This time around, we are featuring
(though not exclusively) a number of regional oddities and low-budget efforts
that try desperately to add their own flavor to these well-worn proceedings. Do
they succeed? The answer is… well, sort of? We have religious mania on tap, as
well as scientific malpractice, Satanic shenanigans, backwoods deformity, 3D
gimmickry, and even some haphazard re-editing courtesy of the infamous Troma
studios!
So, what are you waiting for? Grab
some beer, some weed, and your closest uninhibited co-ed up for some premarital
fornication, and let’s get slashing! Here are…
10
Underrated 80s Slashers Part VI: Jason Lives!
10)
The Invisible Maniac (1990) dir. Adam Rifkin
We start things off with something
that might seem out of place. “Is that 1990?” you ask? Well, yes… but hear me
out. This film was produced in 1989, but it’s release was delayed. So there. It’s
technically an 80s slasher. It’s also just absolutely loony. A scientist with a
peeping-tom fetish invents a serum that makes him invisible. Unfortunately,
nobody believes him and he is laughed out of the scientific community (though,
not before massacring a few of his colleagues). He hides out as a high school
teacher, but he just can’t get enough of peepin’ and creepin’, so he keeps
taking the serum… which, naturally, drives him insane and he sets about making
bodies out of the student body. It takes a considerable chunk of the runtime to
get to the slashing bits, or else this entry might rank a bit higher. Nevertheless,
it’s fun, breezy, and has plenty of boobies to keep one entertained!
9)
Girl’s School Screamers (1984) dir. John P. Finegan
Some troublemakers at a private
school for girls are routinely misbehaving, so they are punished with cleaning
up an old mansion that the school is planning on using for… something? It doesn’t
matter. The point is, the mansion is haunted and now a ghost (or is it?) is bumping
off the students one by one when all these chicks want to do is party! The film
was originally conceived as a low-budget haunted house movie, but Troma studios
got their beautiful grubby hands on it and re-jiggered the whole thing to be a
slasher flick. Good on them!
8)
A Day of Judgement (1981) dir. CDH Reynolds
Oh boy, here we go with the worst
sort of Bible-thumping lunacy. This little, regionally produced (in North
Caroline of course) slice of religious insanity centers on a small town
being dealt some truly bonkers punishment for not being pious enough by a
strange dude dressed in black and carrying a scythe (who could that be, I
wonder?). It’s set in the 1920s for no reason, and the ads for it blatantly
ripped off Halloween (1978) with the tagline “The Night HE
Came to Collect His Own!”. The film is chock-full of moralizing, spiritual chastising,
and theological finger-wagging. Honestly, it’s the most god-bothering bit of
nonsense I’ve seen since Kirk Cameron inflicted himself upon us. Still, it does
have a decent atmosphere, and few neat kills. Come for the self-loathing, stay
for the kinky religious punishment!
7)
Disconnected (1984) dir. Gorman Bechard
Psychos in Love (1987)
director Gorman Bechard’s debut feature is a lovely, blood and neon drenched
post-punk new wave flick pumped full of gore, weird phone calls, and awkward incest-y
vibes. Alicia suspects her boyfriend is sleeping with her twin sister, so she turns
to a shy boy who is honestly a not-too-subtle serial killer. New Wave music and
murder ensues! Also, she’s receiving harassing phone calls and not doing very
much about it? Anyway, it’s actually quite good with that hits-just-right 80s
atmosphere and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
6)
Fatal Exam (1988) dir. Jack Snyder
This Missouri-made regional slasher is
practically homemade, and offers a veritable cornucopia of hauntings, Satan-worshippers,
stalk-n-slaying, and terrible dialogue. Quite frankly, it might all be too
much, because there’s no reason a movie like this should be a full two hours. A
group of college students are offered the opportunity to stay in a supposedly
haunted house as part of their parapsychology class (if that’s a thing) and soon
find themselves getting spooked by apparitions which turn out to be murderous
Satanists. Yeah, it’s a lot…
5)
Moonstalker (1989) dir. Michael S. O’Rourke
Covered in snow, but somehow filmed
in Reno, Nevada. And that’s not even the weirdest thing about this late period
regional offering. A family and subsequently (because they all die) a bunch of
college students on a camping trip run afoul of a deformed, backwoods
monstrosity named Bernie who just wants to murder as many one-dimensional
characters as he can. This flick truly has an absolutely… uh… bodacious
body count. In fact, the corpses pile so high that there really isn’t room for
anything else except for boobs. It’s essentially a Friday the 13th
highlights real. That’s how we like it, though, yeah?
4)
Silent Madness (1984) dir. Simon Nuchtern
Okay, picture this. A maniac escapes
from an insane asylum and goes about killing the locals. Sounds like Halloween,
right? Okay, okay, but THIS one is in 3D! BOOM! Effectively, that’s all there
is to this one. It rips off Halloween AND Friday the 13th
Part 3D (1982) at the same time! It has some decent gore and moves at a
good clip, which keeps it fun even though it’s the very definition of derivative.
It’s a testament to how well the gimmick really does work that it ranks in the
top 5 on this list.
3)
Don’t Panic (1987) dir. Rubén Galindo Jr.
One of Rubén Galindo Jr.’s most
infamous films, Dimensiones Ocultas is mexploitation at its finest. Michael
is a teenager who still wears dinosaur pajamas and likes to play with Ouija boards.
Naturally, a demon is invited in and possesses… someone… in order to kill the
poor kid’s friends in extremely gory ways. Like Cemetery of Terror (1985) before
it, Don’t Panic is positively Fulci-esque in the level of blood and guts
it puts on screen. Absolutely essential for slasher fans.
2)
Death Screams (1982) dir. David Nelson
David Nelson, famous for the family
sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, shockingly directed this North
Carolina regional slasher about teens getting picked off while making the completely
healthy and normal life decision to party in a graveyard. Short on plot, but
long on the kills, this little oddity really heaps on the gore – including a
wholesale bisection - in the final act. It’s a quick and effective little gem
from the early years of the slasher boom!
1)
Evil Laugh (1986) dir.
Dominick Brascia
Scream (1996) really hopes
nobody finds out that it was just a rip-off of this fantastic low-budget
slice-n-dice. A bunch of horror movie-obsessed med school students rent a house
in the hills with a sordid history. While they spew hilarious lines of dialogue
(some directly stolen by Scream…) and try to hook up with each other, a
masked killer starts doing away with them in inventive and grisly ways! Evil
Laugh never manages to be scary at all, but in spite of the wooden acting
and homemade aesthetic, it winds up significantly greater than the sum of its
parts. It’s funny. It’s gory. It’s a blast!
