13th Floor, The (1988)

... aka: 13º, o Andar do Pavor (The 13th Floor of Dread)

... aka: Electrocutor 1

Directed by:

Chris Roache

Aussie producers David Hanney, Charles Hannah and Tom Broadbridge produced four genre films for the international video market in the late 80s. The best known as these now is James Bogle's Kadaicha (1988), which was re-titled Stones of Death for its U.S. video release and was given another chance at life thanks to inclusion in that popular Severin "All the Haunts Be Ours..." folk horror box set a few years back. And then there was Karl Zwicky's To Make a Killing (1988), a sharply-written, surprisingly nasty coming of age drama / home invasion horror, which was appropriately re-titled VICIOUS! (1988) for video and deserves another look. Brian Trenchard-Smith's Out of the Body (1989), which involves a psychic's search for a serial killer, hasn't seemed to build up any kind of reputation whatsoever over the years and is the most difficult of these to find. And then we have The 13th Floor, which was a very well-circulated tape here in American and is still easy to find now on numerous streaming sites since Umbrella Entertainment is handling it. It's currently doing the rounds on Shudder.

At a high rise construction site, young Heather Thompson (Kylie Clare) witnessed her father, Robert (Tony Blackett), and two of his goons kill a man who owed them money, along with the man's young son, who was electrocuted. Twelve years later, now-grown Heather (Lisa Hensley) may have blocked out all of the details from that fateful evening, but the psychological scars remain. As a result, she fell in with the wrong crowd, started doing drugs, dropped out of college and is now living on the streets.

Heather's evil father wants her back home ASAP, not necessarily because he's worried about her but because he's now running for political office and fears what having a troublesome daughter is going to do to his reputation, and thus his chances at winning the upcoming election. Not only that, but prior to running away Heather stole some potentially-incriminating documents that could get him into a lot of trouble. Robert hires sadistic private detective Brenner (Vic Rooney), who has a reputation for violence and getting desired results whatever the means, to find her and the documents.

A completed and functioning high rise building now stands at the same site of the previous murders, only use of the 13th floor (the exact spot of the deaths) has been prohibited. Any business that has attempted to set up shop there in the past has been plagued by problems, namely electrical ones. Since they need a place to stay, Heather, who's now clean, and her best friend Rebecca (Miranda Otto), who's still using, decide to make the 13th floor their new home. They receive help from a friend named Nick (Paul Hunt), who's recently gotten a job there as a night shift janitor. He swings by after hours to bring them food, wine, a TV, pillows and such, and even sneaks some naps in. The girls find another ally in John Burke (Tim McKenzie), who works in the social security office there. He takes such a fancy to Heather that he's willing to break the law and falsify documents just so she can collect a welfare check under an assumed identity.

Brenner ends up catching up to Heather outside the building late at night and chases after her. She eludes him long enough to fall into the clutches of chubby, horny, Schwarzenegger-worshiping live-in security guard Bert (Jeff Truman), who shows her his porn magazines and attempts to coerce her into going skinny dipping. Instead, she pushes him into the pool, steals one of his guns and runs back up to her 13th floor pad where Brenner is already waiting for her. He punches her, pins her down and tries to burn her with a lit cigarette, but she elbows him in the crotch and runs off. Since it's now 40 minutes into this and we've long ago forgotten this was supposed to be a horror film, it then comes as a mild surprise when electric bolts shoot out of a utility closet and Brenner falls to his death down the elevator shaft.

Some other stuff happens, but little of it has to do with the haunting. John's bossy, effete colleague keeps nosing into his business and almost busts him falsifying records, Heather and John have sex and Rebecca, who has an unrequited girl crush on her friend, get jealous and then later overdoses in the bathroom and the dad sends a bunch of violent thugs to break into Heather's records and rough John up. There's a surprise twist toward the end (that actually IS a surprise) and a lively final showdown, but it's difficult to make it there after an entire hour of slow-paced tedium.

One gets the impression that the writer / director wasn't particularly interested in making a ghost / horror movie but because that's the product the producers wanted, he kinda, sorta obliged. He mostly just made a drama here but the characters aren't particularly likable or interesting, the plot meanders and the supernatural stuff all feels like it's thrown on the side. And that's a real shame the first hour is mostly a slog because this eventually does go somewhere interesting. There's some style. It's often quite colorful (lots of blue, green, red, purple and neon) and visual stunning, thanks to cinematographer Stephen Prime. Performances are generally fine, though I'm not sure why every man looks like a broiled lobster. 

Though you'd never predict it watching her here, Otto became the breakout star and would go on to appear in several Lord of the Rings films, Spielberg's War of the Worlds, The Thin Red Line and many others. For some reason, there's also ample coverage given to an issue of the men's magazine Mayfair, which features future B-movie star Gail Harris / Thackray (SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE II) as the cover model.

In the U.S., this was given a VHS release from Paramount in 1990. Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain and the UK also got to share our pain with a release of their own. If there's an official Blu-ray or DVD release, I'm not aware of it.

★★

Secta siniestra (1982)

... aka: Bloody Sect

Directed by:

"Steve McCoy" (Ignacio F. Iquino)

Frederick Payne (Carlos Martos) likes to boast about his past, which wouldn't be an issue if his past didn't involve all kinds of war atrocities! During "the war in Uganda," he was captured, imprisoned, abused ("They enjoyed beating the shit out of me!") and sentenced to death, but was somehow able to get his hands on a sword and proceeded to slaughter everyone and escape. From there, it was off to a South American guerilla boot camp followed by a stint as a bodyguard for an Arabian prince (!) All of that was cut short after he was shot and wounded. Now, in middle age, he's decided he's had enough excitement for one lifetime and just wants to settle down with his girlfriend, Helen ("Mery Kerr" / Emma Quer), and start a family. Mementos of his past "glories" (?), including a stockpile of weapons and framed photos of him torturing captives (!) on the walls will just have to suffice. However, Frederick otherwise hasn't been completely honest with his new lover...

Unbeknownst to Helen, Frederick and his trusty maid, Ana (Montserrat Miralles), have been keeping his heretofore unheard of first wife, Elizabeth (Diana Conca), locked upstairs in a hidden room. Years earlier, he got drunk, crashed their car and ever since she's been a little loony. Make that a lot loony. The crazed Elizabeth manages to overpower the maid, sneaks downstairs, catches her husband and Helen lying in bed naked together, gets her hands on a large fork and then gouges out both of his eyes with it! Frederick is blinded and she's hauled off to prison. Though any sane person would be running for the exit doors screaming over all of this, Helen stays with him. Cuz love.

After the two are married, they're hit with some more bad news: Frederick is infertile. The couple decide to go to a sperm bank, where Dr. Gerard (Juan Zanni) and his nurse wife, Isa (Teresa Manresa), hook them up with a donation that meets the future father's strict criteria ("Caucasian, young and strong"). After the procedure, Helen finds herself with child and then this goes down an almost exact ROSEMARY'S BABY route, with her being stricken with debilitating pain, becoming depressed, craving raw meat, etc. Unbeknownst to the rest of the hospital staff, a Satanist named Leonard (Henry Ragoud) has infiltrated the clinic and swapped out the sperm of "Hans... a tall, blonde Germany guy" with that of Satan!

Thus far two other women have received the tainted sperm aside from Helen. Sick of all of the nasty side effects, the first, Eva, goes to an abortion clinic and terminates the pregnancy. Immediately after, Leonard and his pal, Olivier (Santi Pons), show up and use their supernatural powers to smash the female doctor who performed the procedure (Asunción Vitoria) to death with the operating table, send shards of exploding glass into Eva's face and slash her husband's throat with a razor. The other recipient, Emma, has already died by suicide by the time they reach her, so they briefly reanimate her corpse long enough for her to pull her grieving hubby into the coffin with her! And that leaves poor Helen...

Leonard and Olivier (who are often hilariously lit in red so we know whose side they're on) show up at Helen's home posing as priests working for the "Church of the Eternal Angel." They pretty much spill the beans about what's going on, tell her they now worship her and give her one of their bibles along with a special necklace. No, not with tannis root inside. Afterward, she feasts on raw bunny straight from the fridge and then chases the maid away with a butcher knife. More "help" soon arrives in the form of Sister Margaret ("Josephine Varney" / Concha Valero), a mysterious woman with short black hair who barges into their home unannounced and insists on staying. She's kind of like Miss Baylock from The Omen, except she doesn't even bother faking being well-mannered and polite. In fact, she issues her list of demands right away, starting with moving Frederick up to the attic so she can sleep right next to his wife in their bed! And the couple just goes right along with this!

Soon after Margaret's arrival, things start dying in the home, including all of their plants and a pet parakeet. There's also a worse change in Helen. She begins mocking her husband's condition ("Don't you see? Of course you don't! Are you blind?"), complains about her skin tightening all over her body and starts developing bruises and sores on her face. As for her tummy aches, it's nothing massaging in some fresh green frog's blood won't cure! Margaret keep promising she'll feel better after she has the baby. Meanwhile, psycho wife #1 manages to escape from prison, heads back to the house, sneaks back into her hidden room and plots to kill Helen with an axe in between attempts at seducing the husband.

Along the way we get a hilariously exploitative shot of a panty-less Helen thrashing around on bed in a short hospital gown, a ridiculous rubber-bats-on-strings attack, a real frog getting stabbed repeatedly with a knife, death by being forced to inhale car exhaust fumes, a stabbing in a parking garage, an impalement, an attempt to run over an 8-year-old with a car, stock footage of a forest fire, a hanging, a ghost (I think), a female postal employee whose uniform consists of denim cut-off short shorts, a plastic baby doll with horns glued on its forehead passing itself off as the newborn Antichrist and one of the worst, least exciting and most anticlimactic non-endings on record.

Coming off the very productive 1970s, Spanish horror film production was virtually cut in half the following decade when it should have been booming due to the home video market. I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but most of their 80s output was downright awful! Some of the all-time worst slasher films, alien films, cannibal films and zombie films were produced in Spain during this time and now we can add one of the worst Satanism / occult films with this title. Thankfully, Bloody Sect sucks in all of the right ways to make it enjoyable. It's fast-paced, busy, stupid, cheesy, sleazy and filled with cheap, bloody gore effects and nudity. What really tips it over the edge into SBIG territory though is the hilariously awful dialogue and insane, bug-eyed overacting from much of the cast.

The director / writer had been active in the Spanish film industry since the mid 1930s and amassed well over 100 credits, which is quite surprising given the amount of ineptitude on display here! The bulk of his early career consisted of comedies and dramas. In the 60s he switched to spaghetti westerns and then, after the loosening of censorship in Spain, he delved into more exploitative fare, primarily soft-core erotica. This appears to be his only straight-up horror film, though a few other titles (namely Aborto Criminal and The Dawn Rapists) may be borderline. Having slightly more experience in the genre was the film's co-writer, Juan Bosch. He'd previously written and directed The Killer Wore Gloves (1974) involving a slasher-killer, and EXORCISMO (1975), an awful Exorcist copycat starring Paul Naschy.

Prior to the 2019 Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray release, this only had a single VHS release in the 80s in Spain. The BR doesn't have many notable features, nor any material from any of the people involved in making this. Instead they throw on a commentary track from Kat Ellinger.

SBIG