Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2 (2022)

I have said it before, and I am sure I will say it again, but it is tough to spend time and effort writing a review of a film that itself doesn’t seem to have been made by anyone who cared about it. What Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama 2 has going for it is some name recognition, and nothing more. I am not even sure it can make the most of that, considering that the first film was also titled The Imp in some territories. But here we are, and here it is, and my sense of resentment is rising.

The plot is about as substantial as an anorexic amoeba, and all you need to know is that a group of people end up in a bowling alley that contains a cheeky creature looking to trick people by fulfilling their wishes in creatively negative ways. There’s some gratuitous nudity, one or two decent special effects in between a whole lot of dire visuals, and nobody onscreen that you will care about.

Written by Kent Roudebush, and the script for this doesn’t have me rushing to see whether or not he has any other credits to his name (I wouldn’t be surprised if this was either his first script or his one hundredth), the big plus here is the directing job for Brinke Stevens (who also cameos onscreen at one point, alongside another fave scream queen of mine, Michelle Bauer). Unfortunately, Stevens doesn’t do a very good job of directing, but her name attached to the project gives it an extra ounce of watchability, as does the small supporting role for Kelli Maroney. I don’t want to spend too much time criticising Stevens, it is hard to think of anyone doing much better with such an obviously limited schedule and low budget, so I will just say that I wish she had waited longer to make her feature directorial debut. Will I still sit through her next movie, Terror Toons 4, at some point though? Of course I will.

There are a couple of things I can be positive about. The short runtime helps make it a bit less painful, this barely manages to get over the hour mark, and when the imp appears (voiced by Derek Jeremiah Reid) he’s more entertaining than the rest of the cast combined. That is all though, and I am being very generous.

I guess anyone familiar with Full Moon Features will have an idea of what they are getting themselves into (and the emphasis has always been on potential profit ahead of everything else, in my view), but this is even worse than you could imagine. I felt sorry for everyone involved, and I hope they get a chance to work again on something that feels like a proper film.

2/10

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Prime Time: The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Directed by Amy Holden Jones and written by Rita Mae Brown, The Slumber Party Massacre is all about, well, I guess the title tells you all you need to know.

What you have here is a slasher movie that filters the subgenre through a feminist lens. Just kidding. What you really have here is a slasher movie pretty much like every other slasher movie, except the killer uses a really big drill on his victims (even if the deaths still end up somehow being not as bloody as you might think).

Trish (Michele Michaels) is the girl throwing the titular party. She did invite new girl, Valerie (Robin Stille), but Valerie decided not to accept the invite after hearing Trish and her friends making fun of her. She ends up babysitting her sister, Courtney (Jennifer Meyers), instead. But everyone will end up sharing the terrifying experience, surely, or they wouldn’t all be introduced in a slasher movie.

Originally intended to be a parody of slasher movies, Slumber Party Massacre ended up being a more straightforward horror, but nowhere near as straightforward as most. The script from Brown certainly feels more self-aware and playful than many other slasher movie scripts from this time, and the direction from Jones keeps the emphasis on the silliness of the main premise and the light atmosphere of a fun slumber party. The girls chat away to one another, boys decide to show up and try their luck, pizza and beers are to be consumed, and everything feels surprisingly convincing, for this kind of film.

The cast aren’t that memorable, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it means nobody is all that awful either. Michaels is the one setting up the main premise, Stille is someone you always know has the potential to be final girl material (unless she's killed off in a major surprise move), and Meyers is a lot of fun as the typical younger sister who wants to be allowed to do more. Michael Villela is a lot of fun as the killer, Ryan Kennedy is amusing as the "cool" adult neighbour, Mr. Contant, and the always-welcome Brinke Stevens is as welcome as always, in the role of Linda.

A lot of people prefer the daffy sequel to this first instalment. I sit on the other side of that fence. This feels like a really fun time, but without ever sacrificing the small moments of tension and the standard template for slasher movies. As Rick Astley might say, and I paraphrase, "it knows the rules, and so do I". It may not do anything perfectly, but it does everything well. I actually rate this quite highly in any selection of slasher flicks from the 1980s. I hope others agree.

7/10

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Yule Love It: Mrs. Claus (2018)

First of all, I really hope nobody picks this in the hope of seeing Angela Lansbury having fun in the role of the lesser-celebrated member of the Claus couple. That movie is Mrs. Santa Claus, a 1996 TV movie, and is very different from this (although ends up being equally "enjoyable"). Okay, maybe part of me hopes that people DO make that mistake. But here's a review anyway, for people who somehow choose to pick this while knowing what kind of slasher fare they're about to get.

Things start with a sorority house initiation ceremony that is as unpleasant and mean-spirited as those things usually are. The nastiness continues, leading to the new pledge murdering the meanest of the mean girls. Ten years later, the sister of the murder victim is in that very sorority. She is due to have some party time with friends, ignorant of the fact that someone in a bad mask is due to spoil that party with a bit of hack 'n' slash shenanigans.

Written and directed by Troy Escamilla, who previously worked with a few of the same cast members in his debut feature, which seems to have been a standard slasher movie, Mrs. Claus is, well, a standard slasher movie, although it is one that lacks any real creativity or wit, instead relying on the pacing of low-lit deaths and horrible conversations that someone must have thought were amusing and worthy of handing over to actors (a few Christmas classics are namedropped, for example, and there's an excruciating exchange about Santa possibly being high to get through his workload).

A lot of the cast members blur into one another, although some stand out (not always for the right reasons), but the two main female lead characters are played by Hailey Strader and Jantel Hope (billed as Jantel Fontenot). Hope is almost good, despite being stuck with some awful scripted moments, but Strader isn't. That keeps her more in line with Ryan Poole, Billy Brannigan, Heather Bounds, Daiane Azura, Ronni Lea, and Jace Greenwood (who is given a couple of potentially decent moments to be memorable that he does absolutely nothing with).

Fortunately, Helene Udy and Brinke Stevens are the experienced actors involved in the proceedings. Unfortunately, the lovely Ms Stevens is kind of sort of well y'know a bit not great at the actual acting lark. Don't get me wrong, I love her, as I love many of the scream queens who came to prominence in the 1980s. She just doesn't deliver anything to provide a respite from the relatively poor acting on display. Udy is a bit better, helped by the fact that she gets to have more fun with her limited screen time.

Despite the many things working against it, Mrs. Claus gains points for three things. The pacing makes things bearable, it makes some use of the trappings of the season (not as much as it could, but some is better than none), and I quite like Daiane Azura. Back off, I don't tell YOU what criteria to use when you're rating movies. It's my life.

3/10

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Screaming In High Heels: The Rise And Fall Of The Scream Queen Era (2011)

There are some good reasons why the '80s are looked back on with such fondness by horror fans. The home video boon led to a seismic shift in business models and consumer appetite (as seems to have happened again recently with the many digital services we can now try), practical effects were gloriously gloopy, and discovering real gems was a much harder task before the internet exploded, this making each positive discovery much more rewarding.

Three other reasons justifying our fondness for the decade can be found here, and they are Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, and Michelle Bauer. Okay, they may not appeal to the full demographic who watched many of their movies, but each woman had a way to capture the affections of most fans.

Jason Paul Collum brings together the three ladies to discuss their experiences (how they started in the business, memorable anecdotes and such). They're not actually together onscreen, but they cover similar ground, with each lady receiving the same amount of screentime, roughly. And then we get input from the likes of Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau, waxing lyrical about the decade that allowed them to become such prolific directors, and the women who helped them sell their titles.

There are also plenty clips to keep us amused, and some of the stuff on display here is ridiculous. Yet I won't deny that I would, and perhaps will, watch pretty much anything with these scream queens involved. Titles and ideas were created for the sole purpose of shoehorning these actresses into some roles, and I couldn't care one bit when it leads to the likes of Evil Toons, Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, and many more movies that are every bit as enjoyable as they sound.

Quigley, Stevens and Bauer approach their careers, and status, with a certain pragmatism that never leads to them looking down on the genre that made them such hot property, although it didn't necessarily make them rich. They don't claim to be experts on horror, but they do provide a view of how the scream queen phenomenon grew and grew, and how the bubble was filled up until it burst, thanks to their insider perspective.

The term didn't only apply to horror actresses in the '80s, of course, but that's certainly when it gained a popularity, and it's when companies decided to recruit more and more women specifically to mould into that role, which inevitably led to a decline in quality of the "stars" given convention time to meet and greet (and often get money from) fans. As these three ladies discuss that situation, it's hard to disagree with their disappointment. Yes, it could seem bitchy and toxic, but it doesn't.

As is the way with everything, something was seen to be popular, and was then exploited to the point that the market became oversaturated and people started to suffer, in terms of quality and in terms of finances. Thankfully, the original, and best, will always outlast the many copycats who come and go, and Quigley, Stevens and Bauer remain firm fan favourites while so many other names have been forgotten, consigned to the VHS bargain bin of history.

P.S. If you want to help Linnea Quigley out of a bad spot then please visit here and do what you can.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Screaming-High-Heels-Brinke-Stevens/dp/B008A0RGMC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413577759&sr=8-1&keywords=screaming+in+high+heels

Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)

AKA The Imp.

I know that Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is pretty awful, I really do. I shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do. Most sane people would give this a low rating and warn other people to stay well away from it. Well, I'm not sane and part of me will always love this bonkers film, due in no small part to some great '80s scream queens.

The plot is laughable, but I'll describe it anyway. A bunch of boys and girls end up in a bowling alley at night. It's one of those initiation type of deals, all being overseen by the sadistic Babs (Robin Stille). The whole night soon becomes a fight for survival, however, when a bowling trophy is knocked over that releases a mischievous imp. The imp pretends to grant wishes, but all it really wants to do is collect some souls and cause some havoc.

I'm not going to pretend that I enjoyed the script by Sergei Hasenecz, which is full of horrible one-liners and generally risible dialogue, but it does have its tongue in cheek throughout, which is a big plus. Some of the laughs may be unintentional, but a lot of them are deliberate. Well, I like to think so.

The direction by David DeCoteau is fine for the material. He's not going to be troubling Scorsese any time soon, but he gets from one scene to the next with the camera pointing in the right direction, the set having just enough light to make out everything (just), and an attempt to keep things moving briskly enough that the complete lack of logic doesn't sink the whole thing.

Andras Jones gets the lead male role, and he's lucky enough to get plenty of screentime with the lovely Linnea Quigley, playing a thief who ends up caught up in the whole imp-centric scenario. As if that wasn't enough onscreen goodness, male horror fans also get to enjoy the presence of Michelle Bauer and Brinke Stevens, with the former particularly memorable when affected by the dark magic of the imp. There are other people in the movie, including Hal Havins, Kathi O'Brecht, John Stuart Wildman and Carla Baron, but it's Quigley and Bauer who make the biggest impression. Oh, not including the legendary George 'Buck' Flower, who has a few amusing scenes as the janitor, and one person who knows the background of the imp.

I expect most people to either dislike this one or just dismiss it, but I'll always have a place for it in my schlock-loving heart.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sorority-Babes-Slimeball-Bowl-O-Rama/dp/B00ARWWUYA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392384661&sr=8-1&keywords=sorority+babes+in+the+slimeball+bowl-o-rama

Sole Survivor (1983)

A movie that I'd seen mentioned numerous times over the years, Sole Survivor is a film that many people love and point to as a forerunner to the likes of Final Destination and the films of M. Night Shyamalan. While I can see the connections I also think that the quality and influence of this movie has been somewhat overstated as the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia obscure the movie itself. I may, of course, just be missing out on something that everyone else sees. It happens occasionally.

Anyway, the movie is centred around the following premise: Denise Watson (Anita Skinner) is a very lucky woman, the only survivor of a major airplane crash. The doctor who has spent a long time helping her to recuperate, Brian Richardson (Kurt Johnson), explains the difficulties that she still has ahead as she attempts to head home and resume a normal life. A lot of survivors wonder just how worthwhile their lives are, many go on to die or commit suicide within the next year or two. Denise is, understandably, fragile and her mindset isn't helped by a kooky actress, Karla Davis (Caren Larkey), who seems to think that something is amiss. Denise also starts to see people around her, silent and sinister, and begins to suspect that they're not normal, living human beings.

Yes, from the above paragraph you may immediately be thinking "aahhhh, those connections mentioned are obvious now" but that would be a misrepresentation of this film. There are one or two strange incidents that almost cause Denise mortal danger (a la Final Destination) but as the story develops things are shown to have a more physical, yet sinister and supernatural, explanation. People are mystified as Denise grows more afraid throughout the film but there's no invisible Grim Reaper after anyone. The fact that people die, or are scheduled to die, ties in with a theory explained within the movie and makes for an enjoyably spooky chain of events leading up to an absolutely fantastic punchline.

Sadly, while the pieces of the puzzle are sliding together, nothing especially noteworthy happens for the first hour of the movie. The crash itself isn't shown, a number of tense moments end up deflating rather than reaching any entertaining peak, and the behaviour of most of the characters onscreen ends up being quite irritating while viewers get impatient for more than just random scare attempts.

Anita Skinner does okay in the title role, Kurt Johnson is the typical male co-star who doesn't believe anything strange is happening until he's sparked into action towards the big finale and Caren Larkey does her best while stuck portraying one of the more irritating characters. Robin Davidson, as young neighbour Kristy Cutler, lights up the screen with her presence and genre fans will enjoy seeing a young Brinke Stevens already at ease with some onscreen nudity.

Writer-director Thom Eberhardt (who would provide something much better with his next movie, Night Of The Comet) certainly puts a few decent ideas into this mix, and the film is just as heavily influenced by some greats from the past as it is allegedly influential upon more modern outings, but he mires those elements into something with sluggish pacing and nothing visually exciting to help en route to the, admittedly spooky, ending. I thought it was still worth a watch. Once.

5/10.

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