House on Tombstone Hill, The (1989)

... aka: Dead Come Home, The

... aka: Dead Dudes in the House

... aka: Hexenhaus - Blut für die Zombies (Witch House: Blood for the Zombie)

... aka: Road, The

Directed by:

J. (James) Riffel

Shot on 16mm in upstate New York in 1988 under the title The Dead Come Home (it may have also used that same title during a brief theatrical run in 1989), I originally saw this as The House on Tombstone Hill, which was the properly-packaged A.I.P. Home Video release from 1992. However, the film's reputation would be tarnished somewhat over the years whenever Troma became the primary distributor. They put it out in a goofy looking video box, wrote a ridiculously misleading blurb on the back (referring to the pretty standard college kid characters as "Hip-Hop yups" [?]) and then gave it an even goofier title (Dead Dudes in the House) to falsely make it look like some kind of frat house comedy or horror spoof. However, what worked for barely-salvageable junk like A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (formerly titled The Dark Fortress) and FERTILIZE THE BLASPHEMING BOMBSHELL (formerly titled Mark of the Beast) was just sorely inappropriate for this more serious-minded effort. 

While there's a little bit of black comedy here, and the unavoidably campy conceit of it featuring a sprightly undead elderly lady as a killer, this is not a horror-comedy. It actually has much more in common with the very first Evil Dead, which also has some humor but is mostly concerned with creating a gritty atmosphere and providing gory shocks. I'm only pointing out the bad marketing because I've noticed many viewers getting bunched panty syndrome that the film isn't what they're expecting. They then infest movie sites to take it out on the filmmakers when it isn't their fault.

Mark (Douglas F. Gibson) purchases a large, old, run down country home dirt cheap and invites along some of his friends to help him renovate it. Accompanying him are his snobby girlfriend Jamie (Sarah Newhouse), all-around nice guy Ron (Mark Zobian), preppy couple Steve (John Dayton Cerna) and Linda (Naomi Kooker) and a pair of carpenters; obnoxious wanna-be macho man Bob (Victor Verhaeghe) and his redneck buddy Joey (Eugene Sautner). As for warning signs prior to the proverbial shit hitting the fan, this has a few. For starters, there's a noose hanging from a tree outside. And then there's an old tombstone for one Abigail Leatherbee placed right in the front yard. Being the respectful kinda guy he is, Bob promptly takes his sledgehammer to the tombstone and cracks it in two, which unleashes an evil force inside the home.

Seeing how the banter / bickering between the main characters is unpleasant, poorly-written, awkwardly-delivered and not the least bit interesting, the filmmakers have the common sense to not make us wait very long at all (roughly 20 minutes) before the killing commences. As for the reasoning behind the whole haunting, we do get a little bit of a backstory. The elderly Abigail was attacked in her own home by an intruder and stabbed over 50 times. While she survived the attack and eventually was able to return home, she went crazy, murdered her neighbor and then died of a heart attack just a few days later. Abigail's equally unhinged daughter, Ann (Leighann Belair), then dug up her grave, brought her corpse home, buried it in the yard and then hung herself from a tree.

Everyone becomes trapped in the home when the doors lock shut and the windows prove to be unbreakable, and those who are killed return for a second round as possessed zombie-like fiends (who, unfortunately, still talk) to help kill off the others. Ed French and Bruce Spaulding Fuller provide a wide range of mostly-good gore effects to the works. One guy trying to climb in through a third story window has both of hands chopped off with a machete, falls to the ground and then gets impaled with a steel pole heaved at him from above. Scissors and saw blades are plunged into backs, a screwdriver is stuck through a head, someone gets pinned to the floor by knives stuck through their hands and ankles and there's death (or re-death) by saw, knife, hatchet and a jagged window pane (which bisects a body), plus limbs hacked off, guts ripped out and a pretty good decapitation.

There are a few other non-splattery aspects that work really well, too, starting with the ambiance. The grainy film stock mixed with the dim lighting and setting (they've found a really good abandoned home to shoot at) give this the perfect look and feel for this kind of thing. There's also something genuinely creepy about the presentation of the killer grandmother. Could be her latex mask, or the fact she's played by a man but voiced by a woman, or the fact she's so casual in how she dishes out threats and slowly lurches around with her cane as if she's in no big hurry to kill everyone. It was also a smart idea not to overexpose this character by making her the only killer. She only pops in here and there and ends up being kind of like the final boss of the film.

But are these pluses enough to overcome the debits? Somewhat, though not entirely. The characters (aside from the granny) are neither likable nor interesting, the acting is mostly terrible, the direction and editing are sometimes clunky and the pacing is really off, especially in the second half. Since they start killing off the small cast right away, they run out of people by the hour mark, so a couple of boring teen boys (Rob Moretti and James Griffith) are synthetically grafted on to provide additional fodder toward the end. The film would have run smoother had they simply added a few more people to the initial renovation group. The second half also becomes too repetitive and consists mainly of one-on-one encounters with possessed people in scenes that seem needlessly stretched out.

The first-time director, who was attending NYU at the time, also made Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D (1991), a comic re-dub of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD with added film breaks, interludes and scenes shot around New York City occasionally spliced in.

The 2018 Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray releases comes with a long audio interview with the director and a documentary short titled Three Dead Dudes, which features interviews with stars Zobian, Verhaeghe and Gibson.

★★1/2

Last Horror Film, The (1982)

... aka: Fanatic

... aka: Fanatical Extremes

... aka: Les frénétiques (The Frantic)

... aka: Love to Kill

... aka: Maniac 2

... aka: Maniac II: Love to Kill

... aka: Shin maniakku (New Maniac)

Directed by:

David Winters

William Lustig's Maniac was released in 1980 to some controversy due to its "misogynistic" depictions of violence toward women and graphic gore. The reviews were also absolutely brutal. People expected that from, say, Gene Siskel, who claims he walked out of the theater after 20 minutes, but even reviews from most major genre publications were negative. Since then, the film has enjoyed a big boost in popularity (enough so that it was remade in 2012) and a greater appreciation for its gritty effectiveness, make-up artist Tom Savini's craftsmanship and effective performances. It was a completely different story in 1980, though. Back then, nearly everyone involved couldn't wash their hands of it fast enough! And that's a big part of the reason The Last Horror Film even came to be.

Maniac producer Judd Hamilton, who put up most of the budget, and star Caroline Munro, Hamilton's then-wife, were both upset that the original script, which apparently had more plot and better characterizations, had been sacrificed to make room for more bloodshed. The genesis for this loose follow-up appears to have occurred after a screening of Maniac at Cannes. During a press interview, Hamilton said that while he personally hated the film, he was still being inundated by offers to purchase the distribution rights. The interviewer then responded that it was "tragic" that such a film would even have an audience to begin with, to which Hamilton responded, "Maniac is a bad piece of blood and gore. We'll have a big success from an audience that shouldn't exist. Now I'd like to make a film about that audience..."

And that he did.

The audience for something like Maniac, which would be me and most of you fine folks reading this, is personified here by Vinny Durand. Played by talented character actor and Maniac star Joe Spinell, Vinny is first seen sitting in a theater watching a topless woman being electrocuted in a hot tub in some sex-n-violence slasher flick. His reaction? Breaking out in a sweat, shaking, grunting and basically acting like the whole spectacle is getting him off. Maybe it is. He's slouched down in his seat and we can't see where his hands are after all. A couple sitting behind him ("Weirdo!") walk away in disgust.

When he's not getting his jollies watching simulated murder scenes, Vinny drives a cab. He's the laughing stock of the entire neighborhood. Everyone considers him a loser and make fun of him for constantly reading movie magazines and fantasizing about being some hot shot director who wins an Oscar. He's single. He's a loner. And he lives at home in a cramped apartment with his elderly mother (played by Spinell's adorably untalented real-life mom "Mary Spinell" / Filomena Spagnuolo) who thinks he's going crazy because he's not getting enough protein in his diet. So tell us how you really feel, Judd Hamilton.

Vinny has purchased a plane ticket to France, where he's hoping to track down "Queen of Horror Films" Jana Bates (Munro), who's set to be at Cannes to promote her new film "Scream." He's bringing along his camera and, while he's there, hopes to convince Jana to star in his movie, which he then hopes will open some doors for him in Hollywood. Yes, that's just how crazy this dude is. After hitching a ride from a cowboy driving a Confederate flag-decaled Corvette (!), Vinny settles into his hotel room and then gets to work. He's at the airport the next morning when Jana and her current beau, up-and-coming director Alan Cunningham (Hamilton), arrive to a mob of screaming, adoring fans. Due to her acclaimed performance in "Scream," Jana has been short-listed for Best Actress honors alongside the likes of Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Julie Christie and Faye Dunaway (hehe).

Despite his best efforts, Vinny finds it impossible to get in contact with Jana but he doesn't let that stop him from going forward with making his horror film, "The Loves of Dracula," anyway. Instead of asking Jana to star, he'll just force her to. As for his movie's heavy, well, he'll just cut corners and play the killer himself. The only thing left is to cast some victims. Luckily, he's in a whole town full of potential victims. Who needs to hire fx people when you can really kill them yourself, right? Vinny starts specifically targeting people within Jana's inner circle. He sneaks into the hotel room of her ex-husband, producer Bret Bates (Glenn Jacobson), and decapitates him. Vinny hides behind a shower curtain and films as Jana walks in, discovers the corpse, screams and runs off. He then gets rid of the body before the police arrive.

Other Jana acquaintances, including theatrical agent Marty Bernstein (Devin Goldenberg), lowly gore film director Stanley Kline (director Winters) and actress Susanne Archer (Susanne Benton) each receive a cryptic note about how they'll never work on another horror film again and end up getting killed off one by one. Death scenes include a stabbing, an axing, a shooting, a fall from a tower, eyes ripped out, chests ripped open and a slow-motion chainsaw decapitation. In between that there are weird, stylish and highly amusing fantasy sequences where Vinny envisions himself being mocked by his peers.

Since this was filmed on location at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, it turns out to be a great little snapshot at what was going on there at the time. We gets endless guerrilla-style shots of posters and theater marquees, the crowds, the press, the nightlife / discos / clubs, the celebrities and everything else. Isabelle Adjani, who won the Best Actress award that year for, ironically enough, the horror film Possession, is seen walking the red carpet, as are Karen Black, Kris Kristofferson, Marcello Mastroianni and other celebs. Naturally, the famous nude beaches also get quite a bit of coverage as dozens of anonymous, unashamed women parade around topless.

Radio broadcasts talk about the attempted assassinations of president Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, airplane bombings, terrorist attacks and other unpleasant then-current events in between discussions about whether or not horror films have a negative psychological effect on viewers or can inspire real-life violence. Whatever messages the film is trying to get across are muddled into near-incoherence by just how busy the whole thing is, yet it is that same busyness that makes the film endless entertaining. I wouldn't call this great, or even good, but it's still fascinating in a messy, slapdash kind of way.

Holding everything together as much as he possibly can is Spinell, who gives a memorably unhinged performance and puts on quite a show here! Depending on the scene, he's either campy, creepy or pitiable. His exchanges with his real-life mom, whom he keeps in contact with from Cannes, are hilarious. He's also involved in many outrageous, head-scratching scenes like vomiting up his popcorn and running out of a theater while watching a gore movie, ripping open his shirt and rubbing his chest (!) while images of Munro are projected onto his body and going to see a buxom stripper (Sharon Hughes) and having grainy b/w visions of him gyrating on a stage while wearing a skimpy two piece bikini (!!!)

On the flip side, this is not an ideal vehicle for Mrs. Munro despite her star billing and the amount of time set aside to show her strutting around, modeling and posing for endless photo ops. Her performance is basically a non-starter because, like many others in the cast, she's been horribly dubbed by someone else (thankfully though, Spinell has not). As for her styling throughout... whew! She has a deep tan, ridiculously overdone makeup, a wardrobe selection best described as New Wave meets Ringling Brothers with Goth undertones and bleach-streaked, feathered skunk hair. Let's just say she's both looked and sounded better than what's on display here.

Among the cast of thousands (no lie for a change!) are J'Len Winters (the director's wife) showing off her enhanced chest in two different scenes, Tami Hamilton (Judd's daughter from his first marriage) as a police decoy who has the misfortune of having to copy Munro's hairstyle and June Chadwick and Robin "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" Leach as reporters. The opening credits song is "Photographic" by Depeche Mode, but most of the other songs are from Jesse Frederick (later a notable TV theme writer) and Jeff Koz, the best of which is "High Wire."

In 1982, this played at both the Sitges Film Festival and the now-defunct Paris International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films. And, yes, it also played at Cannes (in 1983). It then made its U.S. home video debut in 1984 on the Media label and has since been picked up for distribution by Troma, who've released it countless times on video, DVD and Blu-ray. Some of their releases have changed the title to Fanatic. In other countries, like Germany and Japan, the film has been marketed as a sequel to Maniac.

★★1/2