WITHOUT WARNING (1980)

THE CARD: 

Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Tarah Nutter, Christopher S. Nelson, Lynn Theel, Cameron Mitchell, Neville Brand, David Caruso, Larry Storch, Darby Hinton, and Kevin Peter Predator Harry Alien Hall. 

Bonus Match: Dean Cundey cinematography.

Please Note: Here, there be SPOILERS.

THE ANGLE: 

A hunter (Mitchell) wanders the woods and tries to either man-up his hippy son Randy (Hinton) with some hunting or murder him.  Seriously, he points the rifle at the guy’s head when he’s not looking and fantasizes about blowing it off.  Ah, 70s parenting.  Unfortunately, before the attaining of masculinity through skinning skewy wabbits can begin, the old man gets offed by a bloodsucking flying pancake.

Easy on the pus syrup, please.

And soon flower-power Randy ends up an alien pancake breakfast as well.

Daddy didn't love my lazy eye-hole!

Deadly creatures who can attack at will and suck the live out of you are infesting the lake.  What do we do? Get laid, of course!  Sorta-kinda teens Greg (Nelson), his buddy Tom (Caruso), Tom’s squeeze Beth (Theel) and sweetie pie Sandy (Nutter) decide to hit the lake and hop into an airtight junky serial killer vehicle which in those days were known as “vans”.  And yes, seriously it’s that David Caruso in an early role.

DISCLAIMER: No sunglasses were dramatically removed in the making of this film.

They stop for gas at the perfunctory rural creepy gas station where they are treated to a perfectly normal and pleasant encounter and conversation with locals Sarge (Landau) and Joe (Palance) who are normal and do not do un-normal things at all.  

See? Normal.

Perfectly, um, normal.

Bugged-eyed and close to tears, Joe warns them about the dangers at the lake and urges them not to go. They take his advice thoughtfully and cautiously with the utmost concern for one another’s safety.  Once they arrive at the lake, Tom and Beth get to bangin’, while the awkward Greg gets to know the pretty and soft Sandy.  Meanwhile, a Scout Leader (Storch) hikes around the lake with his rowdy and sarcastic Cub Scout troop.

They all received an "F". (Thank you! Thank you!)

So yeah then Storch gets a toothy flying omelet up the keister and suddenly Sandy and Greg can’t find Tom and Beth, that is until they stumble across their bodies strung up like beef hides in a nearby shack.

Ready to tenderize!

There is cause for concern. So our young heroes rush back to the creepy gas station which is now a creepy bar where the locals gape in disbelief at their story.  Well, except for Joe and Sarge.  

And he'll have to explain those pants. (Thank you!)

Loony Sarge thinks it’s an alien invasion and that Sandy and Greg are part of the conspiracy.  Joe is more grounded in his whiskey-soaked presumptions.  He merely believes that there is something out there hunting people down and that it is using the gut-sucking flesh Frisbees to paralyze its prey.  And he knows how to stop them and it.

Believe it, or ... well, you know.

It’s 1980.  There are no cell phones, Lyft cabs, #HolyShitAliens hashtags, or Abrams computer lens-flares to help.  Hell, Men At Work won’t break out in the states for another year.  So it’s up to crazy hobo Sarge, vaguely Matthew Star-ish Greg, likeable twist-knot-top-attired Sandy, and the very normal Joe to stand up to the menace from the stars that came … hence the title. 

All I can tell you is that the line “Push the plunger, Sandy!” will haunt you.

THE FINISHER:

Probably all you need to know about director Greydon Clark (Uninvited) and Without Warning can be found in his tellingly-titled book On the Cheap which I am plugging here for no reason.  Really.  I’ve been wanting to watch Without Warning since I saw the trailer at the drive-in back in the days when you didn’t need to use Wikipedia to look up “drive-in”.  (Seriously, if you don’t know what a drive-in is, why are you even reading this?  Also, you can read?).  I kid.  The trailer scared the baby luchador crap of out me. Check out the trailer here.  Cool, huh?  Why don’t they make trailers like that anymore?  Why are there no more drive-ins?  What is Wikipedia?  Forgive an old man.  Like most of director Clark’s horror movies, Without Warning runs a tad over 100 minutes, has a creepy atmosphere provided by 80s ubiquitous cinematographer Cundey (Back to the Futures), but unfortunately is padded with slow-paced scenes.  The gore is standard to pretty good but doesn't exceed beyond the frightful sight of burnt cinnamon buns oozing boogers.  But what’s very much remarkable about the movie is the cast.  Firstly, it features the Olivier of monster actors, he late great Kevin Peter Hall who portrays the creature who controls the killer flying bloodsuckers like an outer space ninja. Here’s a shot of the man in action:

ACTING!

Hall would go on to play Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, the title character in Monster in the Closet, and, of course, Predators in both Predator and Predator II. Then you have the team of Landau and Palance who ham it up like Karloff and Lugosi only without the mutual hatred or threats of sniffing shit. They would next team up in the remarkable Jack Sholder movie Alone in the Dark (1982) with Donald Pleasance and Dwight Schultz of A-Team fame. Please see that one as well.  The movie also features a cast of stars from a range of my favorite movies including Theel (Humanoids from the Deep), Ralph Meeker (Paths of Glory), and Neville Brand (Riot in Cell Block 11). By the way, you can see Without Warning for free here.  Oh wait, that is the 1994 CBS TV about a fake newscast about meteor heading for Earth which was shown on Halloween night that year. You can see that one, but I think you will have more fun watching Greydon Clark’s Without Warning, which I did. 

EL T’S HORROR MARATHON ADVICE:

If you’re doing a Halloween marathon, I would schedule this one in the middle, especially if you have hungry sleepyheads with short attention spans over.  The long stretches of padded scenes will allow your guests to get up and stretch themselves.  Also, serve pancakes with butterscotch pudding and raspberry jam.

You'll know why.

DREAMANIAC (1986)

THE CARD:

Thomas “No Other Credits” Bern, Kim “Loads of Porn” McKamy, Sylvia Summers, Lauren “Saturday the 14th Strikes Back” Peterson, Cynthia Crass, and Michael “Not The Hills Street Blues One” Warren. 

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Adam (Thomas Bern) is a Def Leppard fan who has a randy girlfriend (McKamy, who later became porn star Ashlyn Gere and who's probably the best actress in this movie), writes heavy metal songs, smokes pot, and watches Godzilla movies.  So far he’s every dude I know.  He also has an unhealthy interest in the black arts and experiments with occult practices which give him nightmares, visions of blood-soaked violence, and an attic infected with seductive female ghosts.  

Time to call Orkin.

His girlfriend Pat urges him to get out more often and actually interact with people.  So she asks him to help throw a party for her sister Jodi (Peterson) who’s trying to impress bitchy rich girl Frances (Crass) to get her into a sorority. The party guests arrive in a parade of 80s archetypes including Awkward Valley Girl, Feather-Haired Stud Turd, and …

Ahhhh!  The Devil!

Oh, it’s just Goofball 80s Guy.  AHHHHHH!  GOOFBALL 80S GUY!!!!

During the party, we’re treated to such immortal lines such as “Mondo bad planning, Jody.  Jeez!”, “AB Positive, that’s my favorite type! (AWKWARD PAUSE). I’m Pre-Med.”, and my fave “I don’t know much about heavy metal. I mean, I’m into Lionel Ritchie.” Meanwhile, Adam continues to be plagued by visions of the ghost woman and in the hopes that she will bring him the success in shitty songwriting he so desires, he performs a ritual to give her new life.

Also, a napkin.

But Adam isn't prepared for the fatal truth that Ghost Girl is actually a succubus, a female demon with a hunger for human flesh and suffering.

And artsy fartsy poses.

Lily the Succubus (Summers) crashes the party with hunky jerk Ace (Warren) and proceeds to smoke the party guests, decorate the walls with brains, and spike the punch with terror.

How not to start a career in party planning.

In the aftermath, Pat and Jodi are last ones standing and must face the horror of an unstoppable she-demon and the wrath of a crazed hair metal fan!

"Where’s my Pyromania LP?!!!"

THE FINISHER:

Director David DeCoteau, a protégé of B-movie legends Roger Corman and Richard Band, is a “friend” of mine on Facebook.  I’m not sure if he reads his news feed, monitors posts, tags, or mentions of himself, or even realizes he has an FB account, but I worry that he’ll read this measly review of his early effort Dreamaniac.  Beyond personal favorites Dr. Alien and Nightmare Sisters, I’m not well-versed in his filmography but I do know he continually demonstrates his productivity with a long line of director credits spanning a career of over twenty years.  And I feel bad trashing one of his works as he’s one of the most entertaining contributors to Joe Dante’s wonderful Trailers from Hell website.  But since you are the only person who reads this blog, I feel safe.  Hinting at a Freddy Krueger-esque outing with a poster that promises a Clint Howard appearance as a dream killer (see above), Dreamaniac is a shot-on-video piece of poop drenched in the stink of terrible acting, horrendously delivered jokes, high-school drama class sound design, and a total lack of suspense, gore, or coherence.  Whew, got that out.  But, there may be a silver lining somewhere beneath the torn script pages, non-functioning microphones, and razor-blades dusty with coke. DeCoteau breaks some ground here with a generous helping of male nudity and homo-eroticism  something rare to virtually unheard of in 80s teen horror flicks, hell, even now.  I’m not saying wieners and white butts saved the movie but we do see here the director’s brave early effort to create a space in horror for other audiences.  But any groundbreaking is soon shot to shit by a terrible, seemingly tacked-on ending that puts Dreamaniac into Jacob’s Ladder territory where we discover that somewhere down the line, the movie’s original title may have been Succubus.  Well, they got the “suc” part right.

I’m ready for your unfriending, Mr. DeCoteau.

THE BRAIN (1988)

THE CARD:

Tom “Twice Dead” Bresnahan, Cynthia “Pin” Preston, David “Re-Animator” Gale, and the pissy-est Madball you’ve ever seen.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Dr. Blake (Gale) hosts the hottest talk show in the history of whatever city this movie is set and is also the head of the Psychological Research Institute (PRI), a loony bin which is hitting great strides making the loony less loony.  Every parent in town stops what they’re doing to tune in to Independent Thinking where Blake spouts an endless tirade of 80s New Age nonsense.

Look out, Steve Gelder!

Unfortunately, the ratings aren't the only thing that’s sky-high in this burg.  An increasing number of gruesome murders and suicides are plaguing the city as teens are killing folks and themselves after experiencing hallucinations of bursting tentacles from bedroom walls, lecherous tongues seeking young cheeks to smooch, and cute toys getting upset.

Lies make Teddy Ruxpin cry.

Meanwhile, high school troublemaker James (Bresnahan) is in deep shit for exploding the school’s crappers in a prank gone awry, irking overly concerned girlfriend Janet (Preston).  The principal and his parents agree to send James to PRI for psychological treatment where, after a few interactions with the resident nutballs, he is greeted by Blake himself.  After James fails a few visual tests, Blake grows alarmingly concerned about the young man.  But he gets antsy, is freaked out by hallucinations triggered by the tests, and attempts to escape.  To his horror, he discovers Blake’s secret: a giant alien brain is sending psychic messages to humans via the TV show signal and the psych tests which are scrambling their brains!

Forget Obamacare, prepare for Cthulhucare!

James hits the road where he teams up with Janet and evades the police, Blake’s nurse goon, and every blood-soaked brain-damaged psycho in town.  Concerned with James' invulnerability to the signals, The Brain demands his capture via a sophisticated Brain-to-computer interface.

Jeepers, even evil alien brains are into the sexting thing.

As the Independent Thinking show goes national, the Brain prepares for its influence to be spread on a global scale.  That’s a lot of teen-licking.  The more people it reaches, the bigger it grows.  Its psychic tentacles begin to circle around James and Janet who infiltrate the TV studio where the national show will be broadcast and it will take immense self-control, a will of legend, and a shitload of Tylenol to stop it.

But first, a snack.

THE FINISHER:

The Brain is a largely forgotten 80s creature feature whose trailer promises wall-to-wall gore but rarely delivers.  After a fairly well-paced start with a crazy delirium–laden kill and subsequent holiday-themed suicide, a Cronenberg-ish mental hospital sequence, and an eerie, crunchy introduction to the title character, the movie loses steam in the second act which degenerates into a foot race and car chase through a rural, perpetually overcast Canadian town.  We never find out where the Brain came from, what its ultimate purpose will be, or how the hell it’s able to slither around warehouse so silently.  Campy and not so well acted, most movie fans would probably conclude that the deserves its forgotten status.  But The Brain is kind of a hidden gem, a movie that pretty much sums up why I, as a horror fan, still love to track down previously unseen movies.  It’s the little touches that count and inspire – the horny teen angst and corny rebellion, the evil psychiatrist shtick, and kill sequences crafted by a madman.  And you have Canadian horror legend David Gale hamming it fittingly and delivering a hell of a stinger early in the film.  Plus, there’s a classic era-appropriate synthesizer score by Paul Zaza whose name is impossibly cool.  “Hello, I’m Tremendo Zaza.  Oh, so you would like to go bed with me?  So do your three best friends?  Okay, I guess.” Anyway, in the end, the movie is saved by the elements mentioned above and fabulous monster design which is chillingly creepy, recalling some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare mating with an oversized Necronomicon who had just been banged by a Madball.

Smile and say hello to the folks, Brain.  “Hello folks!”

THE 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN 2012

Coming Monday!!! Ghost Rats! Giant Heads! Redhead Loving Monsters! Murderous Vegetables Not Named Patrick!  Hell yeah, it's the 31 Days of Halloween!  Welcome, welcome.

-El T.

HACK O’LANTERN (1988)

THE CARD:

Hy “Quack” Pyke, Gregory Scott “Cracked” Cummins, Bryson “Brat” Gerard, Katina “Whacked” Garner, Carla “Good in Sack” Baron, Larry “Smacked” Coven, Jeff “Lacks” Brown, and Patricia “Snack” Christie.  

More details here.

THE ANGLE: 

Pumpkin-crazy Grandpa (Pyke) is very close to his grandson Tommy (Gerard), perhaps a little too close.  In fact, Grandpa damn near covets little Tommy with slobber as he has grand plan for the future in which the boy will play a very powerful, pivotal role.

My guess as the bad guy in every teen sex comedy.

But Mom (Garner) doesn’t want Tommy or his brother Roger (Brown) and sister Vera (Baron) to have anything to do with weird old Grandpa, especially since the old coot murdered their father on Halloween night.  And it turns out the elderly rascal is actually the leader of the local Satanist group and they want Tommy to be the next leader when he comes of age.

PentagramPa.

Years pass in the family's crummy town and while Roger grows up to be a Sheriff’s Deputy and Vera blossoms into a beautiful young lady, Tommy (Cummins, aka Mac’s Dad on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) alienates himself from the family and becomes a dark, brooding presence in the household.

That or he was rejected at the Warriors audition.

Mom worries day and night about Tommy, that is, when she’s not obsessing over her dead husband who she speaks to in pumpkin form.

The pumpkin is the most well-rounded character in the picture.  (HY-UCK!)

And Mom has plenty reason to worry about sullen Tommy who works out constantly, hangs out with tattooed Annie Lennox clones, and has music video nightmares with lame 80s hair bands.  Said Night Flight-influenced visions feature: 

Evil women with burning eyes that shoot out shrunken heads, castrating concubines, and … this guy.

Under his Grandpa’s control, Tommy matured aware of his destiny which will be fulfilled this particular Halloween night.  But while everyone else is preparing for a night of ghoulish fun, a mysterious figure in a devil costume is stalking the town.

“Well, it was either this, Medusa, Leatherface, or Glenn Beck.”

And the figure starts offing local post-coital teens that are linked to either Tommy or his family.

“Sweet Dreams are NOT made of this!”

“Well, it was either this or gonorrhea.”

But suddenly our attention shifts from horrific mayhem to Vera’s attempts to lose her virginity during lunchtime, Grandpa’s obsession with affordable Black Mass candles, and Roger’s attempts to bed Vera’s friends on top of fresh graves.  (No, really.)  Fortunately, our story shifts back to horrific high-gear when the town Halloween party begins and this guy… 

this fucking guy

... performs the worst stand-up routine in the history of movies.  I mean, you would’ve thought that a bizarre music video and a context-less stand-up routine both showing up in a movie would be awesome in a random kind of way, but they aren’t. Witness this aching sequence here, if you dare. Anyway, while Grandpa and Tommy prepare for the ceremony that will make him the Devil’s Son and the body count shoots to the harvest moon, Roger is hot on their Satanic tracks and when all is said and done, the identity of the Devil Killer will shock you in a twisted conclusion soaked in blooooood!!!

Eh, whatever.  It was the Mom.

THE FINISHER:

Hack O’Lantern, aka Halloween Night, made on the uber-cheap, cast with porn stars, featuring zero scares, and lacking any coherence, consistency, or sense is actually the perfect movie for Halloween Night.  That is, if you spend Halloween night ripping your wrists open with a pen knife while weeping on the can.  At times the movie feels like it was made by Christians telling a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of Satanism and bloody sacrifice, but there’s little decidedly Christian about full-frontal nude scenes, neck-chopping, and hyperventilating in place of acting.  All japes aside, the movie is a friggin’ hoot, despite the long periods of nothing happening, and cinema masochists and nostalgic pop culture geeks will bask in the dated awfulness of references to hair bands, beer posters, and necrophilia.  But that guy, that fucking guy and his stand-up routine that I mention above.  What the fuck.  What the fucking fuck.  Hack O’Lantern isn’t a bag of treats but it does trick you into laughing out loud at times.  And that beats a razor blade in the Krispie treats any day.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

UNINVITED (1988)

THE CARD:

George “Tubby Tabby” Kennedy, Alex “Hairwolf” Kord, Clu “Pickled Pyewacket” Gulager, Toni “Unsinkable Sammy” Hudson, Clare “Scatnip” Carey, Shari “Feline Fine” Shattuck, Rob “Milo” Estes, Eric “Cat Nickname” Lawson, and Giselle, the Wonder Kitty from Hell.

More details here.

THE ANGLE:

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  Spring Break paradise for horny dorks or Mecca of genetic engineering? Well a little of both, at least in 1988.  A top secret lab protected by the worst security guards and the most inept scientists this side of an iPhone prototype closet allow an experimental animal to escape the test facility.  The liberated animal in question is a very special cat with a dangerous power.

A face only an epidemiologist could love.

The cat is host to a ferocious parasite that can exit its mouth and attack anything that threatens its with bites and scratches from its puppet arms.  Plus, it can spread a deadly contagion that kills within minutes.  Also, it’s particularly fond of chubby truck drivers.  

"I CAN HAZ FAT GUY?"

Meanwhile, a crooked businessman Walter Graham (Cord) and his henchmen Mike (Kennedy) and Albert (Gulager) plan a quick getaway on a yacht to the Cayman Islands to secure some ill-gotten millions out of a bank and then go on the lam.

A triumvirate of B-movie brilliance: Killer Cord, Clu doing Jim Bakker shtick, and George lying down.  Again.

Walter conceives a well-thought out plan to invite random sunning bimbos Bobbie (Carey) and Suzanne (Shattuck) along so as to “not attract attention”.

Not even a half-sandwich between the two.

To further not attract attention, Walter allows the gals to bring along arbitrarily selected Spring Breakers Corey (Estes), Martin (Larson) and some other guy whose name I didn’t catch.

This guy is uninvited even to places he's been invited. Check out the disgusting hickey.  

And the plan comes full circle in its perfection when Suzanne finds the mutated kitty at the marina and brings it onboard as well.  This ticks off the yacht’s captain Rachel (Hudson) who’s got some past heat with Walter and his dirty dealings.  Predictably, Mike hates the kids, Albert glugs wine and pines for Tammy Faye while Walter puts the move on the cuties.

“Yup, Jan-Michael Vincent and I are this close.”

So the cat starts offing everyone onboard, spreading the horrid painful disease through its bites, and serving watered-down martinis.  Bad kitty!

It can’t even do the Isaac.

Everyone goes batshit with fear when communications are lost and all the food is contaminated with dirty kitty juice. Plus Walter and Mike reveal their criminal motives and hold the kids at gunpoint while plotting their next move which may or may not end up with them becoming Tender Vittles.  As the body count rises, Mike pants like Lou Costello after a 10K run, loses his mind, and starts shooting erratically which incurs the wrath of the killer cat who takes a bite out of his ankles.

“Gah! Something’s finally bulging down there!” 

Will nothing stop the mutated menace?  Will the gang survive this feline onslaught?  Will this be the worst Spring Break since Pork Taco Night in Mazatlan? 

“Meow meow meow meow Eat your flesh I will meow meow!”

THE FINISHER:

Greydon Clark’s Uninvited may be so unique amongst low-budget thrillers that it can be considered Avant-garde.  It is unlike anything I have ever seen in terms of its story structure, style, and execution which suggest an audacious, self-conscious ineptitude approaching contempt for its audience. The film feels like a grand experiment in the custom of non-traditional cinema, pushing boundaries and breaking rules of narrative expectation, creating a twisted labyrinth of sequential logic that forces the viewer to question the real and ethereal.  To wit, the movie daringly casts away character motivation. Characters indiscriminately just meet each other and decide to interact.  Backstory?  Bah!  Leave that for the flyover states! The source of horror, the explanation and exposition that horror fans hunger, expect, and demand, is similarly and may I suggest bravely ignored.  The cat, representing a centrifuge of existential panic, simply “is” mutated.  Take that, horror spoon feeders!  The cultural critique in Uninvited sizzles like a subterranean electrical current. Walter, the corrupt figure of oppressive power, is subdued by the collective rebellion of the females who have exposed his greed, taken his ship’s “helm” and forsaken their revealing bikinis for slightly less revealing bikinis.  Say it loud, sisters!  The movie is executed in a firmly tongue-in-cheek, at times out of focus style to conceal its undermining motives to surgically dissect convention to reveal the socio-cultural fallacies that mainstream horror denies.

Well, that or it could just be a really stinky movie about a fucking killer cat.

PLAGUERS (2008)

THE CARD:

Alexis “Space Ace” Zibolis, Bobby “Space Some Guy” James, Noelle “Space Beeotch” Perris, Jared “Space Lookalike” Cohn, Paige “Space Kook” La Pierre, Erica “Space Grace” Browne, Chad “Space Zombie Meal” Nell, Stephanie “Space Zombina” Skewes, Maija “Space Afterthought” Polsey, and Steve “Space Paycheck” Railsback.

More details here.

THE ANGLE: 

The far future. Mankind has finally mastered space travel. We have light speed engines. We can survive in deadly conditions for long periods of time. We can explore our galaxy for alternative energy sources.  Yet we somehow can’t get over our attraction to glowing things.  Such is the dilemma of the USS Subtly-Titled Pandora which is returning to Earth after a successful salvage mission, carrying a very powerful but very menacing Green Glowing Thing (GGT).

“Hiya, folks!  I’ll be back to cause havoc later!  Hee-Hee!”

They theorize that the GGT may be a source of incredible power and plan to sell it to the highest bidders when they get back home.  But tragedy struck during the mission when the Captain was killed in an accident, leaving distrusted but adorable Holloway (Zibolis) in charge.

“Does anyone else have problems with split ends in zero-G?”

The crew of the Pandora totally disrespects Holloway and questions her every decision.  Fortunately she has super-strong synthoid robot guy Traver (Railsback) on her side.

Trying for Lance Hendrickson, looking John Carradine

When the ship answers a distress call, they dock with a hospital ship carrying traumatized nurses who claim they’ve survived a vicious attack by space pirates.

“And we missed three episodes of Gossip Girl!”

But it’s all a ruse as the gals seduce the men and assault the women in order to steal the cargo for themselves.  But the GGT is acting rather strange, being more greeny and glowy-er than usual.  In fact, it’s transforming all who touch it into rampaging zombies!

Hi, this is Nola (Skewes).  She’s just risen from the dead.  Just like NOLA.

And they start picking off the crew one by one, transforming their victims into the nasty undead as well. 

Colin Farrell in a role that may surprise you.

But these particular plaguers don’t play-guer by the rules and instead of spreading the zombie disease the good ol’ fashion eat-your-guts kind of way, it delivers the virus through a booger transfusion.

Moist Kleenex of the Living Dead

“SOOO SALTY!!!”

The epidemic overcomes the ship and the bad girls must join forces with the Pandora crew and their elderly robot-boy to survive the ordeal.

And not get Pilato-ed to death.

THE FINISHER:

Brad Sykes is a masterful low-budget filmmaker working on his craft for the last two decades.  The man is a direct-to-video factory whose aspirations aim for the Moon but in the end usually delivers no further than the weather vane.  In Plaguers, Sykes explores the science fiction/horror hybrid subgenre by melding Alien, the Dead films, and perhaps a dash of the Dead Space video game franchise in a space soap opera with zombies.  Perhaps his most ambitious film to date, the movie unfortunately doesn’t disappoint in the being disappointing department.  There’s no doubt about it, the movie is terrible.  Sometimes achingly terrible.  But it’s not without appeal.  Yes, it’s low budget. Yes, it’s hackneyed and filled with half-baked ideas, obvious references, and bad acting.  Yes, it’s unintentionally sorrowful at times.  (I dare you to look into Railsback’s eyes and not avert your gaze from a void of sadness).  But it’s not inept, it’s not horribly paced, and it’s definitely not without a sense of fun. The action, which included overly fake guns, misfiring squibs, and Railsback arthritically worming through air vents, is hysterical.  The zombie effects and creature make-up were definitely solid.  The gore kind of outstanding at times.  And the main monster was, well I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

Screw it.  Here it is.  Magical.

So yeah, Plaguers is fun and not boring.  It could easily occupy the mid-card on any all-night horror marathon, something to relax and laugh at until the bloodletting is turned to 11.  Well, at least that’s how I schedule my horror-a-thons.  As for Sykes, I hope he continues to churn out his made-on-the cheap hokum.  Keeps this little miserable blog in business.  Plus the man loved Alien and you can’t knock a guy for screaming in space, knowing full well no one can hear him.