Hack-O-Lantern (1988)

Directed by Jag Mundhra
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Massacre Video)

Satanist Hy Pyke looks forward to initiating his grandson Gregory Scott Cummins into his local coven on Halloween night. Cummins lives in his mom's garage and listens to bad heavy metal music. His do-good brother is a local cop, who has duty at a party also being thrown on Halloween night. A killer (or killers) in a devil costume starts murdering people around town with a pitchfork and shows up at the party to kill more people. The killer's identity will only be a mild surprise. Slasher/satanism genre blend doesn't help this very bad but very entertaining movie. The acting is the pits, with Pyke hilariously awful as the devil  horn flashing grandpa with a bad southern accent. There is a break for an 80s style music video featuring a Motley Crue ripoff band and a dancing girl who shoots lasers from her eyes. Another bad metal band, The Mercenaries, plays at the party. I might watch it every Halloween from now on. 

Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2013)

Clarius Entertainment
Directed by Will Finn and Dan St. Pierre
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, 20th Century Fox)

Dorothy is summoned back to Oz via rainbow to save it from an evil jester. He is the brother of the wicked witch of the west and wields her broomstick for power. Dorothy makes another trek across Oz, picking up a trio of new friends along the way: a wise but overweight owl; Marshal Mallow from Candy Country; and a dainty princess made of china named China Princess. They battle the flying evil monkeys and eventually the jester to wrest control of Oz.  Wizard of Oz sequels almost never succeed because of they fail to live up to the immense shadow cast by the original 1939 classic. While this much-maligned film has unmemorable songs, it is otherwise quite imaginative and entertaining.

The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff (1973)

Directed by Jesus Franco
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Dorado Films)

Wheelchair-bound Montserrat Prous is plagued by nightmares of her father's murder. A concerned uncle consults a psychiatrist, who turns out to have his own connections to her troubled family history. As his revelations start to turn more sinister, her uncle disappears on a hunting trip and her family tries to get her declared insane. Maybe the folk singing hippie next door can help? Franco thriller has a modicum of atmosphere due to Spanish and Canary Islands locations, but is mostly a boring talk fest. 

Silence of the Tomb (1976)

Renfilms (Spain)
Directed by Jesus Franco
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Dorado Films)

While a film crew on a remote island sit around talking, the young child of the leading actress is kidnapped. Her sister, who spends most of her time watching the child, receives a ransom note. While the arrange to get the money, she speculates on who the kidnapper might be, since it has to be one of the people on the island. Before long, people start turning up dead. The kidnapper/murderer is eventually revealed, but there is no way to have guessed it beforehand. Boring thriller from Franco is just another rehash of the familiar Agatha Christie plot from Ten Little Indians. 

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

Bounty Films
Directed by Tom Six
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, IFC Films)

After their car breaks down in the woods during a rain storm, two American tourists seek refuge at a nearby house. Unluckily for them, the resident is a retired surgeon who drugs and kidnaps them to use in his latest experiment. They end up surgically united with another victim, a Japanese tourist, and unable to talk or walk, much less escape. Eventually the police show up looking for the missing tourists, but the surgeon has plans for them as well. Essentially a one-joke plot, that has nowhere to go once its grotesque idea is revealed. German actor Dieter Laser is quite convincing as the surgeon, however. 

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Paramount Pictures
Directed by George Mihalka
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Paramount/Lionsgate)

Teens in a rural Canadian mining town plan to reinstate a Valentine's Day dance that had been stopped due to murders that occurred twenty years ago. When body parts start showing up in candy boxes, the sheriff tries to stop it. The teens carry on with a dance at the local mine instead, releasing the rage of the same killer from decades earlier. The new uncut version reinstates all of the censored violence, which is particularly nasty. I can't say it improves the film. It still wallows in a love triangle, is poorly acted and lacks any kind of atmosphere.

The Final Terror (1983)

Comworld Pictures
Directed by Andrew Davis
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Scream Factory)

A group of teens volunteer to help search for two missing park rangers in a California redwood forest. The leaders of the group soon turn up missing after they venture off to have sex. Their bodies, or parts thereof, are found sending the group into a terrified frenzy. They are picked off one by one by a killer whom we only get a glance of and whose identity could be their driver who bullied and threatened them. Of course it turns out to be someone completely different. Very atmospheric rural slasher shot entirely on location in a redwoods state park. The tension is palpable in the group of young actors and even the final reveal of the killer manages to surprise. 

The Old Dark House (1932)

Universal Pictures
Directed by James Whale
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Cohen Media Group)

A group of travelers get caught in a heavy storm and seek refuge at a nearby country mansion. They are greeted by the deformed face of Boris Karloff, then reluctantly let in by a nervous butler who turns out to own the house along with his older sister. They allow them to stay the night, but have no beds to offer them. During dinner, more stranded guests arrive and they gather around the fireplace for the night. Karloff gets drunk and attacks one of the girls. Another guest goes upstairs and finds a hundred year old man lying in a bed who warns them about a crazed son locked away upstairs. Karloff lets him loose and it is up to the guests to stop the chaos. The impact of the film fades after repeated viewings, and at times I found it unintentionally funny. Karloff is imposing but his character is underdeveloped, while a budding romance between two of the guests takes up too much time. 

Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992)

Electric Pictures
Directed by Anthony Hickox
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Vestron Video Collector's Series)

The story takes up right where it ended in the first film, with the disembodied zombie hand following the boy and girl home (she is played by a different actress), where it murders her stepfather with a hammer. She manages to catch and destroy it, but is arrested for the murder. No one believes her story of the hand, so together they go in search of proof. They acquire a compass which guides them through the time portals to various historical and cinematic eras, ranging from Jack the Ripper to Godzilla. They eventually get another zombie hand and present it at her trial as proof of her innocence, but he gets trapped in time. I think. A very confusing story with very poor effects. 

Rosso Sangue (1981)

Cinema 80
Directed by Joe D'Amato
My rating: 1.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Mya Communication)

While being pursued by a priest, George Eastman impales himself on a fence. Despite his grave injury, he recovers quickly in a hospital due to the ability of his blood to coagulate more quickly than normal. After killing his nurse for no good reason, he escapes from the hospital and is almost run over by a hit and run driver. He survives, of course, but turns up at the driver's house to kill his family in various gruesome ways. Gore is the name of the game here, as there is almost no plot, or suspense, or acting for that matter. Eastman, wearing jeans and a t shirt, is just boring, and has little to no dialogue. His last victim, a young girl in traction, gets the last laugh though, leading to a memorable final image.