Beyond Dream's Door (1988)

Dir: Jay Woelfel

A student named Ben Dobbs (Nick Baldasare) experiences bizarre nightmares and finds that the lines between the dream world and reality are blurring in this micro-budget, Lovecraft-influenced, experimental horror. He hallucinates giant red monsters, armless janitors, creepy kids with plasticine eyes and topless girls with amazing 80s hair but what does it all mean? Who knows? Director Woelfel clearly has talent and ambition in abundance. The film is superbly shot, considering the money they obviously didn't have, and there are some great ideas here, but they over-reach beyond the script's ability to present them coherently. Granted, the film's nightmares-within-nightmares structure was always going to equal a degree of abstraction but the total lack of characterisation is probably the main sticking point for me. It's very tough to engage in a plot like this when no one has a personality (especially tough given some of the ropey acting) and without that connection, there's not enough to propel the plot forward at a satisfactory pace. It's a shame because some of the imagery is fantastic and a lot of love and hard work has clearly gone into making the best film they could, given a lot of limitations. **

The Black Cat (1990)

Dir: Luigi Cozzi

This oddball unofficial sequel to "Suspiria" and "Inferno" finds Cozzi going vaguely post-modern on our asses and having a pair of filmmakers try to script a "Third Mother" film to cash-in on the success of Argento's classics. However, all this attention lavished on the Mother of Tears (a whole four pages of screenplay, apparently!) is too much and she is SUMMONED! The filmmakers begin to see her glowing-eyed, maggoty visage everywhere and they start to drop dead (and/or explode!) one after the other. This should be quite a simple premise but Cozzi packs his script with an array of increasingly weird twists and turns that eventually render the film impossible to follow (especially when time and space themselves start to bend for the climax), albeit oddly entertaining. It's a kaleidoscope of crazy lighting, splattery gore (Cozzi visibly has a love for watching people explode from the inside out and, y'know what? So do I!), multi-coloured lasers, eighties haircuts and Caroline Munro in her lingerie. So yeah, it's not right, but it's okay. As usual, Cozzi's rabid enthusiasm for the genre covers up a good many problems that could punch holes in less spirited efforts. Also, this is a lot more coherent and watchable than the real "Mother of Tears" wound up being. **

Near Dark (1986)

Dir: Katheryn Bigelow

I watched this by accident on TV when I was about 14, absolutely loved it and somehow never saw it again despite it being a "major" big budget movie that's been readily available on all formats throughout my lifetime. I think part of me was afraid that, as an adult, I'd watch it and the magic of that one intense, late-night viewing would somehow be ruined. But no. "Near Dark" is still as fantastic as it ever was. Part modern-day western, part outlaw road movie, part vampire romance; Adrian Pasdar plays a straw-chewin' horse-ridin' goober who takes home a beautiful girl and gets more than he bargained for. After being bitten and turned into a creature of the night, he's forced to hit the trails with her fucked-up vampire "family" (led by a never-more-menacing Lance Henriksen), where he must either adjust to their lifestyle of nightly mass murder or die. There are one or two minor elements of "Near Dark" that are a little corny I suppose - and the flashy (though admittedly breathtaking) action sequences as every bit as OTT as you'd expect from the director of "Point Break" - but there's just something about it that gets under the skin and stays there. The script is a pitch-perfect combination of contemporary edginess and classic Hollywood. You can feel the dusty heat of the southern settings and almost taste the darkness at times. The characterisation is wonderful (there could've been an extra hour of just talking and it still wouldn't feel too long) and the infamous barroom massacre scene is still one of the most shocking ten minutes of horror cinema I can think of. A genuinely great horror film. ****

Howl of the Devil (1987)

Dir: Paul Naschy

Paul Naschy (who also writes, produces and directs this) plays a pair of brothers, Alex and Hector Doriani. Alex is a B-Movie horror actor. Hector is a serious thespian. They hate each other but when Alex dies, his son Adrian (played by Naschy's own son) is placed into Hector's care. Hector beats the boy, abuses the servants and has a habit of abducting and drugging prostitutes for his weird sex games, so Adrian (understandably) retreats into a world of fantasy based on the characters played by his late father. This turbo-paced movie plays a little like an overheated, X-rated Spanish soap opera on fast-forward but with the mind-boggling bonus of Paul Naschy playing no fewer than 12 roles. Besides Alex and Hector, he is also Rasputin, Quasimodo, Bluebeard, Frankenstein's Monster, Fu Manchu, The Phantom of the Opera, Mr Hyde, his own wolfman creation Waldermar Daninsky (in one of the film's rare moments of poignancy), a mummy/zombie and, ultimately, Satan. On one hand "Howl of the Devil" is a glorious mess; a feverish kaleidoscope of misogynistic shouting, gratuitous nudity and ever-increasing absurdity. On the other, taken as part of Naschy's oeuvre, it's a heartfelt love letter to the artform he mastered and a furious lashing-out at the audience who rejected his genius. There's even political allegory in there; a disparaging of both tyrannical government (bear in mind Naschy's career began under General Franco's regime) and the Catholic church. What's weirdest is that, if you take out the fact that no one would/could ever behave like any of these characters do, the story - within its own universe - actually makes sense and has a really good twist. This kind of intensely personal cinema is rarely so entertaining as it is here and "Howl of the Devil" has the added bonus of watching Naschy - for perhaps the only time - completely off leash and wildly indulging every B-Movie fantasy he's ever had. For those who appreciate his genius, this is stuff that will really raise the goosebumps. Why this has never had a proper DVD release is beyond me. ***1/2

Witchery (1988)

Dir: Fabrizio Laurenti

(aka Ghosthouse 2, La Casa 4, Witchcraft)

Ropey late-80s Italian chiller in which a sexy virgin (Leslie Cumming, whose tragically short film career consists of just this and the even worse "Zombie 5 : Killing Birds") gets trapped on a haunted island with a witch, a pregnant girl (Linda Blair!), a rich old couple, some creepy real estate agents, a kid with the most annoying voice EVER and... (wait for it)... David Hasselhoff. What the Hoff was doing in this is beyond me but it marks either the high or the low point of his career, depending on how you judge things. There are many dubious aspects of "Witchery" - it's slow, badly acted, cheaply made and not entirely logical - but I have a soft spot for the sheer weirdness level. The gore FX are nasty and imaginative, it almost manages to be spooky at times and there are a few trippy, messed-up ideas buried beneath the more obvious ones (ie: while it's no surprise that Linda Blair's character gets possessed, it certainly feels new when she hallucinates two witches roasting a foetus on an open fire!). I'd never try to say this was a GOOD movie but it's easily watchable B-Grade fodder and there's much worse out there. **

The Night Child (1975)

Dir: Massimo Dallamano

(aka The Cursed Medallion, Perche?!)

This low-key Italian chiller tells the story of Emily (Nicoletta Elmi), a young girl whose documentary-making father (Richard Johnson) is working on a piece about "diabolical art". Intrigued by a photograph of a rare painting, he drags Emily and her nanny to Italy for a look at the ghastly thing (a Bosch-like panorama of demons, crazy-eyed peasants and women on fire) up close. Needless to say, there's a curse involved and Emily finds herself at the centre of it, exhibiting increasingly weird and violent behaviour as the family spiral towards certain doom. Lavishly photographed in opulent locations and punctuated by a delicate musical score, The Night Child is Dallamano's take on the "classic" ghost story model and it holds up beautifully next to the best of 'em. Nicoletta Elmi, in a rare lead role, gives it her all and turns in a creepy, show-stealing performance. The pacing takes a little patience and the characters could maybe use some fleshing-out but it's worth the wait for the bleak and heartbreaking finalé. A subtle, serious horror film. ***1/2

Wicked Little Things (2006)

Dir: J.S. Cardone

Veteran horror director Cardone hands over a workmanlike zombie flick that trundles along competently without ever offering anything above the strictly average. Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton and Chloe Moretz all do their best with what they've got, playing a mother and her two daughters. They move to a creepy house they've inherited somewhere up in the woods and live happily ever with their new real estate that soon increases in value. No, I'm kidding. It all goes horribly wrong. A bunch of kids who got buried in a 19th Century coal mining accident haunt the place, bashing in people's heads with pick-axes, eating livestock and generally doing stuff that creepy ghost/zombie kids might do. It's not a terrible film but it is so generic and loaded with familiar tropes and clichés that you'll struggle to pay attention for the full 90 minutes. The decent cast is kind of wasted on the material and the zombie kids look a bit too silly to ever really scare. *1/2

Children of the Corn 3 : Urban Harvest (1995)

Dir: James D.R. Hickox

Two country boys - creepy little jerk Eli and loveable lummox Joshua - get fostered by a nice middle-class family in Chicago and bring with them the unspeakable horrors of Gatlin, which you may remember from the original Stephen King story. There's not much else to connect it, mind. All Hell breaks loose, quite literally, in this one and it all goes completely batshit in the final reel, veering into the realms of zombie scarecrows and gigantic slime monsters. But these things? I like! A threequel that's actually the best in the series, "Urban Harvest" is a solid supernatural horror with a strong script, some mad ideas, a tremendous amount of gore and wicked prosthetics courtesy of Screaming Mad George. If you only watch one "Children of the Corn" movie, make it this one, basically. ***

Bloody Birthday (1981)

Dir: Ed Hunt

OK. I have my limits. Some things are just too weird and unsettling even for me. "Bloody Birthday" manages this without even being good! On one hand, it's an utterly generic example of early 80s small-town stalk'n'slash fare. The twist is that the ones doing the stalking and slashing are a trio of ten year old kids. To be honest, you don't need to have any creative skill to makes these kids creepy. Christ, the LEAST creepy of the three looks like a minature Ron Perlman with a Hitler Youth hairdo! Shudder. So by the time they're strangling folk with skipping ropes, bludgeoning them with baseball bats, shooting toy arrows at point blank range into their eyeballs and pouring ant-killer into the icing sugar, you'll be reaching for a bucket of soap and water to wash your brain out with. Sadly, the movie itself is dull, flat and tediously played out, so the only real reason I could think of for recommending this would be as something to show to anyone you know who's feeling broody. It will probably make them think twice about having children or indeed ever going near anyone else's again! *