1981 has often been considered a pivotal year in horror cinema. It gave us such classics as; An American Werewolf in London, Scanners, and The Howling, but more importantly marked the rise of the slasher film as a true force to be reckoned with. Many have been forgotten, but there’s still a few that remain to occupy a place in the modern horror consciousness. The Prowler is one of those and I think I know why.

Tom Savini. For those who don’t know, Tom Savini is one of the greatest gore makeup/effects artists of his time. Known predominantly for his work in the horror genre in the 70s and 80s, Tom has lent his talents to such films as; Dawn of the Dead, Maniac, Friday the 13th, The Burning, Creepshow, Day of the Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. A former combat photographer in Vietnam, Tom’s firsthand experience with violence gave him an invaluable lesson in anatomy, death and real horror to influence his future work. He’s an icon… Oh, and here’s a really bad picture of him and me from a few years ago.

The Prowler is a visceral slasher flick with many strange similarities to my last review My Bloody Valentine. Both films are about past tragedies centered around an annual dance. In this case, it’s the story of a deranged man in combat gear who on one night in 1945, attacked a couple at a graduation dance attended by a group of G.I.s. Thirty-Five years later, the town decides to have another dance and guess what happens? When are people gonna take the message? Holding dances will kill you! So a bunch of young people gather, one thing leads to another, and people die. They die so hard.

Regarding premise, The Prowler is as generic as it gets. The reason I’m talking about it is because of Tom “Sex-Machine” Savini. You got knives in the head, pitchforks in the back, and an awesome head explosion that I looked for on the web, but couldn’t find. Really that’s all I remember about the film. The makeup effects were just as good as any mainstream movie resulting in plenty of entertainment value. The story is iffy, the characters are bad, but it’s still a fun way to kill a night. Check back here soon when in a few days I’ll be reviewing another classic (and I use the term likely) Tom Savini slasher.

This guy sort of looks like a young Christopher Walken. He can also “sort of” act.

My Bloody Valentine is one of the rare cases where I wasn’t aware of the film until it was remade. Does that mean something good came from a remake? Not really. I say that because there isn’t really anything special about My Bloody Valentine. The film was released during a time where holiday themed horror movies were a dime a dozen. A list that includes such “classics” as; Mother’s Day, Christmas Evil, April Fool’s Day, Home Sweet Home (Thanksgiving), Terror Train (New Year’s), Happy Birthday to Me, and Silent Night, Deadly Night to name a few. Then why bother with My Bloody Valentine? Probably the main reason it’s been remembered is because of the bad-guy. A blood-thirsty miner with a pick axe! Not only that but he has a grudge against Valentine’s Day. That’s hilarious!

Set in the small mining town of Valentine Bluffs, somewhere presumably in Canada, a Valentine’s Day tragedy still hangs over the town. Twenty-odd years ago five miners were trapped in a mine accident when the crew’s two foremen left early to attend the town’s Valentine’s Day dance. Six weeks later, the sole survivor of the crew Harry Warden was discovered in the mine, surviving by eating his dead co-workers. Harry goes off to a mental institution and a year later returns to Valentine Bluffs to kill the two foremen. Harry then removes their hearts, places them into heart-shaped candy boxes and warns the town that if they ever have another Valentine’s Day dance, he’ll come back. Silly yes, but it’s a ludicrously fun way to setup the action of the film.

Years later, when Harry Warden has become no more than a relic of the past, the town decides to have another Valentine’s celebration. So we follow a mixed group of townspeople, but primarily a group of rough ‘n tough coal miners who like hard drinks and easy women. The main miners are two equally boring guys (couldn’t tell you their names if you put a gun to my head) who love the same girl. I guess one is more out-going and the other is more quiet and reserved, whatever. So the mayor plans the celebration and what does he get? A heart-shaped box with a human heart inside and a written warning. Does he cancel the party? Of course not, so lots of people die… That’s basically it.

So you’re probably asking yourself if the killer is actually Harry Warden or some other character we get to know in the film, so I’ll tell ya. SPOILER! the killer is the more out-going of the two main guys, cause his dad was one of the foremen Harry killed. So let me get this straight. This guy was so upset by the murder of his father that he decided to become the murderer? There has to be something I missed because that doesn’t make any sense to me. Though seeing as there are only so many important characters it had to be one of them. It pretty much comes down to “Is it the more mysterious guy? Or the guy who is played up as completely normal.” Not too hard to get fooled by that one.

I’ll give My Bloody Valentine props for the look of it’s villain. A miner walking around with a pick-axe, that’s pretty cool. I also like his legend, as corny as it may be. That said a great deal of this movie felt very stock. The quick scares, predictable twists and turns, and the climax was so dark I couldn’t even tell what was happening. Regarding the end, there was something at the end credits that really made my day. A song by some Gordon Lightfoot-esque sounding folk singer about the legend of Harry Warden. It was the dumbest and therefore best part of the whole movie. The fact that someone is singing so seriously about the legend of some slasher villain… Only in Canada.

Remember Tony Gazzo from Rocky?  You know he was Rocky’s former boss in the fancy duds? If it’s starting to come back to you that was character actor Joe Spinell in arguably his most notable role. Spinell was also known by mainstream audiences for his role as Willi Cicci in The Godfather Parts 1 and 2. But to most horror fans Joe Spinell will always be known as Frank Zito in William Lustig’s 1980 film Maniac. A film so violent that film critic Gene Siskel famously walked out of it mid-progress. Then again, that was 1980. By today’s standards, the film is less shocking and far more compelling for another reason. Joe Spinell gives one of the best slasher baddie performances since Anthony Perkins in Psycho.

Frank Zito (Spinell) is an overweight, fortysomething, Italian-American man living in a New York ghetto. By day he’s the landlord of an apartment complex, but by night he’s a schizophrenic serial killer. His fetish involves killing women, scalping them, and then decorating a room full of mannequins with their scalps. Frank often talks to the mannequins and on occasion pretends he’s talking to his deceased mother. At this point, you might be saying, “Isn’t this just Psycho in different packaging?” And you’d be right. Still, this is better than your typical slasher and certainly better acted.

Joe Spinell (who also co-wrote the film) was a seasoned character actor. It would have been easy to bring in some big lug to just stand around in silence, but Maniac takes a different approach. We follow Frank every step of the way, delving deeper and deeper into his psychosis and Spinell never falters. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you have effects wizard Tom Savini pumping all that blood on screen. One of Savini’s finest effects is on display in Maniac (I think it speaks for itself) and if I’m not mistaken, it was after this scene that Gene Siskel walked out.

I’m not sure why there has been so much ill will towards Maniac over the years. It’s certainly not absurdly sickening by today’s standards. If anything, the practical effects are greatly underappreciated. The film also makes great use of its setting, presenting New York like a landscape for Urban warfare. It’s not unlike the kind of feeling you get from watching a late 70s John Carpenter movie like Assault on Precinct 13. It may not be the most innovative slasher film, but it’s a film that attempts to capture a certain mood and on that level, it succeeds.

P.S. A remake was recently made and premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It stars Elijah Wood… What?

The Changeling is a significantly underrated ghost story from writer Russell Hunter. Right now you probably think I’m talking about that Clint Eastwood movie right? No, though The Changeling does involve another fiery-tempered old coot in screen-legend George C. Scott. Directed by Peter Medak, The Changeling is the story of composer Dr. John Russell (Scott) trying to overcome the recent deaths of both his wife and son in a traffic accident. Russell moves from New York to Seattle, Washington (nothing scary or depressing about that place) where he rents a spooky Victorian mansion and tries to find some kind of normalcy. Of course no good ever comes from living in spooky mansion as Russell is soon haunted by the ghost of a young boy. Who is the boy? Is it Russell’s son? This leads Russell to the discovery that the house was once linked to a well known Senator (Melvyn Douglas) and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

First of all, I don’t care what he’s in, George C. Scott is always a treat to watch. He brings such gravitas to such a heartbroken character and carries the film quite well. Not normally the kind of guy you’d expect to see in a horror movie, Scott adapts and takes you along for a bumpy ride. Melvyn Douglas is equally entertaining even at 79 years old, and the two character’s confrontation at the end wraps everything up in a chilling finale.

The Changeling is perhaps best known for the “Ball and the stairs” scene which although very simple, is one of the eeriest sequences in the grand echelon of ghost stories. Maybe the idea of “creepy ghost kids” has worn a little thin these days, but back in 1980 it still felt fresh, and this is one worth checking out. So if you’re looking for the right thinking man’s horror movie and not just a gory spookfest, checkout The Changeling. It will make you fear small rubber balls.

Some of the movies I’ll be talking about this year are famous, some are less famous, Cannibal Holocaust is one of the few that is infamous. For years I’ve heard the urban legend-like stories that have surrounded this exploitative docudrama. Stories that included; real-life violence, torture, and even murder! Cannibal Holocaust is a film that remains controversial today for some of the most shocking imagery you’ll ever see in any kind of film.

The setup is quite ingenious for the time. NYU professor Harold Monroe (real-life former porn star Robert Kerman) travels deep into the Amazon in search of a missing documentary crew. What he discovers are several film reels left behind by the missing crew. Monroe then brings the footage back to New York and with several colleagues, watches the footage that details the last days of the fateful mission. Could Cannibal Holocaust be the first found-footage movie? Anyways, it’s on these reels that Monroe discovers that the documentary crew was not only SPOILERS killed, but eaten by the natives. The results of which are surprisingly real and only more shocking when you learn the rest of the story.

Cannibal Holocaust was a film deemed so shockingly real by audiences that director Ruggero Deodato was actually arrested in his native Italy under snuff film allegations. The charges included obscenity and even MURDER, until Deodato was finally able to prove the violence was fake. How could people be so stupid as to believe this was real? For one, the makeup effects in this film are phenomenal. Two, the then unseen found-footage style gave the film a certain realism. Three, the fact that there is other violence in the film that IS REAL may have blurred the lines between fact and fiction. What real violence? I’m talking about the killing of real animals on camera.

Cannibal Holocaust is a film that really challenges what you can justify with art. On camera we see the death of; a coatimundi, a turtle, a spider, a snake, a squirrel monkey, and a pig. Of course this kind of animal cruelty would never fly today, but it makes you think. Apocalypse Now is a masterpiece, but there is a scene where an ox and donkey are killed. We kill animals for food all the time, but for movies? It makes me uncomfortable and reportedly much of the cast and crew of Cannibal Holocaust were equally uncomfortable on set . Even Deodato (the animal deaths being his idea) has regretted some of the decisions he made but some fans have stood by the violence.

Is Cannibal Holocaust a good movie? Surprisingly, it’s not that bad, but also not that great. The acting just borders on passable, the pacing is a little meandering, but the effects and style are genuinely terrifying. The film covers some interesting themes about civilized versus uncivilized society, but it’s often overshadowed by the film’s violence. Whether this film should be praised or condemned is up for debate, nonetheless it has it’s place in horror movie history.

P.S. Two of the guys in this picture get completely naked for this movie.