TUBI CONTINUED… A THIEF IN THE NIGHT (1972) ***

Decades before Left Behind was all the rage, this low budget Christian flick packed them in on the religious roadshow circuit.

Patty (Patty Dunning) finds herself on her own after her husband is taken to the promised land after the Rapture.  Flashbacks reveal how she met him and how her poor unchristian-like choices led her to being left behind.  It seems as though she had every opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and personal savior but failed to do so again and again.  Meanwhile, nations around the globe combine to form a singular world government called “Unite” and urges all “Citizens” to be tattooed.  Patty refuses, and soon finds herself to be an enemy of the state.

The opening where Patty awakens to find her husband has been raptured up to Heaven while she is now stuck on Earth works surprisingly well.  The title sequence featuring a weirdo Christian band also has an odd, eerie quality to it.  In fact, the whole thing kinda feels like a Ron Ormond-directed version of Billy Jack or something.  (And I don’t mean that as in, “There’s a guy in a funny hat who Kung Fus people”, but that “There’s a lot of hippie-dippy sermonizing” and the film has a scrappy low budget DIY appeal.)  

Heck, even the more cliche aspects of the film kind of work better than they should.  The effective montage scene of Patty and her husband in happier days plays out as a series of still photographs.  This has more of an emotional impact than your typical romantic interlude since often, when you look back and think of a loved one, it’s usually through pictures and/or snapshots of a particular moment in time.  The scenes of radio broadcasts detailing the widescale disappearances kind of have a Night of the Living Dead feel to them too.

The final act is perhaps the least effective, but that’s mostly because the film’s budget is so low that it can’t quite pull off its ambitious aims.  Still, it’s a nice try, and some of the Dutch angles during the final chase are pretty cool looking.  Sure, A Thief in the Night is little more than a religious scare film, but hey, when it works it works.

Three sequels followed.

TUBI CONTINUED… SUMMERHOUSE SLAUGHTER (2023) ** ½

Director Dustin (Cocaine Cougar) Ferguson originally filmed this in 2014 as a homage/sequel to Cheerleader Camp.  It finally came out this year with a new title, Summerhouse Slaughter.  Of course, that makes no sense since there isn’t a summerhouse in sight.  I mean “Summer Camp Slaughter” would’ve been closer to the mark.  Oh well.

Ferguson also added horror host bumpers of “Malvolia’s Movie Matinee” where an Elvira inspired hostess intros the film and occasionally pops up mid-movie.  It’s a neat idea for a gimmick, even if Ferguson doesn’t do a whole lot with it.  I guess it beats his usual form of padding (long scenes of people walking through the woods).  

Things kick off with a great scene where cheerleader practice is cut short when someone puts acid in the football field’s sprinkler and causes the cheerleaders’ faces to melt off.  One year later, a new cheer squad shows up for cheerleader camp.  Naturally, it doesn’t take long for a killer to bump them off one by one.

Sure, Summerhouse Slaughter is a homage to Cheerleader Camp, but there’s also a bit of Girls Nite Out’s DNA as well as the killer dresses up as a bear mascot.  Honestly, this is one of the better Ferguson joints I have seen, mostly because he’s working with a sturdy blueprint instead of just cobbling something together on the fly.  The kill scenes are solid too.  The highlight is a Phantom of the Paradise-inspired death by plunger.  While it’s not great by any means, it does contain enough scenes of cheerleaders shaking their pom poms to make it watchable.

The original Jason, Ari Lehman is the lone “star” in the cast as the camp’s creepy groundskeeper.  It’s Jazmyne Van Houten who steals the movie though as Courtney, the bitch of the group.  She also gets all the best lines like “If I’m gonna be killed, I wanna be killed by someone hot!”

AKA:  Cheerleader Camp 2 the Death.  AKA:  Cheerleader Camp:  To the Death.

TUBI CONTINUED: THE PHOTOGRAPHER: INSIDE THE DARK ROOM (2016) ***

Tubi recommended this to me immediately after I watched Fright:  Night of Fear, so I figured, what the hell?  As it turns out, it made for a perfect double feature.  For one, both movie titles are incorrect on Tubi.  Secondly, both are less than an hour long.  Third, both films have similar plots.  And finally (and most interestingly), both have little to no dialogue.  I was hopeful that this too was going to be a silent movie, but as it turns out, people started talking about fifteen minutes into the flick.  Oh well.  That’s certainly longer than most films can go without dialogue. 

Although Tubi has this listed as 2011’s The Photographer:  Inside the Mind of a Psycho, it’s actually the sequel, The Photographer:  Inside the Dark Room, which was released five years later.  Now, I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on it, but I’ll be sure to track it down based solely on the strength of the sequel. 

Models receive invitations to pose for a mysterious photographer.  They all wind up imprisoned, tortured, and murdered.  The cops are eventually called in to investigate. 

That might not sound like a lot of plot, but trust me, it’s all the plot you need for something like this.  The photo sessions are the real reason this thing exists.  They contain a mix of bondage, glamor, and cheesecake photo spreads.  There’s also a random music video sequence in there to help pad out the running time.  I will say that the police procedural scenes are really the only thing that slows things down.  Heck, even with the abbreviated running time, it feels a little long in places.  Despite those qualms, it’s a surprisingly solid thriller. 

The slashing scenes really work too.  One model is imprisoned in an oversized Guinea pig cage and forced to drink from an oversized pet bottle.  In another scene, a model is tied up while another woman is forced to… shall we say… entertain her.  Heck, even the reveal of the photographer’s identity is surprisingly well done. It might sound weird, but The Photographer:  Inside the Dark Room almost plays like a (slightly) classier English version of a W.A.V.E. Production (but with better production values).  Even with that comparison, it manages to be more effective than not.   

AKA:  The Photographer 2:  Inside the Dark Room.

TUBI CONTINUED… FRIGHT: NIGHT OF FEAR (1973) *** ½

Usually when I see a movie that’s only fifty-three minutes long on Tubi, it means it’s either a skin flick that’s had all the skin cut out of it, or a low budget Shot on Video horror movie.  As it turns out, Fright:  Night of Fear is actually a pilot for an Australian horror anthology TV show that was deemed too violent by the censors.  It was then released to theaters where it became a big hit, inadvertently kicking off the Australian “Ozploitation” craze.

Most times when a failed pilot is turned into a movie, they pad it out to a feature-length running time.  That’s not the case with Fright:  Night of Fear.  They kept the hour-long time slot format, which is a blessing.  Not only does the shortened running time make for a lean, mean little horror flick, but when you’re trying to watch 365 movies on Tubi in 365 days and you’re a few weeks behind with posting your reviews, you appreciate these short and sweet movies.

A woman is out riding her horse when she gets kidnapped by a greasy degenerate.  Later, another woman has a car accident and is stranded on the side of the road when the same madman chases after her with his pet rat in tow.  Make that pet RATS.

You know, I wasn’t even gonna bring up the gimmick because I wanted you to discover it for yourself, but it’s definitely worth mentioning.  So, if you don’t want the flick spoiled for you, stop reading this and go watch the movie.  OK?  Can I continue?  The cool thing about Fright:  Night of Fear is that there is NO dialogue!  Other than a brief snippet from a radio announcer, nobody talks throughout the whole thing!  That is, if you don’t count whimpering, screaming, and blubbering as “dialogue”.  Not only that, but it’s also effective as hell too.  In fact, I’d think it’s safe to say that this is the best no-dialogue horror movie since Daughter of Horror.

What makes it all work so well is that it never once looks like a TV movie that’s been released to theaters.  (Except for the short running time and maybe the opening credit that says, “Created By”, you’d be hard pressed to say this was supposed to be an episode of a TV show.)  There are lots of unique camera angles (including inside a rotary phone) and interesting editing (like during a tennis match that turns into a game of hanky-panky) that are hella cinematic.  Although there’s nothing exactly explicit on display, the flick is definitely more hardcore than the shit you’d see on American TV at the time, that’s for damned sure.

In fact, it’s almost a shame this didn’t become a series (either on the big screen or small).  Then again, this installment would be hard to top.  So, if you’re on Tubi and have (less than) an hour to kill, check out Fright:  Night of Fear.  It packs more shocks into one hour than most horror TV shows do in their entire series run.

AKA:  Night of Fear.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE SCARECROW (2021) *

I was initially going to review this as part of Amityville April, but at the time, the only version available on Tubi was dubbed in Spanish.  Because of that, I passed on it and went directly to Amityville Scarecrow 2.  I saw the original was now up on Tubi, so I figured I’d finally give it a shot. 

It was not worth the wait.

Two estranged sisters inherit their mother’s crumbling campground.  They haven’t spoken to one another in years because the one sister’s husband ran off with the other sister.  Can the siblings put their past behind them?  Can they move on with their lives and start acting like a family again?  Can they, at the very least, forgive and forget long enough to spruce up the campsite?  Or will their long-festering jealousy rear its ugly head and drive them further apart?  Oh, and did I mention there’s a scarecrow that occasionally kills people?

It might seem like I forgot about the killer scarecrow who’s... you know... the titular character, but in my defense, the movie kind of forgets about him too.

Yeah, if you can’t already tell, this is like 90% Lifetime Movie and 10% Killer Scarecrow movie.  (And by “Lifetime Movie” I mean “boring relationship drama” and not one of those newfangled “The Wrong [Enter Occupation Here]” type of thrillers.)  While the opening scarecrow kill is OK, it takes an eternity for him to show up again.  It also doesn’t help that nearly all the actors have muddy accents.  I can’t tell if they’re British and trying to sound American or vice versa, but every time someone opens their mouth it just sounds wonky. 

Maybe I should’ve watched the Spanish dub instead.

Like many Amityville rip-offs, the link to the original is tenuous at best.  This one takes place in AN Amityville.  Not THE Amityville.  It seems like some murders happened in a supposedly haunted house, but the place burned down, and the campground was erected in its place… hence the supernatural presence.  This might be a case where a prequel would be more interesting than the actual movie.  Then again, that wouldn’t be very hard to do.

AKA:  Scarecrow’s Camp.

TUBI CONTINUED… AMITYVILLE CULT (2021) ½ *

Stanley DeFeo (Chance Gibbs) thinks he’s a man without a past.  That all changes when he learns he’s inherited a house in Amityville from a grandmother he never knew.  Once inside the house, he discovers her diary which details her sordid affair with a cult leader.  Frazzled by this new information, he tries to get to the truth of the matter.

We’ve come to expect very little from these Amityville rip-offs.  However, even within those very limited expectations, we still expect… well… SOMETHING.  I mean if an Amityville rip-off can’t be good, it at the very least can be…  Stupid…  Cheesy…  Bonkers…. Unintentionally funny… Well, it can be anything, really.  Except boring.  Unfortunately, that’s the case with Amityville Cult. 

And let me tell you, it’s a slow moving, uninvolving slog from the word go.  I will say the flashback scenes are slightly less dull than the present-day stuff, if only for the weirdo cult leader dude who stands around with a Cheshire Cat grin like an extra from Smile.  That’s about all the flick has going for it though.  The long scenes of our hero reading the diary in a dark room while a clock on the wall rhythmically ticks were almost too much to handle.  These scenes put me to sleep not once, but twice.  If you are cursed with insomnia, then Amityville Cult is the perfect cure.

The stuff with Gibbs interviewing the townsfolk and unraveling family secrets is just as dull too.  Just when you think it can’t get any worse, along comes a long ass nightmare scene full of shit we’ve already seen.  If you’re deepest darkest fear is recycled footage, then Amityville Cult will scare you shitless.  You know you’re in trouble when the movie’s biggest horror scene involves a highchair moving around like it’s in a Peter Gabriel music video.  

Bottom Line:  Amityville Cult might not be the worst Amityville rip-off ever made, but it’s definitely in the running for the dullest.

TUBI CONTINUED… OUIJA SHARK (2020) ** ½

Jill (Steph Goodwin) finds a mysterious Ouija board while swimming at the beach.  She brings it back to her friend’s house where a girls’ weekend is being held.  When the ladies get bored, they drag out the Ouija board and accidentally summon the spirit of a shark.  Freed from the board, the ghost goes around killing people before finally setting its sights on the gals who unleashed it.

Directed by Brett (Jurassic Shark) Kelly, Ouija Shark is more silly than dumb, which is an important thing to note.  It knows the premise is out there and embraces it fully.  It also has its share of fun moments, like when one of the girls gets high and thinks the shark is a byproduct of her wacky tobaccy.  Oh, and it also contains lots of scenes of the ladies swimming in bikinis and washing cars, which helps.  The ghost shark itself is rather amusing too.  It’s blue-tinted and semi-translucent, which kind of makes it look like a Star Wars Force Ghost version of Jaws.  

The film kind of loses a little of its charm whenever the focus strays away from the girls’ weekend.  Subplots about one of the girl’s fathers doing research on sharks (which at least pays off with a WTF Dr. Strange-inspired battle between his spirit and the shark in the afterlife) and cops investigating the disappearance of some hikers kind of drag things out.  Still, the relatively lax run time of seventy minutes moves at an acceptable rate.

The cast is better than average for this sort of thing.  Goodwin has a fun presence as the alternative outcast of the group.  She also makes a memorable impression when she goes into Sarah Connor mode at the end.  Amy Osborne is also quite engaging as the nerdy Tiffany who spends most of the movie washing a car.  This seems to be the only film appearances for both actresses, and that’s a shame.  I’d definitely enjoy watching them again in another flick.

The best line occurs when the Ouija board is brought out and one of the friends ask, “Isn’t that one of those ‘hoo-hah’ boards?”