Posts tagged 1988

By Dan Kinem



Anyone who’s read any of my reviews knows there’s nothing better than a slasher, except for a slasher that was shat-on-hideo that is. The Hackers is one of the rarest of its kind and is likely on most horror fans’ wishlists, if they’ve heard of it. The second I saw the cover I knew I must own this movie, no matter what it took. Thankfully, the hype I built around this was actually met and the movie is a hilarious time capsule of late 80s Michigan that I’m happy to be able to watch and laugh at (and occasionally with)!



The first 20 minutes or so is honestly a gift from God. It opens with a hitchhiker (Dave Duncan) sticking his thumb out for a ride and it getting sliced off by a knife from an oncoming truck… The Hackers repair truck to be exact! The rockin’ theme song, “The Hackers,” kicks right in as you’re introduced to The Hackers Family. You get “Pa” Hacker, the leader of the clan, who is a ridiculous, borderline narcoleptic, 80-year-old man who’s always disgruntled, there’s also Arnie, who “never did grow right” (whatever that means), and finally, the Leatherface of the family, Junior, who bit his tongue off and got chewed up by a chainsaw when he was younger, so now he wears fake, 25 cent novelty teeth and half a tin foil mask.



They spend their time doing odd jobs around town, killing people for fun, and playing on the jungle gym. If someone has a problem with the shoddy job they did on their roof, The Hackers just take a machete and kill the mother fucker. It’s absurd these guys could still be in business since they murder all their customers without getting paid. How do they not get caught? “Pa” even lets Junior and Arnie play around in the daylight at a local park, just minutes after they slit some random punk chick’s throat. It’s pure hilarity to see these two freaks running around with little children, climbing the monkey bars and sliding down slides.



After the glorious playground scene the movie does begin to drag. There are long stretches where literally nothing happens. Characters just walk around mumbling nonsense to themselves. You do get a priceless death scene where a man screams in pain and they use sound effects of a baby crying, but beyond that, the movie doesn’t pick up till the last 25 minutes, where it turns into Straw Dogs. The Hackers begin work on a woman’s house (who would hire them I don’t know) and they harass her and watch her shower. All I could notice is how she didn’t get naked and how her hair is more feathered than a fucking chicken (see cover). She eventually has to make a run for it or else she’d probably get raped by Junior.



She’s chased by the lead characters and has to fight them off one by one. She finally kills them, steals their truck, and is driving away when Junior jumps out of the back and grabs her. It would have been an incredibly dark ending till you find out IT WAS ALL A DREAM and she wakes up!



The movie sticks out above many late 80s slashers because you can feel the sense of community and you honestly feel like everyone, from the housewives to the local drunkards, helped out. It’s great to know that everyone in the town of Croswell, Michigan thought this low budget horror movie was worth working on. Not to mention, none of the people even feel like they’re acting (whether that’s a good thing or not I can’t decide), especially “Pa,” played by Howard Coburn. He really makes the movie, with his constant crotchety attitude and violent behavior. It’s a pleasure to watch the man go from chopping a dude’s shoulder with a machete to reminiscing about his love of boats to taking five naps an hour. I’m sure you’re napping in Heaven, Howie. Thank you.

The Hackers was always on my list of movies I must find. I never thought it would be possible because whenever this bad boy popped up, which was very rarely, it would sell for around the $100 mark. Then the day came where I said “fuck it,” I’m going to win this tape no matter what it takes. I was sick of not owning it and wondering when the next time the damn thing would pop up. So I bid hard. Hard as fuck. I went all out and now I can proudly say it’s mine. Apparently only 3,000 copies were sold back in the late 80s (which can only be assumed is inflated to make it seem more impressive), which makes this a really hard one to come by. It was the sixth release by Camelot Studios, a company that is still around today. They specialized in releasing various shot-on-video projects in the mid-to-late 80s with movies like The Earhunter, Black River Magic, and Black River Monster. I cannot stress enough, if you have the ability to get this tape, do it, because it’s a hard beast to obtain but well worth it. Anyone who appreciates movies like 555, Cannibal Campout, and Sledgehammer will love this film to death. I do wish it would have taken a cue from Black River Monster and only been an hour long, but at 80 minutes it never completely overstays its welcome or gets boring. Overall, it’s a joy to watch and you can buy DVD-R copies and posters (!) straight from Camelot Studios here.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

By Dan Kinem

How was the whole redneck hillbilly eats human meat idea started, anyway? I mean, yeah, rednecks are annoying as fuck and borderline retarded, but cannibals? That seems like a strange jump in logic. Though it wouldn’t come as a surprise if that scumbag Larry the Cable Guy was found out to be raping young girls and cooking them. Regardless, Cannibal Campout fits in that long-lasting subgenre with the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Motel Hell, yet is in a category all its own. It’s god-awful in every way, but somehow has a charm to it; partially because it feels like a home movie gone horribly wrong and partially because it doesn’t take itself seriously.

Right off the bat you are reminded of childhood and your dad filming pointless bullshit on an over-sized video camcorder, then those memories are chopped away, literally. A girl completely decked out in high bunched-up socks, a headband, a sleeveless over-sized shirt, and a Walkman (that somehow manages to never skip as she jogs down the street) is on a daily run that comes to a tragic end. Little does she know a guy with one of those pilot gas masks with long tubes hanging from them is waiting to kill her with an axe. Splat. Cannibal Campout.

Truly a great opening to a movie that’s supposedly “based on true events.” In comes our cast of hateable dorks, including “Friend-of-the-Director-Who-Can-Barely-Talk-Because-He-Has-So-Much-Spit-In-His-Mouth-and-Always-Wears-Movie-Shirts” Dork, “Poor-Man’s-Slut-Because-They-Couldn’t-Find-a-Real-Slut-So-They-Had-To-Settle-For-a-Hideous-Girl-With-No-Neck” Dork, “Basketball-Shaped-Head-With-Two-Strands-of-Hair” Dork, some random horse bitch, and finally, the director himself, pretending like he’s good enough to play the leading man.

School’s out so of course going on a camping trip into the middle of nowhere is top priority. On the ride to the camp you get not only a sing-a-long, but a terrible joke-a-thon, too. “What’s more disgusting then a pile of dead babies? A live one at the bottom eating its way out!” Haha, classic. They get to the woods, finally, but run into hillbilly killers who immediately start harrassing them and flirting with the girls. “You suck my cock and I’ll lick your pussy.” They’ve got mad game, for sure. They do a little too much macking, though, which allows the car full of geeks to drive away. Safe and sound. For now…

The hicks plan their attack at their hideout in the woods. For some reason their secret spot consists of a grill, a mannequin shrine, a Santa Claus holding a bomb cardboard standee, a dinner table, and of course rotting human flesh. They are a hilarious bunch of characters including a raspy-voiced psycho who screams “It’s a small world” for about 3 minutes straight (worth the price alone), the aforementioned gas-masked freak who looks identical to Toxie from The Toxic Avenger, and finally a guy who is so normal it’s hilarious. His delivery is so deadpan yet sadistic I can’t help but laugh. “Soup’s on.”

They begin killing each one off and torturing them. The chinless girl gets her throat slit open, the main guy gets a machete through the skull, the pumpkin-headed guy gets axed, and the other girl gets her baby (who we find out about through a hilariously meaningless dramatic scene) torn out of her womb. It’s almost too quick. I’d love to watch this group of maniacs kill for hours. I rarely say this about ‘Shitfest stuff, but this deserved a sequel!

The music, which is played every thirty seconds or so, sounds identical to the opening piano in Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. I kept praying that would kick on the entire movie. You also get a great bonus during the end credits: a fully recorded version of the song they were singing in the car!!

The movie was released by Donna Michelle Productions and was a huge hit for them and paved the way for more shot-on-video releases from the company. I can definitely see why, as this might be my favorite SOV movie I’ve seen so far. It has everything I look for: bad acting, gore, nudity, sleaze, hideous actors, and the warm glow that can only be achieved by filming on a video tape. The movie has since been released on DVD by Camp Motion Pictures (and again with the big box of The Basement) but the VHS remains rare for nostalgic purposes. It’s definitely a must for any VHS collection and is well-worth tracking down. The director followed this up with another SOV flick, Woodchipper Massacre, but stopped making movies for nearly a decade. He is back into the game, however, still keeping the amateur splatter alive. Highly recommended.

Editor’s Note: VHShitfest does not discriminate against cannibals. We fully understand there’s children starving in China who would kill for human flesh. We do however agree that Larry the Cable Guy and any other redneck “comedian” is scum.

By Dan Kinem

The slumber party slasher sub-sub-genre may be my favorite ever. You get the unrealistic, albeit amazing, situation where a bunch of at least slightly attractive females spend the night together getting naked, having pillow fights, and getting picked off one by one. What’s not to love? Some would say The Last Slumber Party is what’s not to love about the genre, but for me this is one of the most underrated so-bad-it’s-good movies of all time.

A mental patient armed with the weakest weapon I can think of, a scalpel, escapes from the hospital and no one really seems to care. There’s even a conversation between the nurse and the doctor (who is the main girl’s father) before he escapes where the nurse says the patient would kill him if they cut out his brain and he says, “That’s exactly why we have to do it.” After he threatens murder no precautions are taken and he literally walks right out the front door.

Coincidentally the day he escapes is the last day of school and it’s time to get wild! Introducing our leading skanks: There’s the prude, who is of course the hottest of the bunch and the one least likely to strip, and then there’s her hideous and slutty friends. They attempt to pass off as high school students but no one is buying that for a second. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the guys in the movie look like they range from the ages 25 to 39 and they are the biggest bros in the world. All they do is make fun of a nerd in school by calling him “Science” and try to get these girls into bed. As if you needed any further proof that they were worthless bros, at one point, as one of them is climbing through the girl’s bedroom window, he says he can’t fit because his dick is too big!

“Yeah, dude, she’s not wearing a bra, bro!”

The plot centers around a slumber party where the girls cock tease the guys while the one’s mom sleeps upstairs. The dad is away from home just chilling at the hospital. Instead of worrying about the killer that’s on the loose, all he worries about is bringing home orange juice for his bitchy wife. Why the hell does she want orange juice that bad? Who seriously needs to drink orange juice in the middle of the night and can’t wait till the morning? Psycho.

One by one the girls will go have sex with the bros, but decide to take a shower beforehand and get killed. It happens at least twice, if not three times. One of the most bizarre scenes/fake-outs in the history of cinema features “Science” climbing through the window out of nowhere looking like the actual killer and killing one of the bros with a scalpel. In the background the actual killer pops up from behind the bed like “What the fuck?!” That really pisses him off and he runs and massacres Bill Nye the Science Guy.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!”

The editing in that scene is so confusing and terrible words cannot do it justice. Just watch it for yourself:

Later, one of the other bros is killed and wrapped up in a blanket. His girlfriend begins to look and can’t find him so she says, “He took the bed spread. I think he must have gone to sleep outside.” Nice fucking try. Are you serious? How could someone write that and be like, “Yep, that’s good.” It’s like they didn’t even try. Why would he be sleeping outside for no reason?!

The movie continues to remain enjoyable because of some really funny and cheesy lines like, ” Let’s go wrestle up some ‘menfolk’. I’m going to the kitchen to munch out!” and “Like yeah. Like wow, man. Mellow out!” There’s also an insane amount of ridiculous and over-the-top homophobia from the girls in the movie. It’s pretty funny, actually. Not because I support that, but because it feels so out of place and strange. Randomly one of the girls will be like, “Where’d that faggot go?” And each one says “homo” and “queer” about 20 times. The director was a closet homosexual, obviously. Keeping with the hilariously over-the-top sexism, one of the girls asks to be excused and one of the bros replies, “No! Just because you live here doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want around this place.” Completely out of nowhere he puts her in her place!

The movie became so terrible during some parts, though, that Dabeedo and I began arguing about which of the hideous girls had bigger boobs. It was a new low for VHShitfest. Picture Tim drooling, passed out on the couch with his body hanging half off and a Coke spilling onto my couch, and me screaming, “No, the rat face girl has bigger tits!” It was just pitiful.

Pretty soon each one of the characters has been killed except for the main girl and her father (who still isn’t home with that orange juice!). The main girl and the killer end up battling and somehow both wind up passed out on the ground. You don’t know who is dead and who isn’t. Then the screen goes black.

I immediately started talking about how little sense the ending of this movie made, but before I could finish they somehow made it even more confusing. It cuts back from black and first, you see the dad killed at the hospital in an elevator. Then, he is magically floating face down in the family swimming pool. His daughter awakens and dives in to try to save him, but guess who’s in the water? Crazy eyes! He cuts her throat, but then she wakes up in her bed and it was all a dream! THEN, on the radio you hear “the killer is loose,” which for some reason triggers her to walk way outside of her house and look around as the killer hilariously creeps right inside the door. She returns and gets her throat cut again. So basically, none of the movie happened except the last two minutes, which had already happened two minutes before that! UGGGHHHHHH. As infuriating as this ending is, it’s soooo insane that you just have to laugh. I mean, what in the fuck was the writer thinking? A dream? Kill me.

The technical aspects of the movie are pure shit. During the whole movie I couldn’t figure out if it was shot on 8mm, 16mm, video, or a fucking Game Boy Camera! The cinematographer must have been really nervous around all these “good-looking” babes, too, because the camera never can stay steady and goes in and out of focus constantly. You know that dream effect most TV shows and movies use? Well, I thought that was happening every other scene!

I do need to note that the killer should have gotten an award for eye performance. He has the most expressive and over-the-top eyes I’ve ever seen. With each frame he’s on the screen you get a sense of sheer terror because of his beady eyes alone.

As the box so proudly displays, the soundtrack is done by the 80s hair metal band Firstryke (of Last Slumber Party fame). The metal flows like blood in this movie, and the only thing sicker than the riffs is the sadistic mental patient who massacres these women!

^Could anything be more metal?

I was surprised to see the movie was directed by Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith, too. It seems unlike an insanely famous rock star to stoop so low. I was praying the entire time that “Sweet Emotion” would kick in and I’d wake up from my nightmare revealing Dazed and Confused was just starting. I’m never that lucky…

No matter how bad the movie technically is, it doesn’t mean I didn’t have a blast watching it. I’d even go as far as to say this deserves much more attention and appreciation then it gets. Most people write it off like it’s one of the worst movies ever made or something. If you think that’s even remotely true then you haven’t seen enough movies. This is fun 80s cheese that belongs in anyone’s horror collection.

The VHS was released through United Home Entertainment in a straight-to-video release to capitalize on their previous popular horror titles like Blood Cult and The Ripper. It’s a a cool tape to have, but not a very rare one. You can also get this movie on DVD in a double feature with Terror at Tenkiller, but trust me, with trash like this, VHS is the way to go (like always).

(Source: vhshitfest)

By Dan Kinem

New Line Cinema went completely Robert De Niro method style acting with this one and truly treated Freddy’s Nightmares like their bastard child and raped it from infancy. You can tell even from the very first episode that it was completely half-assed and only made to capitalize on Freddy Krueger’s rock star-level popularity. You could have had Freddy narrate women’s golf and people would have tuned in. New Line knew this full well, so they put no money into the show at all and barely paid any attention to the production (which resulted in a lot of racy stuff getting by them and on the air).

The show was like your typical anthology show (ie Tales from the Crypt or Are Your Afraid of the Dark?), with Freddy just doing the wraparounds for each story (about a minute in length total), and sometimes making appearances throughout the stories. In total there were around eight different episodes that starred Freddy in the actual story, the rest of its 44 episode run featured random short horror stories, oftentimes cut into two segments. The show ran from just after The Dream Master was released in 1988 to a year before Freddy’s Dead in 1990, when it was ultimately canceled.

Throughout the mid-90s Warner Home Video released five episodes on VHS, which seemed to be a fairly random array of stories (some involving Freddy directly, some not). These remain collectible only because the show has still never found its way to US DVD (the UK has a shitty three-episode set). These aren’t too tough to come by, though, because of the huge rental market for ANOES-related stuff. We own two (so far), coincidentally the first and last episodes, which I found both in our hometown at a thrift store. I would kill to get the UK VHS release from Braveworld Ltd., which took two episodes and edited them together into a whole new feature-length film, The Nightmare Begins Again (It’d be like having a whole new ANOES movie!).

The first episode, “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, is by far the most popular episode of the series for many reasons. Besides being the first of a popular, albeit doomed series, full of very strange and poorly made productions, it was directed by master horror filmmaker, Tobe Hooper, and works as a prequel to the first film. It tells Freddy’s fiery back story, even going as far as to show him in a court room getting tried for his charges.

Freddy’s introduction is humorous, pun-filled, and packed with shitty in camera effects and about three yard-sale-snagged smoke machines. He announces right off the bat, “It’s not one of your nightmares, it’s one of mine.” The story begins with Robert Englund sitting in court, complete with his red and green Christmas sweater (a nice gift from one of the little neighborhood girls, perhaps?). In what is hilariously unbelievable, the judge lets Freddy go because the stupid ass cop forgot to read him his Miranda Rights (“It’s so hard to remember every stupid procedural detail.”). Literally, almost immediately, the judge tells him he can go without even a hint of emotion. The cop made a simple mistake and the judge doesn’t even attempt to figure something out, so now a multiple rapist, with numerous convicting testimonies against him, can go free. If anything, the judge should have been torched for making such a quick judgment.

The town must take the law into their own hands, obviously. The only logical thing to do to save their children is to burn a man alive and watch as his flesh drips from his bones. That won’t mess your kids up at all. If Freddy’s dick didn’t fuck up your childrens’ heads already, then you being a murderer will. Freddy did try (or succeeded?) to rape the cop’s daughters, so he must pay for his sins. They march on down to his house and the cop confronts Freddy. Confronting him means that Krueger stands completely still as the cop tosses gasoline all over him, and he begins to laugh as the cop lights a match. In writing it sounds dope as fuck, but in reality it was super cheesy. He just stupidly laughs and says, “I’ll be back. You can’t kill me.”

Of course he comes back to do some damage. The cop really fucked up this time. Freddy is hornier than ever and smells fresh cop’s daughters’ snatch! He begins killing off people one by one in their sleep. One cop who is eating a hot dog becomes his own ketchup, if you know what I mean. The F.B.I. gets involved and the town needs to get their story straight. They lie to the F.B.I. but the cop is having horrible nightmares and can barely separate what is real and what isn’t anymore. He goes to the dentist randomly and when they put him under, the female dentist turns into Freddy and removes all of his teeth. “Now there’s a smile only a mother could love.” It ends there, pretty abruptly, but there’s a sequel episode about 8 episodes into the series involving the two daughters fighting Freddy. Kruger leaves the audience with a haunting epilogue that actually manages to give you chills and great joy at the same time.

The overall quality of the show is a joke. Sure, Englund offers a decent (although obviously he didn’t want to be there) performance, there’s some okay directing from Hooper, and the script is fine, but it looks like a poor man’s Young and the Restless. My eyes can’t even tell the difference between this and a terrible SOV-flick like The Ripper. Also, the score consists of tongue clicks and clacks and a few chirping crickets. It’s immediately jarring and not in a good, creepy way, in a “why-is-a-guy-clicking-his-tongue-while-I’m-trying-to-watch-TV?” kind of way. If you are a huge fan of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise like I am, this episode is definitely worth watching. It’s not very good, but it’s still entertaining enough to hold any fan’s interest and is a must for any horror or slasher collection. I mean, what other slasher TV shows can you think of?

The episode is only 40 minutes long, but of course Tim managed to somehow fall asleep. We are watching a story about a rapist that kills people in their dreams and Tim decides it would be a perfect time to catch some shut eye. To prove a point I paid a local bum $25 to come and rape him. That’ll teach him to fall asleep next time! But in all honesty, Tim did have a horrible nightmare. He woke up in a boiler room to the sound of Freddy’s claws scrapping against the metal pipes of the pitch black and smoke-filled room. Tim screamed for someone to wake him up, anyone. As the screeching got closer, he actually began to run for his life. Something Tim has never done, run. He looked behind him and heard nothing, then in front of him, with arms stretched 30 feet wide, was Freddy himself. Tim screamed again, his girlish voice embarrassingly cracking, revealing he still was yet a man. Again, no one listened. He pleaded for Freddy not to kill him, but as Freddy drew nearer, what Tim saw was pure evil itself. It was Jackie Earle Haley attempting to play Krueger. In that realization, Tim begged for Haley to gut him like a pig, but Haley had other plans. Tim was forced to sit down and actually watch The Nightmare on Elm Street remake!! Now that’s a nightmare. “Sweet dreams… Who’s next? You? Maybe you?… Or how about you?!”

You can watch the whole episode here.