The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies (Mammoth Books)

by Peter Normanton

  Egyptian filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis’s low-budget There Was A Little Girl is more commonly known as Madhouse, in addition to going by the names And When She Was Bad and Party des Schreckens, and builds on the poem “There Was a Little Girl” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as the premise for its narrative. The director had already acquired a reputation for producing low-budget copies of the far more substantial movies, which included Beyond the Door (1974) inspired by The Exorcist (1973); similarly The Visitor (1979) made ample use of the The Omen’s (1976) premise and Tentacoli (1977) was not unlike the celebrated box office hit Jaws (1975). His films may have been highly derivative, but they each saw major theatrical release and rewarded Assonitis with a success that would maintain his position in the industry. With a typically limited budget, he created a well-observed drama, enhanced by the compelling performance of the deaf children in Julia’s care. The mood remained sombre and the house atmospheric, allowing Assonitis to conjure with suspense rather than the gore many enthusiasts of the day would have preferred.

  Although an improvised dummy was quite often used during the Rottweiler attack scenes, the film made it to the UK list of video nasties, having been released without certification to the home video market. It was released four times on video, originally by Virgin-Label in 1984 in a heavily edited format and then again in 1989. The film’s graphic content and seeming cruelty to animals ensured Madhouse was not to be passed without cuts in the United Kingdom until 2004.

  ON THE FINAL night of summer camp the counsellors and children gather around the campfire to enjoy the time-honoured practice of telling ghost stories, in a scenario very similar to The Burning (1981). Max, the man who runs the camp, talks of Madman Marz, a farmer who was supposed to have lived in the area. In a fit of madness he turned on his family while they slept and butchered them with an axe. After discovering his crime the locals caught up with Marz and hung him. His body, however, disappeared and, so the legend goes, when his name is called he appears armed with his trusty axe. The kids can’t resist making fun of the story and call out the psychopath’s name. Madman Marz we soon learn is something more than a legend; his disfigured presence still prowls these woods surrounding the isolated camp. It doesn’t take long before counsellors are faced with mutilation and cruel slaughter. Some of the group will meet their end before the hack of his axe, while others have their heads thrust into a car engine and are decapitated by a car bonnet. Director Joe Giannone dared on this occasion to tamper with the rules by having his lead characters fall before the grunting killer, with only the rabble-rouser of the piece, Richie, surviving the grisly onslaught.

  This was Joe Gianonne’s one and only time in the directorial chair before moving into production. With working titles of “Madman Marz” and “The Legend Lives”, he succeeded in making his film a little more than a poor man’s Friday the 13th in the year when the slasher craze went into overdrive. Under the light of the moon he crafted an air of finality with some commendable night photography and blue-toned lighting that evoked the foreboding in these woods. The chase scene in the kitchen, culminating in a static shot focusing on Ellie’s foolish attempt to hide in the fridge, would ensure his audience stayed for the duration and pass the word on so it reached its target audience. This was a low-budget feature with advertising at an absolute premium, but it went on to enjoy a cult status.

  AFTER KILLING A man in self-defence in a small Thai town, photographer John Bradley (Ivan Rassimov) disappears into the rainforest to capture the wildlife and scenery in his camera’s lens. His guide becomes concerned when they appear to be venturing too far up river. His trepidation is borne out when he is killed and, as Bradley awakens, he is captured in the netting of a native tribe. The natives haul him away to their village and string him up, convinced that he is a mythical fish-man. Maraya (Me Me Lai) thinks otherwise; she knows he is only a man and very soon Bradley is reduced to life as a menial slave. After killing Maraya’s fiancé, Bradley escapes only to be recaptured, and his punishment begins when he is trussed up on a rotating cross with darts aimed at his exposed body. He survives his ordeal, and eventually gains the tribe’s acceptance, marrying Maraya in a rather strange ceremonial ritual. Their happiness is tainted when Maraya falls ill during her pregnancy and Bradley joins the tribesmen to fend off a cannibal attack.

  Umberto Lenzi’s Il Paese Del Sesso Selvaggio, which has also gone by the names Deep River Savages, Mondo Cannibale and Sacrifice, unconsciously pioneered the Italian fascination for cannibal excess. This wasn’t the flesh-eating exploitation that was to torment the horror movies of a few years hence; rather, Lenzi presented a well-conceived emotionally charged adventure that only resorted to the gore of cannibalism as the film came to its climactic finale. The human violence was toned down, although it would have been appreciably extreme for the audiences of the day; the cruelty forced on the animals, however, would cause Lenzi’s film considerable problems. This was the first of the director’s trilogy of cannibal features, followed by Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981), and even though there was an intensity to its sex scenes it would never have been truly notorious. However, when it was submitted to the BBFC for its 1975 UK cinema release, three minutes and forty-five seconds had to be removed to those scenes involving animal cruelty. When it came uncut to video in the UK in 1982, it survived until March 1984, when it was listed as a video nasty. The Man from Deep River remained on the list until September 1985; over forty years after its first release in the UK, the original cuts remain in place.

  AN OBSCURED FIGURE watches a young couple as they frolic on the beach. When the young man goes to collect some wood, the voyeur approaches the young woman and without warning takes a razor to her throat. On his return, the young man is attacked by the same killer, who almost decapitates his prey by pulling ever so tightly on the wire that binds his neck.

  Hours later, the killer, Frank Zito (Joe Spinell), awakes screaming in his sleep. This overweight Vietnam veteran lives alone in the squalor of a small, one-room apartment located somewhere in New York City. By day, he works as the landlord in a small apartment complex. His tenants have remained oblivious to his fixation for stalking and killing unsuspecting women in the darkened streets of this rundown locale. Having slain his victim, he scalps them in a sequence of vile shots using a razor and then adorns his trophy and their clothing on his bizarre assembly of lifeless mannequins. Once beautified, the mannequins are escorted to his bed, where Frank continues an ongoing conversation with his mother, who was killed in a car accident some years before. She was, in truth, an abusive prostitute whose relentless cruelty scarred her son, turning him into the unhinged killer he has now become. His collection of mannequins never quite satisfies his nonsensical needs, and after only a few nights, boredom sets in and he once again takes to the streets in search of his quarry.

  Garbed in hunting gear, Frank places a shotgun in a violin case along with some ammunition and his ever-reliable razor and then steps out into the night. While driving through Brooklyn, he catches sight of an amorous couple leaving a disco to go to their car. The man (Tom Savini) and woman park up in a lot near the Verrazano Bridge and then climb into the back seat for some late-night action. As they kiss, the woman glimpses Frank’s shadowed figure at the car window and urges her lover to drive her home. For them it’s too late for such concerns; in a series of slow-motion frames, Frank leaps astride the bonnet and blasts the shotgun through the windscreen, blowing the man’s head clean apart. The scene carries an additional degree of infamy in that it was believed to have been a simulation of the Son of Sam killings carried out by David Berkowitz between July 1976 and August 1977. With this in mind, the audience knows the woman cowering in the back seat has little chance of survival; Frank mercilessly aims the shotgun and fires. Her disco attire is later put to good use, titivating one of his beloved mannequins.

  Several days later while strolling through Central Park, Frank is snapped by a fashion photographer, Anna D’Antoni (Caroline Mun
ro). He manages to locate her address and is so astounded by the quality of her work he asks to take her out to dinner. While attending a photo shoot, Frank catches the eye of one of Anna’s models, a girl name Rita. Using a ruse, he later gains entry to her home. Once inside he completely flips, referring to the bound girl as his mother then proclaiming his undying love before stabbing her through the chest. Frank hasn’t finished yet; he mutilates her body and as with all of his other female victims hacks off her scalp.

  While on their way to the cinema, he offers to take Anna to visit his mother’s grave. Within minutes of him standing aside his mother’s grave, Frank’s mental state becomes a cause for serious concern. He turns and grabs Anna by the throat, but in the ensuing chase, she fights him off with a shovel and duly makes her escape. As he returns to his mother’s grave, he finally succumbs to his psychosis. He has become the helpless child he once was, now confronted by his mother’s abusive corpse. In a tearful state, he makes his way home only to be set upon by the mannequins who have now embodied the women he has recently murdered. They horde around Frank, clinging onto their weapons of choice and in the film’s sickening finale violently stab at his stomach, dismember one of his arms and tear his head from his body, causing a visceral effusion of splatter.

  The next morning two police detectives, looking to apprehend a murder suspect, force their way into Frank’s apartment. They find him lying on his bed, his stomach covered in blood, the result of what looks to be a self-inflicted knife wound. His silent collection of mannequins give nothing away, giving the detectives a chance to take their leave, at which point Frank’s eyes begin to open.

  William Lustig’s Maniac endorsed both the slasher and splatter phenomena of its day, taking the viewer to a seedy part of New York City witnessed in so many of the period’s low-budget features. His grimy take on the Big Apple complimented the degenerate nature of his film; within these seamy environs, the deranged Frank was able to accomplish his killings with unusual finesse, while his director assuredly accentuated the tension leading to the final strike. This adept pacing in those moments before the kill was essential, because this downbeat feature had such an overriding dependency on the precision of its bloodthirsty slaughter. It wasn’t until the appearance of Frank’s love interest Anna, well over halfway through the story, that Maniac at last acquired a much needed element of depth.

  With the focus of his film being so reliant on the intensity of the killing, William Lustig did himself a huge favour by securing the services of one of the finest talents in the business, special effects genius Tom Savini, who developed a quite remarkable approach to enhancing the credibility of the scalping scenes. While scalping had been quite commonplace in westerns, it had never before been observed in such close detail in a horror movie. The scalpings were indeed graphic but Savini’s crowning moment came with his own grisly death while sitting in the front seat of his car, which proved somewhat ironic considering the film was targeted for its vitriolic attitude towards women. The producers, however, were acutely aware of the film’s contentious regard for its female cast and as a result never submitted this feature to the MPAA. They could have got into even more trouble if the crew had been discovered on the streets of New York, as they were staging many scenes guerrilla-style without having paid for the necessary permits. The infamous shotgun sequence was but one of these scenes and was filmed in the space of a single hour.

  Joe Spinell planned a sequel, Maniac 2: Mr Robbie, in which he hoped to play the host of a children’s television show who had taken to murdering abusive parents. This telling was very similar in concept to The Psychopath (1975) and was probably a step too far; production was delayed on the eight-minute-long promotional video until 1986 when the golden age of the slasher movie was sadly at its end. Spinell was unable to secure the necessary financial backing and so moved on to more work. William Lustig’s career was far from being over; he would continue as a director with his Maniac Cop series and the post-Gulf War slasher Uncle Sam (1997). As well as producing a whole string of documentaries, he went on to establish Blue Underground, a company that continues to distribute horror and exploitation cinema. He has never given up hope of remaking his movie, possibly with the help of a French production company.

  SOMETHING HAS GONE seriously wrong on the streets of New York; as a woman chases through the darkened streets tailed by a couple of thugs, she is murdered by the man she had looked to save her. Soon after a driver is pulled over by a policeman for ignoring a red light; his girlfriend watches in horror as his throat is slashed open and his lifeless body is hurled through the windscreen. After another chase, a handcuffed felon is left to die lying face down in wet concrete. The killer then vanishes into the night, leaving a city now in a state of panic. City Hall does all it can to assuage the public outcry by playing down these atrocious crimes and Lieutenant Frank McCrae is put in charge of the investigation. The few witnesses to these killings insist the perpetrator was a policeman and very soon suspicion falls on a young officer. Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) is summarily placed under arrest, having been framed by the real killer and a mysterious woman phone-caller. The murders lead to a former officer, Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), but every report shows that he was killed in prison, having been wrongfully jailed by his seniors. Somehow, he has returned to the streets to mete out his revenge, but he is also killing the innocent.

  Eight years after directing Maniac (1980), Bronx-born William Lustig returned to the gritty streets of New York to unleash Maniac Cop, a pulp-styled film that was devoid of any underlying pretension, seeking only to entertain. It had been five years since he had directed his last film Vigilante (1983), and by 1988 New York had gone through a major clean up. Lustig, however, in another of his low-budget features presented a city still plagued by the downbeat atmosphere that had been a key element to the success of so many thrillers from the 1970s. His expert direction, particularly in the more violent encounters with Cordell and the prison flashbacks, would ensure Maniac Cop became another cult success, one that warranted two sequels, Maniac Cop 2 (1990) and Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence (1993), with a fourth film in the series, sadly without Robert Z’Dar, now in the planning stage. Lustig’s approach perfectly suited Larry Cohen’s script, which made clever use of its premise in forcing the urban paranoia that permeated the Big Apple to erupt into frantic hysteria as an officer of the law shamelessly abused his power. Cohen had a considerable track record, having started scripting at the age of seventeen, and had garnered a cult status of his own after working on the hit television series The Invaders. Soon after he had worked his way into the director’s chair on several low-budget features including It’s Alive (1974) and The Stuff (1985). The imposing figure of Robert Z’Dar had started life as a keyboard player and singer for the Chicago-based rock band Nova Express, a name inspired by the 1964 novel written by William S. Burroughs. Z’Dar has never looked back, and has gone on to enjoy a long career in both film and television.

  JACK WEIS’S REMAKE of H. G. Lewis’s Blood Feast (1963) begins with a well-dressed man entering a hip nightclub. He meets up with the most “evil” woman in the place and after a brief conversation escorts her to his apartment. Once in the privacy of his home, this intense-looking individual takes her into a room with a view to engaging in something rather “special”. When the viewer gets to see the room, it resembles a temple of satanic worship, but this leaves little impression on his female acquaintance. She still doesn’t flinch when he enters the room garbed in an elaborate Aztec-styled mask, and happily strips to lie naked on the bed; in her line of trade she’s no doubt seen it all. Her host begins to massage her body, arousing her into a state of ecstasy before tying her down. He then takes hold of a dagger and stabs her in the hand, for it has taken money for evil means; then she is stabbed through the soles of her feet before being finally disembowelled. Shortly after, we meet the detectives who are assigned to bringing this crazed killer to justice. One of them has a thing for prostitutes. It is he who wi
ll put an end to these ritualistic murders, as he chases through the New Orleans Mardi Gras in the hope of bringing down this mad man, who offers his victims to an Aztec goddess in the belief she will bequeath him god-like status.

  In Weis’s telling of Lewis’s original story an Aztec high priest takes the place of Fuad, the infamous Egyptian killer, and places the groundbreaking excess of fifteen years past in the unique milieu of low-budget shock movies of the 1970s. The director returned to the Louisiana of his last film, Crypt of Dark Secrets (1976), and blended virtually every ingredient of exploitation the decade had to offer: inept acting, the disco beat, exotic dancers, wicked hookers, girl fights, nudity, bondage, torture, amusing dialogue and then the requisite blood and guts along with the obligatory disembowelment . While there were killings aplenty, they showed a complete lack of imagination as this sadistic murderer adopted the same routine for each of his victims. Mardi Gras Massacre has been understandably accused of being a misogynistic piece of trash in its relish for female mutilation with the cast never given the opportunity to redeem themselves. The sleaze factor typically attracted the attention of the DPP when it was released to video in 1982. While it is widely available in the United States, it is yet to see official distribution in the UK. For Weis this would be his last time in the director’s chair, just as the golden age of the slasher was about to dawn.