Top 10 Underrated Horror Films: The Evil and Amityville 2

Today's picks turned out to be an inadvertent Andrew Prine double feature. If that's good or bad, I'll leave that up to you.

8 - The Evil (1978)

This is one of those movies that I would see the trailer for on multiple trailer compilations, and it looked gloriously cheesy. When I finally got to see this film, it certainly didn't disappoint in the cheese department, but it was also highly entertaining.

Richard Crenna, his wife Joanna Pettet, his buddy Andrew Prine, and a few others come to this old building to turn it into a new clinic. Unfortunately, the house is a bit of a bastard, and before you know it, it's lighting up humans like cigarettes, giving its own shock therapy, and at one point even attempting ghost rape. 

Crenna does a great job of playing the doubting lead, while his more believing wife Pettet knows some bad shit's going down. The atmosphere is suitably creepy, and the kills, while not imaginative, are certainly startling.

One thing I noticed was that the girl played by Cassie Yates is killed by having her throat ripped out by her own German Shepherd. Now I can't say for sure, but it's very similar to the scene in Suspiria when the blind guy gets his throat ripped out in the middle of an city square. I wonder which film Fulci decided to see to get the same death by guide dog scene in the Beyond.

If you can overlook the ridiculous ending with Victor Buono, you'll enjoy this slice of 70's horror cheese. The full movie is on Youtube under House of Evil, but here's a nice trailer to get you started.

7 - Amityville 2 (1982)

Wow. Whereas the first film was to put bluntly, dull as a documentary about teaspoon collecting, this one just says "fuck it, let's creep the hell out of everyone". How did they do that? One Jack Magner.

Magner, playing Sonny Montelli (a thinly disguised version of Ronald DeFeo Jr), reaches a level of pure creepiness that hadn't been seen since Tom Basham in the Psychopath (1973). The way he leers after his sister (played by the lovely Diane Franklin) even made MY skin crawl. 

The story is a awesome mixture of the DeFeo murders retold, mixed in with some blatant Exorcist touches. This wildly dysfunctional family moves into the perfect house. By perfect I mean the best possible place in Long Island to be possessed by your Walkman. Burt Young is the abusive dickhead father, and there ain't no Rocky to save his ass here.

Father Adamsky (James Olson) senses something terribly wrong with the house, but fuck that...it's time to go hang out with Andrew Prine for the weekend. He comes back from the trip to find the whole family dead, and a distraught Sonny saying he doesn't remember.

You've got demon possession, you got incest, and you have one of the most unsettling and realistic looking scenes when Sonny kills his family. Seriously, I dare any of you to watch that particular scene and not be like "whoa".

This one is also on the Youtubes, but you don't have to take my word for it (Reading Rainbow music plays).

Fairy Tales (1978)

Fairy Tales (1978)

Director: Harry Hurwitz

Stars: Don Sparks, Sy Richardson, Linnea Quigley

As with most sex comedies, this one is pretty straight forward. A prince on his 21st birthday must find a woman that can get him "excited". So he sets off to Fairy Land where he meets a bunch of famous children's book characters doing things I ain't never read about. Maybe in Playboy, but I just look at that for the ads.

For a young man growing up and starting to really notice girls, waking up after my parents went to bed, sneaking my way to the living room, and seeing this on late night cable was like hitting the boner jackpot. I hadn't seen this movie in at least 25 years, but it brought back some fond (and slightly embarrassing) memories.

Although there is lots and lots of full frontal nudity in this, the way this is all presented makes it come off less sleazy than just goofy. Outside of a few lame risque jokes, and of course fully naked women, there's nothing really offensive here. Fun and harmless.

Things I Took from Fairy Tales

- This movie reminds me that Professor Irwin Corey is still alive at 100! I wonder if he watches this on a loop.

- Naked Angela Aames as Little Bo Peep? DEAR GOD YES PLEASE!!

- Odd thing to notice while tits are on screen every 15 seconds, but Don Sparks, who plays our hero the Prince, does a really good job in the role. Has a real everyman quality to him. He's done a ton of TV work since then.

- I think if you had a sex comedy at any time during the 70's (and early 80's) there has to be one character that's a complete flaming homosexual stereotype. In this case, it's Jack to the always horny Jill. I got something you can fetch. That was for Jill...not Jack. I swear. Shut up.

- I had completely forgotten that this movie had musical numbers in it. Some not that great, but the Snow White song about her sex starved seven dwarves is a highlight.

- Never thought I would see a trio of naked masked ladies singing a song about S&M in the vein of the Andrews Sisters. One of those naked beauties is Evelyn Guerrero, who is best known as Donna in the Cheech and Chong movies.

- If you watch the aforementioned S&M number, watch for the chained up guy really having a good time. You'll know who I'm talking about.

-The little guy helping the weird cop looks like a tiny Iron Sheik.

- Ol' King Cole was a bug eyed overacting soul. A bug eyed overacting soul indeed.

I wonder when Gussie Gander has to replace the carpeting in her shoe of ill repute, if she goes shag or Dr. Scholls. Maybe she's gellin'.

-I'm surprised to see how fresh faced Linnea Quigley is in this film (she still looks great today). I then noticed she was nude. Suddenly things got awkward. I shouldn't have watched this on the library's computer. 

At the end of this movie, they promised us three prizes. I don't care about the love potion or the cod piece (I already have a custom one), but the sheep...I have a friend who's in need of one. For the wool I mean. Really. Stop looking at me like that. Don't you walk away from me!! STOP SHAKING YOUR HEAD!

 If you want to see the whole thing, it IS on YouTube. But it's very NSFW. But here is a compilation of the doorman to Mother Hubbard's cat house. One of the unsung heroes of this film if you ask me.

FM (1978)

FM (1978)

Director: John A. Alonzo

Stars: Michael Brandon, Martin Mull, Eileen Brennan

QSKY is the hottest FM station in Los Angeles, with it's Tom Pettys and it's Eagles and the title track by Steely Dan. An eclectic group of DJ's led by Jeff Dugan go on strike when the higher ups want to shove army commercials all over the place. Look for a young Jimmy Buffet trying to save the whales with Livingston Saturday Night. I think the whales prefer to die.

Six Things I've Learned From FM

1. It's perfectly OK to replace your buddy with a former love interest and then never really think about that character again. Ho's before Bros!

2. I enjoyed the subtle way they take on the whole marijuana issue. I think they may enjoy it. Don't quote me on that though.

3. "We've got Linda Rondstant for several songs and by golly we're gonna show her singing all of them!"

4. If a woman has white nipples, it's a cop out to not freakin show them! You know how rare they are!? There's only like three reported cases in the U.S. and one of them is a guy!

5. The DJ's have such colorful names like Mother, Eric Swann, and the Prince of Darkness. If I worked there, I'd just be called the Round Mound of Sound. Assholes.

6. QSKY is a peacful, fun loving group who enjoys smoking pot, having sex, and illegally stealing concerts from other radio stations so they can get in trouble. But I forgive them because they know Reo Speedwagon.

KISS Meets the Phanton of the Park (1978)

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

Director: Gordon Hessler

Stars: Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Anthony Zerbe

The rock mega group KISS is playing at a local theme park, and everyone's excited. Everyone except Abner Devereoux, creator of the park's many animatronic wonders. When Abner makes duplicates of the makeup marvels, they must battle to see who getsa the groupies first. Spoiler: Neither Catman gets any groupies.

Six Things I've Learned from KISS Meets the Phanton of the Park

1. These guys know how to make an entrance. You won't see Steve Perry walking down a slope of laser blasts created from his own eye. Advantage Starchild.

2. So Abner turned some guy into his henchman/robot so he could be a photographer for Teen Beat? I hope he got Paul's dreamy side.

3.  When the robot KISS starts singing the crowd gets angry and boos them. Weird thing is, they don't really sound any different than their normal stuff (and I'm a fan).

4. If you notice,the Demon doppelganger that's laying on Abner's table has a woman's head placed directly in the eye line of his crotch. I don't believe that wasn't on purpose for a moment.

5. No truth to the rumor that KISS thought about replacing Ace with his black stunt double.

6. Not something learned, but a question...were Abner's creations really robots, or were they made up of asshole customers? I mean, heads, legs, torsos...Abner Frankenstein is more like it.

The Redeemer Son of Satan VHS Artwork

You can just tell how proud the Prince of Darkness is with his precious offspring. "That's MY spawn!"