"Silver Bullet" (1985) d/ Dan Attias

What started for author Stephen King as an artistic collaboration on a calendar illustrated by Bernie Wrightson (of Swamp Thing, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Heavy Metal, etc. fame), soon became a novella called Cycle of the Werewolf, and was finally transformed into the film that would be the basis for tonight's review. Though I confess I never got around to buying the illustrated hardcover or the trade paperback back then, surely some sort of transgression against the genre gods, as a lifelong Wrightson fanatic, and a reader of King for nearly as long, in and of itself,  I'll also concede that I skipped the movie the first time around, too. Even then, the idea of a kid in a rocket wheelchair squaring off against a werewolf? Not the greatest idea Stephen King has ever dreamed up, I don't mind telling you.


Heading out to the highway. Only made it as far as the railroad tracks...
In the Bicentennial year of 1976 (some of you may not know the year, having not lived it), a dysfunctional clan called the Coslaws and their surrounding neighbors in a fictional Maine town called Salem's,uhhh-errr, Tarker's Mills, are plagued by a year's worth of brutal slayings at the paws of a murderous werewolf. We see his bloody handiwork in a decapitated railroad worker and a suicidal teenage pregnancy. Our protagonists are Jane (Megan Follows), a resentful teen who's begrudgingly forced to tend to her younger brother, Marty (Corey Haim), a paralyzed lad who whizzes about in a rocket wheelchair, as designed by his lovably zany drunken uncle, Gary Busey. His character has a name, indeed, but for all intents and purposes, you're getting Gary Busey. When Marty and his buddies aren't tormenting Jane for being a yucky girl who wears dresses, (the way young boys displayed their affections before being socially castrated by the authoritarian left, you remember, don't ya) get waxed by the wolfman while flying kites. Who the hell flies kites, anyway?


"Forget how to knock? Can't a girl enjoy her pureed tomatoes in peace??"
Sheriff Joe Haller (Terry O'Quinn) 's hands are tied, as he and his punchy deputy are clueless to the mysterious killer's identity, leading the less level-headed and reasonable townsfolk to hunt the beast in the shrouded mist themselves, only to get tooled up in the dark by the mythical monster. Meanwhile, Nancy Drew and the Har-uhh, errrr, Jane and Marty have a helluva time convincing their drunken uncle that a werewolf is responsible for the murders, despite his obvious outer space origin/current mindset. The lycanthrope nearly puts an end to the rocket wheelchair montages, complete with nerve-wracking eighties synth pop, but thanks to the bag of illegal fireworks his uncle bestowed upon him, the search is soon narrowed down to anyone wearing an eye patch. Stay out of Maine, Slick Rick. Then more stuff happens, mostly of the "Who didn't see that coming?" variety. Approach with great caution.


"This is what I get for lighting fireworks off with Jason Pierre-Paul!"
Corey Haim you'll probably recall from The Lost Boys (1987) or heavily publicized drug problems.You probably won't, but I remember Megan Follows from her role as "Anne of Green Gables" in the 1985 Canadian tv miniseries. The sacrifices one makes for broads. I got a little caught up in it, I confess. In a supporting capacity, you've got the likes of Terry "Stepfather" O'Quinn, Lawrence "Reservoir Dogs" Tierney, James "Dawn of the Dead" Baffico, and of course Everette "Twin Peaks" McGill and Gary motherfucking Busey rounding off the list of notable actors who signed on here. Phantasm director Don Coscarelli began the production in the chair, only to bow out before any werewolf sequences with Carlo Rambaldi's controversially meh suit were even filmed. The team was clearly shooting for a retro-50's E.C. comic feel, but overshot their point of interest for retro-70's Charlton comic feel instead, an after school special with splattery gore effects thrown in for that puzzling R rating. Revisiting it recently left me feeling gypped, with the potential it had, ultimately unrealized, in my estimation. One wop.


"...you see Michael Jackson behind ya, just lay on the gas and pop a wheelie the hell outta there...", notes Uncle Red (Gary Busey).

"Midnight"(1982)d/John Russo

I'm willing to forgive NOTLD co-writer John Russo for the folly of much of his cinematic output since his famous collaboration with George A., with special emphasis on his mordacious handling of the so-called 30th Anniversary recut, rescored, (retarded) re-imagining of the b&w Romero zombie classic.Instead, tonight we'll take a look the 1982 film version of his novel, first published in 1980, a mostly uncoordinated, slow moving, minor effort, with occasional moments of eerie backwoods atmosphere and amateur splatter.Working with a skeleton crew, light-damaged cheapo film stock, and mostly unreliable amateur actors, while the cut-happy MPAA censors neutered his horrific theological vision, Russo still manages to insert some quality unease into his directorial debut, sort of a TCM meets Deranged vibe going on here.Until the advent of dvds, most of Midnight's juicy bits ended up on the cutting room floor, with the craptastic Vidmark VHS release from the early eighties still stale on my mind, though Arrow's transfer looks to be an equally murky dub from weathered video source materials(as evidenced by the time coding at the top of some of my screenshots, eh).Apart from Lawrence Tierney and John Amplas, the cast, garbed in what looks like a  J.C. Penny's sidewalk sale run on 1978 backstocked polyester and denim, is mostly forgettable, though antagonists David Marchick, Greg Besnak, and Robin Walsh run the gamut from gleefully sadistic to stiltedly comical as the family of hayseed Satanists.Melanie Verlin as the female lead is neither effective nor particularly swell to look at, for that matter.The headache-inducing AM Gold-esque synth score that perfectly accentuates the disco wear and shag carpeted van interiors within, if you see where I'm goin' here. Russo delights in padding out already snore-worthy driving and walking sequences throughout the movie, still, there's that foreboding dread, sporadic as it may be, that rises out of his frame that's rare for slashers of the era.You could do a lot worse than a movie like this on a Wednesday night, I guess.

Five words no girl ever wants to hear: "Come to Lawrence Tierney, baby..."
We see what looks to be Jimmy Peterson's little sister screaming her fool head off while snagged in an animal trap, before Momma(Jackie Nicoll)  can convince her brood that the terrified girl is really a demon in disguise, and in desperate need of a hearty clobberin' with an axe handle.Back at the farmhouse, we see the girl sacrificed to the dark lord and master with a single plunge of a sizeable dagger, as wielded by Cynthia(Debra Smith) .Over the credits, it gets even more diabolical, as Nancy Johnson(Melanie Verlin) gives a juicy confession(she's committed sins o' th' flaish with her boyfriend...wait, chicks that looked like the leisure version of Prince Valiant got laid in the early eighties? It can't be.) and is told she oughta be burning in Hell for sharing her cunt before marriage the way she's done, by cracky!At home, it might even be worse for the old looking teen, who's drunkenly ogled and groped by her own stepdad(Lawrence Tierney) before braining him with a transistor radio(!) and thumbing her way outta town before he comes to, and she has to hear him say, "Why don't ya just relax and let Daddy make ya feel good?" again.To strains of easy listening AM radio'd be too embarrassed to play, Nancy hops in a shagged out delivery van on it's way to Fla, as piloted by a checkered pair of squares, Tom and Hank, and together, they embark on a corny driving montage complete with racial tensions in a saloon, and a black preacher at a gas station who's barely able to spit out some exposition about missing locals, gas cans, and anti-black sentiment in the area before a yokel can bark at him.The priest gets knifed up in a nearby graveyard and his daughter gets C.T.F.O.ed in the tub by a snickering mountain of a good ol' boy while our heroes steal groceries, netting them anti-climactic cop chase that lands them directly in the center of fucking nowhere.Meanwhile, back home, Nancy's stepdad breaks it to Mom that she's been showing off her little body to him whenever she gets the chance, and he's kept it from her out of love.Larry Tierney a sex magnet?Now I've seen it all...

If you give tonsilectomies with a rusty machete in a rundown farmhouse, you might be a redneck.
Our gang awakens from their camping overnighter with gun barrels in their faces the next morning, courtesy of Abraham(John Amplas) and Luke(Greg Besnak), dressed as cops.Hank, cuffed, makes a break for it, and pays with a point blank execution headshot from Abe, who later plugs Tom in the heart, savin' taxpayers money an' all.The trigger-happy badges chase Nancy through the woods to a farmhouse where Cynthia(Robin Walsh) deals Solitaire while her brother Cyrus(David Marchick) gigglingly saws off a victim's head with a machete.Why, these are the same evil brats from the pre-credit sequence, all grown up and twice as psychotic.I see what you did there.The siblings squabble about having three sacrifices to Satan for Easter(I was unaware Satan even celebrated beyond your obligatory basket full of chocolate bunnies and eggs like the rest of us) while Nancy gets cozy in a dog cage, next to Gwen, another kenneled up cutie for the festivities.The boys burn the burgeoning pile of bodies and snatch another shapely young victim while Luke shanks up her husband in a nearby woodpile, following up on the promise he'd made earlier to his mother's mummified corpse in the attic.The first girl gets herself an extra mouth during the pentagram-heavy ceremony,  her blood caught in a chalice and fed to the siblings' mother's rotting cadaver while Nancy quietly gives an act of contrition from her cage.While the boys make Tom's van disappear, they're spotted by Burt, Nancy's stepdad, who's on the case like Kojak, if Kojak was an uglier, heavier drunk who fancied molesting his own stepdaughter, that is.Burt flashlights the shit outta Luke's domepiece and holds Cyrus and Abe at gunpoint, demanding they return his blow up do-uhhh, daughter, to him.In the melee, Cynthia jabs Burt with her dagger, Burt shoots Cyrus in the head, Nancy scythes Cynthia's throat, and later sets a resurrected Luke ablaze with a gas can and a match in the barn.Abe is dead somewhere too, I think.Cue that rotten title track one last time, thankfully, and let's recoup our losses already.

With her hair and makeup done, Mama was finally ready for the family photo at Sears.
Russo would follow tonight's review up with things like Midnight 2: Sex, Death and Videotape(1993), the direct-to-video sequel, Scream Queens' Naked Christmas(1996), and Santa Claws(1996), while chisel-faced Brooklyn tough guy Lawrence Tierney would  appear in genre offerings like 1987's The Offspring, The Prowler(1981), Chris Gore's Red(1992), The Horror Show(1989), and even that Tarantino cat's own debut, Reservoir Dogs(1992), as Joe 'Mr. Big' Cabot.Juicy.Real juicy, Junior.John Amplas, an always likable  Romero regular and favorite of mine, starred in Martin(1976), got shot off a rooftop in Dawn of the Dead(1978), played a mime in Knightriders(1981), rose from the grave in Creepshow(1982), and donned a lab coat in Day of the Dead(1985).While we're on the subject, Verlin would turn up in Romero's Monkey Shines(1988).Savini would stay busy throughout the decade, lending his effects wizardry to productions like Friday the 13th:The Final Chapter(1984), Creepshow 2(1987), and the 1990 Argento/Romero film, Due occhi diabolici, while appearing in direct-to-video titles like United's The Ripper(1985), which we'll be taking a gander at in the days to come.Despite Savini's credit for providing makeups and effects for tonight's feature, in the Arrow dvd featurette, "“Midnight at your Door: The Shocking Sacrifices of John A. Russo”, we hear the writer/director admit to fabricating much of the film's stabbing/slashing effects himself, even taking a potshot at Savini for his work on the mummified corpse in the finale.Also noteworthy, is Bill Hinzman, NOTLD's legendary 'Cemetery Zombie', who provided still photography for the movie.A technical dud, but worth a look, regardless.One Wop.

Nancy(Melanie Verlin)'s refusal to go on the paper lands her in the 'Punishment Kennel'.

"The Prowler"(1981)d/Joseph Zito

Tonight's entry, also known as "Rosemary's Killer", is an early eighties slasher helmed by Joe "Friday the 13th:The Final Chapter" Zito;a long-time favorite for many whose ultra-realistic gore effects by FX maestro Tom Savini(some of his best and most brutal work ever)are the real draw for any self-respecting genrephiles out there.I should probably state for the record here that this one isn't one of my favorites of the slasher sub-genre.For me, the humdrum, cookie cutter plot drags along behind like a bum leg for the most part, and any alleged suspense mentioned in passing discussion of the film eludes me completely.Without Savini's trademark flair for explicitly gruesome death, Prowler would find itself rubbing shoulders with flaccid fare like Final Exam(1980) in the slice and dice sweepstakes of the time period.From 1978 until around 1985, Savini was the unchallenged grandmaster of gore, and his unparallelled and inventive on-screen snuffs here only solidify that status.The cast includes Farley Granger of "Strangers on a Train" fame, as well as legendary silver screen tough guy, Lawrence Tierney, but few others worth mentioning.Some tension and pacing to pair up with the atmospheric setting and moody score by Richard(Dont Go in the House) Einhorn might have vaulted Prowler into the upper eschelon of splatter movies, instead of the plebeian standing it ended up with.Onwards.

Ya fork around, ya get pitched.
Grainy newsreels show the 1945 return of allied troops from Europe, one of which is a jilted sumbitch who receives a "Dear John" letter from his sweetheart, Rosemary, who's given up on her soldier boy in favor of a more readily available lover close to home.The GI serves up broken-hearted vengeance to his ex and her new beau at a graduation dance in Avalon Bay with the help of a trusty pitchfork, leaving a single long-stemmed red rose in her blood-stained hand.Thirty-five years later, Major Chatham(Lawrence Tierney) has ensured that the town has remained grad dance-free since the tragic night his daughter's life was lost.Thanks to current high school graduate, Pam MacDonald(Vicky Dawson), the superstitious streak is about to be broken, as she relates her plans to the local sheriff(Farley Granger).He warns her that someone has committed a robbery and slain a young man in nearby Columbus, and that he fears the killer plans to return to Avalon because of the dance.Then he leaves town to go fishing.Huh?Pam expresses concern about the homicidal possibilities first to Mark(Christopher Goutman), the deputy left in charge, then to her abhorrent girlfriends, Sherry and Lisa.Equally concerned, Lisa flashes her worried bobblers at the wheelchair-bound major in the house transverse to them.Meanwhile, someone gears up in his combat uniform, complete with shotgun, bowie knife, and shotgun.Hmmm, I'll betcha those'll come into play later on...While Sherry showers, her boyfriend Carl unexpectedly makes an early appearance, expecting some pre-dance aqua sex, but as he undresses in the dark bedroom, he's grabbed from behind by someone who plummets a bayonnet into the top of his skull with such force, his eyes go white.

Accupuncture.The prowler(Peter Giuliano) is doing it wrong.
Suddsy Sherry is surprised not by Carl, but the fatigue-garbed killer, who shanks her labonza with a pitchfork, leaving a red rose on her lifeless form.At the dance, Lisa drunkenly cats around with Pam's date, culminating in a clumsy spill on her dress that Pam returns to the dorm to change out of, failing to notice the two corpses in the bathtub.She catches an unnerving glimpse of what looks like a soldier, and is grabbed by Major Chatham during her escape, but she breaks free to find the deputy.Mark investigates the dorm, finding only wheelchair tracks(how about those bodies upstairs?).He reunites with Pam, and the two investigate Chatham's place, finding an old scrapbook revealing Rosemary was the major's daughter killed thirty-five years earlier.They return to the ill-fated dance, warning teacher/chaperone Miss Allison of the lurking prowler, and she advises the boogieing students to hold off on splitting until the perpetrator has been arrested.Lisa, who's decided upon a late night swim, gets kicked in the grill and eats bayonnet-throat-death for her troubles.When Miss Allison looks for her, she gets bayonnet-necked herself.Mark and Pam receive news that a grave at the local cemetery has been desecrated, but when they arrive, it's Rosemary Chatham's grave that's been excavated, and a very dead Lisa has replaced her in the coffin.At the Chatham house, the deputy gets kayed the eff out, leaving Pam to square off against the killer.After a tension-free hide and seek, we discover that the sheriff is the killer, who Pam dispatches with a nuff-gooey shotgun blast to the chin.The next day, she returns to the dorm and stumbles upon Sherry and Carl's bodies in the tub(somebody finally found these dead rascals) and imagines Carl coming to life to reach out for her.Yeah, boo.

The killer gloats as he aerates her throat and that's all she wrote.
The uncanny resemblance of tonight's entry to Mihalka's My Bloody Valentine(1981) is only reinforced by the mere months between both films' theatrical releases.Of course, Valentine is a superior film and a much better ninety minute investment, but that's a no-brainer.I'd only recommend tonight's review to slasher completists and hardcore Savinisti out there.Worth a look, but keep a ready finger on the FFWD button on your collective remotes.Two wops.

Nobody exploded a prop head like Tom Savini in the eighties.Nobody.