SLEEPAWAY CAMP II: UNHAPPY CAMPERS

1988/18/80m

“Angela’s back and she’s bad.”

A.k.a. Nightmare Vacation II (UK video)

Director: Michael A. Simpson / Writer: Fritz Gordon / Cast: Pamela Springsteen, Renee Estevez, Tony Higgins, Brian Patrick Clarke, Susan Marie Snyder, Valerie Hartman, Walter Gotell, Terry Hobbs, Kendall Bean, Julie Murphy, Carol Chambers, Amy Fields, Benji Wilhoite, Walter Franks III, Justin Nowell, Heather Binion, Jason Ehrlich, Carol Martin Vines.

Body Count: 19

Dire-logue: “Here you go, Lea, this’ll keep your tits growing. Maybe you’ll quit looking at mine.”

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It should be wrong to say that any film solely about a series of murders is fun. By design, slasher films were initially scary and horrifying. Some go for the depressing and bleak tone and some simply fail at creating any impression whatsoever. But by 1988 when virtually everything ever had been done with the body count film, it was better to recline and poke fun at yourself. Freddy had been doing it for a while with hit and miss success but meanwhile, at the cheap end of the market, beyond the fishmongers and the gypsy handing out heather, the low rent filmmakers were camping it up with all the colour of a gay pride ticker tape parade – at camp no less.

The original Sleepaway Camp in 1983 is an interesting film, albeit one that trades almost completely on the revelation of who the killer is, like who it really is. It would be twenty years before it generated its own ‘proper’ sequel (which then took another five years to appear on DVD). In the meantime, two back to back made for video sequels were produced and a third aborted in 1992.

Unhappy Campers wastes no time in demonstrating what it’s all about: a campfire recap of ‘the legend of Camp Arawak’ ushers in the now grown-up Angela, working as a counsellor at Camp Rolling Hills where she takes an active dislike to bad kids, which, in her screwy mind covers just about everybody.

Good girl Molly (Renee Estevez) seems to be the only one immune to Angela’s policy of ‘sending home’ those who flaunt their bodies, do drugs, or even talk too much. Interestingly, all the campers are named after actors from the Brat Pack movement in the mid-80s: there’s nasty bitchy Ally, who has lots of sex, horndog jock Rob, hunky Sean, sexy Mare, sassy black girl Demi, pervy brothers Charlie and Emilio and a load of backgrounders who simply pump up the body count.

Angela offs her victims using a variety of weapons from logs to guitar strings and barbecues, even brandishing a chainsaw for an amusing Angela (as Leatherface) vs. Jason vs. Freddy gag. Eventually though, after too many kids are ‘sent home’, she’s fired and goes a bit mad.

Sleepaway Camp II succeeds with its campy bright colours, the uniforms the kids wear and the cliche ridden tour through T&A and bloodletting, all underscored by Angela’s one-liners as she disappointedly lays another teenager to waste for showing their boobs or being mean to another kid. However, there are momentary flashes into the dark: Angela’s dream sequence is kinda freaky and she goes into a short depressed trance and tells Molly that she once drowned a boy who was nasty to her.

All this critique aside, you simply must see it if only just to bear witness to the immortalised crimes against hair:

Quite possibly the most frightening thing about the film.

Springsteen (Bruce’s lil sis) is good in the role and the best thing about the not-so-fun Sleepaway Camp III and Estevez (Emilio’s lil sis) is a perfect fit for goody-goody heroine Molly. Keeping with the sisters-of-the-more-famous schtick, in the next film Melanie Griffith’s sister Tracy played the final girl.

Blurbs-of-interest: director Simpson and Springsteen returned for the third film; Estevez was also in Intruder; Justin Nowell played one of the campers in Friday the 13th Part VI.

GOODNIGHT, GOD BLESS

1987/18/87m

“Your nightmare has arrived…”

A.k.a. Lucifer (UK video)

Director: John Eyres / Writer: Ed Ancoats / Cast: Emma Sutton, Frank Rozelaar Green, Jared Morgan, Jane Price, Alan Rowlands, David Charles, Alister Meikle.

Body Count: 12

Dire-logue: “When they put teeth in your mouth they ruined a perfectly good asshole.”

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Britain in the 80s: new romantics, Thatcher, miners strikes, fluffy perms and shit-feeble attempts to recreate the American slasher film – regardless of the evident talent strike also in force…

Things begin brutally: a priest - face off camera – strolls along past a school playground toying with his Rosary beads while kids toss a ball around beyond. Priest enters, stabs a teacher and then shoots a bunch of kids. Little kids. Like six or seven years old. Like the Mini-Pops. Harsh.

Five kids die and there’s only one eyewitness in Mandy, the little girl who saw the whole thing happen and only survived because the gun ran out of ammo. It’s now up to gorky American detective Green to put a stop to the madness and fall in love with Mandy’s mum (Sutton) along the way.

The killer priest, meanwhile, offs a random nightclubber and a poor dog before returning to get Mandy, seeing nowt wrong in stabbing the clueless coppers who stand in between.

Director Eyres later went on to make Ripper: Letter from Hell, which is about as far removed from this piece of festering turd as you can get. It’s horribly put together, with scenes so padded and inconsequential that the dialogue is often muted in favour of coma-flirting elevator muzak. The romantic sub-plot is lousy: detective dude ‘fesses his love for Mrs Mandy after two dates, to which we are cordially dragged along kicking and screaming. And the police ‘investigation’ looks like The Bill made several casting redundancies.

After battling through enough tedium to put a can of Red Bull to sleep, the killer is cornered and shot out of a window, the sting in the tail being that we get to see his face, which is pretty pointless as it’s already on the cover of the video box.

Do we ever find out who he is? No.

Why did he shoot up the school? Don’t know.

Well, what can you tell me? I miss Caramac.

There’s piss-all resolution and time that could’ve been used setting up potential suspects was instead wasted on the long date sequences, overdubbed by a jaw-droppingly atrocious ballad sung by Eyres himself!

Eject it and say Goodbye, Fuck Off Forever.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD

1988/18/85m

“On Friday the 13th, Jason is back. But this time someone’s waiting.”

Director: John Carl Buechler / Writers: Daryl Haney & Manuel Fidelo / Cast: Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Susan Blu, Terry Kiser, Kane Hodder, Susan Jennifer Sullivan, Elizabeth Kaitan, Diana Barrows, Jon Renfield, Jeff Bennett, Heidi Kozak, Diane Almeida, Craig Thomas, Larry Cox, William Butler.

Body Count: 17

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It’s important for me to emphasize when reviewing Jason films just how important they were to my transition from aimless dork into slasher flick dork back the 90s – y’know, a decade after everyone else was over it. Friday 7 was the third film of the series that I saw, thanks to a Sky Movies mini-marathon over three nights. At the time I was a bit disappointed (after all the original and the half of Jason Lives I’d seen are both a lot better) but as the years have worn on, I’ve found New Love for New Blood, as you will see…

First though, a quick plot overview: a little girl with telekinetic powers called Tina causes the death of her jar-tapping pop at their summer house on the shores of Crystal Lake. Some years later, the now teenage girl (Lincoln) and her frizzy-haired mom return to the house with sleazy shrink Kiser to ‘get to the route of’ Tina’s mental problems.

Next door a gaggle of all-American teens have gathered for a surprise party for a buddy which is thwarted when Tina accidentally resurrects Jason from the watery grave he was sent to at the end of Part VI and a new massacre ensues until she calls upon her diet-Carrie powers to put Jay back where he belongs…

For my squillionth viewing of the film, I decided to take notes as I went. So here, in geek-tastic form, are the highlights of my love affair with The New Blood:

00 min – I love this prologue so much. Best part of the film in many ways. Voiceover by Crazy Ralph… “there’s a legend ’round here…” Good choice clips, slightly off edit during one of Thom Mathews’ lines but otherwise a perfect opener

03 min – what does The New Blood actually mean?

13 min – …what’s that giant train about?

21 min – Starlacon sounds wicked. Though I’m not sure what protozoa is/are

28 min – just where would Ben like his coffee?

31 min – uh…pastels don’t blend with trees

32 min - this is the film known as Fri-gay the 13th for a reason

33-45 min - *too busy thinking about what I could do with Kevin Spirtas to pay attention*

46 min - David was inside the house before – what’s the point of going into the woods, Maddy? Why the hell would David be there?

47 min - funny how anybody who wears glasses in a horror film is almost entirely blind without them

53 min - how many American teenagers’ last words are “stop screwing around!”

62 min - shadow of the boom guy’s arm in the window’s reflection!!!

63 min - now David is possibly in a closet! What’s with all these chicks looking for him in stupid places? Is he a hide and seek champion or something?

63.5 min - yes, Robin, he brought a cat on vacation with him… Dear Lord

66 min - what is that bladed hockey stick thing for?

69 min - Jason has a lot of time to make repeated returns to the toolshed in this one.

71 min – more running around amongst trees

75 min – Tina could perform top notch furniture deliveries – she could re-style your living room in minutes!

79 min - If Jason asked me out…I think I’d accept

83 min - does nobody bother recovering bodies from the lake?

84 min - uhh…that ambulance looks a lot like a hearse

I have a lot of questions obviously…

But I truly enjoy this instalment – it tanked a bit and much of the amazing gore was scissored out by our old pals the MPAA – but I really dig some of the characterisations, it’s as if they tried just a little more to carve out a handful of interesting bit-parters.

Maddy, of course, is my choice favourite. Far more supportable than weepy ol’ Tina – she wanted David’s ass big time but got trounced by Robin. Then there’s sci-fi geek Eddie with his B-movie ideas who got manipulated by the evil Melissa, she of steely glares and Hamptons-ready pearl necklaces (“she’s like that with everybody…except boys.”) Finally Nick, the obvious co-survivor who doesn’t get much to do but tag along but does it with an effervescent beauty. Shame Blair and Lincoln didn’t really get along on set.

There are problems; it doesn’t look very summery and the ending is all kinds of desperate but they’d made it to Part VII, man! How much originality or invention can we realistically expect? In truth, the film probably sucks and is direly predictable, but I love it from prologue to creepy ambu-hearse fade.

Blurbs-of-interest: Buechler has done make-up effects on tons of horror movies and later directed Curse of the 49er. Kane Hodder made his first of four appearances as Jason and has turned in cameo appearances in countless genre flicks. Blair had been in The Hills Have Eyes Part II; Kaitan was in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 and was the skateboarding chick in Silent Madness; Heidi Kozak was in Slumber Party Massacre II (along with Juliette Cummins); Bill Butler was in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and later directed Madhouse.

BERSERKER

1987/18/79m

“It’s too late to run. There’s no time to scream… Just close your eyes and pray to die.”

Director/Writer: Jef Richard / Cast: Joseph Alan Johnson, Greg Dawson, Valerie Sheldon, Rodney Montague, Shannon Engemann, Beth Toussaint, John Goff, George ‘Buck’ Flower.

Body Count: 5

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The video box says that it’s based on “an old Nordic Legend.” Wow… that’s like saying it’s based on an urban legend – you know it means nothing. But given the final product, working the promo for this film couldn’t have been easy…

According to the stock-nerd character, a Berserker is some kind of Viking dude who has a bear mask, eats human flesh and has coincidentally been reincarnated in a descendant to “terrify” a group of “teenagers” who go on a camping trip where an elderly couple were shredded at the start. So far, so The Prey. But somehow even less engaging.

Who is the ancestor likely going to be? Mike, Josh, Kathy, Larry or Pappy Nyquist? I’m going for Josh.

Berserker barely qualifies as a slasher film at all, with a dismal body count and only two of the “teenagers” actually dying – both female, while the complete and utter dickhead guy is spared, as is the nerd, the cry-baby jock and a girl who does or says next to nothing.

Good opportunities to create tension slip right through writer-director Richard’s fingers and the lack of any strong, central heroine loses marks also. 79 minutes never felt so long.

Blurbs-of-interest: Flower turns up here and there in Cheerleader Camp, The Gas Station and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama; Joseph Alan Johnson was not only in the original Slumber Party Massacre but also wrote and starred in Iced! But the true before-they-were-famous star here is Beth Toussaint – and she gets naked!! She supplied the voice of the female caller in Scream 3 and has appeared in numerous soaps and TV shows.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

1984/18/87m

“If Nancy doesn’t wake up screaming, she won’t wake up at all.”

Director/Writer: Wes Craven / Cast: John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, Robert Englund, Lin Shaye, Charles Fleischer, Joseph Whipp.

Body Count: 4

Dire-logue: “I had a hard-on when I woke up this morning, Tina, had your name all over it,” / “There’s four letters in my name Rod, there’s not enough room on your joint for four letters!”

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There are no perfect films (with the possible exception of Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion) in the same way that there are no entirely merit-less films, even more so in the realm of the slasher flick, so it’s a rarity when something excellent comes along. By 1984, I’d imagine most people were sick of masked killers hunting down teenage prey until the last girl saves the day – and then came Wes Craven’s low-budge indie flick with a bizarre little name – shouldn’t it be called Suburban Sleepover Massacre??

Everyone should know the twisted genius at the core of the Elm Street model: Don’t…fall…asleep. It’s perfect in the way that the lore of Jaws was don’t go in the water. Sleep is something even more impossible to avoid and when you’re a hormone-riddled teenager, your parents aren’t going to believe your tales of recurring nightmares about the claw-fingered madman who really is trying to kill you. Mom…he, like, really, really is!

High school BFF’s Tina and Nancy discover they shared the horrible dream of the toasted guy in the Christmas sweater who freaked them well and truly out. Nancy’s boy-toy Glen tells them that’s impossible but, from his reaction when the girls describe their tormentor, he’s had the nightmare too. When Tina is brutally slain during a sleepover party, her dodgy on-off boyfriend Rod is blamed by Nancy’s Lieutenant dad and soon tossed in prison.

While parents and authority figures simply accept that Rod killed Tina, Nancy becomes convinced that it was the man in her dreams and resolves that to avoid becoming his next victim, she needs to stay awake. Cue parental meddling, peer-disbelief and a memorable trip to a sleep clinic and Elm Street‘s Ace is thrown into play – Nancy has to stay awake by any means possible: pills, bad late-night TV and a helluva lotta coffee from the percolator she hides in her room.

There’s no point in me going through the rest of the story – if you’ve not seen it, what the hell are playing at!? I avoided this film until I was 19 thinking it would scare the hell out of me and, curiously, it was during my second viewing that the film left its frightening imprint: this means it rocks!

Heather Langenkampenschultzenfuss is more than your average slasher flick heroine: she is the centre of the film, far more so than Freddy, who became the linchpin of later sequels (in accordance with Robert Englund’s ascent to top billing), and so a lot rests on her shoulders. As the girl next door type, Nancy is nothing but convincing and her descent into the nightmare (both literal and figurative) is the essence of the story, although things trip over themselves somewhat when she rigs her house with countless Home Alone-type traps, has a heart-to-heart with her mother and falls asleep to battle with Freddy inside a twenty minute window.

Johnny Depp’s debut is a much-fussed element: as the leading guy, his job amounts to little more than standing around and looking pretty whilst not taking Nancy’s claims seriously and, eventually, dying. But he does fine in the role although we never get to see into his nightmares, nor that of any other male character as a matter of fact.

Craven’s creative streak peaked here, packing in so many great themes and ideas from the genuinely creepy skipping rope song – which has become an anthem of its own – to the allegorical subtexts of the Vietnam War: apparently Craven was riffing on untold truths which return and kick the younger generation in the ass. Here, the sins of the parents are revisited on their kids.

Very little hasn’t already been written about Elm Street in the quarter century since its release, so why even bother reviewing it? I could’ve just given it five stars and written “Awesome!” next to it. It is a classic, the nightmare imagery still stands (I love the squishy staircase) and only some of the technology and Nancy’s ever-increasing hair mass date it, elements that, compared to the flaws in the remake, are minimal, proving that it never required re-booting at all.

Craven never wanted Freddy to become a franchise and while some of the sequels sucked a bit (5 and 6 I’m looking at you!!) I’m glad it did; of the three major slasher franchises, A Nightmare on Elm Street has the best story arc, bucked in Part 2, but back on track all the way through the 80s films until FK became a caricature and the films drifted further away from the sleep = death goldmine of a premise.

In 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street was made for about $1.8million and a lot of love. In 2010, It’s CG-heavy remake was made for $35million. Which one do you think people will remember in another quarter of a century?

BIG-blurbs-of-interest: Englund returned to his career-making role all the way up to 2003, starring in eight Freddy films and his own syndicated TV series (which was crap, by the way) and has cropped up in many a slasher flick including Behind the Mask, Hatchet, Heartstopper, The Phantom of the Opera and Urban Legend. John Saxon returned for Elm Street 3 and the New Nightmare and was also in The Baby Doll Murders, the original Black Christmas, Tenebrae and Welcome to Spring Break; Heather Langenkamp also came back for 3 and 7. Nick Corri, under his real name Jsu Garcia, was in Teacher’s Pet; Charles Fleischer was in The Back Lot Murders (which also had a cameo from Ken Sagoes from Elm Street 3); Depp has starred in big budget variants From Hell and Sleepy Hollow; Craven also directed Deadly Blessing, The Hills Have Eyes Part II and the Scream trilogy.

BLOOD TRACKS

 1985/18/85m

“The mountains echoed with the screams of terror.”

Director: Mike Jackson [Mats Helge] / Writers: Mike Jackson & Anna Wolf / Cast: Jeff Harding, Naomi Keneda, Michael Fitzpatrick, Brad Powell, Harriet Tobinson, Peter Merrill, Tina Shaw, Frances Kelly, Karina Lee, Helena Jacks.

Body Count: 18

Dire-logue: “Look at their women – evil! They deserve to die.”

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I love 80s nostalgia. Even though I can’t remember much before 1987, I always look back and smile, while listening to We Built This City. However, all rose-tinted hindsight is usually just a front for some black clouds, for us: Thatcher, yuppie-culture, the Sinclair C5 and Spandau Ballet. The legions of straight to video horror films that also belong in this category can also include this dismal Swedish affair, Blood Tracks, which uses one of the lowest form of horror cliches – thrash metal – as the centrepiece for a Hills Have Eyes-rip set in the mountains.

Solid Gold, a bad marriage of Kiss and Aerosmith on a bad hair day, are to shoot their new promo video in the snowy mountains of your stock small town where, forty years earlier, a woman stuck a knife in the back of her abusive husband and fled to the hills with her sons.

These socially-starved freaks, naturally now deformed and homicidal, aren’t too impressed by sheer amount of trespassing hair - likely causing a solar eclipse – and set about doing away with Sold Gold and their entourage, including their airhead dancers/girlfriends after they are stranded by an avalanche, which fails to stop the female cast members prancing around nude.

Why are there no remotely interesting horror movies about heavy metal bands and death? Seriously, none of them are any good. To make things worse, the film has been developed with such a low exposition that it’s near impossible to see what’s happening nor tell any of the characters apart. The band all look the same, as do the dancers and everyone else dies so early on it makes no difference.

Badly dubbed into English, I later read that Solid Gold were, in reality, a real life band called Easy Action! I wonder if even they still possess a copy of this turkey.

I can forgive Sweden for this faux pas; they gave us Volvo’s, ABBA, Roxette and decent Eurovision entries most years. I expect multiple copies of Blood Tracks are stacked up in a sauna somewhere…

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES

1986/18/83m

“Nothing this evil ever dies.”

Director/Writer: Tom McLoughlin / Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Kerry Noonan, Renee Jones, Tom Fridley, Darcy DeMoss, CJ Graham, Vincent Guastaferro, Ron Palillo.

Body Count: 18

Dire-logue: “Don’t piss me off, Junior, or I will repaint this office with your brains!”

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The general rule of sequels – not least horror sequels – is that they get progressively worse. Although, it’s also worth pointing out that the more you make, the more likely it is that as quality spirals, there’ll be a pleasant bump along the way. Of course, loving slasher films means that I don’t subscribe to either of these theories and will watch any Revenge of, Return of, Rise of, Re-Return of sequel going, no matter what numerical suffix it has.

Friday the 13th Part VI is a case in point of the multi-sequel that takes its rinse-and-repeat formula and manages to make familiar territory interesting, thanks to director/scribe Tom McLoughlin’s energetic script, which was intended to feature an apt thirteen murders (extended to accommodate studio wishes and probably pad out the running time – it’s the shortest Friday).

Sometime after the events of A New Beginning, Tommy Jarvis (this time played by Thom Mathews), drives to Crystal Lake, now re-named Forest Green, to incinerate Jason’s corpse in an attempt to gain closure on his awful past. His nervous friend Hawes tags along to offer words of discouragement as a familiar storm blows in. In a fit of fury, Tommy jabs Jason’s corpse (strangely un-cremated as we were told in Part V) with a steel pole that is subsequently struck by lightning, reanimating the J-man yet again!

With his buddy becoming Jason’s first victim in X number of years, Tommy races into town to alert the cops and instantly makes an enemy of no-shit Sheriff Garris, who locks him away, assuming the boy is just acting out on his traumatic psychosis. Meanwhile, Jason takes out a few more people, including some dorky paintballing execs and the head counsellors of the recently re-opened Camp Crystal Lake, I mean, Camp Forest Green.

Yep, camp is back on and this time there are even kids about! This is one element that richly enhances the likeability of Jason Lives. While Parts 1 and 2 were set at camp, neither were operating and, summer camp is what Friday the 13th is all about. Trees, cabins, pontoons and open fires – it’s all here.

It just so happens that one of the four remaining counsellors is the Sheriff’s daughter Megan, who, unlike pop, takes an instant liking to Tommy, who is released and flees back to the cemetery to try and prove that Jason has risen, only to find the grave covered up, albeit now containing Tommy’s friend Hawes. Garris ejects Tommy from town and warns him to stay away permanently while Jason collects additional victims on his way back to the camp.

The murders are discovered and blamed on Tommy, who joins forces with Megan to entrap Jason and send him back to the bottom of Crystal Lake where he belongs. Once Jay finally encounters some horny teenagers, things kick in to gear. There are some creative murders and back to basics stalking sequences and, although the bloodletting is comic-styled and of reduced effect (despite still being cut down), the film plays well to its simplified approach.

Case in point is with the murders of counsellors Sissy and Paula. Jason is lurking around camp, scaring some of the little kids who inadvertently wake up and see him. We know he’s there. They’re paranoid that something’s up… They play a card game called ‘Camp Blood’… After Sissy disappears (snatched out of the window and beheaded), one of the campers discovers a bloody machete and brings it to Paula, who escorts her back to bed and returns to her own cabin to find that the machete has vanished and the phone is out… Then the door swings open…

It’s an excellently directed scene featuring a sympathetic character versus the boogeyman.

Obviously, Tommy and Megan return to save the kids and fight Jason, the Sheriff learns the truth and an Alice Cooper rocker plays out over the credits: He’s back! The man behind the mask! One of several Cooper songs to feature on the soundtrack.

Jason Lives is the (intentionally) funniest film of the series; wisely avoiding out and out parody - save for the ‘Jason does James Bond’ opening – and opting for a classic gothic feel to its horror opus: floating mists, the lightning storm, the creepy cemetery and the shadowy trees. Oddly, it’s about the one entry to feature no nudity but you’d hardly notice, even during the requisite sex scene. The characters are drawn much more sharply than other instalments, where they exist only to die gruesomely. McLoughlin largely avoids stereotypes, squeezing nice attributes out of even the bit-parters, although Cooke’s heroine isn’t ultimately successful in her role.

My third favourite of the series after the original two, things went serious again for The New Blood as theatrical grosses dipped further. But this one is 80′s slasher perfection: big hair, pop metal, and a horror icon.

Blurbs-of-interest: Tom Fridley was in Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge; Darcy DeMoss was in Return to Horror High.