31 Days of Horror 2025 Day 10 Satan's Cheerleaders

 

TITLE-Satan's Cheerleaders

SOURCE-VCI Blu ray

Now this is one I have heard about for years. But always skipped buying it. Then "The Movie Castle" on youtube covered it, go check them out give them a sub, and I had some extra cash so ordered the VCI Blu ray.

Ahh the 70s where the demand for stuff to fill the drive ins meant we got cheap low budget big dumb fun films like this. The smallest cheerleader squad I have seen, really they got 4 members, is on the beach. The football team shows up. One of the cheerleaders goes off with a jock. And the cheerleading coach and football coach argue.

Seems the head janitor of the high school is as Satanist. Which means we get a creepy scene, the one that gave this film an R rating, with the janitor rubbing his pentagram while watching the cheerleaders changing clothing in the locker room.

Stuff happens and we end up with the cheerleaders in a rural area vs Satanists. One of whom is Lily Munster. Then a twist ending that is just odd.

Like I said big dumb fun. None of the cast besides the 3 we know from other films are good. Really no blood,no gore, very little foul language. If not for the scene of the janitor polishing his pendent while seeing tits this would get a PG.

This blu ray is fairly loaded. Get two commentaries. 2 copies of the film, one is the original scan before they cleaned it up and another that is cleaned up. And you get it on Blu ray and DVD.

Satan's Cheerleaders would be perfect as the second or third film on a double or triple feature at a drive in in the rural south.

Satan's Cheerleaders gets a C.

31 Days of Horror 2025 day 05 Late Night with the Devil

 

TITLE-Late Night with the Devil

SOURCE-DVD

Last year near the start of October on a whim I bought a few dvds of newer horror films. Late Night with the Devil was one I kept hearing about. 

Watched the DVD,with the commentary going,as I did laundry one day. Yea I'm weird and will do stuff like first time watching a  movie put on the commentary.

Then way late in October it aired on Joe Bob's annual Halloween special. Watched it again,and Joe Bob had on the lead actor. Fuck this is good.

So today wanted something to watch saw the DVD on the shelf,put it in the player and yea this is damn good.

Our lead is a late night tv show host in the mid 70s. He is trying his best to beat Johnny Carson. After his wife dies from lung cancer his contract about to end on Halloween night 1977 he does a show that he hopes will get him the ratings he needs to keep the show going.

Starts off with a psychic coming out on the show. Cold reading the room and using the normal cold reading tricks. This kind of bombs. Then a former magician comes out shows how the Psychic did the cold read. 

But now the Psychic isn't feeling good. And he ends up projecting vomiting black bile. Rushed off to the hospital and dies on the way.

The next guest is a parapsycologist and her current patient. And young teen girl who is the only survivor of a Satanic Cult.

The teen girl is strapped to a chair and on live tv the demon appears in her. And yea I was like ok this is decent but why was everyone raving about it at this point.

The film does a great job recreating how 70s tv looked. And the BTS footage is a nice touch.

Now the magican is back out. Takes the co host of the show hypnotizes him and the audience and shows that this is how the demon appeared.

Nope,all through out the film many mentions are made of our lead going to "the Grove". Yea Bohemian Grove is part of the plot of this film.

The Demon takes over the little girl. She starts killing everyone in the studio. And our host survives.

Then we get the twist ending. It is strongly hinted the host sold his soul to the Devil to get ratings. And one of the prices of this was his wife was a sacrifice.

Fucking amazing film. I got vague memories of seeing a few late night talk shows in the late 70s. Mostly nights I was being babysat.  The sets,clothing and hairstyles look right to me.

Late Night with the Devil gets a B+

31 Days of Horror 2025 Day 02 The First Omen

 

TITLE-The First Omen
SOURCE-BLU RAY

When this came out I planned on seeing it opening night at the local theater. Got there too late and it was sold out.

Waited on it to hit home video. And months after buying it watched it late one night. And now after a second viewing I got an idea where this falls in the franchise for me.

Set before the original film,which is such a great film,this tell us the origin of the child that became Damien.

1971 a young Nun to be from the States goes to Rome to work at a orphanage. There she ends up bonding with a young orphan that has issues.

Margaret is this young Nun. Who goes out to a local disco with a fellow nun to be. Margaret meets a guy,is dancing. Blacks out and finds out way later she was raped in a Satanic ritual.

Seems to make the faith of the church strong a sect in the church has started bringing about the birth of the Anti Christ. 

Margaret learns she is pregnant. And after an attempt to abort the fetus she is captured by the sect. Tied down and gives birth to two kids. A boy and a girl.

The boy of course is Damien. We see him being taken to the hospital to be given to the couple that will be his parents. And the other child is a girl. 

The film ends with Margaret and the girl living way out in the countryside. Then get found and learn that Damien is alive and someone is after the girl.

The FX work in here was damn good. Yea lots of CGI but it worked. Seems one scene that shocked me some is a bit cut down. Originally the film got a NC 17. So a scene where a demon arm comes out the vagina of a woman was cut down.

Acting wise this was good. No one in it I really knew from much. And some times the accents were a bit hard for me to decipher. But that is why i normally watch most stuff with subtitles on.

As far as where this ranks in the Franchise? Above 4,the remake and 3. Equal to 2 and not as good as the original.

The First Omen gets a B-.

31 Days of Horror 2024 Day 16 Warlock

TITLE-Warlock

SOURCE-Vestron Video Blu Ray

I have always enjoyed exploring these lesser known horror franchises. So when I found the Warlock Trilogy Blu Ray set cheap I had to get it. 

Made in 89 but not released in the USA until a few years later,this ended up being a minor hit thanks to home video and it's airings on the various cable movie channels.

Julian Sands is the titular Warlock. And to escape a witchhunter he flees 300 years into the present day. Followed quickly by the witch  hunter.

If the Warlock can complete his mission in the modern day Satan will be able to take control of Earth. Our witch hunter gets teamed up with a waitress,played by Lori Singer. 

This waitress gets cursed by the Warlock. And for every day that passes she ages 20 years. Which gives us a time limit. Can Lori and the witch hunter find and stop the Warlock before Lori dies from old age?

Sure this isn't some big budget horror like what studios like Paramount were putting out. Even with the lower budget the movie looks good. 

The  blu ray is loaded with extras. From interviews and BTS stuff made back when the film was current to modern day stuff like a great commentary.

Warlock gets a B-.

 

31 Days of Horror 2021 Day 14 Horror Hotel

 

TITLE-Horror Hotel AKA The City of the Dead

SOURCE-Cinema Insomnia on OSI 74 Streaming App

Pretty much every year for the past 10 years I've tried to watch a horror hosted film for 31 Days of Horror. Over the years I have covered the bigger known ones like Elvira and Svengoolie. And the lesser known ones like Kreepy Koffee Movie Time or Count Gore De Vol. One of the better known ones I haven't covered is Mr. Lobo of Cinema Insomnia. Cinema Insomnia started back in late July 2001. And as far as I know is still going on. I hear that Cinema Insomnia airs on various tv stations all over the US. But I have only ever watched it on either Vimeo or the OSI 74 app.

Mr. Lobo starts each episode off promising us a fairly well known horror film.But something always happens were that film can't be shown so we get a lesser known film. For this episode Mr Lobo says he is going to show us Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem. But nope we end up with Horror Hotel Aka City of the Dead.

Horror Hotel is in the public domain here in the States. So shouldn't be hard to find online or on many of the various streaming apps that are loaded up with PD films,tv shows and cartoons. Made back in 1960 this film was made by British filmmakers but is set in the US. With Christopher Lee being the best known member of the cast.

The film starts back in the 1690s. Set in Massachusetts we see a witch being burned at the stake.Before she died this witch and her helper have sold their souls to Lucifer. This way they get eternal life and revenge on the town that killed them. All they have to do is sacrifice two virgins a year. On Candlemas Eve & Witches' Sabbath.

Skip ahead to present day,well present day as of when the film was released. A college prof tells one of his students to goto the town from the prologue. This student goes and ends up being the sacrifice on Candlemas Eve.

A couple of weeks later the student's fiancee and her brother head to the same town. They get there seperately. With Bill the fiancee almost dying in a car wreck. This was caused by him seeing the ghostly image of the witch from the start of the film.

Bill and the brother make it to the town. Find out that a coven lead by the witch have taken control of the town. We find out the prof ,played by Christopher Lee

,is part of this coven. And appears to have been providing the town with the needed virginal scarifices two times a year. Our two heroes manage to stop the coven and break the pact with Lucifer.

The above cover is one I remember seeing many times in video stores back in the 80s. Not sure why I never rented it. Might have been because it was b/w. Back when I was a kid and early teen I wasn't much into b/w horror films.

I had forgotten about this movie.Then earlier this week I was driving to town. Listening to one of the many Misfits CDs I keep in my car. Their song Horror Hotel came on and while singing along with it I thought "Man I really need to see that movie". Looked around online and it was easy to find. With copies being on Youtube,Internet Archive and pretty much every streaming app that has "Free Horror movies". Seeing that it is public domain I figured it would be easy to find a version with a horror host. And I've been wanting to watch more Cinema Insomnia with MR Lobo. Looked on the OSI 74 streaming app and they had the episode with Horror Hotel.

You can tell after watching this movie that Rob Zombie was inspired by this when he made Lords Of Salem. But then Lords of Salem was pretty much Rob taking his favorite parts of various Euro Horror films and making that into a damn good movie.

Horror Hotel is a pretty entertaining film. It might feel a bit slow to people use to modern horror. But it has great atomosphere. And Christopher Lee is great in this.So if you want to watch an older horror flick. And don't want to spend any money go track down a copy of Horror Hotel.

Horror Hotel gets a B-.