Neon Maniacs (1986, Joseph Mangine)

"Neon Maniacs" is exemplary 80s horror garbage. Plain and simple. Heavy emphasis on both of those words...

A gang of murderous mutants living in the Golden Gate Bridge come out at night and kill partying high school kids around San Francisco. One girl survives and the maniacs end up coming after her after she enlists the help of a few nerdy classmates - including a mousy, monster-obsessed chick who constantly wore a over-size, sideways baseball cap that had me trembling with annoyance. Some shit goes down involving some cops getting murdered and there's a big subway train chase and a Halloween dance where things pretty much come to a head.

The effects are cheezy at hell, but still pretty cool. All of the maniacs have a different "theme" - archer, axe wielder, electric gimp (?), gay cop, farmer, Indian, surgeon... They're given basically NO back story or motive so you can rest assured that "Neon Maniacs" comes absolutely plotless! Also, there's an abundance of terrible 80s rock band performances that eat up a big chunk of the third act. That shit always fucked up 80s horror films, but it always makes me laugh. That's all this flick can really offer you: laughs. It's shitty, but pretty damn entertaining and fast-paced. Not a lot of gore and it's light on nudity, though it's worth checking out for the goofy make-up effects and total schlock-factor.

Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986, Tom McLoughlin)

Six is a good one. Paramount wised up after "A New Beginning" and decided to throw Jason back into the mix and the body count reaches new heights, to say the least. Also, they went and brought back the summer camp setting - complete with children this time! They didn't go the full mile and slaughter any of 'em, but I guess you can't have EVERYTHING.

Tommy Jarvis is out of the nuthouse and, despite being a whole new actor, is still desperate to dispose of the EVIL that is Jason Voorhees once and for all. So he and his whimpery buddy dig up J-Vo's grave and just before they're able to throw the gasoline on the maggot-filled lummox, a lightning strike resurrects the murderer, Frankenstein-style. At least Tommy had enough sense to bring the hockey mask along with him... You know, to burn that too. From there, it's pretty much your standard "Friday the 13th" formula. Jason leaving a trail of bodies in his wake as he makes his way to the camp grounds to kill off those pesky counselors.

The few notable kills include the triple beheading of a group of paintball playing yuppies (in one clean swipe of the blade!), a chick getting her head twisted off (not all that gory but still quite nice), and the whole mobile home fiasco which is certainly the standout scene. Other than that, "Friday 6" doesn't do much "new" with the franchise, but just offered up the return of Jason after copycat horse shit from "part 5".

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985, Danny Steinmann)

Then, along came "part 5" a.ka. "A New Beginning" - the one many people consider the 'black sheep' of the series, sort of along the lines of "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch". Slasher rule #435: When you have established a particularly enterprising character, such as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees and you decide to reroute a promising franchise at it's peak, most fans are going to disapprove - i.e. "Friday 5". Yes - Jason is dead for the WHOLE movie. Fake Jason steps in fix the problem that involves a house full of young adults NOT dying...

Tommy Jarvis - now a grown man and different actor - is sent off to a little cabin retreat for troubled individuals... and one mouthy black kid whose grandpa is the chef. Then they all start getting murdered. Didn't mean to spoil that part for ya.

I don't think 5 is quite as 'upsetting' as most people make it out to be. I mean, it's got a pretty massive body count! Many characters are introduced JUST to get killed off two minutes after you first see them - such as the mustached groover and the trashy diner waitress, as well as the guy cleaning the shit out of the chicken coops. Oh, and who could forget the massively useless appearance of a Jheri curled Michael Jackson impersonator getting impaled in the outhouse? "Oooo Baby. Oooo Baby." Why?? He had NO purpose! Everyone remembers the blonde chick's SA-WEET techno- dance moves, right? I think I had an 80s-gasm whilst viewing that scene.

Overall, "A New Beginning" gets a bad rap for the big end reveal that Jason was, in fact, NOT the killer. I will, however, say that "part 5" is nowhere near the best of the franchise and would probably fall in at 2nd worst, but you can still have fun with this one.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984, Joseph Zito)

"The Final Chapter" marks the introduction of Tommy Jarvis, who would go on to be one of the main focal points of the next two sequels. So, I guess this was suppose to be the last one, though - goddammit! They just kept making money! Yeah, this one would've worked just fine as the final installment since they came up with one of the most spectacular Jason deaths and closed out with a freaky Cory Feldman glare.

Premise: more drunk kids. Then they die.

I don't mind "part 4". It's not my favorite, but it's got it's moments - like Crispen Glover's wacky dance. That was alright. Some tits here n' there and the fat banana eating hitch-hiker hippie getting knifed from behind. The banana-squeeze made the entire scene hilarious. On that note, 4 could've used a few more 'inventive' kill scenes, especially since they got Tom Savini back for effects. Even after seeing the death scenes uncut, I wasn't all that impressed. The doctor getting his neck hacksawed then his head twisted was BY FAR the standout demise (other than Jason's). That's about all I got on this one...

The Rapist (1994, Chuen-Yee Cha)

I think the primary focus of this one goes without saying. This 'category III' flick isn't called "The Rapist" because it's a family friendly rom-com or some kind of art film... This is an unapologetically misogynistic Hong Kong 'shocker' that dishes out some savage fuckin' rape.

Plot is pretty thin: guy runs around at night, attacking women in the elevator of an apartment complex and usually raping them violently in a nearby stairwell. There's some detectives who are exuberantly attempting to track him down...

Most of the rape scenes are harsh and brutal - namely the one involving a 50-year old woman. "The Rapist" keeps things pretty grim and serious - nixing much of the customary humor that most CATIII films of this nature tend to use. Aside from the Jenga scene, of course, which was actually pretty funny to me. Overall, it's worth a look for fans of more "extreme" cinema. The 'casual' film fan will surely be appalled by "The Rapist" which... is understandable, I'd say. It gets a little slow in spots, but it's a worthy piece of CATIII sleaze.

Friday the 13th: Part 3 (1982, Steve Miner)

Ah, "part 3" in eye-popping 3D! Even when watching this one again without the 3D capability, I still managed to enjoy the continual attempts to affix the "Friday the 13th" experience with distended murder implements and body parts. Eye-popping!

The third film in the vast Jason Voorhees chronicle finds yet another assemblage of kids on their way to a farm to do some sexin', some druggin', and some dyin'. The kids in this one are the most mismatched yet. Somehow, a jock piled his pregnant girlfriend and chubby, prankster faggot roommate into a van with a couple of stoner hippies who look like they could be these kids' parents. I assume the hippies were invited along on their trip because they can ONLY be the main weed source since they are constantly smoking, yet hardly anyone else smokes any weed once they get to the farmhouse and the hippie couple don't even hang out with the rest of the group at all! Plus, why would you invite along the fat loser? Is his bottomless trunk of joke props and incessant self-loathing typically the life of the party? Easily one of the most annoying characters in horror history. Him and his jew-fro should've been drowned at birth. I digress...

Pretty much everyone knows this is the one where Jason acquires his hockey mask from the fat nerd. Wow. He was good for ONE thing and there are a few decent kills to be had. The chick in the hammock with the Fango mag was good and very reminiscent of the Kevin Bacon murder from the first film. The best kill was definitely the hand-stand guy getting power-chopped upside down from balls to neck! Good shit! The showdown in the barn toward the end between J-man and the survivor girl was pretty cool, as well. Gotta love that OTHER throwback to the original when Mrs. Voorhees launches from the depths in her sweater, oozing worms from her rotted skull. Classic. "Part 3" is damn entertaining.

Friday the 13th: Part 2 (1981, Steve Miner)

The second chapter in the "Friday" saga is probably my favorite among the sequels. I know most people consider either 4 or 6 to be the more noteworthy of "Friday" follow-ups, but "part 2" just has more shit I just find memorable.

As you can imagine, they didn't stray far from the overall concept seen in the original - camp counselors meet up at their site to get ready for the lil' campers. Only this time, we've got more sitting ducks to kill off, including the typical skinny prankster asshole, a guy in a wheelchair, and one of the FINEST asses to ever come out of the 80s cut-off denim mold! Watch how that pebble just bounces off it! And you briefly see a black guy during the campfire scene, who mysteriously vanishes without a trace and never even gets a line. Weird. And, of course, now that Pam Voorhees was done in by Alice - who certainly doesn't live here anymore after getting icepicked early on - baby boy Jason steps in to mow these punks down - dressed exactly like the killer from "The Town That Dreaded Sundown". Not very creative, but it was only for one movie, so...

The death scenes are occasionally cool. I'll just get it out of the way: the fucking cripple toppling limply down the stairs after getting his face machete-slammed! I don't recall another "Friday" death scene requiring more rewinds in my life! Everything about that demise is perfect - from the priceless groan Crippy lets out, to the fact that the chair makes it ALMOST down the entire stairs without falling over! I only wished they hadn't freeze-framed and cut away so I could be sure that Mr. Handicapable made it all the way down. Anyways, enough on that.

"Friday the 13th: Part 2" goes great with the first one, plus it just feels like the "purest" sequel to me. No gimmicks or bullshit, just a continuation of the original.

Friday the 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham)

I'll be honest - I was never initially going to review this one. I mean, why? All I could really do is spout the same ol' shit about it being a "classic" and one of the main forerunners of the slasher genre, etc... I don't feel I have anything new to contribute the 'fanboy' allegiance that "Friday the 13th" continues to implore to this day, but I just so happened to re-watch this recently and waves of nostalgia pounded me into a schmaltzy time-and-place from my horror-addled childhood. What was cool about Blockbuster back in my prepubescent years of gore-craving was that the VHS cases behind the 'official' covers simply had the Blockbuster logo on them, so when mommy wasn't looking, I was able to pull some slight-of-hand, Houdini shit and swap out "Bambi" or some such horse shit for something along the lines of "Friday the 13th". Oh, memories!

Of course, "Halloween" was the one to make a shit load of mainstream dollars off of the idea of a masked killer hacking up teenage brats in the throes of hanky-panky, but "Friday the 13th" was the one to really hone the concept and bring it home. Whereas, right off the bat you knew that Michael Myers was grown up, freshly escaped, and ultimately murderous - "Friday" leaves you more in the dark as to what the hell his going on. All of this shit is explained early on about a retarded camper drowning in the lake and a so-called "curse" surrounding Camp Crystal Lake, then these counselors start turning up murdered. It's not until Betsy Palmer comes waltzing up in her comfy looking sweater that shit starts piecing together. I'm not here to do a side-by-side comparison, but if I had to pick I'd go with "Halloween" as the better movie - what with the famous score and just overall suspense - though who would've expected someone like Mrs. Palmer turning out be a psychotic serial killer? It's still fucking weird to me!

As far as the gore and body count go - this one's undeniably 'tame' by today's standards and the kills in this one hardly compare to the extensive corpse pile-up that came with each consecutive sequel. Still, you get a handful of creative deaths. Kevin Bacon's speared throat is a fan-favorite, though I personally thought the axe-treatment inflicted on the frizzy-haired panty-girl was especially vicious looking. Of course, much of this shit got chopped due to fear of the dreaded X-rating and this shit got even worse as the sequels went on!.

The big climax of the film, in which mushroom-haired, plain-Jane strip-Monopoly champ Alice dukes it out with Pamela Voorhees is certainly one of the best chick fights in film history. That old bitch was tough! And ya can't forget the goddamn canoe jolt that still cannot be topped! Fucking roaring, potato-head tard-freak Jason exploding out of the water in slow-motion rules!

So I'll just wrap up by saying that "Friday the 13th" is nowhere NEAR the best among the slasher category, nor was it all that innovative if you ask me (considering all of the Italian stuff before it). It DID, however, jump-start the American appreciation for this type of film and sparked a profusion of this highly marketable mirth that definitely remained popular throughout the 80s, yet still hangs in there to this day.

The Underground Banker (1994, Bosco Lam)

Very entertaining, off-the-wall CATIII revenge flick about a truck driver who is finally able to move his family out of the slums and into a more upscale apartment complex. Unfortunately for him, his wife runs into an old boyfriend who convinces her to play in the stock market, causing her to lose a shitload of their cash. So before hubby finds out, she is urged to see a loan shark for some financial relief. Turns out, this guy is a notoriously sadistic, two-timing, interest-soaking madman who takes drastic and deadly measures to ensure he is indemnified. So wifey can't seem to pay her debt and is forced into prostitution where she ends up banging one of her husband's friends, get's her sister-in-law abducted and almost raped, her husband is forced to get involved and is humiliated and beaten, and, eventually, shit turns REALLY tragic for the seemingly hopeless family which ignites a fiery need for vengeance against the crooked loan operation...

"The Underground Banker" is one of those odd blends of comedy and heart-rending catastrophe. The kinda thing that HK films of this kind did so perfectly. One second you've got some pretty over-the-top goofiness, then the next, a child is burned beyond recognition and struggling to be strong for his daddy. Yeesh! All this mixed with hot sex scenes, firm titties and kung-fu. Damn you, 'category III'! You're confusing my feelings and I love you for it! Oh, and there's also a character in reference to "Dr. Lamb" who assists in the big revenge-fueled climax. Check this one out. One of the funnest CATIII flicks I've seen in a long time!