Movies
Bloody Presents Slasher Nights In Los Angeles!
As we did last year, Bloody-Disgusting will be co-hosting screenings every Thursday at Cinefamily (formerly the Silent Movie Theatre) in Los Angeles, with BC on hand to introduce the films and maybe give away some DVDs. This year’s theme is slashers, and let me tell you – this lineup is PHENOMENAL. For example, it’s awesome enough that we’ll be showing the original My Bloody Valentine UNCUT… but director George Mihalka will be there as well! So check after the break for the full Slasher lineup, and check Cinefamily’s website for info on all the other horror movie screenings happening almost every night in October!
Don’t look in the closet, don’t wander off on your own, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T HAVE SEX IN THE BACK SEAT OF YOUR CAR!!!! It’s slasher time, and we at the Cinefamily have a real soft spot for this gore-drenched, bone-crunching, eyeball-bursting sub-genre. We’re diving head-first into the bloodbath of golden age hacking/slashing — from the classic to the ultra-rare, to the never seen one-and-only Bigfoot slasher pic, we’ll be serving films like severed heads on a splattered silver platter all month. You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape these little stabs of happiness.
(All double/triple features are $10 for the night)
10/8 @ 8pm / Sleepaway Camp
New Jersey’s answer to Friday The 13th, Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 bid for the slasher pantheon is a triumph of bad taste. Infamous for its gloriously repugnant shocker ending, Sleepaway Camp walks that fine line between genre staple and camp classic. The dialogue is silly, the performances are questionable, and the horror elements are less than first-rate, yet the film still manages to satisfy. Maybe it’s the way Hiltzik perfectly captures the vaguely hostile setting of summer camp and uses it for an ideal backdrop for a killer, or maybe it’s just the joy of seeing grade-Z actors running around in athletic shorts. Who knows — who cares?! The bottom line is that Sleepaway Camp is a blast, a fact supported by its status as a sequel-generating cult phenomenon. But, do us a favor — if you know the surprise ending, don’t tell the uninformed. We want to see the looks on their faces when “Angela” reveals her secret on the big screen.
Sleepaway Camp Dir. Robert Hiltzik, 1983, 35mm, 88 min.
Followed by RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP (DVD)
10/15 @ 8pm, 10pm, Midnight / High School Hell Triple Feature!
Slumber Party Massacre
It may come as some surprise that the quintessential slasher film of the 80’s–a genre often labeled as misogynistic–was created by women. Written by Rita Mae Brown and directed by Amy Holden Jones, Slumber Party Massacre employs nearly every pleasure associated with the sub-genre, including teenage tomfoolery, drug use, lingering nudity and gleeful gory violence. But beneath the surface lurks a strong current of feminism, as well as a not-so-subtle hint of lesbianism. The female protagonists and titular slumber partiers seem far more interested in each other than the immature boys that plague them, and when the phallic drill-wielding psychopath starts to wreak bloody havoc, the girls generally manage to put up a better fight than the chickenshit guys. None of this really matters, though, because in the end it’s just a fun, solid slasher film that’s appropriate for any gender or sexual orientation.
Dir. Amy Holden Jones, 1982, 35mm, 77 min.
Graduation Day
The slasher film for fitness enthusiasts! Have you grown restless with all those slasher films where people just sit around waiting to be gutted? Well, relief is here in the form of Graduation Day, a film which features so much running you’ll feel you’ve completed a 10k just having watched it. The story centers around the death of a high school track star and the subsequent murders of other jocks at the school leading up to Graduation Day. There’s a lot to enjoy here, not the least of which is director Herb Freed’s penchant for inexplicable quick-cut editing and a supporting cast of inexplicably abusive older men. Plenty of cheat scares and red herrings abound, but once the killer dons a fencing mask and gear, you are literally off to the races. Featuring music and a live performance from pop band Felony (barely known at the time). Come get your diploma — in terror!
Dir. Herb Freed, 1981, 35mm, 85 min.
The Redeemer: Son of Satan!
OK, so this one’s a bit of cheat. Not strictly a slasher movie; it’s got more of that weirdo, obscure 70s arthouse-meets-grindhouse, “Nightmare USA” vibe that’s been a fascination for us here at Cinefamily. So while, yes, a masked killer does stalk and snuff his victims one at a bloody time, it also opens with a little boy emerging from a lake who possesses three thumbs. Set at the world’s least populated high school reunion, the film’s six attendees are greeted by a maniac who appears in a different menacing and grotesque persona for each bizarre kill (a clown, a marionette, a Grim Reaper). Those that make it through to the end of this evening with us will be treated to this confounding, nightmare-inducing gem.
Dir. Constantine S. Gochis, 1979, 35mm, 84 min.
10/22 @ 8pm, 10pm, Midnight / Holiday Horror!
My Bloody Valentine (uncut version!)
The name My Bloody Valentine evokes various things, like the recent 3-D remake or the `90s shoegazer band. But what it all too seldom communicates is what a great friggin’ slasher movie the 1981 film version is. First of all, it has an iconic slasher in “Harry Warden,” its gas-masked, pick-axe-wielding miner. Secondly, the working-class characters are a cut above the usual teen victims; you actually find yourself giving a shit about them. And, the stalk n’ slash finale takes place in a mineshaft! C’mon! There are many great kills, which sadly were themselves brutally hacked by the MPAA, but are finally shown here in this rare uncut 35mm screening! Of all the slasher knock-offs of the early `80s, this was the most deserving of a franchise, but alas, it was not to be. Best viewed with a heart-shaped box of chocolates by your side. Director George Mihalka will be in person for a Q & A!
Dir. George Mihalka, 1981, 35mm, 90 min.
April Fools Day
Depending on your frame of reference, this 1986 gem is either late for the party or ahead of its time. Sharing much of the same post-modern sensibility that would make Wes Craven’s Scream a hit ten years later, April Fools Day explores the tropes of the slasher genre without descending into spoof. Your mileage may vary on the whodunit aspect of the plot, but the film is a pretty classy affair for a horror film of the era, and the cast is stocked with great `80s B-listers like Deborah “Valley Girl” Foreman, Amy “Friday The 13th Pt. 2” Steel, and the guy who played Biff in Back To The Future. Good fun to the last twist.
Dir. Fred Walton, 1986, 35mm, 89 min.
Don’t Open ‘Til Christmas
You want to see Santa Claus get killed, right? Well, this movie really targets your demographic. In an alternate-universe London conveniently overpopulated by street corner Santas, one man finds it his duty to thin the herd — so you get to see all manner of Santacide in this sleazy British slasher. We’re only showing it on VHS, but c’mon, this is the one Christmas horror movie you haven’t seen ten times, and it’s a blast. Besides, you’ll have already watched two prints tonight! Let’s do this!
Dir. Edmund Purdom, 1984, VHS, 86 min.
10/29 @ 8pm, 10pm, Midnight / Slasherpalooza! A Night of Gonzo Slasher Films.
Chopping Mall
In this ridiculous hybrid of Friday The 13th, Dawn of the Dead and Short Circuit, four pairs of teens who work in the local shopping mall plan an after-hours booze-n-sex party. Their fun is soon interrupted by the mall’s malfunctioning “high-tech” robot security guards, who attempt to slice the kids into sashimi using lasers, claw arms and assault rifles. The spoofy premise is well-served by thumbs-up doses of nudity, screaming, slit throats, outdated technology and nerdy filmic in-jokes (the mall’s sporting goods store is called “Peckinpah’s”). An early effort by wildly prolific trash king Jim Wynorski (Deathstalker II, The Bare Wench Project III, Ghoulies IV), the script features such timeless bon mots as “I’m sorry for getting hysterical –I guess I’m just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.”
Dir. Jim Wynorski, 1986, 35mm, 77 min.
Remember hearing about the California man whose pet chimp went ape and ripped off his face and testicles? Did it make you flinch, covering your own parts in sympathy? Get ready to flinch once again, for Shakma will swipe at your jewels in a blood-thirsty rage. Christopher Atkins (the deeply tanned star of The Blue Lagoon) and his friends hang out after-hours in their med school building playing (what else?) a D&D-like role playing game run by game master (or as he pronounces it, “Gay Master”) Roddy McDowall, and proceed to have their throats ripped out by an angered, psychotic lab test baboon who hunts them down one by one. The real stars of the film are the production’s animal handlers, who managed to not get themselves or the filmmakers killed while their baboon actor forcefully hurled itself at doors, windows, its co-stars or anything else in its path, screaming bloody murder all the while in a truly terrifying electric rage.
Dirs. Tom Logan & Hugh Parks, 1990, 35mm, 101 min.
Night of the Demon (brand-new HD transfer!)
Night Of The Demon breaks major slasher conventions by introducing one of the most unusual and allusive psycho killers of all time — BIGFOOT! Who is Bigfoot, and why is he doing these terrible things? Our furry friend has gone completely homicidal, leaving a trail of dead girl scouts, castrated bikers and raped teenagers in his wake. This Z-grade doozy packs a bloody whallop — this is one of the most absurd and comically gory movies we’ve ever seen. The audiene reaction to this film is gonna be half the fun. DO NOT MISS IT. Director James C. Wasson and producer James B. Hall will be here in person!
Dir. James C. Wasson, 1980, HDCAM, 97 min.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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