get cigarettes for the other since she is almost out of them.

How is being almost out of cigarettes at 4am a problem??? Go to bed and go together the next morning to get some. If you are stupid enough to have not already left the house after that girl came and creeped everyone out.

This is what makes this movie so problematic. No one at any point makes a decision that makes any sense to me. Obviously, I have never been in this type of situation, but I feel secure in saying that my instincts would have me reacting in the exact opposite way of these two dolts. In every single instance. Maybe that is why this movie is called The Strangers… because every decision these two make is stranger than the last.

So, what we have is a movie that begins with a pretentious, and I hoping intentional, narration by someone who sounds suspiciously like John Larroquette telling us the story is... "inspired by true events". Then, we get Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (I don’t remember the characters names and don’t care to look them up) acting like kids in a theater class being told to create a scene in which a couple is breaking up. Soon after, the movie actually starts, as the two characters find themselves trapped inside a farmhouse/cabin while being terrorized by three kids.

The killers, though, through the majority of the movie are really nothing more than practical jokers. They don’t kill anyone until, like, the last ten minutes. Oh, and the victims have a gun. The killers don’t.

I just don’t understand how these two morons ever felt they were trapped. Grab the gun and march!

The Strangers rolls out every cliché throughout its 90 minutes (Jesus… IMDB lists this thing at 85 minutes. I honestly thought it was at least two and a half hours). But nothing is effective or eerie. We get the masked man lurking in the background while the girl distractedly talks on a phone. We get personal items rearranged in the house. We even get a friend who shows up for no reason whatever (want to guess what happens to him?). My favorite one is the use of creepy sounding scratchy old records. That is just lame.

One and a half very generous fingers.

JM

Hellraiser 3: Hell On Earth (1992)

Reviewed by Jeremy Melton

I can’t believe there is anyone out there paying $30 for this movie. That’s right. Don’t believe me? Check Ebay and Amazon.com. See?

I know it is out of print. But, come on. It is owned by Paramount and a remake of the original is in the works. You just know this one is not staying out of print for long. Oh well, I will just keep buying used copies at FYE and selling them at a 200% profit until Walmart eventually includes this along with Candyman: Day of the Dead and Child's Play 3 and calls it something like “Terrible Terrors Triple Pack”.

But, don’t get me wrong. I think this is the best Hellraiser movie. Unfortunately, that is akin to calling Blanche the hottest Golden Girl.

This particular Hellraiser was the franchise’s attempt to compete with the popular Nightmare On Elm Streetmovies. So, Pinhead becomes Freddy and there are a lot of dream sequences.

For the first time, the central female in a Hellraiser movie is not Ashley Laurence (who has been the lead in three of the Hellraiser films. To date.). This time we get Terry Farrell, who, from what I can gather, is best known for her role in the show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I can’t say I ever caught that one. I know her best, though, for her role as “Reggie” on the show Becker. Man, I loved that show until Nancy Travis came onboard. Which is about the time Terry Farrell left. So, call me a fan, I guess. I also like that her name only has a one letter difference from the lead singer’s name of one of my favorite bands-- Jane’s Addiction.

Terry Farrell plays Joey Summerskill, a news reporter on the beat that accidentally comes across the story of her career when she stumbles upon this Pinhead mess. Now this probably goes without saying, but female reporters in movies are always favorites at Tower Farm. I cannot think of one female reporter or anchor woman that has ever been played in any way other than completely over the top in any horror movie ever made. That is just the way that we like it.

The only other real character in this one is Terry, played by Paula Marshall. She is pretty unconvincing as kind of a goth kid. Anyway, this actress later went on to play in every show that has ever been on NBC. If you like Seinfeld, you make recognize her as the college girl that “outed” Jerry and George in the famous “not that there’s anything wrong with it” episode.

Now, just because the movie does not star Ashley Laurence doesn’t mean she is not in it. I mean, just watch the opening credits. We are told that there is a “Special Appearance by Ashley Laurence as Kirsty”. I don’t mean to split hairs, here. But, I think this is maybe just a tad misleading. Ashley Laurence only special appears in flashback sequences that are either directly from or outtakes from the prior Hellraiser movies. She didn’t ACTUALLY film ANYTHING for this movie. Oh, and she is seen in one photograph our crack reporter digs up.

A lot of this movie’s action takes place at The Boiler Room. Some sort of dorky goth-metal type club run by a twerp who collects art. The great thing about this club, though, is that it allows Hellraiser 3 to have a hip soundtrack, like Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Nightmare on Elm Street 4, or, much, much less successfully Halloween 5. The Boiler Room’s house band is Armored Saint, for Christ sake! You may not know who they were. But, trust me, they were one of the best trash bands to come out of the late 80s/early 90s.

Pinhead comes back and kills everyone in the club. In doing so, he changes a handful of the victims into cenobites (the equivalent to being an associate if Pinhead is a Team Leader). These people are made into demons that have some fighting power based on what they were doing right before they died. For instance, club’s DJ uses CDs as weapons. The cameraman has a camera attached to his head… so he can do scary filming things… okay, it is a little lame. The bartender throws flaming cocktails…. Jesus H. Christ.

All the while Pinhead runs around spouting hammy Freddy lines. The best one is when he is at a church. He does a Christ Pose and says, “… I am the way”. Then he laughs and laughs.

Anyway, the ending is a total mess. Pinhead ends up battling his former human self. I don’t get it.

Now, I know I was a little harsh to those of you who have bought a copy of Hellraiser 3 for $30. But, to put things in perspective, I recently paid $40 for a solo CD that was put out by the bassist of Jane’s Addiction. So, I really have no right to judge. If Hellraiser movies are your thing… Well, I don’t know… $30 still seems like a lot for this one.

Two fingers.

JM

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

Reviewed By: Billy

The only reason to be thankful to Brittany Snow and the 2008 remake of Prom Night is that it forced the studio to release this classic of 1980s horror on DVD – complete with a modernized cover to confuse people into thinking it’s a sequel to the new movie. But in fact, this movie is not a sequel to any one movie in particular – it certainly has nothing to do with the original, Jamie Lee Curtis-starring Prom Night. Hey, I’m not complaining here; Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is one of the great misleading titles in VHS horror history, almost as good as I’ll Kill You, I’ll Bury You, and I’ll Spit On Your Grave, Too! And besides…it is a kind of sequel; it homages so many horror films of the 70s/80s that it becomes a sequel to the entire genre.

Taking its initial cue from Carrie-meets-Back to the Future, this one opens as Mary Lou, a 1950s high school slut who tells her priest that she loves every minute of sinning, goes to prom, cheats on her boyfriend, and gets set on fire by him while receiving her crown. It’s a great opening, punctuated by the fact that as Mary Lou stands on stage lit up like a bonfire, the rest of the students just stand around looking horrified. Didn’t they have fire extinguishers in the 1950s? Or at least wet towels?

Next, we flash to present day and our heroine Vickie, played by Wendy Lyon (looking exactly like Tracy Griffith in a blonde Halloween wig). Somehow, she’s nominated for prom queen and is dating a hot guy who rides a motorcycle. One of the great mysteries of Hello Mary Lou is trying to figure out how this chubby, dough-faced blonde is supposed to be popular. To be fair, as the movie progresses, Vickie becomes one of the best horror movie characters ever (even giving us a rare leading girl full-frontal, which will please JM)…but early on, she’s as believable as Martie the hot sorority girl in Hell Night. Anyway, she also has a stern, religious mother…just like Carrie. We also learn that the motorcycle hunk’s father is the school principal…who also happens to be the man who set Mary Lou on fire thirty years earlier. Uh oh…I think I see where this is going…

I should probably just mention quickly that like 976-Evil before it, this movie seems intent on making sure everyone watching knows exactly in what year it was made. We get lots of people saying “totally awesome” and prom dresses with polka dots and big bows on the shoulder. There’s also so much frizzed hair here (especially on Vickie’s pregnant friend Jess, who looks like a young, androgynous Albert Einstein) that I can assume there was some sort of electric current running under the set.

Back to the future…I mean, plot…Vickie heads into the drama department’s prop room to borrow a dress and ends up unleashing the spirit of Mary Lou, who immediately kills poor pregnant Jess by hanging her then tossing her out the school window (which everyone assumes is suicide…didn’t they find it strange that someone who was asphyxiated managed to jump out a window?). Vickie gets some great in-school nightmares (shades of A Nightmare on Elm Street) and then, possessed by Mary Lou, starts using profanity (reminiscent of The Exorcist). Next, Vickie gets hit on the head with a volleyball by the school bitch (just like in Carrie) and a group of zombie-ish girls start coming after her chanting “Mary Lou” (instead of “brains…”).

OK…just to keep score…in about four minutes, we just referenced four different horror movies.

Mary Lou comes for Vickie in a wonderful scene in which a rocking horse sticks out its giant tongue, hands shoot out of a liquefied mirror, and Vickie’s bed comes alive. The town priest (who, as it turns out, is the guy Mary Lou was cheating with) starts yelling “The body of Christ compels you!” and eventually Vickie gets pulled into a chalkboard and becomes Mary Lou. Characters are quoting The Exorcist right and left, the effects are coming straight from Elm Street (and yes, there’s even a teacher named Mr. Craven), and the only missing here is Amanda Wyss and Linda Blair dancing together at the prom.

In short, this movie is essentially the original Scream. It’s a celebration of horror – but unlike Scream, it’s not trying too hard and it doesn’t think it’s smarter than its audience. And besides, whereas Scream never really feels like a true slasher film, Mary Lou is absolutely real 80s horror: we’ve got crazy teens, idiotic teachers, sex, full frontal locker room scenes, and dialogue including: “This moment will be inserted into the anals of scientific history, and I think we all know how painful that can be.” It’s damn near perfect.

By the end of the movie, as Vickie is shot dead while receiving her crown (and, again, the students just stand there…not even running to save their own lives…what is with these kids?), you’ll be just waiting for the obligatory scene where Mary Lou crawls out of Vickie’s dead body. And yes, it happens. Mary Lou gets her revenge, and then finally gets brought down by her own crown. And in the last scene…what else? We get the EXACT SAME ENDING as in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s the perfect ending to this 80s sequel. So, thank you Brittany…for you and your crappy movie bringing Mary Lou back from the VHS dead. Whereas I’ve only got one finger for you, Mary Lou gets….

FOUR-AND-A-HALF FINGERS