31 Days of Horror 2023 Day 05 Pledge Night(1988)

                              

TITLE-Pledge Night

SOURCE-Shudder

It was late October last year and I was wanting a horror film to watch. Wanted something I had never seen and was looking through the various movies on Shudder. Saw Pledge Night and took a chance.

As soon as in the credits I saw tha Anthrax had provided all the music I knew I was in for a good movie.

A Frat is doing hell week. A group of guys are pledging. One of the FRat brothers is acting like he is crazy,even stabbing another brother during dinner with a steak knife.  What the other Frat brothers don't know is the crazy brother is actually possessed by the ghost of Acid Sid. A pledge who was accidentlly killed in the early 70s. This pledge is played by Joey Belladonna,former lead singer of Anthrax. 

First half of the movie is Frat guys hazing the pledges. Making them pick up cherries with their asses off blocks of ice. Making the pledges think they  are eating turds or worms and other gross stuff. Then one pledge is taking a shit and out of the toilet comes ACID SID. Who the creators of the film wanted to become a slasher icon like Freddy. Cause Acid Sid looks like a hippie version of Freddy.

The second half is the pledges trapped in the frat house fighting off Acid Sid. Good gross deaths. One where Sid pulls out his own spine and chokes a pledge with it is great.

Reading up on the film it was made extremely cheap in 88. Sat  on the shelf until a limited DTV release in 1990. And in the early 2000s started developing a reputation online as a "forgotten slasher". It is fun. And worth seeing if you have Shudder. But I am not gonna pay the 25 to 30 bucks the Blu ray costs.

Pledge Night gets a B-.

31 Days of Horror 2022 Day 30 Alone in the Dark(1982)

 

TITLE-Alone in the Dark(1982)

SOURCE-DVD-r made off the old Image DVD release

Now this is a 80s slasher I had never seen until earlier this year. CodyLL of Cody's blog,check the link list on the right,had gotten the Scream Factory Blu Ray of the film and offered to mail me the old DVD-r of the film.

Sure I had heard of this film,and even seen a small clip that was shown in Terror in  the Aisles,which like this film has Donald Pleaseance. But never saw Alone in the Dark on VHS,never saw it airing on  Cable. Hell I didn't even know of the movie until about 20 years ago. Feels like this is a forgotten slasher which is odd.

It is odd cause it has a big cast of stars. Sure Donald Pleaseance is in piles of horror films,but this also has Jack Palance and Martin Landeau. Plus while he isn't a huge star not long after this film he became a big tv star thanks to A-team,Dwight Schultz.

Donald helps run an insane asylum. Jack,Martin and 2 others are in the dangerous ward. Where they are kept locked up by electronically controlled doors. A Dwight is the new head of the place. Which angers our 4 mentally ill people cause they no longer have Donald there to help them.

So one night when the power goes out these 4 escape and steal a van and head towards Dwight's new home. Where his young daughter is. 

In Terror in the Aisles there is a scene with Martin in a van following a deliveryman on a bike. Martin talks about how he wants the man's hat. And ever since I first saw Terror in the Aisles I loved this scene. Landau comes off as not only crazy but pure evil.Using this hat Martin goes to Dwight's home,pretending to be delivering a telegram. Dwight ain't home. 

There is a great scene where lots of the town is looting a local shopping center,what else do you do when the power goes out. See one of the escapees is known as the Bleeder. Because he has nose bleeds often. He also always keeps his face hidden. Which leads to a twist near the end of the film. And one of the 4 escapees has on a hockey mask. And rips a dude's throat out with a garden trowel. Not sure but I think this came out a year before Friday the 13th part 3,so this might be the first slasher to have a killer in a hockey mask.

Now this isn't an amazing film. But it is way better than I expected. It has this weird sleazy feel to it. Which is really evident in scenes like when the one member of the crazies,who is know for attacking kids,is alone in Dwight's home with the young daughter. 

The picture and sound on this DVD-r ain't bad. It looks like a decent DVD. Colors and light levels always look decent. Huge thanks to Cody for supplying me with this copy of the film.

Overall Alone in the Dark is a early 80s slasher I would figure would be a much bigger deal. You got a great cast. It has a neat premise I hadn't seen in  other films of the sub genre. And it has that weird feel to the movie. 

Alone in the Dark gets a B.

31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 24 Silent Rage

 

TITLE-Silent Rage

SOURCE-Mill Creek Blu Ray

I thought I had seen all of Chuck Norris's classic 80s films. So when I found the above pictured Blu Ray for cheap I grabbed it. Turns out I was mixing Silent Rage and The Hero and Terror up. A bit about this Blu Ray. First off I love the VHS looking cover. And how the VHS tape part of the cover even has that old be kind rewind sticker on it. The Blu looks and sounds great. Sure there is no extras but I never expect extras when it is a Mill Creek release. 

Chuck looking like a prototype for Walker Texas Ranger

Back in 1982,right at the peak of the slasher craze,director Michael Miller thought hey Chuck Norris is popular and so are slashers. Let's combined the two and we will have a big hit.And from what I can dig up this movie was a pretty big hit. Making a bit over 10 million at the box office.

Set in a tiny Texas town,Chuck Norris is the local Sheriff,Dan Stevens,with his chubby and kinda dumb deputy Charlie,played by character actor Stephen Furst. They get called to a home where a Vietnam vet has killed two people. After Charlie almost shoots the Sheriff they managed to handcuff the vet,John Kirby played by Brian Libby. But he managed to snap the handcuffs and kicks the back door off of the cop car he is put into.Kirby grabs a shotgun which causes the cops on the scene to gun him down. 

Here's Johnny Kirby

Half dead Kirby is taken to a near by hospital,where secret experiments are going on. Kirby gets injected with a serum that basically makes him into Wolverine. IE he heals extremely fast and it also increases his strength.Kirby escapes from the hospital and goes around killing people who he thinks have wronged him.

Stephen Furst doing his best Deniro in Taxi Driver impersonation

While this is going on we get to see Chuck take on a biker gang that is trying to move into the sleepy quiet small town. There is a great scene where after Chuck has told the gang to leave he spots their bikes at a local bar. Chuck and his deputy go into the bar to see that the gang has taken it over and are holding the bar tender hostage. One of the biker ladies shows her breasts to the deputy. Which causes the deputy to start drooling. Chuck sends the deputy out to the cop truck to call for back up. But being the fuck up he is the deputy gets out there and calls the dispatch and spends 10 minutes describing the lady's breasts instead of calling for back up. While that is going on Chuck is inside fighting off the bikers. Since this was made years before Walker Texas Ranger that means Chuck does more than just throw spinning back kicks. It isn't until Chuck throws a biker through the bars front window that the deputy remembers is calling for back up.

Chuck getting ready to fuck!

Seems Chuck is dating the sister of one of the doctors that did the experiment on Kirby. So now Kirby is after her. But before Kirby can find her we get a extremely long love scene between Chuck and this lady. Now I doubt anyone has ever claimed Chuck Norris was a great actor. His acting in the love scene is really bad. Like so bad you would think it was Ed Wood directing the scene. Plus did we really need an almost 10 minute long Chuck Norris love scene?

By the  final act we have all the cast back at the hospital. Chuck,the deputy and Chuck's lady are there and don't know Kirby is there. The deputy gets attack by Kirby. He tries to kill Kirby by injecting him with acid. But it doesn't work. Kirby puts the deputy into a bearhug and bearhugs him to death. Sadly this is the only scene in the film that just doesn't work. It is suppose to be suspensful and all that but it is so badly shot and acted I was laughing out loud.

Norris sees this and shoots Kirby and knocks him out a window.But this isn't enough to kill Kirby. Norris and his lady try to escape in a vehicle. But Kirby hangs onto the car and breaks thru the back window. Causing the car to crash and explodes. But Chuck and the lady jump out in the nick of time. Kirby is set on fire by the explosion but jumps into a nearby lake to put the fire out. 

The final showdown between John Kirby and Chuck Norris

And now we get what we have been waiting for.. Chuck vs Kirby in hand to hand combat. Kirby is tough but not tough enough to withstand multiple roundhouse kicks. They stun Kirby long enough for Chuck to throw him down a well. Chuck and his lady are sure no one could survive the fall down the deep deep well. Thinking it is all over they head off. But as yall know this is a slasher.  And right at the end we see that Kirby has survived. Setting up a sequel that sadly never happened.

Looking online this is one of the best rated Chuck Norris films from the 80s. And I can see why. Sure it is a bit cheesy. But it managed to take the best parts of action movies and slasher films and combo them into a really fun film. One other tidbit I found was that lots of fans have given Chuck negative feedback over the love scene,which is why Norris avoided doing love scenes after this film. And that is a good thing. Silent Rage was remade in 2009 and called Indestructible.

While I was the perfect age in the early 80s to be a Chuck Norris fan I wasn't back then. Part of it was I had already seen all the Bruce Lee films that I could find. And had been introduced to Jackie Chan. So to me Chuck;s movie couldn't compare to those two. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that I got into the 80s Chuck Norris films. For me this is one of his best. Hell with a bit of editing it could be his best film to me,mostly I would cut down the length of the love scene and trim a few other scenes a tiny bit.

So if you are a slasher fan and have never seen Silent Rage go get this Blu Ray. It is usually found for around 8 bucks and it more than worth that. Silent Rage feels like a horror themed episode of Walker Texas Ranger. But with a  bigger budget and much better acting. Plus you don't have Chuck spamming the spinning back kick like he did on Walker. Also you don't have the overtly preachy tone that Walker had.

Silent Rage gets a B+.