Pitting a hitchhiking serial killer against a truck driving serial killer is a great idea made better with the addition of a little Michael Moriarty. (8/10)
d. Larry Cohen
The oldest of the Toxie's Triple Terror movies, written by my man Larry Cohen. While it's no God Told Me To, Scream Baby Scream ain't a bad way to kick things off. It tells the tale of a pair of lovebird art students who meet professional painter Charles Butler. Butler paints ridiculously amateurish paintings of mutilated people... and he creates his own real, live models for these paintings out of innocent victims!
That all sounds like a standard horror movie and it has a nice horror movie title, but a chunk of of the middle of the film is pure, '60s hippie-movie. There's a party at a hip club for young, '60s kids complete with a crappy rock band playing their hit single and dancers in front of a psychedelic backdrop. My favorite part is when the lovebirds and their friends decide to try acid for the first time. They immediately jump on motorcycles -- riding double on motorcycles while on LSD?! -- and the film goes into double-exposure mode as trippy jazz plays on the soundtrack. Cut to: the trippers petting a baby elephant. What the f... ah, they're annoying the hell out of animals and people at a zoo. How considerate. It ends with, unsurprisingly, a "have you ever really looked at your hand, man?" comment. Awesome.
Vaguely similar to 1965's Color Me Blood Red, but much more fun due to the hippie stuff. Verdict: a good-bad movie.
aka Nightmare House
d. Joseph Adler
One of those movies you'd accidentally stumble upon at 3am and end up watching because it's better than infomercials. (6/10)
d. Larry Cohen
Great Cohen-style New York flavor with an interesting moral dilemma for a hitman to ponder. (7/10)
d. Larry Cohen
Michael Moriarty is a Canadian national treasure. (8/10)
d. Larry Cohen
Lots of serial killin' fun in the style of an EC comic. (8/10)
d. Larry Cohen
Very disjointed, but worth it to see Michael Moriarty and Paul Sorvino chew scenery. (7/10)
d. Larry Cohen
Larry Cohen (1938 -)
on DVD
"a total, unadulterated maniac"
says needcoffee.com
