Watching horror movies can be a hit and miss experience, and shopping for them (particularly used) can be difficult. Odds are the titles you find are movies you have, have seen, or don't want to see (for example: there are multiple copies of The Ninth Gate, Jeepers Creepers 2, and all of the After Dark releases). Occasionally you'll find a missing piece from your collection, like The Fly II, a really not so great sequel to Cronenberg's remake but damn is it gory. Typically your eyes glaze over, but every now and then, tucked in between public domain releases of Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls*, you see something that makes you say "what the hell is this?".
I found four such titles tonight, all with a pretty good chance of either ruling or sucking, but for 5-8 bucks, it's worth a try:
1.House of the Damned - from the synopsis on the back "Architect Scott Campbell and his wife Nancy join another couple, Joseph and Lay Schillar for what promises to be a pleasant stay at an empty castle set on a secluded California hillside. Soon, however, tension mounts as... a group of ghoulish carnival circus performers who once inhabited the castle beome increasingly hostile towards their 'guests'"
Okay, so we have two normal couples, and "abandoned" castle, and circus freaks? I'm down! And lest ye think this is some bargain basement movie, it comes from 20th Century Fox circa 1963. So this is Fox attempting to rival the Corman cheapies. I have no idea who the people in the cast are, so all signs point to "hell yeah!"
2. Prom Night and Ghoulies IV - The Prom Night is exactly the one you think it is: with Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen, but I didn't have a copy and it's the Alliance reissue that's at least widescreen. The more important part is that it's doubled up with Ghoulies IV! Fucking Ghoulies IV!!! I didn't know there was a Ghoulies III, let alone a fourth entry. This is madness.
I fully admit that Ghoulies IV probably sucks sweaty donkey balls, but I have to see it. Ghoulies II played during Horror Fest I and remains a guilty pleasure for the Cap'n. Plus, think of it as buying Prom Night and getting a free shitty sequel in another series.
3. The Unseen - I feel like this title is familiar, but I don't know why. It stars Barbara Bach as a TV reporter who loses her motel room during a remote report and stays at some dude's farmhouse. The farmhouse, of course, has a horrible "something living in the basement", which they of course discover. To quote the back cover "their stay soon becomes a horrific nightmare when they encounter the 'unseen'".
So it kind of sounds like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (appropriate, since it's written by Massacre's Kim Henkel) crossed with that episode of the X-Files about inbred mutants. Throw in a dash of "monster movie of your choosing" and I bet that's The Unseen. And yet, I'm interested. I could be cool, and as I said, it's rare to see a movie you haven't seen a bazillion times.
4. The Johnsons - Okay, the cover is what did it for me here.
It's some Dutch take on The Omen or The Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby, mixed in with a little bit of A Nightmare on Elm Street, except instead of Satan, it's the Mahxitu Indian God Xangadix. Or something like that. The back of the dvd has some bald kid covered in blood eating what looks like human flesh. It's an Anchor Bay joint, who brought me the remarkably gross Baby Blood, so I figured "why not?"
Have any of you heard of these movies? Know anything about them? Was I very foolish, or do they sound like interesting avenues to go down? I'm always happy to find one movie I know nothing about, but four was crazy!
Finally, this is specifically for the Cranpire, but the rest of you will enjoy it too.
* just buy the criterion. it's worth the price.
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