Top 50 Trash Horror Films of the 1980's: #20-16

Now that I'm in the back-half of this quest, I'm starting to look at the volume of scenes and I think this is making me (very slowly) insane.

For those of you finding this randomly:

#50-#46

#45-#41

#40-#36

#35-#31

#30-#26

#25-#21

#20 - Ogroff (1983)

Back of the VHS description: (None found)

We're in 8mm and added sound (in French!  Mais oui!), and it's shot like Introduction to Film, so this is just a scavenger hunt.  All that said, if you look, you can find some real French gold in the hills...er, woods.

The rest of this is poorly edited and acted (I wasn't expecting much less) but one pleasing side-effect was that the music used (mostly swanky synth) reminded me of what was used on In Search Of...  And I can also say- 

SPOILER ALERT

I haven't seen a plot where the guy hacks up the family in front of the mom...but not just that: he then makes a BBQ of the family pieces and eats them in front of the wife!

Hanging out in the French countryside, '82.  New Wave synth on the radio.  Everyone smoking.  What were you doing in the Summer of '82?  Probably the same thing.

Good doggie!

There's also one scene of Ogroff in bed at home that I can't screencap or type out...you'll just have to see it for yourself.  You'll have to see a movie just throw in anything it can think of to fit into the plot since, honestly, there are no words.  You'll have to see a movie where the ending is...left to your interpretation?  Or avoid this movie.

#19 - Bordinghouse (1982)

Back of the VHS description: Can a house be alive and have a personality all its own?  Of course not!  At least that's what the beautiful girls thought BEFORE they answered the ad that seems too good to be true!  The final conflict will confirm the delicate balance of creation...at the BORDING HOUSE.

Paragon Video!  The sign of quality!  In this case, however...

The disclaimer at the beginning, ridiculous.  The graphics, public access.  The pacing, non-existent.  The acting, the b-level crew of Night by Night.  

After a while, with the video aesthetic, it seems like something Floyd Gondolli made and tried to sell Jack Horner.  I'm talking hot fucking action to the max.

The whole time doing this exercise, I have applauded those films where they made the best with what they had, be it small budget, location, whatever.  This is the first time, and even with a cast this large, where I, someone who was more producer than director, think...no, FEEL that I could do better, especially on video, than this movie.  So could anyone else.  

#18 - Blood Rage (1987)

Back of the VHS description: Todd and Terry are twins - blonde, cute as buttons, bright and identical in every respect, with one exception.  One of them is a murderer.  It all started one night at the drive-in when a teenager was slaughtered in the back seat of his car while his girlfriend watched.  Todd was found guilty for the heinous crime and locked away in an asylum.  Years passed and Terry lived happily with his mother, who smothered him with enough love for two sons.  All was fine until one night when they received news that Todd escaped.  The nightmare begins once again and out of its forbidding darkness steps a maniacal killer, raging for blood.  But which brother is the killer?  The truth may not be seen...until it's too late!

To be honest, this movie has been the barrier in the way of this posting.  Intermittently I've been searching for this movie low and high, and I don't have the torrent skills of Drew Boatman, so my quest (lazily) went on for a while.  But then - glory be!  It's found, without anything holding it up as amazing so that I'd say, "I spent months looking for this?!"

Well, we're starting out with a shot of a drive-in, and it says "1974" - already you've got 2 in the plus column there.  

Wait.

OK, hold on, now we have swanky synth, 80s clothing...I just...this totally rules, it's just people going at it at the drive-in, hell I'd watch 90 minutes of this opening montage alone.

(A brief aside - as the 70s dawned, she divorced Woody Allen, and for maybe a year or 2 in the mid to late 70's, Louise Lasser was one of the biggest TV stars around.  There was a bit of a fade, but she was likely A-list adjacent into 1980s - she was just on the first season of It's a Living before filming this.  I just want to put you in my mind frame as I'm watching her act around, well, the rest of the cast)

A voice-over narration attempts to cover up a re-edited scene.  

 Condo Bowl '83

"Looks like you're going to get a chance to meet the rest of the family.  My psychotic brother just escaped."

"Could you pass the green beans, please?"  Ah, Thanksgiving.  There's nothing like it anywhere else in the world.  Oh, and apparently the accent is on the beans in green beans.

You never really know how Thanksgiving will go, do you?  Hell, one minute, you're in your condo office enjoying a cold, refreshing Old Style

And within that very same minute...

No hand, and no Old Style.  Of course, your real right hand sneaks into the frame afterwards, but that's only a plus as far as we're concerned.  People conducting manslaughter (or in this case, handslaughter) or even murder can just show up out of nowhere.  Just right out of frame, complete with synth sting for effect.  You kids out there might think you're cool but are you stabbing-someone-while-smoking-a-joint cool?!  I told you, drugs are bad, m'kay?

There had to be multiple people on this shoot who knew full well what they were doing.  As the plot chugs forward in the Florida night, you get incredible throwaway shots, like mom helping herself to Thanksgiving leftovers:

This doesn't mean there aren't bad edits in here, and there are, but if anything, that makes it fit into the good column of 80's slashers.  

(your basement as you remember it)

(re: video games) "If those things are around, you can write off this night."

"Girls having a good time back there?"

"Oh sure.  Just talking about the bad old days when guys were horny all the time."

"Well, that sounds like my kind of conversation."

And it goes on from there, including some amazing additions:

- People are dead because, well, someone else screamed and I don't see them anymore

- You can open a locked sliding glass door with a flathead screwdriver and some good old-fashioned gumption

- What, you don't have "make up" lying around to pretend you've been killed?

- Kids take everything literally.  Don't you forget that.

- A phone to the shin?  Ouch!

I will pay $20 for that Sam the Olympic Eagle beach towel.  OK, $30.  $35?

I haven't seen Thanksgiving, and this barely qualifies as a slasher around the holiday, but I might not need to because this one is fun...not great, but fun.  Quite the ending, too.

#17 - Sledgehammer (1983)

Back of the VHS description: No one has dared enter this house for nearly ten years since a young couple from the valley were brutally murdered by a madman with a sledgehammer.  No one...until now.  They would not be alone.  There was something evil in this house.  The kind of thing no one believes in yet everyone fears.  Something that moves only through the still of the darkest night, creeps within the shadows of man's deepest fears and strikes without warning.  Something which does not want them in this house yet cannot allow them to leave.  The night will be shrouded in their fear, stained with their blood.  The nightmare has begun.  God help them!

Direct to video, shot on video.  Immediately with the Night by Night effects and the no-star cast broken out "with" other standouts as well.  

Some curious puns here too, unless I'm led to believe the last name of the editor just happened to be Cutter and the lighting director's last name is Watt.

We move quick in this video with a swift back-of-the-mannequin head sledgehammer shot, right as he was getting...well, we won't talk about that.  With the fact that this is 100% video, I'll let your imagination run.  The killer uses the sledgehammer just as a judge would with a gavel, which is unique.

Outside of an insert or 2, we stick with the exact same shot for 2 minutes?!  We follow a scene with stock music of acoustic guitar and the same two people talking in the previous scene...walking away in slow motion?!  We get one of the worst Carl Spackler impersonations you've ever heard...by an adult?!  We see people aggressively drink alcohol...then eat sandwiches...for over 10 minutes?!

Normally, in movies like this, you're trying to find the motivation of the killer as the others are simply innocent and in the wrong spot at the wrong time.  Here, just off the git go, I'd say if 75% of these folks saw their action van and folks inside said van meet a sledgehammer head-on, you'd be cheering for the sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer and Boardinghouse were both shot on video.  You can use both of those cassettes to tape over them with something else.  Anything else, I don't care.  You now have 2 free blank tapes.

#16 - The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Back of the VHS description: A thrilling one-of-a-kind action packed film loaded with adventure, horror, science fiction, and unforgettable big-budget special effects.  Melvin, a skinny weak wimp of a man, is janitor at a health club.  Teased by the "beautiful" men in the club, he falls victim to a particularly nasty trick, plunging into a vat of Toxic Waste.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Melvin has become - The Toxic Avenger - A monstrous mutated mass out to rid the world of evil.

If you're reading this, you've (of course) seen this movie.  At worst, you have to have HEARD of this movie.  A product of its time, one that spawned many imitators, even within its own production company.  As with Class of Nuke 'Em High, the effects are sensational, there are 1-liners a-plenty, moments that would in no way fly today (and that's a good thing), but the good outweighs the bad.  

I can't be the only person to have noticed how a young Jason Vorhees and Melvin (the Toxic Avenger himself) bear a resemblance.   Almost like looking at itself in a mirror.

The Toxic Avenger is more than it needed to be, but that's why it's on this list.  It's why Troma made so many sequels.  It's why there was a cartoon.  It's why it's so high on this list.