WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS BODYCOUNT. HIGH RISK OF SPOILERS. ENTER IF YOU DARE.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

#RUSHSLOTH: Slotherhouse (2023)

Slotherhouse (2023)
Rating: ***
Starring: Lisa Ambalavanar, Sydney Craven, Andrew Horton

We have slasher films featuring grizzly bears (i.e. Grizzly Park (2008)), wolves (i.e. Wolfen (1981)) and, heck, even sharks (i.e. Shark Night (2013)). Now, we welcome the newest addition to the killer animal sub-genre, one that is prowled by a deadly, dangerous, despicable, dastardly denizen of the Nicaraguan Jungle: a baby sloth.

Obsessed with becoming the next Sigma Lambda Theta sorority president, Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) would soon find herself talking to a friendly fella at a mall who claims to be selling a variety of pets, including exotic ones, suggesting that she should get herself a unique furry friend to boost her image and impress her sorority sisters. Unbeknownst to her, the guy is actually an animal trafficker, one who recently poached a baby sloth straight out of her home and would have the worst of luck when said sloth turns out to be psychotic. Very psychotic. Murderous, even. And yet, when Emily arrives to pick up the sloth, blissfully unaware of the freshly mutilated poacher, the two appear to have formed a bond and the bouncy sorority senior gets a big shot of popularity when she suggests making her new sloth, Alpha, the mascot of their house.


Thus the race to campus house presidency begins, with Emily butting heads against resident mean girl Brianna (Sydney Craven) and Alpha surprisingly adapting well to her new home, mastering mobile phones and laptops, hanging out with friends and even helping out Emily with her goal of winning the election. Through murders. Lots of murders. So much so that by the end of it all, the girls of Sigma Lambda Theta will have no choice but to fight back and survive Alpha's Slotherhouse~!

If you're gonna sit and watch Slotherhouse (2023) expecting deeply complex characters, underlying messages of the evils of animal poaching and heart-stopping intensity in its murders, I say you're off your rockers, luv! It's a campus slasher with a baby sloth for a killer, it's as silly as it sounds and when approached with a leap of faith and a popcorn B-flick mindset, it's surprisingly good! 


The premise is simply fun for its honest ridiculousness, mixing the dumb hilarity of a killer sloth situation with the known slasher trope of sorority girls-in-peril well enough to make the absurd story work as a comical twist on your usual teen bodycounter and animals-gone-bad carnage. Its writing has a tongue firmly pressed in a cheek and the characters are an okay bunch despite lingering near the typical stereotypes of goody girls and queen bitches, with a notable few managing to deliver some genuine quirk and personality within the ensemble, courtesy of a quippy script and pretty alright acting for a B-grade production. The pacing does hobble a bit whenever the story decides to focus on the sorority girl drama and college life capers, though this is balanced and remedied with the unapologetically gimmicky yet fun shlock that is Alpha's misadventures of mischief, murder and mayhem!

For sure, the diminutive sloth is undoubtedly the highlight of Slotherhouse (2023) as not only does the critter act less like an actual animal and more of an anthropomorphized fuzzy menace capable of doing a real number on the kill count, giving her a tad more character and a further reason for this whole thing to be amusingly ludicrous, but she also earns the film a score of points for taking the time to bring the slasher sloth to life via practical puppet effects. The prop looks stuffy, yes, but it adds an old school flavor to its already nonsensical charm and dish out a lot of outrageous visuals to boot, especially during the times Alpha unleashes her inner psycho at just about anyone she comes across in the Sigma Lambda Theta house. A lot of cheekiness is to be expected around these killing sprees in turn, though I do wish we got a little bit more onscreen slaughter to go along with it as a good run of the violence was done mostly off-screen.


Completely looney in the best and most charming ways, Slotherhouse (2023) is a popcorn flick with the enthusiasm of being so bad, it's good. Bewildering yet entertaining under the right mood, this movie can be a real blast of a watch!

Bodycount:
1 male mauled, clawed to death
1 female had her throat clawed out
1 female stuffed inside a sleeping bag, pushed off a bridge
1 female killed offscreen
1 female seen slaughtered
1 female beaten with a hair straightener
1 female killed, later seen with a Glasgow smile
1 female attacked, killed offscreen
1 female killed offscreen, later seen with a clawed neck
1 female killed with a mesh net ball
7 females electrocuted in a shower room with a live wire
1 female mauled to death
1 female dragged away, killed
1 female got clawed through the gut
Total: 20

Sunday, March 10, 2024

El Machete Satánico: The Curse of El Charro (2005)

The Curse of El Charro (2005)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Andrew Bryniarski, Danny Trejo, Drew Mia

Suffering from nightmares and bloody visions of a dark machete-wielding figure ever since she found her sister dead from suicide a year ago, Maria accepts an invitation from her roommate Chris to join her and her two friends, Tanya and Rose, at her uncle’s house in Saguaro, Arizona for some good old-fashioned debauchery, hopefully to get her mind off these ghoulish visages and relax a bit. Unbeknownst to her, these visions foreshadow a terrible fate upon her and her friends as Maria is actually a descendent of a girl from Saguaro who was terrorized and cursed by a wealthy yet diabolical land baron, El Charro, after she rejected his love for her. Now, El Charro wanders Saguaro as a murderous revenant, seeking to finish off the bloodline of the girl who broke his heart and he's going to do the same to just about anyone who gets in his way.


Or is simply in his way. As most undead murderers do. 

I wanted to like The Curse of El Charro (2005) a little more than your average slasher flick as it does have an interesting premise and some very artsy direction when it comes to its visuals, particularly during scenes involving horrifying visions and surreal nightmares. The mostly one-dimensional characters, though, as well as the fact that the plot really takes a while to get to the bloody massacre does test one's patience and knock the peg down a bit. 


The movie firstly spends a good deal of the its run on the girls' road trip misadventures like trying to seduce a horny cop into not busting them for speeding, encountering creepy rednecks at a dingy bar where the main attraction for the night is Lemmy Kilmister as a tuxedo-wearing crippled guy singing horribly off key, or picking up some guy dates who we all know are just there to boost up the bodycount, all the while our lead gal Maria's otherworldly trances kick in and out to keep things spooky. It isn't until the last act that our villain, the dirty poncho-wearing, mad machete-swinging El Charro finally waltzes in to do some murdering and, for its worth, the massacre is a messy yet respectable affair with a generous amount of blood work and sloppy body parts. The ending does veer into the outrageously silly with a downer of a swing, but at least it got a little chuckle out of me.


Bluntly, The Curse of El Charro (2005) is okay-ish. It certainly could've been better, but it's far from being completely awful. (I mean, it has Danny Trejo voicing El Charro. That has to count for something, right?) Pretty plain for a slasher flick and that's about the gist of it. 

Bodycount:
1 female seen dead from slit wrists (flashback)
1 female killed with a machete (flashback)
1 female killed with a machete (flashback)
1 male hanged on a noose (flashback)
1 female decapitated with a machete
1 male hacked to death with a machete
1 male slashed across the face with a machete
1 female had her jaw torn off
1 female had her throat slashed with a machete
1 female hacked to death with a machete
1 male decapitated offscreen, blood splash seen
1 female dragged away, killed offscreen
1 male hacked to death with a machete, decapitated
Total: 13

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

This is The Whack of Undertaker Zach: The Embalmer (1996)

The Embalmer (1996)
Rating: **
Starring: Jennifer T. Kelly, Kenneth E. Mullen, Myron Creek

Tell you a story about Undertaker Zach.
He killed his wife with a whack, whack, whack!
His daughter started cryin’ ’cause her mama was dead;
He shut her up by choppin’ off her head.

Life at home isn't good for Chiffon (real name Laura), not with her folks practically making a slave out of her, ordering her to do laundry, fetch beer and change TV channels using the dial before getting angry at her for blocking the damn screen. One night, though, this troubling sight got out of hand and next thing we see is that Chiffon's kicked out from her own house. Distressed, she calls her boyfriend Duane to pick her up after explaining what happened, who in turn calls his bud Archie to help them out as a favor and the guy tagged along his girlfriend Cindi because why the hell not? The gang basically decided to run away from their crappy lives that evening but, after running a red light, they got a little trouble with the law and got chased into hiding inside an abandoned house's garage. 

The stunt, unfortunately, killed the car's battery and the teens find out that not only did they lock themselves in by accident, but the house also once belonged to Dr. Zachary Harbotswood, AKA Undertaker Zach, a local urban legend who's known to have murdered his wife and daughter during a psychotic episode. Chiffon doesn't like this fact at all seeing she used to have nightmares about this place as a kid, but with no other plan at hand on how they'll get out of the house, the gang opted to stay put and just deal with the situation until they figure something out.

Badly acted melodrama here, a tame sex scene there, maybe even throw in a last minute nightmare sequence involving big snakes (both literally and figuratively), the foursome eventually encounters Undertaker Zach in the flesh, as well as a nasty little secret hidden down in the basement...

In a way, it's not hard to picture why this low-budget regional urban horror is so below the radar as instead of your typical bodycounter plot of murdered horny teens and angry maniacs, The Embalmer (1996) dragged its focus more on the somber schmaltz going on with our lead girl life, which frankly would have worked with the genuinely dark and uneasy issues tackled like trauma, child abuse and sexual assault, if only the tone and direction were anywhere as competent. It's simply difficult to buy into the seriousness of the subjects when most of the casts act their parts and deliver their lines like your everyday B-grade horror fodders, which can be either hilarious or bothersome, though I will give actress Jennifer T. Kelly for putting more effort in her role as the troubled main gal, Chiffon. Couple these with the usual talk of the killer's lore and sexy times under the sheets, and the film essentially yapped its way through a really clumsy and sloppy midsection.

Thankfully, the last twenty-some minutes picked up greatly as this is where the slasher elements kick in with a few good gore effects given the budget and, too, a fairly decent twist reveal that nicely leads to a surprisingly effective and satisfying conclusion that I didn't entirely see coming. It's a good enough take on the teen slasher set-up, one that kinda gives The Embalmer (1996) the potential to be a tolerable watch given, that is, you could overlook the distracting low cost production and the slow lumpy road. All in all, it's nowhere near being a real gem of a find, but it is an adequately interesting time waster should you ever need one. 

Bodycount:
1 female slaughtered to death with a scalpel
1 girl hacked to death with a meat cleaver
1 male castrated with a knife, brained to death with a hammer
1 female stabbed to death with a scalpel
1 male had his throat cut with a scalpel
1 male and 1 female killed offscreen with a knife
Total: 7

Blood-Splattered Saw Dust: The Carpenter (1988)

The Carpenter (Canada, 1988)
Rating: ***
Starring: Wings Hauser, Lynne Adams, Pierre Lenoir

Canada in the 80s pretty much gave us a good deal of golden age slasher cult classics like My Bloody Valentine (1981), Happy Birthday To Me (1981) and Prom Night (1980), but the country also brought upon a platter of weird ventures within the sub-genre such as the Dungeons and Dragons is Satanic-inspired Skullduggery (1983), the "Wendigo psychosis" leaning Ghostkeeper (1983) and this oddly surreal melodramatic bodycounter, The Carpenter (1988).  

The movie starts with the chillingly calm mental and emotional breakdown of housewife Alice Jarrett (Lynne Adams), who soon sees herself being taken away to a mental facility after her husband Martin (Pierre Lenoir) finds her cutting up one of his suits one day. Upon her release, Martin believes that a change of scenery is in order so he bought them a house at a countryside that's currently being worked on by cheap and rowdy construction crew. That night, though, after the workers gone home, Alice is awaken by a lone carpenter (Wings Hauser) still busying himself down in the basement and the two have an unusually cordial conversation about his work, ending with Alice pretty much just leaving the guy to do whatever he needs to fix up the place.


Things go pretty hairy when Martin leaves for work one day, leaving Alice all on her lonesome when one of the crewmen got more than a tad tipsy drunk that evening and breaks into the house to assault her. Fortunately for our housewife in distress, her friendly neighborhood carpenter is there to protect her. Unfortunately for our would-be rapist, said protection involves getting both of his arms sliced off with a circular saw. (Not that he minds, apparently. He looked more bewilderedly inconvenienced about losing those limbs than, I dunno, in complete, horrifying pain!) 

Alice would soon learn that the house once belonged to a man named Edward Byrd who fell into massive debt in his obsession of making his home perfect, only to be executed after killing several of the repo men sent after him. Edward now haunts the house, still trying to finish it, and Alice is shockingly okay with this! So much so that when Ed starts murdering away more and more of the crewmen who he sees doing wrong to both the house and its new lovely owner, Alice has no qualms of him massacring these people and, in one scene, appears to be more upset at that fact that he's awfully messy with the slayings! 


Needless to say, Alice is swooned by Ed's pleasantly hunky demeanor and good work ethics, overlooking the whole homicidal lunacy that goes with the package, and the ghostly carpenter himself returns her infatuation, promising more bloodshed to whoever comes between them. 

Directed by David Wellington (who would later do a lot of TV work like Vikings and Orphan Black) and written by Doug Taylor (of Splice (2009) and A Christmas Horror Story (2015)), The Carpenter (1988) is a strange piece of 80s Canuxploitation bodycounter that builds itself more around the ghostly theatrics between Lynne Adam's mentally troubled spouse and Wing Hauser's unhinged gentleman of a paranormal handyman, only to juxtapose to the nasty killings here and there in an unusual dream-like direction. The result is often goofy as the supernatural psychodrama doesn't really have the solid footing to be as captivating as the unhealthy growing romance between the living and the undead implies here. Instead, it all comes out more hammy for how it is scripted, acted and edited, all sided with touches of eccentricities like the overuse of dissolves to transition from scene to scene or Alice's overly offbeat reactions, implying a form of crazed whimsy from her point of view. It's serviceable so long as you find the unintentional hilarity of the film's nutty arthouse aesthetic and as a slasher, The Carpenter (1988) ain't too bad.


The kills themselves aren't that loud and splashy (strange coming from a film that have power tools for murder weapons, honestly) and the pacing really do takes its time getting around to them, but I have to commend at just how odd the interactions are during and after each murder between Alice and Ed, as if the act of killing is just something the two can do and witness while talking about how good the weather is! It also helps that Wings Hauser is practically tailor-made for his role as the titular carpenter, doing the ole' wisecracking villain trope popularized by one Elm Street's Fred Krueger, only with a good dose of Southern politeness and neighborly sweetness that made a lot of his scenes an intriguing watch. His delivery is spot-on to the craziness of the villain, maniacally dispatching one poor soul a minute, being shy about it in the next. The movie did falter a little in its last act as all the oddities made about Alice being so nonchalant with all of the bloodshed gets discarded way too easily for a by-the-book horror finale, making the fantastical, rather upbeat turn of events feel kinda undeserved for how much it just came out of left field. 

Still, the majority of the product has some hokey charm to it, making The Carpenter (1988) a decent enough title for lovers of quirky horror and obscure slashers to try out. It's a sublime blend of several moods and ideas, mostly succeeding in its own curious yet entertaining way.

Bodycount:
1 male had his arms cut off with a circular saw, killed
1 male gets a belt sander to the face
1 male powerdrilled to the throat
1 female shot to death with a nail gun
1 male pinned to the floor with screwdrivers to the hands, head crushed with a vise
Total: 5

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Demonic. Deadly. Delicious: The Muffin Man (2006)

The Muffin Man (2006)
Rating: ***
Starring: Chris Ippolito, Michael Shepherd, Allison Lynch

"I'm here to warn you that the entire staff of this donut shop is in danger of being murdered by a homicidal and possibly immortal serial killer. Also, I'll have a coffee. Black. And a honey cruller."

Yep. It's one of those movies.

In this direct-to-video indie-treat, the scene starts with baker Desmond Bailey decorating some kid's birthday cake with a bowl of fondant purposely contaminated with a not so sweet special ingredient: rat poison. As you would've guessed, our baker is a serial killer who's already responsible for a series of cake poisonings that took the lives of 29 victims and, following the receipts of the tainted cakes, a pair of detectives arrive at Desmond's bakery that night to put a stop to his 'baked bads'. The pastry maker, however, isn't going down without a fight, killing one of the detectives with a hurled tray of muffins (!) before brawling against the other, only for it to end with his head getting covered in dough and shoved into an oven, baking the crazy confectioner to death.

This should have been the end of our nightmare-maker baker, but some otherworldly forces out there say otherwise and up rises The Muffin Man, a supernatural being with a bloodlust for anyone involved in bread-based businesses. 


Flash-forward five years later, the staff of a small donut shop, Gonuts Donuts, (where 'you'll go nuts for their donuts!') gets a visit from the surviving detective, Hank Egger, now grizzled after tailing the Muffin Man throughout its worldwide killing spree. He warns them of the arrival of the supernatural murderer and strongly urges them to close shop early and go home, but as a typical response to horror movie doomsayers, none of the staff takes his tale of an undead killer baker seriously. That is, of course, until The Muffin Man arrives to end them all, with eyes glowing red, demonic voice spewing hellish threats and a giant scrumptious muffin for a head...    

If you're diving into The Muffin Man (2006) with the mindset that you're about to watch what's basically a live-action horror cartoon revolving around a murderous pastry hacking away dumb people while spewing overly long threats, then you're certainly the kind of people this movie is aiming for as there's no doubt this title is a special brand of fun, nonsensical silliness! It's shlocky, yes, with not-so-stellar acting and characters written to be caricatures of lowbrow employees barely running a small establishment, whisked into a mix of low-budget special effects, sound design and video quality, the resulting mess is still this type of tongue-in-cheek ham and cheese junkfood horror that embraces the goofiness of the premise and it isn't afraid to be a little more outrageous with its zaniness! 


As an oddball bodycounter, the baking-themed murder do rely more on caricatured absurdity and belly laughs than chunky gore, with one poor fella getting literally flattened to death with a rolling pin as an example. The titular 'Muffin Man' not only looks the part of a comical killer dough demon with its baker uniform and the humongous, vaguely-humanoid muffin head, but its overly exaggerated evilness apparently comes with lengthy declarations of ungodly torments, some of which awfully sounds like heavy metal verses such as This world has not prepared you for the torment you will know! You're looking at Hell's infernal kitchen!

All of these in a measly yet satisfying 40 minutes. End credits included. A workable run for a small budget production without completely overcooking its humor.

The Muffin Man (2006) is a delectably guilty morsel of a mini-flick, one that's charmingly good as a low cost movie about a homicidal hellspawn muffin can be. Fans of weird horror comedies of the cheddary-kind, bite into this one!

Bodycount:
1 male gets a hurled tray of muffins impaled into his chest
1 male had his head baked inside an oven
1 male killed offscreen
1 female drowned in a dumpster bin full of donut grease
1 male crushed flat with a rolling pin
1 male stabbed in the head with a pump full of strawberry jelly
1 female stabbed through the face with a rolling pin
Total: 7

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Door-To-Door Nightmares: Door (1988)

Door (Japan, 1988)
Rating: ****
Starring: Keiko Takahashi, Daijirô Tsutsumi, Shirô Shimomoto

Yasuko, a housewife, lives a rather regular life in a high-rise urban apartment with her husband Satoru and young son Takuto, with the only snags in her happy mundane days being Satoru's workaholic tendencies which often have him spending more time in the office, as well as the constant barrage of spam messages from phone calls, mails, and door-to-door sales. Little did she expect, unfortunately, that a particular visit from an uncomfortably forward salesman one day would set off a series of stalking and harassment, hurling Yasuko down a disturbing path of distressing encounters and increasing violence which soon ends in an unsettling and brutal home invasion.


Marketed as an extremely rare late-80s home invasion slasher flick that never got a screening outside of Japan until very recently, Door (1988) is more of an Italian giallo-inspired stalker horror that leans towards style and direction rather than an increasing bodycount. The story is simple and straightforward, slowly burning its way from the everyday normalities of a small family, to the sinister scares and creepy set-pieces perpetrated by either our villainous stalker or Yasuko's growing paranoia, all in a pace that's best described as organic. It does take a while to get to the action going, in turn, and a few scenes did feel like they're padding for time, but the build-up is made mostly bearable and captivating thanks to the lurid cinematography and free-floating camera work effectively capturing just how alone and helpless Yasuko is in her predicament. A good portion of visual shots are even done in positions showing wide spaces behind or around certain characters to further convey this sense of isolation, greatly working with the narrative as it soon establishes that Yasuko's husband, Satoru, is essentially neglecting his family being so focused on his job, plus her neighbors would prefer to turn a blind eye to the attacks as they retreat to the safety of their own apartments and the cops are unable to help Yasuko that much as she never got a good look at the salesman so she couldn't provide them a proper description of her stalker. All of these elements melded well to create an intense and atmospheric plot that'll only get more shocking as it reaches its climax.

These last 20 minutes of Door (1988) is this movie's cream of the crop, an impressive scattershot of bloodwork and ferocity as Yasuko and her son Takuto, now trapped in their own home, are forced to flee from room to room and fight with whatever they can against a deranged salesman gone full maniac on them, knife at hand on one moment, a roaring chainsaw in the next. Gore makes its welcome presence around these parts, not overly splashy but a gnarly display nonetheless. Cinematographer Yasushi Sasakibara's phenomenal camera work captures the pure chaos and claustrophobic terror in an array of interesting shots, while Junichi Kikuchi's wild editing helps keep the hectic pace of the attacks, juxtaposing with the eerie slow burn that came before. Granted all of these end with a single kill only, the gradual escalation of edge and suspense made the wait all worth it, even more so when the death itself is crazy violent, cathartic in a very macabre way.


Keiko Takahashi, wife of Door's director, Banmei Takahashi, carries the film as our lead Yasuko, doing a fantastic job making the character sympathetic enough to make us feel for her during her loneliest and most helpless plights, definitely selling a lot of the film's more crucial moments. In turn, Daijiro Tsutsumi, playing our stalking salesman Yamakawa, lands quite an impression with his transition from a calm yet disturbed creep to a manic madman prone to sexual violence, despite the character having very little background to explain his sudden spiral to depravity. He's simply crazy. Dangerous. Sometimes that's all we need from a good horror villain and Tsutsumi nailed his part.

Door (1988) undoubtedly have most of its bits and pieces working in its favor, resulting to a terror flick that swims in shuddersome unease and nightmarish fear before rewarding us with a bout of thrilling savagery. A psychological horror with grit in its teeth, I say don't miss this one! 

Bodycount:
1 male stabbed with a barbecue fork and brained with a bat, nearly decapitated with a chainsaw
Total: 1

Monday, February 12, 2024

The Old Home: Next of Kin (1982)

Next of Kin (Australia, 1982)
Rating: ****
Starring: Jacki Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex Scott

Made and released during Australia's boom of exploitation flicks, this cult classic slasher thriller is an anomaly in aesthetics but well deserving of its status of a genre-defining favorite among many!

Returning back to her home town after receiving news that her dear mother passed away, Linda Stevens (Jacki Kerin) sees herself inheriting Montclare, a gothic yet luxuriant nursing home that her mother and aunt Rita created out of their own manor. Knowing little about the place, Linda entertained the idea of just selling it away and getting on with her life, but seeing the pleasant hostility of the home's head nurse Connie (Gerda Nicolson) and local medic Dr. Barton (Alex Scott), who both have been running the Montclare during the times Linda's mother was ailing, she sensed something rather off about her situation, opting to ponder over her decisions a bit more and maybe even managing the place while she's at it. 


When one of the elderly residents is found dead at the bottom of a bathtub one day, Linda's stay in Montclare took a turn for the macabre as she's now catching glimpses of a mysterious figure hanging around the grounds, getting phone calls from someone heavily breathing on the other line, as well as finding sink and baths mysteriously left open to run. Furthermore, she discovers her late-mother's diary detailing something evil lurking within the manor and her aunt's eventual descent into violent madness twenty years ago. When asked about the home's dark past, Dr Barton and Connie decline to speak about the matter, forcing Linda to seek help from a local boy she's romancing named Barney (Pre-Wolf Creek John Jarratt!) in uncovering what's really going on in Montclare...

To call Next of Kin (1982) a slasher is only true for about a third of the movie as the rest play out more as a slow burn psychological thriller crafted with effectively haunting imagery, stylized scenery, and, too, intriguing characters for the premise to focus on. It's a direction that may not work for most, but the film's steady and controlled pacing undoubtedly help build the story and tension towards a workably dark and gothic mystery behind the enigmatic horrors hidden in Montclare, fleshing out the devil in the details and, too, raising the dread the further the situation deepens. There's a mild surrealist bend to its execution, making use of a good deal of superb camerawork and uncannily eloquent visuals to give this Ozploitation piece a psuedo-supernatural sense in its scares, adding more on its creep factor. In turn, the narrative is well-acted and tainted with low cheese, influenced greatly by the Old Dark House horror outings down to the very tropes of apparent hauntings and suspiciously secretive individuals, with lead actress Jacki Kerin navigating her character through this unraveling plot with a fair range of being warmly nostalgic towards the old town she grew up in and simply downright horrified once a nightmarish turn starts a horrifying killing spree. 


It isn't until the closing act where the murdering steps in, as a genuinely enthralling reveal sets off a good old fashioned cat-and-mouse stalking and terrifyingly villains on the prowl. It's a rewarding payoff after an hour of build up, one that may have rushed the bodycount since most of the murders were done offcamera, but the striking imagery of the slaughtered bodies do make up for it, plus the overall eeriness of the attacks, done hauntingly through expressive camera work and sound design, are among the most efficient I've seen! 

So, not the most carnal slasher out there, but Next of Kin (1982) manages to maintain a noteworthy cult following for just how it stands out in tone and style compared to most other bodycounter horror flicks. It's a genuine horror gem spellbound with a patient yet captivatingly dark storytelling, exploding into a visceral display of tormented realities and murderous psychosis just right before the film meets its reaches its strange yet captivating conclusion. If you're yet to see this, then you owe yourself a viewing of this psychological mini-masterpiece from our friends down under! 

Bodycount:
1 elderly male found dead in a bath tub
1 elderly male found drowned in a bath tub (flashback)
1 female found dead from a slashed throat
1 male found murdered, face bloodied 
1 female found murdered, body seen in bath tub
1 male found dead from a head wound and a syringe to the neck, body seen in bath tub
1 female stabbed through the eye with a hat pin comb
1 male had his head blown off with a shot gun
Total; 8