TOURIST TRAP – Have never fallen out of love with ‘Tourist Trap’, a film I return to endlessly after all these years. In a sense it might have been a fairly perfunctory rip of TCM with added mannequins and telekinesis were it not for its incessant offness, which really does push it onto a far higher plane… “hur hur… you’re pridee…â€, goes Chuck Connors’ off-brand Leatherface as he asphyxiates someone with a dishful of spackle. TT throws out indelible images without so much as a shrug – witness a roomful of dummies breathing up a crescendo of sighs, and that feverish bout of supernatural missile-hurling and plastic-mouthed giggling near the start, which almost certainly must have influenced ‘The Evil Dead’ somewhere along the way – but there’s also a tug of weird melancholy about its forgotten lakeside location and backstory of heartache and loss. The inevitable downside is that it’s repetitive and runs out of steam too early, but for all that remains a flawed near masterpiece of the macabre.
PANIC BEATS – Paul Naschy, remaking one of his earlier films (‘Horror Rises From The Tomb’, I think? I’m no expert). It’s set in a huge castle with suits of armour standing around, so it looks the full gothic monty despite the contemporaneous con-merchants at the heart of its storyline. Had my hopes up after the full-blooded intro but had to wait till the end to really wet my whistle, although it was worth it to see everything turn into a succession of Pan Book Of Horrors' Best Covers for five or ten minutes. Quite the blow-out, if you’re into rotting faces and a bit of gore (I am, obviously). Everything in between was either moderately intriguing or intermittently atmospheric, but the talky / sludgy pitfalls of much Euro-horror of PB’s vintage were never very far away. Another lovely package from that feted boutique, Mondo Macabro.
PLAGUE TOWN – Set in rural Ireland, where an American family and a latched-on annoying Brit guy are wandering lost. They happen across an abandoned car, then some freaky kids… cue lots of running around and angst. ‘Plague Town’ is effective because of its night-in-bleak-countryside vibes, which are relayed through very nice cinematography and lighting etc, and there’s also something to be said for the creepiness of its monstrous backwoods charmers and the violence they impose. It has about itself the feeling of a nightmare, at least in places, and that’s basically what I look for more than anything in movies like this. An element of ‘constant chase’ might threaten to be slightly wearisome, but it never gets that grating. I liked it. From the guy who runs Severin (I think), which makes you wish he’d do more features than extras.
THE UNHOLY – Has a lot of what I like about late eighties horror, which was never afraid to resort to rock video visuals if a lacklustre storyline needed propping up. Both elements are in evidence here - ‘The Unholy’ might spin us a bit of ‘heard it all before’ in laying out its possession-themed mystery, but its tick list of stylistic tropes is a gaudy delight (there’s even a neon-lit era specific goth club scene). Gelled lighting and mist aside, the atmosphere actually grows quite ominous in places, and the climactic fx blowout that arrives complete with a slightly Clive Barkeresque hallucinogenic hell sequence is nice and unexpected. Shame that those latter titbits weren’t the predominant force in the movie, which as a consequence leaves a vague aftertaste of missed opportunity along with a lingering sense of frustration about some of the pacing (there’s a bit of ponderousness here and there, but I guess the filmmakers thought that it was warranted by their weighty themes). As with all minor movies of its ilk, it’s a mixed bag, but I’m glad I finally made the acquaintance of ‘The Unholy’, which I’d seen lingering on the shelves of CEX on many a winter’s night, but always passed up on.
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