SPOOKIES (1986)
Directed by Eugenie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner
Sony VHS
THE FILM
"Winner! 1986 Delirium Award from the 15th Annual International Science Fiction & Film Fantasy Festival!" That's what the tiny stamp on the cover of this VHS says.
I.S.F.F.F.F.: W.T.F.
Filmed in upstate New York, Spookies began life as Twisted Souls, Thomas Doran's ambitious, throw-every-monster-into-the-pot special effects reel. Editor Eugenie Joseph must have noticed something special about the footage, as she filled the cracks with her own stuff, then spliced it all together. I'm not sure what that third guy brought to the party, but I do know this: Spookies rips up (and off) Ghoulies and Saturday The 14th to forge a plotless cavalcade of limp comedy and goofy monster effects. Richard Benjamin, please come home.
I didn't fast forward 20 minutes before hitting play, but it feels like I did. A zombie rises from his grave. A teenage birthday brat walks through the cemetery, stumbles onto an old mansion, and meets a hobo.
A hobo! 10 minutes down!
The mansion houses a young man with elderly make-up and his dead bride, who blinks and sleeps in a coffin. It seems that the "old man" needs to sacrifice people to bring back his wife, but we never get the integral who-what-why-where-when-how. After the zombie buries the kid alive, a group of folks arrive at the mansion. From there, a mash-up of 80s-styled monsters kill off the party-goers and run around. There's a possessed woman ala Evil Dead, a group of farting dirt ghouls (funny the first time, but after that…), the Grim Reaper himself, and an army of zombies. A guy with a John Waters mustache tells jokes and people walk around corridors while talking. Another guy jumps head first through a wooden door. I laughed. The Grim Reaper falls off a balcony and blows up. I did not laugh.
Looking past the obvious compositional hurdles (odd edits, talk-acting, lots of underwhelming inconsistencies), Spookies offers up an adolescent horror fan's wet dream: lots of spurting, multi-colored fluids and senseless effects. Some of the giddy monsters wax nostalgic for that square, FX-worshipping era in "fantastic" filmmaking, but the end result comes up empty and taxing, rather than inspiredly odd. I did enjoy the concluding zombie romp, though.
I.S.F.F.F.F.: S.T.F.U.
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Not so good. Washed-out, monochromatic colors mix with a dark print to deliver a sloppy watch. The mono sound was fine, but some of the dialogue was soft on the ears, which means that I couldn't hear it. Why didn't I love this?
EXTRAS
Sony poops out on everyone, everywhere.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I should adore Spookies. But I don't. Still, the film remains notable for its cut-n-paste origins and general sense of woozy, adolescent chaos. You might like it. You might not. You might say, "Hey Joe, what's your problem? I don't see a Delirium Award from the I.S.F.F.F.F. on your g-damn mantlepiece." And you would be right. Because I don't own a mantlepiece.
— Joseph A. Ziemba, 03.03.11 |
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