Hide and Go Shriek (1988)

When you’re a horny teen desperately looking for a place to party, you’ll go anywhere you can to pound cheap beer and try to score with your boyfriend or girlfriend.  God knows how many odd locations I’ve gone to all in an effort to escape parental authority and take part in some juvenile behavior with my closest friends.  The group of teens in the late period slasher, Hide and Go Shriek, choose, of all places, a furniture store to party at.  After store hours, of course!  Now, we never had a furniture store available to us, but I’m certain my friends and I would have jumped at the chance to drink and get wild in such a place.  So, this location doesn’t seem like an odd setting for a slasher movie to me.   Luckily, my friends and I were never stalked and chased by a psychopathic killer through our party spot.  The same cannot be said for the kids in this film; and if that’s the tradeoff for getting to drink and screw in a furniture shop after hours, then you can have it!

The group of kids in Hide and Go Shriek are made up of your stereotypical teens in slashers.  We have the prankster, the creep, the nerd, the slut, the virgin, and the couple in love.  Being that it’s the late 1980’s, we also get some amazingly bad fashion and hairstyles!  The clothes are mostly baggy and loud.  One character is even wearing a pair of dinosaur earrings!  As expected, the hair on the female cast is BIG and the males are a mix of mini-mullets and spiked hairdos.  One of the male characters seems to have modeled his look after the 80’s fictional character, Max Headroom.  The character even wears his sunglasses in doors…at night…Big Corey Hart fan, this guy.  The cast that make up the teens are mostly unknowns.  The only face I recognized was Sean Kanan, who plays John.  Most will know him from The Karate Kid Part III, as “Karate’s Bad Boy” Mike Barnes.  There is really only one cast member that stands out from the rest and that’s Bunky Jones, but I’ll come back to her later.

The film opens with an anonymous character applying makeup in the mirror.  In the next scene, the character is shown picking up what may or may not be a transgender prostitute and later murdering the prostitute in a back alley.  It’s quickly established that there’s a killer on the loose and we’re not certain of their gender.  Clearly, an attempt to keep us guessing who the killer is.   We’re then introduced to our group of teens and then we’re off to the furniture store for some post-graduation partying!  As odd as this location may seem for a party, it does make for a great setting for a slasher film.  Because it’s after store hours and the teens want to avoid drawing any attention to the shop, the interior of the store is dimly lit, creating a lot of shadows.  There are also several mannequins spread about the store which keeps the viewer guessing as to whether or not it’s the killer.  When the killer does arrive on the scene we get POV shots of the killer lurking about and peeping in on the teens as they strip and get down to business.  This all adds up to a pretty unnerving setting which makes for some genuinely creepy moments.

Slasher fans who expect their slashers to be bloody and gory shouldn’t be disappointed with this one.  When the killer starts attacking the teens, the film doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details.  There are two standout deaths in the film.  One where a character is impaled onto an art sculpture and the second being a decapitation by freight elevator, thanks to some early special effects work from Screaming Mad George.  Some may feel that the body count isn’t high enough.  Personally, I found there to be enough stalking and slashing to satisfy my needs as a fan of the slasher sub-genre.

Hide and Go Shriek is not without its issues.  Firstly, it’s a darkly lit film.  Too dark, in some scenes.  I realize it’s intended to be dark so that the killer can hide in the shadows, but it can be difficult at times to make out what exactly is on screen.  I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to watch this on VHS back in the day.  Also, after the initial setup, the film drags a bit until the killer begins to attack the group.  The group of teens work within the tropes and trappings of the slasher genre, but individually they’re not that interesting.  The actors are mostly serviceable but no one really standouts until the final act and that is when Bunky Jones, playing Bonnie, gets her moment to shine.  Once Bonnie discovers the mutilated corpses of her friends, she comes completely unraveled.  Bunky Jones’ portrayal of a teenage girl who is terrified beyond belief is one for the ages.  Some may find all of her shrieking and whining to be shrill and overbearing.  I, however, found her performance to be a highlight of the film and I appreciated that she swung for the fences with her depiction of the hysterical Bonnie.  Her reading of the line “I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” has to be heard to be believed.  Highly entertaining.

I don’t think anyone would claim that Hide and Go Shriek is a top-tier slasher.  Not even the hardcore slasher fans.  It is, however, a solid entry into the sub-genre with several entertaining moments scattered throughout the runtime.  It has an eerie setting, bad fashion, gory murder scenes, overacting, unconventional moments, and an ending that reaches giallo levels of absurdity.  This film doesn’t attempt to reinvent the genre, but it does enough different to make it a memorable watch and not come off as just another disposable slasher, which there were more than enough of during this period.

MVT: Bunky Jones.  She goes for it in the final act!

Make or Break Scene: The reveal of the killer.  This will likely make or break the movie for you.

Score: 6.75/10

Devil Story (1985)

After my screening of “Devil Story”, I deduced that the plot is as follows; a family of pirates raid an island commune and overtake the premises. They partake in incest and give birth to a deformed son and a surprisingly normal daughter. The few remaining locals kill the daughter and take refuge in a castle. The two factions wage war against another, which results in the pirates reviving their mummified grandfather, who was seemingly brushing his teeth when he was killed as he constantly spits out toothpaste. Oh, and they travel via a Devil Horse that does nothing but stomp and neigh his way around the island. I haven’t seen a useless horse get this much screen time since the last “Sex and the City” film.

Take out the whole warring factions that I mentioned and replace it with a damsel in distress (who has no name on IMDB, which is fitting as she has no personality). He and her boyfriend stay the night at the castle (which doubles as a hotel for tourists who want to see incestual pirates) until their car is fixed in the morning. He goes missing, she goes looking for him, she finds the pirates, multiple chases ensue, yadda yadda yadda. This is the most homogenized slasher I’ve seen since “Ogroff the Axe Monster”. At least that one was fun.

I hate to accuse Bernard Launois of being a drug addict, but it’s the only conclusion I can come to that makes sense of this film. Nothing in this film makes sense. The last two paragraphs you read are my assumptions of what the plot is and that’s after my screening. The only thing for certain is that a beautiful woman was being chased a lot. Everything else is in the air. There was an urban legend of the pirates told by the castle owner, but it didn’t make a lick of sense. Hence why I came up with my own theory.

To further my belief that Launois was on drugs during the filming of this movie, let me break down how the film moved along. We open with the mutated son killing a few people and throwing them in a ditch. His murders, it should be stated, don’t match up. He shoots one woman in the face, yet when she turns to the camera, she has slashes. Did he load the shotgun with knives?

Anyway, the monster kills a few people then meets up with his mother. She’s whining and complaining about how her daughter is dead and they have to bury her. She’s also bitching about the Devil Horse making noise. He seemingly is insulted by this and travels to the castle, where the damsel in distress and her boyfriend have arrived. We get the aforementioned folktale and she wanders off into the night.

She happens upon the family and falls into their daughter’s grave. They abduct her and plan to kill her by resurrecting a Mummy. Said Mummy chases her and spits out toothpaste. The monster takes his place as the Mummy and the newly resurrected daughter (or maybe it was the mother sporting a new hairdo, I don’t know or care) plod around the island. The monster chases the girl for what seems like an eternity. He’s set on fire and shot at, but doesn’t die. She gets her car to start working, but runs out of gas (which she used the last of to pour on the monster). Rinse, wash, repeat.

The two eventually stumble upon a cave where the destroyed ship is. The old man from the castle is also there, trying his best to shoot the Devil Horse. This results in multiple shots of the horse running around repeated ad nauseam. These shots play throughout the film to pad the meager seventy-three minute runtime, by the way. I won’t spoil the rest for you brave souls who want to watch this garbage, but I will say the twist is mind-bogglingly stupid!

Did any of that make sense to you? If the answer is anything other than “no”, see a psychiatrist. If you answered correctly, avoid this movie! This is coming from the Cinemasochist himself. “Devil Story” is confusing and quite dull! The seventy-three minute runtime feels like an eternity. The only person I’d force this upon is Roger Ebert, solely because he always talks about having seen the worst films ever. After watching this, he’d probably quit the business!

MVT: The monster, I guess. His makeup was alright, though not as cool as on the cover (go figure).

Make or Break: The countless shots of the horse doing absolutely nothing broke this film for me (even more so).

Final Score: 0/10

The Carpenter (1988)

I’ll give David Wellington credit. He takes a simple plot, that of a psychotic carpenter haunting his unfinished dream home, and tries to do something more with it. He takes the slasher mold and tries to craft a psychological thriller out of it. I say tries because he’s not quite successful. It should be noted he’s working off a script by Doug Taylor, though I’m not sure if that was written as a traditional slasher. There are moments in the film that play out as such, making me question how much of Taylor’s script was changed.

I have a feeling that Taylor’s script didn’t start out with Alice Jarett (Lynne Adams) going to a mental ward. Her husband, Martin (Pierre Lenoir), checks her in and stays at her side during visiting hours until she’s released. When she is, he takes her to their new home in the countryside. It still has some renovations, so a crew of carpenters will be working there.

Alice is awoken the first night to the sound of drilling in the basement. She goes down to discover Ned (Wings Hauser), a carpenter who she believes is one of the gang. She doesn’t think this for long, as she witnesses Ned’s short temper explode on one of the sleaze balls when he makes a move on Alice. He saws his arms off and she watches nonchalantly. That’s right, she seems perfectly fine with this unknown carpenter hacking and slashing her hired carpenters. She is crazy!

She soon learns from a local cop (who I believe gave her a visit to check in on the missing carpenter, though I don’t remember him specifically stating so) that Ned was a successful carpenter who slowly went insane. The house she resides in is the one he previously owned. He worked round the clock to craft his perfect house. This resulted in him not taking any actual paying jobs. His wife left him because of this and his house was repossessed. He snapped and slaughtered those who tried to take him down. He got the electric chair for this.

Instead of freaking out, Alice confides in Ned (she even tells the cop he sounded like a nice man, which is absolutely creepy considering all she heard from him was that he was a psychopath). Wellington hints at the possibility that Ned is a figment of her warped imagination. She’s stated that her mental problems sometimes make her see things that aren’t there. The only inherent problem with this theory is that the carpenters recognize Ned’s work and think scabs are picking up their overtime. Unless Alice is doing the construction overnight herself, Ned has to exist.

Wellington gives Alice more emotional baggage by turning her husband into a douche bag. He seemed nice enough from the start, but we shortly learn after they move in that he’s a prick. He’s rude to the carpenters (though most of them are drunks who constantly goof off, so his attitude is justified) and he’s cheating on his wife. He even gets his mistress (who’s also his student in college) pregnant. Lenoir pulls off the character well and makes you hate him. The issue at hand is that it all unravels like a cheesy soap opera.

It may sound like I’m knocking “The Carpenter”, which I slightly am. It has a few more faults than it does pluses. I appreciated the attempt to do something different with the slasher genre, even if it didn’t all work out. Those coming in expecting a balls to the wall slasher won’t be completely satisfied, but Ned does off his victims in gruesome ways (and takes out a few rats with his nail gun). Wings Hauser is fantastic in his role, playing a goofy psychotic spouting off one-liners when dealing with his foes, but being gentle and kind towards Alice. Their brewing romance could have been hokey, but the two had tremendous chemistry and it worked out well.

Though I’m giving David Wellington credit, he does fumble as I mentioned. The finale starts strong, but slowly turns ludicrous. The film also suffers from pacing issues. The reason I believe Doug Taylor’s script was refurbished (pardon the pun) is because the actual slasher scenes feel off compared to the rest of the film. They move fast and are quite witty. The rest of the film moves slow, like a methodical thriller. This causes some lulls and slows the film down.

Depending on how you perceive it, “The Carpenter” is a better film than it sounds. If the idea of a psychotic carpenter haunting his old home sounds enjoyable (which it did to me), than this film may actually be lesser in your eyes. If the idea sounds laughable, than you’d be surprised to see there’s some craft behind it. For me, I appreciated the craft, but don’t feel it quite suited the slasher feel. I may appreciate the effort, but there’s parts of me that kind of wishes this was a crazy slasher flick.

MVT: Wings Hauser. He turns in a swell performance and can actually balance the mood swings the film goes through. He’s a hoot to watch!

Make or Break: It’s hard to pinpoint. I’ll go with the opening in the mental ward. I’m of the feeling that is slightly above average, so I’ll say this made the film. Even if it didn’t, it’s the perfect scene to choose as Wellington automatically shows you this isn’t a run of the mill slasher.

Final Score: 5.25/10

The Initiation (1984)

For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of a slasher is it’s setting. Where the murders take place is a key element in grabbing my attention. This may be why I was always a fan of sequels that went to exotic locations. Changing up the scenery added new flavor to the genre.

One of my favorite locations for a slasher would be a department store/grocery store. This is why the 1989 film, “Intruder”, is such a favorite of mine. I’m a sucker for the grocery store setting. That’s why this film jumped out at me. Being set in a department store after hours while a killer is on the loose was tantalizing.

Larry Stewart does take his sweet time getting there, though. The first half of the film is a slow build to the megaplex. We’re introduced to a group of sorority pledges who are enduring Hell Week. Our main female is Kelly Fairchild (Daphne Zuniga), whose father owns the department store. It’s her responsibility to get the gals into the building after hours for a mini party.



In the midst of Hell Week, she strikes about a working relationship with Peter (James Read). He’s a psychology TA specializing in dreams. She’s been having the same reoccurring nightmare since she was a child. In it, she catches her parents having sex. She grabs a knife and stabs her father in the leg. Immediately after that, another man enters the room and engages in a fight with her father. After a short scuffle, the intruder is set ablaze.

This loosely ties in with Jason Randall (Robert Dowdell), an escaped mental patient who has been horribly burned. Half of his face is scarred, heavily resembling the man in Kelly’s nightmares. As you could guess, he begins picking off the pledges one by one, as well as leaving a blood trail around them. In true slasher fashion, he has a signature weapon. His being a gardening tool that is used to dig up weeds.



“The Initiation” follows the slasher’s guide to filmmaking to a tee. It has naked women, a good body count, disfigured killer, signature weapon, exotic location and even a twist. It’s twist definitely sours the ending, as opposed to enhancing it. I won’t spoil it, but will state it does more harm than good. It feels tacked on and forced.

The subplot on nightmares is a bit of a bore, to be honest. As captivating as the subject matter is, Stewart handles it in a way that would cause sleep to occur. Peter spouts out the usual mumbo jumbo while Kelly frantically tosses and turns into her sleep. It’s fitting that this was released the same year as “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. Wes Craven came to the rescue and salvaged the damaged goods of this project.



Wade through this and the slow build (which produces some decent tension) and you’re treated to a satisfying back half set in the department store. Stewart uses the huge surrounding effectively. One nifty sequence has the lamps in an appliance store turning on and off as Kelly runs by them. Randall also swaps out his gardening tool with whatever he can get his hands on. This includes a spear gun!

If you’ve watched all the big guns of the slasher genre and are salivating for more, “The Initiation” is a good little treat. You may have to sift through some garbage, but the good stuff at the bottom is worth it. It may not be anywhere near the levels of “Friday the 13th” or “My Bloody Valentine”, for example, but it gets the job done.



MVT: Easily the department store setting. It’s what jumped out at me and grabbed my attention. It’s utilized so well and plays as a nice host for the murders.

Make or Break: I’d go with when Randall brandishes the spear gun. That was a sign of things to come and that I had a lot to look forward to.

Final Score: 6/10

Slaughterhouse (1987)

Buddy Bacon (Joe B. Barton) lives forever in my memories for one image. It was in a horror magazine ("Gorezone," "Toxic Horror," or another, I cannot recall). Anyway, the photo shows Buddy, a hulking, scruffy man in filthy bib overalls, leaning casually with one foot up on a broken chainsaw. In his hand is a knife-fingered glove reminiscent of that Elm Street fellow (I think Buddy might even be picking his teeth with one of the blades, hinting that Mr. Krueger sure was tasty). Somewhere on the floor is a beat-up hockey mask. Where Godzilla was announced in America as "King of the Monsters," we are to intuit from this oh-so-subtle picture that Buddy is "King of the Slashers." Well, not quite. What the image does do well is convey the overall tone of Slaughterhouse (aka Bacon Bits; I love that one). This is a fun little slasher movie that has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek (almost poking out the other side), that never received much recognition for what it gets right.

Jerk slaughterhouse owner Tom Sanford (Bill Brinsfield) has been trying for some time, with the help of his attorney Harold Murdock (Lee Robinson), to buy old man Lester Bacon's (Don Barrett) dilapidated property, on which also stands a slaughterhouse. Along with Sheriff Borden (William Houck), the men visit Les and his obviously not-all-there son, Buddy, and inform him that his property is going into foreclosure. Lester, who laments the death of craftsmanship in the slaughter industry and is Tom's former mentor, basically tells them to pound sand. Meanwhile, the sheriff's daughter Liz (Sherry Bendorf) – get it? – is preparing with her pals to shoot a horror video for some vague reason (a competition, maybe?). Guess where they wind up shooting. However, Lester has discovered Buddy's handiwork on a couple of whippersnappers who messed with his pigs and decides to lure his enemies to his abattoir and kill them, one at a time.

The film starts with a relatively non-graphic (yet decently bloody) double kill. The titles then come on with shots of pigs in a slaughterhouse going through their daily "routine." This is accompanied by a Bacharach-ian musical number. The entire movie bears this dichotomy. But it's not comedy versus horror. The two seem well-blended, so one doesn't overshadow the other. Some of the later kills in the film are fairly graphic in their depiction. Buddy himself is the center of both comedy and violence, but more on that later. Lester, on the other hand, is funny for all the wrong reasons. Despite his groan-worthy, pun-filled dialogue (which is not his fault), Barrett's delivery is so over-the-top, you start to wonder if it's really John Carradine in disguise. I'm thinking of starting an award for the most immoderate of performances. I'm undecided whether it should be called the B.E.M. (Bug-Eyed Monster) or Robert Marius (first commended for his efforts [okay, the only time so far] in my Zombi 3 review viewable here) Award. Food for thought.

The movie is presented as a slasher movie, and while it uses many of the subgenres tropes, it also twists some of them around. It contains the standard POV shots of Buddy stalking his victims on a couple of occasions. I never understood this convention, personally. The whole concept is fait accompli. You know where it's going. You know how the shot's going to end (with little variation). It doesn't generate suspense (I refer again to Hitchcock's "timebomb" theory [aka "the desire/frustration theory of suspense"]). Maybe it worked the first few times it was used, but certainly not by 1987 and certainly not after. Also, the victims are all dispatched in different ways. This has always been solely to keep the audience from being bored. If a killer (serial or otherwise) has an effective death implement, one would think they would tend to stick with it. It's the same reason why if you start off a video game with a .22 revolver and you're finally able to upgrade to a nuke-powered shotgun or what-have-you, you would be reticent (not to mention pretty dumb) to go back to the revolver.

On the flip side, the action doesn't focus primarily on the "teens" (I hesitate to call them that, because they don't look like teens, but they act like teens, kind of) but on the conflict between the adult characters. I actually found this refreshing. It gives the film a slight 1970s horror feel, which is almost always welcome. The teens themselves are almost indistinguishable from each other, as if writer/director Rick Roessler didn't care whether they were in the movie or not. They also don't seem to want to get in each others' pants, get drunk, or smoked up. How odd. The young'uns won't come under direct threat until the third act (and then arbitrarily, because you need teen victims in a slasher movie – and now you know why they're not developed as characters). It's not typical of the genre, but it works.

Slaughterhouse, regardless of its 1970s shadings, also keeps itself steeped in the 80s. There is some direly bad synth-rock that pops up whenever we get an establishing shot of the younger protagonists. The shooting of the horror video is presented in a devastating, soda-commercial-esque, kids-just-havin'-fun montage. I still found it funny. The big "Pig Out" party sponsored by radio station KFAT – get it? – features some of the most spastic 80s dancing ever captured on film (but sadly not the "Rerun", whose time I guess had passed by then).

The film borrows heavily (as any film with this setting and premise must) from both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Motel Hell. Buddy wears the rubber mask stolen from a victim a la Famer Vincent's glorious pighead and Leatherface's, um, leather face. Effigies fashioned out of animal remains festoon Lester's slaughterhouse. There are hints at cannibalism as the bodies start piling up. As an interesting aside, there is brief mention of Buddy having a younger brother that mysteriously disappeared. Nothing is ever made of this, but I found it to be a nice touch. And then there's Buddy himself, a Brobdingnagian man-child who, in fact, squeals like a pig.

It's Buddy, funny enough, who is the center of pathos in the movie. He looks like one of the Moondogs crossed with Randall "Tex" Cobb in Raising Arizona. Nonetheless, he's portrayed as a sort of ani-man. He has a tremendous affinity for his pigs, and the inference we're lead to draw is that there's some bestiality going on. He kills, yes, but he doesn't really mean it, because he doesn't know better, and he's following his dad's lead anyway. He's a slightly less sociable "Lenny" with a giant cleaver. And it is his childlike demeanor that drives the humor of the film. It's gallows humor, to be sure, but humor nonetheless, and it comes from character, which makes it work. Consequently, Buddy (as all popular horror characters do) generates sympathy, and a modicum of empathy, for himself while feeling none for his victims. I think it would be hard to continue stories with this character, because he could very easily become self-parodic. Still, the final time we see Buddy in the movie, while not unexpected and highly improbable, was nicely satisfying.

MVT: Buddy is the most valuable thing here. I think the above paragraph explains my thoughts as to why.

Make or Break: The "Make" scene is when Buddy dresses up like a cop and takes a cruiser out for a spin. It's, by turns, funny and horrific and it cogently encapsulates the tone of the film.

Score: 7/10