Mordsaga aka Story of a Murder. (1977) – Reynir Oddson.

'The spankings were only a pretext for touching you!!!'

This rigorously compelling Icelandic drama vividly presents a broken upper middle-class bourgeois family, a long-suffering wife (Gudrun Asmundsdottir), and 18yr old Anna (Thora Sigurthorsdottir), both boozily oppressed by a cruel, overbearing, patently incestuous patriarch (Steindor Hjorelfsson). Not only is Mordsaga a genuinely suspenseful family drama, the striking interior décor, appealing period fashions, and time-capsule views of 70s Iceland prove no less fascinating. My knowledge of Icelandic cinema is sparse, but I can't imagine I could have asked for a more delicious entre than Reynir Oddson's Mordsaga.

I've long had a penchant for 1970s era cinema, I appreciate the aesthetic, and the philosophic sensibilities, especially when the bolder film-makers take their sharpened scalpels, exposing the rot fulminating beneath 'polite societies' monied facade. I liked how the director revealed his intent for the film by having one of the secondary characters smugly mansplaining Claude Chabrol's cinematic modus operandi to girlfriend Anna, the innocent victim of her father's worst abuses. The truly fine cast are absolutely superb, and the able director most certainly delivers during his thrilling, intensely dramatic final act.

 Mehyo aka Female Leopard (1985)- Kôyû Ohara.

'After doing something bad, your body becomes hot!'

An attractive young woman Yuko (Kozu Tanaka) reunites with her estranged, deeply eccentric artist brother Takuya (Yukihiko Sato), and during her stay in the lavish family estate, she becomes aware of increasingly bizarre nocturnal escapades, noting her brother's erotic obsessions proving to be anything but fraternal. Any eminently disgraceful Nikkatsu production that begins with a kaleidoscopically kinky soiree is sure to escalate in a splendidly thrilling manner, which Mehyo does magnificently! Stating that Mehyo is a trifle fruity is like saying Eli Roth remains an excruciatingly dull film-maker, it simply doesn't do it any real justice.

Acting like a most invigorating tonic, I found director Ohara had a gift for evoking a teasingly voyeuristic milieu of faintly sinister erotica. Filled with outré incident, featuring a deliciously intrusive sequence wherein the increasingly unstable brother brutishly 'investigates' the physical suitability of his erstwhile lover's body. Does she make the grade? Watch Female Leopard and find out! Outside of the impeccable array of ravishingly beautiful women, I also found the score to be altogether spiffing too! While not an example of wall-to-wall Nikkatsu extremity, the performances are fine, it's frequently frisky, bluntly incestuous, competently shot, and is especially blessed by its beguilingly charismatic, exquisitely lovely leading lady.

 Head Case (2007) – Anthony Spadaccini.

This expressly grim, relentlessly downbeat found footage horror is constructed from the many hours of audio/video footage pertaining to an investigation into serial thrill killers Andrea & Wayne, and the alleged murders of at least 100 victims between 1986 to 2007. There's no doubt that the intimate, confessional quality, roughly captured on analogue tape lends an additional charge of intensity to Spadaccini's visceral Head Case. While much, if not all of the content is upsetting, for me, one of the more wickedly compelling elements are the informal scenes, presenting the almost bland normalcy of Wayne & Andrea's suburban day-to-day existence. This queasily elucidates how functional psychopaths can effectively compartmentalize their lives, during the day, the married couple are apparently anonymous working stiffs, smiling dully at a disinterested world, absolute evil hiding in plain sight.

One of the film's greatest strengths is how shockingly unthreatening they often appear, their perverse, feral natures absolutely heightened by the dissonant contrast of faux cosy domesticity, the playful mom & pop banter with their two children ringing disturbingly false. Head Case is terse, and mean-spirited throughout, unflinchingly exposing the utterly ruthless personalities of sadistic narcissists Wayne & Andrea. Their contempt for human life is absolute, two dreary perverts, blithely committing sickening acts of torture solely for their sordid edification often leaves a sour taste. A singularly nauseating couple, their monstrous peccadilloes provide for an especially glum, unhallowed soap opera of numbing depravity. The unfamiliar cast deliver natural performances, including a fine contribution from Brinke Stevens. Not exactly fun stuff, Head Case often proved so immersive, there were many instances when I forgot that it was fiction.

 Mutilator 2 (2023) – Buddy Cooper.

'With the return of Big Ed, y'all are gonna end up more than a little dead!'

Like many ardent indie horror fans, I was resolutely hooked by Buddy Cooper's spectacularly grisly, hugely entertaining 80s slasher cult The Mutilator, so, quite naturally, I approached the great man's vastly belated sequel with some pronounced trepidation. Bloody mayhem commences swiftly upon the troubled set of The mutilator reboot, the cartoonishly shouty director being brutally slain, and during the reunion/wrap party, both ex-members of the original feature, and the increasingly terrified cast & crew of the remake are terminally axed from the proceedings, and those survivors fearfully start to believe that, perhaps, Big Ed's vengeful spirit had somehow been rebooted too!

My fears were groundless, while utterly contemporary, with a conspicuously clean video aesthetic, Cooper's energized young cast all do a terrific job, with veteran character actor Terry Kiser clearly having a ball playing the palpably unhinged psycho Thespian Jack Chatham. While the graphic gore is viscerally executed, Cooper's unflinchingly bloody DTV sequel is an intentionally sardonic, deliciously self-aware slasher. Appearing absolutely modern, replete with ubiquitous drone shots, yet rewardingly steeped in the bravura, retrograde ultra-violence of the 80s VHS horror boom. I found the humour, on occasion, to be a tad relentless, the grotesquely libidinous producer is a standout gem, along with, two, or three exquisitely painful-looking, eye-poppingly gruesome kills! Manifestly not in the same league as the original, but a fun, uproariously bloodthirsty, more than credible celebration of Big Ed's slasher god legacy!

 Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil (1991) – Clay Borris.

'He is evil beyond imagination!!!!!'

Excluding Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the often overlooked Critters Franchise, I can't immediately think of a still viable 'Part IV', hells onions!!! even The Godfather stumble-bummed at Part III! Happily, this amiable Canadian slasher has just enough plasma in the tank to keep the 90s slashing! Killer priests, and maniacal monks have been pulp horror staples ever since the gory daze of dog-eared penny dreadfuls, so freaky Father Jonus's (James Carver) serially slut-slaying, nookie-neutering evangelist is in exalted company! Suggesting not just a little irony, religious dogma has had far more of a long-lastingly positive effect on perpetuating horror fiction than it has in saving souls!

Not unlike the equally crazed father Malius in Happy Hell Night, the saintly snuffing commences once Jonus escapes from his subterranean cell, getting his cassock in a terminal twist over all the ungodly preponderance of teenage horn-dogging. Undeniably generic fare, Clay Borris's entertainingly formulaic slasher maintains watchability due to its lava hot nubility, tantalizing flashes of Victoria Secret'd T&A, and another driving score from slasher supremo Paul Zaza. With a goodly pace, some nasty kills, and a suspenseful, splendidly stabby climax, slasher fans could do a lot worse than this lively Canuck kill-fest. I believe that organized religion inculcates a singular form of derangement within its acolytes, so father Jonus might also be interpreted as a dire warning over the inherent dangers of dabbling with the good book! For such an initially timorous young virgin, Meagan (Nikki De Boer) proved to be an especially spunky final girl!

 Memorial Valley Massacre (1988) – Robert C. Hughes.

Not long after opening for business, the patrons of this ill-fated campsite are targeted by a viciously territorial cave-dweller. Like the Godmonster of Indian Flats before it, this schlock-pile is played strictly for laffs, and is best viewed through well-lubricated beer goggles! While it should be hard to resist a dopey slasher with William Smith and Cameron Mitchell, director Hughes's frequent lapses of judgement make it frequently resistible! As an aside, it might prove interesting to discover whether the producers of Encino Man used this primitive 80s slasher as their inspiration? I simply MUST give the script well-deserved props for digging up the 'Chuck U Farley!' gag, especially since the greatly belaboured comedy elements herein are no less basic than the bucktoothed slayer's approach to personal hygiene. Hard to miss, and ear-wormingly distracting, Memorial Valley Massacre's most obvious idiosyncrasy is the horribly synthetic, consistently crass soundtrack. 

I very much hope this proves to be one of my more successful attempts at prognostication, but should the Hallmark Channel ever decide to re-re-remake The Hills Have Eyes, it would hopefully, at least, partially resemble the uncommonly odoriferous, eco-warrior schlocker Memorial Valley Massacre! While I'm not convinced that a slasher absolutely needs a message, Maniac did marvellously well without one, but gosh Dang it all!!!! Memorial Valley Massacre's tree-hugging axe-killer clearly has got his heart in the right place...problem is, you play your speed metal tapes too loud, yours won't be! Next to Linnea Quigley lingeringly flashing her lingerie in ROTLD, I righteously dig on bathos, and MVM got bountiful bathos, like Madonna's sock draw got cooties. As a credible slasher, this one's a bust, enjoyed as a Tromatizing goof-fest, it has more tiger-blooded wins than a birthday-week fentanyl binge with Charlie Sheen. I always knew William Smith was a pedigree Alpha dog, but his brutal method of preparing a well-done steak is some next-level shit!    

 Harlequin (1980) – Simon Wincer.

An ambitious, media-savvy, eminently corruptible politician (David Hemmings), and his attractive trophy wife (Carmen Duncan), have their aspirationally bourgeois existence demonstratively upended following the apparently miraculous cure of their dying son, by the darkly charismatic stranger Gregory Wolfe (Robert Powell). Harlequin remains a sublimely strange, appealingly enigmatic genre feature, the upgraded Rasputin mythos is strongly realised, as trixter Wolfe maintains his eccentric, sinister, playfully ambivalent facade right until Harlequin's deliciously ill-omened climax. The ruthless machinations of malign power broker Doc Wheelan (Broderick Crawford) provides an authentic, albeit heavy-handed nemesis, his increasingly desperate need to silence the sly, impishly manipulative Wolfe culminating in a suitably bloody climax.

A thrilling 80s Aussie oddity, mirroring Giulio Paradisi's equally Sci-fried The Visitor, Harlequin's central messianic magister, and his increasingly flamboyant flights of phantasmagoria prove utterly irresistible, if occasionally a tad confounding. Powell's performance is positively electric, his deeply penetrating, rapier-like gaze, and commanding presence lend rigorous credibility to Harlequin's more unexpectedly preternatural digressions. Powell receives capable support from an excellent cast, Carmen Duncan delivering a no less charged portrayal of a privileged socialite, anesthetized a loveless marriage, and the grief over her sickening child, galvanized by the virile, quixotic, Svengali-like jackanapes of Wolfe. A compelling cinematic curiosity that bares repeated viewings, and esteemed Australian composer Brian May provides yet another dynamic score.