Killer Party (1986)

Coming relatively late in the day, certainly when you think of the "golden period" of slasher movies, Killer Party is a film that doesn't get mentioned much, in my experience, and doesn't seem to get any love. That's a shame, because it's a hugely entertaining horror film that takes a sharp turn in the final act to make it stand out from the slasher crowd. Those who have already seen it may be smiling already, those who haven't seen it should give it a go.

The basic story concerns three young women who pledge to a sorority. There are pranks and humiliations, of course, but they manage to get in. The women are then told to turn a house into a suitable location for a Halloween party. They do, and on the night of the party they also have a surprise guest, in the form of a tormented and murderous spirit.

While it may not deliver the highest bodycount in the subgenre, and while you don't really get the required death every 10 minutes, Killer Party makes up for that with a tone that very effectively blends the scares with some comedy. From the double fake start, including a music video sequences that plays out like a rock riff on Thriller, to a prank involving bees and females in a hot tub, this is a film that aims to provide fun, first and foremost. If it didn't get that tone just right then the finale would be ridiculous, quite frankly, but it instead just feels a bit offbeat and goofy.

Sherry Willis-Burch, Joanna Johnson, and Elaine Wilkes are the three main characters, all do decent enough in their roles, and Martin Hewitt and Ralph Seymour do okay as the two main males onscreen. There are plenty of others joining in with the fun but these five tend to be the ones that viewers are asked to keep an eye on as the party unfolds.

Director William Fruet (no stranger to the genre, he also gave us the enjoyable Funeral Home, which was, well, quite a bit worse than this) seems to enjoy playing with the audience expectations here, especially throughout the first half of the film, and writer Barney Cohen gives him good material to work with. It's easy to like our leading ladies and the film moves along nicely until things start to get crazy in the third act.

If you like your slasher movies to have the usual selection of tropes - a prank that backfires to create a motivation for revenge, plenty of kills with weapons that are usefully near to hand, locals warning youngsters of the peril, etc - then this may not be the film for you. But if you like the idea of a film in which a possessed woman, at one point, attacks others with a trident then this is definitely one you should watch.

7/10

There's a DVD available here.
Americans can get it here.

Shudder Saturday: Funeral Home (1980)

AKA Cries In The Night.

The only feature script written by Ida Nelson, with good reason, Funeral Home is an enjoyably crude horror film that barely manages to qualify as a slasher movie (thanks to the lack of decent murder and mayhem). And when I say crude I am referring to the acting and the technical side of things.

Lesleh Donaldson plays the young woman, Heather, who arrives in town to stay with her grandmother (Maude Chalmers, played by Kay Hawtrey, billed here as Kay Hawtry). The home that her grandmother lives in used to be a funeral home but has now been recently converted into a bed & breakfast. Because nothing says cosy b & b like an ex-funeral home.

Directed by William Fruet, who has a number of much better movies and TV shows under his belt, Funeral Home has a basic level of competence throughout, but it's easy to overlook the positives when the negatives start to pile up. There's not even the sense that this is getting things right in relation to the most basic slasher movie tropes. The infrequent deaths don't feel all that inventive, there aren't any serious red herrings, and it even omits that last possible easy bonus, gratuitous nudity.

Donaldson is no good in her role, sadly lacking a bright enough personality to fight back against the material that she's saddled with. Hawtrey doesn't fare much better, although she's given a few moments in which to wring her hands and amuse viewers with some overacting. Dean Garbett is on a par with his co-stars, playing the young man who ends up getting closer to Donaldson's character, and the rest of the cast don't really warrant a mention.

Aside from the acting, you also get the well-worn "cat scare", a poor score from Jerry Fielding (one of his last, sadly), and a final reel that clumsily puts everything together in a way that references a much, MUCH better movie, that I cannot mention here as it would spoil any surprise for first time viewers.

Yet, despite the general lack of standard slasher movie elements, I still found just enough to enjoy here. Thats more to do with my love for this particular subgenre than it is to do with the contents of the film, I know that, but even if this doesn't make it to the level of "good", I've seen far worse examples as I've mined my way through these movies throughout the past few decades.

4/10

There's A disc available here.