Kingdom of The Vampire (1991) - J.R. Bookwalter.

'Here kitty kitty, come to Mommy!!!!!'

Timid centenarian, live-with-mom vampire Jeff (Matthew Jason Walsh) falls for pretty local lass Nina (Shannon Doyle), thereby provoking the considerable ire of his altogether more murderous mom (Cherie Datry). The initially benign bloodsucker is a familiar, oft-used terror trope; ergo, can a card-carrying vampire ever truly deny his more dastardly urges to survive? In B-Horror lore, the answer is frequently no, animal plasma just don't cut it, so they all ultimately have to revert back to their original (blood) type! J.R. Bookwalter's small-town S.O.V features are fitfully watchable oners, nothing truly offensive therein, but additionally nothing to notably galvanise your interest. That being said, one of the prolific indie film-maker's more stolid attributes is a certain reliable consistency. If you partly dug one of 'em, y'all will definitely vibe strongly with Kingdom of The Vampire's blackly funny tale of bloodily disharmonious Vampire domesticity. Right off the bat, I really liked Jeff's worn-out Night of The Living Dead Tee, but why on earth would a seemingly gentle, blood-shy vamp be so enamoured of 70s sleaze-fest I Spit On Your Grave to such a degree as to own the poster? Kingdom of The Vampire is a hugely fun, pop-corny Halloween flick, pleasingly replete with a lively Carpenter-esque score, playful text, amiable protagonists, and a deliciously wicked nemesis vampire mommy!

 Transgression : The Director's Cut (1994) – Michael P. Dipaolo.

Firecracker investigative TV reporter Mary Selby (Molly Jackson) takes a little too much interest in a brutal serial killer, fatefully attracting the maniac's attention, leading to an abduction, thereby intimately providing her with all the gory details, up close and personal. The reporter/cop/psycho ménage a trois is a well-worn genre conceit; maybe the familiar narrative proved a easier sell to backers, rather than creating something wholly new and innovative? With the increasing number of boutique Blu-ray labels, many indie/low-fi/no-fi features are belatedly given a new lease of pristine life, occasionally bringing a long-neglected horror marvel to a deservedly higher HD visibility. Transgression : The Director's Cut is a rather sober examination of a violent sex-killer, often pandering to the continued prurient interest horror fans have over the seemingly unfathomable machinations of psychotic narcissists. The psycho-noir overtones are undermined by flat line readings, and pointedly recycled dialogue. Ultimately, I was largely indifferent to the fate of down-ward spiralling Mary Selby, and the killer was a bit of a goof. It's not altogether uninteresting, but the lack of a visceral nemesis portrayed by a Benoit Poelvoorde, Joe Spinell, Nicholas Worth, or a Michael Rooker finally caused my attention to waver. Dipaolo's indie, though well-made, and visually competent, differs all too little from so many similar shockers, their rigorous adherence to formalised tropes proving wearisome. In many ways, the film is authentic, many killers suffer egregious abuses during their tormented childhoods, but the stock mise-en-scene mutes the more credible details. In closing, I found the cop's (Julio Rodriguez) violent rejection of a little mild, southern hemisphere fingering a mite baffling?

 Island of Blood (1982) – William T. Naud.

'Don't disturb Burt the caretaker!'

A disparate troupe of young actors lured to an isolated island under the auspices of making an 'up-up' musical romp all fall fatally foul of a shadowy sociopathic killer, whose kooky MO is inspired by the inane lyrics of an equally fruity-sounding song. William T. Naud's playful whodunit? Aka Island of Blood provides deep-diving 80s horror fans with an agreeably eccentric twist on a stabbed-up, Agatha Krispied murder romp, one generously replete with enough duplicitous characters to fill a parliamentary back bench! Island-set slashing proved a viable B-Horror backdrop, popularised by Grim Reaper, Island of Death, The Slayer, and cult classic Blood Tide, with Island of Blood arguably being the least explored slasher archipelago. The slightly uneasy admixture of eagerly purloined genre tropes herein perhaps allowed for a more flexible approach to future re-titling than others of a similar ilk.

While Island of Blood often falters as a slasher, enjoyed as a comedy of terrors, it remains a humorous Midnight Movie treat! While the text is pedestrian, and the kills are a wee bit daft, the more chucklesome content, intentional, or otherwise, proved winning! In conclusion, Island of Blood remains a lame duck, and for me, Joel Goldsmith's score is by far the most authentic 'slasher' component of Naud's amusing misfire. You know y'all are in for a bumpy ride when 'Phlem is Dead!' demonstratively proves to be the very best line in the text! While the decision to shoot much of the slice n' dice in crepuscular gloom is certainly bold, the fact that it largely obscures much of the kills/action now appears somewhat counter-intuitive, as is the available online synopsis, which is blatantly spoiler city, dude!

 Granny : She'll love you to pieces (1999) – Boris Pavlovsky.

'is this the same hand that your granny used to pleasure herself?'

Pared to the bone indie slasher curio Granny presents the ubiquity trope of serially pranking college goof-offs having their educational processes violently truncated by a psycho in a hokey Halloween Hag mask. For my sins, I have a Pavlovskian reaction to low budget slasher clunkers like this, so I was drawn in entirely against my better judgement. If you extracted the tiresome schematic of terrorized teens diced during a collegiate beer bash, you would be brutally nixing a number of winningly schlocky slashers, along with much of the more wretched grot opportunistically produced during the downward cycle of the Slasher trend. If a cast of cretinoid non-entities being eliminated by a no less anonymous antagonist sounds doable, this largely toothless Granny provides an 1hr of dopey B-Horror brain melt. All too few slashers provide sympathetic axe-fodder, and, sadly, Granny ain't one of 'em, deservedly good riddance to these unwholesomely snarky schmoes! Technically competent, rather than inventive, performances are blandly functional, and the formalised text fails to put much-needed pep into this ailing Granny basher, but the crudimentary, conspicuously meaty gore-blasting is pretty neat. I wouldn't presume teaching Granny to suck eggs, since this doddering Granny sucks like a boss!!!!The solely horrific element herein remains the Tie-wearing nerk's egregiously striped trews! In conclusion, Granny: She'll Love you to Death is an axedentally amusing goober-fest, but ultimately has all the staying power of a Styrofoam Sippy Cup.

 Day of The Reaper (1984) – Tim Ritter.

The hoped for amicability of five girls enjoying a sun-slaked afternoon at the beach are royally, and increasingly bloodily fubar'd by a deliciously goofy cannibal kook, this be-hooded gimp expresses his morbid kink for serially slaying Bikini-clad hardbodies with rudimentary efficacy! As a generously gore-blasted fromage to all the more tastily crude elements of the then hugely popular slasher milieu, 16yr old super-8 impresario Tim Ritter aims high for the lowest Slasher common denominator, and frequently hits a gruesome bullseye! Day of The Reaper occasionally playing out like a gonzo, long-form, D.I.Y H.G. Lewis-inflected Exciter/Mentors video extravaganza, ain't no kind of diss at all! To question the film's adolescent content is somewhat unjust, especially one so earnestly made by such a notably ambitious teenage terror-maker! Ritter gleefully expressing his hormonal, slasher-soaked id, sporadically provides low-fi splatter mad hatters with some especially choice psychotronic content! 

While indelibly 80s, the non-sync sound, prodigious globs of Ketchup, and dense swathes of dark, omnipresent synths, along with the Reaper's grody outfit certainly wouldn't be out of place in a 70s schlocker like The Zodiac Killer (1971). I've always had a fondness for cannibal killers, as regular psycho-slashers decimate their victims, and blithely allow the meat to spoil, whereas Cannibals don't let all that goodly protein go to waste, being an empathically ecological fruit-cake! Those who courageously pair Ritter's small gauge slasher with Ogroff aka The Mutilator are guaranteed a thrillingly temporary annulment of the frontal lobe, dude! The narrative gets a little tricky at the grisly conclusion, with shades of MKUltra, introducing a 2^nd killer programmed to destroy the Reaper!!!who shall stand triumphant? Watch Tim Ritter's stupefyingly stupendous Super-8 slasher throwback Day of The Reaper and find out!!!!!        

 Savage Vows (1995) – Bob Dennis.

'Screw off! You Deliverance-looking Fuck!!!!'

Following the tragic death of Mark's (Armond Sposto) wife, his closest friends opt to stay over the weekend, offering their emotional support. Early into the increasingly uneasy gathering, a menacing, black-gloved slasher shadows them, taking enormous satisfaction in attempting to snuff them all out, one at a time. The status of Bob Dennis's Giallo-inflected cult S.O.V has deservedly grown over time, due to its being made more readily available on physical media, and, of course, the internet. Themes of grief, and mental anguish are adroitly spliced into an entertaining, prodigiously stabby D.I.Y death-fest. The lurid analogue video aesthetic proves complimentary, as contemporary film-makers often contrive a faux Grindhouse look, whereas Savage Vows remains atmospherically steeped in gritty S.O.V authenticity. Savage Vows legacy is sustained by its not inconsiderable creativity, able performances, suspenseful text, lively score, and lingeringly gory kills do much to belie its no doubt meagre budget. Produced by The Polonia bros, and starring 'Hallucinations' main man Rob Polonia, this outstanding regional classic provides top tier analogue gore-blasting, making the shuddersome Savage Vows a thrillingly bloody, twist-laden terror treat! The unsettling atmosphere is greatly heightened by tasty deep dish synth drones, that doomily accentuates the maniacal slasher's aggressively grisly M.O.

 Beyond The Wall of Fear (2016) – Joe Sherlock.

This regional, micro-budgeted horror anthology's notable ambition is unfortunately stymied by amateur theatrics, a lacklustre script, and a conspicuously restrictive paucity of production readies. All that being said, Beyond The Wall of Fear is certainly not entirely without value to more forgiving fans of low wattage, Lovecraft-inflected shenanigans, and those who remain unable to resist the lure of a schlock-stuffed portmanteau shocker. Arguably, the continued popularity of indie horror anthologies is down to fond recollections of the late-night Midnight Movie, which would often be Amicus's influential Asylum, or, personal fave Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Persistent, numbing nostalgia, and garishly recycled plots/tropes remain frustratingly ubiquitous in far too many contemporary horror flicks.

Beyond The Wall of Sleep, whoopsie-doodle, Fear, is a somnolent offering, sporadically leavened by bemusingly trite dialogue, 'enthusiastic' acting, and a few righteous moments of exquisite goofiness! To be fair, while none of the segments are expressly awful, sadly little care has been taken in producing any especially memorable content, excepting the canine-scoffing beastie scenario which was intentionally chucklesome! One of Sherlock's more winning peccadilloes are the pleasing preponderance of plus-sized female protagonists, as a card-carrying Chubby Checker, these luscious lovelies provided a welcome distraction. George Stover completists can expect a scintillatingly succinct Stover-load of his Stover-sized B-Thespian charisma! In closing, I started to modestly groove on this during the Dopey-Dagon effort, and I'm still not completely sure whether I massively dug on the muzaky synths, either way, they certainly made an impression!