Before
Scream, we had writer/director Rolfe Kanefsky’s horror-comedy, There’s Nothing
Out There. A bunch of college students
spend spring break in a remote house in the woods. The lone horror movie fan of the group gets on
everyone’s nerves as he constantly warns his friends not to act like characters
in horror films or run the risk of being killed. Since that includes things like drinking, skinny-dipping,
and premarital sex, he’s kind of a buzzkill.
So, they do what any good friend would do… Lock his ass up in the
basement. Unfortunately, that’s when a
slimy space alien shows up and starts melting men’s faces and turning the
ladies of the group into mind-controlled killers.
Kanefsky does a great job on the opening slasher movie scene set inside a video store. Not only is it cool seeing all the old school video boxes, it’s also a nice slice of low budget horror filmmaking. Although it starts out like gangbusters, there are some real lulls in between the laughs and monster attacks. There are some clever moments to be sure, but Kanefsky should’ve edited this down a bit more to achieve its maximum entertainment value.
The
monster, it must be said, looks terrible.
It resembles a green rubber scarf with eyes. Just when I was about to write it off, the monster
started shooting green lasers out of its eyes. I can honestly say I haven’t seen a slimy
scarf monster with laser eyes before, so I guess I’ll cut it some slack.
Despite
the unevenness of the whole enterprise, Kanefsky really crams this thing full
of gratuitous nudity, so you’re always guaranteed to keep watching. He used this aesthetic all throughout his
career. It especially served him well
during his long run directing Skinamax movies like the softcore Emmanuelle
cable series.
AKA: Don’t Scream… Die. AKA:
The Bloody Cottage in the Forest:
Scream or Die.
Well,
that’s going to wrap things up for The 31 Days of Horror-Ween. I’m not going to lie, this year’s selection
of films were pretty rough going at times.
Luckily, we finished out the month with a couple of strong
features. Don’t worry, I’ll have a few
more horror reviews before the end of All Hallows’ Eve to close out the month.
If
you still can’t get enough horror reviews, well, you’re in luck. November will see the arrival of Halloween
Hangover, in which I’ll try to get around to watching all the horror movies I didn’t
get around to watching in November. It
probably won’t be as extensive or thorough, but there’s sure to be plenty more
horror for me in the near future.
Besides,
it’s Halloween. Everyone’s entitled to
one good scare.
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