Skip to main content

The Horror Show

So, I debated on doing a New Year's Evil post today, but I'm not ready to dive into that can of shitty worms. Instead, I bring you this: The Horror Show.

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all 80's horror movies starring Lance Henriksen will be bad, that any movie sold to us as a sequel to House (1986) will have NOTHING to do with the original movie, that we will love these idiotic movies, regardless of their shortcomings.

This one you may not know: The Horror Show was released nearly in tandem with Shocker. The two movies are nearly identical with the biggest differences being that Shocker developed a completely unbelievable cult following while The Horror Show crawled off under an old lady's porch and curled up to die a completely deserved death.

In case you're falling behind on your bad 80's horror movies, let me give you the $.25 overview of The Horror Show / Shocker: serial killer gets caught and is sent to the electric chair. Zap that bastard as they may, his blood thirsty spirit just can't be killed. After making a deal with the devil, our serial killer returns to slaying the living. Joy.

 As I mentioned in my intro, The Horror Show was billed as a sequel to House AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER House or House II. In fact, the plot is fairly fuzzy in places: on top of the serial killer who comes back for revenge story line, there are also extensive hallucinations including one in which the turkey dinner mutates into a tentacled beast with the killer's face.

I'll give you a minute to process that one...

 I will say that The Horror Show outshines Shocker in the casting of their serial killer.

Brion James (Blade Runner, Flesh + Blood, Cherry 2000) was an ugly, imposing creep of a man whom no one would have a hard time believing was a murderer. It's said that in an interview with Fangoria he quipped, "I always like to play bad guys. I'm really good at psychotic behavior". What a charmer, I tell you.

 Mitch Pileggi (absolutely best known for his role on The X-Files) is a fantastic actor. He is not, however, a particularly scary man or an exceptionally convincing serial killer. He's more like that high school english teacher that really took an interest in his students and not in a creepy, sexual predator kind of way.

Now for the spoilers. At the end of the movie, all that Lance Henriksen has to do is defeat the killer's spirit to get his dead family back (sort of like Nightmare on Elm Street). And yay! Everyone lives happily ever after, even the family cat.

...for no good reason, someone actually released this movie in blu ray last year. Great...

 Watch it if: you have an obsession with Lance Henriksen or you like horror movies with happy endings.

Watch the trailer here and call it a night:

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuttal: 17 Disturbing Horror Movies You Will Never Watch Again

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely  brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement...
Post a Comment
Read more

Escape From Tomorrow

I love creative people who are willing to take risks with their art. I appreciate the refusal to do things by the rules. I'm also terribly impatient with mediocrity. Enter  Escape From Tomorrow . Created by a team of rogue filmmakers, the movie was shot in the video mode of high-end still cameras. Actors shared scripts and shooting locations across their smartphones. Shot on location at Disney World, the parks were completely unaware this was all going on right under their mouse ears. I wanted to love Escape From Tomorrow. More than that, I wanted to be completely taken with its ingenuity and creativity and - oh yes - its originality. And there is really a simple brilliance to their covert plan; all families are roaming around the parks, taking videos and chatting on their phones. Just blend the fuck in, act like you belong, and you won't get caught. Too bad the movie can be summed up as: ambitious but Rubbish. As you can imagine (or possibly know), there was a ton of con...
1 comment
Read more

Mother!

Alright friends and readers–this one is probably doubly filled with typos and grammar errors because I wrote it while angry. Good luck and happy reading. There are unpopular opinions in every realm. As a film student, you can truly strike a nerve when you say things like, "I fucking hate the self-indulgence of independent films and the way people idolize them." Or, you know, "Low lighting and slow pacing does not a good movie make." Or whatever. You can of course, objectively, understand how this happens. When you are creating art–when you are outside the system  so to speak–you are free to explore things (subjects, techniques, etc.) that may need to be addressed and that freedom can become intoxicating and go to one's head. While it may seem only right  or only fair  to respect and accept each creative endeavor that every artist undertakes, it is unreasonable to believe that the world will remain forever patient with the self-obsession artists have. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more