The Amish community is one of clandestine rituals and Rumspringa alone could be converted into a feasible horror film. On the other hand, Deadly Blessing scrutinizes the borderline cult aspects of the luddite lifestyle as if it were a pagan subculture summoning the arrival of the incubus. With that in mind, I could corroborate the furor the Amish might expectorate on this with precious images of Hittite field tilling and diurnal chores over ominous Gregorian chants.

Without the additives of demonic makeup, Michael Berryman and Ernest Borgnine are already accursed, spectral voices of doom. One moment of surprisingly subtle despair from Berryman is when he peeping on Martha (Maren Jensen) in her negligee and he looks genuinely crestfallen over his sheltered existence. The subtext about proselytizing from the ascetic community to a more “worldly” relationship with a woman is vapidly skimmed with intermittent scenes of Isaiah (Borgnine) scolding his kin not to “covet” tractors and the other luxuries of their infidel neighbors.

In lieu of that incendiary topic, Deadly Blessing is mostly tethered to an overblown slasher film. Sharon Stone’s nightmare about a salacious killer who preys on her spider phobia might be Wes Craven’s epiphany for dream stalker Freddy Krueger. Also bridging the gap between this and A Nightmare on Elm Street is the POV of a snake slithering between Martha’s legs in the tub.

Those who avidly anticipate an underrated installment from the late Craven will be sorely dispirited that Deadly Blessing is a torpid, rustic Sleepaway Camp clone. The car explosion is decently suspenseful though.

Rating: 2.25 out of 5

To label the first half of the listless dud The Funhouse phlegmatic is an insult to mucus. It crawls on its hands and knees to a creature feature. It’s what Roger Ebert coined a Dead Teenager Movie with a slice-of-life focus on the park’s attractions. The most eerie sights are a two-headed cow and another with a cleft palette.

Finally, after an interminable uphill battle of pot smoking, peep-show voyeurism and exhibitionist sex, it shifts gears to a slasher film with a “freak”. Unfortunately, the critter is a lanky albino bat without a backbone. There is nothing more flagrantly idiotic for a movie villain than humanization and then abject humiliation when the deformed Gunther Straker (Wayne Doba) basically cowers and mewls for the majority. When Gunther is henpecked and harangued by his father for his violent temptations, Tobe Hooper duplicates the askew nuclear-family dynamics of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

For such a declawed R-rating and harmless tonality, the hatchet-in-the-head overkill of one character and flaunting nudity of Amy Harper (Elizabeth Berridge) are jarring to the audience’s sensibilities. The rationale behind Kevin Conway as the three carnival barkers is not nonsensical, it’s completely nonexistent. Amy’s brother’s infiltration of the roving fair is a shaggy dog story that proceeds to no outlet.

It hints at child-in-peril exploitation and quickly abandons those dubious plans. The Psycho shower scene with the Dario Argento killer-with-black-gloves trope is futile because it is a thrifty excuse for breasts and a jump scare. It might be faintly better than Eaten Alive but a calamity like The Funhouse still postulates the question what happened to the guerilla mastermind behind Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Rating: 1.75 out of 5

A giallo with a low body count that predates Black Christmas and Halloween for the opening POV tracking shot of the killer, Blood and Lace was an influential 1971 slasher picture. Under the harsh light of modern times, it’s a clunky, plodding and altogether harebrained concoction with stock music from the Ed Wood films of yesteryear. The vantage point technique is shoddy though with the claw hammer (the murderer’s weapon of choice) practically mounted to the lens as if the culprit was holding it right above his nose.

Draining the film of nocturnal ambiance is the high-key lighting scheme which would be more appropriate for The Mary Tyler Moore sitcom. With nary a shriek or pulverizing sound effects, the hammer deaths are tepid. Obviously the charred mask and red sweater were reconfigured for A Nightmare on Elm Street. But just because it was the template doesn’t mean Wes Craven didn’t substantially improve upon it.

When Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) is orphaned and incessantly reminded that she doesn’t know the identity of her father, the plot twist is telegraphed miles ahead. Except the shockingly lurid incest-and-blocked-memories revelation (“Evil breeds evil honey”) in the final moments can’t scrub away the pure boredom of teenage angst with Ellie and her peers prattling about their absentee parents. The kernel behind a halfway house with decomposing runaways is a pulpy and could’ve been skin-crawling but it’s comical putty in the maladroit hands of Philip S. Gilbert.

All of the “orphans” are incontrovertibly played by 30-year-olds. In the Mommie Dearest role, Gloria Grahame is a slurring shrew but she lacks the combustibility although her soliloquies to her refrigerated husband are loony. This is not a treasure trove in the sands of time.

Rating: 1 out of 5

Irony plays a major role in why Scream Factory decided to release Howling II, an inept, poker-faced sequel to Joe Dante’s already overrated lycanthrope ode. From costuming (the cumbersome dominatrix garb of Danning) to atrocious special effects (the shots of werewolves could be inanimate animatronics waved by a gaffer in the frame), the film is a minimal notch below Troll 2 for execrable quality. The Mystery Science Theater riff rewatchability is ripe with potential.

The band Babel’s droning punk-rock song is recycled over and over. Reb Brown blares like an air raid while decimating skinwalkers with bullets that are not explicitly silver. Apparently editor Charles Bornstein had finally learned triangle wipes and other hokey transitions in his pre-Final Cut software because he flaunts every variation for the choppy segues.

Perhaps, Philippe Mora surreptitiously collaborated with Robert Sarno and Gary Brandner on a deadpan satire of the werewolf craze. How else to explain the rhetorical “The Following Afternoon” title card or the lycanthrope ménage a trios scene? If so, it is utterly brilliant in its sincerity. If it’s a foray into New Wave eroticism as Mora has proposed, it’s an unmitigated failure. Sybil Danning is deliciously nubile in (and out of) leather bondage outfits but draping her in wooly hair all over her genitals is a mammoth faux pas.

Most people cherish werewolf films for their transformation scenes where their limbs contort, their snouts extend and their hair bristles but, in Howling II, they are predominantly off-screen. Christopher Lee might be catatonic in the film because he is completely emotionless and unfazed by scenes of nonchalantly spiking a werewolf playing possum in a roadside accident.

Lee’s tussle with Danning should be equivalent to his lightsaber duel with Yoda. Instead it’s a mess of light-emitting orifices and dispassionate embraces. Not the most glamorous exit for the queen of the werewolves. A reanimated bat basically having sexual intercourse with a priest’s throat is a tawdry prosthetic which only increases the grossness factor.

Rating: 1.25 out of 5

The cover artwork is a hissing cat hovering over witch’s fingernails and the assumption of supernatural chicanery isn’t entirely unfounded. While this occult thriller can be lumbering and devoid of shivers, it is nevertheless ticklish, byzantine escapism. Frankly, the bait-and-switch of Margaret (Katharine Ross) and Pete’s (Sam Elliott) swooning romance (with picnics along the English countryside) is a convincingly tranquil slice of Nicolas Sparks infatuation. Lending his mustache and swaggering macho gravitas to the cryptic proceedings, the seethingly paranoid Elliott scowls at the slightest hint of conspiracy (his glance is askew at an astronomical advance sum for their interior design overseas).

Richard Marquand sprinkles a breadcrumb trail of oddities and red herrings (ex. A fully furnished bedroom upon the couple’s inopportune arrival). A gratuitously titillating shower scene for the ladies of Elliott is interrupted by scolding hot water. Known mostly for the band The Who, Roger Daltry doesn’t outstrip himself of his rock-star image and his character, Clive, might as well be vacationing during an international musical tour. Either way, kudos to the script for not skimping on its own cockamamie nature.

The ring being bequeathed to Maggie is undeniably frightening with the disembodied voice of Jason Mountolive beckoning from behind a hospital veil. Although, Mountolive’s decrepit makeup is eerily similar to Troma’s Toxic Avenger.  Neither Maggie nor Peter are nonplused by accumulating loopy behavior and it only supports the tongue-in-cheek attitude. At one point, Elliott is nearly struck by an errant crossbow arrow and he remarks, in his typically baritone manner, “Maybe you should stick to darts”. The major component that propels the film to modest success is the jaunty chemistry between real-life duo, Elliott and Ross. Normally the off-screen sparks don’t translate to celluloid (ala Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez) but they truly register as an inseparable couple.

The whodunit aspects are transparent to a fault but it doesn’t treat black magic and Satanism with direness. Daltry’s recruitment speech to the dark arts is quite flippant in a Monty Python way (“It’s a different way of life really. We don’t ride on broomsticks.”). By the ending credits, the prophesy has been fulfilled and those still intact are not merely grateful but surprisingly felicitous about the possibilities of the heir’s powers. On its own ingratiating merits, The Legacy is a lighthearted romp in devil worship.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

This extremely risible, effete and addlepated film was basically an audition for John McTiernan. A demo reel if you will for his next gig which was the massively popularized Predator. Arnold Schwarzenegger screened this and envisioned him as the perfect candidate for his extraterrestrial action flick. What did he see?

He certainly has a cinematic eye with blue blips on the nocturnal Los Angeles skyline. Shackled in handcuffs while babbling French nonsense, Pierce Brosnan is eye-rollingly cheesy in his shellshocked hysteria and broadly nasal Inspector Clouseau accent. His escape from captivity is incompetently drenched in a slow-motion frame rate (which is the padding for most scenes) as he whispers into Dr. Eileen Flax’s (Leslie-Anne Down with Virginia Madsen’s poutiness) ear and dopey staging for a jump scare. From that point onward, Flax rhapsodizes about flashbacks to sociologist Jean-Charles Pommier’s (Brosnan) existence before his untimely departure.

The most laughably mundane is a possessed Flax reciting verbatim Pommier’s conversation with a real-estate agent. It’s also not a flattering portrait for hospitals. The physicians and nurses act awfully cavalier about the “lunatic” Pommier’s extemporaneous death (and the staff is somehow fluent in French). To his disadvantage, McTiernan also wedges a malapropos rock-n’-roll guitar stingers and a heartbeat during the “suspense” in what should otherwise be a classy, supernatural affair.

If this were a kamikaze satire on yuppie-in-danger movies, it would be a riot. But sadly, McTiernan is the Claudio Fragasso who devoutly believes that leather-clad biker gangs in a blackout van are the sources for helter-skelter in the audience’s nervous system.

An interlude with a kindly nun doesn’t decipher the cryptic, impenetrable storyline any further. While Pommier is photographing them, it degenerates into a Motley Crue music video. Seems Schwarzenegger took a monumental leap-of-faith on McTiernan because, based on this wafer-thin affidavit, he wasn’t ready for the next phase.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5