Shark Zone (2003)

Jimmy Wagner has nightmares about the day he was scuba diving with his father, a former navy seal, and the sharks arrived. Dad had taken some tourists to dive near a shipwreck, but the arrogant tourists thumbed their noses at his safety tips and went off on their own. This act of ignorance made them prime shark bait and the only person to come up from the dive was Jimmy.

With the back story in place, we cut to ten years later where Jimmy - having not aged a day - has a hot wife, a young son, and a job watching over the beaches. The upcoming festival has everyone excited, especially Mayor John Cortell, as crowds will flock to the town and take advantage of their lovely beaches and water sports, which translates to mucho tourist money.

Unfortunately it is at this time that Jimmy's past comes back to haunt him. The festival is sponsored by the evil Russian Volkoff, who insists on going out to the old shipwreck and having Jimmy guide him. There are supposed to be diamonds on the wreck and Volkoff wants them.

It is also at this point that the sharks start eating humans again. It always happens right before the big holiday weekends or summer festivals. With stock shark footage a-swimming, Jimmy insists that the Mayor shut down the beaches! But damn it, the mayor is not going to ruin the festival, or alienate the sponsor, Volkoff.

With cries of "You need to shut down the beaches" and "Everyone out of the water - we've got sharks!", plus a mayor who refuses to risk the town's revenue against a man who refuses to risk people's lives for profit, you end up with a sub-par version of "Jaws".

Jimmy is a fairly useless hero as much of his shark hunting is done by looking through binoculars, watching his friends get mauled in shark cages, or dropping bombs into the ocean in random attempts to kill any shark that happens to be in the area at that moment.

While it is essentially a poorly done rewrite of Jaws, there is some laugh value in it's lack of logic, ridiculous plot points, Volkoff's inarticulate mumbling, and the fact that the actor who plays Jimmys dad is the same one who plays the mayor. With meaningless lines like, "If you mess with this festival, it's going to be more vicious than a shark attack!", how can you not laugh?

The Bloody Dead (1967)

aka Die Blaue Hand

David Emerson is locked in an insane asylum for murders that he claims were committed by his twin brother, Richard. David's room is filled with manikins in various poses, including two hanging from the ceiling in nooses. No idea why, but it certainly gives the appearance that he's not right in the head.

When David escapes from the asylum, he heads back to the family mansion. A guard from the asylum tracks him to the house, enters the corridors which are lined with suits of armor, and is killed by someone wielding The Blue Hand, an armored glove with knife tips at the end of each finger. Spooky.

David pretends to be his twin brother Richard, which works okay as Lady Emerson was never able to tell them apart. Richard has disappeared, but since David is there, no one realizes it. Head of the asylum, Dr. Montague, is involved in many nefarious doings, and eventually slips a mickey to the detective looking for David. I still can't believe the guy drank it.

The cover made the film appear as if it were a bloody living dead movie. While it wasn't that at all, it did turn out to be very entertaining.

Honeymoon of Fear (1972)

aka Fear in the Night

Young bride Peggy, who recently suffered a nervous breakdown, is repeatedly attacked by someone wearing a black glove and a fake arm. Her husband Robert is skeptical and thinks it is her imagination.

Robert and Peggy move into an apartment at a boys school, where Robert has a job. As Peggy wanders the empty corridors, she hears a class being taught. But when she opens the door, the room is empty. As she looks around the room, headmaster Michael steps out behind her, giving her a start. Michael shows Peggy around the school before creepily getting his hand stuck in her hair while assisting in letting her hair down.

Back at the apartment, Peggy is attacked by the black-gloved, fake-armed man. Once again, her husband thinks she's imagining things. At this point, things were moving so slowly, the tape came out of the VCR.

This is a Hammer film, which explains the slower pacing since British films concentrate on dialogue rather than action. Peter Cushing as headmaster Michael, was suitably strange and interesting. Joan Collins played the typical bitch, which she does so well. But the film moved too slowly, especially after viewing the cover photo and description on the back.

Assassin (1986)

When Robert Golem, a killer robot built by the CIA, runs amuck, retired agent Henry Stanton is called to help capture him and protect Mary Casallas, an agent who helped program Golem. Mary informs Henry that the only way to stop Golem is to shoot him in the stomach, as this is the only vulnerable part of his body and where his brain is housed. The only other Achilles heel that Golem has is he must recharge every seventy-two hours via a 220 outlet... using his built-in extention cord. During this thirty minute recharge, he can not defend himself.

This isn't a great movie, but there are a few unintentionally funny bits, such as Henry telling Mary it's safe for her to enter her apartment as he's searched the entire thing, except for the locked closet. Cut to an alarmed Mary exclaiming "what locked closet?", as Golem bursts through the closet door. Oh Henry.... maybe you shouldn't have come out of retirement.

Sledgehammer (1983)

Sledgehammer has to be seen to believed. It is a low tech, shot on video film with the most excessive use of slow motion footage I have ever seen. It's like your uncle just got a new camcorder - back when they were massive things that had to sit on your shoulder - and he was experiementing with the new slo-mo feature.

There doesn't seem to be any reason for it either. It appears totally randomly and makes the movie unbearable. There are slow motion scenes of luggage throwing, walking in a field, walking in a hallway, shutting a door, turning a doorknob, people listening to a scary story, fighting, falling, and more of the same all over again.

The story is about a bunch of friends who plan to stay the weekend in an old cabin that hasn't been lived in for ten years due to murders that took place there. While the outside shot looks like an old cabin, when the gang goes inside, it looks like a modern day condo.

The group is supposed to be a fun loving bunch, but they act like idiots. They make lame jokes, have a nasty food fight, and get drunk. There's a subplot that goes nowhere involving the main couple who aren't sure whether to get married, even though the guy already asked her and she said yes.

Chuck, the muscular blond leading man, decides to have a seance where they will try to contact the spirits of the two people murdered by a sledgehammer in the livingroom. The story is that a man and woman were having an affair in the cabin. The woman locked her little boy in the closet so he wouldn't get in their way. The two adulterers were murdered, but the little boy was never found.

As Chuck weaves his tale of death, his friend goes into another room and uses a boombox to play a tape with a spooky voice, which is supposed to fool the others. Chuck's seance also awakens the hulking ghostly sledgehammer killer, who has apparently just been waiting for someone to have a seance in the cabin.

The killer goes to the room with boombox and kills the friend....with a knife. But what about the sledgehammer he was carrying? Where'd he get the knife? No explanation is ever offered. The rest of the killing is done with a sledgehammer but its extremely tame. There isn't much blood and other than the opening segments sledgehammer to the back of the head, there aren't any special effects - just blood smeared on people.

There is a soft focus on some scenes, which is pointless. The hallway is the narrowest hallway in existence, (you wouldn't be able to get any furniture through it). At one point, the killer appears in the hallway, and you can see that the "wall" behind him is not even attached to anything as there is a big gap on the left side. Also the killer must widen his stance to step over the cameraman who is shooting from the floor.

There are flashbacks in the film which are the exact same footage from earlier in the film!??! We've already seen it, and even if they felt the need to refresh our memories, they didn't have to show the entire scene.

The acting is subpar. Chuck does a really bad Bill Murray imitation during one drunken scene. No one can realistically imitate being drunk, which is a problem since much of their time is spent drinking. The food fight scene in the kitchen is really strange, and its just plain gross watching the guy in the football jersey shove an entire sandwich into his mouth.

I liked the record player in the cabin, but they were listening to 45s and had no spindle to stack them on. This means that someone is going to have to get up to change the record every two to three minutes, which is not practical during a party.

The killer is a huge hulking figure in a clear halloween mask - the ones that bank robbers used to wear during the 70s. He appears and disappears randomly. Then he changes into the little boy who was locked in the closet. Then he changes back to the hulk. Why?

We are left with so many questions and no explanations. Why does the killer randomly change into the little boy and back again? If the little boy died, then why is the killer a behemouth instead of a little boy? How and where did the boy die? Since he was never found, he didn't die there, so why is his ghost haunting this cabin? Why would a seance bring back the killer instead of the victims? Why does the sledgehammer randomly appear and disappear? Is it a ghost? If you have a sledgehammer and you're huge, why would you kill someone with a knife?

The scariest thing about this movie is the hair. This is 80s blow dried hair at its worst. The guy with the massive mullet blow dry do and mustache is the scariest. But the lead couple both have the same mullet so that's not very pleasant either.

Parasite (1982)

When Parasite was originally released in theaters, it was in 3D. While the effect is not used in the home video, we do get the benefit of the odd shots of things coming towards the camera: a steel pipe pierces a body and blood flows out; a thug sticks his fingers into the parasite tube; a gun barrel points toward the audience; a parasite falls from the ceiling, and even parasites bursting from flesh.

The story starts with Paul, a scientist with a moldy parasitic stomach, who heads out into the post apocalyptic landscape, ending up in Joshua, population 64. There is a distinction made between city fellas and the lawless rurals who only accept silver in payment for services. Gas is $40 a gallon, and the local eatery only has canned fruit, canned beer, and canned soup, which is apparently scarce. The other major difference is the city people have laser guns and fancy vehicles, while the rural faction has shotguns and beatup old cars with no hoods and missing doors.

The towns inhabitants are decent citizens, except for the local gang of annoying twenty somethings who appear to be trying to terrorize people, but mostly seem to annoy them. The only person afraid of them is our scientist friend Paul, who tells them he doesn't want any trouble and begs them to let him go. Well, as everyone knows, that is a sure way to keep being harrassed by a bully. The gang drag Paul and his parasite cylander to their hangout in an old garage, and even though Paul warns them not to open the tube, they do, unleashing the parasitic horror that awaits within.

Within this frame work there is also: Demi Moore, the lemon grove girl, who provides fresh lemons to the bar owner; the Merchant, a city dweller who works for the same company Paul did and is trying to track down Paul and his parasites; and old Ms. Daly, the hotel owner, who looks like an olde tyme movie star, what with the makeup, 8x10 glossys on the wall, and the star painted on her door.

If this movie had been like "Piranha", it would have been fantastic. Unfortunately it appears that the emphasis was on the 3D aspect rather than excitement. The pacing of the story is very slow, especially when you're expecting to see something - anything - happen relating to parasites and carnage.

School of Death (1975)

aka El Colegio de la Muerte.

Matrons at a girls orphanage send girls to a melty-faced scientist's mansion where he straps them down and pokes a sharp object into their brain. Obviously this does not have a positive outcome, and the girls die. I'm confused as to what he was hoping to accomplish since he did the same thing to each girl. You'd think he'd try something different if his objective was something other than rendering them dead.

The film takes place in London in the 1800s, and has a feel very much like the Hammer films. It has no blood, guts, or nudity.

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

Dolph Lundren is big meaty Detective Kenner, who is teamed with new partner Brandon Lee. Lee plays Johnny, a sinewy sidekick to Dolph's stoic intensity, or if you prefer, his lack of expression. Lee doesn't do any steller acting in this film, but at least he's no Dolph.

Yoshida (played by the always excellent Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) is an evil, tattooed Yakuza druglord who plans to distribute methamphetamines to make an even bigger fortune. In an incredible twist of fate, which you see coming a mile away, Yoshida turns out to be the assassin that murdered Dolph's parents when he was a child living in Japan. Tia Carrera is a lounge singer who works for Yoshida, and is a witness to a murder at the club. She is also Dolph's love interest, thus complicating things for everyone.

The majority of the film revolves around Kenner and Johnny beating the hell out of everyone who crosses their path. It is a bit odd to see them beating up Yakuzas in a bath house. But that way the Yakuza can wear traditional sumo diapers, and the two buff cops clothing can get all wet and clingy. Yes, it makes no sense, but since there are also a lot of low brow phallic jokes in the film, perhaps they were intending to promote Dolph's massive bulk.

The film is a fairly typical 80s action flick, although the acting is subpar, which is too bad since its not like the bar was set very high, what with Chuck Norris being the top action hero of the 80s.

Howling IV (1988)

Mystery writer Marie and her husband Richard rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere to get some quiet after Marie's breakdown. Marie's agent, Tom, thinks it will help her write, but there is tension between Tom and Richard which causes problems when Tom drives Marie to the cottage.

Everytime Marie and Richard go to bed a wolf howls. This makes Marie freak out and the sexually frustrated Richard finally runs off to the nearest small town to get supplies. He starts sleeping with the pomaded, skanky, gift store lady, which means that anytime Marie questions him or gets upset, his guilt causes him to treat her badly.

After a visit from a former nun looking for the bug eyed Sister Ruth, who disappeared while renting the cottage, Marie realizes that this is the nun she has seen telling her to get out of the cottage.

One night Marie wakes up to find Richard missing and hears a scream from outside, which turns out to be Richard with a huge wound in his neck. As her werewolf bitten husband melts - since when do werewolf bites make people melt?!? - Ruth sees figures in the woods and hears their chants of "Satan Calls You." Richards melty blood covered skeleton then morphs into a gooey werewolf.

This film might have some of the lamest werewolf costumes ever. Everyone looks like they have fun fur glued to their face and strange looking huge teeth that don't look much like werewolf teeth. If I had to describe the creatures, I'd say the werewolves look like are giant furry trolls with fake pointy teeth.

Howling: New Moon Rising (1995)

A long haired Australian rides into town on a motorcycle, goes to the only bar in town, and gets a job. There is lots of line dancing and pointless dialogue.

In an abrupt switch in storyline, a man goes to a priest and tells him a werewolf story. The story goes nowhere but introduces the concept that when everything turns red, you know you've looking at the werewolf cam. And from the height of the camera, the werewolf is only a foot off the ground, which isn't so impressive.

Another not so impressive thing about this movie is it is almost entirely void of werewolves. There are only two werewolf cam scenes, which are very brief, and an even briefer scene of a werewolf itself. To be totally honest, the person who is the werewolf goes through a terrible morphing process and becomes a werewolf puppet with teeth that are obviously rubber.

The film seems to be more an excuse to promote some bad country songs, shoot footage of spookily lit line dancing, and use footage from previous Howling movies for their flashbacks - and werewolf footage from a previous movie does not count as an appearance by a werewolf in the current movie.

I kept waiting for something to happen in the film, but it never did. I would only recommend this if you are on a quest to see every Howling movie, or if you like your werewolf movies without werewolves.

The Power (1984)

The last Aztec idol in the world which holds ancient power falls into the hands of three high school students. Tommy brings it as his good luck charm to the cemetery, where he meets Matt and Juile who have a Ouija board. In typical midnight graveyard fashion, something goes horribly wrong and the kids want to find out about the idol.

They contact Sandy who works as a reporter for a tabloid, but surprisingly she isn't interested. Her friend, Jerry, who is staying at her house, convinces the kids to give him the idol. His interest in the idol grows once he gets a sense of it's power. Unfortunately it is the idol that is really in charge of the power and Jerry gets so strange that Sandy kicks him out of her apartment. But to be fair, Sandy is a total pain in the ass, and Jerry should have gotten out of there anyway.

After messing with the power, Jerry temporarily ends up with this freaky nose that looks like a cross between a pig, a trident, and a phallus. Super creepy. Later in the film he lets out this pathetic whine sounding like "Nyeeehhhhh..." and appears to be dancing ballet or some sort of modern dance.

Also of note are Julie's bangs. At first they are severely short, but later they are at least an inch or two longer, and feathered back.

Alucarda (1978)

Orphaned Justina moves into a convent where she shares a room with Alucarda, a strange girl who immediately gloms onto Justina and forms a suicide pact with her within the first day. They are cared for by the nuns, who look like mummies due their heads being wrapped in bloody bandages.

Alucarda and Justina gallavant through the forest and run into a hunchback gypsy, who ends up involving them in a satanic ritual which at first appears to be a dream sequence. They also play in an old tomb, where Alucarda opens a coffin and releases howling evil. The girls commence to swear their allegiance to Satan during the holy readings, which leads to an exorcism in which Justina is accidentally killed, and Alucarda conveniently forgets about their suicide pact.

This movie has lots of blood and naked women, but mostly it has screaming. Lots and lots and lots of screaming, which continues through the entire movie. At first its annoying. Then it becomes so ridiculous that it's funny. But by the end of the movie, it's intensely annoying and drives you almost to the point of insanity.

The dvd cover features a creepy looking image of Alucarda - very nicely done.

Twice Dead (1988)

A family inherits a home and moves in sight unseen, which is unfortunate since it's the hangout for a local gang, filled with junk, and lacks utilities. It is also the former home of Tyler Walker, an olde tyme magician who committed suicide after his beloved assistant - who is the families great aunt - left him for another man.

Rumors are the house is haunted, and indeed Tyler's ghost still haunts the third floor, which is filled with his possessions including a life size mannequin of the great aunt. Strange things happen, such as a noose wrapping itself around Scott's neck in the middle of the night, but none of the other family members believe there is a ghost present. Robin is the spitting image of her great aunt, and Tyler's ghost starts to help the family protect themselves from the gang of toughs, who consist of Silk, Crip, Stoney, Candy, Melvin, and two others.

Mom and Dad head back to Boulder to deal with some business problems, leaving Scott and Robin alone in the huge mansion, which is a real smart thing to do considering the gang has been stalking them. It's even more ridiculous as there had just been an incident in the middle of the night where the gang showed up in halloween masks, killed Robin's cat and nailed it to the backdoor, tried to rape Robin, and beat the hell out of Scott. Of course, the police won't do anything because no one actually saw the gangs faces. Yes, but let's leave the kids alone in the house. They'll be fine.

Scott and Robin decide to scare the gang off, which seems insane considering that something as harmless as asking the gang to stop hanging out at their home had made them targets for stalking and harrassment. The kids concoct an elaborate plan to scare the hell out of everyone and succeed. But instead of making the gang leave them alone, it just makes Silk even angrier and more interested in making them pay for humiliating him.

Late one night, an uncalled for pizza delivery guy shows up on their doorstep. Since it's the last stop of the night, the delivery boy says he'll sell it to them for five bucks as he'll just have to trash it otherwise. Scott agrees and is soon eating pizza and drinking coke, which oddly enough came in a container that looks like a cross between a paper milk carton and a dixie cup. Was soda ever really sold in this type of odd container?

Later Scott wakes up in a daze to find the entire gang partying in his living room. Seems the whole pizza ploy was arranged by Silk who put "liquid lude" in the coke carton. Crip goes upstairs with Robin, while the gang wreaks havoc downstairs, complete with the extremely corpulent Melvin repeatedly running over Tyler's mannequin with his motorcyle. Tyler just won't stand for this, and the gangs downfall begins.

Something to note: in the beggining of the film when the family is driving in the car, the close up scenes of the two kids appear to be two entirely different actors that closely resemble them.

Blood Song (1995)

Marius, a cutrate drunken composer, is hired to finish a symphony by the beautiful Gabriella, whose uncle was killed by vigilantes before he could finish the piece. Gabriella believes this will be a marvelous song to play at her upcoming wedding, which is very odd since the music sounds a bit dissonant and is titled Symphony for the Devil.

Carlotta, the uncles maid, is still caring for the house. She turns out to be waiting for the uncle to come back to life, which starts to occur once Marius gets to work on completing the piece. However Marius is starting to see the late uncles reflection when he looks in the mirror. He is also getting super drunk and having dreams in which he goes to the local brothel and kills prostitutes with piano wire. Oiks!! Gabrielle insists that Marius was at home all night, but the constable does not believe her. Neither does her fiance Julien, who wants Marius out of the house.

As the symphony becomes more complete, Gabrielle's late uncle inhabits Marius more frequently, and there are more dead prostitutes. The late uncles inhabitation is annoying later in the film, as some scenes have a tendency to show a shot of Marius, then a shot of the uncle in the mirror, over and over. It's disconcerting as it almost appears as if some random conversation is going on or as if he's talking to himself.

Trog (1970)

Oh Trog, you just know things aren't going to go well for the poor fellow. Spelunkers discover a cave not on any maps, and excited by their find, strip down to their underwear to swim under a ledge as far as they can. The first explorer finds... another cave (heavens!), and a large hairy apeman which promptly kills him.

Scientist Joan Crawford leads an expedition, along with one of the surviving spelunkers, to verify the apeman story and gets a fantastic photo of Trog throwing a rock at them. With this undisputable proof, Trog is quickly captured and confined to a cage in Crawfords lab. He's actually quite well behaved considering he's been ripped from his dark underground home and planted in a small cell where strange people stare at him, call him Trog, and attempt to teach him how to play with dolls.

While Trog has a huge ape head with apey hair cascading from it, the rest of his body is that of a man. He is even wearing a fur loin cloth. If he truly is the missing link, he might look a bit less like a man with an ape mask. The sounds he makes are like a cross between a lamb and a squeeky toy.

Crawford insists that Trog's brain holds secrets. In order to learn about evolution and past history, they must find a way to communicate with him. I suppose that could be true, if Trog happens to be a million years, but what if he's only thirty? So they implant a transmitter inside him, which is ridiculous as it doesn't seem like a great idea to operate on the only creature of it's kind when you know nothing about it's anatomy.

Afterwards Trog does manage to say one word, and we see a short film of dinosaurs, which I guess is supposed to be from Trog's memories. But mostly Trog just makes unintelligible noises, which start sounding more and more like a cross between a bad Peter Lorre imitation and a dalek.

You just know things aren't going to end well for Trog, especially after he kills Murdoch - an outspoken Trog hater - and kidnaps a little girl from a playground, taking her back to his home. I must mention that I am quite impressed by Trog's homing technique as I can't imagine how he could find his way back to the cave.

Crawford, whose hair appears to grow bigger and bigger throughout the film, talks Trog into giving back the girl, which means the army can then open fire on poor little Trog. Apparently they are bad shots as they have to shoot about a thousand rounds to even hit Trog, who then falls onto a stalagmite and die.

Mind Ripper (1995)

Scientists find a dying man in the desert and bring him back to their top secret underground experimental genetics lab to see what will happen if they pump him full of a virus. Six months later Lance Henriksen (who resigned from the facility due to ethical reasons) is getting ready for a camping trip with his kids when he gets a call that there is a problem with the guy with the virus. Lance heads out to the secret lab, taking his children and daughters oversexed boyfriend with him.

Security is pretty lax as even though he hasn't worked there in months, he can still gain entrance to the lab by scanning his hand and punching in a code. Since he's bringing three teenagers into the top secret underground genetic testing facility, I guess no one is all that concerned about the danger of toxic chemicals, nuclear fallout (as it's an old nuclear testing site), or the virus ridden genetic experiment gone amuck that necessitated the request for his help.

The half dead virus infested man has turned into a rampaging Chippendales dancer with an alien-like tentacle in his mouth, which comes out from under his tongue and zips into peoples brains. It's pretty disgusting, as well as a bit stupid looking as our muscle bound mutant has to keep opening his mouth as wide as possible before this thing can pop out of him. Very much an alien ripoff with a male dancer instead of an alien.

Raging Sharks

Corpses Are Forever (2003)

Malcolm Grant, a CIA operative, awakens to find he has no memory of his life. But under the influence of a hypnosis serum, Grant flashes back to a world in black and white where he has shorter hair, an Australian accent, fights zombies, has nightmares from a serial killers perspective, and is searching for his kidnapped son.

In the present, Grant is told that zombies walk the earth, and the only hold outs are Alaska and some of the Florida Keys. But oddly enough, the film only has about ten or fifteen zombies in it, and they are easily dispatched when Grant does a slow spinning kick that comes nowhere near them. In fact, he looks more like he's doing ballet rather than any sort of martial art.

The other problem with the zombies walk the earth premise is that in more than one scene, there is the sound of traffic competing with the dialogue. Did the zombies learn to drive or did the filmmakers assume we wouldn't notice? Even worse are scenes where cars are on the road in the background or the scene where Grant is informed the world has been overrun by zombies, but out the window of the office building there is traffic driving by and a person walking along the sidewalk. Eek!

The House on Sorority Row (1982)

Another early 80s slasher film, although this is a decent flick which stands out due to the competent acting and a different take on the standard plot, especially for a sorority movie. Horrid sorority mother, Mrs. Slater, always makes the girls leave the house as soon as school is over. But this year the girls decide to use the house for an end of the year party.

Mrs. Slater blows a gasket when she walks in on the girls getting drunk, and chastizes them. Ringleader Vicki sneaks her boyfriend into the house to put her new waterbed to use. But Mrs. Slater bursts in and slashes the bed with the head of her cane, ruining Vicki's encounter with her boyfriend. Vicki vows revenge, coming up with a plan involving the other girls and a gun. She's going to pretend to shoot Mrs. Slater. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me, but then again I'm not an insane sorority girl.

As expected their prank goes horribly wrong and Vicki accidentally shoots Mrs. Slater who falls back into the scummy green pool that never gets cleaned. Once the girls determine she is dead, they decide to tie her up in sheets, weight down her body, and dump her in the pool. Ah yes, a brilliant plan - no one will ever find her there.

That night, they hold their party as scheduled, and as with any drunken party where a pool is handy, several people end up jumping in. The girls are afraid someone will turn on the pool lights and see the body. But when the lights are turned on, they are shocked to see nothing in the pool. Thus the rash of killings commence.

Is Mrs. Slater still alive? Has she come back from the dead? Or is someone else killing the girls? Worth watching if you're into slasher films, or if you're into the band 4 Out of 5 Doctors, who play at the sorority party. They even have a song called Mr. Cool Shoes. Eeeek!!

The Initiation (1982)

Kelly has nightmares about stabbing her father after walking into her parents bedroom and seeing him in bed with her mother. Immediately after the stabbing, a strange man walks into the room, gets in a fight with her father, and catches on fire. As he thrashes around in flames, she and her parents run from the room. She's had this nightmare since she was nine years old, when she was in a coma for a few months, and has no memory of anything before the coma.

She decides to do a research paper on dreams for her psychology class, and her TA just happens to be a graduate student doing dream research for his masters degree. He talks her into seeing his research space in the basement, and convinces her to let him monitor her dream state. I thought he was going for a graduate degree in psychology, but later he says it is parapsychology, which is not the most scientific type of psych and I'm not sure if I would want to let him near my brain.

Running parallel to this story, Kelly is also pledging a sorority in which the initiation is for her to steal the key to her fathers building, which turns out to be a multi-story mall. Then the four pledges are supposed to steal the security guards uniform. What the pledges don't know is that Meagan, the bitter pledge master, plans to scare the hell out of them.

This leads to much running around the mall at night, with the obligatory testing the stores merchandise scenes. There is confusion, killing, people getting lost, more killing, and an ending that just comes out of nowhere. Did I happen to mention at the beginning seven prisoners escape from a sanitarium and Kelly's parents are concerned? Yes, well you'll forget all about that as the movie goes on since it really isn't revisited again. Then the ending will pull you up by your shoulders and slap you silly, leaving you asking what sort of relevance it has to anything.

And this movie wouldn't be complete without the "Come As Your Favorite Suppressed Desire" costume party at the frat house. One guy shows up dressed as a penis. A giant, head to toe, penis costume with a small cut out for his face. So.... his desire is what? I don't even want to make a guess.