Category Archives: Film Review

Horror On The Lens: Night Terror (dir by E.W. Swackhamer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is a surprisingly violent and grim made-for-TV movie from 1977, Night Terror! 

In Night Terror, Valerie Harper plays a woman trying to drive to Denver, overnight.  Unfortunately, she catches the attention of The Killer (played by Richard Romanus), a mute psychopath who spends his time driving up and down the highway, killing random people.  This is a pretty well-done and suspenseful made-for-television movie, featuring good performances from both Harper and Romanus.  I wrote a more in-depth review of the film back in May so give it a read after you watch the movie.

(Or before you watch the movie.  I’m not going to tell you how to do things.)

Drive carefully!

 

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Another Son of Sam (dir by Dave A. Adams)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, his friends call him Another Son of Sam

But his real name is Mister Earl….

Actually, his real name is Harvey.  Let’s make that clear right now.  Despite it’s title, Another Son of Sam has next to nothing to do with the Son of Sam.  Instead, this zero-budget, North Carolina-shot exploitation film is about a mental patient named Harvey who, having been traumatized by his mother, escapes from the hospital and goes on a rampage at a nearby college.  This film was first shot in 1975, under the name Hostages.  However, it couldn’t actually secure a release until 1977, when it was retitled Another Son of Sam.  

Another Son of Sam is difficult to summarize, not because it’s particularly complex but, instead, because close to nothing actually happens.  Even though it’s only 70 minutes long, there’s really only enough plot for about five minutes.  However, because I do like to maintain a certain minimum word count when it comes to my reviews, I guess I better find something to say about this film.

It opens with a lengthy sequence of police Lt. Setzer (Russ Dubuc) enjoying a weekend at the lake.  The lake is never really mentioned again but some of the shots of the boat skimming the water are so nicely done that you can’t help but think that the film should have dropped the whole escaped killer thing and instead just focused on Setzer’s weekend.  After leaving the lake, Lt. Setzer goes to a bar and enjoys a performance from singer Johnny Charro!  Charro, who was and is something of a local celebrity in Charlotte, North Carolina, is credited as playing himself.  He sings an endless song, one that is repeated several time throughout the film.  Whenever anyone turns on a radio, there’s Johnny Charro!

Meanwhile, crazy old Harvey kills an orderly, escapes from a mental hospital, and hides out on a college campus.  Luckily, Lt. Setzer just happens to be investigating an unrelated case at the college!  Once Setzer realizes that there’s a killer on campus, he calls out the SWAT team!  The SWAT team searches for Harvey but, because they all kind of suck at their job, Harvey kills a few of them.

And that’s pretty much the entire film.

Now, there’s a lot of negative things you can say about Another Son of Sam.  None of the characters are memorable.  The acting is risible.  The pace is so slow that 70 minutes feels more like 70 hours.  However, I would like to take a moment to focus on two things that work surprisingly well.

First off, director Dave Adams (who was apparently a stuntman making his directorial debut) purposefully avoids showing us Harvey’s face.  Instead, we see his hands when he’s committing a murder and his eyes when he’s watching a potential victim.  The many shots of Harvey’s eyes, glaring out from the darkness, are actually effectively creepy.  By not showing us his face, Adams allows Harvey to remain an unknowable force of evil.  This is not one of those films where the audience is meant to sympathize or identify with the killer and I appreciated that.

Secondly, the film does this weird thing where the scene will suddenly freeze but we’ll still hear the sounds of people talking or walking down a hallway or listening to Johnny Charro or whatever else they were doing before the scene froze.  Apparently, this is because Adam shot the film using short ends and, as a result, the camera would often run out of film in the middle of a scene.  However, even if it wasn’t deliberate on the part of the director, the freeze frames actually do improve the film.  Along with creating a properly surreal viewing experience, they also remind us of just how unpredictable life can be and how quickly it can end.  One minute, you’re taking a shower or you’re talking about your plans for Spring Break.  The next minute, you’re frozen in place as all of your plans come to a perhaps permanent halt.  The freeze frames may have been the result of incompetence but they still work.

And it’s good that something works in Another Son of Sam because this is an otherwise unfortunate film.  I say that as someone who actually has a weakness for grainy, low-budget, amateur movies.  I liked the lake, the freeze frames, the eyes, and Johnny Charro.  But once the film hit 30 minutes, my mind was wandering.

One interesting note: the film opens with a list of mass murders, starting with Jack the Ripper and ending with David Berkowitz.  It makes the point that most of the killers were never caught and, even if they were, their motivations were never understood.  One of the killers they mention as having never been caught is “Seattle Ted.”  This, of course, was a reference to Ted Bundy, who would be captured two years after the release of Another Son of Sam.

Ladies and gentleman …. JOHNNY CHARRO!

The Night Brings Charlie (1990, directed by Tom Logan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The small town of Pakoe has 1,251 residents but that number is about to steadily decline because there is a killer on the loose. Wearing overalls, a burlap sack, and a pair of swimming goggles, the killer comes out at night and removes people’s heads from their bodies.

Sheriff Carl Carson (Kerry Knight) and Walt the coroner (Joe Fishback) suspect that the killer might be a disfigured handyman named Charlie (Chuck Whiting). Not only has Charlie been disturbed ever since he returned from Vietnam (where he served with Walt) but he also just happens to wear an outfit that looks exactly like the outfit that the killer wears. Charlie seems like the obvious suspect but, when he refuses to confess despite all of the evidence against, Sheriff Carson wonders if he’s really guilty.

The Night Brings Charlie has plenty of flaws. The acting is often amateurish and the pacing is slow, especially at the start of the film. For a film that only runs 77 minutes (and seven of those minutes are devoted to the opening and ending credits), there’s a lot of filler, most of it dealing with Walt’s daughters and their idiot friends. But, all of that aside, The Night Brings Charlie is not that bad. At its best, the film does capture the feeling of a small community under siege by a mysterious killer. (The influence of The Town That Dreaded Sunset is easy to spot, in both the look of the killer and the emphasis on on a town paralyzed by fear.) There’s a few moments of unexpected humor, my favorite being the killer taking the time to update the population number on the town’s welcome sign after committing his latest murder. Even better, the film has not just one surprise twist but two! Though the first twist was easy to guess, the second one was actually pretty clever and it did take me by surprise. Finally, while the first hour is slowly paced, the same can’t be said of the final 17 minutes, when the film comes alive. The Night Brings Charlie may start off on the wrong foot but it ends strong. Stick with The Night Brings Charlie and the film will pay off.

For a low budget, direct-to-video slasher that was made with an obviously amateur cast, The Night Brings Charlie isn’t bad at all. Unfortunately, it’s never been released on anything other than VHS but it can be found (with Spanish subtitles) on YouTube.

International Horror: Short Night of Glass Dolls (dir by Aldo Lado)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Short Night of Glass Dolls, an Italian thriller from 1971, opens with the discovery of a body in Prague.  American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) is found lying in a plaza, his blank eyes staring up at the sky.  When he is examined by a doctor, we can hear a heartbeat pounding faintly on the soundtrack but Gregory is still declared dead.  At the hospital, he is taken down to morgue and left on a slab until a coroner can get around to opening him up….

The only problem is that, as the heartbeat indicated, Gregory Moore is not dead!  Instead, he’s paralyzed.  He can’t move or speak but he is alive and he can think.  As he waits to be dissected, Moore tries to figure out how he came to be in the situation.  He searches through his mind and we search with him.  He remembers his lover, Mira (Barbara Bach), who begged him to help her defect.  He remembers how she mysteriously vanished and how he worked with Jessica (Ingrid Thulin) and Jacques (Mario Adorf) to investigate her disappearance.  Moore’s mind is full of disturbing and surreal images but, as he remembers, it slowly starts to make sense.  And yet, even if Moore does eventually figure out what happened to Mira and how he came to be paralyzed, the coroner is still making his way over to Moore’s body….

Because it’s an Italian thriller from the 70s, Short Night of Glass Dolls is often mistakenly referred to as being a giallo.  Actually, it’s not.  Though the film does have the type of convoluted plot and the stylish imagery that is typically associated with the giallo genre, the film also lacks a black-gloved killer and really, it can’t be a giallo unless you have the unknown killer wearing black gloves.  Instead, Short Night of Glass Dolls is a deliberately paced paranoia thriller, one in which Moore uncovers not just a single crazed killer but instead a shadowy conspiracy.  It’s also an effective horror film, one that makes good use of Prague’s gothic atmosphere and which is full of haunting imagery.  Whether it’s the leering gargoyles that seem to be present on every building or the mysterious chandelier that continually shows up randomly in Moore’s mind, Short Night of Glass Dolls plays out like a cinematic dream.  Moore finds himself trapped, both physically and mentally.  His body is trapped in the morgue while his mind is trapped in the past.

Director Aldo Lado was always one of the more political of the Italian thriller directors and, not surprisingly, there’s a heavy political subtext to Short Night of Glass Dolls.  It’s probably not a coincidence that the journalist, who starts out as being cocky just to eventually discover that he doesn’t understand the world as much as he thinks he does, is an American.  It’s also not a coincidence that the film takes place in Prague, which was, at that time, a Communist-ruled city.  Prague is portrayed as being a city that is controlled by secret police and secret societies, where no one is allowed to fly free.  In the end, Short Night of Glass Dolls is full of secrets.

Horror Film Review: A Quiet Place Part II (dir by John Krasinski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you had told me, ten years ago, that John Krasinski was destined to go from starring in The Office to being an action star, I would have thought you were crazy.

“John Krasinsi’s going to grow a beard and base his acting career around playing soldiers and CIA analysts?  No way!  He will always be Jim Halpert,” I would have said, “He smirks at the camera and has an adorable relationship with Pam!”

Of course, I was wrong.  After The Office ended, John Krasinki went on to play Jack Ryan for Prime and to star in movies like 13 Hours.  And yet, as unexpected as that development may have been, what was even more unexpected was that Krasinski would also direct one of the best horror films of the past five years, 2018’s A Quiet Place.  Telling the story of a family trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world in which the Earth has been invaded by aliens who hunt by sound, A Quiet Place was intense, atmospheric, frightening, and actually rather touching.  Though the plot itself may have been a bit familiar (because, seriously, how many movies have there been recently about insect-like aliens destroying civilization?) but Krasinski showed true skill as a director, getting heart-breaking performances out of a cast that included himself and his wife, Emily Blunt.

A Quiet Place was such a success that it was was inevitable that it would be followed by a sequel.  Though its original release was delayed by the pandemic, A Quiet Place Part II was finally released in May of this year and it became one of the first successful films of 2021.  John Krasinki even taped a special greeting for those who saw the film when it was first released, welcoming them back to the theaters.  That really is the most John Krasinski thing imaginable.

As for A Quiet Place Part II, it’s actually two films in one.  The first part of the film serves as a prequel, showing us the initial attack and following Lee (John Krasinski) and his family as they flee for safety while the aliens decimate their hometown.  It’s an exciting sequence, even if one gets the feeling that it was largely included so that Krasinski could make an appearance despite his character having been killed off during the first film.  After the flashback, A Quiet Place Part II picks up where the first film ended.  Lee is dead and his widow, Evelyn (Emily Blunt), does everything she can to protect her surviving children, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe), and her newborn baby.  Though Regan has figured out that the aliens are themselves vulnerable to sound (specifically, a high-pitched tone), that doesn’t make the aliens themselves any less dangerous.  After eventually meeting up with Emmett (Cillian Murphy), an embittered friend from the old days, Evelyn and her family search for other survivors.

A Quiet Place Part II is a simple but efficient thriller, one that recaptures all of the first film’s strengths without making the mistake of adding any new weaknesses.  Much like the first film, it’s dominated by suspenseful scenes of survivors trying to make their way through the wilderness without so much as stepping on a twig.  As anyone who has ever tried to sneak into their house after being out later than they were supposed to can tell you, walking without making a sound is not as easy as it seems.  One of the film’s most harrowing scenes features a character getting his foot caught in a bear trap and his family struggling to free him while also trying to keep him from screaming out in pain.  

Wisely, the film resists the temptation to tell us too much about the aliens.  All we really know about them is that they hunt by sound and they kill anything they pounce on.  And really, that’s all we need to know.  At a time when far too many film franchises end up drowning in their own overly complicated mythology, the Quiet Place films keep it simple.  The aliens hunt and they kill and they’re frightening specifically because there is no way to understand their motivations.  They’re pure chaos, a reminder that our lives are not ruled by rhyme and reason.  The aliens, like all existential threats, don’t care that the Earth is inhabited by families or people who have tried to create a safe life for themselves.  They exist only to destroy.

It can be argued that A Quiet Place Part II tells essentially the same story as A Quiet Place, with Cillian Murphy’s Emmett replacing Lee.  That’s a legitimate point but then again, it could also be argued that a part of the film’s strength is that it doesn’t attempt to complicate things.  The aliens are going to remain just as frightening the second time Evelyn and her family flees from them as the first time.  Clocking in at a brisk 97 minutes, there’s not a wasted moment or a trace of filler to be found in A Quiet Place Part II.  Featuring an excellent turn from the awesome Emily Blunt and good performances from Simmonds and Murphy, A Quiet Place Part II is a sequel that’s worthy of the film that came before it.

 

Horror on the Lens: Mazes and Monsters (dir by Steven Hilliard Stern)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we’ve got the 1982 made-for-TV movie, Mazes and Monsters!

Mazes and Monsters!  Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it?  Well, have no fear.  Mazes and Monsters is just a role-playing game, one that definitely should not be mistaken for Dungeons and Dragons despite the fact that it’s exactly the same as Dungeons and Dragons.  Except, of course, for the fact that one game takes place in a dungeon and the other takes place in a maze.

A group of rich kids love playing Mazes and Monsters but, when they take it a step too far, it leads to the newest member of their group having a nervous breakdown, fleeing to New York City, and fighting demons that only he can see.  Our delusional hero is played by an actor named Tom Hanks.  Hey, whatever happened to him?

Anyway, Mazes and Monsters is kind of silly.  You’re going to get sick of Chris Makepeace’s hats pretty quickly.  It imagines a world where the most popular and attractive kids on campus just can’t wait to pretend to be clerics and magic users.  And yet, in its own melodramatic way, the film works.  If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks stab a green demon, this is the film to watch!  This was one of Tom Hanks’s first roles and he already looks a little bit too old to play a college student but his trademark likability is already evident.  When Tom has a moment of clarity and desperately announces that “THERE’S BLOOD ON MY KNIFE!,” it’s impossible for your heart not to ache for him a little.  Finally, as over-the-top as the moral panic about the possibility of LARPers going crazy in New York may be, the ending actually is surprisingly effective.

Enjoy!

The Things You Find On Netflix: No One Gets Out Alive (dir by Santiago Menghini)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

No One Gets Out Alive is a film set in the worst place on Earth.  I’m talking, of course, about Cleveland, Ohio.

Still haunted by the death of her mother, Ambar (Cristina Rodlo) has arrived in Cleveland and is looking for a fresh beginning.  She hasn’t gotten off to a great start as she’s stuck in a go-nowhere job at a sweatshop.  Fortunately, her cousin, Beto (David Barrera), is willing to help Ambar get a better paying job, even though he barely knows her.  Unfortunately, Ambar needs a legal ID to get that new job and, as an undocumented immigrant, she doesn’t have one.  A co-worker offers to hook her up with a fake ID but it’s going to cost far more money than Ambar has.

As serious as that is, Ambar has an even bigger problem to deal with.  She’s recently moved into an apartment.  It’s a big apartment in an old building and the only other tenants are two mysterious women from Romania.  However, her landlords — Red (Marc Menchaca) and his brother, Becker (David Figiloil) — both seem kind of weird.  As Red explains it, Becker is a “little off” but Becker has apparently taken care of Red for his entire life.  Personally, I wouldn’t ever rent an apartment from either Red or Becker as they both give off that “sneaking into your apartment and stealing your underwear” vibe but desperate times, I guess.

Even if one could overlook the creepiness of Red and Becker, there’s also the fact that the apartment itself is obviously haunted.  Ambar is constantly hearing strange noises and seemingly disembodied conversations.  She occasionally sees figures in the shadows.  When she takes a shower, a mysterious woman appears on the other side of the shower curtain but promptly vanishes as soon as the curtain is opened.  That’s pretty messed up.

But what can Ambar do?  She’s in the country illegally so she’s not going to risk calling the police.  Beto turns out to be pretty ineffectual.  (As a Texan, I appreciated the fact that the movie featured a well-intentioned but thoroughly useless character named Beto.)  Maybe in another city, she could find some place better to live but Ambar’s in Cleveland.  Haunted pervy death house is as good as anyone can hope for in Cleveland!  Ambar is trapped in a place where no one gets out alive.

No One Gets Out Alive is one of those horror films where no one ever seems to turn on the lights.  Every single scene in the film is dark and overcast.  When Ambar goes outside, the sky is always cloudy.  When Ambar returns to her apartment, the lighting is always dim.  It creates a properly ominous atmosphere but, at the same time, it also makes it difficult to actually see what’s happening in a few scenes.  After a while, the film’s washed-out color scheme and shadowy cinematography goes from being ominous to actually being kind of annoying.

But, if you can overlook or, at least, tolerate the film’s overly drab visual style, No One Gets Out Alive has its effective moments.  The apartment building is a nicely creepy location and, even if some of the scares are a bit generic, they still often work.  Cristina Rodlo is sympathetic in the role of Ambar and the character’s status as an undocumented immigrant adds an interesting subtext to her being at the mercy of the building’s inhabitants.  Without any legal status, there’s nothing she can do once it becomes apparent that Red and Becker have an agenda of their own.  Her pursuit of the American dream becomes a nightmare once she realizes that, living in Cleveland without any legal ID, she might as well not exist.

No One Gets Out Alive is one of those films that starts out a bit slow but it improves as it goes.  Though I wish someone had turned on the lights, it’s an effective horror film that you can find on Netflix.

What Lisa Marie Watched Last Night #215: Nobody Will Believe You (dir by Damian Romay)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I turned over to the Lifetime Movie Network and I watched Nobody Will Believe You (a.k.a. Pretty Little Victim).

Why Was I Watching It?

This was actually my second time to watch Nobody Will Believe You.  I also watched it back in July but, for whatever reason, I didn’t review it despite the fact that I enjoyed the film.  I guess I must have been busy or sick in July, who knows?  Anyway, when I saw that it was going to be airing on the Lifetime Movie Network on Thursday night, I decided to rewatch it so that I could finally get around to writing this review!

What Was It About?

Melanie (Jenna Rosenow) and her daughter, Hannah (Emily Topper), have moved to a new town and, for Hannah, that means starting at a new school!  From the very first day, it’s obvious that Hannah is going to struggle to fit in.  Hannah may be nice but her classmates definitely are not.  The cheerleaders are bitchy.  The jocks are toxic.  Her best friend is alienated.  There’s a mysterious man who occasionally shows up and menacingly waves around a taser.  The only good news is that the friendly guidance counselor (John William Wright) wants to hire her to teach his daughter how to play the piano!  What could possibly go wrong?

What Worked?

I enjoyed Nobody Will Believe You because it did what every good Lifetime film does.  It shamelessly and openly embraced the melodrama.  Seriously, every possible thing that could happen to Hannah did happen to Hannah.  No sooner was Hannah getting rejected by the cheerleaders then she was saving the most popular girl in school from a falling printer.  No sooner had Hannah’s phone been hacked than someone was trying to frame her for murder.  It was such a nonstop collection of incidents that it quickly became clear to me that the film was self-aware when it came to its status as a Lifetime film.  It understood why the audience was watching and it was determined to give us exactly what we wanted.  At its best, the film worked as both a tribute to and a parody of the typical Lifetime movie.

What Did Not Work?

Obviously, for the film’s plot to work, Hannah had to be extremely naïve and trusting.  And, let’s be honest, it is true that some people are easily tricked.  Not everyone has the streetwise instincts of a suburbanite who has watched several hundred Lifetime films.  However, even with that in mind, it was sometimes hard to accept that Hannah could be as totally naïve as she often was.  Watching the movie, you sometimes got the feeling that, even if Hannah survived, she was destined to grow up to be one of those people who ends up sending their life savings to Aruba because someone contacted them on Facebook, claiming to be Garrett Hedlund.

“Oh my God!” Just Like Me Moments

When I was growing up, my family used to move a lot so I definitely could relate to Hannah’s nervousness about having to start all over again at an entirely new school.  And, when I was in high school, I got along famously with our guidance counselor.  If I hadn’t broken my ankle, maybe he would have asked me to teach his daughter to dance.  Of course, if Lifetime films have taught me anything, it’s that being hired to teach anyone anything is automatically going to lead to tragedy.

And of course, that brings us to….

Lessons Learned

Don’t teach.  Don’t offer to help anyone.  Reject any and all offers of mentorship.  It’s just going to lead to trouble.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Sharktopus (dir by Declan O’Brien)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Half Shark….

Half Octopus….

All Man!

No, wait a minute.  That’s not right.  Let’s try that again.

Half Shark….

Half Octopus….

All Killer!

There, that’s it!  That’s our Sharktopus!

Produced by the legendary Roger Corman, Sharktopus originally aired on the SyFy channel in 2010.  It tells the story of S-11, a creature that is half-shark and half-octopus.  How exactly did S-11 come to exist?  Well, blame the government!  The government wanted a new weapon and apparently, it didn’t bother them that the weapon would have no practical use beyond going rogue and killing civilians.  Dr. Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts, the one and only) created the sharktopus with the help of his daughter, Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane).  When S-11 swims off on its own and starts eating human beachgoers, Nicole teams up with mercenary Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin).  Nicole and Andy think that they’ve been sent to destroy S-11 but it turns out that Nathan has other plans.

Let’s just state the obvious.  This is the greatest film ever made.  Okay, well …. maybe it’s not the greatest.  Some people would probably say that it’s not even that good but I think they’re overthinking things.  What it comes down to is that there really aren’t as many films out there about shark/octopus hybrids as you might think.  When it comes to this very specific genre of horror films, Sharktopus is the best.

This is a film that understands why the audience is watching.  We’re watching because we want to see Sharktopus action!  So, while the film does contain its fair share of scenes of Nicole and Andy searching the ocean, the majority of the film is still made up of Sharktopus attacks.  You don’t really get to know any of the victims, though I did feel bad for the gentleman who shouted, “Oh no!  Not like this!” as he was pulled down to the ocean by S-11’s tentacles, but that’s okay.  It’s all about the Sharktopus, a creature that is so ludicrous that it’s impossible not to like it.

Another thing that’s impossible not to like is the fact that Eric Roberts is in this film.  The last time I checked, Roberts had a total of 641 acting credits listed on the imdb.  He’s appeared in every type of films — from Oscar-nominated prestige films to low-budget faith-based films to Lifetime films to …. well, films like Sharktopus.  But regardless of the film, Roberts always seems to be trying his best or, at the very least, he comes across like he’s genuinely amused by the absurdity of it all.  Roberts has a lot of fun in Sharktopus, playing his mad scientist character with a twinkle in his eye and a barely suppressed evil smile.  Dr. Sands takes genuine pride in his creation and it’s kind of hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm.

Sharktopus is a fun movie.  It’s a low-budget and deeply silly epic and it you can’t enjoy the sight of shark/octopus hybrid creeping across the beach than I don’t know what to tell you.  In fact, Sharktopus was popular enough with SyFy audiences that it would return for a whole series of films in which it battled hybrid monsters.  Go Sharktopus!

On a final note, keep an eye out for Roger Corman while watching this film.  He plays a man on the beach who watches as a treasure seeker is dragged off to the ocean.  When he realizes that she dropped a valuable coin while being taken away, Corman walks out on the beach and grabs it for himself.  Hopefully, he sold that coin and used the money to go on a nice vacation.  If anyone’s earned it, it’s Roger Corman!

 

Psycho Cop (1989, directed by Wallace Potts)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When six interchangeable college students spend the weekend at an abandoned mansion, strange things start to happen. First, the caretaker disappears. Then, the students start to disappear, one-by-one. “We should call the police!” Sarah (Linda West) says, once it becomes apparent that more than half of the cast has vanished without a trace.

However, there’s already a cop on the scene.

Unfortunately, that cop is Joe Vickers (Robert R. Shafer), an escapee from the local mental institution who subsequently became a member of the California Highway Patrol. He drives a squad car and sometimes a motorcycle. He wears a uniform. He carries handcuffs and he uses cop lingo. He’s a CHiP with an attitude and no one would ever mistake him for Ponch or Jon Baker. He’s also a Satanist, who likes to draw pentagrams in the dirt and kill anyone who comes across his path. We may see six interchangeable college students but Joe Vickers sees six blood sacrifices and, while the students search for each other, Vickers hunts them down.

Psycho Cop was one of the many, low-budget slashers to come out in the 80s. It attempts to mix the wilderness mayhem of Friday the 13th with the quippy villainy of A Nightmare on Elm Street but the movie never comes anywhere close to being as memorable as either one of those films. The main problem is that Joe Vickers is not a very interesting killer. His one-liners are forgettable and, in this film at least, Robert R. Shafer is one of the least intimidating killers in the history of the genre. He has the right build to be menacing but, whenever he speaks, his weak voice ruins whatever element of danger may have been present. Even his attempt at an evil smile comes across as being more goofy than creepy. As opposed to the Maniac Cop films, Psycho Cop also doesn’t do much with the idea of Vickers being a cop. It’s just a uniform that he happens to be wearing, much like the masks worn by Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. A film like this is only as strong as its villain and Vickers, to put it gently, is not Freddy Krueger.

Psycho Cop was followed by a sequel called Psycho Cop Returns, which not only made Vickers being a cop a key part of the film’s plot but which also featured Shafer returning in the lead role and giving a much stronger performance. (It helps that Vickers doesn’t speak much in Psycho Cop Returns.) Because the sequel had all of the nudity and the blood that was missing from the tame first film, it was frequently aired on Cinemax and Showtime in the 90s, developed a cult following, and was released on DVD and blu-ray by Vinegar Sydrome in 2017. The first film, on the other hand, has never been released on anything other than VHS and it’s so obscure that several reviewers assumed that the title of Psycho Cop Returns was meant as a joke, a play on how every slasher film released in the early 90s was a sequel.

No, it’s no joke. Psycho Cop does exist. It’s just not every good. If you’re dying to see a killer cop film, Maniac Cop is still the one to go with.