Road Trip, Death trip: The Freeway Maniac (1989)

The Freeway Maniac (1989) (AKA "Breakdown")
Rating: ***
Starring: Loren Winters, Shepherd Sanders, Donald Hotton

Sometimes, it’s a healthier option to just go with the flow and let the stupidity of a movie entertain you for whatever it is worth. This, of course, is a gamble as some movies can be so stupid that loosening up would lead to a celluloid torture comparable to having your skullcap surgically removed and have your brain sautéed by Hannibal Lecter. Then again, there are also those movies that are so effin bad, it’s effin lovable and worthy enough to be enjoyed over and over again like a cheesy 80s pop song.

The Freeway Maniac, doesn't fall in any of these categories. In fact, it is best described as confused.

It tells the story of Arthur, our titular freeway maniac who got thrown to a mental asylum for murdering his mum and her boyfriend as a kid. He grows up into a fine well-built psycho with a mullet who, one day, finds the chance to escape captivity and murders every orderly that tried to stop him before hitting the road to continue the joys of spree killing.

Eventually, he crosses path with Linda Kinney, a rising starlet having the worse of luck; not only did she found her boyfriend sleazing up with another bimbo and nearly got herself assaulted by a couple of grease monkeys when her car broke down in the middle of nowhere, now she has to deal with our runaway psychopath. After a lengthy chase, Linda eventually saves herself by tossing off Arthur with her car; psycho got captured, Linda got famous from the attack and becomes some sort of cult favorite cuz, a year later, she’s acting for a low-budget scifi movie titled “Astronette”.

While Linda goes into filming, Arthur escapes for the second time (!!!) and murders his way cross-county to the shooting, bumping off some of the casts and crew before going for the one that got away! Will he succeed? Will he fail? And how does anyone survive a four story drop?

I'm going to keep this review as simple as possible since there isn't really anything new to tell here; Arthur is a smirking maniac who simply kills anybody that are literally in the way, Linda is a girl with a dream, victims remain victims and the kills, though plentiful, reek of dairy.

Seriously on the latter, this movie boasts an impressive double digit killing spree, with some of the more entertaining bits being the bellyflop of death that Arthur did on a orderly early in the film (Take notice, again, of the "four story drop" claim I made at a previous paragraph), some guy getting ran over with a motorbike (with an obvious ramp placed under his shirt), and an impressive looking truck stunt that leads to multiple casualties. The rest of the count are simple stabbings, strangulation, blunt object braining and one guy getting hit on the chest with a chair. For the sake of this movie's corniness, I'm counting that last one as a death toll.

Production, from acting to lighting, to special effects and direction, is abysmal, however, but it's naturally expected from a low-budget cheesefest like The Freeway Maniac. Like, for real; with a plot so thin and straightforward, I wouldn't expect high standards. I guess that's one particular reason why I'm so forgiving to this movie; it's so unintentionally funny and it stank the stink of a hundred McDonald Big Macs: delicious in every way but it clogs up your arteries, destroys your liver and makes your butt look big.

That being said, this is yet again another junk food equivalent of a slasher movie. It's not meant to be enjoyed by just anybody, but by somebody! Somebody who can exchange character development for a dead body for every minute. Somebody who can enjoy seeing hammy acting and cheesy special effects. Somebody who probably smoked on something and is completely unaware of what they're watching. Have I ever done drugs? Hell, no! I got The Freeway maniac as an alternative!

Either that or Horror House on Highway 5 but even I still can't stomach that!

Bodycount:
1 female knifed to death
1 male knifed to death
1 male hit on the chest with a chair
1 male brained against the wall
1 male strangled
1 female strangled
1 male pounded on the face
1 male thrown off a building, crushed by killer’s belly flop (!)
1 male strangled
1 male brained with a lead pipe
1 male had his head dragged across the road
1 male stabbed on the side with a syringe
1 male brained with a lead pipe
1 male ran over with a truck
1 female thrown off during a car crash
1 male and 1 female mangled in car crash
1 male and 1 female immolated in car explosion
1 male pounded to death
1 female impaled on a thrown javelin
1 male had his neck broken
1 male repeatedly ran over with a motorbike
1 male dismembered with a chainsaw
1 male brained to death with a hammer
1 male had his head pushed to a clothes peg
1 male hacked to death with a prop claw
Total: 27

What Psychos Learn In Movies: Drive-In (2000)

Drive-In (2000)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Brenton Earley, Deshja Driggs, Rick Perkins

Drive In (2000) is one title that rarely gets thrown in a conversation as horror fans either have seen and hated it, or would have confused it with the infamously schlocky 70s proto-slasher Drive-In Massacre. Comparing the two however, Drive In is a more straight-forward take on a bodycounter and one that actually fares better for me.

The story is simple enough to follow; a drive-in theater across town is being petitioned by an upset community for showing nothing but horror movies. (Troma horror movies to be more exact so…yay?) What these people didn't know is that one of these concerned citizens have been locking up their mentally handicapped son Billy in their attic, with nothing but these films to watch every night for entertainment and company.

One night, however, Billy found a way to kill his way out of his room and begin a murder spree of his own, basing every murder from what he learned from the movies.

More or less, the film's nothing too complex as everything is by the book as any standard slasher would be, which can either be a good or a bad thing depending on your taste for horror flicks. Drive In (2002) has a level of cheesiness, both acting and scripting, and the plot juggles its focus back and forth from the staff dealing with personal and job-related issues, to Billy murdering anyone he can hold on to with anything he can use for the time. This is all done in a steady pacing and with one-note characters to be slaughtered for plotting purposes, something that I’m sure only patient viewers or hardcore slasher fanatics can live through.

The murder and scare scenes aren't all that bad despite being overly simple, too. They have some good build-up that keeps you guessing whether it will or will not happen, but the problem here is that, seeing Billy supposedly learned the joys of murder from gory Troma movies, some of us would expect he’ll do the killings quite messily. What we have here, rather, are simple strangulation, stabbings and braining. Then again, it does help ground the film in a more realistic light, both in terms of budget and storytelling, a bit of a say of how violent movies affect unstable or immature minds. Of course, this is dropped the moment the slasher parts start and we’re simply rolling down a familiar hill.

Drive In (2002) is certainly not one of the better slashers to be released out there, but it certainly isn't the worst. Like I said, the cheesiness and simple plotting works well enough for me and I didn't mind the killer’s basic approach to murder, so I’ll give the movie an approval for effort. Even more if it tried harder.

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed on the neck with a broken bottle

1 male impaled with a sign post

1 male stabbed with a knife

1 female knifed to death

1 female strangled with a chord

1 male stabbed on the neck with a bong, bludgeoned against a steering wheel

1 male brained with a brick

1 female brained with a brick

1 female garroted

1 male stabbed on the gut

1 female drowned in melted butter

1 female had her back broken with a bear hug

1 male electrocuted to death

Total: 13

Big Bad Bunny Babbit: Easter Bunny Bloodbath (2010)

Easter Bunny Bloodbath (Canada, 2010)
Rating: *1/2
Starring:  Shayan Bayat, Meghan Kinsley, Travis Turner

Big killers in mascot suits. Sometimes creepy. Sometimes not. All boils down to how well said creepy suits are handled.

In this, yet another, Easter themed slasher (I think we have enough Easter slashers guys. Let's give Kwanza a chance! Or was it Quanza....Cwuanzah?), we start off with a black and white blast to the past, the 1960s to be more exact, where we see two siblings trading Easter Sunday candies. The younger of the two, lil Peter McKay, then spots a man dressed up as the Easter Bunny and welcomes him with his sister at the front door. Expecting more sugary sweets, they instead got greeted with a cleaver and big sister losts her head. Literally.

Forward 20 years later, Peter decided to celebrate his first Easter Sunday since the incident. He's doing this with a couple of friends and his girlfriend at his late father's woodland cabin, boozing up on beer and getting down with his sweetheart, all the while trying to disregard the creepy visions of a weirdo in a bunny suit.

Of course, the bunny mascot might be more real than he imagined as one by one, random bystanders and his friends fall victim to it. Is the killer from Peter's childhood back for another bodycount? Or is someone in the party crazy enough to do the killings themselves?

Early in the film (about 5 seconds), Easter Bunny Bloodbath made it clear it's calling back the days of old, when VHS Shot on Video horror movies ruled the video stores. Everything from cheap viscera to messy editing, it's a respectable thought and I for one give the producers credit for that. As for the actual movie, uh...

Let me put it this way; I can tell that this is supposed to be a horror-comedy, or at least a tribute to the so-bad-its-good Do-It-Yourself horror of the late 80s. There's cheesy acting and hammy scripts, two guilty pleasures we all known and loved from those age-old VHS titles, but the throwback was cooked to a burn and it ended up as the kind of humor that can be a hit or a miss. Unfortunate, and it could just be me, there was more misses than hits and I found myself either rolling my eyes, or smacking my own face to make sure I stay awake. (Pacing is, again, an issue. Would had kept me focused if the audio wasn't so crappy...)

So the horror comedy portion failed, what else could go wrong? How about store-bought Halloween props used as gory entrails? Or cheaply done digital splatter cuz budget? The victims to these killings aren't that likable themselves (annoying teenagers taking the role of college students. Yeah, really convincing, guys) so the point of these killings are lost from some fan's point of perspective.

I'm aware that the budget isn't all that big (they never was for SOV horror) and the production was as convenient as hobo with a can of beans, but these cons made the entire film looks like a slasher take of a grade school stage play. Honestly, they could had kept it Halloween (1978) simple and work on the creep factor rather than trying to make the film as gory as possible, but they wanted a nonsensical slasher and that's what they did. I shouldn't say anything ill for that claim as, being a guy with a soft spot for bodycount films, I appreciate the effort. But in the end, it just looked ridiculous.

The story is as basic as any backwood slasher would go: kids to go the woods, kids get killed, killer chases final girl, big twist, everybody dies. Nothing that will stray away a die-hard fan of the sub-genre but the execution is certainly something that'll divide attention, which is why this film have a few fans out there who simply loved the Shot-On-Video-Love-Letter approach Easter Bunny Bloodbath have, while I find myself siding with those who found the cheap, plot-hole heavy buckshot to the face that is this film nothing but a waste of time and DVD space.

So with all of this said, I'm not gonna stop people from seeing this. If they want to see a modern day home-made horror movie then let them. I'll just stick with my opinions that killers in big bunny suits look better and creepier skulking in the dark, the only good movie out there that features a killer mascot is the Ozploitation The Director's Cut (2009), and the only good Easter themed slasher made in existence was Easter Bunny! Kill! Kill! Nuff said.

Bodycount:
1 female beheaded with a cleaver
1 male hacked to death with a cleaver
1 female drowned in a pot of boiling water, head stomped
1 female strangled with a jump rope, stabbed on the eyes with handles
1 male castrated with a cleaver, killed
1 female pounded to death
1 female gutted offcamera, fetus torn out
1 male shot to death
Total: 8

"No Problem": Happy Hell Night (1992)

Happy Hell Night (Yugoslavia/Canada, 1992) (AKA "Frat Night")

Rating: ***1/2

Starring:  Larry Robinson, Lisa Nichols, Sam Rockwell 

When brothers clash for the same gal, things are bound to get ugly and this was the case for Eric, the house president of Phi Delta Sigma fraternity, when he found out that his younger brother, Sonny, is seeing (and canoodling) his ex-girlfriend. 

Bitter about this, Eric takes advantage on the fact that he has to initiate his brother to the fraternity via the annual Halloween Hell Night (under the nagging of their father, an ex-sigma) and, out of revenge, tasks Sonny a fraternity stunt that he originally thought was too risky for his pledges: you see, there is a local boogeyman named Zachary Malius, a man in a priest's garb arrested for the murders of seven sigmas and a local girl some years ago, apparently out of a Satanic ritual. Everybody claims he's still alive, waiting motionlessly for something inside his cell at a local nuthouse and Sonny and another pledge is supposed to take a picture of the man straight from said asylum should he exists.

After nosing around where they shouldn't be, the two eventually find the priest in his cell, covered in cobwebs yet very much alive and deadly. Malius grabs this opportunity to escape, killing his way out of the building and trails back to the frat house, where a convenient blackout had driven most of the partying guests out of the house, leaving several frat members and their dates in the dark, ripe for Malius' slaughtering spree.

A very 80s-esque slasher released in the early 90s, Happy Hell Night is your typical college initiation gone wrong type of horror flick, with a side of supernatural creepies. It has a cheesy tone siding with a nyctophobic atmosphere as well as some really gory killings at the hands of an effectively unnerving demon, which harks back at the early 80s entries of the sub-genre.

Sadly, the movie is underrated by many fans for some perfectly understandable reasons. For starters, the editing made the film look weird at times, the messy quick-cut fashion dealing more odds that resemble a rushed job, leaving a few scenes looking like two separate scenarios pasted together to create a jaggy flow on the plot. This gave the movie an unbalanced tone when it comes to its otherwise cheesy direction and scripting, but once the spree killing starts, it thankfully decided to ditch the cornball frat party atmosphere and went straight ahead with being a bloody bodycounter that somehow made this flaw work with the killer's supernatural state. As in, giving him a reason to be strangely in so many places at once.

Then, there's the fact it lacks any real sympathetic characters, with majority of the cast playing frat boys that are either douches or bearing the brain of a horny preteen, as well as foreign chicks that is just there to be fucked and killed. Character development is never a thing for slashers, but at least give the meat bags a personality that set one apart from the other. The final girl is a variation, at least; she's not a virgin, established quite early in the film, and the only form of accomplishment she have done against the killer was that she recite some spell while the two brothers tango with a homicidal demon.

Not a strong set of casts, but at least said killer was well worth seeing. In fact, he is one of the major pros this movie offered, with his pitch black orbs for eyes, lean built with a bone white skin, and a creepy voice that sounded like a homicidal Stephen Spielberg's ET. Malius's presence is so unnerving that the cheesiness of his otherwise hammy one-liners are almost lost in the abyss. His kills, though a good number of them are simple ice axe kills, are gory and bloody enough to satisfy avid bloodhounds, even if some of the murders fell victim to the movie's quick-paste editing.

It definitely has its moments once the action kicks in, Happy Hell Night is far from perfect but it didn't fail to entertain. It's paint-by-number approach to a basic slasher did make it predictable, a sure disappointment for those looking for something out of the ordinary, but for the right audience who just love to see a killer do away dumb frat boys via bodily mutilation and hackings, this is a worthy title to add to their collection, or at least see for the hell of it.

Bodycount:
7 males and 1 female found slaughtered with a knife
1 male had a hand cut off, killed offcamera
1 female had her neck slashed with a scalpel
1 female gets an ice axe through her head
1 female killed offscreen with an ice axe, later found dismembered
1 female hacked to death with an ice axe
1 male found dead with hack wounds
1 male found crucified with nails driven to his face
1 male bled to death from hack wounds
1 female decapitated
1 male ice axed through the head, exits to an eye
1 male ice axed on the chest
1 male disappears
Total: 20

"No judging until seeing this movie"

Boresome Brutal: Muck (2015)

Muck (2015)
Rating: *1/2
Starring: Jaclyn Swedberg, Lauren Francesca, Kane Hodder

Boobs, blood and guts. These are the very things that fuel slasher films everywhere! But there is one other aspect that most dead-teen flicks these days are intentionally forgetting or hadn't been thinking out too well: story.

This being said, let's talk about Muck; now, I will try to give a fair look to its "story" since this is actually the middle entry of a planned trilogy: the first, titled Muck: The Feast of Saint Patrick will be released in 2016 (or something), acting as the prequel to Muck. A third film is yet to be announced but seeing what this "middle child" is already offering to us, I'm not too keen on having that noise in my life.

Come to think of it, I'm not too keen on seeing the prequel either. Let me explain why.

Muck starts out in media res (in the middle of the action); five survivors of an apparent attack stumble out from the marsh, find an abandoned house in the middle of the muck, and bicker at the idea of breaking and entering while fearing that something lurking around is still out to get them. (Apparently whatever attacked them had killed one of their friends already, while another is left wandering topless in the swamp, assumed dead by her oh-so-loving buddies)

Eventually, they all decided to get inside the house after discovering it is unlocked, drink some of the booze while one of them wonders of their chances of surviving by comparing themselves to horror movie characters. (oh, so self-aware~!) Making sure those chances will not happen, nice dude opted to get out and find help, leaving his bitter soon-to-be-doctor girlfriend, a dude with a broken leg, said broken leg dude's bimbo girlfriend, and another girl that' I'm sure is there just for bodycount.

Now, he did find his way out of the swamp and into the welcoming neons of a bar in (get this) West Craven street, managing to borrow a phone from one of the slutty wives drinking there, but instead of calling the cops, he called his cousin "Troit" instead.

Look, see, if our supposed "hero" is this dumb, then what about the rest of the characters back at the house, you say? Well, I don't give a fucking damn coz they'll all be dead: one of them gets hacked with an axe by Kane Hodder's character "Grawsome Crutal" (which was a pretty cool looking killer if only he lasted longer than 5 minutes fighting one of our protagonists), another gets burned alive, another got stripped naked before being thrown through a window (yeouch), and another gets crushed by a car flipped by what appears to be an army of albino men with markings carved on their bodies.

Who are these men and why are they after the teens? Nobody bothers to explain, though some parts of the film hint that there might be something else bigger and deadlier than these freaks, which adds up to...nothing. For the entire movie, it's either teenagers being hunted by literal white men (two of which are bigger and bulkier than the rest), or teenagers with enough jockiness killing off or at least knocking out some of these freaks. By then, I'm starting to care less and less whether these guys survive in this movie or not, but just when it looks like we're in it for more, it just ends with a cliffhanger.

So, that was Muck. That was the entire "movie". Positives? Intriguing marketing strategy, lots of boobs and ass, zero CGI, loads of blood, loads of dangerous stunts, interesting looking killers, and an awesome final fight scene.

The negatives? Intriguing marketing strategy, no story, lots of boobs and ass, shitty characters, horrid lighting, horrid editing, no beginning, no ending, lots of unanswered questions.

Of all things to say, I find their gimmick of releasing the middle entry of a franchise flawed; I mean, if this is what the supposed "second" entry of a series was willing to offer, what does it say for the first film? The third? Granted that the prequel may shed some light on some questions Muck left for us, for those seeing this film as a stand-alone movie and expecting a badass slasher in the swamp will be sorely disappointed unless they're shallow enough to overlook story over tits, ass, and blood. (no gore. surprisingly)

Sadly, I'm the kind of guy that likes at least some story in his horror movies and would rather have some blood and gore than see boobs and butts in every random moment. Not that I don't like boobs, but too much ain't good for anybody and, apparently, anything. And that includes a slasher titled Muck!

Bodycount:
1 male mentioned murdered
1 female axed on the gut
1 female attacked, presumably killed
1 male set on fire
1 female through through a window
1 male hacked with an axe
1 male impaled through with a pitchfork
1 female crushed by a toppling car
1 female killed, blood splash seen
1 male axed on the gut
1 male axed on the back
1 male hacked with an axe
1 male axed, set on fire
1 male pulled into the water, killed
1 male hacked with a shovel
Total: 15

Burnt Potato from Down Under: Houseboat Horror (1989)

Houseboat Horror (Australia, 1989)
Rating: **
Starring: Alan Dale, Christine Jeston, Craig Alexander

A rock-and-roll band and their film crew decide to shoot a music video at Lake Infinity, where years ago another film crew met their demise at a fiery accident, leaving one survivor, a child, burnt and insane. As any backwoods slasher enthusiasts would know, once you see a pair of crispy hands grab a machete, you can tell where this is going.

Noticeably hated for a lot of understandable reasons, Houseboat Horror (1989) prides itself as the first Shot-on-Video horror flick from Australia, a gimmick that does fairly little to make up for the numerous amount of flaws this slasher committed, involving loads of cheesy bad acting, a paper-thin story, and a pacing that forces viewers to accept idiots being idiots as an alternative for brooding suspense.

Then again, there are a lot of other backwoods slashers that have done worse compared to Houseboat Horror (1989); while the story is tacky and the characters are the kind of people you would like to die off writhing in pain through a woodchipper, the film boasts a fairly sizable kill count and surprisingly gore-friendly outings that include a head split in half with a curved machete, a nicely done harpoon shooting and a poor thespian getting a horseshoe to the eyes.

Plus, the script is bad movie good, kinda chuckle worthy at times, making the movie bearable enough to even sit through a 3-minute corny music video for a song that, while good, is forgettable nonetheless. Guess what I'm trying to say here is while the movie is panned reasonably, I didn't find it as bad as most reviewers make it.

Blame it on my brain being mush (seeing I watched this after I saw the abysmal Muck (2015)), or my forgiving nature (for an extent), I'm giving Houseboat Horror (1989) a passable grade for being so-bad-its-good-and-funny. Now, where did I put my copy of Coda (1987)...?

Bodycount:
1  male found nearly beheaded with a kukri
1 female stabbed to death with a kukri
1 male hacked on the head with a hatchet
1 male gets a throat cut with a kukri
1 male ran through with a kukri
1 male hacked with a kukri
1 female stabbed on the eyes with a horseshoe
1 female knifed to death
1 male shot through with a speargun
1 female knifed through the neck
1 male impaled on a thrown pipe
1 male had his head split in half with a kukri
1 female strangled to death
Total: 13

Slitting Up and Freaking In: Innocent Prey (1983)

Innocent Prey ( US/Australia, 1983)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: P.J. Soles, Kit Taylor, Grigor Taylor 

Behind the suit and tie, Cathy Will's husband Joe has a nasty habit of slitting throats when he is in a bad mood. She finds out about this in the harshest way when she spots his car parked at a motel that one night she drops a friend off to the airport, catching him in tryst with a prostitute before slitting her throat mid-passion.

Obviously frightened of her discovery, Cathy calls the cops and set-up a bust that very same night, with the men in uniform waiting outside their isolated ranch to capture her husband once after she makes him confess about his killings. But this only sets Joe deeper into dementia as a few days after his capture, he spots an opportunity to escape the asylum he was carted off to and makes his way back to finish off his wife.

A few more police got called in for her protection, only to be killed off, leaving Cathy to fend for herself in your typical slasher film damsel-way until her sheriff friend come into the scene and assures her safety. At least for that night as her husband hot foots away, evading capture.

The attack pushed Cathy into flying away from Dallas to Australia, and living there with another friend. Things are far from fine, though, as crazy as that sounds; not only did her husband find out where she moved to, but she also caught the attention of another psycho, the tech-savvy maintenance keeper of the building she is living in, who monitors everything happening in each room with hidden cameras and rigged each door with powerful volts.

Innocent Prey (1983) has good build-up around its characters, though I do feel that the two psychos eventually devolves into one-note menaces the further the story goes and our lead heroine Cathy (played by Halloween 1978's P.J. Soles) do come off as quite naïve at times. Dialogue can be a bit goofy occasionally, but it adds to the playful cheesiness this film have underneath all of its production's attempts to look serious. When Cathy moves to the land down under, the plot did take a slight breather from all the blood-chunked cheddar and give us some soap-opera hysterics where Soles' character adjusts to her new life, only to dive down again to creepy thriller territories as our hapless gal gets terrorized by an altogether different ghoul. It has its slow moments, but director Colin Eggleston of Long Weekend (1978) and Cassandra (1986) knew how to build good tension and thrills to keep the escalating troubles and carnage interesting, most of it coming from Kit Taylor's own take as a maddened hubby and John Warnock as a landlord with a thing for voyeurism and electrocution. 

The tone can be all over seeing we're basically watching two kinds of plots unfolding throughout the movie, with some scenarios getting over-blown in ham as the situation keeps getting trashier and edgier by the minute. Hell, even the last shot of the movie seems to address the undeniable reeking cheddar of the overly dramatic and concerningly cruel turns the story takes. More reason for us horror fans to at least give this bonkers movie a swing, I guess.

It's not perfect as you can tell; a lot of elements simply don't work out and if you're the kind who cannot tolerate outrageous character and build-up, then you'll be riding this with a headache. Otherwise, if you're the type of slasher fanatic who can swallow a good sense of hamminess and weird plotting, Innocent Prey (1983) is a movie to add to your collection!

Bodycount:
1 female gets her throat cut with a razor
1 male found knifed
1 male knifed on the gut
1 female found decapitated
1 male had his neck snapped, set on fire
1 male murdered, method unknown
1 female electrocuted in a pool
1 male electrocuted on a rigged door knob
1 male pushed through a window, falls to her death
Total: 9