Retro Slashers’ Thomas Ellison’s article and newspaper scan on Pitchfork Massacre was the shot heard round the slasher world. An unknown slasher flick that played theatrically in 1984 never spoken about till now? We were practically salivating. Uncovering Pitchfork Massacre has been an treasure hunt for two years. Now it’s over.
I had a plan. T’was a fine plan – watch Silent Night Deadly Night parts 1-5 over the Christmas holidays. How hard could that be? They even had numbers on them so I wouldn’t lose my way. Except it didn’t exactly go to plan… in fact, it went out the door before I even started. Here’s where I went wrong, but at the same time right.
Joe Spinell cannot die. Yet he has been dead for almost fourteen years. The sweaty, pock-marked Maniac is a beloved figure in retro slasher history, but he did several movies that were essentially variations of the same figure. We’ve been blessed with Spinell popping up every few years in another long lost lumbering, muttering role.
What are Lost Slashers? Some might consider them to be any of the hundreds of titles in the slasher genre that aren’t Halloween or Friday the 13th. Others might consider them to be VHS obscurities that so far haven’t made it to DVD. But to those who dig deeper down the rabbit hole, Lost Slashers never even came out on any format.
We’re “soft launching” a Retro Slashers DVD label with lost sequel Sleepaway Camp IV: The Survivor, released in finished form for the first time ever next week after 20 years of uphill battle. The spine serial number is RS001 – and as a test case we’re piggybacking on this project which initiated over at companion site Sleepaway Camp Films.
Camp Motion Pictures’ Retro 80′s Horror Collection Big Box doesn’t just have a long name, but a long list of contents – so much we had to split this review into two. The centerpiece of the set is Tim O’Rawe’s The Basement, a never-before-released 1989 horror anthology. You hear “never-released” a lot, applied to movies that never made the leap from VHS to DVD, but The Basement was truly never released. Or even edited together properly for some time.
To celebrate the unearthing of this relic, Camp have released The Basement in a “big box” similar to those put out by, among other 80′s companies, Wizard Video, who had used the box production facilities of a blue movie company to ensure their titles stuck out on shelves bigger and bolder than standard video boxes. That’s what we have here, and The Basement is packed inside on DVD (with its own dedicated DVD cover which jams 3 discs into one holder) and a VHS – writing the wrong of this flick never debuting on the video format when it was supposed to circa late 80′s.
Now, I had grand plans to swagger into this review with the lofty statement that I had opted to watch it on video first instead of the disc, however I couldn’t find my power lead to my video player nor does anyone I know close by have a video player. Some don’t even know what one is. I can’t think of a sadder but more apt analogy to the poor fate of VHS in today’s societal consciousness.
The linking segment has a bunch of characters approached by a Crypt Keeper-style character, The Sentinel, who shows them their dark futures, each of which are our stories. The Swimming Pool is the weakest of the lot and perhaps should have been schmushed in between the others. It’s a sort of wet riff on The Pit as a women feeds various annoying dudes and dudettes into a demonic pool, with the expected comeuppance in the ending. Zombie Movie is an enjoyable little entry that makes you wonder what it would have been like for real zombies to overrun the shooting of Night of the Living Dead, well before Dave Parker’s The Dead Hate The Living. Home Sweet Home is a bit of a plodding affair dealing with a haunted house but the real gem in these is Trick or Treat, the second story. It recalls the bygone era of latex monsters as well as the fun to be had exploiting October 31st which few horror films did post-Halloween.
The stories are essentially morality tales, some dealing with Faustian choices. This feeds into the final fate The Sentinel has in store for those would one day sin, in a climax to the linking segment that has the cheekiest use of stock footage I’ve seen in a while.
The horror anthology is a tricky thing to get right. For me, Creepshow represents its apex…and any number of cheap cheesefests represent the subgenre’s gutter (Tales from the Quandead Zone, anyone? Points for cool name, though). The Basement falls somewhere in between. There’s enough practical Special FX and WTF accents to tweak your nostalgia bone, and the Super 8 stock it was shot on gives it an unpolished charm.
Not to be confused with quasi-slashers, which are movies with vague slasher elements (in which case, I’m pretty sure every single horror movie and serial killer thriller would be valid), slasher-hybrids are films that specifically combine the slasher film with an outside genre but can exist in both worlds on their own merits.
One example is Without Warning (1980), which uses the slasher structure to a T – random killings, bodies stashed to be discovered by the heroes, prime whodunnit paranoia – but drops in an alien monster (played by Kevin Peter Hall, who would later play pretty much the same role in Predator!). Another example is Silent Rage (1982) starring Chuck Norris, where The Beard fights an indestructible proto-Terminator who keeps on coming back. This one combines action elements within a slasher framework – and yes, there’s roundhouse kicking. And hopefully I don’t have to tell you about the incredible Maximum Overdrive (1986) directed by Stephen King – a slasher movie where trucks, vehicles and even a soda vending machine are the killer! Thank the lord Stevie boy was nose-deep in coke or that flick wouldn’t be nearly as goofy and awesome.
Some movies even attempt to combine multiple types of film, like Future Kill (1985, review) which uses a chase movie scenario to bolster its slasher trappings, while also integrating post-apocalyptic styled mayhem.
With hybrid-slashers, it’s the mish-mash of separate genres that make for fun watching. We plan on offering reviews and articles from our senior writers that will bring to light some of these combos. By no means will June necessarily feature only slasher-hybrid coverage, but I was looking for a way to provide more consistency instead of segregating our top contributions to the small window of theme weeks. We’ll give it a try, anyhow.
What are your favorite slasher-hybrids and what genres do they criss-cross?
With the recent news of Scorpion Releasing’s slasher titles on tap for DVD – Humongous, House on Sorority Row, Final Exam, The Carpenter, The Incubus and American Nightmares as well as other genre titles – Retro Slashers conducted a brief q&a with company president Walter Olsen (yes, brother of Bill Olsen who runs Code Red – unearthing horror must run in the family).
Retro Slashers: Can you say if any release dates are already set, or what order the discs will come out in?
Scorpion: Final Exam and Devil Within Her are set for September, with October being Humongous, Nothing But The Night, and perhaps one more (one we haven’t announced yet), and House on Sorority Row and Carpenter will kick start November.
Retro Slashers: House on Sorority Row was most recently released in 2009 – with this being the third edition, what similarities or differences will it have?
Scorpion: Sorority is now a brand new HD master from the original InterNegative, and will be a progressive scan encode, unlike the previous Liberation DVD edition. We already have 3 new on-camera interviews (actress Harley Jane Kozak, composer Richard Band. and producer Igor Kantor), and are trying to do more, plus all previous extras from the earlier editions are being carried over. We also have about three TV spots that I believe the other DVD editions did not have.
Retro Slashers: Any chance of getting Michael Ironside for a commentary track or interview for American Nightmare? Ditto Wings Hauser for The Carpenter?
Scorpion: I tried to get Wings Hauser, but never heard back from him nor his representative, and same with Ironside. But as they say, never say never. American Nightmare will feature an audio commentary with Producer Paul Lynch moderated by Katarina.
Retro Slashers: Will Final Exam be a reissue of the BCI’s version?
Scorpion: Not really. Ours is a new master in HD from the original negatives, and we also have a new audio commentary with the producer Myron Meisel that is moderated by Katarina and it is quite informative. And, of course, all previous extras will be there as well.
Retro Slashers: Humongous‘ video release was very dark, and many have speculated if that was the photography or the video transfer. Can you settle that for us?
Scorpion: Little bit of both, as the director wanted it to be a bit dark, but not as dark as the video. That was just a bad video job.
Retro Slashers: What sort of extras do you hope to assemble for The Incubus?
Scorpion: We cant say what for now, but we are arranging some on-camera interviews as we speak.
Retro Slashers: Lastly, how much will your horror hostess Katarina be a part of these releases?
Scorpion: She does a small skit in character, an intro before the film, and after the film ends, she does an epilogue. She does not interrupt these films in any way, and if you want to skip her segments altogether, you can, by clicking the play film option on the menu. And unlike some other horror hostesses, Katarina also moderates all the new audio commentaries. It was a delight to see someone who has made a name for herself in WWE and TNA want to speak with these filmmakers and ask them questions.
Scorpion Releasing can be found on the internet at www.scorpionreleasing.com.
The greatest TV Movie ever Dark Night of The Scarecrow (1981) is already availible on DVD but we just learned that, incredibly, a 30th anniversary edition is coming to Blu-Ray. Writer of the teleplay J.D. Feigelson passed the following details onto Dread Central:
“It will have a lot of bonus material, most of which has never been seen. We are catering to the items which the fans have repeatedly asked for. The release street date is on or about October 4th, just in time for All Hallows.”
Dark Night inspired several scarecrow slashers like Jack-o and Night of the Scarecrow (both 1995). It offered genuine suspense and chills without even showing the burlap-sacked straw-man perpetrator until the final scene. I can only think of one other similar movie to give me the creeps, that was William Wesley’s Scarecrows (1988), also an atypical movie, combining the tense action of Aliens with elements from the slashers and zombie subgenres.
Between September 2011 & March 2012 Scorpion Releasing will bring out a mix of sought-after first-time-on-DVD slashers and new re-releases of beloved titles: American Nightmare (1983), the grimey, sleaze-coated kin of Maniac and Nightmare, The Carpenter (1988) starring Wings Hauser as a spectral killer, The House on Sorority Row (1983), previously re-released in 2009 to coincide with the remake, the OOP atmospheric demonic slasher whodunnit Incubus (1982), Final Exam (1981), previously released by BCI, and the hulking killer on island opus Humongous (1982).
If you’ve processed all of that yet, continue below for the press release mentioning further (non-slasher) releases, and cover art for the hallowed six.
Scorpion Releasing proudly presents Katarina’s Nightmare Theater, a new line of horror DVDs hosted by actress, and former WWE and now TNA star, Katarina Leigh Waters, as she introduces a series of cult films, many of them for the first time on DVD! See the bewitching Katarina introduce such horror classics as THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, FINAL EXAM, THE INCUBUS, some of them in new high definition film transfers with new extras!
Also, for the first time on DVD such films as the 80’s horror favorite HUMONGOUS, THE CARPENTER starring Wings Hauser (VICE SQUAD), THE HUMAN EXPERIMENTS starring Linda Haynes, AMERICAN NIGHTMARE with Michael Ironside, THE DEVIL WITHIN HER starring Joan Collins, the twin-terrors of THE MARK OF CAIN, and NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT starring genre greats Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing! Each DVD will have a play with or without Katarina’s intros and closing segments and some will have audio commentaries with the filmmakers moderated by Katarina. All the DVD sleeves will feature a reversible cover. The first wave will be released in September, just in time for Halloween and new DVDs coming each month through March!
“I am having really great fun hosting these movies, and coming up with skits for the introduction… plus I love that I get to meet these filmmakers and talk to them about their creative process on the audio commentaries… it’s inspiring! I hope you enjoy watching the DVD’s, as much as I enjoy working on them!” -Katarina Leigh Waters
