Playroom (1990)

aka Schizo

Archaeologist Chris (Christopher McDonald) does not appear to be the most stable kind of guy. He seems to see himself taking part in a game of one-upmanship with his dead father – also an archaeologist – to the degree of obsession. But then dear Dad and the rest of Chris’s family died under mysterious circumstances during the search for the hidden grave of a – naturally – evil prince inside of an old monastery. The kid version of our protagonist was the only survivor of the incident, and so it’s no wonder he’s plagued by psychological problems as well as the traditional mix of amnesia and nightmares about dark corridors.

So his plan to continue his Dad’s monastery dig decades later is surely a great idea for his mental health. Because archaeology works weirdly in this film’s world, Chris is only accompanied by his girlfriend and owner of a hot archaeological mag which somehow pays for all this, Jenny (Lisa Aliff), a photographer of dubious trustworthiness, and his oversexed, “spiritually” minded girlfriend Marcy (Jamie Rose). Since this is still absolutely how archaeology works, Chris is going to hammer at every interior wall in the monastery he can find with a pickaxe while the rest of the cast does nothing. Is it any wonder he starts having visions of his old imaginary childhood buddy last seen when his father died and grows increasingly deranged?

Also appearing will be Vincent Schiavelli as a supposed mad killer via a subplot custom-made to bring the film up to a ninety minute runtime; and to slow the film down considerably.

Before Manny Coto became a successful TV producer, writer and occasional TV director, he dabbled a little on the feature film directing side of things with this – his debut – as well as the Dolph Lundgren vehicle Cover-Up and Dr Giggles. I don’t think we missed out on too many great films when he got into other parts of the business.

Playroom is not a terrible movie, but it’s certainly one that could have been improved by greater focus and a tighter script. The one we get is based on an original script by Jackie Earle Haley(!) that was rewritten by one or more people going by the likely moniker of “Keaton Jones” and really can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a full-on late 80s/early 90s cheese fest with bad one-liners and inventive kills or a more psychologically minded movie about a man turning violent and dangerous through reliving the worst parts of a terrible childhood. There are tantalizing hints of the latter in some of the set-up and parts of Chris’s dream-sequences, as well as in some of the early scenes between Chris and Jenny, but these parts of the film never go anywhere.

Worse, they never really seem to belong next to McDonald’s insane scenery chewing and eye-bugging, a performance that makes Jack Nicholson in The Shining look subtle, or the lovingly crafted titular “playroom” of torture devices with very easily breakable shackles, not to speak of scenes of Chris and his evil kid mentor trying to properly display the corpse of one of their victims. Let’s just ignore the Schiavelli sub-plot completely, because, as much as I love the guy, he’s only in the movie to fill time and put another body into the climax.

The playroom does actually hint at one of the film’s biggest strengths, some very atmospheric production design mixed with clever location use when it comes to the portrayal of the monastery and its deeper levels – including a lot of candles and a couple of catacomb chambers that look and feel pleasantly gothic. When he puts his mind to it, Coto is actually able to wring quite a bit of atmosphere out of these elements, too. Which, of course and alas, does make the contrast between these more atmospheric elements and the quippy kills more just more grating.

Still, one takes what one can get, and while McDonald’s performance and these quippy kills are about as subtle as a vertical sawblade through the back, they are fun enough in their cheesy way. Just don’t think about the mechanic doll in the climax, or love it for its cheesiness, and you might even have quite a bit of fun with this one, like I did.

Just Before Dawn (1981)

A quintet of friends (including characters played by Gregg Henry, Barbara Benson and Jamie Rose) go on a merry camping trip to a heavily wooded mountain for camping and a bit of climbing. As always (or we’d have a particularly boring film to get through), things don’t go well right from the start. First, the local forest ranger Roy McLean (George Kennedy) attempts to warn our protagonists off completely and annoys them – city folk that they are - so much they lie to him about the location they are going to camp out at, a decision that’ll certainly not bite them in the ass, no sir. Then, on their way up the mountain, they encounter an older guy who is clearly in shock.

The audience knows the man’s nephew has been murdered by a large man with a peculiarly creepy giggle, but when our protagonists hear him talking about his cousin having been murdered by a demon, they decide to leave a man who is clearly in distress, with a visible head wound, out on a mountain road to fend for himself because taking him back down the mountain to the ranger would inconvenience them.

Consequently, when said large giggler starts stalking our protagonists’ campsite and killing them off, one can’t help but think they rather get what they had coming.

Backwoods slasher Just Before Dawn is probably the highpoint of director Jeff Lieberman’s small but interesting filmography. It is pretty much the perfect backwoods slasher, full of scenes that sell the area the plot takes place in as an actual wilderness, and once it has gotten going also going from one highly effective suspense scene to the next. Even the film’s sillier moments work surprisingly well, for Lieberman stages them in the most serious manner. These scenes in particular also manage to be creepy in a way only things which are in tune with very basic human fears can be: what if that blurry shadow you see coming isn’t your friend? What if the hand grabbing you from under water doesn’t belong to whom you think it belongs to? The way the film plays these scenes, there’s surprisingly little silly about them.

Additionally Just Before Dawn is making clever little changes to the – by 1981 already codified – rules of slasher and backwoods horror. Character types, for example, are generally in keeping with the tradition but Lieberman is adding something to everyone that goes against the usual grain, leaving us with a cast of victims we don’t necessarily want to see die, even though the whole business with the poor old guy doesn’t exactly make them more likeable. And when it comes to the rules of backwoods horror and its ideas about survival instincts and what they do to people, I have never seen them turned into action quite the way Just Before Dawn’s astonishing final scene does (after the film has already vigorously defecated on the concept of machismo a bit earlier), and I have certainly never seen a killer dispatched by the final girl in any to comparable way to what happens here

Add to all this George Kennedy grumbling through the scenery from time to time – when he isn’t talking to his plants – some of the worst backwoods people dialogue I’ve heard in my life, and you have yourself the sort of film whose weaknesses are just as winning as its copious strengths.