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Aliens, Wild Men and Serial Killers Attack ‘Horror In Your House’
It’s all about quality and not quantity in this week’s Horror In Your House as you can pick up two really solid indie fares, Image Entertainment’s 50’s throwback Alien Trespass and IFC Film’s The Wild Man of Navidad. For those of you who enjoyed A Perfect Getaway, you might want to check out Lionsgate’s release of The Last Resort, which stars Friday the 13th‘s America Olivo.
Horror in Your House
August 11, 2009
ALIEN TRESSPASS: Image Entertainment (TEX’S PICK OF THE WEEK)
A flying saucer, ray guns, body snatching and a one-eyed monster from outer space! It’s all here in this action-packed sci-fi adventure! Eric McCormack stars as an astronomer who gets possessed by a friendly alien bent on saving our humble planet. But even with the help of a lovely diner waitress, is he any match for the Ghota, a one-eyed evil alien on a murderous rampage?
TEX SAYS: Between this flick and “THE WILD MAN OF THE NAVIDAD” Horror in Your House has a reprieve from last week’s garbage. Check ’em both out, but I did love this great little 50’s sci-fi spoof!
COWBOY KILLER: Rivercoast FIlms
Roy Thompson, a cowboy from the old west has ventured across the country and set up camp in a small town. This Midwestern drifter searches for a genteel lady to accompany him in one last hurrah. “Every man for himself, and treat the ladies with respect,” is his motto, but Roy loses his sanity somewhere along the dusty trail, and his imagination becomes a runaway steed. Homecoming bound teenagers, an innocent mother, her vulgar son, and a town drunk are a few of the locals that bite the dust due to Roy’s hand. A crowd of people hunt Roy for his wrongdoings. From two disgruntled ex cops, a couple of cable guys, a high school jock, an old man, a serial killer, a stripper, a bartender, and a waitress are all going to take the law into their own hands before Roy can cause any more havoc! Roy’s in for the showdown of his life before he rides off into that sunset!
THE CRYPT: Triumphant Entertainment
Six young criminals break into hidden catacombs underneath their town, and attempt to steal jewelry buried from the Great Depression only to find inhabitants guarding the precious belongings. After being trapped in this dark maze of crypts the group tries to escape alive.
DARK RISING: E1 Entertainment
A broken heart, a battle ax, a demon and a lesbian ex-fiancee… Jason Parks’ life goes from bad to worse as a series of supernatural events turn his dream of reconciling with his ex Jasmine into a portal seeking, demon hunting nightmare.
THE LAST RESORT: Lionsgate
They were looking for the ultimate getaway, they planned for the perfect paradise vacation; what they’re about to get is a trip no one is prepared for. When a group of five girlfriends heads for the tropics, they relax, hit the beach and step out for a night of partying. All is fun and games, until someone gets hurt. Robbed by their tour guide and left for dead, the girls take shelter in an old abandoned resort. Their high hopes for safety are soon destroyed when an ancient evil is unleashed in this haunted haven. This vacation might have been the time of their lives, but THE LAST RESORT will most likely be the time of their death.
SPRING OF LIFE: Redemption USA
Based on real and little-known historical events, Spring of Life is a disturbing melodrama about a young girl’s involvement in Lebensborn, the mad Nazi dream to create a “master race”. Just before the outbreak of World War II, a young Czech girl is favored by occupying Nazi officials and taken away from her family to a remote spa. It is only when eager Nazi SS officers come to spend the night that she discovers the sinister truth that she is being groomed as part of a breeding program to further Aryan lineage.
THE WEEKEND MURDERS: Code Red
A large English family meet at the family estate for the reading of their father’s will. Each expects to be the recipient of a tidy sum. But apart from the local constable a few other small awards to the help, the entire estate goes to the favorite daughter. No sooner than the will is read, murder is done. First the butler, then several members of the family! The local constable is joined by a Scotland Yard inspector, who sees it as an open and shut case. However, it does not turn out that way.
THE WILD MAN OF THE NAVIDAD: IFC
In 1975, the small town of Sublime, Texas had an encounter with a creature so horrifying that it remains legend today: Deep in the woods along the Navidad River, someone or something has left its lair to rip a trail of ferocious carnage through the local population. Is it man, monster or Lone Star myth? And in a rural community commanded by the Bible, corrupted by moonshine and ruled by rifles, can anything stop the vengeance of a beast unleashed?
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
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