MAXXXINE - The mid-Eighties Hollywood setting and sleaze 'n' murder angle meant I went in with the vague feeling that 'Maxxxine' might play like some kind of De Palma homage, but it's more interested in confirming what we already know - that Ti West is an arch-stylist and Mia Goth is pretty much a star. I like the way it really cops for eighties aesthetics in a way that doesn't cleave to that tired 'neon'n'synths' look... you scope its scummy grain field and it's like breathing in the foetor of some back alley behind a yuppie-era downtown LA porn boutique. It's a mash-up of horror, thriller and Hollywood satire pulped down to a dreamy blur, and if it can't reach the heights of 'X' or 'Pearl', then it still dishes out a definite style KO.
BOGGY CREEK 2: AND THE LEGEND CONTINUES - In 1972, Charles B Pierce made 'The Legend Of Boggy Creek', a Bigfoot docudrama that's well regarded to this day. In 1983, Charles B Pierce made 'Boggy Creek 2: And The Legend Continues', a strange combination of feature film, pseudo-documentary and cryptid propaganda that is not well-regarded at all, but at least offers the comedy value of Pierce running around with a gun in red shorts. He 'stars' as an anthropology professor who takes his students to the swamps to look for evidence of Bigfoot; he finds ornery locals and a skulking Sasquatch who might be a predator. There's a naivety to the drama - there's no tension within the group as they plunge further and further from civilisation, none of the sizzle that would wait to erupt in any other film. We're left with a string of odd travelogue, baffling dog attacks, and a scene where a Bigfoot toilet intervention leads to someone inadvertently shitting on their trousers whilst reading an underwear catalogue. A far gentler 'Night Of The Demon'? If that sounds a bit thin, 'Boggy Creek 2' is full of a spooky kind of charm, pretty much accounted for by the location - as Pierce himself puts it near the start, "The swamp - sometimes it's exquisite, sometimes it's eerie."
SLAUGHTER HIGH - This odd eighties slasher parody is full of strange turns. It's a Dick Randall production, which, if you're familiar with the likes of 'Pieces' or 'Don't Open Till Christmas', kind of lets you know what you're in for. It's not as screwy as those offerings, but it holds its own. A class re-union in a derelict school(!) turns into a bloody grudge match when a bully's victim returns to settle the score. Notable for several bizarre deaths and a finely honed sense of randomness (on discovering a mutilated body, you realise your sinister building harbours an unseen murderer - what do you do? You immediately take a relaxing bath, that's what). The slack-paced comedy is offset by an out-of-sync gothic atmosphere that occasionally surfaces in the form of images of silhouetted figures in jester masks, rotting corridors, long shadows etc etc. With Caroline Munro, a toilet overflowing with blood and several Brits pretending to be American.
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