The Burning

(1981)-If you like the Friday the 13th series, this is definatley one to check out! The movie begins with a group of young kids at a summer camp who decide to play a prank on the caretaker, Cropsy. Their prank goes horribly wrong and although Cropsy comes out alive, he is severaly burned. Now that he's deformed, Cropsy is pissed off at the world and decides to take revenge on the next generation of campers and their counselors. His weapon of choice is a pair of very sharp gardening shears that rack up a fair body count once you get half-way through the movie. Although the filming style and quality of this movie may be grittier and a little more low-budget than the Friday series, the movie does feature a very memorable death scene involving several campers on a raft. The movie also features some well-known actors such as Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter. Most of the music in the movie is done by Rick Wakemen,of the band Yes, and relies heavily on synthesized keyboard compositions. It is directed by Tony Maylam and is currently available on DVD. A must see for slasher fans, especially those who love classic 80's slashers!

Night of the Demons

(1988)-This a great dark, slightly comedic horror film that takes place on Halloween night. A group of teenagers who are looking for a place to party (sounds good to me already because you just know its going to go bad) are invited to a shindig at Hull House by the creepy girl at school, Angela. They all show up (first mistake) to the dilapidated mansion that was once used as a mortuary. Things start to get creepy when the group holds a seance and conjure up some demons that were just lying in wait. Bauhaus music gets played, people get possessed, nudity takes place and there are very few survivors. What more could you ask for? For some reason I always seam to get really creeped out by this one. It could have something to do with a tube of lipstick... Directed by Kevin Tenney and starring 80's b-movie scream queen Linnea Quigley. This movie is available on DVD from Anchor Bay and has two sequals.

Humanoids from the Deep

(1980)-I loved this movie! Whats not to love when mutated amphibious sea-creatures start to terrorize a small town in order to mate with its young female population. Humanoids is the story of a salmon-fishing community who in order to keep the town thriving experiments with a growth hormone to make their catch more plentiful. As I'm sure you have already guessed, the experiment goes horribly wrong. The hormone only proves to create a breed of half human half salmon(I think) sea creatures that are seeking to keep their population alive. How do they do this you ask? By sexually assaulting a young woman so she may give birth to their offspring. I know this sounds really weird, but I found it oddly entertaining. The body count isn't that high, but there is some gore and bloodshed to be seen. Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Barbara Peeters, this was released on DVD for a short time but went out of print almost immediately. So, if you see it in some one's garage sale-definitely snatch it up!

Welcome to Video Massacre

Greetings! I have created this blog in order to review overlooked horror films. I am a huge horror fan who recently acquired a large collection of horror movies from a video store that was going out of business. The movies were selling for 50 cents a piece so my husband and I just grabbed anything with a horror label. The great thing is that the majority of films are from the 1980's (in my opinion the best decade for horror films yet) with a few dating the 1970's or 90's. I have been a horror fan since I was introduced to the genre at age 6 with the movie Witchboard starring Tawney Kitaen (remember the gorgeous redhead from the White Snake videos). I hope that I can provide a service to all other horror fans out there who are looking to view something non-mainstream in the genre. Don't get me wrong, I love new horror films as well but it is so much fun to come across movies you may have never heard of and weed out the good from the bad. Lets face it, when it comes to the horror genre-the really awful movies are even fun to watch. So, I hope you will read and watch along with me as I unearth some treasures & rotten tomatoes. If you agree or disagree with any of my reviews-please let me know! Oh, by the way, I may throw in some reviews of horror-movie soundtracks as well.