Slacker-age Slashers Shindig! The second!

So, now we're past the classic, and neo-classic eras, now, we get up to the more current stuff.

But first, let's recap the timeline.

-1818, Mary Shelly invents the horror genre with "Frankenstein".

-Big honking time gap, then Bram Stoker's "Dracula".

-Ball is rolling now, the novels of "Phantom Of The Opera", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", and "The Invisible Man", get us up to the turn of the 20th century.

-1910, Thomas Edison's "Frankenstein".

-1922, "Nosferatu".

-The Universal monsters take us from the 20's to the 50's.

-50's introduce several new-classic monsters, taking us up to 1960's "Psycho".

-60's...60's didn't have any new classic monsters that spring to mind, kind of a gap there.
Everything was mostly remakes, like The Hammers.

-70's "Jaws", and then, the modern era kicks in.

-70's-80's-early 90's, an explosion.
Leatherface, Michael Myers, Alien, Tall Man, Jason, Deadites, Freddy, Herbert West, Hannibal, Pinhead, Predator, and Chucky.

All of which, I covered last year.

And, that brings us back up to today.

And, this list, is the stuff I didn't get to do last year, cuz...I didn't plan ahead.
That simple.
Half the month was gone before I even thought of it.

So, I already got all the big popular ones, here, is the second tier.

Hmm, can't even really call it a "b-string", or "c-string", thing...this was a new paradigm.
Almost all of that last list were hits in the multiplexes first, but...these, these gained popularity almost exclusively through home video.

Yep, these are the classics of the VHS age.

Given that...screw the "history", sections.
They're all gonna be Nicely's rentals.


It's Alive trilogy 
(1974, 1978, 1987)

Evil babies!!

Man, with all the seething hatred people have for babies, having to hear them cry on planes, and such, this series should have had a relaunch.

It has a potential audience of tens of millions just begging for this shit.

Scanners (1981)

The film/history-

See here.

Scanners sequels 

(1991, 1992, 1994, 1995)

"Scanners II", a more optimistic rehash of the first one.

"Scanners III", an evil hormonally imbalanced female scanner with sights on world domination. 

Worst one ever.

"Scanner Cop", well, the title says it all, the concept went right ahead, and went comic-book-y. 

Skimming reviews...wow, everyone is shocked that this is actually decent!

"Scanners: The Showdown", Scanner-Cop, and Scanner-Kurgan fight for The Prize. Okay, that's another franchise, but, you get the drift.

Basket Case trilogy 

(1982, 1990, 1991)

A guy lugs around his deformed separated Siamese twin in a basket, and uses him as a sort of attack dog against the surgeons who separated them.

In the sequels, Duane and Belial, (the normal guy, and the lump, respectively) hook up with a family of freaks, and, Belial breeds.

Written and directed by the guy who made "Frankenhooker", so you know it's quality! (8-D

Xtro trilogy 

(1982, 1990, 1995)

"Xtro", covered it here, and beat the shit out of it.

"Xtro 2: The Second Encounter", a flea-market ripoff of "Aliens", that has nothing to do with the first one.

Strangely, it gets positive reviews.

"Xtro: Watch The Skies", another one with nothing to do with the first 2. Here, the alien kills with a glowing frog tongue. 

All right, XTRO will never be beloved, or have the cultural significance of a Dracula, but...I dunno...part 2 might get somewhere in life...like, I dunno, maybe Toxie levels of appreciation.

Y'never know.

Who could have predicted the love "Plan 9" gets 53 years ago?

C.H.U.D. duology (1984, 1989)

"C.H.U.D.", okay, this one I can see being a classic. 

You got Daniel Stern in there, the creature effects are pretty decent, it's already got a pretty loyal following.

And, Simpsons has mentioned it. 

"C.H.U.D. II: Bud The CHUD", ...has nothing to do with the first one. 

A bunch of kids steal an irradiated corpse, who comes back as a zombie, and he sort of becomes their pet. 

"Bud", is played by Gerrit Graham, who played Quinn in the "Death Wish", episode of ST:Voyager, and, Beef, in "Phantom Of The Paradise". 

Hey, how about that, he was in "Beware,The Blob!", as well.

Toxic Avenger quadrilogy 

(1984, 1989, 1989, 2000)

See here.

Yeah, I wanted these in last year's; now, it's in a Halloween after all.

Error fixed.

Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

See here.

Return Of The Living Dead sequels 

(1988, 1993, 2005, 2005)

Yeah, even "More Brains", didn't wanna talk about these....

*Sigh* all right....

"Return Of The living Dead Part II", a watered down rehash of the first one. James Karen, and Thom Matthews return from the first one as new characters, and the Tar Man zombie is back.

James Karen, you may remember, as the guy who didn't move the bodies in "Poltergeist".

And, Thom Matthews was Tommy in "Friday The 13th VI".

They were great in part 1, but, none of the magic is here.

They were ashamed to be in this.

"Return Of The Living Dead 3", if you ignore the title, it's a nice little time waster. Not bad. 

Here, the hero's girlfriend gets her neck broken, and revived with Trioxin, and, tries to fight off the zombie brain hunger by inflicting increasing amounts of pain on herself to shock her nervous system, and becomes the ultimate body-mod goth as a result...she ultimately loses the battle, and goes full-zombie, but she destroys bad-guys, so it's okay.

Think of her as spikey female Toxie.

Fun stuff.

The other two...fuck 'em.

"More Brains", ignores 'em, I'll respect that.

Trancers series

(1985, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1994, 2002)

Oh, boy, our old friend, Charlie Band again.....

Y'know, he of "Dark Angel: The Ascent", "Shrunken Heads", "Gingerdead Man", and "Subspecies".

Well, dammit, I'm gonna finish off his canon once and for all in this review!

Just see if I don't!

"Trancers", shades of "Time Trax", but the time-travel rules aren't quite as stupid.

Jack Deth is a cop from the future who goes to 1985 via a drug induced form of time-travel that sends your consciousness along your genetic ancestry, and leaves your body behind.

The bad guy can put people into a zombie trance, and make them deform, and become violent, hence "Trancers".

So, Jack has to defeat the bad guy, and the Trancers, and use a gun with capsules of the time-travel drug to send the bad guy, and himself, back to the future.

He also has a "long second watch", that can slow time for one use.

Well..that's another of the guy from "Time Trax",'s powers.

Yeah, they just stole "Trancers", and made it a show, and got away with it.

Dicks.

Anyway, Jack loses his return capsule, kills the bad guy, and opts to stay in '85.

Helen Hunt started out in this.

"Trancers II", Tim Thomerson, and Helen Hunt are back.  Same shit happens all over again, plus, there's a love triangle.

"Trancers III", in the future, they invent a physical form of time travel, and beam Jack to the future (his old body died when he stayed in '85) to fight a new villain with a Trancer army, played by Andrew Robinson (Garak from DS9, the father from "Hellraiser", the punk from "Dirty Harry").

Helen Hunt is back, and half of "Dawn", from "Tony Orlando, and Dawn", shows up.

"Trancers 4: Jack Of Swords", Jack lives in the future again, has lost Lena (Helen Hunt) and a time travel chamber malfunction sends him to a medieval parallel universe.

Filmed in and around the castle from "Subspecies".

Hmnh, Helent Hunt bailed out at 3?

Now, she's making "The Sessions".

Well, there you go.

You could go either way with that.

"Trancers 5: Sudden Deth", Jack, still in the land of Orpheus, has to find the Tiamond to get home, and, fight more Trancers. I figure he probably does both.

"Trancers 6", Jack uses the old time-travel method, and enters the body of his own daughter. Tom Thomerson isn't in it, and is spliced into the film with old footage. 

Clearly, they're relaunching the series with the chick.

And there, those happened.

Seen the first, and, it's half decent.

Seen bits of 2 and 3, also not bad.

Seen most of 4...yeah, it's silly.

Ghoulies quadrilogy

(1985, 1988, 1991, 1994)

Ghoulies 1, man...I don't remember much, but what I do disturbed me as a kid.

The clown doll that comes to life, starts oozing blood colored slime out its mouth, and eye sockets, then peels apart to reveal a Ghoulie, man...that fucked me up for some weird reason.

And, the part where one of the dead victims starts crawling along the floor like an inchworm, and the implication, is that Ghoulies are inside him working him...and yet...at the end, he comes back to life, all back to normal, just because some spell was broken...shit like that fucked me up, dunno why.

Anyway, Charlie Band thought up the ad campaign for this, and came up with the idea for the Ghoulie in the toilet that's on the poster, and the producers liked it so much, they put it in the film.

Band was supposed to direct, but they passed him over.

Dicks.

Um...vaguely remember part 2.

The dwarf from "Troll", is in it.

Part 3...no desire to see it, but Matthew Lillard got his start in it.

Part 4...the Ghoulies aren't puppets anymore, but midgets in suits.

Oh, fuck you.

Rape my childhood, why doncha....

Critters quadrilogy 

(1986, 1988, 1991, 1992)

"Critters", covered it here.

"Critters 2: The Main Course", same shit happens, more or less, there's a scene where the Crites form into one big giant ball.

"Critters 3", Charlie hunts down the last of the Crites, it pops out some eggs, mayhem ensues, Charlie contains it, then, a cliffhanger.

"Critters 4", Charlie gets frozen to the year 2045, and the same shit from the first 3 happens on a spaceship. 

Think "Jason X", with Critters.

Maniac Cop trilogy

(1988, 1990, 1993) 

"Maniac Cop", imagine Jason is a cop, and that Bruce Campbell is the good cop trying to stop him. That's it, there's your movie.

"Maniac Cop 2", more of the same, Bruce Campbell dies.

"Maniac Cop III: Badge Of Silence", more of the same, Maniac Cop is apparently blown up and cremated. 

Puppet Master series

(1989-2012)

Charlie Band's show-pony series.

Man, is he proud of these.

First 2 are the best, 3 is all right, 4 through 7 are watchable, after that...eh...you're taking your chances.

Unh, holy shit, forget the individual release years, there's 15 of these motherfuckers...

All right, let's try to speed through it all...

1-2, the puppets are bad.

3, a prequel in WWII, the puppets are good. 

4-5, jumps ahead to after 1-2, the puppets are somehow good again, their new puppet-master has them fighting demons from another dimension (who are also little stop-motion critters), and they're like comic book heroes.

Curse, the puppets are kinda half-good, half-evil, tools of revenge.

Retro, prequel to 3, builds back up to WWII.
(And Jack Donner is in it!)

Legacy, a clip show that ties everything together. Think "Howling 7".

Axis of evil, and Axis Rising, sequels to 3, prequels to 1-2.

Vs. Demonic Toys, what the title says, and utter schlock.

Demonic Toys 1-2, Haven't seen 'em, the Puppetmaster crossover didn't exactly entice me.

Dollman vs Demonic toys, ditto.

Dollman, guy from "Trancers", is a little shrunken guy with a raygun.

Anyway, all of that is in a DVD boxed set, and you watch it all end to end, you will die.

Leprechaun series

(1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2003)

Sci-fi played the first 3 of these on St. Pattys.

Oh, they were just awful.

Look, I'm glad Warwick Davis found a way to get a paycheck after "Willow", but, damn.....

Haven't seen 4-6, and...great googa mooga...I'm not gonna....

So...the character of Leprechaun....imagine a Lucky Charms themed Freddy, but not as funny, like, at all, and...if his effects are done by that kid in high school video production who thinks he's awesome, but sucks.

Yeah, imagine that.

Pretty much that.

And it happens six times.

Six fuckin' times.

Six.

So, that's it, that's the monsters/slashers of the video cassette age.

Think I got 'em all this time...

Up next, Satan.