SLAUGHTER HIGH (UK - 1986) Written and directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten. Cast: Caroline Munro, Simon Scuddamore, Carmine Iannaccone, Donna Yaeger, Gary Martin, Billy Hartman, Michael Saffran, John Segal, Kelly Baker, Sally Cross, Josephine Scandi, Marc Smith, Jon Clark, Dick Randall. (Unrated, 90 mins) Perhaps more than any other slasher movie of the '80s, SLAUGHTER HIGH's rabidly devoted cult following is rooted more in nostalgia for the era rather than any inherent greatness in the film. Because, frankly, SLAUGHTER HIGH is pretty terrible. It's able to get away with boasting "From the makers of FRIDAY THE 13TH" because co-producer Steve Minasian was one of the partners in Georgetown Productions, the company that helped finance the original FRIDAY THE 13TH, even though Minasian was never credited onscreen. Minasian ended up partnering with veteran schlockmeister Dick Randall on the Spanish-made 1983 chainsaw epic PIECES and the British-made 1984 killer Santa movie DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, both of which are more in line with Randall's lowbrow oeuvre (CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER, FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY) than any groundbreaking, trailblazing slasher horrors in Sean S. Cunningham's classic. Among the first theatrical releases of Vestron Video offshoot Vestron Pictures, a studio that would fold just a couple of years later with DIRTY DANCING being their only big hit, SLAUGHTER HIGH isn't nearly as much fun as either PIECES or DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, but it's nevertheless beloved by fans. This could be due to its overt and at least partially intentional silliness (it takes place at a high school that looks nothing like a 1986 high school and is in the middle of nowhere) and mockability as a Bad Movie, but it does manage to pull off a few fairly decent and splattery--at least in the unrated version--kill scenes. But throughout, SLAUGHTER HIGH is played so broadly, with grating, "wacky" music cues and terrible performances that it's never really scary because by 1986, audiences had seen nearly a decade of these things post-HALLOWEEN and were savvy enough to know when all the jolts were coming. It's more likely that SLAUGHTER HIGH is cherished not for what it is, but for the period in which it was created.
35-year-old Caroline Munro as the
world's least-convincing high school student.
Shot as APRIL FOOL'S DAY but retitled when the producers learned Paramount had their own APRIL FOOL'S DAY slasher film in production, SLAUGHTER HIGH was filmed in the UK with a mostly British cast sporting American accents that range from "kinda sorta OK" to "completely embarrassing" (Carmine Iannaccone as jokester Skip is actually American, while Scottish-born Billy Hartman, seen that same year as Connor MacLeod's cousin Dougal in the classic HIGHLANDER, has what might be the worst American accent in movie history as Frank). In a nearly 20-minute prologue, all the cool kids play a cruel April Fool's Day prank on Marty Rantzen (Simon Scuddamore), "the dork of Doddsville High," a dweeby science nerd who's led into the girls' locker room under the pretense of being seduced by beauty queen Carol (genre vet Caroline Munro, 35 years old at the time and playing a teenager). Of course, Marty is humiliated and later given a laced joint that he lights up in the chemistry lab, which eventually leads to a nitric acid spill that causes an explosion setting him ablaze. Ten years later, the group of students behind the prank--including Carol, who's now a cokehead movie star--are invited back to the now-closed Doddsville High for a reunion. It's all a set-up as they're offed one by one in a variety of inventive ways by Marty, his disfigured face obscured by a grinning jester's mask. That creepy jester's mask is one of the few effective horror elements of SLAUGHTER HIGH (the killer's mask in DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS was also unexpectedly unnerving). There's a few memorable kills--the acid bath, the exploding stomach, the dual electrocution in mid-coitus--and when composer Harry Manfredini drops the wonky synth cues and goes for that frenzied, screeching sound he brought to the suspense sequences in FRIDAY THE 13TH, the film occasionally manages to vaguely look like the American slashers that it's emulating, but in the end, it's a lesser entry in the '80s subgenre that's further diminished by a stupid twist ending that leaves the door opened for a sequel that never happened.
The creative team of George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Peter Litten are credited with writing and directing, though on the commentary track of Lionsgate's just-released Vestron Collector's Series Blu-ray, Dugdale and Litten explain that Dugdale did most of the directing, Ezra did most of the writing, and Litten did the special effects, with each frequently contributing in other areas. There's some intermittently interesting information in the commentary--such as the occasional Dick Randall anecdote; the exteriors of the high school being an abandoned asylum, and the interiors (usually the same slightly redressed hallway) being the shuttered St. Marylebone Grammar School, a building constructed in 1791 and closed in 1981; and that Randall offered Telly Savalas $25,000 for one day's work as the gym teacher in the prologue, with Savalas slamming the phone down on Ezra when Randall wouldn't meet his demand of $50,000 (the role went to American expat Marc Smith, a voice actor best known as the guy who dubbed Franco Nero in ENTER THE NINJA and Lou Ferrigno in HERCULES)--but otherwise, the two filmmakers blather on endlessly about mostly uninteresting stuff (like what the weather was like when they shot a particular exterior). They don't even mention Caroline Munro's name until an hour into the commentary, which is bizarre considering 1) she's a beloved cult movie icon, 2) she's the biggest name in the cast, 3) was Dugdale's girlfriend at the time of filming, and 4) has been his wife since 1990 (why didn't she come along?). Even more egregious is barely even mentioning Simon Scuddamore, whose name finally comes up near the end when one of the directors mentions the actor is only playing Marty at the beginning and the end, and isn't the guy walking around in the jester's mask in the rest of the movie.
Simon Scuddamore (1956-1984)
Ezra, the only one of the three filmmakers who's gone on to a somewhat successful career in the industry (he wrote some British TV shows and was a producer on the later arthouse hit WAKING NED DEVINE), isn't on the commentary but is instead interviewed separately in a featurette, and he goes into much greater detail about the production in 15 minutes than Dugdale and Litten do in 90. Ezra actually provides some information about the enigmatic Scuddamore, who won the role after an open audition, had no acting experience, and requested weekends off during the shoot so he could continue his volunteer job at a facility for special needs children. Just days after SLAUGHTER HIGH wrapped production in November 1984, Scuddamore committed suicide in what was believed to be an intentional drug overdose. Ezra doesn't go into specific details, but he mentions Scuddamore's unexpected death and that it was under unfortunate circumstances, which is more than Dugdale and Litten say. How does the death of the movie's star just after filming not be a key talking point on a commentary? The fact that Scuddamore died in 1984 and the movie remained unreleased for two years might also be a topic to discuss, but it never comes up (nor is there even a dedication to Scuddamore in the closing credits). Neither do other potentially interesting tidbits, like 23-year-old future acclaimed author of the Thursday Next mystery series Jasper Fforde being a member of the camera crew. Even a junk movie like this deserves a thorough and informed commentary for fans. On the plus side, the Blu-ray looks good, and it's nice to see this properly framed after Lionsgate's janky DVD release from several years ago put forth zero effort and just used the full-frame VHS transfer. I've seen SLAUGHTER HIGH four or five times in 30 years and I still don't really like it--or, perhaps more accurately, I don't see why fans love it as much as they do--but even I'm guilty of being suckered in by the nostalgia element, and now I own the Blu-ray. I get it. I miss the '80s, too. Will I watch this unremarkable and thoroughly mediocre movie again? Of course I will.
SLAUGHTER HIGH opening in
Toledo, OH on February 13, 1987
THE OTHER HELL aka GUARDIAN OF HELL (Italy - 1981; US release 1985) Directed by Stefan Oblowsky (Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso). Written by Claudio Fragasso. Cast: Franca Stoppi, Carlo De Mejo, Andrew Ray (Andrea Aureli), Francesca Carmeno, Susan Forget (Susanna Forgione), Frank Garfeeld (Franco Garofalo), Paola Montenero, Sandy Samuel (Ornella Picozzi), Tom Felleghy, Simone Mattioli. (R, 89 mins) A relative latecomer to the '70s Nunsploitation craze, 1981's THE OTHER HELL is a bit of an outlier as far as the subgenre is concerned, in that its focus is primarily on horror and there's no onscreen sex. One of the key components of Nunsploitation is its recurring depiction of sexually repressed nuns letting themselves go and giving into their wicked, uninhibited carnal desires, usually with other sex-starved nuns. Though the mainly Italian subgenre really took off in the mid '70s, it began with the serious drama THE NUN OF MONZA in 1969, directed by Eliprando Visconti (nephew of Luchino Visconti) and starring British actress Anne Heywood. Heywood would find a niche in roles that depicted her in various states of prudish sexual repression, most notably the 1979 American film GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCKOFF, aka THE SHAMING, where she played a 40-year-old spinster schoolteacher in a small town in the 1950s who loses her virginity via rape and falls in love with her attacker. Domenico Paolella's STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN (starring Catherine Spaak and Suzy Kendall) really got the ball rolling in 1973, which he followed quickly that same year with Heywood, back for more nunsploitative action in THE NUNS OF ST. ARCHANGEL. After that, the floodgates were open, with Florinda Bolkan in Gianfranco Mingozzi's FLAVIA THE HERETIC (1974), Francoise Prevost in Sergio Grieco's THE SINFUL NUNS OF ST. VALENTINE (1974), Susan Hemingway in Jess Franco's LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGUESE NUN (1977), Laura Gemser in Giuseppe Vari's SISTER EMANUELLE (1977), Anita Ekberg in Giulio Berruti's KILLER NUN (1978), Ligia Branice in Walerian Borowcyk's BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (1978), Paola Senatore in Joe D'Amato's IMAGES IN A CONVENT (1979), Zora Kerova in Bruno Mattei's THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA (1980), and Eva Grimaldi in D'Amato's fashionably late CONVENT OF SINNERS in 1986. Though Italy was the primary purveyor of Nunsploitation, Japan got into the act with 1974's SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST, 1976's CLOISTERED NUN: RUNA'S CONFESSION, and 1978's SISTER LUCIA'S DISHONOR, among a handful of others.
Like any genre fad that overstays its welcome and starts showing signs of running its course, Nunsploitation films got increasingly abhorrent, transgressive, and grubby-looking as time went on. They also tried experimenting with subgenre crossover in an attempt to shake things up. Franco Prosperi's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH (1978) combined Nunsploitation with the post-LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT/I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE rape/revenge subgenre, with Florinda Bolkan as a Mother Superior with a group of young girls being terrorized by a crew of rapists led by Ray Lovelock. Another example is THE OTHER HELL, which was shot simultaneously in 1980 with the same crew and much of the same cast as THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA. Bruno Mattei (STRIKE COMMANDO) and writer Claudio Fragasso (TROLL 2) were the creative forces behind both, but while Mattei focused most of his attention on MONZA, Fragasso did the majority of the shot-calling on THE OTHER HELL, with both men splitting directorial duties over both films and credited under the shared pseudonym "Stefan Oblowsky." THE OTHER HELL deals with the requisite convent full of sexually repressed nuns, with Mother Superior Sister Vincenza (Franca Stoppi) convinced an evil force has been unleashed after two nuns appear to commit suicide under mysterious circumstances. Father Valerio (Lucio Fulci regular Carlo De Mejo) is sent by the Archbishop (Tom Felleghy) to investigate after an older priest, Father Inardo (Andrea Aureli, credited as "Andrew Ray") proves ineffective and later set ablaze by a supernatural force. There's a whole lot of very little that happens in THE OTHER HELL for the first hour and change. It's hobbled by a ponderously slow pace and cheap-looking cinematography that borders on the barely watchable, with some fleeting bits of chuckle-inducing lunacy like Sister Assunta's (Paola Montenero) rant about how "the genitals are the door to evil!" or a striking giallo-like discovery of a room filled with hanging, unclothed dolls lost amidst a lot of Valerio walking around and asking questions, the requisite stone-walling from Sister Vincenza, a few mysterious deaths, and an obvious red herring in twitchy groundskeeper Boris (Franco Garofalo, credited as "Frank Garfeeld"), the kind of socially-inept creep who grins a little too much when he has to cut the head off a chicken to prepare dinner.
But then something strange happens. There's a big revelation about a secret Sister Vincenza is hiding, all hell breaks loose, and suddenly, THE OTHER HELL gets its shit together and turns into a really good and genuinely atmospheric horror movie, almost like Mattei and Fragasso are trying to put a Dario Argento spin on the Nunsploitation genre. They essentially go for broke and just start throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, turning a laborious dud into a dizzying, nonsensical Eurotrash mishmash of sexual repression, black magic, scientific mumbo jumbo, possession, exorcism, catchy Goblin cues recycled from BEYOND THE DARKNESS and two of their older albums, 1976's Roller and 1978's Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagorozzo Mark (much like Mattei swiped huge chunks of Goblin's DAWN OF THE DEAD score for his 1980's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD), and a couple of zombies because hey, why not? Giving a further boost to THE OTHER HELL's sudden jolt of life is another unhinged freakout of a performance by Stoppi--the Eva Green of early '80s Italian sleaze--breaking out every bonkers move in her batshit repertoire for the final act. Stoppi--who has a small but devoted cult following thanks to her unforgettable performance as Iris, the (wait for it) sexually repressed and maniacally insane housekeeper hopelessly in love with her necrophile employer (Kieran Canter) in BEYOND THE DARKNESS (aka BURIED ALIVE)--keeps things rather restrained for much of THE OTHER HELL, but about the same time that Mattei and Fragasso decide "Fuck it, whatever," she unleashes the beast, turning Sister Vincenza into a character almost as memorable as Iris. A tireless animal rights activist in Italy after she quit acting in the mid '80s, Stoppi died in 2011 at the age of 64, but a 2002 archival interview with her appears on Severin's new Blu-ray release of THE OTHER HELL and shows she had a good sense of humor about these kinds of movies. She comes off as thoroughly charming and thankfully nothing at all like the shrieking, wild-eyed crazy bitches she so excelled at playing onscreen.
Franca Stoppi (1946-2011)
Released in Italy in 1981, THE OTHER HELL didn't turn up in the US until the fall of 1985, when the short-lived Film Concept Group, a restructured Motion Picture Marketing co-owned by mobster-turned-future born again Christian motivational speaker Michael Franzese, acquired it and retitled it GUARDIAN OF HELL. That title actually makes a little more sense given what transpires, but the title was changed back to THE OTHER HELL when Vestron Video released it on VHS in 1987 with new artwork. FCG had GUARDIAN/OTHER in US theaters at the same time as another already several-years-old Italian acquisition, Andrea Bianchi's incredible Oedipal epic BURIAL GROUND, and below is visual proof of them playing in a first-run theater in Toledo, OH at the same time. It's hard to believe that actually happened, but there it is. FCG only released a few titles before folding, including Paul Naschy's THE CRAVING in 1985 (a retitling of 1980's THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF), Mattei's RATS in 1986, Bobby A. Suarez's Filipino post-nuke WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE in 1986, and John Grissmer's BLOOD RAGE re-edit NIGHTMARE AT SHADOW WOODS in 1987. I'm not sure how FCG managed to get such schlocky films prime spots in first-fun theaters, but I'd like to think it involved Franzese reminding a National Amusements regional manager "Nice little five-screen ya got there in Toledo...be a real shame if somethin' happened to it."
GUARDIAN OF HELL opening in Toledo, OH
on September 13, 1985, at the same theater as
BURIAL GROUND, somehow in its second week.
CHOPPING MALL aka KILLBOTS (US - 1986) Directed by Jim Wynorski. Written by Jim Wynorski and Steve Mitchell. Cast: Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, John Terlesky, Russell Todd, Karrie Emerson, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Dick Miller, Gerrit Graham, Mel Welles, Barbara Crampton, Suzee Slater, Nick Segal, Paul Coufos, Angela Aames, Arthur Roberts, Ace Mask, Lenny Juliano, Lawrence Guy (Angus Scrimm), Toni Naples, Robert Greenberg. (R, 76 mins) The premiere release of Lionsgate's new Vestron Video nostalgia line (along with Jackie Kong's inexplicably loved and absolutely unwatchable BLOOD DINER), the Roger Corman-produced CHOPPING MALL seemed primed to be a cult classic based solely on its goofy title. Corman's Concorde Pictures released the film in a few markets in early 1986 under its original title KILLBOTS, but it was quickly withdrawn and rechristened later in the year with the much more catchy CHOPPING MALL. It still didn't play anywhere for more than a week, but it was an attention-getting box on video store shelves several months later. Directed and co-written by Corman jack-of-all-trades Jim Wynorski, who started in the advertising department (SCREAMERS) and worked his way up to becoming one of Corman's go-to guys well into the '90s (DEATHSTALKER II, BIG BAD MAMA II, NOT OF THIS EARTH, BODY CHEMISTRY 3: POINT OF SEDUCTION), CHOPPING MALL puts a sci-fi slant on the shopworn slasher genre. Set at the Park Plaza Mall (played by the Sherman Oaks Galleria, memorably mentioned in the Frank and Moon Unit Zappa hit "Valley Girl"), the film finds a group of teenagers--played by actors in their early-to-mid-20s--partying in a furniture store after hours only to be killed off one-by-one by a newly-launched series of "Protector 101" robot security guards. "Absolutely nothing can go wrong," mall personnel is told by designer Dr. Simon (Paul Coufos). Of course something can go wrong, or there'd be no movie.
The Protector 101s are designed to incapacitate any intruders, but when a lightning strike hits the server on the mall's roof, the robots reprogram and reboot themselves as lethal killing machines. After locking down all the mall entrances and closing off the emergency exits, the robots slaughter the security technician on duty (Gerrit Graham!) and night janitor Walter Paisley (Dick Miller!), then start pursuing the six teenagers, offing them in a variety of gory ways. Leslie (Suzee Slater) gets one of the more memorable post-SCANNERS head explosions, and each kill is capped off with a robotic, monotone "Thank you. Have a nice day." That's about as complicated as CHOPPING MALL gets, with no time to slow down during its scant 76-minute running time, and with plenty of inside jokes for Corman fans and movie buffs. Nice final girl Alison (NIGHT OF THE COMET's Kelli Maroney) and Suzie (RE-ANIMATOR's Barbara Crampton) work in the mall's greasy spoon (run by LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS' Mel Welles!) which, like all of the stores at Park Plaza, inexplicably has posters for other '80s Corman movies all over the place (the furniture store revelers are also rocking out to the theme song from 1985's STREETWALKIN'); Miller reprises his BUCKET OF BLOOD Walter Paisley character for the umpteenth time; PHANTASM's Angus Scrimm (credited under his real name, Lawrence Guy) has a bit part in the opening scene, along with Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov dropping by as EATING RAOUL's Paul and Mary Bland.
As far as horror movies set in malls go, CHOPPING MALL is no DAWN OF THE DEAD, but it's better than, say, PHANTOM OF THE MALL: ERIC'S REVENGE. Wynorski dishes out the requisite amount of gore, humor, and T&A, and the cast is likable, a standout being the always-amusing John Terlesky as horndog stud Mike, the actor quickly becoming Corman and Wynorski's first choice when they needed someone to play a smirking douchebag. Slater's topless shots are amazing, and HEAD OF THE CLASS' Tony O'Dell sufficiently handles the requisite "uptight dweeb" character (named "Ferdy Meisel") and is actually allowed to be somewhat heroic and respected by his player buddies instead of existing as a punchline. Maroney is very appealing as the shy Alison, who quickly shows what she's made of, toughening up on her way to being the last woman standing and getting to use the robots' catchphrase against them in true Roy Scheider fashion. Lionsgate's new Blu-ray offers extensive bonus features, including three (!) commentary tracks and several interviews and featurettes. The company's "Vestron Collector's Series" combs through the library of '80s video store staple Vestron Video (though CHOPPING MALL was technically handled by Vestron offshoot Lightning Video), whose iconic logo kicked off many a trashy VHS discovery back in the day. Carving its own niche as a Criterion of B-movie trash, the Vestron line also includes the unrated RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 (released by Vidmark, now owned by Lionsgate, but certainly "Vestron"-ian in spirit) and a double feature of Anthony Hickox's WAXWORK and WAXWORK II: LOST IN TIME. Future releases include the thoroughly unnecessary C.H.U.D II: BUD THE C.H.U.D., Bob Balaban's brilliant horror satire PARENTS, and Ken Russell's surreal THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM.
