In the Cold of the Night (1990)

... aka: Blue Passion

... aka: Brividi nella notte (Chills in the Night)

... aka: Dessein meurtrier (Murderous Design)

... aka: Heißkalte Nächte (Hot Cold Nights)

... aka: Hyytävä yö (A Chilling Night)

... aka: I den iskalla natten (In the Icy Night)

... aka: Jéghideg éjszaka, forró lány (Hot Girl in the Ice Cold Night)

Directed by:

Nico Mastorakis

The two most important films when it comes to establishing the late night erotic thriller (which started dominating late night cable TV and video stores in the early 90s) were Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992), but some of the more interesting films in this category - like this one - were made in between those two benchmark films. The opening few scenes are dripping with 80s style, almost hilariously so, and I mean that in a complementary way, of course! We get a bikini modeling session utilizing neon, fog and spinning lights in a beach ball motif, a bad-joke-riddled sex scene on a glowing waterbed (?!) and a heavily stylized nightmare sequence shot using some kind of strange pixilation / thermography + fish eyed lens effect. That's all just a little taste of the life of muscular, blonde-haired, blue-eyed California stud fashion photographer cum pineapple pizza enthusiast Scott Bruin (Jeff Lester). Our nightmare-plagued Ken Doll is having terrifying visions of murdering a mysterious brunette over and over and over again. While the methods of murder always change, the location and the victim always stay the same. 

Scott's gotten to the point of having to have his best bud Phil (Brian Thompson), a Venice Beach bodybuilder, come over to make sure he stays in bed and isn't actually getting up in the middle of the night and harming anyone, plus visiting shrink Dr. Frieberg (David Soul), who basically tells him that dreams, regardless of how bad they may be, are still just dreams at the end of the day. Scott feels otherwise.

Because his murderous visions are so detailed and vivid, and feel so real, Scott begins to suspect the girl from his nightmares is real and that perhaps he's somehow been able to "intercept" a real killer's thoughts or intentions. He also believes a terrible motorcycle accident he had not long ago, that left him in intensive care for five weeks, may have triggered something in his brain and given him ESP abilities. His buddy brushes off his theory ("I think you and Brian De Palma should get together!") but things only seem to worsen. In the middle of a photo session, a fully-awake Scott has another of his disturbing visions, which up until now have only occurred during his sleep. Returning to the hospital, Scott's EKG results come back fine, so his psychiatrist prescribes him muscle relaxers and sends him on his way.

Just by chance (...or is it?), Scott happens to spot a man on the beach wearing a hand-painted t-shirt with a drawing of the exact woman he's been dreaming about. That leads to artist Rudy's (John Beck) beachfront clothing shop. Rudy claims to have no clue who the woman is, so Scott leaves his card just in case he remembers.

The following morning, after Scott's "date" with model Lena (Shannon Tweed), whom he's kinda-sorta seeing (it's mostly just sexual), the mystery dream woman shows up at his front door. She introduces herself as Kimberly Shawn (Adrianne Sachs, who was Miss Brazil in 1986) and she's wondering why he's been inquiring about her. Kimberly claims that Rudy is her overly-protective ex-husband. Scott doesn't divulge where he really knows her from and instead insists he saw her image and simply wanted to use her as a model. The two flirt over coffee, have lunch with her bird-fearing mother, Clara (played by Tippi Hedren... nyuk nyuk nyuk, get it?), and, before he knows it, she's getting into a black BMW with an unknown man and taking off. He will see her again, however, as she's left her motorcycle behind at his place.

Kimberly shows up to get her bike and invites Scott back to a luxurious 12 million dollar mansion she claims to be housesitting for a friend. It's the same place he's been dreaming about. Not deterred by any of that, Scott and Kimberly engage in an extended "foreplay" session that involves ludicrous yet hilarious "seductive" dialogue exchanges ("Maybe it's the sauce... maybe it's just the way I taste."), lingering sips of fine wine and sucking caviar off each other's fingers. As a saxophone obnoxiously blares on the soundtrack, the two get it on in the shower and then move to the bed, where he dumps a heart-shaped glass bowl full of marbles (!?!) all over her chest.

Scott begins basically living at the home, and the two fall deeper and deeper in love, yet his nightmares about killing her still haven't stopped. Sometimes he even wakes up in the process of actually strangling her. Fearing her life may be in danger, he gives her a gun and tells her to just shoot him if it ever happens again. Scott is also growing increasingly paranoid about Kimberly herself. He follows her to "work" and she ends up going to a mansion of whoever it is that owns that black BMW. Is she continuing her relationship with the man behind his back? And what role does Marc Singer's sinister tech guru (introduced at the eleventh hour) play in all of this?

Pilfering heavily from Hitchcock and (most especially) the already name-dropped De Palma, this throws mystery, noir, sci-fi, romance and conspiratorial thriller elements in a blender, adds a dash of Sex, Lies and Laserdisc, a pinch of Cronenberg and a splash of any grainy lo-fi found footage horror movie of your choice, and then purees it all into some incomprehensible clump of something or other. Through it all, one entirely accidental yet nonetheless fascinating question emerges: Just how far can shallow aesthetic pleasures go to ensure our filmgoing enjoyment?

Mastorakis backs himself in a corner with a self-aware yet muddled screenplay (co-written by Fred C. Perry) but lays on the pretty imagery so thick and heavy that he comes pretty damn close to eye candy-ing his way out of it. The luxury gated mansions where most of the film takes place, with their large swimming pools, expensive décor, flowing curtains, huge columns and neon accouterments, all look ready for a featured spread in Architectural Digest. And they all sit in front of beautiful, perfectly manicured lawns in front of beautiful, shimmering beaches in front of beautiful, picturesque sunsets. The two leads (who aren't so good at the acting part of their jobs, but you'll have that) and the models who frequent the studio are all tanned, toned, waxed, plucked, gelled, sprayed, coiffed and spit-shined to Hollywood perfection. And the whole movie is gorgeously photographed by Andreas Bellis, with terrific shot compositions and excellent lighting schemes used throughout. There's barely a moment that goes by where your eyes aren't transfixed by something.

For some reason, there are a ton of mostly-unsubtle film references in here. Friday the 13th and Jagged Edge are used as punchlines, and when Scott sits down to watch a couple of movies, he naturally throws on two earlier Mastorakis films; The Wind (1986) and Terminal Exposure (1987), and we get to see clips from each.

All of the name value stars on the payroll are only around briefly. Hedren and Beck have just one scene apiece, Soul has two (which is basically just one sitting-behind-a-desk scene split into two with a costume change) and Singer shows up at the very end looking goofy and confused (can't really blame him, though). Thompson, who was married to the director's daughter, Isabelle Mastorakis (also the executive producer), at the time, has a bit more screen time, as does Tweed, who plays a potentially interesting, free-spirited character but is underutilized. The cast also includes prolific character actor Jack Kehler (who just passed away a few weeks ago) as a wino, Shelley Michelle (a body double frequently used by Hollywood stars like Julia Roberts and Kim Basinger) and Melinda Armstrong as models, an uncredited Melissa Moore, who can be spotted as an extra during a party scene, and the director in a cameo.

Here in the U.S., this was unfairly slapped with an X rating despite not being all that sexually graphic and containing very little full nudity (there's quite a bit of T&A though) or violence. That was later converted over to an NC-17. The original Republic Pictures VHS was released in both R and NC-17 versions, with only one minute of footage missing from the former. Both cuts are nearly 2 hours long! In 2019, Vinegar Syndrome released an uncut, restored version to Blu-ray, which looks fantastic.

★★1/2

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

... aka: Night Frenzy

... aka: Nightie Nightmare

... aka: Nighty Nightmare

... aka: Nocny koszmar

... aka: Sorority House Massacre 2: Nighty Nightmare

Directed by:

Jim Wynorski

Few films have had a more irritating reception than this one! It seems like most viewers fall into one of three camps: Those who think this is flat out terrible, those who find this hilarious in a SBIG kind of way and those who view this as a wholly-self-aware, intentionally witty and surprisingly clever slasher-exploitation flick. A reasonable case could probably be made by those who think this is bad because, well, that's in the personal taste / humor is subjective / "Hey, that's just like your opinion, man!" realm. An even better case could be made for the third group because they actually get it. However, saying this is unintentionally funny is complete bs. This is so obviously poking fun at itself the entire time that it absolutely floors me that anyone could find the humor accidental!

I also disagree with many of the other criticisms this title frequently gets, starting with claims that the cast is bad. While the performances are variable, they are mostly no worse than what you'd find in other 80s / 90s slasher flicks, even the ones Hollywood was cranking out around the same time. I'd even go one step further and say these actors are far more enjoyable! Even the lesser talents are more personable and charming than the assembly line fodder you usually get. If you're anything like me you'd much rather tolerate the occasional awkward line reading than suffer bland indifference from a cast and crew who obviously don't really care, especially if that means everyone is trying their best, enthusiastic about what they're doing and appear to be having a great time. You get that in abundance here.

Other frequent complaints are also mostly bunk; usually centering around the large amount of nudity in the film. To that I say, yeah. So what? Is that a crime? What exactly are you expecting from something called Sorority House Massacre II? Why would you even view a film with scantily-clad girls plastered all over the poster and the tagline "cleavage vs. cleavers" and then bitch about the nudity? There's an even more curious subset of slasher fans who take offense that this isn't anything like the original SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE, nor is it really a legitimate sequel to that film. To that I say: Good! The original was a straightforward, humorless rip-off of HALLOWEEN and was muddled, dreary and pretty damn boring. So why not just pour on the sleaze and humor?

Five college girls - Linda ("Robyn Harris" aka Gail Harris), Jessica (Melissa Moore), Janey (Dana Bentley), Kimberly (Stacia Zhivago) and Suzanne (Michelle Verran) - move into their newly-purchased sorority house a day early with hopes of meeting up with the movers and phone / utilities people the following morning. However, they were apparently able to get their water turned on early, which, as we'll soon see, comes in handy in several later scenes. Unbeknownst to all of the girls but one, they've just moved into a former mass murder site called the Old Hockstatter Place. Five years earlier, a psycho named Clive Hockstatter murdered his entire family there before being put down by the neighbors. The house has remained vacant ever since.

The ladies are promptly visited by the portly, creepy, crater-faced, monotone, unflappable next door neighbor Orville Ketchum (Peter Spellos), who tells them all about the home's sordid history. (Clips from THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE are used for the flashbacks, which has confused a lot of people over the years. For the record, this was not conceived as a sequel to either the original SHM or SPM and was simply re-titled to give it a better chance on the cable / video market.) After the murders, Orville was paid by the cops to straighten up the place (i.e. clean up the blood) and has been a caretaker of sorts there ever since. He gives the girls a key to the basement (which he pulls out from the front of his pants!) and leaves, but will be keeping a watchful eye over the place when he isn't watching clips of Hollywood Boulevard on TV, peeping in windows and scarfing down bowls of cubed raw meat! Instead of being a cheap throwaway side role, Ketchum is instead used to satirize the obvious red herring character always found in these kind of films and is amusingly played by Spellos.

After some dinner, some beer, some showering (understand why the water was turned on early now?) and some changing into skimpy thong undies and teddies, the ladies venture into the basement where ole Clive kept all of his murder weapons. There, they find a blood-spattered doll and a OUIJA board. Since there's nothing else to do, they light up the fireplace and contact a spirit guide with the board, asking him to talk to Hockstatter. Instead, the "diviner" shoots into the fireplace and it erupts in flames. Only slightly spooked by that strange occurrence, the girls decide to call it a night. A mysterious prowler armed with a hook then kills them off one-by-one. The occasional scream coming from the home has already been reported to the police, but Lt. Mike Block (Jürgen Baum) and Sgt. Phyllis Shawlee ("Karen Chorak" / Toni Naples) can't make it to the home right away due to a thunderstorm and some flooding. Instead, they make a b-line to the nearest strip club to interview a survivor of the previous massacre, Candy (Bridget Carney), who's kind enough to first treat us to a long strip routine.

When he's at his best, Wynorski has this amazing ability to wallow around in the seedier side of the genre while not making viewers feel like they need to take a shower afterward thanks to his ample use of self-aware humor, pleasant actors and lighter, sillier moments. In this one he throws the blood around pretty liberally and his camera lingers on naked or half-naked women the entire time but just the gratuitousness of it all makes it amusing to watch. Wynorski has also seldom been given credit for being able to slap together a competent film (back when films were actually SHOT on film) is such a small window of time. This one was made in just a week, but it's well-lit and photographed, even managing to capture a good old dark house atmosphere in the process. He's helped immensely in the mood department by a great score from the always-reliable Chuck Cirino.

I liked all five of the main girls well enough. We have 6-foot-tall blonde Moore, who had prior genre experience in (even lower-budgeted) Donald Farmer films, and Bentley (who had been in Fred Olen Ray's Bad Girls From Mars), both acquitting themselves fairly well. Verran is probably the weakest of the five, but considering all she'd done before this was porn (using the name Barbii), she's not too bad. The real wild card is Zhivago, who doesn't appear to have done anything else before OR after this. No one seems to know what happened to her, or why she vanished into thin air right after this, or even what her real name is. It's not too uncommon for an aspiring actress to do one film like this, decide it's not for them and just brush it all behind them and move on with their life, but I'd still love to know what she thinks about the film, especially since she's one of the better actors. So, where'd you go "Stacia Zhivago"? Come say hello!

However, my absolute favorite is the Brit-born fireball Harris, who is basically in the same category as Moore as a former model turned second string Scream Queen who never quite reached the level of success as top dogs like Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens. Regardless, she's very cute, spunky and funny and just throws everything she's got into the proceedings, right down to getting drenched in blood, screaming her head off and doing all of her own stunt work. This film wouldn't be nearly as successful without her in the lead role. Also putting in a brief appearance as a stripper is Shannon Wilsey, who purchased some larger breasts soon after this and became adult film superstar Savannah. This is one of just four non-porn films she appeared in (every role except for The Invisible Maniac was a nude bit part) before taking her own life in 1994.

The budget was 150,000 dollars and this utilizes leftover sets from other Concorde / New Horizons productions like SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III. Julie Corman produced under the name "Shelly Stoker" and it was supposedly filmed behind husband Roger's back when he was out of the country. When Roger finally did view the finished product, he was impressed enough to give Wynorski the green light to make another similar film, which was first called Tower of Terror before being re-titled HARD TO DIE (1990). A fourth film was also made by Wynorski and produced by Corman called Sorority House Massacre III: The Final Exam. Despite being completed in 2002, the film has yet to be released.

A few "mistakes" like visible boom mic shadows, visible panties during showers and (most amusingly) a bottle seen squirting blood during a murder scene would likely be corrected if this was ever given a widescreen release in the proper aspect ratio. The only DVD releases thus far (part of New Horizon's "Massacre Collection" line) have been full screen and none have been properly remastered, though I quite like the sometimes-grainy look of the full screen presentation.

★★★