EDITOR NOTE: 80’s Slasher Clichés – Happy New Year to Malevolent Dark, and there is no better way to kick off than with another bundle of content from Dave Franklin’s Ice Dog Guide To Movies. This time it comes from volume 7 titled:
This time Dave bestowed upon us his take on 80’s slashers and the profusion of clichés that seemingly infect the lot of them. You’ll love the no nonsense way that Dave lays out the facts; laced with his brand of wit, sarcasm and shockingly to the point analysis. At the end of the day, we non of us have time to mince words when it comes to discussing films.
Be sure to check out Dave Franklin’s other volumes of the Ice Dog Movie Guide:
Without further blabbering from me, please enjoy Dave Franklin’s expose on 80’s Slasher Clichés!
80’s Slasher Clichés
I really dislike Scream.
Wes Craven made a fantastic contribution to horror cinema via the original Elm Street but, oh boy, he made me sulk with the ironic, post-modern, self-aware, oh-aren’t-we-clever wankiness of his 1996 blockbuster. Now I’m not against laughs in horror and always enjoy the likes of American Werewolf, Theatre of Blood and Re-Animator, but there’s something smug and self-defeating about the way Scream mines humour, horror history and slasher clichés. Craven’s wildly successful baby may have ushered in a load of arch clones and boosted the sagging genre, but it also gave it an artistic kick in the balls. Perhaps it’s still trying to recover coz I think 21st century horror has so far been dire.
Scream opens well with the killer on the phone telling the home alone, utterly spankable Drew Barrymore that he wants to see what her insides look like. However, as soon as he starts trotting out horror truisms and playing his games the cracks start running up my computer screen. After five minutes I want out. Christ, Barrymore might look good, but she can’t project terror or even act very well.
Then her rich, unlikeable school friends (and their unrealistic reactions to her murder) are introduced, along with a bunch of tedious jump scares and an onslaught of movie nods, including an outrageously disrespectful reference to Mr. Tom Cruise’s glimpsed penis in All the Right Moves.
Hey, some things are sacred.
So, why does the allegedly tongue in cheek Scream miss its bullseyes and the darkly entertaining American Werewolf hit? I guess it’s got something to do with the latter offering rounded characters. When it switches to horror, it goes full-bore. There’s commitment in the writing. It’s organic and has soul.
Scream, on the other hand, is too hip. It feels cobbled together by some smartarse frat boys keen to show off their movie knowledge. No one breaks the fourth wall yet it’s like everyone is winking at the camera. Conversations don’t convince. Everyone’s far too good-looking. The sound effects are way over the top. Enticing titties remain outta sight. And some sequences are so fake, awkward and contrived that they yank you out of proceedings. The whole thing skates over both horror and humour, its approach failing to be campy, satirical, disturbing or gross out. It just keeps falling between stools, sometimes trying to generate tension by falling back on the same clichés it wants to mock. Plus, it might show affection for slashers, but its ‘insights’ are on a par with Austin Powers’ take on Bond. God, it’s a numbing watch that twists, writhes and chews on its own guts like a cut snake for nearly two hours. Nick Cave’s sublime Red Right Hand sure as hell deserved better.
Yeah, well, thank God for proper horror stuff like Snowtown and Wolf Creek. And thank God for much lesser horror efforts, such as the slashers Eyes of a Stranger and Friday the 13th, because at least they have the courage to take themselves seriously. Sure, they have their clichés, and there’s nothing wrong with poking fun at them, but I’ll take gnarly and gritty over superficial, plastic, disjointed and smartypants any day.
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Boasting a great title, this Canadian effort features a police force comprised of two officers, a ripped-out heart bubbling away in a pot of hotdogs, and a groovy climax set nearly three thousand feet down a mine.
Is there a Crazy Ralph?
Not exactly the subtlest character, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) turned up at the start of Friday the 13th as a staring, badly dressed yokel on a crappy bicycle. “Going to Camp Blood, ain’t ya?” he blurts at a hitchhiking girl. “You’ll never come back again!” Turns out he’s right. Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to him? I dunno, perhaps he needs to work on his presentation. Incorporate a PowerPoint presentation or something. Later he pops up in the camp’s pantry to tell a different girl: “I’m the messenger of God! You’re doomed if you stay here! This place is cursed! Cursed! It’s got a death curse!”
You get the idea, yeah?
For Ralph (as one fed-up local labels him) is a ‘prophet of doom’. Unfortunately, however, his remarkably accurate predictive powers don’t extend to himself. As he tries in Part 2 to warn the latest bunch of dumb kids that Camp Crystal Lake is best avoided by fun-loving teens, Jason garrottes him.
Well, no one likes a spoilsport.
In Valentine the mining town of Valentine Bluffs is holding its first dance in two decades following a fatal underground explosion and an unfortunate bout of, er, cannibalism. “I think we’d all be better off if you played down the fact it’s the first Valentine’s Dance in twenty years, if you know what I mean,” the mayor says to one of the organising committee. “Let’s just concentrate on having a good time Saturday night and put all that other business to rest.” When he’s anonymously sent a heart-shaped candy box and a cutesy rhyme, he expects a sweet treat only to find a bloodied human heart. “It can’t be happening again!” he wails.
Not bad, but in reality this dude is just a warm-up.
Later that night we meet our actual Crazy Ralph. He’s a stone-faced barman (sarcastically known as Happy) that likes to cheer up his punters by reciting what appears to be a self-composed poem: ‘It’s a bad time/This time of year/Bad things coming/My words you hear/Beware the fourteenth/If you value your life.’ When challenged by an eye-rolling customer that the legend of a vengeful miner is nothing but a fairytale, he vehemently objects: “If you don’t take it seriously, you’re a fool! I know what I’m talking about. This town is cursed! Forget about having a party Saturday night or you may not live to see daylight!” Predictably, people blow raspberries and make fun of the doomsayer. “Laugh now, but you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me!” Throughout the next half-hour we sporadically cut back to him to find he’s still uttering black proclamations in a downward spiral of misanthropy. Cripes, I think this guy has even out-crazied Crazy Ralph.
Do we have any pranksters?
Horseplay, yee-hawing and guffawing abound. Our blue collar, stabbable cast might mostly be in their early twenties and gainfully employed, but they carry on like teenagers e.g. Coke is drunk through the nostrils while there’s a tendency to creep up on each other and shout boo. No wonder the older mining crew starts off by leaving some of them at the bottom of the pit to find their own way up. Neither is it a surprise when one staggers out of the town hall with a bloodied face pretending to have a serious head wound. The Scooby-Doo-like Happy gets in on the act by setting up a dummy miner that springs out when a door opens (“Damn kids! I’ll show ’em!”) only to be murdered while doing so. In common with the original Crazy Ralph, the poor sod couldn’t see his demise. Given the police chief also covers up a murder by pretending it was a heart attack to ‘avoid a panic’, I’m not sure anyone in this town behaves sensibly. Not to be outdone, our killer regularly joins in the buffoonery by sending whacky Valentine’s gifts complete with offal and taunting rhymes e.g. Roses are red/Violets are blue/One is dead/And so are you. Still, at least he’s got the excuse of being batshit crazy.
Who fucks and dies?
During the opening titles we see two gas mask-wearing miners wandering through an underground shaft. Then one backs against a wall and starts undressing. We see a white bra! Is this what miners secretly wear? I thought they were a manly lot, like lumberjacks. Now the mask comes off and… Oh, I see, it’s a blonde girl up for a bit of naughty num-nums. She tries to remove her partner’s mask, but he shakes his head. He must be shy. Or kinky. She’s fondling his air hose as a gloved hand seeks out her inked breast. His Vader-like breathing starts to quicken. We sense this isn’t a good sign. A moment later he shoves her backward onto the head of a pickaxe, its spike bursting through that heart-shaped tattoo on her chest.
Who’s slumming?
No one. This is a cast of Canadian unknowns.
How much of a ninja is the killer?
Invisibility, a talent for silent movement, bursts of superhuman strength, being in two places at once, amazing agility, cat-like patience, an ice cool nerve and a somewhat bulging chip on the shoulder are the standard characteristics of any self-respecting Michael Myers clone. In Valentine our murderer fits these requirements to a T. Just look at the way he slips in and out of public places, such as the town’s launderette, despite wearing a full mining kit and carrying a pickaxe.
Does the killer come back to life?
Unusually for a slasher, the killer avoids injury for almost the entire runtime. He then loses an arm in a partial mine collapse, although this doesn’t prevent him stumbling away singing and manically laughing. He’s a tough bastard, all right. Somehow a sequel didn’t materialise
Should I have rewatched The Thing or Carrie instead?
Nah. My Bloody Valentine is well-regarded by slasher fans and I can see its merits. It has a loopily enjoyable back story to explain the killer’s nuttiness while his choice of weapon and the regularity of the kills must be commended. The acting is rudimentary and occasionally borders on the ropey, but the direction is good. Some of the murders will certainly please gorehounds, especially our miserable bartender getting a pickaxe through the neck and face that leads to a dangly eyeball. Make sure you hang around for the excellent closing music in which the villain gets his own ballad!
Terror Train (1980)
‘Halloween on a train’ is what lazy commentators call this one. Bag o’ shite might be better. Mind you, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a good movie set on a train.
Do we have any pranksters?
We are waist deep in the buggers. Like the much more violent The Burning, Terror Train starts with a wind-up that goes horribly wrong. On New Year’s Eve a reluctant Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis) lures the bespectacled, near-mute nerd Kenny (Derek MacKinnon) into a frat house bedroom. Kenny thinks he’s gonna get laid for the first time. He undresses rather unsexily as ‘Alana’ sits on the side of a veiled four-poster bed. “Don’t be shy,” she calls out from where she’s hiding at the rear of the bed. “This is my first time, too.” Clad in only his Y-fronts and a vest, he pushes ‘Alana’ back onto the mattress to discover she’s actually a middle-aged dead woman with gruesome surgical scars. Those playful med students have whisked her away from a morgue slab! Kenny does not take well to this frankly ridiculous development. He jumps up and goes into a spinning frenzy which sees him entangled in the bed’s veils as the other students burst in laughing. Time in a psychiatric hospital awaits. Hmm, is such a stunt really enough to push someone over the edge?
Three years later, a costume party is held by the graduating students aboard a privately hired train. However, those relentlessly whacky students haven’t learned their lesson. The pranks keep coming including a pretend severed finger in a box, a guy staggering around on the platform with a sword in the belly, a… Oh, hang on. That one’s real. It’s just everyone thinks it’s the class clown up to his old tricks. Perhaps it’s tricky to tell the difference between a practical joke and a murderous assault. He’s left face down on the tracks as the train departs, but no one sees. Well, who notices a crushed corpse in a public place?
Who fucks and dies?
No one, despite the train being full of drunk, horny, partying coeds. Unbelievable, although we do get some double entendres. At one point the masked killer gets a girl in a position to strike (because she thinks he is her boyfriend), but prefers to present her with a severed hand (that might be a prop) and slash her throat off screen. I s’pose that means he’s still suffering from psycho-sexual problems. At another point a couple looks like they are getting down to a bit of naughty num-nums, especially when she briefly reveals her plump boobies, but the guy instead insists on watching David Copperfield’s magic show in a different carriage.
Huh?
Copperfield. More on that self-satisfied dude later.
Who’s slumming?
Ben Johnson. You may remember this cool dude standing alongside William Holden and Warren Oates in The Wild Bunch or winning a Best Supporting Oscar as a melancholy, firm but fair cinema owner in 1971’s excellent Last Picture Show. Anyhow, Johnson is Carne, a conductor tasked with keeping the kids under control on his choo-choo. Attempts to build up his character are pitiful as he plays card tricks, praises RVs and awkwardly dances with a wheelchair-bound woman. Despite being the star, he is reduced to doing little more than discovering the killer’s handiwork. His mildly confused expression throughout suggests he knows he won’t be adding to his Oscar haul.
I guess Curtis is also slumming after the mega success of Halloween. Surely there was better stuff sent to her than this? Trapped by a bad script, her character is almost as boring, moral and uptight as Laurie Strode. At one point she’s even called ‘Little Miss Perfect’. Indeed, as no one aboard is remotely engaging or even interesting, we have a sizable problem.
Is there a Crazy Ralph?
Not really. The best I can offer is Carne. He wants better communication with his bosses in an attempt to explain a glaringly implausible situation. “I wish to hell they’d put a radio on that train,” he says before the merry little excursion gets underway. “What if one of those kids got drunk and fell off? I’ve been talking on that for two years.” Not up to Crazy Ralph’s standards, but you can tell he thinks something will go wrong someday. I know horror often depends on isolation, but I find it very difficult to believe that a train zooming around in 1980 doesn’t have any means of contacting base.
How much of a ninja is the killer?
After murdering the class clown at the station, the killer takes his Groucho Marx mask and poses as him. No one’s bothered he has a different body shape and doesn’t speak. Formerly weedy and crippled by self-doubt, he’s now able to smash a victim’s head into a mirror and inflict death in the confines of a tiny toilet. Somehow he’s acquired the keys to the said toilet, enabling the bloodied corpse to be locked inside. Even after Carne belatedly finds the corpse, he is able to spirit it away on a moving train, clean up all the blood and put himself in the guy’s lizard costume, tricking Carne into thinking he was merely drunk on the floor all along. “Something’s happened,” Carne later muses about the somewhat suspicious incident. “Some kind of practical joke.” I do believe that’s the moment I groaned, although I eventually became numb to all the impossibly staged slayings.
Does the killer come back to life?
In the flick’s only surprise, no. He can handle operating at full capacity after being stabbed in the back with a sword, but a fall from a bridge proves, ahem, a bridge too far.
Should I have rewatched The Thing or Carrie instead? Ninety-eight percent yes, although I guess I’ll remember David Copperfield playing a smarmy, irrelevant magician in one long personal ad. Would a bunch of hard-partying coeds hire a magician, anyway? A band, sure. A stripper, maybe. But a fucking wand wagger? I think his limp presence is supposed to complement the emphasis on pranks, red herrings, jokes and illusions because he otherwise contributes fuck all to the plot. Dressed in flared collars and a frilly shirt, he does his po-faced, show-offy schtick on stage to disco music while trying to look mysterious. Cards on the table, he’s such a nerdy nonentity that it made me hang in there to see if he was gonna end up as knife fodder.
Anyhow, the professionally shot, but padded Terror Train becomes increasingly hampered by its cramped location. It also lacks the requisite gory kills. Like Hell Night and April Fool’s Day, it’s tame. Stuff such as The Prowler and Maniac are not great films, but at least they boast some goddamn personality.
The House on Sorority Row (1982)
Combining aspects of Les Diaboliques and Black Christmas, this female-centric slasher features some pretty dumb chicks. That didn’t stop it from doing well at the box office.
Are there any pranksters?
Seven girls want to throw a graduation party. Problem is, they have to secure the permission of their house mother, Mrs. Slater (Lois Kelso Hunt). Unfortunately, she’s long been an arch grump. When she point-blank refuses, the girls decide to teach her a lesson. They consider toilet papering her room, the dog shit in the paper bag routine, a bucket of water over the door, and glue on the toilet seat.
All rubbish, as I’m sure you’ll agree. I mean, no one’s gonna end up dead, disfigured or in the loony bin as a result of such tame nonsense. It’s up to our resident bad girl Vicki (Eileen Davidson) to ensure disaster gets underway. She might be vivacious and free-spirited, but she’s also self-centred and a bit mean as she tries to follow in the footsteps of Carrie’s Chris Hargensen. Vicki decides a loaded gun and forcing Mrs. Slater to take a dip in the pool is a better option. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?
And so they lure the crotchety old bag out to the green, disused pool where, of course, she ends up shot during a fairly nonsensical sequence. The girls try to revive her, but it’s no good. Then they really start underlining their dimness. They try to weigh down the body with towels, not bothering to see if it properly sinks. You’d think they cancel their party (given there’s a corpse in the pool) but no, they try to carry on as normal. Even when the body disappears and then falls (still wrapped and bound) out of the attic hatch, they fail to act like rational human beings.
Is there a Crazy Ralph?
No. The best we get is a doctor examining skull x-rays of Mrs. Slater’s secret son (born twenty-odd years ago with the use of experimental drugs) while solemnly intoning into a Dictaphone: “My recommendation is for immediate advanced treatment. The next three months must be spent under complete clinical supervision. Allowed to live in an uncontrolled environment, there’s a good chance that any traumatic stimulus could act as a stimulus for the patient’s latent violence.” Hmm, do you think such a person will respond well to seeing the corpse of his mumsy dumped in a stagnant pool before having to put up with a houseful of unintentionally funny partygoers?
Who fucks and dies?
Vicki and Rick (Michael Sergio) do it on a water bed. “You filth!” a snooping Mrs. Slater rages as she punctures the bed with her walking cane. “Trash like you doesn’t belong in my house!” Vicki and Rick get away with their disgusting carnal behaviour for quite a long time before Vicki eventually succumbs to a cane in the head.
Who’s slumming?
No one. It’s another cast of unknowns.
How much of a ninja is the killer?
Despite being a malformed retard, our killer can walk into a sorority house without anyone noticing and proceed to slink around the garden, attic and pool house. You’ll even find him lying in wait on top of a RV. Wherever he roams he remains invisible to scores of partygoers. Prior to one kill we see his shadow outside a girl’s balcony door. It then mysteriously blows open, although this doesn’t stop our thickie student from wandering over to find a gift left on the floor. She picks it up, only for the killer to now be inside the bedroom and impale her from behind. Clever bastard.
Does the killer come back to life?
Repeatedly stabbed by a two-inch spike, he falls out of the attic onto the hard floor below, lies still and then… opens his eyes. The end. Somewhat underwhelming, yes?
Should I have rewatched The Thing or Carrie instead?
Hmm, House is neither particularly good nor bad. Bang average is my verdict. Writer-director Mark Rosman, whose subsequent career went nowhere interesting, proves a bit more adept behind the camera than penning a decent script. Mind you, that doesn’t stop him forgetting after a while that there’s supposed to be a party going on in the house. The killer’s weapon (his mom’s walking cane) is rather uninspired while the kills vary from tame to gruesome. Like Curtains and Night School, a severed head turns up in the bog. At least there are some boobies, although matters aren’t helped by some late-stage attempts at surrealism and the Final Girl being a Laurie Strode-like nonentity.
Just Before Dawn (1981)
Director Jeff Lieberman had already coughed up two horror offerings (the cheesy wormfest Squirm and the disappointing, LSD-flavoured Blue Sunshine) before he helmed this wilderness-set slasher. Its lack of decent box-office returns ensured he didn’t make another film for seven years, but there are a handful of fright fans who rate this one quite highly.
Is there a Crazy Ralph?
There are three, actually, including a shotgun-wielding hillbilly who warns our bunch of refreshingly unannoying campers about ‘raising the devil’. However, our main prophet of doom is the deer hunter Ty (Mike Kellin). Drunk the entire pic, he has every reason to continue slurping the booze after his nephew is slaughtered and, even worse, his pickup truck totaled. Unfortunately, Ty’s lyrical babbling about ‘demons’ and ‘death in its eyes’ doesn’t help his credibility when he should’ve taken a more direct approach i.e. ‘Listen, kids, there’s a fat, chuckling bastard in the woods killing people with an enormous machete.’
Are there any pranksters?
Somewhat predictably, the campers creep up on each other in the night-time forest to dole out scares. There’s also a pretend drowning in a plunge pool. Goes with the territory, I s’pose.
Who fucks and dies?
One guy tries to get somewhere with one of the inbred locals so he ends up splatted, although the meting out of violent death does appear a bit harsh for a couple of kisses. There weren’t even tongues! Elsewhere a girl who shows her wet boobies (the slut!) gets what’s coming to her.
Who’s slumming?
George Kennedy. Kennedy is a fave with a fine Oscar-winning turn as the rather dim Dragline in Cool Hand Luke and all that 70s disaster nonsense. Then the 80s arrived and he started tackling horror roles, none of which were ever gonna challenge the iconic likes of The Exorcist or The Omen. I mean, have you seen Death Ship in which he’s stuck onboard a sentient Nazi torture ship, a situation that sees him storm the engine room and shoot the malevolent machinery? At least Dawn is a step up, although it has to be said he puts in a pretty half-hearted effort. Indeed, he doesn’t so much ride to the rescue on his white charger as amble.
He’s Roy McLean, a mildly barmy, green-fingered forest ranger stuck with a grumbling horse. Most of the time he’s twittering away to his precious plants or trying to reassure his flighty equine friend that (given his extreme isolation) might also double as a wife. I guess he could be labelled a mild form of Crazy Ralph as well. When told by the campers they’re going up the mountain, he retorts: “Only a fool would do that… At least tell me where you’re going so when you don’t come back I’ll know how to fill out the report.” As their campervan departs, he shouts after them: “I ain’t just singin’ a tune. I warned ya and I ain’t coming after ya!”
How much of a ninja is the killer?
Despite being a rather portly chap, he’s able to clamber up onto a dilapidated church roof sans ladder without the two people inside hearing. After making himself known, he then instantaneously clambers back down and disappears. He is also able to leap onto the back of a travelling RV and crawl all over it fly-like without anyone noticing. In the water, he’s as silky smooth as a dolphin.
Does the killer come back to life?
This one’s free of post-mortem histrionics.
Should I have rewatched The Thing or Carrie instead?
Not particularly. It’s no Deliverance or even Southern Comfort, but I don’t have a problem with Dawn. It has good cinematography, mostly acceptable acting, some tense scenes, and a minimal but effective score. I also enjoyed the way rural folk are presented as hopelessly retarded. It starts with an impressive machete castration, but otherwise the kills disappoint as if Lieberman were unsure of how slashery he wanted his pic to be. The transformation of the Final Girl from wuss to tonsil-wrestling Rambo is also, ahem, a bit hard to swallow. Still, there are too many nice touches to dismiss Dawn and if you forget about the inevitable clichés, it offers a chunk of decent suspense.
Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
After a lengthy directorial career that began at the start of the 1950s, J. Lee Thompson gloriously lost his mind late on, culminating in 1989’s batshit crazy Bronson vehicle Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. Happy Birthday was a fair indicator of how the decade was going to pan out, starting nonsensically with a girl being tripped by a hurled dog leash (I think), moving onto a daft, awkwardly staged kill and just getting less and less believable. In fact, I defy anyone to explain it. A mash-up of Inception and The Big Sleep would make more sense.
Is there a Crazy Ralph?
Nope, not a trace.
Are there any pranksters? Given this one is set at college, what do you think? After less than ten minutes our first joke arrives when a pet rat is placed in an unsuspecting dude’s beer stein. Then a teacher’s hair is made to stand on end by a machine that produces static electricity. A student hangs upside down and pretends to be dead. When not playing pranks we have a game of chicken, japes with a fake severed head, and a Quasimodo impersonation. Does breaking into a girl’s bedroom and stealing her knickers count as a prank? Hmm, probably not.
Who fucks and dies?
It takes well over an hour for some hanky-panky to arrive. The unattractive guy ends up with a kebab skewer down his throat. That’ll teach him for punching above his weight. Still, I must complain about the lack of tits. Such a non-occurrence in a slasher is unforgivable. Even when the main girl slips into the shower, we are left bereft. If I’d paid to see this one at the cinema, I would’ve protested outside the place the next day with a No Tits placard.
Who’s slumming?
Legendary poon hound Glenn Ford. Apart from banging nearly 150 actresses during a half-century long career, which is only five or so less than me, he starred in such 50s fare as the incredibly influential Blackboard Jungle and the worthwhile The Big Heat. Here he’s a shrink, relaxed to the point of inertia. Apart from a paycheck, I’m not sure why he took the part. Favoring open-necked shirts, he doesn’t do much more than pick up a newspaper off his front steps and be allowed to interfere at a police crime scene. Oh yeah, and listen to a patient scream: “He killed my brain!” At least Just Before Dawn’s George Kennedy got to shoot someone.
How much of a ninja is the killer?
As the killer is known to the victims, there’s no need to sneak around. Mind you, I’m pretty sure there’s some enormous cheating going on when it comes to body removal along the lines of the supernatural and/or bending the laws of physics.
Does the killer come back to life?
No. And thank fuck for that. I couldn’t have taken another intelligence-insulting twist.
Should I have rewatched The Thing or Carrie instead?
Hell, yes. This one is preferable to Thompson’s late 70s Bronson collaborations, such as the dull crime thriller St. Ives or the wretched western The White Buffalo, but his move into slasher territory is not good. Apart from a plethora of eye-rolling scenes, it goes on to become the most convoluted, torturous slasher ever made.
The first kill is an unimaginative throat slash, although things slightly improve due to the villain ditching the straight razor and switching to improvisation. And so whatever’s to hand is put to fiendish use whether it’s a spinning motorbike wheel or a heavily weighted barbell. It’s not remotely plausible, but kinda fun.
However, the kills are spaced too far apart while the way the basic story unfolds is sloppy in the extreme. To give an example, we see a car repeatedly fall from a drawbridge into a river: three times it lands on its roof, the fourth on its wheels. The overlong, structurally inept Happy Birthday also doesn’t feel much like a slasher with no shots in the killer’s POV, no Crazy Ralph, no nudity, no premises re-opening after tragedy, and a head-scratching, interminable climax. Oh well, at least Thompson would regain his blood-spattered mojo in the reviled 10 to Midnight two years later.
80s Slasher Cliches is an excerpt from the latest instalment of Dave Franklin’s Ice Dog Movie Guide.