Well, here comes another link to EXPLOITATION RETROSPECT to continue my Halloween Horrors, which tags along nicely with 31 DAYS OF FRIGHT!!  I take on the new Blu Ray of CURTAINS… a film that has a really great 20 minutes!

Check it out by clicking HERE! 

I do so enjoy DTV sequels, and both CABIN FEVER 3: PATIENT ZERO (which sounds like a scoreboard fittingly enough) and HATCHET III are currently streaming on Netflix, so it was DOUBLE SEQUEL PROBATION horror time!

First up was Cabin Fever 3, I have to say that the original did not do much for me on it’s release, but it’s been a while. I totally missed 2 (not streaming…drat) and figured how much could I miss? Well, not much.  This film has a somewhat moral compass reduced doctor trying to solve the mystery viruses cure out by experimenting on victims. Luckily, he found someone that is immune! Lucky for his studies, bad for Patient Zero (played by Sean Astin in a great manic performance).  But Zero ain’t taking this lying down, and finds his way to spread the infection through the SECRET ISLAND INSTALLATION.  Well, toss in some revelers that have interpersonal issues, great bodies and less than stellar oral hygiene habits and combine, shake, stir…MELT THEM DOWN!! 
There are several subplots here, as it bounces between the doctor and staff trying to survive and the expected knuckleheads that stumble on the base and suffer the consequences, and it’s fast paced enough to really work well.  If you want GROSS body horror, you’ll be well served between cunnilingus carnage and one of the all time most amusing contaminated women battling by literally tearing each other apart that I can recall.  Totally worth the time just for that.
Visually it’s engaging even when it falls into the “OH NO I MUST RUN DOWN THE HALL” scenes, and comics writer/artist Kaare Andrews definitely doesn’t shy away from the gore.  You’ll be ready to join our infected pal right here for sure…  And CF3P0 (Which is my “dirty Star Wars” slang title) is a good streaming flick for gore fans!

 Hatchet was a film I really enjoyed, but the sequel was fun and pretty much forgettable for me, so I didn’t bother to hunt down 3 until it popped up in my Netflix suggestions.  It doesn’t get easier than that and WHAM, the first 7 minutes of the movie are just excellent.  Hatchet fans know the evil Victor Crowley is back again, and it’s Kane Hodder doing his best imposing Jason shoulder lift and hard Triple H Exhale splattering suckas all over the screen. I don’t want to spoil it, but GIANT CHAINSAW for the ultimate in “splitting headache” gets things rolling.

But here is where it gets interesting. Hatchet 3 plays like a GWAR video more than a horror movie, and while I do love Gwar I had to chuckle that Gor Gor didn’t just pop up and eat Crowley at some point. And yep, GWAR does the theme song!  Lots of stumps and torn open parts spraying blood replace anything resembling plot, though we do get a nifty idea for stopping Crowley that I thought was very cool.  A mish mash of cameos and appearances by Sid Haig and the always excellent Caroline Williams (STRETCH!) as well as Danielle Harris returning.  But things hop all over in the short running time and everyone feels like a cameo next to the massive carnage.  As an almost non-stop shock show, you get exactly what you could want from the movie, but I’ll be damned if I can remember anything in particular about the movie outside of a bunch of groovy gore scenes. That is not a bad thing by any stretch, as streaming DTV goes, it’s almost perfect really.  Maybe if I watch all the films together and this could be the giant third act that it really is, then all is good.  I will say this. Jason fans will get a big kick out of seeing Hodder in make up taking on Jason (Reboot) mega cool dude, Derek Mears.  Screw it…worth the watch for those bits. It’s not long, it’s gory…and it’s part of your streaming package. Why not?

 I’m so glad that the TV spot for SILENT SCREAM is included on the outstanding DVD presentation from Scorpion Releasing (#1001 by the spine no less).  When it played theatrically I would have been 12 years old and I remember that spot VERY well.  Combo that with the fact that clips from the film were shown on the Siskel & Ebert “Women In Danger” episode of Sneak Previews and it became I film I just had to see. Alas, it never happened.  Maybe I missed the week it played at the General Cinema it was so easy to sneak in to.  And then…poof, I sort of forgot about it.  Would I have appreciated that the film featured Barbara Steele in an exceptional performance as a scary mute maniac?  Or Yvonne De Carlo as the crazy mom?  The slow burn tension that may just be a LITTLE to slow for 12 year old me?  Hmm… I don’t know.  But anyone that does know me is probably aware that my tastes haven’t mutated all that much since 1980!  As October 2014 rolled around I finally bumped into a very inexpensive used copy of SILENT SCREAM, so now I can investigate it like Cameron Mitchell on a short pick up shoot!! 

Now this one is pretty simple, a group of college students find themselves unable to get housing and scramble around to find a place to stay.  Unfortunately for several of them, including out pretty and plucky heroine, the house they have picked to live in doesn’t JUST have a weird-O young man and his mother creeping around and crossing spooky with deranged!  After much walking, wandering, chatting and even a little partying, a killer that has managed to escape a locked room in the house, begins ending their lives with a weapon.  What kind of weapon? A knife. What kind of knife? To quote Avery Schreiber (!!)… “a big one.”

 Silent Scream has a really interesting history, which is covered in depth in the interviews on the disc, and a great cast that not only includes Steele, De Carlo, Mitchell and Schreiber, but a really excellent performance from Rebecca Balding (also in the underrated THE BOOGENS) and even has a nice twist to explain all the family drama that leads to the films climactic, and eerily staged at the start, rampage.  But for me, the film never gets rambunctious enough to be more than an occasionally eerie game of Clue with very few suspects.  I would have a hard time recommending it as a must see film, but if you are a Barbara Steele fan that hasn’t caught it, I would say to do so right away. She is every inch the iconic beauty as always, and plays her part to the hilt of the very very big knife!  And here is where I know that I would have parted ways today with 12 year old self that missed this film.  My favorite scene in the film isn’t a joyride of horror or mounting tension or anything like that. It’s a small moment that Rebecca Blanding pulls off that is the thing I’ll always remember. After finally succumbing to the charms of the most handsome lad in the house, she lays back as he is about to give her a not so silently screaming orgasm, but suddenly realizes that she is protecting a beer that she is drinking. With a smile she asks…”what should I do with my beer.”  Never once does her passion over ride her good sense to protect her drink.  SEXY!!!  Another Halloween Horror in the books, it was a DOG OF THE WEEK for Siskel and Ebert, but I wouldn’t be so unkind. What I saw was an OK bit of PSYCHOdrama that, thanks to Scorpion Releasing, has it’s story fully told.  A lot of work went into it being salvaged, reshot and released.  And that story is as fun as the film!

Oh man…watching this is making 12 year old me FREAK OUT!!!