Humanoids from the Deep

aka Monster

In Creature from the Black Lagoon, it's implied that the Creature develops an attraction to Kay, the expedition's bathing beauty. If you're Guillermo del Toro, an idea like that might inspire you to make a movie like The Shape of Water, an Oscar winning romantic fantasy film. If you're Roger Corman, it might inspire you to produce a movie like Humanoids from the Deep, a movie where the creatures "kill all the men and rape all the women." Humanoids from the Deep is the kind of trashy movie that lets you know it's a trashy movie right away. The first victims of the creatures are a kid and a bunch of dogs. And then that's followed up by 80 minutes of explosions and gore. Back in the day, Leonard Maltin gave Humanoids a fairly favorable review and yet still referred to the movie as "gutter trash." He wasn't wrong.

Rating: 70%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Halloween II

Halloween II isn't as good as the original Halloween, but how could it be? The music isn't as good as the original. The mask isn't as good as the original. Laurie gets sidelined for the bulk of the movie while she recovers from the injuries she sustained during the original. And it sprinkles in some unnecessary back story which will eventually be purged from the mythology of the series. It just doesn't cut the mustard. It cuts a few throats, sure, but not the mustard. And yet, it's not all bad. I've seen The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween: Resurrection. It's definitely better than those two movies.

Rating: 70%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Scream

I've mentioned Scream many times on this site. It's a movie that was responsible for reviving the horror genre in the 1990s and launching a wave of imitators. It was the Pulp Fiction of horror movies, if you will. It holds up pretty well today but it has definitely begun to show its age. The hairstyles and fashions in the film stand out now, what with it being almost twenty years old. And you have to remind yourself that almost no one owned a cellphone at the time, because that's literally a plot point in the movie. I particularly enjoyed watching the movie again recently because I forgot just how awesome Sidney Prescott was, she had plenty of 90s sass and humor along with the strength to kick a little ass when confronted with a jerk in a Halloween costume. It was also enjoyable to be reminded of all of the little plot details around the edges of the film. You remember the teens and the rules and the iconic costumes, but you forget that a lot of the movie was about the main character coming to terms with her mother's death and the reality of her mother's sordid past. Also, the motivation of the killers (spoiler alert?) reads like something you'd see on a Men's Rights Activism message board nowadays, so you're happy to see them get killed at the end.

Rating: 85%

(Image from scream.wikia.com)

April Fool's Day

A group of merry pranksters (including the guy who played Biff in the Back to the Future movies) head off to an island mansion for April Fool's Day weekend. The pranks and practical jokes are all in good fun at first, but then people start disappearing. Is there a killer on the loose? Kinda, sorta, not really. April Fool's Day is a classic '80s slasher flick, despite being a bit tamer than other slasher movies that were released around the same time. The ending seems to piss some people off, but you shouldn't really be watching slasher movies if you're a stickler for plot and/or continuity.

Rating: 75%

(Image from moviegoods.com)

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a young girl accidentally drowns her father with her burgeoning psychic powers. Years later, she returns to the lake where it all happened (you can guess which lake I'm talking about) with her mother and her creepy therapist. The girl with psychic powers, now a young lady, accidentally revives an axe wielding maniac who had been lying dormant at the bottom of the lake. Said maniac decides to butcher a cabin full of horny teens who happened to be gathered nearby for a birthday party, thus leading to an epic showdown of psycho vs psychic.

Rating: Bashed against a tree in a sleeping bag%

(Image from horrordvds.com)

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Poor old Tommy Jarvis (played in a dream sequence by Corey Feldman, played in the rest of the movie by somebody else) is being trucked off to the nut house. It seems that all has not been well for Tommy in the years since he killed Jason Voorhees. It should be a chance for a fresh start, but when one of the troubled (and likely horny) teens at Tommy's halfway house gets hacked up with an axe, it's only the beginning of the bloodshed. How's Tommy supposed to recover in a town full of horny teens, crazy rednecks, 50's greaser throwbacks, drifters, coked up horndogs, and guys with really sweet vans? Plus, is Jason somehow back from the dead? (Spoiler: No, he's not.)

Rating: Speared through an outhouse wall%

(Image from horrordvds.com)