Paul Nashcy shines in dual role

Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973)
Starring: Paul Naschy, Emma Cohen, Helga Line, Víc Winner, and Betsabe Ruiz
Director: Carlos Aured
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Hugo du Marnac (Nashcy) comes into possession of the severed head of an ancestor who was exectued for witchcraft centuries ago (also Naschy). Unlike many of those so condemned, Hugo's forebearer was a REAL warlock, and he's been waiting for centuries to have his head reunited with the rest of his body, so he can ressurect his witch-wife (Line) and resume their lives devoted to Satan and Evil. Subsequently, murder, mayhem, and water-logged zombies threaten to completely ruin Hugo and his friends' vacation in the French countryside.


"Horror Rises From the Tomb" starts slow, but once it gets going, it emerges as one of the best movies Paul Naschy made. The resurrection scenes, the heart-ripping scene, and the zombies shambling out of the lake are all very effective moments with images that will remain with you long after the movie is over. Naschy is also a bit more energetic than usual, bringing lots of energy to the roles he plays in this film--especailly to the evil warlock Alaric. Whether he's a head-in-a-box, or the resassembled servant of Satan, Naschy radiates evil here.

The supporting cast is decent, with the female leads being not only gorgeous to look at, but okay actresses to boot. The film is also well photographed and the filmmakers made excellent use of both the desolate landscapes and the decaying buildings that serve as the film's setting.

'Pieces' is lots of gory fun

Pieces (1981)
Starring: Christopher George, Frank Brana, Lynda Day George, Edmund Purdom, Paul Smith, Jack Taylor, and Ian Sera
Director: Juan Piquer Simon
Rating: SPLIT--4/10 if viewed as a straight slasher film; 7/10 if viewed as a comedy)

Someone is cutting up beautiful college girls with a chainsaw and carrying off pieces of their bodies to create the world's first full-sized, flesh-and-blood person puzzle. The police (George and Brana) are stumped, so rather than conduct a full investigation, they recruit random faculty members to help with investigation and ask a random student to keep an eye on an officer who is sent in under cover as the school's new tennis instructor (Day). Who is the killer? The effeminate anatomy professor (Taylor)? The brutish groundskeeper (Smith)? The randy Big Man On Campus (Sera)? Or the quirky University Dean (Purdom)? Who's got bodyparts and a chainsaw hidden in their closet?


Some films are so bad they become unintentionally funny, and they end up being more funny than supposed comedies. "Pieces" may be an awful horror movie--hence the Four Tomato rating--but if it had been a slasher movie spoof, it would rate Seven Tomatoes. From the most incompetent cops ever put on film (not only do they recruite a possible suspect to watch their undercover officer, but they give him access to police files), to the least subtle serial killer to ever roam a heavily populated area (it's a residential campus, and he uses a chainsaw to kill people), to the Kung Fu fighter who shows up out of no where to attack the undercover cop for no reason what so ever, to the date-rape drug-fueled climax, "Pieces" gets funnier and funnier as it progresses. The lame, wanna-be "Goblin"-style electronica score only heightens the fun. (I'll grant the filmmakers one good scare, though. There's a bit near the end that I didn't see coming at all, and it made me jump.)

'Don't Look in the Basement' is average low budget

Don't Look in the Basement (1973)
(aka "The Forgotten", "Death Ward 13" and "Don't Go in the Basement")
Starring: Rosie Holotik, Annabelle Weenick, Bill McGhee, and Gene Ross
Director: S.F. Brownrigg
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Beautiful Charlotte (Holotik) comes to work at the Stephens Sanitarium, hoping to be part of Dr. Stephens' revolutionary treatments for the mentally deranged. Soon after her arrival, terrible, violent events occur, and she starts to fear the insane are literally running the asylum.

"Don't Look in the Basement" is a cheaply made horror film that has "amateur" written all over it. The acting is about average for a low-budget horror flick, the camerawork is dodgy and the lighting even moreso. However, as the film unfolds, an evergrowing atmosphere of strangeness and dread start to fill it, and this helps overcome the shortfalls and draws the audience in.

The film is also helped by its straight-forwardness. It keeps to its mystery-oriented, proto-slasher movie plot, making some nice attempts to keep the audience from guessing what is really going on at Stephens Sanitarium but still playing fair with those who are paying attention. Entirely too many modern horror movies fail to properly set up their "suprise twists" in the third act; here, we are given all the clues up front to the true state of the asylum and its doctors, so when the Big Reveal happens, it doesn't feel like a cheat. Instead, for those who have been paying attention (or those who have seen waaaaay too many films of this genre), it's a satisfying one, and for those who haven't been, it's a shocking suprise that they will feel like they should have seen coming.

"Don't Look in the Basement" is a staple of the DVD horrror and thriller multipacks, and it should be considered a value-adding feature to any one it is included in. (I'm not sure I'd recommend getting it any other way, but it is a film that anyone thinking about making a slasher or mystery film should take the time to see. The plotting is well-deserving of being a textbook example.)

By the way, this was one of the 70+ movies that made up a list of movies banned in Great Britain (known as the "Video Nasties."

A grand opening you can safely skip

Memorial Valley Massacre (aka "Valley of Death") (1988)
Starring: Mark Mears, John Kerry, John Caso, Lesa Lee, Jimmy Justice and Cameron Mitchell
Director: Robert C. Hughes
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

The opening weekend for a new campground in Memorial Valley is plagued by disaster and a murderous wild man (Caso) who doesn't appreciate all the newcomers to his previously quiet land.


"Memorial Valley Massacre" is a cross between a slasher flick and the "vacation spot disaster movie" subgenre (of which "Jaws" is the best and most famous). The film includes most tropes from the horror movie subgenres it's drawing from, but it doesn't do anything particularly new or particularly creative with them. The cast of victims are even less likeable than usual for a film of this type, so there really isn't anyone we're not sad to see go. Further, the one minor plot-twist the film features is both predictable and so far-fetched that it's something you'll be groaning at when it comes along. And, finally, this film was in serious need of a continuity person, or someone less drunk in the editing booth. There are a couple of scenes with characters in them that aren't summoned to the location they happen at until after the scene takes place.

This film might be worth adding to the line-up for a Bad Movie Nite, but otherwise it's not worth your time.

Bava delivers stylish tale of gothic hauntings

Kill, Baby... Kill!
(aka "Curse of the Dead", "Don't Walk in the Park", and "Operation Fear") (1966)
Starring: Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Erika Blanc, Fabienne Dalin, and Max Lawrence, Valeria Valeri, and Giana Vivaldi
Director: Mario Bava
Steve's Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Dr. Paul Eswai (Rossi-Stuart) arrives to assist with a murder investigation in a remote village. He finds the place gripped in fear of some evil whose name they don't even dare to mention. Although he at first dismisses it as superstitious nonsense, Paul finds it increasingly difficult to deny that the town is being haunted by the ghost of a vengeful little girl (Valeri)... particularly after he and a young woman with a mysterious past (Blanc) become targets of the spirit's wrath. Will he discover the secret behind the hauntings before it's too late to save himself?


"Kill, Baby... Kill!" is an Italian production that has all the production values and moodiness of some of the best Hammer gothic horror films from the late 1950s and early 1960s. If it wasn't for the bizarre color schemes that director and cinematographer Mario Bava likes to use to light his sets--lots of reds and greens, even in outdoor night shots-- and a somewhat more ponderous pace throughout, one might mistake this film as coming from the hands of the likes of Terence Fisher.

The film has a decent cast, an engaging, convoluted story that keeps twisting and turning up to nearly the very last moment of the film, and a very creepy little girl ghost. (Yes, the stringy-haired Japanese ghost chicks weren't the first underage phantoms in skirts to massacre the fearful.)

On the downside, the film suffers from a pace that never quite gets to where it should be. Bava treats us to some great visuals but he goes overboard with them and they become drags on the film at several different times than mood setters... there's just a little too much calling attention to the tricks of the trade than simply applying them. (And here's where Fisher leaves Bava in the dust... he made gorgeous, moody pictures, but he never felt the need to call the audience's attention to his work... instead, we just absorbed the whole.)

Aside from Bava's cries for attention throughout the movie, the end also suffers from a touch of "deux ex machina". It's an ending that makes sense and which is well-founded in the events of the film, but I would have liked the hero and heroine to have been just a little more directly involved in the resolution. I can see the rationale for why they weren't--the fact that the village sorceress (Dalin) is ultimately the one who stops the ghost plays into the conflict between science and superstition that is part of the movie's core. However, I think the ending would have worked better if science and sorcery came together to resolve the curse that gripped the town.

(And, frankly, given the way the sorceress deals with the root of the problem, even Erika Blank's damsel-in-distress character could have played a part.)

Although flawed, "Kill, Baby... Kill!" is a decent ghost movie. Fans of European horror films from the '60s and '70s should enjoy it. Heck, the fans of stringy-haired Japanese ghost girls will find quite a bit to like in this film, too.

Great proto-slasher flick, despite sloppy writing

Deep Red (aka "The Deep Red Hatchet Murders" and "The Hatchet Murders")(1975)
Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, and Gabriele Lavia
Director: Dario Argento
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Pianist Marcus Daly (Hemmings) witnesses the brutal murder of a famous psychic, and then teams up with Gianna Brezzi, a feisty woman reporter (Nicolodi) to find the killer. Soon, they find themselves stalked by the deadly, seemingly omnicient murderer who is willing to end numerous lives to protect a number of dark secrets.


"Deep Red" is a detective thriller crossed with a slasher flick (and it's definately one of the precursor films to the slasher genre), with hints of a ghost movie tossed in for good measure. Although it's easy for a movie with so many different genre elements all simmering in the same pot to dissolve into a hideous, gooey mass, director and co-writer Argento manages to stir the many elements into a fabulous goulash of gore, mystery, and plot-twists that are actually suprising to the viewer.

This is far from a perfect movie. It's got some pacing problems--any viewer paying attention will know that a character who is pegged as the killer at one point in the film can't possibly be the killer, and Marcus should realize it too long before he does--and the storyline is unneccesarily muddy at a couple of points, but there are enough chills, gory kills, and well-executed twists to more than make up for these weaknesses. (The thread of Marcus trying to remember some half-seen clue at the crime scene, one that he thinks might unlock the entire mystery, is a great device that keeps the viewer engaged... and the kills scenes will sate any gore-hounds out there.)

It's not much of a Christmas homecoming in'Silent Night, Bloody Night'

Silent Night, Bloody Night (aka "Death House") (1973)
Starring: Mary Woronov, James Patterson, Patrick O'Neal, Walter Able, Astrid Heeren, and John Carradine
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When Jack (Patterson) moves to sell the mansion he inherited from his grandfather, a past believed to be dead and buried returns to haunt the living with furious, bloody vengeance. Poor Diane's (Woronov) Christmas gift list will be reduced to virtually no-one by night's end.


"Slient Night, Bloody Night" is not as overtly Christmas-themed as the title might imply, but it is a great little proto-slasherflick and quite possibly the first horror film to flirt with a holiday theme. (In fact, it might be more than a proto-slasherfilm. It's got all the elements that are present in "Halloween", except for fornicating teenagers. We do, however, get an cheating lawyer (O'Neal) and his horny secretary (Heeren).

The bodycount is low by modern slasher-movie standards, but every death is shocking and unexpected. Although I had a vague notion of what I was in for, the first murders took me completely by surprise.

It's a fast-moving film with a bare bones plot, although I wish it could have been a little less bare-bones. I'm still wondering why Jack had to "borrow" his lawyer's Jaguar when he appears in the story. How did he get to the mansion in the first place if he didn't have a car? I also feel that the framing sequence was an odd choice... telling the movie as a flashback undermines a bit of the suspense.

Still, as an example of a thriller/horror movie that was part of the cinematic evolution that led to the slasher flick subgenre, "Silent Night, Bloody Night" is far better than several of its contemporaries.