Special Halloween Episode!
Halloween (2018) | Halloween Kills (2021) | Halloween Ends (2022)
Jaimie Lee Curtis, what an up and down series for her, huh?
Judy Greer as Jaimie Lee Curtis’s daughter, Karen. She played Kitty on Arrested Development: Say goodbye to these Michael!
Andi Matichak as Allyson, the granddaughter – GLOW UP in third movie!
Love seeing Will Patton in the trilogy, and even enjoyed his backstory to a small degree in Halloween Kills.
Anthony Michael Hall! WHat in the ever-loving HELL was he doing as grown up Tommy Doyle in Halloween Kills? I liked the concept of the film, the look into the past to see how Michael effected the whole town instead of Just focusing on Laurie. And I love how they all dissolve into a headless, murdersome mob, like somehow this was the plan of the evil all along. TOO BAD THE MOVIE SUCKED.
Cameron’s death – NOT OK in Halloween Kills, nor was most of that movie, to be honest. Neat idea, but no.
The cinematographer for all three was Michael Simmonds, who did a couple Paranormal Activityy sequels and has done a few tragically awful flicks that actually looked quite good, including Green’s Exorcist Believer and the Stephen King adaptation of Cell. He seemed to suddenly get much, MUCH better as a shooter on the third movie, which in general seemed so much better than the other two in terms of production.
Bottom Five Slashers
How many kills makes a slasher movie? I’d say at least three.
5.) Open House (1987)
dir. Jag Mundhra
Starring Joseph Bottoms and Adrienne Barbeau, there’s honestly two good things about this movie, and if you’re familiar with Adrienne Barbeau, you know what they are. The movie is about a killer named Harry who cannot afford a home of his own, so he – like any rational human – goes on a killing spree, offing… real estate agents (and a few homeowners). It’s rock stupid, with one of the dumbest damn murder weapons of all time – a plunger with razor blades stuck into its handle. That scene, but the way? Harry cuts the fingers off a dude shopping for a house and it’s incredibly obvious the actor kept his two fingers bent in with prosthetics covered in blood mounted to his knuckles. And then the fingers? They land on the floor and, I shit you not, wiggle a little in a so-long-it’s-uncomfortable take of them on this light gray carpet. All this said, it’s an enjoyable slice of 80’s horror cheese – at one point good old Harry ties up a girl and pours champagne on her chest before electrocuting her by flipping a lightswitch! But he loves stray cats, so that makes him ok – yeah, there’s actually a scene where the killer stops midway through his murder spree to pick-up and pet a kitten. How can we hate on this? That’s the beauty of this list. We’re not talking about the worst slasher movies, but rather the worst slashers themselves! It’s important to note that director Jag Mundhra had himself a long career as a mid-90’s Zalman King knock-off, directing a butt-ton of erotic thrillers with names like “Tropical Heat,” “Improper Conduct” and “Irresistible Impulse,” all of which were likely flicks I watched through the wavy lines of a scrambled Skinemax signal!
4.) Body Count (1986)
dir. Ruggero Dedato
“Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” gave way to a lot – a LOT – of bad 80’s slashers, and often these dudes were nerdy, violent incels who kill because something weird happened when they were young. In “Body Count,” it’s a guy named Ben who saw his mom getting freaky with a dude in a barn that wasn’t dad, so naturally he dons an old man mask and giant furry gloves and kills something like 15 people. The whole idea was he was pretending to be the spirit of a Native American Shaman, and what’s amazing about this flick is it’s directed by an Italian and shot in the Abruzzi region of Italy, but it manages to feel like someplace in the western mountains of the US. Maybe it’s Charles Napier as the badass midwestern cop looking to catch the killer, who gets some time in for nookie with a local lady? It’s dumb fun – lots of nudity and idiotic special effects – but oh my is this a stupid-ass killer. Whenever Ben dons his mask, he suddenly sound like Big Foot taking a massive shit. It’s braindead, especially since Ben is shot and killed by Napier at the end… and then randomly the real Shaman shows up right before the credits to kill a local pain in the ass played by genre staple David Hess.
3.) Scream (1981)
dir. Bryon Quisenberry
To be clear, this is NOT the 1996 Wes Craven/Kevin Williamson classic of the same name. No, this one is a total stinker with one of the worst killers I’ve ever… um… seen? in a movie. The film itself is worthwhile only when you’re with a roomful of buddies, lots of popcorn and hopefully a good amount of adult beverages – and I say this because I watched it at home once, very late at night while sober and when the big reveal happens… I felt almost more despondent that I did when the ending of Halloween Kills rolled around. If you’re not laughing and riffing your way through this mess, then you’re likely crying because, yes, this movie has AN INVISIBLE KILLER who is revealed as the ghost of an old sea captain during a scene of painfully awful exposition by… I swear to God, a character named Charlie Winters who 100% feels like a rough draft of “Jason Goes to Hell’s” Creighton Duke. Here we get ex-NFL star Woody Strode instead of Stephen Williams, and no one is the better for it. The ghost of the sea captain, who haunts a dusty deserted town because… reasons… does a pretty good job killing lots of people in some of the most dully filled death scenes ever, but for me it’s not even that it’s invisible that makes him on my list. No, it’s the fact that he is taken down BY A SHOTGUN. Apparently they ran out of money on the movie and just decided, fuck it, shoot the ghost, that’ll do. Well, it does not do. At all. And director Bryon Quisenberry would not direct another movie until 23 years later when he did “Hollywood, It’s a Dog’s Life” which sounds like it’s a semi-autobiographical story about a stuntman, which Quisenberry was for many films including cult classics like “Return of the Living Dead,” “Miracle Mile” and “Mannequin: On the Move.”
2.) Death Spa (1988)
Dear God. Just… well, you know what? I love this Goddamn slopfest of excessive 80’s exploitation that gets massive style points – lots of smokey neon in this one – and is equal parts interested in getting actresses naked and then showing them offed in a variety of absurd ways because, what’s doing the killing, is a HIGH TECH COMPUTER SYSTEM IN A SPA. Yes, when the title says “Death Spa” it means it. This is a SPA THAT KILLS PEOPLE because the owner’s wife killed herself (via self-immolation!) due to tragedy that occurred while attempting to give birth. And so now, she’s a ghost, and she takes over her twin brother’s computer system that runs everything in her husband’s spa to kill or otherwise torture pretty ladies because… reasons? Guys. It’s a KILLER SPA. A DEATH SPA. This is like that movie with the killer bed or a killer videotape. Don’t lie in the bed! Don’t play the tape! DON’T GO TO THE SPA! And yet, somehow the dead wife, who ends up possessing her twin when she, off camera, has sex with him(?) – she kills quite a few people in a variety of insane ways. There are spears through necks, chemicals pouring out of sauna steam jets, a weight machine that tears a dude in half and, incredibly, a frozen fish that leaps off a shelf and kills a cop! Some interesting stars in this one – Dawn of the Dead’s Ken Foree shows up and that gives me the chance to tell Justin about the time, at a horror convention, the actor hit on his mom! And also in this movie was the very good Merritt Butrick, who is best known as Kirk’s son in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Sadly this was his final film role as he passed away in 1989. Sad coda to Death Spa, which still takes my number two spot because it’s… a DEATH SPA. I don’t know if there’s ever been a better pizza and beer movie.
1.) The Hand (1981)
dir. Oliver Stone
Ok, there’s no question that you can see what an inventive visualist Oliver Stone would become even here, in his second film. That’s not my issue with The Hand, a completely watchable and somewhat enjoyable flick about an artist, played by Michael Caine, who loses his hand in a horrific car accident then starts to imagine the hand… autonomously settling scores for him through murder. Now, I get that this isn’t ACTUALLY the hand creeping around and killing people – one of whom is Oliver Stone in a bizarrely lengthy cameo as a drunk – but still… Stone gives us several murders with a severed hand doing the killing. And it’s just… silly. Seeing all of these people flail around with a bloody hand on their throats is just patently dumb looking – it’s as if Stone, in his presumptive arrogance, believed he was so skilled as a filmmaker that he could make the silliness of it all seem somehow legitimate. So he gets some terrific talent both in front of the camera – Caine, Andrea Marcovicci as his estranged wife and the always fantastic Bruce McGill as one of his buddies – and behind the camera, cinematographer King Baggot does some terrific work with dramatic lighting and excellent angles while Jerry Goldsmith’s score is appropriately thrilling. So you have all these pieces and yet… it’s a hand, dude. That crawls around and, like Evil Dead 2, sometimes it makes sounds and we see things from its point of view. So, for that reason, even though this movie is a hoot, it gets my number one spot. It’s like watching a psychopathic version of Thing from the Addams Family go batshit for 100 minutes. And there isn’t any amount of awesome acting, tight direction or memorable music that can make that not dumb as a bag of rocks.