Month: May 2008

 

 Julie Wells (a pre-PSYCHO II MEG TILLY) is sick of being known as a "pansy," so much so that she's willing to do anything to join a gang called "The Sisters." This group consists of a mere three girls, but since one of them is so cool that she perpetually sucks on a toothbrush and another is none other than sexy Muppet songstress/video vixen E.G. DAILY (BAD DREAMS) one can't blame her for wanting to join their illustrious ranks. Throw in a free satin jacket with "The Sisters" embroidered on the back in punky lightening bolt letters and you have an offer that's nearly impossible to refuse (at least back in 1983). Too bad the leader of the group secretly hates Julie's goody-two-shoe guts for dating her ex-beau and plans to make her initiation a living hell. Besides forcing the determined Julie to spend the night in a nearby mausoleum, The Sisters also decide that a few crazy-making pranks are in order involving rubber hands, green slime and goofy Halloween masks. What none of the girls realize is that an evil "psychic vampire" was recently shelved in the marble building and that the wattage in his psychic bulb is not yet entirely depleted. The murderous psychic psycho "Raymar" decides to start pulling his own pranks in order to scare the lot of them, subsequently draining their life force and allowing him to live once more. This involves shaking up TOM BURMAN flavored corpses and puppeteering them around the enclosed space in order to achieve the highest level of fright. This PG-rated affair may be low on body count (unless you count the five chicks shoved in Raymar's apartment closet), but it is high on sweetly ghoulish chills and major eighties nostalgia. TILLY hops the stepping stones required with ease and it's lamentable she didn't spend more time in the final girl zone. Too much time is spent involving a subplot with ADAM WEST and Raymar's also psychic daughter, and the shots of Raymar with lightening coming out of his eyes goes from gratuitous to mind numbing fast, but I can't think of any other film from this era that is so unabashedly non-mean spirited. Like an after-school special speckled with maggot infested corpses, ONE DARK NIGHT spices its high corn dose with a final course of gratifying necro-action that, to this day, stands as highly original. It's not too surprising that director TOM McLOUGHLIN went on to direct one of the more entertaining and jovial of the FRIDAY THE 13TH franchise, PART 6: JASON LIVES. No, these are not pictures from the coolest art installation ever; they are shots from ONE DARK NIGHT illustrating the incredible psychic power of Raymar!        

Based on a "posthumous collaboration" between H.P. LOVECRAFT and AUGUST DERLETH, 1967's THE SHUTTERED ROOM gained mucho frequent frightener miles during repeated television airings in the seventies. Susannah Kelton (CAROL LYNLEY) and her husband Mike (GIG YOUNG) return to her recently inherited childhood home on Dunwich Island in hopes that the property can be used as a summer retreat. It's clear upon their arrival that the local yokels are not too keen on city folk, as they try to ward the couple off with tales of an ancient curse and stories of a demon that's fond of burning one's eyes out. The native islander's inhospitality eventually expands to include unneighborly rape attempts on young LYNLEY whenever she's left alone. The biggest bully in the bunch is a swaggering, contorted cousin doing a swishy MARLON BRANDO impersonation named Ethan (OLIVER REED). Luckily, long in the tooth Hubby GIG is quick with cornball karate moves and is able to extinguish most of these pre-STRAW DOGS advances. The dwelling in question , which we really do not get to spend enough time in, is an ominous, genuinely spooky and sufficiently LOVECRAFT-IAN looking beast. The creaky witch lighthouse of old Aunt Agatha (FLORA ROBSON) is equally convincing in helping the U.K surroundings masquerade as New England. Unfortunately, the mostly British cast (some badly dubbed) don't fare quite as well. DAVID GREENE's direction offers some disturbing P.O.V. shots of whatever is hiding in the wings ready to pounce and the unlikely jazz score works well to establish a tone of near constant disorientation. LOVECRAFT's vision (even his questionable posthumous vision) is notoriously hard to pull off on screen (STUART GORDON excepted). THE SHUTTERED ROOM doesn't do much to change that theory and it's not because all the ingredients are not in place and ready to go. Hanging out with the townies while we should be investigating the titular room is eventually wearing. By the time the shock climax is unwrapped, viewers can be forgiven if they forgot they were watching a horror film at all. Although the entire affair is begging to be streamlined (could the shorter edit BLOOD ISLAND be an improvement?), THE SHUTTERED ROOM is offbeat and strange enough that it's reputation to unnerve is not that hard to fathom.

• Road skiing leads to barbed wire wipe out
• One-eyed welder on the welcoming committee
• Reed's obscene jeans
• Aunt Agatha's crazy-faced bird
• Hiding in the dollhouse
• Teddy bear torch! Best invention ever!