'Popcorn' is a slasher film worth checking out

Popcorn (aka "Skinner" and "Phantom of the Cinema") (1991)
Starring: Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, and Ray Walston
Directors: Mark Herrier and Alan Ormsby
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A group of film students stage a horror B-movie marathon at an old movie theater that's about to be torn down. The horror leaps from the screen when a mysterious murderer starts stalking and killing them.

"Popcorn" is a low-budget horror movie that pays homage to the William Castle school of filmmaking and promotion, while delivering loving jabs at the horror genre, its fans, and those who create material for it. It's a self-referential slasher movie that pre-dates "Scream" by a number of years and which is actually more subtle in many places.

The downside to the film is that its main characters are very, very annoying. They are so annoying that I almost quit the movie 20 minutes in. I'm sure the filmmakers were trying to present them as hip and playful, but I these film geeks came across as just a little too geeky. The characters did grow on me, and once the action moved to the movie theater for the horror film festival, I was enjoying myself thoroughly. This is one of those movies it's worth sticking with, despite a rocky start.

Although it was a complete bomb on its original release, "Popcorn" actually a pretty good movie. It's worth seeking out for fans of the slasher genre--except if you're looking for lots of gore. There's very little gore here, but there are several tense and creative murder scenes.

The advice in title is only good thing here

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
(aka "Revenge of the Living Dead" and "Things from the Dead") (1972)
Starring: Alan Ormsby, Seth Sklarey, Valerie Mamches, Jeff Gillen, and Anya Ormsby
Director: Bob Clark
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A practical joke-loving, hippie film director (Ormsby) travels with his cast and crew to an island cemetary to shoot his new movie. When one of Alan's gags go awry, and graves are desecrated, the corpses on the island reanimate... and they're hungry for the flesh of the living!


"Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" is a sub-standard zombie flick. It has a few scary moments, but in general it's badly acted, badly paced, and festooned with bad make-up and gore effects.

There is are interesting kernels of ideas in the script--the careless attitude that is on display regarding the living, the dead, and all things sacred stands as an interesting commentary on the filmmaking business--but they are barely visible due to the amateurish script and bad acting. (The best actor of the bunch is Ormsby, and even he seems like his just running lines most of the time. The rest of it seems like he's doing a bad parody of John Carradine.)

Lovers of the "Return of the Living Dead" may find something here to appreciate--and a distribution company thought the same, so when the film was re-released it got a title that called that series to mind--but the rest should probably take a pass on this one.