Hazing Is Hell

It's weird when I discover an '80s slasher that I didn't know existed. Surely it must be a long-buried diamond shining through the rough!

Or maybe it's just Final Exam.

Quick Plot: After the most "couple making out in car gets hacked by a mysterious killer" scene of a couple making out in a car getting hacked by a mysterious killer (with the world's most glorious dummy death to boo), we move the action to the last week at Lanier College, an isolated liberal arts school.

Jocks bully the nerds, sorority sisters pine about their boyfriends, good girls study hard, and the frat bros stage the world's worst aged mass shooting prank in order to pass a chemistry final. As a result, the local grumpy sheriff vows to never listen to the students' calls again, which is great when, you know, your job description implies that you're responsible for their safety and stuff.

After a good 58 minutes of college shenanigans, Final Exam finally turns into a slasher. A tame, rather suspension-free slasher that hunts down its characters with all the energy of a long distance runner hitting a wall and crawling to the finish line. 

Written and directed by My Best Friend Is a Vampire's Jimmy Huston, Final Exam was a prime target of the Video Nasty witch hunt. While it hits most of the beats of the Dead Teenager subgenre, it's also surprisingly tame. Despite centering itself on young coeds, the film shows no nudity (unless you count an unlucky frat pledge in his underwear). Most of the violence involves little blood, and ironically, the hardest scene to watch is the boy-that-aged-poorly shooting prank.

There's some fun to be had with some of the characters, all played by unknown actors who mostly manage to create real people worth caring about (or in the case of the horrid frat boys, wishing true violence upon). Still, nobody comes to this kind of film looking for minor drama about being pinned or seducing your married chemistry professor after your piano recital. Unfortunately, with its blank villain, Final Exam's final act doesn't particularly justify an hourlong after-college special.

High Points

As hard as I'm being on the film's odd pacing and insistence on getting to know these kids, there is some decent character work by Cecile Bagdadi and Joel S. Rice. A film about the insecure brainy beauty and self-aware death-obsessed genius could have genuinely made an interesting story in itself

Low Points

Not every '80s villain needs a complex backstory, but it's a little unsatisfying to learn everything there is to know about a film's victims and absolutely nothing about our killer aside from his extreme skill at catching arrows with his bare hands

Lessons Learned

Fraternities in the 1980s (and possibly today) were populated by certified sociopaths

When breaking in to a professor's office for the expellable offense of stealing an exam, you should probably avoid wearing a t-shirt with nothing but your name printed on the back

Having a sheriff come to your aide during his early dinner time is an actual crime

Rent/Bury/Buy

Final Exam is certainly worth a watch for slasher completists, but it doesn't offer that much else for the casual horror fan. It's streaming in fuzzy glory via Amazon Prime.

My Valentine? A Horror Anthology of Course!

Like many a horror fan whose genre life was crafted in the 1980s, I have an automatic affection for the anthology. Hence, when my pal and Fozzie Bare (he of the fine Walking Dead/True Blood/Other Stuff podcast Fozzie & Tina) recommended one that I’d NEVER HEARD OF streaming on Netflix Instant, I was there before you could say ‘killer doll segment.’

And then, Christmas repeated itself in January when I learned that not only does Screamtime include a violent puppet chapter, it ALSO boasts a KILLER GARDEN GNOME STORY. 

Yes, I played the lotto that day. 

Quick Plot: Like most anthologies, we begin with a wraparound. Unlike most anthologies, this one is superior to almost everything that’s ever happened in the world as we know it.

A pair of New Yawkahs slips into a video store. Despite the VERY tempting poster for The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, the fellas instead swipe a trio of VHS tapes, hop on the R train, and barge into one of their gal pal’s apartment’s because “we just wanna watch some mooovies!” 

So they do.

The first segment follows a British puppeteer with an unsupportive wife and delinquent stepson. As you can probably guess, his Punch doll takes matters into his own tiny wooden hands with a giant wooden paddle. It’s both adorable and slightly creepy, especially since Punch makes some strange chomping giggle noises as he beats his enemies to death. 

Story 2 is surprisingly eerie, as a young married couple get torn apart by the wife’s strange visions of a bloody massacre. To say more begins to spoil the twist (a typical trope of any anthology segment), but the segment has some decently staged jump scares, as well as some kickass oversized glasses and a wonderfully mod Twister-like comforter that kept me distracted any time our characters were under the covers.

The final tale is about a down on his luck young man who takes a gardening job with a pair of wealthy but kooky old ladies. Just as the story begins to drag, The Greatest Thing Ever takes place: our villainous thief of a main character gets attacked by a little person dressed like a garden gnome.

At this point, I obviously did what any rightminded movie-lover would do: paused Screamtime to rate it 5 stars on Netflix, and then resumed to watch the conclusion of the brilliantly out of place wraparound. I was not disappointed.

Screamtime is surprisingly mysterious when it comes to research. The film is credited to director “Al Beresford,” though IMDB lists its makers as Stanley A. Long and Michael Mark of the Devil Armstrong. I don’t know who handled which story, but there’s clearly a divide between the fairly professional feeling segments (all British) and the wonderfully hilarious New Yawk framing device. It’s possible that the segments were abbreviated full-length films or aborted television pilots, and it’s probable that the wraparound was smacked on the finished project during someone’s lunch break. The result is uneven (particularly following the well-executed second story) but overall, more enjoyable than a whole lot of straight to video purgatory genre films made during the ‘80s. 

I don’t JUST say that because stuff like this happens:

Okay, *maybe* that has SOMETHING to do with my possibly unreasonable love for this film, but what can a doll-fearing, anthology loving, shortie-embracing blogger say?

High Points

I do mean it when I say that the second story is GENUINELY a good little horror story

Low Points

It ultimately doesn’t matter because it has GARDEN GNOMES COMING TO LIFE IN THE FORM OF AN ANGRY LITTLE PERSON IN A POINTY HAT, but for some time, the third story drags

Lessons Learned

British bystanders are the least helpful

You can tell a movie is British by the way they talk (or tawk)

Nervous breakdowns are very sad

Random Burst of Meta Commentary

A radio program playing during one of the stories makes a passing reference to Mary Whitehouse, that uninformed beacon of misplaced good intentions who foolishly crusaded against the Video Nasties of the 1980s

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’m not quite sure I’d never heard of Screamtime, but darnit am I glad I did now! The film is currently streaming on Instant Watch, and at just 90 minutes long, it’s a pretty fun way to buzz through an evening. Especially when you consider the tragic rarity of garden gnome horror movies.

Best. Toychest. Ever.

What you will find in XTRO:

• One feisty midget clown
• A killer toy tank
• Alien birth
• One life-sized GI Joe (or a similar brand found on your local Family Dollar shelf)

• Panthers
• Lasers
• A man shedding his skin during his first sex in three years
• The implication that a seven-year-old boy has impregnated Maryam d’Abo
• The implication that said seven-year-old boy is very fertile

How did it take me 28 years to catch this one? As MY CONTEST (enter!)  proves, my viewing history has more holes in it than a sexy mesh t-shirt.

Quick Plot: A routine game of fetch turns tragic when young Tony’s dad Sam gets, it would seem, abducted by extraterrestrial light show enthusiasts. Fast forward three years when mom Rachel has moved on to engagement with an American photographer while young Tony clings to the hope that pops is just a planet or two away.

And by the serendipitous impregnation of a random young blond, he is. Following an impressively gory birthing scene, Sam emerges to chew off his own umbilical cord and reunite with his hesitant family, now joined by slutty French au paire Mayram D’Abo. Though Tony is ecstatic to show his pet snake off to Daddy (literally), others--including a nosy neighbor marked for immediate death--are a tad more suspicious.

XTRO is a minor cult classic, a low budget video nasty that spawned two sequels. While its bizarro gross-out reputation is well earned by the weirdness of its elements (which do indeed include unexplained animated toy henchmen), for much of its first and second act, XTRO is surprisingly disciplined in building its characters and developing their conflicts. Left alone for three years, Bernice Stegers’s Rachel is sympathetic and believably torn between her new fiancee and the mysterious father of her child. Though director Harry Bromley Davenport seemed to think little about the logic of his story (based on the extras), the human relationships are quite solid. Even Danny Brainin as The Other Man that should come across as the minor villain feels like a real guy just trying to improve the family he’s supposed to inherit.

But nobody rents XTRO for a Brady Bunch-like lesson in blending families. You want oddball imagery and gooey practical effects, and both get gleefully popping as Sam and Tony bond the way all fathers and sons are meant to: sucking blood and reproducing via  cocooning the hot young nanny and hooking her up to a complex tubing system for egg laying. Now THAT’s how you talk birds and bees.

High Points

Am I ever going to complain about evil clown midgets?

Though a lot of the alien-like lighting feels a tad too ‘80s, most of the practical effects are gruesomely exciting and quite well done

Low Points

Part of this is the nature of XTRO’s storytelling style, but due to the tale, it’s hard to know exactly who we should be rooting for

Lessons Learned

Think British. Look Yiddish

As you would expect, life is pretty sweet when a midget clown does all your dirty work

In order to attract a passing race of aliens, be sure to look good in a sweater while throwing sticks high in the air. Certain species appreciate those kinds of skills

Rent/Bury/Buy

Any genre film fan--particularly those with sci-fi leanings--should definitely check out this film. The DVD includes an interesting alternate ending (don’t worry; the panther remains prominent) and a fantastically amusing, possibly drunken conversation with verbose and self-deprecating (also, apparently Jan-Michael Vincent hating) director Davenport. Though I don’t expect to rewatch this film any time soon (there’s not quite enough humor or scare factor to warrant instant classic status, at least upon first viewing) I’m putting the sequels on my radar and look forward to seeing how the series develops and if we ever actually find out what the heck XTRO as a word means. Like Detective Mike Norris from Child’s Play, I just hate loose ends.

Play Clinty For Me

There are some phrases that just aren’t used enough in this day and age. Buy one get one free. Huzzah. Off with their heads. You can’t fire me, I quit. These are all well and good, but you know what three words I really want to hear more? 

Starring. Clint. Howard.

And so, upon a reader recommendation and Netflix availability, I present to you Evilspeak, a 1980 Video Nasty-listed horror starring some everybody’s favorite Ice Cream Man. 

Quick Plot: Stanley Coopersmith (or Cooperdick, as his not-very-clever schoolmates like to call him) is an orphan and outcast attending a Catholic military academy. Teased by his peers, misunderstood by his teachers, and set up for some type of major injury by his soccer coach, Stanley’s only salvation comes via a sympathetic but ineffective friend and the fun he has designing a virtual catapult on the school’s sole computer.

All those hours typing come in handy when Stanley, sentenced to clean the school’s creepily dank basement, stumbles upon a collection of Satanic skulls, bobbling jarred fetuses, and most excitingly, a leather bound book of evil invocations. Although the hardcover gets swiped by a sadistic and apparently undervalued secretary, Stanley has enough time to type in a few spells and call upon the spirit of Esteban (Nightcourt’s Richard Moll, refreshingly taking on evil following his Mormon hero in Savage Journey). 

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to summon a minion of the devil. You need blood, mandrake, consecrated host, and most inexplicable, unholy water (which I guess is like urine from a sinner?). Stanley has a few failed tries, some of which succeed in temporarily calling upon some kind of force to break a man’s neck and rile up some hogs. In the meantime, he adopts an adorably underweight puppy from the friendly and unsanitarily shirtless mess hall chef and sets the audience up for a major moment of shouting “nooooooooo!” in true Anakin Skywalker fashion.

I won’t spoil the finale, but it is vital to know that the ten minute climax of Evilspeak is pretty well worth the ride. The film is surprisingly well-paced, giving us plenty of time to follow Howard’s Stanley through his tormented days in a place he just doesn’t belong. The final act that causes the bloody ending is horrendous and makes any viewer cheer on Satanically possessed carnivorous hog chewing, while there’s also enough random camp to please a bad movie fan, like having a heavily faked German accented actor teach Latin. On the other hand, there are random plot holes that go unfilled, such as how not a single faculty member questions the disappearance of the caretaker or the inevitably discovered entrails of the devoured secretary. Still, it’s refreshing to see a geek played as an actual outcast (today, I imagine someone like Zack Efron would simply don a pair of glasses and part his hair on a less flattering side) and characters that deserve gutting and being set on fire getting gutted, set on fire, and, for a bonus, eaten alive by pigs from hell.

High Points

The opening prologue set in medieval times is less than impressive, but transition featuring a severed head turning into a soccer ball is pretty genius

A roller rink scene is included, which naturally earns the film about fifty bonus points

The start of the film’s ending involves a rather well done Jesus-on-the-cross statue coming to life and (SPOILER) shooting its nail into the head of a rather daft priest. Awesome? The word doesn’t do the death justice

Low Points

While Stanley’s build up of bullied anger is fairly well done, it would have been a far more interesting finale had we gotten a little more development of the individual tormentors so that each gruesome death had more measurable weight

Although I was fairly let down by the text epilogue, it did put a smile on my face to see a reference to “Sunnydale Asyulum,” whether Joss Whedon took any inspiration from it or not

For the most part, the score of Evilspeak is adequate and at times, haunting in a choral style. There’s one moment during the finale as Bubba (an oddly named character if ever there was one) tries to escape and is followed by an inappropriately sweet violin melody

Lessons Learned

The purpose of sports is to make us all well-rounded

The good lord prefers his young men in uniform

Computers of the 1980s were far more grammatically considerate than today’s Babblefish and freetranslation.com

Placing a satanic handbook nearby a piggy bank will connect evil forces to wild hogs

Catholic military academies have an impressive stash of Wicker Man-esque masks for its student body to play with

For an extra scoop of mashed potatoes, always inform the lunch guy that you’re an orphan

Winning Line

“I have to go...to study hall.”

If you’re trying to get out of an uncomfortable situation, at least use a more pressing engagement like “math class”, “soccer practice”, or “date with satanically enhanced Richard Moll”

Proof of Cred

According to that far too trusted Wikipedia, Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan (and consultant on a little classic called The Devil’s Rain ) considered Evilspeak to be “very Satanic”

Rent/Bury/Buy

This was a pleasant surprise and fairly un-discussed remnant of that bridge between 70s and 80s horror. It’s well worth a watch, although a tad too unpleasant to pop on so many more times to warrant a buy. The DVD includes a jovial commentary by Howard, writer/director Eric Weston (now directing the Costas Mandylor sure-to-be classic, Hyenas), and production roustabout Warren Lewis is filled with some useful film trivia and random tidbits about everybody’s favorite B-movie character actor (like how he loves horror conventions and often bids for his own memorabilia on ebay). Certainly worth a rental, and not just because it stars the first human recipient of MTV Movie Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award.