1990s horror

Dark Romances

darkromances

Dark Romances I & II (1990)

This horror anthology has seven separate stories. In “The Black Veil”, Meg (Elizabeth Morehead) visits her college friend, Justine (Julie Carlson), to try and rescue her from the unsavory life she is leading in the Grand Guignol theatre. Little does Meg know, that Justine is in more trouble than even she realizes. In “Listen To Midnight” photographer Tod’s (Ron Roleck) questionable lifestyle finally catches up with him when he brings home the wrong woman.

“She’s Bad, She’s Blonde, She’s Lunch” is the story of a criminal couple who have a fateful meeting with a mad scientist (Fox Harris) and his creation. In “Cardinal Sin” a young man’s desires clash with his mother’s overbearing religious beliefs with deadly results. “Pet Shop Of Death” is the tale of Sam (Mark Addy), a man who will go to great lengths to get his dominating wife (Katina Garner) off his back in order to win the affections of his sexy neighbor. In “Last Love” a woman attempts to bring her dead lover back to life. The last story, “What Goes Around…” tells of a washed up artist (Jeff Maxwell) whose inspiration is renewed when he gets involved with a mysterious woman named Diana (Brinke Stevens). Unfortunately, she wants to destroy him in order to bring him success.

Surprise. Bewilderment. Awe. Ouch. These are just a few of the things I’m experiencing while walking away from a back to back Dark Romances marathon. Garage gore, sub-ironic product placement, arthouse aspirations, every paltry video effect known to man, ineluctable late 80s cheese, dialogue like broken glass, schlocky acting, Brinke Stevens (Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama), and much, much more await you here in this very dense and oddly hypnotic shot-on-video horror anthology.

While I’m impressed by the ambitious storyline and setting of “The Black Veil”, sitting through it is another matter entirely. An intentional (I hope) soft focus haze persists throughout the running time of this (overlong) section but some excessive gore makes up for a lot of this. Up next is one of my favorite pieces from the anthology called “Talk To Midnight” which features Ron Roleck as Tod, the sleazy photographer with enough neo-noir moxie to peel the paint off a Maserati. Tod finally meets his match in Ginger (played by Anita Coleito), a voluptuous vamp sweet enough to give me cavities. Cavities of death!

On tape 2, the second best of the best comes tearing across the screen with a vengeance: “She’s Bad, She’s Blonde, She’s Lunch”. A neat little disclaimer warns the viewer of impending doom but even that didn’t prepare me for the sheer delight I was in store for. Ruth Waytz and Ron Kologie go on a murderous rampage in a comic book store and the next thing I know, Fox Harris (Repo Man, Dr. Caligari) is making me feel alive again. Then this green and naked monster shows up and the movie erupts with some fugly vaginal and phallic symbols. Simply joyous.

I’ve had enough already and yet tape 2 keeps running. “Cardinal Sin” is loaded with repressed sexual urges, blood, and pornstar Elle Rio steaming things up. The next installment, “Pet Shop Of Death” is an indie horror near-masterpiece with much demented fun to be had. “Last Love” is somewhat weak and really not welcome at this point in the game. Thankfully, the black and white finale, “What Goes Around…”, is just ridiculous enough to finish things off. Besides, it stars Brinke Stevens as the collector of artists’ parts (I mean, souls) and the trippy sci-fi nonsense angle adds some spice to this one quite nicely.

And we’re done. I’m jittery, bloated, but not irritable. Despite some weak moments, Dark Romances is one hell of a trashy fun time. The it’s-so-80s-it-hurts vibe only makes the 3 hour ride all the more endearing. The gore and nudity run rampant in some sections while other “artier(!?!)” stories in the anthology are somewhat tame. Even the clunkier sections (“The Black Veil” and “Last Love”) have their own style and don’t require any fast-forwarding. Brinke Stevens keeps popping up in all the stories so yeah, stay tuned! Both volumes of Dark Romances are clearly a labor of love for those involved and it’s a shame that this title remains somewhat obscure. I’m going to go and stare at some neon lights now and eat some frozen yogurt.

To Sleep with a Vampire

tosleepwithavampire

To Sleep with a Vampire (1993)

A vampire named Jacob (Scott Valentine) approaches a stripper named Nina (Charlie Spradling) but not merely to drink her blood. Jacob has lived for so many years without the sun that he needs Nina to describe it to him. Nina agrees but only because Jacob plans to suck her dry before dawn and she needs to stall for time. In a desperate attempt at survival, Nina tries reasoning with the vampire and even tries to seduce him. As the night comes to a close the pair discovers more and more about each other. Could this be more than just Jacob’s need for blood and more than Nina’s drive to live through the night? Could this be love? Googy?

Erotic thriller my ass! Director Adam Friedman took some time off from directing Playboy specials to fart out this unintentionally comical vampire flick. The plot moves along awkwardly and maligns the viewer by keeping the two leads in one room long enough for some “deep” conversation about vampires. And then there’s the script… Holy living ass, this is some of the funniest and most quotable garbage I’ve ever heard. Not to mention that our actors deliver this tripe with utmost sincerity.

An important revelation from the script is that apparently strippers aren’t trying to sincerely seduce the men they’re dancing for. You’re blowing my mind, duder! From the cheap sound to the even cheaper special effects to the minimal locations, To Sleep With A Vampire is some half-assed nonsense. At least the cinematographer got to have some fun by sneaking in some interesting camera tricks here and there.

They say it takes two to tango or rather; it takes two to ruin a movie. Charlie Spradling and Scott Valentine have all the chemistry of a broken Rock’em Sock’em Robots game. Spradling (Meridian) must have graduated from the Shannen Doherty School of Scowl-Acting and Valentine (My Demon Lover), well, I don’t know where the damn hell they found this guy. While his Jacob character is busy shattering many of the myths that surround vampires, Valentine himself is shattering many viewers’ preconceived ideas about the immortal creatures as well. Vampires that are cool, dark, mysterious, and sexy are miles away from this picture. You won’t find a dorkier or more spastic vampire than Jacob with his contortionist facial expressions and knack for pushing the boundaries of scenery chewing. Oh God, he looks like a mouth-breather! And that tiger print Speedo?!?

To Sleep With A Vampire is a comedy. Don’t let IMDB fool you with words such as “Drama”, “Horror”, “Romance”, or “Thriller”. No, no! These are all lies. The only real drama comes from my sincere pity for Nina who has to spend the night talking (and much more!) with the lamest vampire in film history. Once you have tasted the forbidden fruit of Jacob and Nina’s doomed night together, you will forever be altered. Part of you will be screaming maniacally at your television and the rest will be trying to climb the walls. Oh yeah, Charlie Spradling gets naked. There you go. Exquisitely painful. Enjoy.

“What does it feel like to have a friend?”

 

Jack Be Nimble

jackbenimble

Jack Be Nimble (1993)

Abandoned by their parents as children, Dora and Jack are put up for adoption. Dora (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) goes to an upper class couple full of love for their new daughter and grows up stably yet unhappy. Jack (Alexis Arquette) is taken in by a couple of abusive country bumpkins with four evil daughters and he is constantly tormented. Both of their lives become unbearable when Dora is pushed off a cliff but a bully at school and Jack is whipped with barbed wire (!) by his adopted father.

When Dora wakes from a short coma, she discovers that she has developed psychic powers and her connection to Jack is even stronger than ever. With the help of her lover and fellow clairvoyant Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), Dora finds Jack but all is not well. In his spare time, Jack builds a machine that hypnotizes people which he uses to get his evil parents to kill themselves. The brother and sister track down their real parents to find out why they were sent to the orphanage. But this ain’t no episode of “The Locator” especially since Jack is now violently psychotic and his four evil sisters are hot on he and Dora’s trail.

Is it okay to be afraid of New Zealanders? The answer is yes. Once again I underestimated a flick from that distant and wonderful place and once again I was totally blown away. Director Garth Maxwell creates a dark and feverish fairy tale world where everyone is completely insane. Jack Be Nimble is both dreamy and nightmarish with exquisitely fluid camerawork and moments of surreal and bloody glory. My only complaint about the film is that the melodrama overtakes the story in some scenes and it gets a little embarrassing to watch as the actors scream and cry at each other.

The always reliable Bruno Lawrence (The Quiet Earth, Death Warmed Up) is in the cast and is very good as Teddy, Dora’s lover (and overly smug psychic) who probably shouldn’t have lent her his car. Alexis Arquette (Bride of Chucky) is awesome as Jack, the brooding, sexy (ooh, someone’s got a man-crush (on someone who used to be a man)) and frightening son of a bitch who has been pushed too close to the edge and can never come back. I really like Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This odd actress puts everything into her performance of a woman haunted by her past and (as an added bonus) the voices of the dead and I couldn’t help but be fascinated.

While not a perfect film, Jack Be Nimble is a truly original and hypnotic masterpiece of New Zealand horror cinema and is easily one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. Every character is suffering in his or her own way and either pain or death (or both) is always just around the corner. This film also contains that indescribably Kiwi thing. It’s an aura of quirky madness and total unpredictability even when you’re pretty sure you think you know what’s coming next.

“Do you hear me? You know me. I’m in your head. Drifting in the same sea, you and I, drowning together.”

Ghoul School

ghoulschool-1990

Ghoul School (1990)

A couple of criminals sneak into a high school to shake down the janitor for some money he owes them. They accidentally unleash a toxic chemical into the water supply. Two horror movie fans, Steve (played by William Friedman) and Jeff (Scott Gordon), discover that their school’s swim team has been turned into flesh-eating zombies. Just as they are about to make their escape, they realize that the metal band, The Bloodsucking Ghouls, are still in the auditorium, practicing for the school dance. Steve and Jeff make their way back through the zombie-infested school in order to rescue the band.

Holy crap! What an utterly hideous viewing experience! Now just hold on a sec, there’s something important here. If you revel in the extreme mullets, the odious fashions, and the cheesed-out heavy metal of the 1980s then Ghoul School might just be for you. The film is as cheap as they come (but they had squibs!) with performances only a mother could love. Keep your eyes peeled for legitimate cheeseball Ivan Sergei as the worst basketball player on Earth and character actor Richard Bright as Principal Kaplan (my favorite character).

Ghoul School comes to a grinding halt very early on once Joe Franklin and Jackie “The Joke Man” Martling have a scene together. The excuse for the film to feature Franklin is thin enough already (he is the speaker at a pep rally?) without an extended scene of he and Martling shticking it up. What high school student is able to appreciate the subtle comedic styling of Joe Franklin? I’m serious. The jump cuts indicate that this scene between these two jokers was probably even longer than it turned out here and that is some scary shit. Somehow the film recovers.

Elements of Return of the Living Dead and Class of Nuke ‘Em High are liberally borrowed but that’s only part of the problem. The fact that they play the same punk song over many of the gore scenes doesn’t help matters much and EVERYONE’S SHOUTING. However, those of you out there who seek out all this straight-to-video junk, Ghoul School will have its merits. The film has its own dumb energy that keeps right on through until the end but most viewers will walk away wondering why they bothered. Watch at your own risk.

Baby Blood

babyblood

Baby Blood (1990)

Yanka (Emmanuelle Escourrou) works in the circus along with her abusive husband and is terribly unhappy. One night, a parasitic monster bursts out of a recently delivered leopard and goes looking for a new host. Yanka is impregnated by the creature and the next day, she flees from her husband, stealing all of the circus’ money. As the weeks go by, Yanka’s child begins to speak to her telepathically. It tells her that it needs blood to survive and it forces her to kill using the threat of pain and death to spur her on. Before long, Yanka begins to enjoy killing for her baby and finds that she is becoming more and more careless and violent in her pursuit of blood. As the time of its birth comes closer, the creature tells her that she must take it to the ocean. Yanka then makes a bloody b-line for the sea leaving a path of gore and destruction in her wake.

Okay, where did the hell did this one come from? Think of Baby Blood as a shorter and less cerebral Possession (1981) and instead of Isabelle Adjani you get Emmanuelle Escourrou. This ain’t art but somehow it works. Director Alain Robak really has it in for the viewer with this one, pouring on the gore and blood liberally while filling the film with some of the most brutish and unattractive dudes I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the repulsive sensuality (?) of our leading lady. More on that later. The plot is quite chaotic and simple but builds up quite nicely to its explosive conclusion. The cinematography by Bernard Déchet is gritty, grimy, somewhat sleazy, and workmanlike but captures all of the action perfectly.

Emmanuelle Escourrou’s performance as Yanka (mother of the year) is quite a bold and dynamic one. She is willing to strip for the camera frequently, get covered in blood, put the pillow under her dress, and wholeheartedly take part in one of the most unflattering roles I’ve ever seen. Thankfully, the rest of the cast takes Baby Blood as seriously as the lead keeping the film from getting out of hand (too late) and campy. And did you ever wonder who the ugliest man in all of France is? Well, it might just be Jean-François Gallotte who plays Richard, the ex-clown “ladies’ man”, who has the brilliant idea of attempting to start a relationship with Yanka.

As it moves erratically along, Baby Blood becomes madder and madder in its willingness to shed more and more blood as well as become even more outlandish with each scene. The very literal male-bashing becomes quite shocking as Yanka’s own bloodlust surfaces out of her child’s need. Clearly, our voluptuous gap-toothed vixen has some issues. Is Baby Blood a sloppy, slippery, and chunky feminist manifesto? You make the call, duder.

I have to put Baby Blood way up there in my top 10 Eurohorror flicks of all time. It’s also a must see for anyone who doubts the French’s ability to make quality horror. I have been infatuated with Yanka (ewww, now I feel dirty) and her grisly Cronenbergesque journey since I first caught the censored cut of this on VHS a while back as The Evil Within. Expecting mothers beware, this is a trashy tale of body horror with a serious mean streak. Baby Blood will make you feel all warm and fuzzy (and squishy and squirmy) on the inside shortly before it asks you to kill for fresh male blood but only because it wants to be born. But isn’t that what we all want?