Census Bloodbath: Low Down Dirty Tricks

Year: 1982
Director: Gary Graver
Cast: Jacqueline Giroux, Peter Jason, Chris Graver
Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

I think covering The Clairvoyant yesterday lured me into a false sense of security RE: awesome slasher movie posters. That movie both had an incredible poster and turned out to be a largely incredible movie, which I should REMEMBER is almost never the case. Enter Trick or Treats. Take a gander at that key art up there and you should have an idea of what a trainwreck we're in for.

This is why we can't have nice things!

Trick or Treats takes place on Halloween night. Linda (Jacqueline Giroux) has plans to attend opening night of her boyfriend Brett's (Golden Globe nominee Steve Railsback, who we'll revisit later this month in 1982's Deadly Games and later... whenever in 1986's The Wind) play. The play in question, which stars the extremely white Brett, is Othello. He's playing Othello. In case you're not a Shakespeare scholar, Othello is Black. Thank every god in every religion Steve Railsbeck is not in blackface, but it's still... a choice. Also what kind of crowd a whitewashed performance of Othello gets on Halloween night is beyond me. Anyway...

She can't attend the play because the Agency calls her with a last minute babysitting gig. She must care for a young magic-obsessed boy named Christopher (Chris Graver, who - wouldn't you know it - is the director's son) whose parents are going to a last minute Halloween party in Las Vegas. The parents being Richard Adams (David Carradine, of David Carradine), a lascivious weirdo who flirts with Linda and unzips her shirt, and Joan O'Keefe (Carrie Snodgress), who had her previous husband committed to an insane asylum so she could get his house and his millions.

Turns out that husband is one Malcolm O'Keefe (Peter Jason), who has designs on escaping the asylum and returning to his rightful home tonight!

Whether or not Christopher is the son of Malcolm or Richard is left ENTIRELY unclear. But don't worry. It's not the only thing.

Trick or Treats opens on Joan surprising her husband with a visit from the authorities, who have come to put him in a straitjacket and cart him away. This scene is strangely prolonged, as Malcolm fights against the men, climbing trees, kicking them into the pool, and wrestling away from them any way he can. It's uncanny and strange in the way it goes on too long, but the way the film just sits with it really drove home the visceral, unpleasant nature of the moment. Unfortunately, every other scene in the movie is also prolonged and unpleasant, but to less effect.

And really, there are only three types of scene that the film cycles through ad nauseam until the boring final ten minutes of Malcolm chasing Linda around the house, thinking she's Joan (presumably because the lighting in the movie is so bad he couldn't tell).

The first type of scene is a woman interacting with a man who seems about twelve seconds away from a full-on sexual assault. This unnamed California town is apparently crawling with predators, who will latch onto any woman or man dressed as a woman (Malcolm spends a great deal of the movie in a stolen nurse's uniform - where he got the wig is anybody's guess) and lasciviously come on to her until she escapes his clutches. This is also true of any teenager and even Christopher in certain scenes.

The worst offender is Richard Adams, whose leering come-on I already detailed above. The discomfort is not eased by the fact that David Carradine is giving an immensely odd, aloof performance. He drifts around the screen in random directions, stretching languorous pauses between words. He knows how much better he is than the material, and there's a perpetual wicked glint in his eye of the knowledge that he can get away with performing any damn way he wants, because who is Gary Graver to tell David Carradine no?

And honestly I respect how much he palpably dislikes being in this film, because it makes me feel less alone for finding it a grueling experience.

The second type of scene is the wacky hijinks of Malcolm attempting to make his way home, which shoehorn in a lunatic attempt at comedy that must be seen to be despised. The third type, which forms the bulk of the movie's run time, is of Christopher pulling a prank on Linda with his magic equipment, including at least three instances of faking his own death. This little stinker really puts her through the wringer, not letting up for a single second he's onscreen, trading incessantly between ruthless pranking and acid-tongued quips performed like the kid from The Babadook's acting coach was Rob Zombie.

If the goal of the film was to put us in Linda's headspace of experiencing an intensely irritating child for hours on end, it succeeded. It's a frightful thing to experience, and the movie resolutely refuses to behave like a good slasher and break up the gloom with fun murder sequences. In fact, nobody even dies in the movie until the third act. Only one murder is perpetrated by the killer himself, and it's so poorly lit and edited that it's not even super clear what happened. It's even less of a slasher movie than the same year's Hotline, and in that movie the killer took down literally zero people on screen.

It's clear from the tropes it's drawing upon and the structure it sets up that Trick or Treats thinks it's a slasher and dearly wants to be one, but it's actually just a prolonged, rejected submission to America's Funniest Home Videos. The shoddy, easily distracted script sees to that. Characters just vanish (we never see Christopher's parents again) or keep cropping up without playing important roles in the narrative (we spend a lot of time with Bret for a character who only interacts with Linda over the phone). Hell, the movie can't even keep track of what pet the O'Keefes have! Joan reminds Linda to feed the dog. We never see a dog in the ensuing 90 minutes, but we do get a cat scare.

Focus? She's not home right now.

Trick or Treats is a bottom-of-the-barrel slasher movie, and this is coming from someone who has devoted his life to probing every last splintery inch of that barrel. Literally the only redeeming quality of the film is the fun New Wave song that opens and closes the story ("Help is On the Way" by Horizon, which I can find nowhere on the Internet). OK, maybe that's not true. I do also like the increasingly angry way that Linda deals with the trick or treaters coming to the door, eventually just tossing candy at them and slamming the door. That was cathartic.

But Trick or Treats is a slasher-comedy film that is neither interested in making us scream nor making us laugh. It is, however, interested in having us sit down with Linda as she tells the entire "Boy Who Cried Wolf" story from start to finish uninterrupted. What a brutal, unrelenting, punishing, slog. I almost gave it a 1/10, an honor that has until now been reserved only for the worst slasher movie ever inflicted upon polite society.

But I changed my mind for two reasons. First, bad as it is, Trick or Treats is nowhere near the black hole of irradiated garbage that is The Outing. Second, there's a scene where an editor friend of Linda's agrees to drop off her acting reel because the O'Keefes' house is right by her hairdresser, where she was headed anyway, and I had a fun five minutes imagining what scenarios could have brought her to a salon past midnight on Halloween. Good times.

Killer: Malcolm O'Keefe (Peter Jason)
Final Girl: Linda (Jacqueline Giroux)
Best Kill: As if there even were any to speak of.
Sign of the Times: It cost 35 cents to ride the bus.
Scariest Moment: The part about 80 minutes in when I realize nobody else was going to be murdered onscreen.
Weirdest Moment: Two asylum inmates who think they're Antony and Cleopatra are caught having sex in the men's ward.
Champion Dialogue: "Amigos! A me goes!"
Body Count: 3; and that's reeeally a stretch

1. Andrea is killed with a knife... somehow.
2. Malcolm is guillotined.
3. Linda is presumed stabbed about half a second after the end of the movie.

TL;DR: Trick or Treats is an abysmal slog that doesn't even attempt to embrace the tropes of the slasher genre, let alone resemble an actual narrative motion picture in any way.
Rating: 2/10
Word Count: 1448

Census Bloodbath: It's My Party And I'll Die If I Want To

Year: 1986

Director: William Fruet

Cast: Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Elaine Wilkes

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I gotta tell you, I love slasher movies as much as the next guy. As long as I'm sitting next to a mirror and the next guy is also me. What I'm saying is I freaking love slasher movies. I mean, I'm doing this project because I desperately needed a productive reason to watch 300 slasher movies in a row. 

But 1980 is killing me. I have five movies left to finish off the year and move on into the Golden Age in 1981, but it's getting harder and harder to motivate myself to watch another crappily shot, abhorrently tedious proto-slasher. Especially because the next film on my list, Christmas Evil, is one that I have previously seen and detest with every fiber of my being.

Don't get me wrong. I love terrible movies with all my heart. But the movies I've been exposing myself to lately have reached such a nuclear amplitude of suckage (only rarely straying into "so bad its good" territory) that it's hard to approach the next couple of films with a smile on my face.

That's why I needed a shot in the arm to rejuvenate me for the long haul. And 1986's Killer Party, directed by Funeral Home's William Fruet and written by Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter's Barney Cohen was the perfect film to turn my attitude around. 

You could say it really lit me up.

Not so much a film as a collection of detritus that was dislodged from the back teeth of the 80's, Killer Party begins with a cheesy movie-within-a-movie which quickly transitions to a music video-within-a-movie in which real hair metal band performs their real (terrible) song "April (You're No Fool)" as zombies attack a drive-in theater. 

This occupies the first ten minutes of the film and is pure, unabashed Filler with a capital F. And it is gloriously 80's. I mean, look.

The frame cuts off above her leg warmers and roller blades.

This tremendously bizarre sequence turns out to be but an appetizer before the main course. You see, the parts of Killer Party that aren't obvious filler or completely drowned in 80's fashion and synthpop are few and far between. In fact, they may all be on the cutting room floor.

In the grand tradition of many a slasher film, we soon find ourselves in the middle of pledge week for Sigma Alpha Phi at Brigg's College. Three best friends make up the entire pledge class, revealing either the sorority's terrible reputation or the movie's mediocre budget. But let us not concern ourselves with that, for the girls we get are handfuls enough.

There's Phoebe (Elaine Wilkes - in a very sad turn, her IMDb trivia reads "former actress"), the most enthusiastic member of the bunch; Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch, whose only other film role was in 1981's Final Exam), the nerdy blonde with a penchant for orchestrating cruel pranks; and Jennifer (Joanna Johnson), who is reluctant to endure the tortures of the wicked and glittery pledge mistress Veronica (Alicia Fleer), but whose firm resolve is melted once she meets the charming and handsome Blake (Martin Hewitt), a brother from Beta Tau.

Can you blame her?

For the ensuing 50 minutes, the film follows the pledge week shenanigans and romantic travails of these girls as well as the horny nerd Martin (Ralph Seymour, who we'll meet again soon in Just Before Dawn); Veronica's boyfriend and Beta Tau president Albert Harrison (Woody Brown), who is referred to by his first or last name depending on whatever mood the writer was in at the time, leading me to believe for the majority of the film that he was two different people; Big Bee-Boy (Howard Busgang, aka the chubby prankster from Terror Train), the... chubby prankster; his accomplice Little Bee-Boy (Jason Warren, who would later appear in the Canadian Dungeons and Dragons slasher Skullduggery); also there's Melanie (Terri Hawkes) and Sandy (Laura Sherman) two sorority sisters who are always mentioned in every other conversation despite having a collective 45 seconds of screentime, who I only mention here because not only was Terri Hawkes the mean girl in Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, but she's freaking Sailor Moon. SAILOR MOON. This girl's a superstar.

The film pauses only briefly to remind people that this cheerful college romp has the word "Killer" in the title as the house mother Mrs. Henshaw (Pam Hyatt) and snooty professor Dr. Zito (Paul Bartel, who also appears in Chopping Mall and Trick or Treats - a Census Bloodbath hat trick!) - named after the director of the other big slasher by screenwriter Barney Cohen, don't think I let these things slip past me - wander into the abandoned frat house on Greek Row and meet their untimely deaths at the hands of a mysterious murderer.

Also holy crap do you see how much slasher royalty went into the making of this film? I mean, it sucks and all. But it sucks in that specifically 80's way that is so endearing. It warms my heart.

Among other things.

Nevermind that the first hour is occasionally dull, entirely bloodless, and totally unnecessary. It's so full to the brim with signifiers of the decade (including a deadpan synthcrap song that mindlessly repeats something about this being the best days of our lives for what feels like twenty minutes) that it is an ocular and aural experience not to be missed.

Towards the final half hour of the 90 minute film, it suddenly remembers that it's supposed to be a slasher movie and the girls and guys host a big April Fool's party in the abandoned building, the site of an accidental pledge murder twenty years before. The movie gets increasingly frantic to create a decent body count by the time the credits roll, to the point that the final twenty minutes are just a rapid-fire series of brief (and unfortunately bloodless) kill sequences in which they cut to a random person, have the murderer waddle in encased in a bronze deep sea diver outfit and nonchalantly slaughter them, then cut directly to the next, hastening to waste not a single moment of precious screentime.

The real fun begins when it turns out that SPOILERS Jennifer has been possessed by the spirit of the long-dead pledge boy and proceeds to do Exorcist style wall crawls while making everything in the house emit smoke and rattle around. It wouldn't be a post-Nightmare without an awkwardly shoved in paranormal element, now wouldn't it?

Not that I mind.

Now, let's make this super duper extra clear - Killer Party sucks. It's too demure and mangled by the MPAA to have fun gore moments, it's too careless to tell a legitimately intriguing narrative, and Joanna Johnson can't even muster a decent "shocked" face when the movie throws her into its boo-machine. I swear, she plays every scene like she just woke up from a nap.

But the combination of random hair metal, unpredictable sorority nonsense, and lackluster acting from an enormously appealing slate of attractive slasher alumni with the never-ending catalogue of cheesy outfits and scenarios, all wrapped up with a truly magnificent poster makes me feel right at home. And I really needed that.

Killer: Alan the Dead Pledge in the body of Jennifer (Joanna Johnson)

Final Girl: Vivia (Sherry Willis-Burch), but not for long

Best Kill: A fat boy in a bumblebee costume is impaled with a harpoon through his... rectal region.

Sign of the Times: Literally every outfit, character, and song featured in the entire film.

Scariest Moment: The possessed Jennifer crawls up the wall, her tongue lolling.

Weirdest Moment: How do I even decide? It's a toss up between the full hair metal music video that opens the film and the part where Vivia is making out with Martin and she screams "OH! TOUCH ME, MARTIN!" while pointing at her elbow.

Champion Dialogue: "I gargle with musk."

Body Count: 10 people clearly die; my body count does not include a woman who dies in the film within the film or the rest of the partygoers whom Vivia claims have died, only four of which we see pointedly strewn about.

1. Mrs. Henshaw is beaten to death with a paddle.
2. Dr. Zito is electrocuted with a wire.
3. Pam is impaled with a trident.
4. Veronica is hit in the head with a hammer.
5. Albert is guillotined.
6. Virgil is dismembered and stuffed in a fridge.
7. Fat Bumblebee gets a harpoon up his ass.
8. Thin Bumblebee gets a harpoon through his mouth. Not the same harpoon, I hope.
9. Blake is drowned in the tub.
10. Jennifer/Alan is staked through the heart with a fencepost.

TL;DR: Killer Party sucks, but it's the kind of suck that makes me glad to be alive.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1478