Sugar Hill (1974)

... aka: Voodoo Girl
... aka: Zombies of Sugar Hill, The

Directed by:
Paul Maslansky

Little-known Marki Bey (whose most high profile part would end up being a six episode stint on the TV series Starsky and Hutch) stars as Diana Hill, an attractive nightclub performer at the voodoo-themed "Club Haiti." Her fiancé Langston (Larry D. Johnson), whose pet name for his girl is Sugar cause she's sweet (... until push comes to shove, at least!), is being pressured by mafioso Morgan (COUNT YORGA star Robert Quarry) to sell his club. Refusing to cave in to their attempts at blackmail, Langston ends up getting beat to death right outside the club by Morgan's thugs. What's a newly widowed foxy lady in a blaxploitation flick to do? Get revenge, of course. Diana/Sugar ventures deep into the swamp to meet up with elderly, white-haired voodoo queen Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully), who in turn calls up ghostly zombie master Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who in turn calls up a horde of zombie former slaves. Diana and the Baron then lure each of the gangsters to their doom, allowing the living dead to do the dirty work.

Though formulaic, fairly predictable and possibly too tame for some viewers, I found this to be a very entertaining, fun and solidly-made entry in the blaxploitation horror subgenre; at least on par with the much more famous BLACULA (1971). It's well-paced, well-written, nicely photographed, humorous and performed with gusto by the cast. Bey gives a strong, animated, authoratative performance in the lead role and gets a few bad-ass one-liners as she dispatches her prey, and crazy-eyed Colley's wonderfully enthusiastic, over-the-top turn as the zombie master is a standout. Horror star Quarry is just fine as the heavy, though the role is less showy than some of the others. There's also fine work from Cully, Betty Anne Rees (who acted alongside Quarry in DEATHMASTER a few years earlier) as a nasty, racist gangster's moll and Charles P. Robinson as the sole black member of Quarry's thugs (Uncle Tom if you will). The cast also includes Richard Lawson (from SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM and POLTERGEIST) as a detective.

Exploitation fans should be forewarned that the film contains no sex or nudity and it is light on blood and gore, though it's often crude (language-wise) and sufficiently violent (...a man is fed to hungry pigs, another has his throat cut, there's a quicksand drowning, etc.) The dusty, cobweb-covered zombies are pretty interesting-looking, particularly their large silver eyes, which look pretty ominous when caught in the light. There's even a catchy theme song ("Supernatural Voodoo Woman" by The Originals).

Samuel Z. Arkoff was the executive producer and it was released theatrically through AIP. The VHS title was THE ZOMBIES OF SUGAR HILL. A good quality print crops up occasionally on TV and can be seen via Netflix, though from what I've heard, the DVD being sold on amazon is a terrible print.

★★★

Dreamaniac (1986)

Directed by:
David DeCoteau

As a teenager, David DeCoteau was already working professionally in the movie business. He began as a production assistant on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and the Corman production GALAXY OF TERROR (both 1981), worked on craft service for such films as Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION (1984) and also did some sound editing under the alias "Richard Chasen." Somewhere in between he got involved in the adult film industry (using the name "David McCabe") and would have over a dozen (mostly-all-male) X-rated features under his belt before the age of 25. The gory supernatural slasher DREAMANIAC (1986) - backed by Charles Band and released through his company Empire Pictures - was DeCoteau's first foray into 'legitimate' films as a director. He produced the film and probably also wrote it using the name "Helen Robinson." It possesses all of the earmarks of a low-budget slasher film from a first time director from this era, including terrible dialogue, God awful acting, inept direction, sloppy continuity errors, cringe-inducing attempts at humor and a bare minimum of both plot and location change. The budget was just 60,000 dollars, it was shot-on-video and though technically abysmal all the way around, it's fairly entertaining because it's gory (far gorier than the other films I've seen from the director) and the 80s sensibilities are occasionally amusing.

The film opens as Adam (Thomas Bern) has a nightmare about walking down a red-lit hallway naked and encountering an evil (and naked) woman in a blood-filled bath. As it turns out, our young hero has been toying around with black magic and has somehow managed to summon up a seductive succubus named Lily (Sylvia Summers). Let me take a brief time out to comment on Adam. Considering the fact he's supposedly a Satanist metal musician, Adam is hilariously wholesome, clean-cut and mild-mannered. He's even decked out in glasses and a ... Def Leppard t-shirt. Adam has a "punk" girlfriend named Pat (Kim McKamy) who has a preppy, sorority-hopeful sister named Jodi (Lauren Peterson). For some reason Adam agrees to let Jodi host a party at his house for her snotty sorority sisters - including the extremely unpleasant and slutty Francis (Cynthia Crass), who has her sights set on Jodi's boyfriend Brad (Brad Laughlin). Pat makes hash brownies for the occasion. The guests show up. Then the succubus shows up. And then the guests start getting killed by the succubus. Some of the victims return to life as zombies to try to kill the others. The end.

One of the only distinctive things about DREAMANIAC is the amount of homoeroticism and male flesh on display. There are more male asses, shirtless guys and guys in briefs than in any other 80s slasher film I can think of. During an electrocution scene, the camera placement isa even at crotch level on a guy gyrating in his tighty-whities. Admittedly, it's pretty funny seeing the obviously gay cast trying to play it straight. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if most of these guys were transplants from DeCoteau's gay porn past and their acting is about on that level. Strangely enough, the only verifiable porn connection of the cast is with lead actress McKamy. After appearing in this, EVIL LAUGH (1986), LUNCH MEAT (1986) and DeCoteau's follow-up CREEPOZOIDS (1987), she'd become popular adult star Ashley Gere. McKamy/Gere is easily the most watchable of the actors on display here and thankfully she's given the most to do at the end as well. The rest of the cast is amateurish and/or insufferable (those valley girls about take the cake).

Originally released by Wizard on VHS in a large-side display case proclaiming it "Too gory for the silver screen!" The film did well enough to prompt more Band/DeCoteau efforts, including the cult classic SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA (1987), the fun sci-fi comedy DR. ALIEN (1989), the above average sequel PUPPET MASTER III: TOULON'S REVENGE (1991) and many others.

★1/2

Initiation of Sarah, The (1978)

Directed by:
Robert Day

Brian De Palma's CARRIE was released in 1976 to excellent reviews, just as impressive box office returns and even award recognition (a rarity for a genre film). Over the next couple of years, several 'misfit strikes back' horror films were made to cash in, including this made-for-TV movie; a thinly-disguised rip-off of the aforementioned classic that debuted on ABC. It's reasonably entertaining and benefits from a good cast, though it's not without a few glaring missteps along the way that we'll be getting to here in a bit. Kay Lenz stars as Sarah Goodwin; a shy, demure, plainly-dressed and misunderstood girl who doesn't quite fit in with her adoptive family. Her cold, social climber mother (Kathryn Grant) wants Sarah and her bubbly, outgoing sister Patty (Morgan Brittany) - who will both be attending Waltham College as freshmen - to pledge the most popular sorority house on campus. Unfortunately, Sarah learns a lesson in snobbery as the target sorority (Alphu Nu Omega) shuns her in favor of her sister. The only sorority actually interested in accepting Sarah as one of their own are the Phi Epsilon Delta, a sisterhood of cast-offs and misfits, headed over by reclusive house mother Erica Hunter (Shelley Winters), who takes up a peculiar and sudden interest in our troubled heroine.

As if being flatly rejected and separated from her sister isn't bad enough for Sarah, she also becomes the prime target for humiliation by the popular sorority who turned their noses up at her. Blonde megabitch Jennifer Lawrence (Morgan Fairchild) seems to make it her mission to treat Sarah as horribly as possible. She mocks the PED's (calling them "Pigs, elephants and dogs"), forbids Patty from seeing or talking to her sister, tries to ruin Sarah's budding relationship with a teaching assistant (Tony Bill) and then organizes a very cruel prank against her. Little does she know but Sarah is harboring some powerful psychic/telepathic abilities which reach their pitch whenever she's angry. Eventually, Mrs. Hunter encourages Sarah to use her powers against the rival sorority and things end in a fiery black magic ceremony.

The school setting, bullied outcast with telepathic powers, evil blonde bitch and weird religious fanatic mother figure are just the tip of the iceberg for the CARRIE parallels. This one goes a step further by blatantly ripping off the famous prom scene by having poor Sarah get all prettied up in a nice white dress only to get pummeled with mud / rotten vegetables and then do an entranced, wide-eyed stare from underneath the muck. The pacing is also a problem as the first hour is incredibly slow-moving and the last fifteen minutes are a rushed, confused mess. There are numerous plotholes as well. It's mentioned that Sarah's birth parents were involved in the sorority rivalry many years earlier, and even a suggestion that Winters' character is actually Sarah's actual birth mother, but the story threads are curiously dropped altogether. Furthermore, the Winters character seriously lacks motivation for what goes down at the finale and the film does a sudden, jarring switcheroo on the primary antagonist that makes the 'revenge' portion anti-climactic and unsatisfying.

Under the circumstances, most of the cast does a good job. Though the try to downplay her looks via frumpy wardrobe and a flat hairstyle, it's difficult (if not impossible) to make Lenz unattractive to the point of her eliciting unwarranted cruel treatment from the sorority snobs as seen here. Still, as per her usual, the actress does a credible job inhabiting her role and elicits an admirable amount of sympathy for her. Winters alternates between likably eccentric and over-the-top, blowsy camp (and is watchable in either mode) and Fairchild is positively perfect in her part. Playing an extremely timid, possibly lesbian music student at the unpopular sorority, Tisa Farrow (who'd later sleepwalk through her roles in the Italian gore-fests THE GRIM REAPER and ZOMBIE) gives a surprisingly good performance. Also on hand are Robert Hays (of AIRPLANE! fame) as Fairchild's boyfriend, Talia Balsam (daughter of Martin), Elizabeth Stack (daughter of Robert) and Deborah Ryan (KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK). Michael Talbott, who has a small role here, also appeared in CARRIE. Interestingly, his character in both films is named "Freddie."

British director Day, whose career lasted from the mid-50s until the early 90s, also directed the genre films CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, THE HAUNTED STRANGLER (both 1958 and both starring Boris Karloff), FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959) and the TV movies RITUAL OF EVIL (1970) and (the excellent) MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES (1979). The original (hrmmm...) story was co-written by Tom Holland.

The film has been released multiple times on both DVD and VHS, and is quite easy to find. It was remade in 2006 (also for TV) by Stuart Gilliard. That version featured Fairchild again, this time cast as Sarah's mother.

★★

Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell (1987)

... aka: Prevues from Hell

Directed by:
Jim Monaco

This 83-minute trailer compilation, originally distributed on VHS by Off the Wall Video and now available on DVD through Virgil Films, features loads of cult, gore and exploitation trailers plus dumb "comic" framing scenes that were shot-on-video in a Landsdowne, Pennsylvania theater. Your host is a bespeckled, not-very-animated ventriloquist named Nick Pawlow, whose sidekick "Happy Goldsplatt" at least has an excuse for not being very animated since he's a handheld zombie dummy. The two trade lame wisecracks (Pawlow himself was one of the four credited writers) while the movie theater slowly begins to fill up with zombies patrons. The zombie scenes are a bit more amusing than our hosts. The make-up is very decent and some of the gags (such as a zombie popping out an eyeball and eating it, zombies using a severed arm to drizzle blood on their popcorn, a man getting his eyeballs blown out, etc.) are fun. By the way, "Mad Ron" (played by co-writer, co-producer Ron Roccia) is a zombie who is chained to a movie projector and doesn't really have much to do.

But the trailers themselves are what you came for and this one has some pretty great ones. You get a little bit of everything here, from mainstream releases to exploitation staples to popular cult classics, American and otherwise. Some are very brief, while others last several minutes. Some contain nudity and gore and all of them are from the 60s and 70s, aside from the also-shot-in-Pennsylvania TOXIC ZOMBIES (1980). On of the most memorable is for Orgy of the Living Dead (re-titled 60's Eurohorrors FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD, KILL BABY KILL and THE MURDER CLINIC), which features a man supposedly driven crazy after sitting through the triple feature. A double-feature of I DISMEMBER MAMA and THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE (both 1972) uses a similar sensationalized angle. Several recycle the "It's only a movie!" campaign from THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). A trailer for the shockumentary AFRICA BLOOD AND GUTS (1966) features real animals and humans being killed. A somewhat out of place trailer for WILDCAT WOMEN (a 3-D release) provides a shot of straight-up sexploitation. Fangoria Magazine is also plugged several times.

Also included are trailers for COLOR ME BLOOD RED (1964), THE THRILL KILLERS (1964; under the title The Maniacs Are Loose), TWO-THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964), THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z (1965), THE GHASTLY ONES (1967), NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES (1968), NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), THE WIZARD OF GORE (1968), I DRINK YOUR BLOOD (1970), BLOOD AND LACE (1971), THE CORPSE GRINDERS (1971), THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE (1971), LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1971), CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972), LOVE ME DEADLY (1972), SISTERS (1972), TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972), THREE ON A MEATHOOK (1972), TORSO (1973), DERANGED (1974), THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974), DEEP RED (1975), GOD TOLD ME TO (1976) and many more.

★★1/2

Paganini Horror (1988)

...aka: Killing Violin, The

Directed by:
Luigi Cozzi

Tacky, colorful, confusing, mildly-entertaining drivel seems to be the European answer to the short-lived North American 'heavy metal horror' subgenre; films that typically revolved around Lycra-clad, big-haired rock band members being terrorized by supernatural (usually Satanic) forces. Said subgenre included the titles Rocktober Blood (1984), Monster Dog (1984), Hard Rock Zombies (1985), Trick or Treat (1986), ROCK 'N' ROLL NIGHTMARE (1987), SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1987), BLACK ROSES (1988), DEAD GIRLS (1989), Hard Rock Nightmare (1989), HEAVY METAL MASSACRE (1989; directed by David De Falco and so obscure it's currently not even listed on IMDb), SCREAM DREAM (1989), SHOCK 'EM DEAD (1990) and probably a few others I'm forgetting. This one, from the director of the usually-well-regarded giallo THE KILLER MUST KILL AGAIN (1975), the silly sci-fi adventure Starcrash (1979) and the unofficial, unauthorized Suspiria "sequel" THE BLACK CAT (1989) - amongst others - is neither the best nor the worst of the lot, though it's far from what most would consider good.

A nearly all-female rock band headed by singer/songstress Kate (Jasmine "Main" / Maimone) has hit a creative slump, as evidenced by their atrocious "You Give Love a Bad Name" opening rip-off number. To help matters, drummer Daniel (Pascal Persiano) purchases an unreleased composition written by famous Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini from Mr. Pickett (a diabolically dubbed and goofy acting Donald Pleasance). Upon hearing the track and learning of its origins, the band's bitchy, money-hungry producer Lavinia (Maria Cristina Mastrangeli) decides to hire famous horror film director Mark Singer (Pietro Genuardi) to shoot a horror-themed music video in Paganini's former home; the same place where the violinist reputedly sold his soul to Satan to become famous. It isn't long before most of the cast - which includes Daria Nicolodi as the current owner of Paganini's home and sexy guitarists Michel Klippstein and Luana Ravegnini - are facing various supernatural horrors.

For starters, there's a ghostly, echo-voiced, gold masked killer lurking around who uses a gold violin with a retractable blade. There's also an underground tunnel which leads to an alternate dimension (?!), strange shrill noises that incapacitate people and an electric forcefield which surrounds the house (?!) and is able to blow up a car. Some of the death scenes are pretty bizarre. Someone is crushed by an invisible wall; another is mutated by some kind of infectuous tree fungus (!) Oh yeah, and one of the females may be a little girl who toasted her mum in the bathtub with a hair dryer years earlier. The final scene tries to tie all the loose ends together but only succeeds in making things even more confusing than they already were.

There's some mild gore (fx are variable) and no less than three musical numbers, including a pretty funny music video. Everything is drenched in blue, red and green colors because the director is an Argento devotee (and had helped write a couple of Argento's earlier projects).

★★

Quella villa in fondo al parco (1987)

... aka: Ratman
... aka: Rat Man, The
... aka: Terror House

Directed by:
Giuliano Carnimeo

2'4" Dominican Republic native Nelson de la Rosa was certified as "the smallest man on Earth" by the Guiness Book of World Records in 1990. Several years before achieving that claim to fame, the diminuative fella had already been 'discovered' by thrifty exploitation filmmakers, who gave him the lead role as a mutant rat/monkey hybrid that runs amuck on a barely-populated Caribbean island. Hey, saves on special effects, doesn't it? Unfortunately, despite de la Rosa's presence, the film itself is something of a bore. There's a little blood, a little nudity, a few familar faces for the faithful and some decent shooting locations, but it's dark, slow-moving, flatly presented and badly-written, with lousy dialogue, a bare minimum of plot, uninteresting characters and absolutely no motivation for its mad science premise (the guy who creates "Ratman" is basically shoved off to the side). The cherry on top is that it's saddled with a groaner of an ending.

On the aforementioned island paradise, sleazy fashion photographer Mark (Werner Pochath), his assistant Monique (Anna Silvia Grullon) and two blonde models; Marilyn (Eva Grimaldi) and Peggy (Luisa Menon), are busy at work taking advantage of the beaches for a swimsuit photo shoot. Too bad for them that it's on the same island a scientist's lab experiment has escaped its cage. Equipped with oversized fangs and razor sharp claws, 'Ratman' makes short work of Peggy while she's out taking a midnight stroll. Strangely, Marilyn's sister Terry (Janet Agren) is informed that her sister has been killed and arrives to ID the body. On the way there, she bumps into mystery novelist Fred Williams (David Warbeck) and he decides to accompany her to the morgue. When Terry discovers the corpse isn't actually her sister she's called back in a second time to ID another body that turns out to not be her sister either. Oops!

Terry and Fred then set out to locate Marilyn, who has ventured inland with Mark and Monique to take more photos. After Monique is killed and her body is discovered, Mark and Marilyn take off and end up stranded at the scientist's home. Guess who else eventually shows up to terrorize them? Can Terry and Mark make it to the home in time to save the sister? I doubt you'll even care by that point.

Warbeck and Agren (previously paired in the dreary and derivative monster flick PANIC in 1982) are saddled with incredibly boring scenes and are given nothing of interest to do. Though third billed, most of the weight is actually carried by the voluptuous Grimaldi, who has to try to survive the night trapped in the house with the lethal lil monster and is also responsible for providing all of the film's nudity, including a lengthy shower scene which is probably the most memorable scene in the entire movie.

Despite the somewhat degrading nature of the role, de la Rosa is used effectively in a handful of scenes. After appearing in this and gaining the Guiness notoriety, he'd go on to become friends with Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez (and would frequently be seen at games), got to appear alongside Marlon Brandon in the badly received THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1995) and gained employ in a circus. He passed away in 1996. The director (billed as "Anthony Ascot") also made the giallo THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS (1972).

Though released on VHS and DVD in many countries, this one has never been officially released in the U.S. The original title translates to something like House at the End of the Park, but was given the tongue-in-cheek RATMAN title for distribution in the UK. Other DVD's released elsewhere carry the uber generic TERROR HOUSE title.

★1/2

Il nido del ragno (1988)

... aka: Spider Labyrinth, The
... aka: Spider's Nest, The

Directed by:
Gianfranco Giagni

Dallas college professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga), who specializes in "oriental languages" and has a recurring nightmare about being trapped in a room with a spider as a child, is given an important, top-secret mission by his superiors. He has been overseeing something called "The Intextus Project;" a study of religions across the globe, and now his backers want him to travel to Budapest to check in on Leo Roth, another professor working on the project who has disappeared. Upon arriving in Budapest, Alan meets up with a sexy female contact - Genevieve Weiss (Paola Rinaldi) - who begins showing him around. He locates the missing colleague, who has been feigning mental illness and hands Alan an ancient tablet the second his stern wife Sylvia (Margareta von Krauss) turns her back. Back at his hotel, he's introduced to the proprietess, Mrs. Kuhn (Stéphane Audran), who behaves rather strangely and puts him up in a room conveniently located directly across from where Genevieve lives. And Genevieve likes to stand around topless by an open window a lot.

It isn't long before people start dying, starting with Professor Roth, who's found hanging from a chandelier. When the police investigate, Mrs. Roth is nowhere to be found and Alan is informed that the victim wasn't even married. Maid Maria (Claudia Muzi), who tells Alan he better get out while the getting is good, is next up. There's also a strange, nameless man (played by William Berger) who's lives underneath the city and has been pulling our thick hero aside and telling him he better leave because he might be "sucked into the vortex." Needless to say, Alan doesn't listen, and eventually he discovers that nearly the entire district is involved in a weird religious cult that has something to do with spiders. To be precise, they worship a mutant baby who gives birth to spiders that crawl under the skin on your arm and possess you. Also working for the baby-mutant-messiah-thingy is some kind of hissing witch (also played by von Krauss) who viciously kills whoever theatens to expose the cult.

Clearly, the director has been inspired by the films of Italian horror masters Dario Argento and Mario Bava. It's well-scored, has good cinematography, decent acting (aside from the lead, who's handsome but a bit one-note) and the supernatural scenes are colorful and stylishly done. A scene of a nightgown-clad victim being stalked between sheets blowing in the wind while bold greens and blues flash will remind one instantly of Argento's SUSPIRIA (1977) and INFERNO (1980). A shot directly down a spiral staircase and the fact the witch tosses a small ball into a room before murdering her victims are direct visual nods to Bava's KILL, BABY... KILL! (1966). Hitchcock and Polanski are also liberally sampled in both premise (oblivious man begins to slowly realize that everyone he meets is basically conspiring against him and no one can be trusted) and execution. In fact, the film references so many others that it doesn't really take on an identity of its own until near the end. It does however deserve credit for a truly bizarre finale employing stop motion special effects.

.

Sadly, THE SPIDER LABYRINTH wasn't very well distributed in the United States and doesn't seem to have much of a following. I'm not aware of any legit U.S. VHS release and for years the best one could hope for was watching a bootleg copy (most of which were derived from the Japanese VHS release). In 2009, the film finally received a DVD release, though I can't vouch for its quality since I saw the video version.

★★1/2