The Prowler (1981)

There's so much to love about the look of the killer in Joseph Zito's The Prowler. It was the artwork that initially caught my eye; so greasy-looking, so 80s!

(I was later to learn the reason behind the sheen on everything is because this is taken from an actual shot in the film, where a woman is being killed in the pool, so everything's wet).

Anyway, the exploitation-y artwork; the WW2 uniform; the startling, no face = no humanity look of the Prowler himself... 

Something SO unsettling about his darkness against the pink of the walls!

...I was INTO this film about a mysterious military-clad figure, stalking and slashing its way through a graduation party. I was excited to watch it.

So I don't know if it was the wine I'd had, or the film itself's fault... or maybe a combination of both, but when I did watch it, I very nearly fell asleep. A couple of times.

To put it bluntly, the problem with The Prowler is the downtime between kills. There's no tension, and not too much in the way of engaging plot development either. It's all pretty boring until we see him starting to stalk another victim, and then things start to get interesting.

And the kills themselves? Coming courtesy of Tom Savini, they are by far the best thing to come out of this. Knives plunge into neck meat, eyes roll back to white, heads explode...! They are chilling, and they are incredibly impressive for 1981.

Bless you, Tom, and all of the work you have blessed this genre with. We're lucky to have you!

In conclusion: if you can make it through the slumps, the death scenes are worth sticking around for. 

The Funhouse (1981)

Final Girl Film Club time. It's been way too long since I got involved in this.

Grah... Disappointed!

After a promising first sequence involving a showering girl being stalked all POV style, this falls into the old trap of taking too damn long to get going. The Funhouse is 96min, thirty of which are taken up with the main characters simply wandering around the carnival. It's scene setting, sure, but it's to the extent of being bor-ring.

Favourite thing about the film was these moments:

What the...?

When we finally do get inside the funhouse itself, things improve a little, with some fairly creepy anamatronics and nice use of lighting.

The foursome pair off for some heavy petting but are interrupted by overhearing - and upon investigation, witnessing - a commotion which results in murder. Their presence is discovered and a deformed carnival worker is dispatched to take care of them by any means.

Obviously it's here the film is at its best. There's some nice work with the mannequins.

Ultimately however, the characters were either annoying or weak, so their being in peril didn't mean much.

The opening credits suggest some effed up shit involving creepy motorised dummies. I am sorry to report that we're subjected to too much of the bad acting kind of dummy, as opposed to anything else.

You laugh it up all you want love, we shan't be meeting again.

Halloween II (1981).

Having now seen all of the (original) Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street films, it's time to get to work on Halloween.

Taking place directly after the first, Halloween II is set almost exclusively in the local hospital Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to.

A very quiet, understaffed hospital, considering everything that has just happened...?

Michael continues to stalk Laurie and kill anyone unlucky enough to cross his path, while Dr. Loomis trails behind until the finale. So, more of the same and nothing remarkable from plot or actors here.

There are some interesting (though logistically shady) kills, I suppose. Boiling a woman's face off:

Bleeding a nurse to death:

He slips and bangs his head. Such a hero.

These are kind of fun to watch as they are being set up, but that's about it.

The strength of Halloween II then, even if in the grand world of horror, it's only equivalent to kitten-strength, is that every so often this movie seems to - almost accidentally - present a really satisfyingly crafted shot.

My favourites were plays with perspective, and the "he's behind you!" work.

We also have Laurie cornered in an elevator. I just love the colours in this:

Michael, having been shot in the face, crying bitter bloody tears. Then being set on fire.

And that is what I took away from this second installment. It's dull but for occasional eye candy.

Next up, Halloween III: Season of the Witch!

That's a pretty special trailer right there.

Dead and Buried (1981).

Was Dead and Buried adapted from a short story? It certainly plays out like it. Despite being a slow burner it is incredibly well paced, with nothing extraneous added at all.

The plot is one we are used to: a lone person in a community feels something is amiss and sets about trying to investigate it, only for everyone to doubt and dismiss him and his "crazy ideas". Is he insane? Is everyone else insane? Could his schoolteacher wife (the gorgeous Melody Anderson) possibly have anything to do with all of this?

The character who is doing a lot of running around and confused face rubbing is Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino).

We follow him from one gruesome murder scene to another in the previously sleepy town of Potters Bluff (one minor complaint is why the Sheriff has only just noticed all the weirdness, considering it seems to have been going on for some time with him living there). In any case, we watch as he learns more and more startling things about certain townsfolk.

It's a tightly plotted tale, and it builds nicely until the final act when Sheriff Gillis finally learns the whole macabre truth. The film ends on his screaming.

Though not a "shocker" by any means this film grew on me the more I thought about it. Given that it is 28 years old (it was released the year I was born, aww) it doesn't show its age as much as many films of that era. This is mostly due to the fact that Potters Bluff seems stuck in a bit of a time warp itself; the local waitress has a 1940s hairstyle and the town mortician listens to big band music while he works. This all sounds very twee, but it gives the film an air of the unreal and makes it even spookier. We aren't distracted by bad 80s hair and stone washed jeans here - we're just creeped out by how strangely placid everyone is and, if I'm honest, by the sight of a young Robert Englund.

The two best things about this film are a) the growing sense of dread as the Sheriff is given reasons to suspect that his town is seriously fucked up, and b) Stan Winston's special effects.

In fact, Stan Winston blew me away. Again. But in a totally different way to how his work on Pumpkinhead did. Listen, I know I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it took the trivia section on IMDb to tell me that someone I assumed to be an actor in one scene, was in actual fact a life size animatronic creation of Winston's. Amazing. I mean, the guy is a burns victim in a full body cast, so you expect him to be moving a little awkwardly... but this thing is just so intensely creepy. Winston you genius-like bastard.

Ouch!

Culling the trivia page again, I just have to mention my relief at learning that the one really lame effect in this movie was nothing to do with Winston.

It involves a doctor being killed by acid being pumped into his head (heh, cool) and the resulting mess is... well, a mess.

Horrible in that it's a big screaming rubber face - but not at all realistic, I think you'll agree.

As IMDb states:

...but they could not get Winston back to off the doctor, so another FX team was used on that one sub-par effect.

The effects team who created the "dissolving head" for Doc's murder mentioned in an interview that the director had originally told them that he wanted to do the scene in one unbroken shot, meaning they had to build a head that was both convincing and also would "melt" the way they wanted it to. They lamented the fact that, while they did the best they could with what they had, the director ended up using a cutaway shot anyway, which would have given them the opportunity to make the scene much more realistic.

I don't know who I feel more sorry for; Winston for not getting to play with a liquefying head, or the poor saps who had to stand in for such a talent for one literally lousy effect.

But no matter, what Winston does do, he does spectacularly. There is one scene where Dobbs, the mortician, is shown to slowly rebuild a murdered hitchhiker's smashed in head. I have to wonder if the hands featured in it are actually Winston's.

It is a beautifully creepy montage, actually very representative of the film as a whole in its stillness and uncomfortable, under-your-skin type of horror.

This isn't a film to put the fear of god into you - but in a way it is much worse. It stays with you and the next time you enter a dimly lit room, or see someone approaching in the street at dusk, your mind flits back to Potters Bluff and its terrible secrets. That type of horror is far scarier than cheap jump-scares. This little gem will have you thinking about it as you wait for sleep to come. Good stuff.