Unhinged - Slasher In The Old Dark House

Unhinged
1982
(D) Don Gronguist
Unrated - Approx 79 Min
Released October 15, 1982

Taglines:
 - The Nightmare Begins When You Wake Up

 - Get your slice from the reaper. Violence beyond reason, Victims beyond help.

Alternate Titles:
None










"Don't give me that crap, Marion!  A lot of really weird things are going on around here. Breathing, strange sounds, your Mother, now faces at the window. I can't stand it!"
                                                                                - Terry

I'm sure I've said it here before, but I'll say it again, many times I'm sure.  There's nothing I love more than discovering a hidden gem, especially when when then seemingly come out of nowhere.  I'd never heard of this film before and when I went to research the VHS cover art (figuring it would trigger a memory from video store days) I realized that I was onto something on the rarer side.

By the way the VHS artwork is pretty dang swanky.  I love that The Reaper is holding a big bloody knife instead of a scythe.  On the downside, the killer is not dressed as The Reaper....though someone is killed with a scythe while the killer is wearing a hooded raincoat, so I guess that's sort of Reaperish, right?  Right.

The film follows three girls who get into a car crash on their way to a music festival.  During the ride we hear a news report of two girls having gone missing from a nearby campground, adding to the growing list of disappearances in the region.  After crashing their car en route, they are taken in by a woman named Marion and her mother who live in a big old creepy mansion.  Two of the girls (Terry and Nancy) are only slightly banged up, however their friend Gloria is a bit more injured and is bed-bound.



Terry and Nancy attend dinner with Marion and her mother and discover that the matriarch of the family has some serious anger issues when it comes to her husband and men in general.  She's also a pretty massive bitch to her daughter and all around just an old battle ax.  after an uncomfortable meal, the girls play a game of dominoes in the sitting room while Marion plays the piano.  Que heavy breathing and a shadowy figure spying on the girls from outside.

With both Marion and her mother acting weird, the shadowy figure lurking around and the general uncomfortable ambiance the house gives off (not to mention a thunderstorm every single night!) it becomes abundantly clear that something is not right around here.  The question is:  Who is that shadowy figure?

According to Marion the roads are washed out and the only way into town is to hike two or three miles through the woods, but warns that gives that hiking isn't a very good idea because the "woods are dangerous..."  Like we haven't heard THAT old chestnut before, eh?  Despite the warnings, Nancy decides to head for town to at least call her parents to let them know what's happened.  During the hike, Nancy is murdered by the aforementioned figure in a raincoat with a scythe, in a rare daytime slashing.



Who is behind the killings?  What secrets are Marion and her mother holding?  Why are there so many thunderstorms during October in Oregon?  Some of those questions WILL be answered by the end of Unhinged, but you've gotta watch to find out!

Now, I know that I just told you that this is a hidden gem of a slasher, but that comes with a bit of a disclaimer as well:  This movie is not going to appeal to everyone.  If you're a fan of early 80's slashers and you're expecting something on par with Friday the 13th, The Burning or Sleepaway Camp you're going to be disappointed.  However, if you're a fan of low budget regional cinema and you're in the mood for a slower paced slasher, you'll be alright.

The acting is downright bad.  Dialog is stilted and feels at times like it would be more at home in a live theatrical play than in film, but knowing that most of the cast and crew are local Oregonians (and the actress playing Marion (Janet Penner) comes from a theatrical background) I'm willing to bet that's where most have their experience.

Bad acting however, does not make a bad movie.  When you take that bad acting and stilted dialog and combine it with a pretty rad electronic synth score (of course add a dash or two of nudity and gore) and you've got yourself a strangely atmospheric little flick that is definitely getting put into my regular rotation!



If you go out and get the DVD, a word of warning:  DO NOT listen to the so called "Comedy Commentary" provided on the DVD.  It is nothing more than some MST3K wannabe's ripping the film apart in the most unfunny and juvenile ways.  I couldn't listen to more than 15 minutes of it before I turned it off.

Also provided as an extra is a local TV interview with writer/director Don Gronquist and star Janet Penner.  It is quite possibly one of the most awkward and uncomfortable interviews I have seen in recent memory.  Gronquist looks like he was very nervous and frequently freezes and takes long pauses in his answers, often times not making much sense.  I felt really bad for the guy.















GORE 
While it's not gratuitous, there is some decent gore on display here.  The aforementioned scythe slashing is just the start.  There's also an ax murder and a pretty brutal machete murder as well.  

T&A 
Why yes indeed!  We get to see Terry and Nancy take a shower.  Well, actually we get to see Terry take two showers!  Watch out for some serious 80's bush!

MONSTERS
A mysterious figure slashing up pretty young nubile girls!

FINAL THOUGHTS
Unhinged has a certain vibe to it that I really enjoyed.  It reminded me of when I was just out of high school.  Still living at home with Mom & Dad.  I worked at my beloved Video Paradise and also delivering for Domino's Pizza.  Sundays were my only day off, so on Saturday nights, I would take out four or five movies from the video store and watch them all day Sunday.  I've got many fond memories of rainy Sunday afternoons watching weird old slashers in my room, with a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.  Ahhhh, those were the days!

The Chill Factor - Demonic Slasher on Ice

The Chill Factor
1993
D: Christopher Webster
W: Julian Weaver

S: Dawn Laurrie, Aaron Kjenaas, Connie Snyder
Rated R - Approx 93 Minutes


Taglines:
Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the slopes.....

Alternate Titles:
Demon Possessed








"Stop whining you stupid girl, we have to get Tom to a hospital!"

It's late on a Thursday night.  The Mrs is in bed and I'm already in a few cocktails on my way to feeling pretty nice.  Sure, I could pop in a Night Flight disc and lose myself in a sea of ancient and obscure music videos but instead I'm feeling the urge to watch some ancient and obscure horror flicks.  And so, I delve down the Amazon Instant Video rabbit hole.....down past the usual suspects (World War Z, Leprechaun, etc) and down to the bottom of the digital barrel.  The place you can only reach by clicking the "Customers Also Watched" section.   Seriously.  How did they also watch these flicks?  They pop up NOWHERE else!  It's quite amazing, really.

 

That;s where this film lives.  This time up we're taking a look at a little supernatural slasher gem called The Chill Factor.  Apparently it's also known as the more blasé title Demon Possessed, which I think is an absolute crap title.  I mean, The Chill Factor is such a flavorful yet ambiguous title.  Is it referring to actual temperature or frightful chills?  An intriguing question!  If you were watching under the Demon Possessed moniker, you would pretty much know what you were getting (though not really, but kinda sorta in this case...we'll talk about that in a bit.).

See, there's a group of friends who go on a snowmobile trip up north.  While they are enjoying a meal and some brewskies, two of the fellas get into an argument about who's snowmobile is faster.  You know, real meaningful stuff.  They ask the waitress, who gets shit done (according to her hat), where they would be able to find some wide open land to race their machines and definitively determine who's the king of superfluous seasonal vehicles.  They're told about Black Friar Lake (which apparently the locals have shortened to just Black Lake) which sounds like a perfect place to race crotch rockets attached to skis!

I know that this is going to come as a shock to you, but one of the lads is injured during their race.  He hits a rather nasty snow mound and catapults himself into a tree, sustaining some considerable injury.   Being that the group is something like 30 miles from town, the seek shelter at an old summer camp.  After assessing their friend, one of them decides to go back to town to get help.  The others stay behind to watch over their wounded friend.  This is where they find the dumbest looking Ouija Board I've ever seen.  They decide to use it to "kill time" and end up summoning up a demon that possesses their unconscious friend. 

So now this guys laying on a bench in front of a fire and he miraculously wakes up.  Everyone's all super excited.  Of course they don't pick up on the fact that he's acting strange.  This is where the film becomes a slasher as the possessed guy kills off his friends.  Well, sort of.  He actually just lays there all bandaged up on the bench while stuff happens to his friends, but it's insinuated that he's the cause when the camera pans to a close-up of him with a goofy evil smirk on his face.  Though we do see the shadow of a robed figure with long, bony fingers with sharp fingernails stalking the victims.  I'll go more into the various killings when I run the tally at the end of the review.

I was rather surprised by this film.  I went into this expecting bottom of the barrel production values, bad acting and laughable effects.  I pretty much got what I was expecting, but I wasn't counting of the fact that it was all going to coalesce into a charming, quirky trashterpiece that will definitely become a staple in my winter horror flick rotation.  The music is a cross between an After School TV Special and someone rocking out on their Casio keyboard in the basement.  The wonky dialog is accentuated by the hilariously terrible acting (see the quote that begins this review).  The cinematography is pretty straightforward but there are a few nice shots once the gang is in the camp.

Gore
There's a decent amount of blood in this one, yet it still manages to be tame.  For your money you get a snowmobile accident resulting in a bloody face and severely lacerated hand.  A guy on a snowmobile catching a face full of barbed wire, a strangulation, an icicle through the eye and  a few more kills to boot.

T&A
There's a little skin on display here too!  Not a ton, but we do get to see two different girls in their bra & panties, some side boob and a brief flash of nipple.  Hey, it's better than nothing, right?

Monsters


Well, there's the shadowy figure that I'm guessing is the demon that is doing the possessing.  There's also the guy who gets possessed. 

Final Thoughts
This would make a great winter afternoon flick.  Especially if you ran it as a double feature with They (aka. Invasion From Inner Earth).  Picture it:  The afternoon sun is hanging lazily in the sky casting it's golden light on the white snow while prisms of light dance on the wall courtesy of the icicles hanging outside your window.  There's some chili that's been simmering on the stove all afternoon and a nice warm fire in the fireplace.  You are snuggled up next to your significant other (or favorite pet....I don't judge) on the couch....all while a chilly doubly shot of questionable horror plays across your television screen.  If that isn't a slice on Heaven on Earth, I don't know what is!

Loony In The Woods - A Modern Video Nasty

Loony in the Woods
2013
D: Leo Leigh
W: Leo Leigh

S: Leo Leigh, Oliver Maltman, Dean Puckett 
Unrated - Approx 70 Min
Troma

Taglines:
 - If You Go Down To The Woods Today.....

Alternate Titles:
None

  "Can I have the lamb stew?"
                                      -Fanny

Nice gloves!

You know, there is an amazing phenomenon that occurs when you are going down the rabbit hole that is Amazon Instant Video.  For instance....when you are searching for films, say by genre, you are given the option to check out a list of films that are similar to the one you are currently looking at.  If you start doing this long enough, you will end up in a place that contains films like Loony in the Woods.

Loony in the Woods was originally filmed in 2007, where it then sat on the shelf for 6 for six years until it was discovered by Troma and picked up for distribution.  Troma decided to make Loony in the Woods a VHS only release and it went on sale in 2013.  Somewhere between then and now, it became digitally available on Amazon Instant Video.  

Working out with Bouffe!

Meet Buttons!

The film follows a rather misogynistic  fitness instructor named Bouffe and his pals as they take a camping trip to - where else?- the woods!  Bouffe's brother wears a strange contraption on his neck that allows him to communicate.  It's a like a jacked up, homemade voice box......though it seems to speak for him....his mouth never moves...which is fine because you can't understand a damn thing the machine says anyway.  His name is Buttons.

As for the rest of the cast, there's a big breasted chick who likes to manhandle dudes (and she may or may not have some sort of psychic powers, there's a meek blonde and her shy redheaded friend.  Some dude with brown hair that seems to do the majority of grilling.......and that's about it.  The characters are there simply to serve as fodder.  

This is weird.  Really weird.  I mean like way beyond Devo and Yes mixed together weird.

It's the Loony!

The film is only just over an hour, so we don't have to wait long for the carnage to begin.  As a matter of fact we're treated to two murders before the opening credits!  A girl is choked to death and a guy takes a hatchet to the back of the head. The first night goes fine for the group, except for a very strange guitar/electronic beatbox tune played by Bouffe and Buttons.  It's totally off the wall and totally goofy and I think that I very well may make it my ring tone.  I may use it to make those record-your-own-message-greeting-cards and send them to friends and family.  I think they'll like that.  

Who am I kidding?

Eye see you!

That is going to cause a massive headache.....

Anyway, when the gore hits, it's balls out ridiculous ultra low budget gore, and I'll go more into detail in the designated GORE section at the end when I run the film's totals.  For now, I'll suffice to say it's extremely cheap and hilarious and it goes a long way to lending the film a certain charm.  Strangely after each murder, as the shot lingers on the corpse, the screen itself turns red.  Kinda weird.  Kinda pointless, but hey...whatever.  

LitW does a great job of emulating the type of films that would have been labeled Video Nasties back in the 80's.  The whole package has a great retro feel to it....as a matter of fact when I first started watching, I thought I might have actually stumbled across some lost British SOV slasher flick!  I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this flick doesn't get seen to often.  I've yet to find an actual review online (YAY ME!  FIRSTIES!) and the IMDb page doesn't even have complete information on it.  

He looks like he could use a hand.                Too soon?

What the fuck happened to her???!??

No Buttons, No!!!!!!  This scene was shocking. 

It's like I'm now part of some ultra elite and secretive club that's seen this movie.  If there's not a club then there should be and I'm just the guy to start it.  We're gonna have a secret clubhouse, with a secret password to get in.....secret handshakes, decoder rings, t-shirts....the whole nine yards!  You are SO going to want in on this one!

GORE
Oh yes, there is gore!  A man gets his arms chopped off after having his face slammed down on a blazing hot grill.  A girl has fireworks strapped to her head and ignited.  There's a head impalement complete with eye poking out of the head, a nasty electrocution and another victim (shown on the box art) has their face completely removed, leaving a nasty, bloody mess.

T&A
Nothing!  We get to see some women exercising in Bouffe's class, but that's about as racy as it gets.....oh except for a brief make-out scene between the big breasted manhandling possibly psychic chic and the brown haired grill guy....but still....no skin.

MONSTERS
There's a Loony in the Woods!  Said Loony wears a too-large for his head ski mask, a plaid shirt, and pants with rope used for a belt.  We DO get to see his face at the end.......and he's just some redneck dude.  Huh.  Go figure.  


FINAL THOUGHTS
Like I said before, the film does an excellent job of emulating the SOV slasher flicks of the 80's that would have filled up video shops of the time.  I could absolutely see this being added to the list of Video Nasties.  It's not a good film by any means.  The plot is threadbare.  The actors are about on par with local access TV and the sounds is absolutely atrocious.  You can barely make out what people are saying most of the time.  HOWEVER!  If you're in the mood for that sort of thing, then you're probably going to get a kick out of Loony in the Woods.  Definitely a flick to watch with friends over beer and pizza.  Add a little MST3K style commentary and a good time should be had by all!
\

Shadow of the Loony.

                                     

Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland - Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Camp.....Again!

Sleepaway Camp III:
Teenage Wasteland
1989
D: Michael A. Simpson
W: Fritz Gordon & Robert Hilzik
S: Pamela Springsteen, Tracy Griffith, Michael J. Pollard
Rated R - Approx. 80 Min.
Double Helix Films

Taglines
 - She's back to Slash last year's record.

Alternate Titles:
Nightmare Vacation III (USA)
Sinister Camp 3 (Brazil)
Bloody Camp 3(Spain)
Dormant Camp 3:  Teenage Waste (Poland)
The Camp of Terror 3 (West Germany)





"Good thing you're dead 'cause in a couple of years your breasts would have been sagging something terrible!"
                                                                                               -Angela

As I mentioned in the last review Parts II & III of the Sleepaway Camp series were shot back to back in six weeks.  Sure it may mean that it was a bit of a rushed production, but we're not talking about Gone With The Wind here.  The Sleepaway Camp sequels were done fast, cheap and by the seat of everyone's pants and you know what?  I wouldn't have it any other way!

This round we find Angela assuming the identity of an inner city youth (That she runs over with a dump truck in the middle of a large city in the middle of the day!).  Camp New Horizons has been built upon the ruins of Camp Rolling Hill (it's kinda hard to keep a business open when all of your clients end up dead!) and it's mission is to group privileged kids with under privileged kids in an effort to teach diversity and understanding.

The camp is run by an older couple named Herman & Lilly.  Ha ha, get it?  Like as in The Munsters!  As a matter of fact this go around everyone seems to be named either after characters from The Munsters, The Brady Bunch or (strangest of all) West Side Story!  Tony, Maria, Anita, Marcia, Bobby, Peter......they're all here and they're all fodder for Angela!

Herman is played by Michael J. Pollard, who you may recognize from bit parts he played in Scrooged, House of 1,000 Corpses as well as being the voice of Psycho on The Toxic Crusaders cartoon.  He's a dirty old pervert in this flick, so you KNOW he ain't gonna last long!

Also on hand as a counselor is Barney, who was one of the arresting officers during Angela's first killing spree.  He doesn't recognize her due to the fact that she is older and she's had.....erm.....well let's just say surgery, so as not to spoil the first film.  

The campers are split into three different groups (there are 12 campers in all) four per counselor.  This makes it especially easy for Angela to move back and forth between groups, taking out her victims without anyone becoming the wiser.  The body count is up in the teens again as is the flesh on display.  Boobs and blood...ya just gotta have 'em in these types of flicks, ya know?
Just as Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers was a tongue in cheek horror flick, the same goes for part three.  Absolutely nothing in this film should be taken seriously.

So long as you're not looking for anything new in this one, you'll have a good time.  It follows a formula:  Most of the campers are absolutely despicable people that you don't give a rats ass for.  A few are okay and there's usually one or two that are likable (and are usually the final girl).  Angela is still making her quips and one liners with each kill, which are rather amusing.  Such as the quote listed before the review started.

GORE
Not as much as in Part II, but there's still a fair amount of blood.

T&A
Well, of course!

MONSTERS
Angela's hairdo is pretty terrible in this one.....I guess you could say it's monstrous!

FINAL THOUGHTS
The Sleepaway Camp films make for a fine rainy afternoon or even better Friday night with pizza, beer and friends.  If you're a fan of the Friday the 13th flicks, the Meatball sequels or camping flicks in general, there's a high probability that you'll find something to like here.