Category: Delirium News & Updates

Severin Films continue their quest to drop delicious versions of every ’80s Fabrizio De Angelis with KILLER CROCODILE, a gory, gory and  ludicrous romp from the waning days of European exploitation boom.

Directing under the nom de plume Larry Ludman, De Angelis’ muscular, late-out-of the-gate JAWS rip-off (co-penned by frequent collaborator Dardano Sacdhetti) opens just like that game-changing aqua-shock adventure, with a giggling girl swimming and some dude half-assed strumming on a guitar before BLAMMO a beast attacks. Instead of a toothy great white, we get a google-eyed crocodile puppet built by the brilliant Gianetto De Rossi, a crusty and cool life-size monster that drags the dame all over the joint, her arm looking like a fin while the red stuff pools up and Riz Ortalani’s warmed over (but still rather awesome) John Williams=esque score slices away in the background. It’s a shamelessly derivative but still lively and stylish set-up that states plainly that what we’re about to watch has been done before and better.

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Often maligned adaptation of the classic novel is a brooding Gothic horror drama

V.C. Andrews tawdry Gothic horror novel FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC was an instant hit with readers upon release in 1979, especially teens who thrilled to the taboo aspects of the tale and point of entry narrative of its young leading character, Cathy Dollanganger. So popular – and controversial – was the tome that it spawned a series of sequels, many of which have been penned long after Andrews passed in the mid-1980s.

A film adaptation was tossed around for years but didn’t materialize until 1987, when BLOOD BEACH director Jeffrey Bloom took over the project from Wes Craven. The resulting film soft-balled the explicitly sexual (and faithful to the book) approach Craven had intended to take and was dismissed by hardcore fans as being a neutered impression of a shattering tale. But time has been kind to Bloom’s FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC, and while this writer has never read the book, taken as a stand-alone shock-drama and a dark memoir, it’s a fine, often disturbing and artfully depressing experience. Its central themes of incest and greed and family derangement are still here and if anything, their suggestion, rather than their explicit realizations, make the movie that much more effective, accentuating macabre mood and doom over shocks.

DEADLY FRIEND and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER star Kristy Swanson stars as Cathy, who tells the tale looking back as adult. When her beloved father is killed, her mom Corrine (Victoria Tennant) whisks Cathy, her brother Chris and their two 5-year old siblings Carrie and Cory to her family estate. There, the long disinherited Corrine intends to win back her father’s love and allows the children’s domineering, monstrous grandmother (Louise Fletcher, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST) to lock the kids in a secret bedroom and attic, keeping them a secret from the dying patriarch until Corrine can get back into the will. Almost immediately the children are tortured by their evil Granny and eventually, after months then years, totally forgotten by their mother. The children become prisoners, coming of age and suffering humiliation and tragedy until they devise a plan to escape.

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Italian horror sorta-sequel is a weird and gory shocker

The BEYOND THE DOOR franchise is amusing because, well, it aint a franchise at all, really. The 1974 original film – a shameless and amazing Eurotrash ripoff of THE EXORCIST – was produced and co-directed by legendary exploitation helmer Ovidio G. Assonitis (TENTACLES) and it famously ran afoul of the Warner Bros. legal team for its copycat chutzpah. That picture is a juicy, wet and groovy bit of pastaland sleaze and its modest downmarket success led to a sequel that was not a sequel. Then, in the early ’80s, Mario Bava’s final masterpiece SHOCK was retitiled BEYOND THE DOOR II, though naturally it had absolutely nothing to do with its namesake predecessor, save for a possession angle to the story.

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Blue Underground releases a deluxe edition 3-disc set of an Argento/Romero classic

One of the great things about the horror genre is it’s always been a ripe playground for crossovers and team-ups… in front of the camera and behind.  One such team-up came in 1990 with the film, TWO EVIL EYES.  Originally conceived as a four-part anthology of Edgar Allan Poe stories to be directed by horror masters, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, George Romero and Dario Argento… it later transformed into a two-part anthology film helmed by Romero and Argento.  Of course, we can’t forget the final horror legend brought onboard to handle the film’s gruesome effects, the one and only, Tom Savini.  Unfortunately, even this trio of horror titans couldn’t help TWO EVIL EYES from becoming a dud at the box office and languishing on video store shelves.

TWO EVIL EYES opens with Romero’s segment, The Facts In The Case Of Mr. Valdmear, which is a solid little slice of horror that feels and plays like a great Twilight Zone episode written by Richard Matheson.  Adrienne Barbeau (THE FOG and SWAMP THING) stars as a conniving wife to a dying millionaire.  With the help of her husband’s doctor (and her secret lover), they put forth a devious plot to swindle the dying man of his fortune.  With the aid of hypnotic therapy, the two begin their scheme only to find that it will lead to a shocking ending involving the undead and an appearance from genre favorite, Tom Atkins (HALLOWEEN 3 & NIGHT OF THE CREEPS).

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