Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Director: Robert Hiltzik
Writer(s): Hiltzik
Starring: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields, and Christopher Collet

Following certain circles on Twitter, it's just about impossible not to hear about Sleepaway Camp every month or so; the latest bout found me stumbling on a page I don't even follow, asking users to name their picks for the horror movie endings that shocked them the most. There were several movies named--I myself submitted Short Night of Glass Dolls, simply to avoid the typical mainstream fodder—but no movie was mentioned more than Robert Hiltzik's seminal body-count film. This was the straw that broke the camel's back: after putting off several viewings thanks to my slasher-obsessed friend's intense dislike of it, I decided that I finally had to see for myself what all the fuss was about.

I have to say that I'm pretty much in my friend's camp (no pun intended) when it comes to the ending, which I have to give some kudos to for being truly “out of left field”, but that is completely bereft of anything truly chilling or nightmare-inducing (though I do have to admit I think about it far more than I ever thought I would).

Angela and Peter are out on a boat with John, their father. John intentionally tips over the boat, as a joke (they are close to a dock and the children are wearing life-jackets), but things don't remain funny for long, when a speedboat, manned by two clueless teenagers, loses control and runs them over...John and Peter are killed in the collision.

After this obligatory flashback, we are now transported eight years into the future: Angela is now a nearly-grown woman, and she is cared for by her weird aunt, whom she lives with along with her cousin, Ricky. But she has never forgotten the events of that fateful day, which is pretty evident given the fact that she can't—or simply refuses to—speak. It doesn't seem like spending an elongated amount of time at a summer camp full of talkative teenagers would be the best place for her, but we'll assume that their aunt is sending her there in the hopes that being around others her age will help her come out of her shell. If that is indeed the reason, it doesn't take long to see that idea is a failure, because people start making fun of the mute girl almost right away.

Of course, most of the torture comes from Judy and Meg, two promiscuous girls who are jealous that people are fascinated with Angela, so they make it a point of calling her out in front of everyone else. Their jealousy reaches fever pitch when Angela starts talking (literally) to Paul, a friend of Ricky's who is simply sympathetic to her situation. Really, that's all it took for her to abandon eight years of silence? But it's not just women who go out of their way to make fun of her...men also join in the fray, perhaps annoyed that she won't put out, since that's all boys at camp seem to think about. Before long, it seems like Ricky is constantly defending her every day from some sort of verbal abuse; what do you think of your idea now, Angela's aunt?

Let's be real here: slasher movies are rarely, if ever, known for actually being good (and the first person to try mentioning Halloween as evidence to the contrary is getting shot in the face), and Sleepaway Camp is no exception: It’s pretty tedious, there are long pauses between death scenes, and the “story” surrounding the murders basically consist of Ricky getting angry at everyone taunting and humiliating his (mostly) mute sister. All these problems, paired up with the rather pointless, though admittedly fascinating, ending doesn’t leave much to recommend.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to hold on to: although the death scenes are largely blood-free (or only lightly-blooded), the special effects are very well done. There is an early sequence in which a man has scalding hot water poured on him, and the way the flesh on his face bubbles appears to be painfully accurate—looks like someone (makeup effects artist) did their homework when preparing for that scene. The build-up to another death is incredibly hokey, but the aftermath is very gruesome.

There are also some scenes of kids just being kids early on, before it degrades into almost-constant humiliation of its main star, that are actually humorous, and give the film a sense of fun. I also appreciated that, although Angela is constantly being harassed, there are enough “good guys” to always prevent things from going too far—usually, it’s Ricky, but there are also some sympathetic counselors and fellow campers that also pitch in to break things up. This at least prevents the film from ever becoming too cruel or ugly.

The acting is pretty bad, though Felicia Reese (as Angela) is cute enough when silently staring at someone, and also has a cute voice when she starts to talk, so she quickly becomes the star of the movie. The rest of the characters are just typical slasher stereotypes, though I guess to be fair, they were less stereotypes back then than they are now, so I guess that can be slightly forgiven.

For true, hardcore fans of the slasher film, Sleepaway Camp might just be different enough to win them over—it tries to be a little bit different, in that it’s clearly not just interested in graphically dispatching loads of campers, and actually tries building up to a shocking ending. As I’ve mentioned plenty of times, I personally didn’t think it worked, but I can respect a film that is focused more on just graphic bloodshed or the quantity of its victims. It held my attention until the end, something not every movie can accurately say, but there just isn’t enough of a payoff to fully justify the time I invested into it. It’s a curiosity piece, and one that I’m not angry I sat through, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to see it again.

RATING: 5/10

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Society (1989)

Director: Brian Yuzna
Writer(s): Rick Fry and Woody Keith
Starring: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, and Ben Meyerson

Society had been on my to-watch list for about as long as I can remember Having enjoyed Return of the Living Dead 3, which he also helmed, as a teenager, I naturally traced his roots back to his one, his debut film. It's known for its ending, featuring a plethora of ooey-gooey special effects that wouldn't feel out of place in a Cronenberg feature, but then, like many other things it eventually just dropped off my radar. That is, until it made an appearance on a streaming service I use, at which point I rounded up my wife and we buckled ourselves in for a wild Friday night ride.

I always thought it was curious that any mention of Society would invariably wind up talking about the effects and not much else, but now I perfectly understand the reasons why: because the rest is just a typical '80s horror film. That probably strikes glee in the hearts of many, but I've personally always found it shortsighted to be loyal to films from a certain time period; I just don't understand the thought process behind it. I guess it's the cheese- and camp-factor that's present in a lot of them, and while that can make a film more enjoyable for obvious reasons, I'd much rather be enjoying a movie the way it was meant to be enjoyed, rather than adding the context of unintentional laughter.

My main qualm with Society is the ridiculousness of its singular, overblown premise, the gist of which can be summed up essentially in a single sentence: that the rich derive pleasures both from reveling in their own excesses, and for reveling in the things that “commoners” are without. And it goes through some rather painstaking lengths to make sure that there are no possible doubts that we, as viewers, could possibly misunderstand that. It's a heavy-handed approach that will probably alienate more viewers than it will inspire, and it certainly lost us.

Billy Warlock (who has since gone on to star in just about every soap opera ever produced for television) plays Bill Whitney, a man who lives in an upper-class home, with his rich upper-class parents, and rich upper-class sister. He feels the effects of his family's wealth in the world around him, like at his high school, where of course he runs around with the popular kids, and is a favorite for election as class president. It's almost as if his wealth has predetermined him to have an easy life, or something!

But Bill just doesn't feel like he belongs in that circle. He feels like he is an outsider, that his family isn't really his family, and that something isn't quite right with the other rich people that are constantly surrounding him. Unfortunately, he just can't quite seem to put his finger on it. Sessions with his therapist, Dr. Cleveland, don't seem to do much in the way of quelling his suspicions, and his paranoia and distrust of everyone around him is slowly magnified, until a family friend, and an ex-boyfriend of his sister, presents him with some clear-cut evidence.

His name is David, but he is known to friends as Blanchard. He functions as the typical “sidekick”, pudgy in appearance and with all the grace of a one-legged swan; since he is a “commoner”, he was forced to break off his relationship with Bill's sister, making him the frequent butt of jokes for the rich. He also felt that something wasn't right, so he set up a microphone to record his sister's “coming out party”, something I had never heard of, but that is apparently a real thing rich families do. He presents the recorded evidence to Bill, who of course is at first outraged that this low-class peasant would spy on his family, but all it takes is a brief listen before he realizes his worst fears have been realized: her “coming out party”, which sounds like something gay and lesbian couples will have in the future after announcing their sexual preference, quickly degrades into a disturbing psychosexual orgy.

Not long after this, and as horror fans are already expecting, poor whistle-blowing Blanchard winds up dead in a mysterious single-car accident. Those pesky rich folk using their considerable powers to make the innocent, and the middle- and lower-class, suffer! Where do they get such nerve? Oh yes, from a society that not only condones their behavior, but seems to actually encourage it. Of course!

Some other stuff happens: Bill has sex with Clarissa, a rich girl that he is starting to like; we meet Clarissa's mother, a large mute woman who has a strange obsession with hair; Bill accepts an invitation from his opponent for class president for a secret meeting, only to discover that he has been killed, too; and Bill spends some time in a mental hospital, which is an obligatory plot-stop in a film where a character is regarded as crazy, just so we understand how crazy everyone around him thinks he is.

And all this sets up the film's finale, in which Bill is held captive in his own home, and forced to watch as Blanchard (who did not die after all) is attacked by the rich, who literally feed off of him, their limbs entering his skin and their bodies intertwining with him in a special effects sequence (by Screaming Mad George) that is impressive both in its scope, and execution. Thankfully, Bill avoids this certain fate by fighting a rich boy, and then getting help from Clarissa, who overcomes her rich lifestyle to realize that she is also developing feelings for Bill. See, who says true love can't cross financial classes?

Society is a tired film, and I can't even recommend it for the effects work, as great as they are, because we had lost pretty much all interest in the film by that point. It's evident that it's striving to be a hallucinogenic, surrealistic nightmare, with dead characters that seem to magically “return to life”, but the atmosphere and images never quite match with its ideology. In the end, it just feels like your standard attack on elitist culture that doesn't bring anything unique or interesting into the fold. It bludgeons us with the same tired cliches of class warfare over and over again, hoping that it's enough to keep viewers entertained until it gives us its grand finale, but it is just a one-dimensional film that flatlines about an hour in, and is dead on arrival by the end.

RATING: 4/10

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Kill List (2011)

Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer(s): Wheatley, and Amy Jump
Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Harry Simpson, and Michael Smiley

I had heard a lot of positive things about Kill List—which ended up being its first red flag. More often than not, critics, who are generally paid to critique more mainstream fare, and I are not anywhere near a common wavelength. I will say as more “extreme” cinema seems to be heading toward approval of the masses, this line seems to be shrinking a little bit, and all the popular critics are watching things they probably would have avoided twenty years ago, but the general critique still stands.

However, that would not have, in and of itself, lead me to postpone a screening of Kill List for as long as I have (a little over a year now, if I recall correctly). No, what really turned me off were the constant comparisons to A Serbian Film, which is one of the most abhorrent pieces of trash I have ever seen (and as of this writing, the only film I’ve ever scored a “zero”). That whole project just feels like two middle school students filming the most vile things they could concoct, simply to gross one another out; only, the end result is childish and laughably bad. Of course, it defends itself by claiming to be a social commentary about how the citizens of Serbia are being treated. But I highly doubt they’re being forced to pay to watch amateurish rubble passing itself off as higher art every day of their lives, so they should at least be thankful for that.

Much to my delight, it only took me a couple of minutes to realize that comparison is completely misguided; Kill List is competently written, and actually contains a story! And what a story it is, as it patiently unfolds: Jay is a hot-tempered loser who hasn’t had a job in eight months. This creates (understandable) friction between him and his wife, Shel, especially since they have a ten-year-old son, Sam.

One night, Jay and Shel invite over Jay’s good friend Gal for an evening of alcohol-induced fun. He brings his shady, creepy girlfriend Fiona with him. The night gets off to an awful start after Jay loses his temper, and storms upstairs; Shel follows him and they have a screaming match so bad, that it’s Gal who has to put their child to bed. But after a few glasses of wine, all returns to normal, with Shel and Jay joking and laughing with Gal and Fiona. Then Fiona does something strange, sneaking away to carve a half-anarchy symbol into the back of their bathroom mirror, then stopping to take some bloodied tissue that Jay used to mop up his blood after cutting himself earlier in the day.

As the night wears on, we find the true reason Jay invited his friend over—they’re hitmen getting back into the field, and they’re about to learn the three people that they have been assigned to kill…and this is where I’ll be dropping my readers off, because from this point on, the more you learn on your own, the better. All I will give you, to entice those with similar bloodlust to my own, is that the murders start off relatively tame, but steadily increase in brutality—this also serves as fair warning to the squeamish.

Director Ben Wheatley proves himself adept at wrenching suspense and tension from monotonous activities: for example, I was getting nervous before Jay and Gal entered the home of an intended victim, my hands clamming up as if I was the one tasked with carrying out the murder. He also succeeds by adding weird little scenes here and there; such as the one where Fiona carves the symbol into the back of the mirror. These scenes tell you that something isn’t quite right, without resorting to cheap scare tactics, and it becomes successful in evoking a near-constant state of dread.

I will admit that, just from hearing comparisons to Serbian Film, and noticing that there were only minor similarities throughout (a broke man who will do almost anything for cash), I knew there had to be a scene that tied everything together—and that is how I deduced exactly what would happen in the ending. It definitely feels a lot less forced here, but it’s still far from the revelation the filmmakers intended. Actually, the whole movie takes kind of a dive in the last fifteen minutes, or so, with a kind of change in tone that many have commented feels like it belongs in an entirely different movie. I didn’t think it was out of place so much as just completely unnecessary—the more I dwelled on it, the less and less I liked it. It certainly doesn’t ruin the movie, nor does it come close, but it definitely lessens the impact that a more “original” shock ending might have had (so does the cute scene that foreshadows the ending; it’s like Wheatley felt the need to include everything he learned in film school, regardless of its effect on the overall movie).

I can definitely lay to rest the notion that this is even anywhere near the same ballpark as A Serbian Film (which is a very, very good thing), but I’ll also be crossing off the idea that this is a great horror film. It’s a pretty good one, and worthy of your time, but it’s done in by a pretty lame ending, and, for a film that seems to want to be so extreme, a startling adherence to straightforward storytelling—with the possible exception of the ending, everything else is pretty predictable and just feels like the plot is moving from point A to point B.

RECAP: It’s not nearly as bad as the comparisons to A Serbian Film (one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen) would lead you to expect; quite the contrary, director Ben Wheatley actually shows some competence in the writing department, slowly building his story up to some truly heinous scenes of violence. Then he decides to run on autopilot, coming up with an ending that not only fails to be as revelatory as he was hoping, but that undoes a lot of the mystery and tension he proved so adept at wringing from his story in the earlier parts. Still, it manages to be fascinating, has some pretty good performances (not to mention the stunningly beautiful MyAnna Buring in a main role), and enough gore to satisfy bloodhounds. Worth a watch, but well short of any sort of classic.

RATING: 6/10

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Series Outro: Perversions of Science

Well, it was every bit as bad as I remember it being, and probably then some, as the effects that were bad in the late '90s are even worse nowadays. It's a rather mind-boggling proposition figuring out just how the main production team of “Tales from the Crypt” bombed so terribly translating their stories from horror to sci-fi, but lo and behold, they did it. Also curious is how toned down the show is: Whereas “Tales from the Crypt” wasn't afraid to let the blood flow, “Perversions” seems too cowardly a show to want to push the envelope in any direction. And that, more than anything else, is probably what led to its early demise.

Granted, it would make sense if the creators wanted to get away from the “Tales from the Crypt” formula, and that's why they let up on the violence. But the problem is that no time seems to have been put into any of the episodes on either side of the camera: the production values are nonexistent, featuring obviously-cheap sets and terrible computer effects; the writing feels very forced and rushed, with plotlines that are never given any time to develop; and even the network didn't seem to know what to do with it, barely spending a penny on promotion or awareness. Take any one of those things and you've got a problem; add together all three and it's pretty much guaranteed that your show is going to fail.

The only legitimate area where “Perversions of Science” is consistently excellent is in the casting department, and that acclaim should fall right on the hands of Lisa Beach, who served as casting director for all ten episodes (and who would go on to do her thing in some big name Hollywood productions, including Wedding Crashers, Horrible Bosses, The Wolverine, and the forthcoming Bad Santa 2). Just like “Tales from the Crypt” (which she surprisingly was not a part of), many of the installments feature a mix of established talent and up-and-comers, and just about all of them give solid performances. Or maybe they give average performances that just seem way better than they should be given the underwhelming nature of everything else...either way, I liked the acting.

The opening episode, “Dream of Doom”, tricks you into thinking that you might be watching a legitimately-good show. And as I stated in earlier reviews, it's no coincidence that it's the most effective of the entire series: it has a simple idea that can be easily executed within a 20-25 minute time frame, has no elaborate special effect requirements, and features the standard good performances (in this one the lead is the always reliable Keith Carradine). Why couldn't grown men, all of whom are experienced giants within the industry, realize this was the winning formula, and stick to it?

They do again a few episodes later with “Snap Ending”, and again create a good episode with practical effects and a simple story that doesn't require a whole lot of time to unfold. It also has quite an intense (for this show) intro that really sucks you in from the get-go, another solid plus that is missing from most of the installments. As mentioned in that review, it does lose its grip slightly with one final effects shot that is clearly computer-generated, but you know what? They waited until the end, and it's a rather brief shot, so I'll give them a pass on that one.

But the rest have the feeling of amateurs trying to make often bad ideas work. Even when they stumble on a good idea, such as in “Planely Possible”, the series' sixth episode, it's completely ruined by shoddy effects work, and a story that seems so hellbent on throwing us something we're not expecting, that it does so—at the expense of giving us something that is impossible to take seriously. Which is the other problem I've cited more than once in individual reviews: there is no “off switch.”

Everything has to be as in-your-face as possible, but that's to the show's detriment. With a little bit of subtlety, some of these episodes could have been stronger. But instead, there's always a build-up to something completely ridiculous, so as to ruin the entire build-up. In some cases, there wasn't much to ruin, but others, like “Panic”, are done in by stupid endings that immediately released the grip they had on me. And this series is sadly rife with such over-the-top examples...there's virtually one in every single one.

If you're a fan of “Tales from the Crypt”, I'd love to be able to recommend this to you, but I honestly can't do that. In fact, I'm hesitant to recommend it to anyone. Even sci-fi buffs will probably be turned off by the hackneyed premises and low production values—the show just never gives you a valid reason to really focus your attention on it, and rarely rewards you even if you do. In this day and age, it's kind of a curiosity that HBO refuses to release this to DVD, or at least a digital format, which wouldn't require much of an investment on their part. But that's also quite telling, as it tells us that not only does no one seem to care about it, but the cable giant seems to be flat-out embarrassed by it.

And they should be.

SERIES RATING: 5/10

Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)

Director: Lucio Fulci
Writer(s): Fulci, Roberto Gianviti, and Gianfranco Clerici, from a story by Fulci and Gianviti
Starring: Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet, Tomas Milian and Irene Papas

I have always wanted to see Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling, but was never in the right mood when I had chances to see it. Me being a gorehound at the time also played a role in that decision: I had heard that it wasn’t as violent as films like Zombie, or The Beyond, and just figured it would bore me. Well, after signing up for an all-horror streaming service, I found it amongst the films being offered, and decided right then and there that it was time to clear my mind of any expectations, and finally view one of Fulci’s rare forays into the giallo film.

And what I learned from it is that, admittedly contrary to my beliefs, he was actually a talented director. Now please don’t take that the wrong way (as easy as it would be to do), because I happen to really enjoy the Fulci movies that I’ve seen. Zombie is a cinematic landmark of the subgenre (I’m still shocked that Microsoft, of all companies, used the underwater zombie vs. shark sequence in a nationwide television advertisement for something-or-other), while The Beyond compensates for a terrible, nonsensical plot with some top-notch gore effects—not to mention an excellent finale featuring zombies inside an abandoned hospital that ranks as one of my favorite moments of any such movie. So there is no doubt in my mind that this man was capable of getting high-quality simulated wounds on the screen; many of them even hold up as pinnacles of the genre today (the little redhead girl getting her head blown off in The Beyond, anyone?)

But Don’t Torture a Duckling is Fulci at his most clever—it’s a well-directed, and yes, even well-written mystery that quietly weaves in and out of any number of twists and turns, until it arrives at a surprisingly poignant finish that is as convincing as anything Fulci has ever put to screen. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece—nor did I get one—but this is nevertheless a gripping cinematic turn that is a lot closer to perfection than I would have ever expected it to be.

Since the many twists and turns are a big part of what make giallo films special, I won’t elaborate into a lot of details here—the more that you discover on your own, preferably while watching the film, the better. Don’t Torture a Duckling starts off with the murder of a young boy. As the townfolk try to figure out who among them is the killer, a couple more children disappear. Could it be the mysterious woman who came on to one of the missing children a mere hours before he met his untimely demise? Or what about the local witch, who gets angry at the children for messing with the grave of her own dead child? Or is it the reporter that has come to help investigate the killings? Or maybe one of the policemen sabotaging his own investigation…much like the masters of the genre, Fulci makes sure there’s never a shortage of possible suspects or motives floating around, which truly lead to some brilliant, and thoroughly unexpected, revelations.

But here, he also demonstrates a competence in the director’s chair that I’ve never seen in any of his other films. Like the scene where a woman is murdered, in fairly graphic fashion, while the radio plays in the background. Midway through the extended kill scene, the song ends, with the disc jockey announcing that the next song will be slower; it is, and this slower, sad song provides the remaining background music to a scene that starts off brutal, and actually ends up being harrowing. This sequence was the first time that I really stood up and took notice of Fulci’s actual talents, which he tended to bury under buckets of blood and gimmicky kill scenes. This sadness also manifests itself, as I hinted at earlier, in a twist ending that’s similar to ones that have been done before, yet manages to elicit actual sympathy, for even the killer (in a way), thanks to Fulci’s excellent direction.

Of course, it is an Italian horror film, so it’s not without its fair share of bad: the English dubbing frequently crosses the line into self-parody, with voices that don’t come close to matching up to the people using them, and the grand finale features special effects so terrible that I can’t believe Fulci let them stay in the film at all. It also takes quite a while to get going, with the first half feeling slow and uneventful when compared to the second half, which finally starts to advance the plot.

However, this finds the director at his overall best, at least from the limited filmography I have seen from him. He seems confident and assured, and doesn’t merely fall back on special effects as a way to distract from the plot holes in his later films. Here, he’s blessed with a great script (that he also helped to co-write) and a fantastic story. And while there’s really nothing that’s all that new here—it is, after all, modeled after a pretty basic mystery storyline (who’s killing these children?)—Fulci’s fresh take on it makes it a gripping film with more than a few surprises in store for his open-minded fans that don’t mind letting the graphic violence take a backseat to the story.

RECAP: This is Fulci’s best overall movie that I’ve seen. Gorehounds will be largely disappointed that, aside from a couple scenes, there’s not much of his trademark gore, but there are a couple after shots of young corpses that are still completely jarring. Here, the mystery of the plot takes center stage (who’s killing the young children in a village) and thanks to assured direction from Fulci, it rarely becomes anything less than gripping. He even imbues some genuine emotion into the film at a couple different points, making it so much more than the one-note gorefests his later films would become (very enjoyable gorefests, but one-note nonetheless). The dubbing leads to some unintentional hilarity, while the film does take quite a while to take off, but the quality of just about everything here (save for a terribly hokey final death sequence that I’m seriously shocked Fulci himself signed off on) is loads better than just about anything else he would go on to do. Great stuff.

RATING: 8/10