WATCH OUT FOR THOSE SLASHERS!

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger

WATCH OUT FOR THOSE SLASHERS!

While it's not exactly what one could call perfect holiday fare, this week we're looking at that sick, sick, sub-genre, the mad slasher, or stalk-and-slash film. One could hardly say that any of these movies are in good taste, but horror in general has never been the most tasteful genre. Although Halloween is generally considered the first modern-day slasher film after Psycho, I think Friday the 13th, which came out two years later, was much more influential. Before you knew it there was movie after movie in which young people -- high schoolers, college kids, camp counselors, teens or twenty-somethings, people at the very start of life -- are sliced and diced in often horrendous ways by some anti-social maniac. The most famous of these is Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise, although Freddy Krueger was the more imaginative and diabolical sociopath -- Jason was mostly just a killing machine. Some of the maniacs in these films had motives, however specious or outlandish, generally focusing on revenge for a misdeed in the past, or romantic/sexual obsession, or just a jealous hatred of one's peers. Some murderers were serial killers; others' identities were never revealed even at the film's conclusion. So this week we've got a whole slew of slasher movies, including one Nightmare, one Friday the 13th, and several others of varying quality, not to mention a whole book on slasher films. Don't eat on a full stomach! NOTE: Although there have certainly been a few very effective slasher films, the only real "slasher" masterpiece is Psycho, and likely to remain so.

William Schoell is the author of Stay Out of the Shower: 25 Years of Shocker Films Beginning with "Psycho" and The Nightmare Never Ends: Freddy Krueger and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films (with James Spencer).

DARIO ARGENTO AND THE ITALIAN GIALLO FILM

Dario Argento

DARIO ARGENTO.

Why do I like many of the films of Italian horrormeister Dario Argento, and dislike others just as much? Part of this is Argento's over-reliance on gore (although this can be very effective in some movies) and his acceptance of screenplays that, to be charitable, need a lot of polishing that they don't always get.

On the other hand, if you study Argento's films, especially his great ones, you can easily see that the Italian giallo filmmaker is miles ahead of the hack (no pun intended) directors of "mad slasher" schlock like, say, most of the Friday the 13th films and their ilk. His films generally have plenty of style, and his best movies are undeniably creepy and suspenseful and have some kind of (slightly demented) mind behind them, as well as some bravura sequences.

Argento never got mainstream respectability, like Hitchcock, but Argento is not in Hitchcock's league as a filmmaker. Some of his fans are simply interested in the gory shock scenes (Argento tends to cater to them too much) even though there are those of us who also enjoy the twisting plots and tense moments that are virtually in all of his movies. As Argento got older, he perhaps tried too hard to capture the young American mad slasher/splatter movie crowd even though he was capable of far greater things. Argento has never quite fulfilled his potential despite such memorable films as Deep Red and Trauma. (Argento's first film was the creditable The Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1970).

Argento's other films are of varying quality. Great: Sleepless. Good: Phenomena; The Card Player; Cat O'Nine Tails. Mediocre: Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Bad: Do You Like Hitchcock?; Giallo. And there are others.

Argento's films were clearly influential on such diverse movies as The Eyes of Laura Mars and 88 Minutes, among others. Argento, who is now seventy-five, last directed Dracula 3D, and his next film will be the serial killer thriller The Sandman.

Below you will find reviews of some of Argento's other movies, as well as a write-up on a book about the director and his work.

SCHIZO

SCHIZO (1976). Director: Pete Walker.

Samantha (Lynne Frederick of No Blade of Grass) is engaged to be married to Alan Falconer (John Leyton), but she can't shake a feeling of doom or the fear that she is being stalked by her crazy "stepfather," Haskin (Jack Watson of Tower of Evil). Sam seeks advice and comfort from her friend Beth (Stephanie Beacham of Inseminoid) and another friend, Leonard (John Fraser) who happens to be a handy psychiatrist. There's also a young psychic lady named Joy (Trisha Mortimer) who tries to give Samantha a desperate warning. Then bodies start dropping all around Sam ... Schizo is, if nothing else, suspenseful as it drops in its red herrings and clues as to the true identity of the maniac, but it's not especially memorable. Walker also directed The Comeback and House of Whipcord. His movies always just seem to miss.

Verdict: Half entertaining. **1/2.

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

In honor of All Hallow's Eve Great Old Movies presents reviews of a crop of international horror films from different periods. We have the 1940's minor classic, House of Horrors with Rondo Hatton; the modern zombie thriller World War Z; the fifties British creature feature The Crawling Eye; the rare Italian psycho-thriller Spasmo; the Spanish shocker The House That Screamed; and the American horror-comedies An American Werewolf in London and Fade to Black. WARNING: Some of these movies are more horrible than horrifying. Have fun!