mtipton-77328

This movie came out my senior year in high school. I saw a lot of horror movies back then, and the more brutal, the better. I remember as I was leaving the theater, good story, not enough gore. Now in my late fifties it is one of the classics from my days of youth, I can still watch. The movie somehow pulls you into this nightmare before you are even aware it. There are two scenes that seem so out of touch with the rest of the movie that makes you realize you are part of the dreamscape the director intended. One was when Reggie went home, and his maid came out of his bedroom scaring him. How a man that delivers ice cream out of a truck can afford a maid is a question never answered. The second one was when Jody had a conversation with the bartender about the pretty blonde he left with from the bar the previous night. For some reason, these two scenes, for me, seem to be a break from the nightmare with a dose of reality. The movie at the end is so convoluted it makes little sense but it doesn't matter because at this point you are "all in".

Probably Bill Rebane's best movie. Unlike others he has done that basically had grandiose pretensions without the budget to back them up, and turn into a character play with one setting, this one feels like an actual movie. The best thing about it is, that it is a great period piece that kind of embarrasses you, if you lived during the eighties, that we actually thought we were cool. What passed for "cool" back then, is now, prototypically the classic "white trailer trash" look. Amazingly, it seems as if Bill Rebane had some type of crystal ball telling him that this would be the case decades into the future. There was a lot of subtle comedy that, it would seem, influenced future films. The part where one of the main characters is having supper with his parents and he asks his mother to realize he is a grown man, and his father chimes in with his age, which happens to be younger than his son. A similar gag was used in the movie, "Don't Be A Menace To Society While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood". The bar scene which resembles a scene from "Star Wars", is surreal and absolutely hilarious. This movie seemed to be making fun of itself, and especially the era in which it was filmed.

For some reason, all of the actors in this schlock drama looked familiar even though most are obscure, at least to American audiences. The house looks identical to one used in a movie called Silent Night, Bloody Night, which was an American horror classic from 1970. The close ups of the shifty eye movements of the characters going back and forth was, I guess intended to be dramatic, was actually comical. Maccoll's nervous breakdown in the kitchen, and her twitchy mouth movements can make you laugh outloud. The little blonde haired boy is so sickeningly precocious that you almost wish the ghoulish zombie doctor actually gets him. All the dramatic scenes are overacted and the dizzying camera work gives them a comedic farce feel, I don't think they intended to create. It is gory, and the end when the evil Dr. Freudsteen is confronted does make you a little queasy. Good fun, don't take it for more than what it is.