HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: EDGE OF THE AXE (1989) ** ½

Edge of the Axe is Spanish horror maestro Jose Ramon (Vampyres) Larraz’s take on an American slasher movie.  As is usually the case when foreigners try to make their film look as American as possible, Larraz falls just short of the mark.  It looks okay on a surface level, but there is something that feels off about the whole thing, which kind of adds to the fun.

A small town is beset by an axe murderer who goes around hacking up young women.  The suspects include a two-timing hot-tempered fumigator (Page Mosely), the town’s asshole sheriff (Fred Holliday), and the creepy church organist (Spanish horror legend Jack Taylor).  Naturally, it’s up to the computer geek drifter hero (Barton Faulks) to put the pieces together and solve the murders. 

The fact the film features a computer geek for a hero is notable.  In 1989, computers in slashers were still something of a novelty.  These scenes look so dated now that they give the movie an added cheese factor that most of its contemporaries lack.  I particularly loved the silly scenes where Faulks keeps in touch with his girlfriend through a crude form of instant messenger.  Every time they send a message to one another, it’s read aloud by a funny echo-y voice that I guess is supposed to be the computer “talking”.  I wonder if this is where AOL got the inspiration for the “You’ve Got Mail” dude.

Larraz does a fine job on the stalking scenes.  The opening sequence in a car wash is the most memorable.  Unfortunately, the axe-wielding maniac, who sports a cool white mask and black poncho, hates animals just as much as the humans.  There’s a grisly moment when the killer decapitates a pig and puts its head in someone’s bed.  (Godfather, eat your heart out!)  That scene delivers on shock value, but the part with the dead dog kind of crosses the line.

Overall, this is a solid, if unspectacular slasher.  Those looking to get a quick dose of stalking and slashing (or… in this case… chopping), will probably get their money’s worth.  Fans of Larraz will enjoy seeing his decidedly European style transposed into the very American milieu.  It probably needed one or two more showstopping sequences (I dug the severed head gag) to really put it over the top, but Edge of the Axe is just sharp enough for me to give it a marginal recommendation.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: AUTOPSY OF A GHOST (1968) * ½

When Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, and Cameron Mitchell go south of the border to make a Mexican horror comedy, you know you’re in for… well… something.  Things kick off with a truly impressive puppet show opening credits sequence.  Sadly, it’s all downhill from there.

Rathbone stars as a ghost named Canuto who has spent the last four hundred years living in a basement talking to his own wisecracking skeleton.  The devil (Carradine) appears and makes Canuto a bargain:  If he can make a woman fall in love with him to the point of sacrificing herself for love, he’ll let Canuto go to Heaven.  Things get complicated when an absentminded inventor (Mitchell) and his family move into the mansion.

Autopsy of a Ghost would’ve been okay if most of the movie revolved around Basil trying to break his curse.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the running time is devoted to the B plot of a wimpy bank teller who embezzled a bunch of money.  A lot of people are out to get the loot for themselves, which leads to a bunch of annoying bullshit that gets in the way of ghostly shenanigans. 

When the film focuses on the three gringo stars, it’s only slightly better.  The scenes of Basil (in his final role) acting alongside his talking skeleton aren’t bad.  (In fact, the effects are well done.)  There’s just not a lot for him to do the rest of the time.  Carradine (who filmed this in Mexico around the same time as much better The Vampires) hams it up as the Devil, but the material he’s given to work with is woefully unfunny.  It especially pains me to say I don’t like a movie in which Cameron Mitchell plays an inventor who creates a robot nanny, but here we are.

Honestly, what can you say about a movie when a puppet show is far and away the best part?

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: DEAD SNOW: RED VS DEAD (2014) **

This sequel to Dead Snow picks up immediately where the first one left off with our hero Martin (Vegar Hoel) fleeing the horde of Nazi Zombies from his winter cabin.  He gets picked up by the police, who think he’s the one responsible for massacring his friends, as they don’t cotton to his story that Nazi Zombies were the ones responsible.  Meanwhile, the Nazi Zombies begin gathering their forces and set out to finish the war they started decades ago.

Like its predecessor, Dead Snow:  Red vs Dead is all over the place.  Much of the intentional humor falls flat or is just plain unfunny.  However, when the film concentrates on zombie carnage, it’s pretty entertaining as there’s plenty of crushed heads, strewn guts, and mashed brains to go around.

Some of the additions to the zombie lore are equally hit and miss.  The idea that zombies can recruit new cadavers to their cause by simply touching their forehead is kind of odd.  Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned bite on the neck?  I did like the subplot where our hero receives an arm transplant from a zombie donor, which grants him zombified powers.  Imagine Evil Dead 2 if Ash and his possessed hand had a détente and that should give you an idea of what to expect. 

There’s some fun to be had here.  The best bits come mostly in the form of little throwaway moments (like the zombie doctor performing emergency surgery on soldiers during the final battle).  For the most part though, Dead Snow:  Red vs Dead is a bit overstuffed and overcrowded.  Take for instance the addition of Martin Starr as the leader of a trio of American zombie hunters.  He’s not bad or anything, it’s just that he and his Star Wars-obsessed cohorts feel like they came out of an entirely different movie.  Either that, or they were just shipped over to cater to the American market.  If writer/director Tommy Wirkola had whittled this thing down a bit (it clocks in at a whopping 100 minutes), it might’ve worked.  As it is, the unwieldy running time and abundance of unfunny gags prevent Red vs Dead from coming to life.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: MASSAGE PARLOR MURDERS! (1973) **

A nut is stalking the massage parlors of New York City and killing hookers in gruesome ways.  It’s up to detectives O’Mara (John Moser) and Rizotti (George Spencer) to solve the case and bring the killer to justice.  That is, if they can ever stop making time with hookers and seducing potential witnesses.

Massage Parlor Murders! is at its best during the (surprise, surprise) massage parlor vignettes.  The opening sequence in which a painfully shy customer nervously interacts with his masseuse is funny.  The scenes where the killer murders the working girls are pretty good too.  While they aren’t overly gory, they almost seem like a dime store version of an Italian giallo or something. 

The film really hits a wall during the detective scenes.  They just go on forever and bring the movie to a halt.  Even the oddball comedic touches that don’t exactly land (like the ballet scene) are still amusing next to the monotonous stuff with the detectives.  Other sequences are really drawn out (like the swinger pool party) or are completely botched (like the ending) which often makes the seventy-nine-minute running time feel much longer. 

Moser and Spencer are boring and forgettable in the leads, but the supporting cast offers some bright spots.  The Last House on the Left’s Sandra Peabody has a winning presence as a murder victim’s roommate who is romanced by Moser.  Basic Instinct’s George Dzundza (who also acted as the film’s assistant director) has a memorable turn as a murder suspect nicknamed “Mr. Creepy”.  We also have a cameo by the typically weird Brother (The ‘Burbs) Theodore as an occult expert who is consulted during the investigation.  Although their efforts aren’t enough to save the movie, they help make some of the dull detective scenes bearable.

Whenever the girls are using their hands and bodies to pleasure the customers, Massage Parlor Murders! works, but like most massage parlors, it’s all tease and no please (or so I’ve heard).

AKA:  Massage Parlor Hookers.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: VEROTIKA (2019) **

I’ve been a huge Misfits fan for what seems like forever, so I was excited to learn front man Glenn Danzig was making an anthology horror movie based on his own comic book line.  His music has always been infused with his love for old horror films, so I was anxious to see how he would fare as a horror director.  As far as musicians-turned-directors, he has a long way to go before he can touch Rob Zombie, but I can honestly say, there is enough inspired lunacy here to make me interested to see what he does next.

Porn star Kayden Kross stars as our host, Morella, who in the opening scene, gouges a woman’s eyes out.  She then introduces herself to the camera and we go right into the first story.

“The Albino Spider of Dajette” (***) is about a pink-haired girl named Dajette (porn star Ashley Wisdom) who is distraught when her boyfriend leaves her.  In most movies, the boyfriend leaves because he wants to see other people.  In Danzig’s world, the boyfriend leaves because his girlfriend has eyeballs where her nipples should be.  That’s not even the weird part.  When her boobs start crying, the tears land on an albino spider, and it morphs into a six-armed man-spider who goes out and kills every time Dajette falls asleep. 

I tell you, when it comes to becoming a spider-man, getting bit by a radioactive spider is soooooo gauche next to being bathed in titty tears.

Most directors would take an idea like a woman with eyes for nipples and base an entire story around it.  For Danzig, it’s just the jumping off point.  You have to admire something so hilariously insane, even if the craftsmanship is a bit shoddy.

Then again, any time I want to criticize this segment for its stilted performances, awkward camerawork (I can’t tell if Danzig is trying to channel Jess Franco’s haphazard camera zooms on purpose), or slipshod editing, I remember it’s about a woman with eyes for nipples whose teat tears turn a spider into a half-human spider-man, and I think… gee… I haven’t seen THAT before, so ***.

The next story is the Eyes Without a Face-inspired “Change of Face” (**).  A masked stripper known as “The Mystery Girl” (Rachel Alig from Bikini Spring Break) goes around hacking off the faces of women and puts them on her dressing room wall.  It’s then up to a determined detective (The Karate Kid 3’s Sean Kanan) to end her reign of terror.

This segment isn’t nearly as wild as the previous tale, which puts it at a disadvantage.  It isn’t necessarily bad, per se, but it’s certainly a comedown.  Alig is pretty good though as the faceless stripper who wears skull-shaped pasties.  She’s definitely a much more credible lead than Wisdom was, that’s for sure.  I also had fun with Kanan’s performance as the comically gruff detective.  That doesn’t quite compensate for the fact that the story is slight, and the non-ending is rather frustrating.

The final tale, “Drukija:  Contessa of Blood” (**), is a reworking of the old Elizabeth Bathory legend as a vampire woman (Alice Haig) bathes in the blood of virgins to remain eternally young. 

This is one story that would’ve benefited from some tighter editing.  I mean there’s a scene where Drukija stares at herself in the mirror that just goes on forever.  That said, the scenes where Drukija slashes open virgin throats and bathes in their jugular spray are something else.  Too bad that this one, like “Change of Face” is completely devoid of an ending.

So, in short, this is an extremely hit or miss affair.  It’s particularly rough going after the first story.  However, if you ever wanted to see an albino man-spider trying to negotiate the price of Greek from a French prostitute, then Verotika is for you.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: OPEN WINDOWS (2014) * ½

Elijah Wood stars as a fan who gets cheated out of a chance to meet his favorite movie star, Sasha Grey.  While livestreaming her Comic Con panel, a hacker sneaks onto his laptop and offers him an opportunity to hack into her phone so he can spy on her.  He stupidly agrees, and winds up getting himself into one precarious situation after the other. 

Nacho (Colossal) Vigalondo’s Open Windows plays like a modern-day riff on not one but two Hitchcock classics.  Like Rope, it’s seemingly done in one take and the peeping tom stuff plays a lot like Rear Window (except our hero uses a lot of newfangled computer technology instead of a simple old pair of binoculars).  The movie it’s most like though is that terrible flick Unfriended as it all takes place on a computer screen.

It’s not a bad idea.  There’s enough here to fill out a short film, or if done well, a seventy-five-minute movie.  At a hundred minutes though, it runs out of steam way before it crosses the finish line.

The film especially gets tiresome once Wood leaves the confines of his hotel room.  At least those early scenes had a sense of claustrophobia about them.  Things really start to unravel once more and more people start popping onto Woods’ screen, offering him guidance, or possibly trying to trick him.  The constant zooming in and out from window to window quickly gets annoying too. 

Once it becomes a chase movie, the movie really starts to become implausible. The protracted finale also helps to further test the audience’s patience.  The string of plot twists that punctuate the third act would be laughable if it all weren’t so damned ludicrous.

Much of the suspense comes from Wood being so gullible and allowing a stranger complete access to his computer.  I guess that’s the film’s biggest lesson:  Sometimes, when you’re on the internet, and all you want to do is see Sasha Grey naked, you wind up getting hacked and end up with a bunch of unwanted spyware on your computer.  Hey, we’ve all been there before. 

AKA:  Black Hacker.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE (1982) ½ *

Two shiftless lay about worm farmers pine for a little excitement.  They get more than they bargained for when they unearth a woman buried in a shallow grave.  Her friends, an all-woman cult of gunrunners, thieves, and killers (and possibly, one vampire) come looking for her and hold the pair of worm-wranglers hostage.  Eventually, the gals initiate our heroes into their gang, but only because they need someone to act as decoys while they steal a shipment of platinum (or is it plutonium?) from the Mob.

Runaway Nightmare is a real head-scratcher.  It’s a low budget, no-name, no-talent Bataan Death March of a movie that plods endlessly on without any rhyme, reason, or rhythm.  It takes a collection of interesting ideas and promptly does nothing with them.  At first, it seems like it’s going to be a Russ Meyer movie by way of Jeff Lieberman, but even the promising scenes of the all-girl cult members romping around fall flat. 

It’s also annoyingly amateurish.  I mean, I’m a fan of bad movies, but even I have my standards.  It’s full of poor line readings, incoherent editing, and gratuitous ADR.  It’s also the only flick I’ve ever seen in which multiple characters repeatedly overstate plot points and somehow it manages to make it that much more confusing.  It shouldn’t be confusing because nothing ever really happens, but there you go.  

The craftsmanship is so poor it isn’t even good for a cheap laugh.  Take for instance the scene in which two cult members have a duel.  One of the girls fires her gun, there’s a puff of smoke, and then one of the other characters has to relate to the audience that the gun was tampered with and she blew up.  Man, it’s bad.  That’s not even including the long, pointless dinner table scene that goes on forever.  Or the ending that plays like a Ted V. Mikels version of Kiss Me Deadly.

If the film had been jam-packed with nudity, it might’ve softened the blow.  However, whenever it looks like the girls are going to strip down and have a little fun, we only see them nude from the back or the side, which doesn’t help anyone.  Teasing the audience with nudity and then not delivering in an already piss-poor movie just makes it that much worse. 

The lesbian three-way shower scene has to go down in history as one of the most botched sex scenes of all time.  It’s one thing if their relations are obscured behind an opaque shower curtain so the audience doesn’t even get a hint of skin.  It’s another thing for the girls to exit the shower COMPLETELY DRY.  What in the actual fuck? 

In short, Runaway Nightmare is a runaway disaster.