Census Bloodbath: Eh-Merica

Year: 1983
Director: Don McBrearty
Cast: Lawrence Day, Lora Staley, Neil Dainard
Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

American Nightmare might just be the most Canadian slasher movie ever made, and that includes the title that cravenly wants you to think it's from the U.S. In front of and behind the camera is a coterie of Canadian slasher royalty, including screenwriter John Sheppard (Mark of Cain), producer Paul Lynch (who directed Prom Night and Humongous), composer Paul Zaza (Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, Ghostkeeper, Curtains, and Body Count), and the word "abote." And the director doesn't have other credits in this marathon, but he does in another because somehow, some way he ended up directing a million Hallmark Christmas movies including Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe.

Now it's the accepted party line that Canadian slashers are of a piece a step above their American brethren, so let's kick the tires on that theory with the ne plus ultra of Canadian crews, shall we?

Pour some maple syrup on your popcorn and get to reading.

In American Nightmare, Eric (Lawrence Day) arrives in an unnamed American city (Toronto) to investigate the disappearance of his sister Isabelle (Alexandra Paul). He quickly discovers that she has been mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city, namely a local strip club. The local detective (Mike Ironside, better known to everyone who isn't the credits designer on this movie as Michael Ironside, also of Visiting Hours and Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II) isn't super invested, so Eric enlists the help of stripper with a heart of gold Louise (Lora Staley).

All the while, a killer wearing an evil beret and a pair of clear gloves is stalking people involved in the club, including dancers Tina (Lenore Zann of Happy Birthday to Me, Visiting Hours, and Murder by Phone) and Andrea (Claudia Udy of Edge of Sanity and Skullduggery), as well as transvestite Dolly (Larry Aubrey). Oh, and also Eric's father Hamilton Blake (Tom Harvey) owns a TV station with his business partner Tony (Neil Dainard of The Incubus) that is putting on a huge New Year's Day telethon for UniSave, which is something something underprivileged children. Suspects include Tina's boyfriend Mark (Page Fletcher of Humongous), and literally any other man onscreen for any amount of time.

Men! What would we do without them?

There are two types of exploitation slasher movies. There is the kind where everyone is in on the joke and ready to have fun embracing the over-the-top ridiculousness of it (usually teenybopper sex romps full of boobs and bloody murder ie. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), and then there is the kind where everything is just grimy and sleazy and makes you want to take a shower afterward (anything focused on horrible rape, sweat dripping down a maniacal man's face, etc., ie. Don't Answer the Phone). It's all a matter of tone.

American Nightmare is somewhere in the middle. It doesn't have the finesse of Visiting Hours to position itself as a commentary on the misogyny of its killer, or the benefit of having a female director like the later (but similar) Stripped to Kill. But it has its merits in its own idiosyncratic, lopsided way. In the negative column, the kills are more brutally functional than creative (lots of slits throats and angry choking), and are thus pretty rough to watch. It's easier to watch annoying upper middle class teenagers get bumped off than sex workers who deserve better. Don't ask me why. Slasher viewer ethics are a gray area at all times.

But, on the plus side, American Nightmare takes the Stripped to Kill approach of including burlesque sequences that are of course meant to titillate, but also have an explicit interest of showing off a variety of talented women expressing themselves. And the characterization of the women is deeper than one might expect from the slasher genre. Hell, just a few entries ago, we reviewed Boardinghouse, where every female character was like the Phoebe Cates pool scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a baby with a wooden block.

There is a great deal of empathy in the portrayals here, especially Louise, who genuinely likes her job even though in some respects she is trapped in it (note the freedom she feels while performing topless vs. the torment and horror when she attends a TV audition and is forced to take off her clothes - powerfully performed by Staley). This movie posits that sex workers are real people with real feelings who deserve respect, even as it brutally punishes them with violent death. In a way, the movie is doing its job. It makes you care for its characters (including Dolly, who would probably have identified as transgender in a modern milieu, and is given an unusual depth of emotion for 1982) and thus infuses the murder scenes with extremely high stakes. 

Maybe it's harder for the slasher genre to express both sides of the body count coin when it's dealing with typically oppressed people, because - intentional or not - the themes of these movies do tend to politically align the audience in some way with the killer's actions. Note how the killer only targets women and queer people, not the straight white pimp who is actually responsible for the crime he wants revenge against.

Honestly I don't have an answer here. Let me move on before this becomes a full-on thesis.

There's a great deal of good or at least above average in American Nightmare. It's frequently well lit and occasionally throws in a pretty shot or two for good measure. And it's part of a time honored slasher tradition of being a secret Christmas movie (the impending telethon is on New Year's Day after all, and there are some threadbare Christmas trees tucked into corners). Plus Lenore Zann is intensely compelling with her huge, glistening doe eyes.

Honestly, the only weak spots in the acting are Day and Harvey as father and son. Their climactic confrontation is frankly baffling to witness. One flatly intones accusations while the other mutters lines under his breath that should have been shouted. It's all very high school one act festival. But really the only thing holding me back from giving this a full-fledged 7/10 is the extremely complicated feelings that led me to philosophize for objectively too many paragraphs earlier. All in all, not a bad start for my first real attempt at tackling 1983!

Killer: Tony Shaw (Neil Dainard)
Final Girl: Louise (Lora Staley)
Best Kill: I can't say I really liked any of these kills, but Dolly's murder, where they are lifted off the ground by the killer's sheer strength is pretty impactful.
Sign of the Times: There's a loooooot of business with VHS tapes going on.
Scariest Moment: The killer puts on vinyl gloves right after washing his hands, which I can tell you from experience over a year of quarantine is a recipe for disaster.
Weirdest Moment: Eric sits down to a movie marathon of his sister's sex tapes (to discover the identity of the killer, but still).
Champion Dialogue: "Things are really bumming out for me."
Body Count: 6

1. Isabelle has her throat slashed with a straight razor.
2. Andrea is drowned in the bathtub.
3. Dolly is stabbed in the gut.
4. Tina has her throat slit.
5. Hamilton Blake shoots himself.
6. Tony Shaw is pushed off a roof.

TL;DR: American Nightmare is grossly exploitative, but also has a surprisingly deep approach to character that redeems it somewhat.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1258

Census Bloodbath: Happy Labour Day, Eh?

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Year: 1982

Director: Paul Lynch
Cast: Janet Julian, David Wallace, John Wildman
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Well, happy belated Labor Day. But Henri and I watched this movie on the holiday Monday, I swear. This is authentic.

Seeing as I'm always keen on topical slashers movies, Humongous was the perfect film for this holiday because not only does it take place on Labor Day Weekend but it's a Canadian production, which gives me great pleasure for two reasons. One, Canadian slasher movies generally tend to be of a higher quality than American ones. Two, Canada doesn't have a labor day. In another desperate bid to fit in with their American brethren, this film takes place on a holiday that, to them, doesn't even exist. Basically, Humongous is a fantasy on the level of Lord of the Rings in Canada.

The fact that the entire cast speaks like they're two loonies away from becoming a Mountie is a source of unending joy.

The film opens with its most unpleasant scene (which, after extensive film major training, I have learned is a bad thing) in 1946 at a Labor Day Party on a remote island in the center of a large lake. A woman is raped by a partygoer, who is summarily eaten alive by her guard dogs (She may or may not have some sort of Dog Magic. This is unclear.).

Cut to 36 years (and one sitcom title card) later.

Wholesome family entertainment.

And of course she had the baby and of course it's hideously deformed and we also know it's a giant because it's in the title. A pat on the back for us on that one.

A group of teens who aren't as savvy as we set out on the lake to enjoy their three day weekend and they bring plenty of Meat. There's Eric (David Wallace), a handsome and sweet, if a little bland young man; his girlfriend, model Sandy Ralston (Janet Julian); his brother Nick (John Wildman), a toking pranking douche of epic proportions; and his girlfriend Donna (Joy Boushel), who provides the bulk of the nudity. Tagging along with them is Carla (Janit Baldwin), Eric and Nick's younger sister, and what a shrill, annoying, slut-shaming piece of work she is. With her thick glasses and virginal ways, you just know she's gonna be the Final Girl. Oh also there's this dude Bert (Lane Coleman) who they found adrift in a rowboat.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, their boat runs into some rocks and to the surprise of what I imagine to be a considerable amount of people, the boat freaking explodes.

I know, right?

So here we have our castaways washed up on the beach and ripe for the picking. The interpersonal drama that ensues isn't quite captivating and the acting is uniquely terrible (Wildman in particular sounds like he tried to mark down which syllables to emphasize but spilled coffee on his notes), but it's charming in an 80's nostalgia kind of way.

The monster doesn't waste much time, nabbing Nick as he hides in a boathouse. We hear him scream, but he dies offscreen. Then he heads down to the sand and flings a Bert-straddling Donna to the ground. Cutaway.

And then I cry. You see, Humongous is utterly stingy with its gore sequences, which would have elevated a pretty OK movie into the stratosphere of 1982 slashers. Unfortunately, it is positively toothless and as such loses a lot of fuel. It sputters and starts for its middle third, puking up botched jump scares and tedious sequences where we learn that yes, there's a monster and yes, he wants to eat them.

Luckily, Humongous seems to become aware of what a low-fi crock of BS it is and picks up the pace for the Final Girl sequence. After an "I'm Your Mother" bit lifted directly out of Friday the 13th Part 2 (Somebody plagiarizing a Jason movie? Something is dangerously wrong here. It's supposed to be the other way around!), Sandy escapes the monster's lair and meets up with Carla at the boat house. Much to my delight, Carla gets her face crushed.

She wasn't too cut up about it.

What follows is a fairly routine final scene. Hiding in the Boat House, The Killer Isn't Dead, Oh Wait Yes He Is. But the one thing Humongous has going for it, and it's a fairly big one, is that Final Girl bait and switch. Allowing Sandy the luxury of survival is an unprecedented move. She's a model who shows ample cleavage (Well, she does what she can. We can't all be spectacularly endowed.) and we even see part of her butt in an early scene.

Allowing such a woman to live and killing off the virginal square is a huge step forward for the genre. It's perhaps a little too bad that it's this movie that makes such a remarkable leap, but this is what we get and Humongous is a better film because of it.

And though it may seem like I'm complaining a lot (And I am. To be honest, the movie wasn't very good at all.), this movie has a secret weapon. It's directed by Paul Lynch.

The hack auter behind Prom Night, Lynch movies are characterized by excessively dark night scenes (The final thirty minutes of the film are almost completely pitch black) and seedy low fi gore scenes that are few and far between, but somehow in spite of it all remaining absolutely lovable.

Filled with scenic ocean vistas and spurts of creative effort (the canted shots in particular show that at least he was trying), this film, much like Prom Night before it is hopelessly idiosyncratic and somehow more joyful than other slashers of its ilk.

I think. It really is hard to tell what we're looking at. I may have been watching The Cosby Show the whole time.

Killer: Ida's Son (Garry Robbins)
Final Girl: Sandy Ralston (Janet Julian)
Best Kill: Eric is hugged to death by the monster.
Sign of the Times: Nick's outfit of choice is Daisy Dukes and nothing else.
Scariest Moment: The monster's eye is spotted through a keyhole.
Weirdest Moment: Donna collects blueberries in her cleavage.
Champion Dialogue: "You're not the only one who can do things!"
Body Count: 7; including the killer, but not the dog he stangles.

1. A man is savaged by dogs and hit in the head with a rock.
2. A boy is killed offscreen.
3. A girl is thrown onto rocks.
4. A boy is decapitated.
5. A boy is bear hugged to death.
6. A girl's head is squished.
7. Ida's son is set on fire and impaled on a spike. 

TL;DR: Humongous is overly dark (literally) and tame, but the presence of Paul Lynch makes it palatable.
Rating: 5/10
Word Count: 1145

Census Bloodbath: Disco Madness

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Cassidy leaves on Friday. 

Please take a moment to find your tissues, then return to reading this post. We were trying to decide what to do to give her a proper sendoff when I mentioned my love of the Prom Night franchise, with its increasingly bizarre storylines that get more and more divorced from the original concept. She was enthralled and it was decided that one day before she left, we would watch all of them in one gigantic marathon.

Well it happened, and as luck would have it, the next film on my Census Bloodbath list is (by the hammer of Thor) Prom Night! It was meant to be.

For the next week or so, I will be posting a film-by-film retrospective of the Prom Night series, starting with the 1980 original! Let's get crackin'!

Year: 1980

Director: Paul Lynch

Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Casey Stevens

Run Time: 1 hour 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Legend has it that Canadian director Paul Lynch was struggling to find a backer for Prom Night until Jamie Lee Curtis signed on to the project. He got an offer from Paramount to put it in 300 theaters, but ended up teaming with Avco Embassy as their offer of 1200 theaters was too good to refuse. Instead, Paramount pushed out another film, a low-rent Halloween knockoff called Friday the 13th.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Despite accidentally enabling the Voorhees Dynasty, Prom Night does have its fair share of fans among slasher buffs and sane people alike. This is palpably for one reason above all - Jamie Lee Curtis. Other than that, you see, Prom Night is a pretty tame and exceedingly average Dead Teenagers movie. 

It is of interest mainly as a sort of slasher textbook. Here you can see the pieces of the genre fall exactly into the places where they will remain until the slasher's first decline. The mysterious accident that occurs in flashback, the masked killer, branches being pulled back out of frame during long shot stalking scenes, sex and death and the virgin reigning supreme... They're all here in the purest, most distilled form.

The DNA from this frame can be traced to Scream, Valentine, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and countless others.

The second point of interest - one only devout followers of the genre are aware of - is that this is a Canadian production. It is a general agreement that Canadian slasher movies, despite their intense desire to pretend that they take place in America (Prom Night's high school is called Alexander Hamilton High despite the Canadian license plates in the parking lot and the repressed accents bubbling beneath the surface - "Sorey aboat that. We'll fix it to-more-ow.") are just plain better than their American counterparts with characters that tend to be more fleshed out and better handling of the material.

Though Prom Night is a lesser example, Terror Train, Happy Birthday to Me, and My Bloody Valentine support that theory, among many others.

But enough dithering. This is a review, after all.

The film opens on a group of four children playing a game in a building that is the most menacing character in the movie. Halfway between an abandoned mental institution and some sort of old monastery, this is clearly no place for young ones, no matter how Canadian they are.

They're playing a loosely defined game that mostly involves hiding, then running around and chanting "KILL! KILL!" at the top of their lungs. The three Hammond siblings approach and Kim, the eldest, goes back to get a book she forgot (You can tell she's going to grow up to be Jamie Lee Curtis, because she has the slipperiest fingers when it comes to school supplies. And sharp weapons for that matter.) leaving her twin siblings Alex and Robin to play with the others.

The game gets a little too intense for Robin (Tammy Bourne), and she bolts, pursued relentlessly by the four. As they chant "KILL! KILL! KILL!" and back her into a corner, their words come true as she falls through a second story window to her death. The four vow never to speak of this again, and a local sex offender is accused of the crime. After a botched police chase, he is badly burned (this tends to happen. Again, this is a textbook example later to be found in The Burning, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and many of this film's sequels) and slides into a coma so the kids get off scot-free.

In an effort to disguise her identity, the one on the left dyed her hair black and was adopted into the Addams household.

Cut to six years later. The kids are all grown up and are preparing for their senior prom. Jude (Joy Thompson) is funny, smart, and single. She's quite a catch. Unfortunately she has such low self esteem that when she is catcalled on the street by this creep

she not only takes him up on his offer of a ride to school, but agrees to go to prom with him. She even puts out and enjoys it despite evidence to the contrary. All the Oscars to Joy Thompson.

Wendy (Eddie Benton) is rich, gorgeous, and an all-around terrible person who you want to die from the very bottom of your heart the first time she walks into frame.

Nick (Casey Stevens) has gone through puberty and learned a couple life lessons, has dumped Wendy and is now deeply in love with Kim (Jamie Lee Curtis). To top it all off, they are Prom King and Prom Queen! Little Kimmy's done well for herself since her sister's death. During the procession, the announcer even says (literally) that they have been chosen as the most popular kids on campus.

Kelly (Marybeth Rubens) is also a character in the movie.

This is all established quite quickly, but Lynch isn't anxious to move on just yet, and these characters just sort of jangle around for about an hour before the prom sequence (and the killing) begins in earnest.  While it's not necessarily boring, it's also not really... well, anything.

High school drama ensues and the four grown-up kids receive obscene phone calls and hear strange noises when they're alone. After what I can only imagine was an intense discussion, the filmmakers decided to keep most of the focus on the high school drama. This would be welcome in another movie - one with characters that aren't Dixie Cups with faces drawn on, preferably. It was a team effort to even be able to tell the girls apart.

It all just feels very indulgent, almost like Jamie Lee funded the movie herself in order for us to see scenes of her being awesome at tennis and disco dancing and to show us how great her boobs are.

Clothed, of course. This is still Jamie Lee we're talking about.

The first real Body Count killing begins at the one hour mark, and it still leaves something to be desired. As does the second. And the third. Really, they're all pretty toothless especially when you consider that the Tom Savini-led Friday the 13th was still blowing through theaters at the time.

A prowling man in a ski mask whispers vaguely threatening... well, threats, as he mows down the core four and anyone who happens to get in the way. And let me just take a moment to say that whispering killers are hard to keep from crossing the line between scary and silly. Guess which side this one landed on?

Throats are slit, guts are stabbed, and a head rolls onto the catwalk (that one's actually pretty cool), but it's all playing second string to what they clearly thought was the most important part - the mystery.

Who is the killer?

There are a number of clear-cut suspects including Lou (David Mucci), a dirtbag who Wendy hires to pull a prank at prom; Principal Hammond (Leslie Nielsen. Yes, that Leslie Nielsen.), Kim's father who is understandably upset - prom is on the anniversary of his youngest daughter's death; the man who was wrongly accused of Robin's death and who has since escaped his mental institution; and Sykes (Robert Silverman), the groundskeeper who can't help but stare at the high school girls as they walk by. Mostly because they moon him, but still.

Once Lou is killed, the escapee is caught fifty miles away, and Groundskeeper Willie is exonerated, it's pretty clear who the killer is.

Or is it?

But first, some disco songs.

Prom Night frequently cuts back to the dance, not to establish time or keep up pacing or whatever, but rather to show off Jamie Lee's fancy moves. Full of super on-the-nose original songs like "Prom Night (Everything is Alright)," "Love Me Till I Die," and "Time to Turn Around," that it's keen to show off, the film's weak killings are interspersed with some truly bizarre scenes straight out of the outtakes to Saturday Night Fever. Keep an eye out for composer Paul Zaza. Just like Jason Voorhees, he keeps coming back movie after movie (Recent credits include Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. This guy's a winner.).

In addition to being totally bananas, these scenes are indicative of a bigger problem, editing-wise. The scenes just don't make any sense in the order they're displayed. They frequently end too soon, leaving the audience with a weird jolting feeling, and at one point a couple is seen at a drive thru and then immediately in the middle of class.

OK yes, this movie has flaws. Allow me to alleviate some of the pain though.

With some experimental shots that work sporadically, like a series of smash cuts from telephone cord to the receiver or the high-vaulted ceiling shot that follows a little girl around a corner, it is clear that, for better or for worse, there is some sort of directorial hand involved in this movie. Most slasher films are cheap cash-ins, completely devoid of personality and despite its shabbiness, Prom Night is not one of them.

As I mentioned before, the obvious greatest strength the movie ever had (and they knew it) was Jamie Lee Curtis, the Scream Queen herself. While she's not exactly at her Laurie Strode Gold Standard, she fully immerses herself in the role and brings such natural charm it's impossible not to love her. Despite its myriad flaws, through whatever miracle she is in this project. She's the real takeaway here.

And you know what they say:

It's not who you go with.

It's who takes you home.

Killer: Spoilers [Alex Hammond (Michael Tough)]

Final Girl: Kim Hammond (Jamie Lee Curtis)

Best Kill: A kid is strangled behind the wheel and his van flies off a cliff, hitting the bluffs and exploding.

Sign of the Times: Dear Jesus all of this

Scariest Moment: The opening scene, in which the camera pans around a creepy abandoned building as children chant "The killer is coming!"

Weirdest Moment: There is a prolonged disco dance sequence that lasts for 3 minutes and 7 seconds. I counted every microsecond of it. Let Prom Night go down in history as the only slasher movie to ever need a choreographer.

Champion Dialogue: "For a guy so fast on the disco floor, you are the slowest."

Body Count: 8; 1 nurse murdered on the sidelines, 6 on Prom Night, and 1 six years before.

1. Robin Hammond falls to her death during the children's game.
2. Kelly's throat is slit.
3. Jude is stabbed in the throat.
4. Slick falls off of a cliff in a burning van.
5. Nurse is killed offscreen. 
6. Wendy is hacked to death with an axe offscreen.
7. Lou is decapitated with an axe. 
8. [Alex Hammond is hit on the head with an axe.]

TL;DR: Prom Night is a shabby but earnest by-the-book slasher, and the presence of Jamie Lee Curtis knocks it up a couple of points.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1997

Reviews In This Series

Prom Night (Lynch, 1980)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Pittman, 1987)

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (Oliver/Simpson, 1990)

Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil (Borris, 1992)

Prom Night (McCormick, 2008)