Scarecrows

As it says on the poster- Trespassers will be VIOLATED! (eek)

Plot: A team of commandos stage a robbery and escape in a stolen cargo plane, flown by a father, daughter and dog (ok, the dog doesn't fly, but is pretty cool) with $3.5 million dollars. One of the team sets off a smoke bombs and nicks off with the cash by diving out the window and parachuting into a field populated with scarecrows. The rest of the team parachute after him and the plane lands. Chased by demonic scarecrows, defending the graves of the buried dead, the not-so honourable thief perishes and the rest of 'em have to figure out what's going on before meeting a similar end.

Imagine a group of irate Worzel Gummidge's vs the team from Predator.

Line of the film: "Your head's going to be possessed by the butt of my gun if you don't shut up!"

Budget: $425,000

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Director-William Wesley also directed episodes of the TV series- Monsters.

Mortuary

A killer in a cape, who could it possibly be?

Plot: A teenage girl witnesses her father's murder (via baseball bat to the skull), but no one seems to believe her, including her buxom mother. Meanwhile, her boyfriend and buddy break into a warehouse, owned by the mortuary boss who fired him to steel tyres to the same value of his missing wages. Big mistake, a fella in a black cape and some nice white and black make-up (bit like The Exorcist) stabs him through the stomach with an embalming implement (could this be a rather heavy handed clue to the killers identity?). Stalking, murders, dancing (it is the 80's) and a spate of sleepwalking follow, only for the girls' boyfriend to investigate and do what he and his 80's blonde, bouncy hair can do to save the day.

Budget: $250,000

Gross: $4,319,001

Look out for the worst, tapped-on ending ever.

Fun Fact: Co-starring Bill Paxton (surely his break through role), we are treated to some overly wide mouthed smiles (almost like the Joker) and a touch of mania. Nice.

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror aka The Zombie Dead

Italiano Zombie films have something few others of the genre have...some tragically and highly amusing dubbing.

Plot: Beginning with an aged, paunchy, jeans wearing, Jesus looking archaeologist discovering a stone tablet with markings under a villa, we jump to 80's moustache sporting men, gratuitous boob shots and an incestuous son who appears to be wearing an atrocious wig, has eyes that protrude further than a toad's and is in fact a dwarf-Peter Bark. The story is secondary to the elements that make this film enticing; Italian villa, zombies (the slow variety that also wield axes), three couples (all horny), maid and man-servant (expendable) and some exquisite maggots-in-the-eye socket shots.

Look out for the best death scene, by Scythe.

Line of the film: "You're getting a raise all right, but it has nothing to do with money!"

Budget: $?

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Filmed in 1981, but not released at the cinema until 1986. Director Andrea Bianchi also directed Strip Nude for your Killer and Confessions of a Frustrated Housewife.

Creature aka The Titan Find

Yep, it's another 80's Sci-Fi.
Yep, it's an Alien rip off.
Yep, you see 80's breasts...read more below if that's got you interested.

Plot: An American research vessel heads to Titan to investigate what happened to their advance team and race against the East Germans to get there first. Sadly, those 80's Commies got there, but it's ok- they're dead, so America can save the day. They find capsules that have been damaged and swiftly realise that whatever was inside is, by some very clever deduction, now outside. The alien in question looks how the xenomorph from Alien would look, if it mated with a Llama and had sharp teeth. There's also a freakishly German looking- American security officer, a short German version of Andy Warhol-Klaus Kinski (white wig included) and what seems to be the largest amount of dry-ice a film has ever seen.

Budget: $750,000

Gross: $4,782,000

Fun Fact: Stars Lyman Ward (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and even has a selection of the props from Forbidden Planet on show.

Dolls

Directed by Re-Animator guru- Stuart Gordon, this 1987 supernatural horror has all the elements needed for a film that seems to combine Gremlins and Child's Play.

Plot: We begin with an inept and disinterested father, a stepmother- who wears 1920's garments and a 7 year old daughter (with what appears to be a were-wolf teddy bear) getting their car stuck in the mud in the English countryside. Looking for cover from the encroaching storm, the family break into an old house and seek shelter with the pensioners (toy makers) that reside within. Coincidentally, a pair of goth chicks and another american (Stephen Lee- Dark Angel) also find haven in the mansion. The goths' seem to fancy a touch of robbery, the parents seem happy to neglect their daughter and the other american is a not so grown up kid. Miffed at the thefts and general lack of respect shown by the house guests, the dolls of the house seek retribution in their own inimitable style.

Note; don't mess with dolls brandishing saws.

Budget: $?

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Music by Fuzzbee Morse. The film was shot in Italy and released a full two years after. A sequel was touted for a while, but never materialized.

Evilspeak

Don't mess with a lad and his demonic PC!

Plot: An orphaned teenager-Clint Howard (The Wraith and Ron Howards bruv) is forced into extreme measures when a gang of military academy bullies pick on him once too often. Having, by chance, stumbled upon an underground, hidden chamber at the academy, Clint finds a few books on the occult and decides this is the best way to end his problems. Not being such a whiz at Latin, he lumps the 1980's computer monitor into the cobweb ridden room and proceeds to follow the rituals translated on screen. The evil spirit of the founder of the academies parish seems to now reside in said antiquated computer and glows red when miffed. The book he scribbled his doings in also seems to send pigs into a ravenous rage.

Keep an eye out for some crazy demonic hair styling and a shockingly unoriginal and lazy ending.

Budget: $1,000,000

Gross: $ having seen this film, I can't imagine how it could have made any money.

Fun Fact: The lead bully is Don Stark, one of the dad's in That 70's Show. The film was on the 'Video Nasty' list in the UK for a few years, due to the Satanic elements, although, had the board watched the film, I can't see how they'd have made the decision.

Forbidden World aka Mutant

Ever wondered why Sci-Fi films were so popular in the 80's? This film won't help.

Plot: Beginning with what appear to be segments directly lifted  from Battle Beyond The Stars wherein our hero and his robot battle space pirates, who are after their food (there's a Galactic shortage on, a bit like the summer hose pipe bans), they respond to a distress call from a research lab on a planet, somewhere?
Once he arrives, our hero boinks one Farrah Fawcett impersonator and endeavours to go for a girl who very recently lost her boyfriend to a giant Alien looking alien and then went for a wank in the sauna (I promise you, I couldn't make this up). So, our 'hero' goes off with laser guns and the rest of the fast dwindling crew to hunt for said beastie.

Line of the film: "That's about the stupidest, God damn idea I've heard all day...no offence".

Budget: $? (recycled sets...can't have cost much)

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Many of the sets in this film were in that other Roger Corman produced gem, Galaxy of Terror. The Mutant poster looks more like Alien, but this one's superb for its utter lack of similarity to the film.

Inseminoid aka Horror Planet

A giant ovarian egg floats through space, explodes and spills its goop all over the place...

Plot: A science crew has landed on a Mars-type planet and begun investigations on a series of underground tunnels. Happening upon a clump of funny coloured crystals (one of the crew accidentally falls on em), the chap goes a touch nuts and dies. Shortly after one of the women has a similar issue and also goes bonkers, this time killing off the crew one by one. Oh, and she's been knocked up somehow by said space goop (has a rather odd dream about a bug-eyed fish creature that artificially inseminates her with a very long glass tube and green liquid).

This isn't a pleasant film, there's sexism (see below), racism (token 'black guy' gets killed off asap) and the expectant mother even gets a kick in the stomach for her trouble (to be fair, she deserved it). There are a pair of crackin' alien babies though, watch out for them!

Line of the film: "I know what I'd like to do to her ass!"

Budget: £1,000,000

Gross: £?

Fun Fact: Filmed in Kent-Chislehurst Caves, starring Stephanie Beacham and partially funded by The Shaw Brothers- Five Deadly Venoms.

The Brain

Now, with a title like that...what do YOU think it's about?!

Plot: A TV doctor runs a show called 'Independent Thinks', disguised as a therapy centre. The good Dr Blakely (David Gale- Re-Animator) is in fact conducting mind control via the air waves and a surprisingly large brain...which only serves to grow if you were to feed it...I dunno...Brainzzzzzz! and the rest of the body too. In a bid to cure a high school student of his disruptive tendencies (hence the disclaimer), the school send him to the centre. Oddly enough, not all can be brain washed and our hero instead suffers hallucinations while trying to put an end to the dastardly scheme.

This film lacked for only a couple of things; no individual stand-out line of dialogue and very little of it was filmed at night- you need a little suspense lighting every now and then.

Gross: $?

Budget: $?

Fun Fact: George Buza (the hero) voices Beast in the X-Men animated series and was an extra in Diary of the Dead.

Street Trash

This must be where the term 'rot-gut' came from.

Plot: A group of homeless men and women purchase and steal bottles of a newly re-discovered drink from the local off license- think meths mixed with bad red wine, called Viper. The result, whoever imbibes the liquid very swiftly begins to melt, leaving nothing but a strange coloured goo and a steaming mess on the side-walk. One homeless man is responsible enough to die in a toilet. While all this is going on, a homeless man that resembles Henry Fonda but ain't, discovers the results of the drink and tries to fix the problem, but there's an irate cop that can't read and a demented Vietnam veteran with a human bone dagger also knocking around. Interested? I thought you might be...

Moral of the story- don't pee on a mentally handicapped Vietnam Vet, you're liable to loose something very close to you.

Line of the film: "Why don't you pull down your pants so we can all see the lily white of your Haitian black ass!"

Budget: $?

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Director Bryan Singer worked on this production as a grip.

Radioactive Dreams

Plot: Philip and Marlowe (Michael Dudikoff- American Ninja) are 20 year old private eyes who, following THE nuclear event-wherein every nuke in the world but one was fired, decide to leave the safety of their fallout shelter (having lived there between the ages of 6-20) and go searching for the men/fathers that left them in the bunker. Surviving on pulp detective novels and 1940's swing music, the brothers set out into the post-apocalyptic future, where lady bikers with bright red hair ride the highways, where mutants with big boils hunt attractive girls through wasteland, where 1970's Disco midgets brandish weapons and giant mutant dogs appear from nowhere and eat folk. Turns out, the lads have the keys to activate the only remaining nuclear silo and somehow, everyone knows it.

It's fair to say that this film makes little to no sense throughout, but that's irrelevant. There's explosions (a la 1980's), punk/glam rockers (one looks like Colin Firth), musical inserts where the singer belts it out to camera and at one point you even get some lizard-man action.

Line of the film: "Something queer happened to land us in this hole!"

Budget: $?

Gross: $220,038

Fun Fact: Director Albert Pyun went on to make Cyborg, with JCVD and Captain America!

Repo Man

The poster makes this oddity of film making sound incredible...and it is.

Plot: Emilio Estevez (Young Guns) is Otto, a suburban punk who really doesn't give a shit. Having just been relieved of his supermarket job, Otto is at a loose end, when Harry Dean Stanton (Paris, Texas, The Care Bears Movie) shows up, gives him the keys to a car and a promise of $25 if he drives it back with him. That'd be fine, except Otto just accidentally repo'd his first car, to the annoyance of the gentleman trying to throttle him as he drives off. Otto keeps the job and sets out with his mentor and endeavours to follow the repo-code. Now, here's where the film changes- there's an alien in a stolen car boot (who vaporises anyone one who has a look inside), a team of sun-glassed FEDs knocking about, a lady with a metal hand and another team of repo-men!

Who will find the car? Who will receive the $20,000 bounty? Who will explain why the food and drinks all say- 'food', 'drink'?

Line of the film: "What about our relationship?!"
                        "Huh?...F*ck youuuuu"

Budget: $1,500,000

Gross: $3,750,080

Fun Fact: The other repo men are all named after beers. There was also talk of a sequel- Repo Chick.

Faust: Love of the Damned

What the ham & eggs did I just watch? This 2000 movie from HP Lovecraft veteran Brian Yuzna can only be described as a superhero snuff film with half of the cast of Holby City. As yet, we don't have a dedicated section for this genre on CultFilmzUK.

Plot: Mark Frost (countless British police/hospital soaps) wakes up in his art studio with a dead girlfriend and a temperamental American accent. When he is approached by a mysterious figure, he is offered the power of 'The Beast', as long as he takes out apeshit vengence on his bird's murderers, Wolverine-style (*snick snick*). On the run from living legend Jeffrey Combs (Reanimator, The Frighteners), Frosty seeks help in controlling his demon side from a therapist who believes playing Sepultura to the mentally fragile is the best course of action.

If nothing else, watch for tips on search engine optimisation for your super secret demonic groups web page.

Budget: €3,000,000

Gross: €746,187

Fun Fact: One of the films policemen is played by voice dubbing actor Miguel Angel Jenner who, in Spain, is the voice of Samuel L Jackson.

review by Callum Stockdale.

Blood Sisters AKA Slash

This film has two redeeming features. That's at least one more than I usually look for.

Plot: A boy (around 6 yrs old) is the brunt of a name calling attack by a little girl. As such, said boy runs to his family home, which also happens to be a bordello. The ladies of the house entertain 'gentlemen' on a regular basis and given the lack of attention and support the young lad receives, he flips. Two of the ladies are gunned down and we skip 13 years into the future where a college soroity are hosting their annual 'Hell Night' in the house. The lads from a neighbouring house set up a series of props to scare the impressionable (and given the genre-often naked) girls. However, turns out hooker ghosts still haunt the halls and a fella in drag (kinda Michael Myers meets Norman Bates) is on a girlie killing spree.

Watch out for the falling-down-the-stairs scene. Not to be missed!

Line of the film: "You promised not to hurt me. Why?!"
                        "I'm Crazy!"

Budget: $ not likely.

Gross: $ equally unlikely.


Fun Fact: Directed by the most prolific of female exploitation film makers, Roberta Findlay. Check out others in her back catalogue which include Snuff and The Ultimate Degenerate.

Prince of Darkness

Lady Mullets, blonde mustaches and Donald Pleasence...must be a 1987 John Carpenter film.

Plot: An old priest dies while waiting for a chat with the head of his local chapter. Turns out the old chap had a rather important job, one of those 'hush-hush' jobs...guard the son of the devil and make sure he doesn't pop out for a stroll or indeed, try to bring daddy through the looking glass. Taking on the mantle, Mr Pleasence (Halloween) enlists Mr Victor Wong (Big Trouble in Little China) and his crack team of university students to investigate the church where the son of 'he who shall not be named' lives and figure out why the green goo in the glass container is turning folk angry, especially a rather large bunch of homeless men and women, led by the pasty faced Alice Cooper (of Alice Cooper fame) that turn into mindless zombies.

This film is actually very very good, especially for Victor Wong's ongoing explanations and the variety that carpenter uses in his story. Much scope for continuance. Carpenter has a habit of doing things longer than other film makers- in They Live, his fight scene lasted longer than any other around, in Prince of Darkness, his opening credits last over ten minutes, interspersed by action.

Line of the film: "Am I crazy or are we stroking ourselves heavily here?"

Budget: $3,000,000

Gross: $14,182,492

Fun Fact: This is the middle film in Carpenters 'Apocalypse Trilogy', The Thing firstly and In the mouth of Madness lastly.

Child's Play

When possessed dolls go on killer revenge rampages, you know it's time to leave town.

Plot: The Lakeshore Strangler aka Charles (Manson) Lee (Lee Harvey Oswald) Ray (David Parker Ray?)-Brad Douriff, is shot and trapped in a toy store and in need of a way out...clearly, transferring your consciousness via Voodoo ritual is the obvious choice. Now firmly settled in the body of a child's doll, 'Chucky' begins his naughtiness by influencing an impressionable 6yr old boy to start fibbing to his mum (dastardly!). The cop that chased the 'human' Chucky' into the toy store (Chris Sarandon-Susan's 'wife'-The Princess Bride) investigates the mysterious death of the boys babysitter and his surprising obsession/belief that Chucky is in fact, alive?! Silly boy.

Budget: $9,000,000

Gross: $44,196684

Fun Fact: Charles (Manson) Lee (Lee Harvey Oswald) Ray (David Parker Ray?)- all serial killers in their own right. Unsurprisingly, there were one or two sequels-5 in fact and even a video game.

The Devil's Rain

Devil worship, goat-head Borgnine and William Shatner with sideburns, wearing a checked shirt...that's about it. On the surface that'd sound pretty appealing...urg!

Plot: The film begins almost halfway through (or it feels like it), with a frantic mother and her strapping young son- Shatner (not long released from his tour of duty with the Federation) trying to figure out how to save his dad from the Satanic cult that lives nearby and seems intent on getting their rather nicely bound leather book back. Shatner ain't 'avin' it and goes off to fight the leader- Ernest Borgnine (Airwolf), who dresses in a red cape and has the power to become a goat-bloke. At some point Tom Skerrit (Top Gun-Shatner's bruv in this one) goes off to the cult site (ha, cult site!) and has a word too. Etc, etc.

Feels awfully like a US version of a Hammer Horror Production...that, in this case is not so much the recommendation you might think it to be. Sadly the director- Robert Fuest (The Abominable Dr Phibes) rarely worked again after this failure. He ended up doing a soft-core porn in Greece in the early 80's.

Budget: $?

Gross: $ clearly not much.

Fun Fact: Look out for a very young John Travolta. I miss him, he's crafty that guy! Actual Satanist, Anton LaVey is credited as a consultant on the film. You gotta take a look at this fella!

Blood Diner

This is the oddest film I have ever seen! Bar none!

Plot: Two children have a visit from a deranged uncle- on the run following a massacre of a glee club (on the right track there I feel) and lopping off his nether region, who encourages the 6yr old pair to follow in the footsteps of a Lumerian God named Sheetar (with me so far?). The kids grow up and start a diner, serving body parts and passing them off as vegetarian/health food. One day they exhume their dead uncles body, remove the brain, stick it in a jar and start talking to it. All the while, the competing diner owner next door is talking to his ventriloquists dummy and puzzled over this neighbours success. So the boys start killing women of loose morals and hacking them up for the new jigsaw body of their soon to be resurrected God Sheetar. The cops are on the case though, a greasy, gold chain wearing, hairy chested duche bag and his partner- a young black woman with a combination of British and American accent (possibly, dear god hopefully dubbed voices throughout). There's also some zombie action, a naked kung-fu chick, creature effects and a band that looks awfully like Gary Glitter and Hitler inspired musicians.

Line of the film: "If I only had my Schlong back, you'd know the meaning of the word machismo!"

Budget: $?

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Sadly not too much more to tell ya, other than fans of the classic 80's teen drama, Beverley Hills 90210 might want to let me know if this is, in fact, THE diner the kids used to hang out in?

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Along the same lines of Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside is based on the television series and told in three segments, with a 'filler story' to link the fantastic tales.

Plot: Deborah Harry (Blondie) likes a little roast child for dinner at parties, the result is a fattened up little boy, trapped in a ground floor dungeon, telling tales to the wicked witch to buy time before his impending cremation.
The first story is a good old fashioned killer Mummy story (old fashioned as it was based on an Arthur Conan Doyle short), with a maddened Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs) raising the embalmed one to exact revenge on Julianne Moore and her brother- Christian Slater (Heathers). The second (adapted from a Stephen King short by zombie maestro-George A.Romero) follows the tale of the killer Cat (tail joke there, enjoy) and the grouchy old millionaire. When moggies go bad, they go BAD! And finally the third, a Gargoyle falls for an artist in New York and they live happily ever after...ish.

Look out for a great 'falling down the stairs scene' and just watch where that pesky cat puts his claws.

Budget: $3,500,000

Gross: $16,324,573

Fun Fact: Tom Savini believes this film the 'real' Creepshow 3, having seen the third, I'd have to agree at least that 'Tales' is substantially better.

Zombi 2 aka Zombie Flesh Eaters aka Zombie

The 1979 unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead from prolific directo Italiano- Lucio Fulci, gives you that mix of zombie goodness but with a tropical twist, a bit like drinking Lilt from a human skull. BELLISSIMO!!

Plot: An unmanned yacht belonging to Tisa Farrow's dad, drifts into the docks of New York. Concerned about papa, she teams up with deceptively bald journalist-Ian McCulloch (Zombie Holocaust) and sets off to the island of Matul, only to discover a big ol' mess of Voodoo proportions and as it turns out, a doctor has been trying to find a cure for the reanimated dead. The film has gained considerable status among horror fans for it's memorable "splinter" scene, but mostly due to the now legendary fight between a zombie and a real shark. ZOMBIE VS SHARK, need we say more?

If you've seen this film, you'd be forgiven for thinking that women didn't discover tops, shower curtains and any sense of self preservation until sometime in the 1980's. Aside from the occasional bad dubbing and radio news readers that narrate their own death, well worth a watch.

Line of the film: "When the Earth spits up the dead, they will come back to suck the blood from the living".

Budget: $8,000,000

Gross: $?

Fun Fact: Don't worry about missing Zombi 1, it's doesn't exist. Zombi was the release title of Dawn of the Dead in Italy and they were just cashing in on it's success.

review by Callum Stockdale

Beyond the Time Barrier

This Cold War era Sci-Fi (1959) has some merit, especially considering it was filmed in all of ten days.

Plot: Test pilot Major Bill Allison (Director & Star of The Hideous Sun Demon) is off to fly his new aeroplane past the speed barrier and beyond into the upper stratosphere...except, something goes array. His plane jumps the Time Barrier and ends up 70 years in the future, where his air force base is in ruins and a new civilization has popped up. Living below the Earth, the Major's rescuers are suffering from a cosmic plague that has rendered the majority of them deaf, mute and impotent (except our star keeps knocking on a girls door and expecting her to answer-dope), while the rest of the human race that bore the brunt of the cosmic rays have become bald and rather miffed (some excellent bald caps all around). So, Allison has to reverse course, stop the rays and save the world...will he make it? Wait 75 minutes and you'll get ya answer.

Budget: $125,000

Fun Fact: One of the mutants was the screen writer-Arthur C.Pierce. Any similarities with MGM's The Time Machine are entirely intentional.